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.