Changed Forever

            So, the news is out.  After months of debating, thinking, drinking, and soul-searching, I’ve decided to resign from the Peace Corps and move home.

            It was one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

            I think I spent about three days lying on my back in my bed, staring at the straw ceiling and anticipating every regret that I would have.  Between classes, I made pro/con lists and evaluated them.  I applied for several jobs to see if an opportunity would fall into my lap.  I asked for advice from at least seven or eight people and thought and rethought what they recommended to me. 

But a string of unfortunate events within my last three weeks led me to conclude that I had made the right decision, and I couldn’t be happier with where I am now.  

Over the course of the fifteen months that I served in Peace Corps, I realized that the work I was doing was not leading me down the path I had hoped it would.  I always wanted to go into development work, or join a non-profit organization, or maybe even keep teaching abroad.  I love living abroad and experiencing new things.  I love the feeling of adventure while you’re hitchhiking in the back of a pickup truck down a winding African dirt road.  At times, I lived that ideal image of Peace Corps life that many people see in advertisements or Facebook photos. 

But I didn’t join the Peace Corps to drink with Americans and backpack around southern Africa every weekend, however “romantic” that may sound.  I joined to make a difference in the world and to be a volunteer.  I soon became very jaded with the idea of development work, especially with the Peace Corps and especially in Lesotho.  That’s not to say that there are many volunteers doing amazing projects and positively impacting their schools every day.  I loved my school, and my students, and my teachers, and my principal.  They showed me love and acceptance like I’ve never seen before.  But I didn’t feel that the work I was doing was sustainable.  Five, ten years down the road from now, what kind of legacy would I leave behind, besides some great stories and a crumbling house?

For a succession of days, which turned into months, I woke up unenthusiastic about the day ahead of me.  I was lacking the passion that I had when I first joined Peace Corps.  I wasn’t excited about anything.  After feeling like this for too long, you have to make a change.  I realized that it wasn’t worth dragging myself through two years of melancholy, just to say I had completed two full years or just to be tough or to “build character”.

By no means does this mean that my decision was easy.  Remaining quietly in misery to protect your pride is much easier than throwing in the towel and calling it quits early.  More than anything, I was afraid of what other people would think.  And saying goodbye to my American and Basotho friends was one of the hardest things to do. 

But in the end, I made the decision that was right for me.  I will forever be grateful for the time I spent in Lesotho.  I’ve become a much better person because of it.  I am more patient, whether it be waiting in lines or talking with people that I don’t much care for.  I learned to be generous, because all good things are much better when they are shared.  I think twice when I see someone who is different from everyone else, because I know now what it’s like to stand out in a crowd.  I’m appreciative of everything that we were blessed with in America, just because we were born into wealthier circumstances.  And I’ve learned how important it is to cherish your family and friends—in America, Lesotho, or anywhere in the world—because in a lot of places, life is cut short much too quickly. 

I would highly recommend to everyone to join the Peace Corps, or at least to donate some time and work by volunteering in a place where the people are less fortunate than you.  You will learn more than you could ever imagine.  You will be changed forever.  

remember those who have nothing to eat

            We eat lunch at school every day at the same time—11a.m., right after math class. 

The rotating menu is also the same every week:  maize meal and fried cabbage Monday, beans and bread Tuesday, maize meal, fried cabbage and an egg Wednesday, samp and beans Thursday, and maize meal and milk Friday.  The students bring their own plastic lunch boxes from home, and they take turns lining up by class, youngest to oldest, to be served their food. 

Before dismissing the students for lunch, they all stand at their desks, fold their arms, close their eyes, and pray.  The prayer is the same every week.

“Oh Lord, thank you for the food that we are going to eat.  Remember those who have nothing to eat.  Amen.”

My breath catches in my throat every time they say it.  Some of these kids come to school just for the free food that the Ministry of Education provides.  They are the ones who have nothing to eat.  They live all day, every day on that one free meal they get at school. 

But they still remember to pray for those who have even less.

My home away from home

            It’s strange to think that Christmas is just around the corner, and yet I’m spending my free time sneaking behind my hut in shorts to tan my toothpaste-white thighs in the afternoon sun.  I’m usually in my prime during the American holiday season—cooking, baking, wrapping presents, sitting by the fire—but  here it’s too hot to bake anything, let alone dozens of Christmas cookies and trays of peanut brittle. 

            For the first time in my life, I’m not feeling the holiday spirit.  Not at all.  Instead, I’m feeling a long day by the pool with a water-bottle filled with margarita mix.  It’s summer.

            I finished my first year of teaching last week!  The school decided to throw an end-of-year party to celebrate, and I was told to be at school at 8 a.m. sharp.  For some reason, my teachers are always worried about putting me to work and making me tired (why they think I need so much rest, I’ll never know), so while they ran around frantically cooking meat in pots over fires and setting up chairs in our school hall, I sat at a table in the corner and played games on my Blackberry.

            After what seemed like hours of senseless “organizing”, the students finally filed into the hall and formed their choir in the front of the room.  They sang a few of the hymns they regularly sing before school starts in the morning, and parents began congregating in the back and settling down in their chairs.  But a couple of songs in, I started noticing something.  I felt strangely like I recognized the songs that they were singing, even though the words were all in Sesotho.

            And so I started to listen closely, and it suddenly hit me.  They were singing about me. 

