poop talk

                My bed has been voted as the Worst Bed in Peace Corps Lesotho.  It’s been compared to everything from “an old, thin box spring” to “like sleeping on plastic cups”.  Ever since I moved in, I’d been meaning to call Peace Corps and ask what they could do to fix the situation.  But the sad thing is that I’m used to it now.  Every time I cough and feel the springs rattle at the same time, it doesn’t even phase me.

                We share a lot of beds in Peace Corps.  Pretty quickly, I had to get over being shy at sleepovers.  Peeing in a bucket in the middle of the night, squeezing three or four people to a bed (or sharing the dirt floor with eight or nine people), and everyone waking up simultaneously hung over/eating leftover dinner straight from the pot is usually how Peace Corps sleepovers end up.

                Heather and I had a sleepover last night.  We had a couple of quarts of beer, per usual… nothing crazy.  Her bed is much nicer than mine, by the way. 

                The roosters and donkeys woke us up around 6am.  I could tell Heather was up and reading already, but I wanted to keep sleeping.  Once I finally decided to roll over, she was bright-eyed and bushy tailed and wanted to chat!  Three minutes later, we were lying down facing each other, our cheeks resting on the backs of our hands, deep into a conversation about the sustainability of projects in developing countries and finding meaning in life through volunteerism.  

                All this at about 6:15am.  I don’t think I had even rubbed the sleep clear from my eyes.

                I’ve had some of the best conversations with people during my time in Peace Corps.  Most of the volunteers in my group are in their twenties and almost all of them are nearly straight from college, but they have some of the most mature insights into international development, personal growth, overcoming challenges and accepting failure as an inevitable part of this Peace Corps experience.

                Heather told me this morning that the first year of Peace Corps is about failing, and the second year is about accepting failure.

                I’m trying to figure out how I’ll be able to have these same conversations with people from home.  I don’t think I’ll be able to put into words what this experience has been like for me.  How can I answer a question like, “so how was Africa?”?  Well, how long do you have to talk?

                I’ve also had pretty immature conversations with volunteers.  There’s nothing better than passing the time in a disgusting, crowded taxi by playing the game “Would You Rather” (most of the choices had something to do with poop, being pooped on, throwing poop around). 

                PCVs really love talking about their poop.  We have weird poops in Africa.  It's always too much poop or not enough, and we've also got great stories about places we've pooped.  We poop in disgusting latrines, in piles of trash, in buckets and bags, and sometimes in our own pants.  Now who wouldn't want to swap stories like that?

                Come to think of it, my skills as a “normal” conversationalist have probably deteriorated a lot since being in Africa.  If I can’t talk about the ups and downs of being a Peace Corps volunteer with the average citizen, and I can’t resort to describing my daily bowel movements either, I’m not really sure what I’m going to talk about with people when I come home. 

seasons of fruit

            One of my favorite parts of Colorado summers was waking up early to go to the farmer’s market with my mom.  We’d stock up on whatever was in season—rhubarb in early spring, heirloom tomatoes and homemade herb pasta throughout the summer, and sweet corn and peaches in the fall. 

We had our favorite farmers’ stalls, too.  We always visited the Roasted Pepper Guys first; they had a giant iron cage that spun over an open flame and produced a magnificent, smoky aroma that floated throughout the market.  Next was the Bread and Dipping Oil Man.  By the end of the summer, he didn’t even need to ask for our order—we’d walk up and he’d immediately begin packing a plastic bag with the usual: dipping oils with parmesean cheese and spicy olives, rosemary and sage, and fiery green peppers. 

Before leaving the farmer’s market, we always sat down and ate something different.  We tried organic coffee, breakfast burritos, miniature cherry pies, paella… once we even discovered an Argentine food truck.  I absolutely swooned over the triple-layered alfajores, beef and chicken empanadas, and thick, sultry dulce de leche.

Cooking and eating in Lesotho isn’t exactly like home.  Like I’ve said before, my fresh fruit and vegetable choices in village are usually limited to onions, green apples, potatoes, and cabbage…and that’s quite a selection compared to what many other volunteers have.  I can’t tell you how many variations I’ve come up with for cabbage dishes.  Finishing an entire head of cabbage within a week and a half was one of my prouder moments of Peace Corps.

One thing I have noticed, though, is the fruit that comes along with the change of seasons.  I arrived last year in late summer, just in time for peach harvesting.  There were peaches everywhere.  I overdosed on peaches on several occasions (which warrants far too many trips to the latrine, in case you were wondering what happens after a peach overdose).  I couldn’t walk down the road without being offered three or four peaches.  My students brought me bags of peaches after school.  We made sun-dried peaches and canned peaches in Home Economics class.  Just when I thought I couldn’t look at another peach, the weather turned cold and they disappeared just as quickly as they arrived.

Winter brought another season of fruit: oranges.  I’ve never actually seen an orange tree in Lesotho, so I assume they are imported from South Africa.  Orange peels littered the streets, and I constantly felt that sticky sweet film on my fingers that remains after halving a juicy orange.  I got creative and experimented with sweet orange bread, thai noodles with orange chunks, and freshly-squeezed orange juice.  I’m not partial to oranges, I think because of the mess they make when you eat them, but I ate at least one orange a day (and all that vitamin C paid off—I didn’t get sick once!).

Now it’s summer time, and the fruit of choice is guavas, my favorite fruit season so far.  I don’t think I had ever actually eaten a guava before arriving in Lesotho.  The smell of a ripe guava is enough to make your mouth water.  The skin is tender and smooth and easily gives way when you take a bite.  Guava fruits are filled with a cluster of small, hard but edible round seeds in the center.  There isn’t a core; the entire thing can be eaten without a trace of evidence.  And they’re so pretty!  Sunset light orange on the outside and rosy pink inside.  Such a girly fruit.  I love them.

At home, everything is so readily available in the grocery store at all times of the year, so I never really noticed the different harvesting seasons.  It’s been fun to learn how to cook what’s available—and cook a lot of it.  The peach trees in my backyard are already developing tiny, hard green peach buds.  I need to start brainstorming what I’m going to do with all those buckets of peaches.  I can’t eat that much peach pie all on my own. J