would kill for a Coke with ice...

It's only been 13 days.  I keep having to remind myself that when I think of how long I've been here.  It feels like months since I arrived in my sleepy little village.  Language classes every day, security and safety briefings, cultural lessons on how to organize the pee, water, bathing, and washing buckets in my one room house, are among the things I learn everyday.  It's all interesting stuff, and totally necessary to fit in here in Lesotho, but the days are dragging on.

Luckily, Peace Corps arranged for us to stay on a week-long "host volunteer visit".  On Tuesday, I took off around 7:30am from HaMabekenyane to Maseru, where I met Joey at the Peace Corps compound downtown.  She is leaving Lesotho on December 5th, and has been a resource teacher: she teaches teachers how to teach.  We spend the morning drinking real coffee at a breakfast restaurant and shopping, and in the afternoon we took off for Mafeteng, the district directly below where I am living with my host family.  In Mafeteng, we met up with two other volunteers and went for a late lunch at the local hotel.  Pizza has never tasted so good. We drank cider and beer and sat outside in the shade talking about nerdy Peace Corps stuff and teachers' best practices and where is the best vacation beach spot in Africa.  Once the sun started going down, we hopped on an hour long taxi ride to Joey's site. She lives on the side of a bare mountain and has a black cement porch looking out on a beautiful mountain range.  Tuesday night, the mountains were orange and pink when the sun went down.

Yesterday and today, I got tours of both of Joey's schools, her community, and learned the best ways to wash dishes or use the latrine pit.  I ate "semp" at school today; it's a traditional corn porridge type thing.  Large is considered beautiful here, and the school cook tried to feed me too much.  I couldn't finish my plate, and I think she was disappointed. 

We ate too much good food, drank (cheap) good wine, and talked about American stuff: Glee, Lil Wayne, and tacos with margaritas.  It was such a nice break to have after a pretty heavy week last week. It got me very excited to just get to my own site and start teaching!

Miss you all and think about you everyday.

xoxox

I'M HERE

Lebitso la ka ke Neo Thamahane.  Haesno America, empa ke lula Ha Mabekenyane hobane ke moithaopi oa Peace Corps.

About the only two sentences I’m feeling confident with while speaking Sesotho, and I can tell you I say them over and over and over while walking through my village every day.

My new name is Neo.  My host mother gave me the name when we arrived last Friday, and it means “the gift”. J

A lot has happened since our plane touched down in Lesotho last week.  As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I haven’t had any access to internet… and a LOT has happened.  I’d like to get it all out there, and let you know I’m OK!, without writing five pages of rambling.  I promise that I’ll keep you updated as often as I can with the limited internet access we have in this sleepy little tin-roof town I’m in!

Last Friday at the airport, Peace Corps volunteers greeted us with baskets of fruit and giant posters listing names that would split us into groups in three different nearby villages.  Just my luck, I got the hardest one to pronounce: Ha Mabekenyane.  We loaded our backpacks into the Peace Corps Land Rovers and shuttled off into Africa. 

When we pulled into our village, the driver layed on the horn for about five minutes solid, bumping along a narrow dirt road past round straw-covered huts and tin-roof houses.  Children immediately came pouring out from everywhere, running alongside the car, yelling and waving and smiling.  We went directly to the chief’s house, where all of the women in the village were waiting for us.  They were smiling and waving their arms to the sky and hugging us.  It was so overwhelming I started crying.  They sang some of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in my life.  Then they prayed, thanking God that Peace Corps had come to their village again (the last group was in 2009) and blessing our travels.  Then we were introduced to our host mothers, who named us in front of the village.  We unloaded our bags (to my surprise, the kids were more than willing to carry absolutely everything for us!) and went home.

I still have a hard time keeping everyone in my family straight.  We are the Thamahane family.  I live with about 6 other women, and there are always so many other ladies from the family coming and going and staying the night and eating dinner and making me lunch… the general term you call others here is either roughly translated as “mother, father, sister, or brother”.  For people in the street, for your neighbors, for your family… everyone’s a brother!  The Basotho people have been overwhelmingly kind and welcoming.  My family likes to sing, dance, talk, cook, and EAT. 

Every day, I have Sesotho lessons from 7:30-9:30am.  I usually wake up at 5 or 5:30am to the soothing sounds of roosters and donkeys outside my window.  Not a lie.  At 9:30 we break for tea time J, and around 10 we walk to a nearby village to meet with the other groups of volunteers and go through safety and security meetings, discussions about teaching, culture lessons, etc.  I’m home around 4pm and (if I’m lucky) spend some quality time alone in my room reading or writing letters.  I’m usually interrupted halfway through by my sisters to come and dance, play a game, or just sit in a room with them while they speak Sesotho at the speed of light.  I don’t add anything to the conversation; the family is just always together in the same room sitting around.  As much as sometimes I’d like to be alone, it does wonders for my homesickness.

I don’t have electricity or running water.  I poop in something that resembles an outhouse, or if it’s after 6pm (or dark outside) I must pee in a bucket in my room.  It’s too dangerous to stay outside after dark.  I’ve eaten cow intestines already.  Yes, I can do the African “click” language.  Try saying “maqebekoane”; it’s my favorite food here so far.  I’ve been homesick one night, and cried for two minutes. 