            They had changed their standard songs to fit my name somewhere in the middle.  They were all looking at me, swaying back and forth and making their usual choir-hand movements, and they were smiling.  And before I knew it, they had finished singing and the principal was standing up in front of the audience and giving a speech entirely in Sesotho.  After she finished, she turned to me and explained that they wanted to thank me for all the hard work I had done this year with the students.  She said that she knew it would be difficult to be so far away from home during the holidays, and so the school wanted to show their appreciation and love for me by throwing a party.

            All classes, first through seventh grade, then took turns standing in front of the crowd and reading cards that they had written.  The first graders wrote “Merry Christmars” on all of their cards.  Third grade wrote a letter in Sesotho, and my teacher later translated it to say “Thank God, for we are so blessed.  The sun is shining from America!  Neo Lehloenya is a child of Mahloenyeng; Hannah Campbell is a child of Theresa James School.”  My best student in seventh grade recited a beautiful poem in English, which elicited a standing ovation from the parents. 

            Towards the end of the ceremony, the school staff asked me to come to the middle of the stage and stand in front of the choir.    My principal began another speech explaining that she was sure that it was hard for me to come to Lesotho when I knew nothing about what I was getting in to.  She knew that I would miss my family and friends, and that I might not even like my new home, but some unknown, subconscious drive kept pushing me to go.  And then she said that that special “calling” was her prayers; she had been asking God for so long to help her school.   And I came along.

Suddenly, they started singing an absolutely beautiful song which I first learned when I arrived in Lesotho, during Peace Corps training.  It’s a song to thank someone; the words say something like “thank you, thank you; we’ve waited for this day for so long”.

My students’ mothers began slowly making their way towards me from the back of the room, dancing in a single-file line.  They were all holding gifts, and as they approached me, they smiled and put the gifts down at my feet.  My teachers and principal came out from nowhere carrying one of the biggest boxes I’ve ever seen and put it down in the middle of the room, along with the other gifts.  Of course, I was sobbing and smiling and dancing and singing the entire time.

After the ceremony, we sat down for a huge feast.  We ate chicken, rice with a spicy tomato sauce, carrot salad with raisins, beans, and Jello and cookies for dessert.  We even rented a sound system, and my seventh grade girls and I danced and shouted until I lost my voice. 

Traveling home that evening in a taxi, I found myself smiling.  I couldn’t stop smiling.  I was absolutely exhausted, but felt more content than I have in a long time.  I felt loved.  I’ve never before been shown so much acceptance and compassion and love as I have by my tiny, poor little school in Matsieng.  Here are people who have nothing, yet they put together what little resources and funds they had in order to make me feel at home when they knew I was lonely around Christmas. 

Before we all left, I made a short speech to thank everyone for what they had done for me that afternoon.  I said that although they were thanking me for all of the measurable change I had brought to their school and their students, the biggest change was what they had given me. 

They have completely changed me as a person.  I’ve become more patient, sharing, accepting, and humble.  I appreciate so many things that I otherwise would never have noticed.  I’ve slowed down my life and thought about what is really important.  I have changed inexplicably more than what I could ever do for these people here.  I don’t think they quite understood what I meant.  But it made me secretly smile inside.

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

like a little kid again

            I don’t know what to do.  My mom just left. 

She spent the last two weeks in Lesotho with me, visiting my classes, cooking over my propane stove, sleeping in my terrible bed, and drinking quarts of beer with me every afternoon.  Now she’s gone, and my house is so quiet and dark and empty.

We had such an incredible time together.  Two weeks ago, she and my soon-to-be stepdad, Andy, flew into Johannesburg and rented a car to drive all the way down to Maseru.  We had planned on meeting at 2pm in a coffee shop, and when they hadn’t arrived by 5pm I was a sweaty, nervous wreck (on top of the fact that I’d knocked back about four cups of coffee). 

When they finally showed up, my mom and I ran towards each other and broke out in tears, naturally.  I’m not quite sure what I expected for our reunion after a year’s separation (would it be awkward?  Surprised?  Scared?), but after a few minutes of conversation, it seemed like we’d barely been apart.  We all immediately agreed that it was time for a beer.

My mom and Andy spent the next two days with me at school, meeting my teachers and students and watching me in the classroom.  My mom fought back tears on several occasions while she watched my kids sing songs and give speeches.  Andy helped me grade papers in my high school class, and at one point he was completely engulfed by dozens of students vying for his attention.  My mom tried to take a photo, but he had disappeared into a crowd of blue uniforms.

They finally understood my happiness and my frustrations of working in Lesotho.  After only two days, they had come to the same conclusions that I have regarding my work in the Peace Corps.  I was talking to them like I would talk to fellow volunteers, and they completely empathized with me.

It felt so wonderful to be taken care of by my parents after so long.  They treated me to several nights in an expensive hotel, with a shower (!) and a television (!!) and a swimming pool (!!!).  I ate more meat and cheese than I have in months.  They bought me new clothes and fabrics and things for my house.  They brought nail polish and face scrubs and wrinkle cream and magazines from home.  I even loved the feeling of riding in the backseat everywhere we went like I was a little kid again, and having my mom hug me and coddle over me nonstop.  It’s been awhile since I’ve felt so cared for.

