The Lesotho Tourist

There’s a lot of things I wanted to accomplish when I came to Lesotho and I’m proud to say that one of the things I have done is seen all 10 districts of Lesotho.  Through my travels around this country I have realized that Lesotho has some of the most beautiful sites to see, yet with such an under developed tourist industry very few get to see them.  Here are some of the sites I have seen here:

Thaba Bosiu

In front of the Basotho Hat mountain

Replica of a traditional village

Thaba Bosiu means “the mountain of night.”  It has a very significant historical context in Lesotho but I have never been in to history to remember the exact details of what that was.  All I can say is that it had something to do with winning a war.  I can say that legend has it that the mountain grows at night.  To be honest this was probably one of the least interesting places I saw in Lesotho.  There are a few things to see there: a traditional village where you can see how things were organized back in the day (including how the chief would have a separate house for each wife).  You can also see the Basotho Hat mountain which is pretty cool.  And you can see the graves of some prominent members of the royal family and Lesotho's history.

Liphofung

Cave painting

Liphofung is a small area where you can see cave paintings.  They are quite faint but still very cool to see.

Ghadafi’s Camels

Four camels, a mother, father, and two children

This isn’t really a tourist site.  Some of my friends live where close to where the ex-prime minister is from.  During his time as prime minister Ghadafi gifted him with camels.  I’m not sure how these guys survive in the cold (and they are in a very cold area).  But they were pretty cool to see.  Fun fact: their “trainer” is Mosotho.  Not sure how that works.

Sani Pass

The view from Sani Lodge.  You can see how crazy the road is.

Hot mulled wine

Sani Pass is the area between the Lesotho and South African border in the mountainous district of Mokhotlong.  It’s extremely treacherous with many hair-pin turns and has to be done with a 4x4.  That being said it is very beautiful and also home to the highest pub in Africa (some sources say the world).  The pub has amazing food and great mulled wine.  And not to mention the view is amazing.  I’ve heard that on a clear day you can see all the way to the ocean but since it’s Lesotho it’s very hard to verify that.

Semonkong

Hospitality done right

The falls have been affected by the drought

I was in Semonknong for my COS conference in August.  Semonkong is the home to Maletsunyane Falls.  It’s in a pretty rural area of Lesotho and a pain to get to since the road is so bad (but being improved as you read) but the lodge made it all worth it.  I very, very rarely stay at nice places, so this was a welcomed change of pace.  Adorable rondavals, beautifully decorated rooms, great cuisine; what else could you want from a hotel?

Katse Dam

The dam wall

When I tell people I live in Lesotho they often ask me if I have seen Katse Dam.  Katse Dam was

Another view of the dam

created to help provide South Africa with water (living in Lesotho during drought season I find this just a bit ironic).  The dam is beautiful with clear, clean blue water.  It’s also considered quite an engineering feat.  Near the dam is a botanical garden which houses some of the rare plants that have become endangered because of the building of the dam.  Included is the spiral aloe, an endangered plant only found in Lesotho.

Lesotho's national flower, the spiral aloe

Drama at the Funeral

Funerals are a part of Basotho life.  I’ve lived here for just about two years and I have already attended four funerals.  The first was for a friend in the village, the second for a Minister who’s home was across the mountain from me and a prominent member of my tribe (it was a state funeral and open to the public), the third was my colleague’s husband’s funeral, and the fourth was for the acting principle chief of the area I live in which I went to last week.

The reason I say that funerals are a part of life here is that Saturdays are always reserved for funerals.  Every Saturday, as I head in to town I pass by a few tents signifying a funeral in that village.  And every Saturday morning when I ask my host mother if she’s heading to a funeral that day she is more likely to say “Yes” than “No.”  In fact there are many weekends where my host family has to attend many funerals and my host mother decides to go to one and my host father decides to go to the other.

There are many reasons why people attend so many funerals in this country.  Many will say it’s because the death rate is much higher here with diseases such as HIV/AIDS and TB rampant (and lightening strikes and car accidents).  Others say its because Basotho go to funerals that we as Americans would not attend.  Every person that can trace some sort of blood line to you, no matter how distant, is your family.  So many times my host mother will try to explain how she is related to the person’s funeral she is going to and it often times sounds like “My brother’s wife’s sister’s husband’s brother’s child’s funeral.”  And not to mention that the villagers here are so close (and all somehow related) that if anyone dies in the village, everyone in the village attends.