I’ve also been told everyday while walking home from meetings with other volunteers how loved and appreciated we are here.  We received a note the other day from an anonymous girl saying, “my beautiful people!  Congratulations, for being successfully selected as my favorite people in the world, the first thing I think of in the morning!”.  Children walk with me everywhere.  They ask for hugs and hold my hand.  If I turn down a road that doesn’t lead home, every random stranger or child will tell me I’m not going the right way.  And I have dance parties with all of my sisters every night before dinner.

So far, it’s everything and nothing I expected.  Even if I wanted, I couldn’t leave now.  After a week, I already feel my heart invested in these people.

I miss you all more than you know.  Sending you my love from Lesotho,

Hannah

Takeoff

It's almost 1am here in Philadelphia.  I'm pulling off my first "all-nighter"... a 2:15am checkout time from the hotel doesn't really leave me many other choices.
If you can believe it, I'm still not ready to leave.  Just applied for personal property insurance (maybe waited a little bit too late on that one?) after someone reminded me that my bags might get robbed at the airport.  Nice.  I took a long, hot shower, probably the last one for a long time.  I'm still trying to figure out how to organize my bags.  Somehow, I ended up being one of the few people here without a roommate, which I've come to appreciate.  I can lay on the bed eating chicken fingers in my PJs, watching Spongebob (oh how I'll miss him), and writing in my blog (yep, doing it now!) without anyone judging me. Teehee!

Today was seven hours of orientation, learning about rules (Peace Corps calls them "regulations") and doing ice breakers to get to know one another.  So far, I've met some very wonderful people.  No one from Colorado, though.   During one team activity, a guy at our table noticed something wierd on the floor.  It looked like a piece of poop, or a tiny sausage.  We laughed so hard; I was slapping my knees crying.  Even if it was a sausage and not dog poop, where did it come from?  Someone's pocket?  Thank God these people share my poop humor!!!

I'm now leaving for Africa in about an hour.  It still hasn't hit me yet, and probably won't until halfway through my 15 hour flight.  I'll arrive in Johannesburg on Friday at 8:35am, leave there around 1pm for Maseru, and arrive in Maseru at 2:40pm.  Peace Corps staff will greet us at the airport and take us directly to our host families, where I'll most likely have no running water or electricity.  Remind me again why Peace Corps have that "dirty hippie" rep? ;-)

I've been told over and over that "no news is good news", so please don't worry about me if I don't check in for a week or so.  I've been warned by enough people to be smart, be safe (Dad! Juli! Yes I'm talking about you!) and I know I am.  I hope you think I am, too.  I chose to do this.  I can't wait for the adventure!

Khotso-

Hannah

Lumela!

Or should I say, hello!  And thanks for reading.  If you've clicked into this blog, you're probably interested in what's to come from my Peace Corps adventure to Lesotho, Africa.  Which I leave for in exactly 6 short days.  They seem short to me, at least.  And the days are flying by.

I figured I'd begin by telling you all a bit about my new home away from home.  Often times, when people ask me where I'm going with the Peace Corps and I respond with "Lesotho", I get a confused look.  "It's that tiny dot of a country inside of South Africa".

There it is!  And for the laymen out there, it's pronounced "le-sue-too".  Lesotho is technically named the Kingdom of Lesotho, but is also frequently called the "roof of Africa", the "mountain kingdom", or the "kingdom in the sky".  The landscape looks similar to the mountains and valleys of Colorado, so I'm looking forward to feeling (somewhat) at home.

85% of Lesotho's population is rural.  I've been told to expect little to no electricity or running water where I'll be located.   Latrine pits, how glamorous! The Basotho people are said to be professional and presentable, clean, and very welcoming.

Although that guy on the bottom right doesn't look very welcoming.

Upon arrival in Lesotho, I'll be living with a host family for nine weeks of "pre-service training".  I'll be taking intensive Sesotho language classes, culture classes, and learn everything from the history of the Peace Corps in Lesotho to how to hail a taxi in Maseru, the country's capital city.

I've been told over and over that these nine weeks will be at times exhausting, that I'll be very homesick, and that I will have hardly any access to internet or a phone to call home.  Bascially, "no news is good news" during pre-service training, so please don't worry about me if I haven't updated for a long while!

After pre-service training, I'll be sent to my "site", where I'll be stationed for the remaining two years of my service.  I'll be serving as a secondary school English teacher.  I could have anywhere from ten to 80 students in my class, from all age groups and all learning levels.  To be quite honest, this is what is making me the most nervous to go into service!  I can't tell you how many times I've been to the library researching in-class activities, how to write lesson plans, and how to teach students of different learning levels.  It should be a very interesting experience.

And for now, I'm packing.  Packing, unpacking, repacking... doing laundry, buying things, and packing them up again.  I don't know how in the world I'll stay under the 100lb. baggage limit. I have trouble as it is packing for a weekend getaway... let alone two years in Africa.

Sometimes I feel nervous about leaving, sometimes I feel excited. I try not to let myself be alone to think for too long, because the intensity of the trip really gets to me.  I'm just looking forward to taking it one day at a time.

That's all for now- Khotso, which means Peace in Sesotho-

Hannah