One weekend, we took a trip to a rural mountain village called Semonkong.  After a white-knuckle drive up steep, crumbling roads, we spent the evening on a “donkey pub crawl”.  Apparently, I was trying to persuade everyone to stay out drinking all night.  Andy eventually convinced me to go to bed. J

It was fun to see the progression of my mom and Andy’s initial shock/amazement of my current living conditions to an acceptance and even comfort of this African way of life.  By the end of the trip, they were completely settled in.  Andy burned trash and swept the house without being asked by anyone.  My mom became better at washing clothes than I am.  One night, I had a home-cooked meal that tasted exactly like it would have on a summer night back in Colorado.  They quickly learned how to stay entertained without a television or stereo system: drink beer!  (I don’t think I need to drink any more beer for the next month.)

Saying goodbye today was awful.  I couldn’t stop crying all afternoon.  I still can’t.  I feel empty.  I feel lonely.  I feel angry that I won’t see them again for so long.  I miss my family more than I ever have in the past year.  I never knew how comforting it feels to be close to those people that you love so much, and how much it hurts to be so far from them.  

  

Hug your moms and dads and families today, and remind yourself that even though you might get on each other’s nerves and you might bicker and fight, you have them safe and near.  Maybe it takes traveling the world to realize that all you really need is right at home.

thoughts on a year

            It’s been exactly one year.  One year in Africa. 

A year of waking up to roosters in the morning and seeing the brightest stars at night.  A year of Black Labels and bad decisions and buckets for everything.  A year of hitch hiking and traveling from hostel to hostel, getting lost, seeing giraffes and the ocean and enjoying a margarita more than I ever have before in my life.  A year of being squished in the back row of stuffy, overcrowded taxis.  A year of getting sick and being homesick, meeting new friends and saying goodbye to old ones.  A year of frustration and tears.  A year of falling in love.  A year of books by candlelight and good conversations.  A year of being harassed by African children literally everywhere I go.  A year of teaching and learning, feeling hopeful and regretful, being alone and being surrounded by some of the best people I will ever know.

I’ve learned more about myself and about the world in this one year than I could’ve ever imagined.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve questioned my decision to come here.  Some days, I want to crawl into my bed and ignore the knocks on my door and not even open my windows until the sun goes down again.  I want to go home and take a hot shower and relax on the couch and watch cartoons.  I want to send unlimited text messages and drink Starbucks and go out to eat in a Mexican restaurant.  I want to throw my dishes in a dishwasher and curl up in a warm blanket after it comes out of the dryer.  And I want to smell pollution in downtown Denver and hear English all around me and walk outside at night.  I won’t lie to you.  I miss home, a lot. 

Peace Corps is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

But this is my home now.  And if I’m really honest with myself, I know I will miss it.  I’ll miss the alone time in my quiet house that I’ve learned to cherish.  After a year of being alone, I’ve become my own best friend—which I think is something everyone needs to learn how to do.  I’ll miss how long it takes to do laundry, because now I don’t focus on the task at hand but instead on the sun warming my back and my dogs playing next to me.  I’ll miss the sweet faces of my students when they greet me every morning at school.  I’ll miss my morning walks to school, when I wake up even before the sun.  I’ll miss those humbling moments when my first reaction to a stranger approaching me is defensive, when all they really want to do is tell me that I look beautiful.

Peace Corps is a lot like running.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying to run more often these days and I’ve got running on my mind, but I like to compare the two.  It hurts and it’s tough and a lot of people think you are absolutely crazy for doing it.  You’re alone for most of it.  It’s all mental—you can quit at any time, but you keep forcing yourself to go on because of some unexplainable internal drive to finish the race.  And at the end, you come out unbelievably stronger than how you began.

I’m tired.  But I’m only halfway finished with the marathon.

A thank you

               My friend Heather was in Peace Corps Niger before she came to Lesotho last year.   Volunteers in Niger were evacuated after an Al-Qaeda scare, and Heather took some time off at home in South Dakota before she re-enrolled in Peace Corps.

                Besides being one of my closest friends here, Heather has also been a great resource when it comes to all things Peace Corps.  She’s been there, done that.  And one thing Heather told me that has always stuck with me is that Peace Corps really shows you who your true friends are. 

As volunteers, we go through some pretty rough patches sometimes.  It’s hard to deal with environmental differences—not having water, for example—and emotional stress, like feeling homesick or lonely or useless.  These emotions are all compounded by the fact that we’re separated from friends and family by thousands of miles, and some volunteers don’t even have cell phone service at their sites to be able to keep in touch by phone or email.  In that sense, I really lucked out with my site—I can’t imagine being that cut off from the rest of the world.

What Heather said to me has been completely true.  There are friends from high school and college whom I thought I’d be in touch with forever, and I’ve barely spoken a word to them since being in Africa.  It’s no one’s fault.  I am just as able to reach out to these people as they are to me, but neither person does.  I guess that’s part of growing up; friends come and go as circumstances change. 

At the same time, I’ve had friends from my past (in some cases, friends from years ago) who have reached out to me.  Whether it’s a care package, a friendly email, a comment on one of my blog posts, or just chatting with me on Facebook, I’ve been utterly taken aback by the kindness I’ve been shown.  When I come home from school after a terrible day, you have no idea how touching it can be to read an email that simply says “I’m thinking about you…keep your chin up”.  It changes my day.  Sometimes, it changes my week.

My family has been so diligent about calling me every Sunday afternoon since I’ve been in Lesotho.  It’s something I look forward to as soon as the weekend begins, and I plan my Sundays around being somewhere where I can talk privately to them.  I know it must cost a fortune for them, but when they run out of Skype credit, even if it’s at the end of our conversation, they’ll call back to say “I love you” and wish me a good start to the week.