For the four funerals I have attended here there are many more that I have avoided going to but to be honest funerals are a great way of learning about Basotho culture.  There is a saying that Basotho do not give praise unless they are at that person’s funeral.  The funerals here consists of three parts, stories and praises, church, and the burial (remember Lesotho is a Christian country).  The funeral starts with people associated with the deceased speaking about them.  For example, at my friend’s funeral her teachers at the college she was attending spoke about her and her co-workers at the school she was student teaching said some words.  At my colleague’s husband’s funeral the teachers at my school spoke a little bit.  At the acting principle chief’s funeral there were representatives from the royal crown, chiefs in the region he presided in, and government people speaking about him.  From what I have observed/been told, the family will never say anything.  At some of the funerals I have noticed an MC, or someone introducing each speaker and in between each person a hymn is sung lead by anyone who is in attendance.

After the testimonials is the church section, a mass.  Interestingly a member from each church is asked to speak or say something whether the person was a member of that church.  For example, the acting principal chief was Catholic but a member of the Evangelical church (my host father) and a member of the Anglican church both said some words.  But the main service was done by a Catholic priest.

After the mass the casket is carried to the burial ground in a car with the rest of us following behind it.  Once at the burial ground the members of the family take turns pouring dirt on to the casket in the ground.  But this is not done in any random order but by one’s place in the family, usually by age with the eldest pouring dirt first (depending on the tribe the women may or may not take place in this).  My friends tell me that this portion of the funeral is often fraught with drama.  Many men may have illegitimate children who they were close with but since that woman was never married to the father you are not considered part of the family and cannot take part in burying your father.  Another example is that if you are not related to the deceased on your father’s side you are not part of the family and cannot take part in the burial.

There are also specific traditions that take place with the widow.  During the funeral the widow sits on a mattress with her mother (or acting mother) and mother in-law.  They are not allowed to sit on chairs.  They wear seshoeshoe (traditional dress) during the funeral and once the funeral is over they shave their heads (along with the rest of the family).  At this point the widow wears a dress of mourning, either a new seshoeshoe or a new black dress, and is only allowed to wear this dress until her mourning is over.  The rest of the family stops mourning after one month but the widow must mourn until it is harvesting season.  While she is mourning she is not allowed to stay with her own family but must stay with her husband’s family.  Some of these details probably vary tribe to tribe.

At the end of the funeral, after the burial, you wash your hands and you’re given food to eat.  The meals are often elaborate with meat, vegetable, and something made of maize and to wash it down a ginger drink.  While I hope I don’t have to attend another funeral during my last few months here I have also realized that funerals are a time for people in a community to come together.  Basotho know that there's a time to mourn and after that you enjoy life.

COS: Completion of Service or Continuation of Service

This last weekend my training group got together for the last time.  It was our COS conference and it was bitter sweet.  When we first came to this country we started off as a group of 23.  Now there were 17 of us left with an 18^th who joined us earlier this year.  For some it has been a constant struggle, for others less so but it wasn’t easy for anyone.

I have been looking forward to this conference for some time now.  This was the weekend where I would finally get the actual date I was to leave Lesotho and I couldn’t wait to make my post-PC plans.  Now that I have the date I feel stressed and excited for the first time.  I’m excited to see my family and friends again who I’ve missed so much.  And to be in a first world country again, that’s going to be interesting.  I’m excited for the rest of my life.  But it’s stressful getting rid of everything you’ve complied in two years; clothing, household goods, souvenirs.  And saying good bye to all the friends I’ve made here knowing that I may never see them again.  I’ll miss the way I’ve lived the past two years and simply being in Africa.  The next three months are going to be hard.

A lot of RPCVs say that Peace Corps is the best two years of your life, and while it’s been amazing, I just want it to get better.  I don’t want this adventure to end even once I get home.

So here’s to December 4^th, my last day as a PCV.  I can’t wait for what comes after and for the next adventure.  For if Peace Corps taught me anything it’s that "life's calling" and it's up to me to answer the call.

And This is How We Do It

Teaching about bacteria and viruses and comparing them to cells (April 8, 2013)

Best way to learn about insects is to find them

Being a teacher is hard, and doing it in a country where the whole school system is different from the one you grew up with makes it even harder.  For example, punishments that work in the US just don’t work here.  My students are experts in doing absolutely nothing (it’s a cultural thing). So punishing students with detention just wouldn’t work.  Students are already expected to keep their classrooms clean so that is not a punishment.  You can’t take points away from their grades because grades are based purely on tests.