My boyfriend, who was also a volunteer in Lesotho, is the only person I know who I can complain to about all of the inconveniences of living here and he won’t say “well I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think”.  Yes, it is and I like to bitch about it sometimes.  And he puts up with me when I get in those grumpy moods.  I’m sure it’s stressful for him, but he takes time out of his busy school schedule to Skype with me for an hour or so every week.  It puts a smile on my face and allows me to put things in perspective when sometimes I can’t see the bigger picture.

My PCV friends in Lesotho are my family.  They are my rock.  When I have a bad week, they meet me in town for a cold beer and greasy food.  When I need a girls’ weekend, they are the gracious hosts.  For every holiday and birthday that I miss in America, they make it full of joy in Lesotho.  They are what keep me going.  They are what give me things to look forward to.  I could never in a million years take this journey without them walking it alongside me.  They are my role models, my therapists, my coworkers and my drinking buddies.  They are some of the strongest people I will ever know.

And I'm amazed at everyone who has reached out to me and sent me packages and letters of encouragement.  New shoes and a coat for my birthday.  Sauce packets from Taco Bell.  Family-size macaroni and cheese and tequila shooters.  Crafts for my kids and powdered soup during the winter and a box full of Ramen noodles.  The biggest solar charger I’ve ever seen.  Chocolate and cheese and Christmas decorations.  Spices and shirts and socks.  Girly soaps and perfumes that make me feel pretty.  Pictures and magazines.  So much tea and Crystal Light that I don’t know what to do with it all.  These packages are not cheap; I can see the postage prices on the box.  But you send them anyways.  I’ve been blown away by your kindness.  I’m speechless.  I am a lucky girl to have so many people who care about me.

So I wanted to say thank you, to all of you.  Your support means the world to me.  One of my biggest fears is being forgotten while I disappear into the mountains of Africa for two years.  I worry about coming home and losing touch with everyone I was so close with.  Your thoughtful words mean so much more than you will ever know.  Your care packages make it feel like Christmas year-round.  It’s nice to know that you remember me and think about me from time to time.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  I feel truly blessed to have so many fans cheering me on.

invisible

                Some days, I wish I were invisible.

                I just want to be able to walk the half hour journey down my dirt road to the shop, without being pestered by shouts of “give me money!” and “where is my candy!?” and “hey, white person!”  I’ve been here for a year already; why are you still saying these things to me?

                I want to go on my runs without having to plan them during the least busy hours of the day.  I like lying in bed and enjoying the soft gray dawn as it comes up over the mountains and leaks through my lacy curtains.  I don’t want to rush out of bed just because on my morning runs, less people will be up to stare at me.

                If I were invisible, my teachers wouldn’t make comments about the “strange” food I bring to school for lunch or stick out their hands to taste it, leaving me with only a quarter of what I began with.  I wouldn’t have to explain to them why I’m trying to lose weight or why it’s important to eat healthy.  I wouldn’t have to listen to them tell me I’m fat when I eat more than usual.

                I wish I could stay in my house for an entire weekend and watch Parks and Recreation in bed and bake cookies and not feel guilty about later having to answer to my family’s inquiries about why I was “hiding myself”.  I wouldn’t have to put in that obligatory “face time” with my host family or my community, because if I’m a volunteer, I have to always be around doing things for other people, right?

                Being invisible would mean that I could also ignore the knocks on my door when I’m in the middle of writing a blog post, like I’m trying to do right now. 

                Peace Corps talks a lot about the fishbowl effect before you’re sent off for your service.  Everyone will be staring at you wherever you go…everyone will know your business…everyone will bother you and pester you and try to be with you at all times of the day.  I guess I knew it was coming, but I didn’t know just how intense it would be.  I thought, after two years, I’d slowly become part of my community.

                In a way, I have.  But in many ways, I haven’t and won’t ever.

                To put it bluntly, I’m white.  I stick out like a sore thumb.  I’ll never be the same color as the people in my village.  My hair will always be different than theirs.  And subsequently, everything I wear and everything I eat and everything I do is, as they think, different.  It’s interesting.  And I don’t blame them for being interested, but being different is really exhausting.

                Sometimes, being invisible would be much easier.

I wanna hold your hand

                Do you remember in middle school the first time you held someone’s hand?

                I remember it being absolutely terrifying.  I remember the thoughts running through my mind: “what if my hand is too sweaty?  Am I squeezing his hand too hard?  Everyone is staring at us.  Does he want to let go?  Is he uncomfortable?  Oh my gosh, my fingers are totally sweating.”

                Hand holding was a big step back then.  Maybe it still is.  I sure do enjoy it a lot more now than I did when I was in 7^th grade.  I myself am partial to fingers laced, with my thumb on the inside of his.  I like holding hands all over the place—walking, driving, watching a movie—it makes everything seem like you’re together, and like you’re a couple, and like you’re in love.

                Everyone holds hands in Lesotho.  

                When you shake hands with someone, often times they’ll hold your hand for an uncomfortably long time while they continue chatting with you.  I remember the first time this happened to me.  It was with one of my teachers after we had just met.  It was an awkward moment when I tried to pull away too soon.  The next few times it happened, I’d pretend to motion to something with my hand while I was talking in order to break free from the embrace.

                A few other times, I’ll be walking to class or to the toilet with one of my teachers and she’ll catch hold of one of my fingers and won’t let go.  I can only hold on for so long, and then I get that creeping feeling that my fingers are sweating or that it’s been an oddly long time that our fingers are laced.

                I’m trying to get used to the hand-holding.  I’m not yet to the point where I’ll initiate it, but I can hold on for quite some time before the grasp is released.  Of course, I’m still always consciously aware of the seconds ticking by while I hold this persons hot, sweaty hand.  But I can hang in there.

                Basotho don’t seem to mind.  Boys and boys, girls and girls, boys and girls, friends, colleagues, family…they all hold hands.

                I was watching my kids’ choir practice last week.  They’re getting ready for a district competition on Friday.  The girls stand in the front of the choir and the boys stand in the back, naturally.  The shorter boys pull up stools to stand on in order to be seen above their towering classmates’ heads.

                Hand holding is big during choir.  My students must feel their knuckles grazing those of the person next to them and instinctively intertwine their fingers.  It’s actually kind of cute seeing them clasp and unclasp their hands while they’re singing, especially the little boys.  They don’t even seem to notice that they are holding hands, and just as suddenly as it started, they break free from each other once the song is over.

                Why is it that in American culture, we have this “personal space bubble” that can’t be invaded?  This isn’t the first time living abroad that I’ve noticed that we Americans don’t like being touched.  While I was in Argentina, I remember several male classmates being disgusted by giving the customary one-cheek beso to other males.  More than once, I was referred to as la Americana fría—the cold American.

                Although I’m still not totally into it, I’m growing used to holding hands.  I actually think it’s kind of sweet.  When Maphoka and I hold hands on the way to the shop, I feel a really close bond between us as sisters.  When my teacher grabs onto me while we’re at a cultural competition, I feel like she’s doing it to be protective of me in a crowd.  And when a stranger won’t let go during that first conversation we’re having, I see it as them being genuinely interested and engaged in meeting me.

                What I wouldn’t give to see my conservative Dad sweating and uncomfortably holding hands with my male principal for a full five-minute conversation.  J

little brothers

                I didn’t really know Moeketsi Tsepe. 

For starters, he was in the first grade, and my interactions with those kids are pretty limited to waves of “hi!” and “goodbye!” when I’m coming and going from school.  But Moeketsi’s older sister, Nthati, is one of my 7^th grade girls.  She and all of her friends used to drag him around the school grounds during lunchtime, showing him off to the teachers and making him do things that only 14-year old girls could think of doing.

                Nthati was a really proud big sister.  I could just tell.  The way she talked about him and forced him to play with her and her friends, smiling and teasing him the whole time, reminded me of my own brothers when we were little.

                Moeketsi passed away in the hospital last weekend.  Everyone said “he was sick, he was a quiet boy, he never ate, something was wrong with him…”

                We let school out today at 11am so the students could wait alongside the road for the hearse to pass and sing hymns for it.  Except that when it arrived it wasn’t really a hearse at all; his coffin was so small that it fit inside the back seat of an SUV.

                The car slowed and turned down the dirt road towards its destination, and we formed two solemn lines along both sides of the car.  We walked steadily through the village singing hymns as loudly as we could.  People came out of their houses and stood in their yards watching us pass. We walked all the way to the family’s house, where we surrounded the car as the back seat doors were opened.

                The coffin was small enough that it only took two men to lift it out.  When it emerged, one of my 6^th grade boys who was standing directly in front of me turned around to face away.  His eyes were filled with tears.  He looked at me until I told him it was OK to turn around again.  As the coffin was carried into a nearby hut, we stood around in a clump and continued on with our hymns.

                It must have been one of the family members who ushered us into the hut to pray around the coffin.  My students filed in one-by-one, and the teachers waited until all the kids were inside to enter. 

                I wasn’t ready for it.

                I wasn’t ready to see Lineo, my smartest 7^th grade girl, sobbing on her sister’s shoulder.  I wasn’t ready to see Kamohelo, a troublesome, talkative 5^th grader, wiping tears off of his cheeks.  Lehlohonolo, who never talks in class and hardly lifts his head up when he answers, looked over at me with big, watery eyes.  Nthati was crying and moaning out loud. 

My little, humble school was packed in this crumbling hut, praying over a tiny coffin, mourning the loss of one of us.  Suddenly, we weren’t teachers or students anymore.  We were a family, and we were all suffering the same.

The funeral is tomorrow.  But I think that today was almost more special, more private, more personal than the actual funeral will be.  On our way home, one of the villagers explained to me that since Moeketsi was so young, he wasn’t able to meet many people in his life.  Our school was his everything.  Apart from his sister and mother, we were his family.

Tlaleng

                The first time that I saw her, I thought she was a boy. 

Tlaleng was wearing gray trousers and a white shirt, which is the usual boys’ uniform at our school.  She had a high, wrinkled forehead that looked like she was always raising her eyebrows.  Her jawline was strong and defined, and her lips were always curled up in a wry smile.  Every time she talked to me, she tilted her head down and peered up at me through thin, shy eyelashes.  The way she was always stealing glances at me during morning assembly and class, I thought she was just a nervous 7^th grade boy.

                Within the first few weeks at school, I knew she’d be a special student.  One day, she came to me at lunch with a poem to read.  It was called “In My Life”.  The first few lines went something like this: “In my life, I have suffered/I have seen many things/Happening to me, in my life/But what could I do?  Nothing, because I was too young”. 

                I read it and didn’t know how to respond.  I didn’t know if she wanted my opinion on her grammar usage, or if this was a cry for help.  I told her that it was great work and that it takes a lot of courage for a poet to write about traumatic events in life.  She smiled and said “thank you madam” and walked out of the room.  Thereafter, I was the one caught stealing glances at her during class.  I was completely captivated by her.

                Tlaleng lost her mother some years back.  I don’t know when and I don’t know how.  She lives with her father now, in a village somewhere near our school.  To my knowledge, she doesn’t have any siblings.  I know she was very close to her mother.  She talks a lot about playing with her mother’s hair while she was still alive.

                 Tlaleng’s English is excellent.  It’s nearly the best of all the students in my class.  She sits in the front row towards the left side of the room.  Even though she’s brilliant, she is very shy about answering out loud in class.  Only when I’ve asked a very difficult question with no response from the rest of the class will she raise her hand and self-consciously answer me correctly.  She shuffles her feet while she answers, and always says “I think that…” before explaining her reasoning.

                When I connected my 7^th grade class to my sister’s class in America last semester to be pen pals, I immediately decided that Tlaleng should write to my sister Lindsay.  I wanted Tlaleng to know that I had chosen her to be Lindsay’s pen pal and that she was special. 

I only came to find out after reading our first round of letters that Tlaleng is 19-years old.

                This morning, while I was walking to school with my principal, she told me that last Friday Tlaleng had decided to drop out of school.  I felt like my heart was breaking.  She told her classmates that she wanted to instead attend a traditional “initiation school” in the mountains.  She wanted a female circumcision and to learn how to become a real Mosotho woman.

                The other teachers at my school had obviously noticed how remarkably clever Tlaleng is, and they were infuriated with her.  Leaving early from classes on Friday, they marched over to Tlaleng’s house and demanded that her father take responsibility for her decision and force her to come back to school.  They even threatened to have him arrested by the police if he didn’t ensure that she was back in classes on Monday.

                Sure enough, Tlaleng was at school today before 8am.  Her father also came, accompanied by an uncle of hers, to discuss Tlaleng’s behavior.  I was called into the office to talk to Tlaleng and her father directly.  It was shocking to see Tlaleng’s family; she is so intelligent and well-spoken, and her father was dirty and wore an old farmer’s suit and had an unshaven, ratty beard.  It made me wonder what her mother was like.  Since he didn’t speak English, the principal translated what I said.

                While she peered up at me through those eyelashes, I told Tlaleng that she was one of the most intelligent girls I knew.  I told her that she would be ridiculous to throw away all of her talents by leaving school in the 7^th grade.  I told her that I knew she would go to high school—and even college—if she kept working hard in her classes, hard enough to earn scholarships.  I told her that, in a country like this, education is everything.  If she wanted to work for the Ministry of Education to help orphans like herself, as she had told me once in one of her compositions, then she needed to complete 7^th grade at the very least.

                She promised me she’d stay in school.

airplanes in the sky

                This morning as I was walking to school, I noticed something very strange.  It had been awhile since I’d seen one, and I could hardly believe that I knew exactly what it was.  It seemed like it came from a completely different lifetime. 

                It was an airplane.

                It’s hard to imagine that almost a year ago, I got on what would become one of the most important plane rides of my life.  I remember small, unimportant things about that trip… sitting on the ground at JFK at 4am with our overloaded bags…the mean waitress in Philadelphia at what would be my last breakfast in America…the “toiletry pack” that the stewardess gave me on the plane, with dark green socks and a tube of toothpaste…all of the African-looking souvenirs at the Jo’burg airport….wondering if I could fill my water bottle from the sink…

                I used to love riding in airplanes.  Absolutely loved it.  An airport meant adventure.  It meant that you were going somewhere new and exciting.  You were embarking on a journey so great that it took an entire airplane ride to get there!  The door closes in one place, and when it opens again upon arrival, you’re met with entirely different circumstances: sometimes a blast of heavy, damp humidity, sometimes snow flurries creeping through the cracks along the jet way.  Sometimes the airport has signs that are in a completely different language.

                And the entire experience of riding on an airplane is such a treat!  I love beverage service.  I really love when a meal is included.  I don’t love the food, but I love how neat and organized it all is.  Everything is packaged in its own little compartment, and the butter is in a little box on the side, and when you’re finished you wipe up with a little napkin from a wrapper.  There is nothing better than a clean airplane, a friendly and timely crew, and decent food and beverage service. 

                How superfluous it all seems when I look up at this airplane in the sky while I wander down my rocky dirt road on the way to school.  I can’t believe I was ever so lucky as to be able to ride in an airplane.  I can’t believe I ever complained about slow service or unpleasant food.  When I tell my students and colleagues that I arrived in Lesotho on an airplane, they are awestruck.  They just assume that you travel everywhere in a car.  (When I tell them that an ocean separates Africa and America, they respond with “well why not use a boat?”) 

                Every day I am here, I am reminded of the things we take for granted in America.  Things you wouldn’t even notice you have until one day, they are gone.  Hot water from a faucet.  Water, period.  A flushing toilet.  A light bulb.  An unlimited supply of electricity.  Cold food and drinks.  Ice cubes. 

                I might complain about how “rough” it is here sometimes, but I’m so thankful for the humbleness it’s taught me.  Lots of people here are suffering, but they’re not complaining.  They’re usually singing (or getting drunk). 

Being unhappy or happy in a tough situation is a choice.  If you’ve exhausted all other alternatives, why not just settle for contentment…at least for the time being?  It’s a lot easier to live with than being frustrated all of the time.  I’ve dealt with plenty of frustrations—slow, crowded taxis, people making fun of me in a foreign language, awkward and rude cultural clashes—but getting upset over them only ruins my day and gives me high blood pressure.  I’m slowly learning to settle down and let things happen as they may.  And for the time being, I might even start to sing a little tune.  (Or get drunk). 

Snapshots

My house -- the kitchen

One of my dogs, Stinky, whom I've recently renamed "Frank" so it fits better with the other dog's name, Beans

Traditional Basotho clothes

My sisters!

My kids during choir practice

I guess Blogspot deemed this photo inappropriate and didn't upload the bottom half of it. Otherwise, you'd see me chopping a chicken's head off.

One of my teachers and I at sport's day

Drinking quarts on the ground with my favorite

A day in the life

                So I got to thinking.  I was thinking about this blog, and about everything I tell you, and about what you might like to read about. 

                And the thought came to me:  do you know what I do every day?  Sure, I am a teacher…I go to school…I have little kids running around after me all the time like you see in those Peace Corps “Life is Calling” advertisements… the usual. 

But you don’t know the little things.  The things that have become so average that I forget to tell you about them.

                So here goes.

                During the week, I wake up at around 5:45 a.m., which gives me an hour to get ready before I need to leave for school.  I’m usually too lazy (or too cold) to go outside, so I pee in a bucket.  Then I heat up some water on the stove for coffee and a bath (the baths have been happening less frequently…it’s winter.  No heater.  Three times a week is enough!).  I have to boil my water for three minutes and put it through a water filter before it’s safe to drink.

                So I get ready as usual.  I dump the bath water outside.  I schlep out to the latrine and empty the pee bucket.  I usually have toast and eggs or oatmeal for breakfast.  And then I leave.  I walk to my principal’s house which is in a neighboring village, about a 30 minute walk.  And from there, we either catch a taxi to school or get a ride from her husband.  School is only about a three-minute drive from her house.

                We have morning assembly, which is where the entire school lines up by class outside and sings, prays, and hears announcements from the teachers.  Assembly starts at 7:45 and class starts at 8 a.m.  I teach English to my 7^th graders first.  They are my favorite class.  There are 23 of them and I know and love each and every one of them as if they were my own kids.  My heart is swelling up just thinking about them.  When I walk in the room, they all stand customarily and greet me (“Good morning madam! How are you madam!”).  They have been working so hard to pass their primary school exit exam this October, and secretly I wish that they could stay with me just one more year.  I am so proud of them.

                The 5^th and 6^th graders are next.  There aren’t many of them (and we don’t have enough buildings at school), so their classes are combined.  It’s a difficult class to teach because of the difference in English levels between the two classes.  It seems as if my lessons are always either too easy for some or too hard for others.  I have mostly boys in the 6^th grade class, and they crack me up.  They aren’t as shy as the girls, so when they come up to my desk to get their homework marked, they like to reach out and touch my “slick” hair.  Since they’re so outgoing, we have a lot of dancing in our class.  They all know dance moves to identify whether a verb is in the present, past, or future tense.

                Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday afternoons, I teach Life Skills at the high school next to my house.  I teach Form A and B, which is more or less the equivalent of freshmen and sophomores.  They are absolutely naughty.  They think it’s funny to push my limits, to ask silly questions and to talk out loud without being called on. There are so many of them that it’s hard to control the classroom when they get excited (the first time I said “sex” in class caused a complete uproar).  My smallest class has around 60 and the largest class has a little over 100.  The desks are literally crammed wall-to-wall, and I have only a few feet to move around in front of the chalkboard.  It feels like being on stage.

                I get home from school anytime between three and four.  My house is usually a wreck, so I do chores:  sweeping, washing dishes (in buckets), fetching water from the tap (only about 15 yards from my house!) and watering my garden.  The neighborhood gang from the primary school likes to come over and play, so I keep them entertained with coloring books (thanks Grant!) and crafts (thanks Grandma!). 

                Sometime later on, I usually wander over to my host family’s house and visit with my host sisters and mom.  They have a TV and couches (!!), so if I make it in time after school, I watch Oprah re-runs with them.  When I go to leave and meander back to my house, Maphoka comes along and we sit outside on my doorstep and chat until it’s time for her to go back inside and cook dinner.

                Back in May, my boyfriend somehow got power installed in my house (some girls are courted with jewelry… I get electricity J) so when it’s dark, I don’t need to use a paraffin lamp anymore—I have one small bulb above my desk that is enough to light most of my hut.  I work on lesson plans for the next day, listen to BBC on the radio, and cook dinner over my gas stove.  I try to cook enough for two so I can put half in a lunch box for the following day.

                By 8:30 or 9 p.m., I’m tired enough to crawl into bed.  My bed is awful.  It’s been voted the Worst Bed in Peace Corps on several occasions.  If I’m lying down and cough, all of the coils inside the mattress vibrate.  I think that the mattress is only coils—no fluff. 

                Then I either read for a while or watch a TV show on my computer.  And I go to bed.  And I wake up the next day and do it all over again. 

hitching

                Before I continue any further than this first line…Mom, Dad, Grandma?  Don’t read this one.

                Hitch hikers in America are notorious for being murderers, crazy alcoholics, car thieves, and stinky bums.  If you let them in your car, they’ll probably reach around your neck from behind and hold you at knife-point, leading you to some hidden wooded area where they cut you up and later drive your car into a lake.

                Or so I’ve heard.

                Hitch hikers in Africa, on the other hand, are just people who are too broke to afford public transportation.  It happens all of the time.  It sounds racist of sorts, but white people are a scarcity here in Lesotho.  If you saw some white dude on the side of the road, carrying a huge backpack and looking for a ride, of course you’d pick him up!  You’d want to know what the hell he was doing here in the first place!

Do you know where I’m going with this already?  That white guy on the side of the road is probably a Peace Corps Volunteer.

                Yes, we hitchhike all the time.  Yes, I was just as thoroughly terrified of the thought of hitchhiking here as you probably are while you’re reading this.  When I arrived in Lesotho and volunteers were talking about “hitching” places, I thought to myself, “No fucking way; these guys are nuts.”  A week later, I was hitching back from visiting another volunteer a few districts away. 

Indeed, even Peace Corps staff doesn’t discourage hitching.  They don’t encourage it, but they say that “sometimes, there’s just no other way to get somewhere.”

Hitchhiking is also a great way to meet the locals.  I’ve had all kinds of hitches: silent awkward ones (especially if the driver doesn’t know English), really comfortable ones (Mercedes two-door with air conditioning), overwhelming ones (five unbuckled kids in the backseat crawling all over), exciting ones (cop car driving 100kph with a gun on the dashboard), and just… weird ones (in a semi-truck).

Some of my most interesting conversations with Basotho are in hitches.  During the elections last fall, I heard all kinds of political opinions.  One government worker offered to collaborate with the police “under the table” to find my stolen phone.  I met a guy once who spoke Spanish.  One lady drove my friend and I, quite literally, to the doorstep of our destination.  She said, “you are giving up so much to help my country; the least I can do is give you a ride.”

Once, I got a hitch with a family who was on a long road trip.  I think they ended up “adopting” me for the two hours I was in the car with them.  Every time they stopped at a gas station for snacks, they’d get me something.  We visited a family member’s new house along the way, and they brought me inside and introduced me as one of them.  I was almost sad when they finally dropped me off.  

Of course, I am always wary of what kind of cars I get into.  I prefer hitching with friends, although I’ve been lucky when I’m hitching alone and I’m usually picked up by a single woman or a family.

I’m really grateful for the perspective of Lesotho that I’ve gotten through hitchhiking.  Not many people here can afford cars, so it’s an entirely different culture from what I’m used to in my village.  I’ve been able to meet all different kinds of people and see so much of this country (and for free!) because of hitchhiking. 

After being on the “other side” of hitching, it makes me wonder about all of those guys in America, standing on the side of the road with their thumbs out.  If they’re all really stinky murdering ski bums, or if they’re just broke and looking for a lift and a good conversation. 

if you're moving to Lesotho...

So I think that by now, or close to now, all of the invitations for the 2013 Education volunteers have been issued. 

Yay!

If you are one of these oh-so-lucky invitees, congratulations.  I still remember the very moment when I opened my invitation packet.  I think the first thing I said was “where the @!#% is Lesotho?”

And then I think I started wondering what the hell to pack for the next two years of my life.  It’s not an easy question to answer.  I searched through countless blogs of current volunteers, even emailing a few of them (which was really no help at all), and I looked over and over the Peace Corps Lesotho “suggested packing list”.

Two suitcases for two years.  Shit.

Looking back now, I wish I wouldn’t have stressed out so much about this predicament.  You really don’t need as much as you think you do.  If I’ve learned anything while being in Peace Corps, it’s how to pack light.  And this is coming from Miss Can’t Wear A Going-Out Outfit Two Weekends In A Row.

But if I could give you any specific advice for what to pack, here’s what I’d recommend: 

·         Dark clothes.  All of my white and off-white shirts are now being used as kitchen rags.  After two or three hand-washes, they were trashed.

·         Electronics.  Specifically an iPod and a computer.  I don’t know why anyone would even consider leaving behind a computer.  Also, if you don’t have one already, an external hard drive with movies and TV shows.  I didn’t bring one, but I ended up having one send.  You’ll also make friends with in-country volunteers a lot quicker (if you bring me any Sex and the City, I’ll make you my new BFF).

·         Chacos or Tevas.  Again, I didn’t bring any but ended up having them sent.  Yes, you may look and feel like a woodsy lesbian while you wear them, but Peace Corps considers them appropriate work shoe attire (and these ones are actually pretty cute!)

·         A solar charger, if you’re willing to dish out the money.  One big enough to charge your phone and iPod is all you need.

·         A good set of knives, if you like to cook.  These are amazing and they never need to be sharpened.

·         A radio to keep you company.  I bought this one, and I really like it.  It’s kind of annoying to wind-up on cloudy days, but I never have to worry about batteries.

I hope this alleviates some packing anxiety.  Don’t be shy to email me (or any other volunteers) with questions you might have about packing.  We’ve all been there.  Try not to stress out much about it.  If you forget something, or regret something, you can probably find it here or have it shipped.  People love to ship things to you; it’s great.  It’s like Christmas repeats itself all over again with every package you’ll receive.

Happy packing!