My 2013 Form A (8th grade) class

Another challenge is the lack of teaching materials.  I went to school where teachers used projectors, computers, worksheets, and posters designed for teaching.  While these materials may be available here they are not available where I stay or extremely expensive.  In other words, it’s not sustainable.  So I have had to learn to make my own materials.

Drawing pictures of insects

Some background: a lot of school in Lesotho have no textbooks and no electricity.  My school has some textbooks (many of my students do not pay the school rental fee), and has electricity which allows us to have a printer and a computer.  But my school is quite poor and so we use the printer limitedly.  I very rarely use to the printer to copy worksheets or to copy information for the students.  For the most part the only time our school uses the printer is when we print our June and December tests.  We do not have a science lab, but we do have a few chemicals (no lab equipment and the chemicals are not all useful) and no computer lab so the students can’t do research.  The school has a small library (which I set up).  Overall, my school is one of the better equipped schools in the country but there are quite a few schools in Lesotho with a lab, large library, computer, a printer, and electricity in all the classrooms (we only have it in the office).

Diagrams and Posters:

Learning about sexual reproduction in humans

Any high school student taking biology knows that it’s all about pictures.  Some teachers here draw the pictures on the board using up precious class time on trying to make a half way decent picture.  Others tell the students to copy the picture in the book.  I like to use visuals to explain how organs work together so I need a visual on the board.  Therefore many times I draw the picture before hand so I spend less time drawing and more time explaining.  Drawing the pictures on paper also allows me to use different colors which is helpful in certain lessons.

Kinesthetic Learners:

During training we talked about different types of learners; some learn better by hearing information,

Balancing equations is a tough topic for my Form Bs

some by seeing or through visual interpretations of the information, some by interacting with the information.  A good teacher tries to incorporate all of these in to a lesson to accommodate all the students.  The visual and auditory learners are the easiest to incorporate in to a lesson but trying to create interactive activities can be a little more difficult.  Having materials makes it much easier.

If at first you don’t succeed then try again…

March 8th 2012

The reality is that no matter how many materials I make myself nothing substitutes a fully equipped lab or a large library with books my students could look at for additional resources.  And the amount of time I spend writing things on the board when a worksheet would have made it so much easier is a lot.  All I can do with these frustrations are accept that they exist and try to work with them the best I can.  Besides, who joins Peace Corps because it’s easy?

Learning about the human skeleton, stretching, and spelling COCONUT all at the same time

And Thus the Countdown Begins...

As soon as I started my countdown I started making a list of things I need to do when I go back to America.  I don’t actually plan on doing all these things but it definitely helps motivate me.  To share a few:

-Eat Mexican food

-Eat Italian food

-Eat Cicero’s Pizza (a Bay Area thing)

-Make an apple pie (yes, I can do that now)

-Eat Cheesecake (can you see a pattern?)

-Eat Coldstones Ice cream

And to humor my readers I decided to make two more lists:

Things I will miss about Lesotho:

Outhouses: Yes, that’s right, I will miss outhouses.  Yes, sometimes they are smelly, and sometimes they have spiders, but they are so hassle free!  There’s something about doing your business and not worrying about the smell, or flushing twice, or it clogging up.  And where in a flushing toilet you can’t dispose certain items, an outhouse doesn’t discriminate.

Blankets: I can never use a blanket with out thinking of Lesotho.  And I will genuinely miss wrapping one around my waist and going about my day.  I suggest you try it for yourself.  The Basotho women say that blankets keep your ovaries warm...or if you are pregnant your baby.

Getting little kids to do all your errands: I’m a lazy person and in Lesotho I can do just that.  If I don’t want to leave my house to buy something from the shop I could send a kid to do it.  If I don’t feel like leaving my chair in the staff room to make tea, I call a student to do it.  If I don’t feel like going to class I could ask a student to write the notes on the board for me (I don’t do this very often).  Yes, I will miss getting someone to do things for me.

Things I will not miss about Lesotho

The question: how long does it take to drive to America?

Where do I start with this one…literacy levels in Lesotho can be quite appalling sometimes.  I have been asked this question many times and this is how the conversation proceeds:

Me: um…well…it took me 16 hours on an airplane to get here.

Mosotho: WOW! But how long would it take if we drive?

Me: That’s not possible since there is an ocean…uh, a lot of water, separating Lesotho from America.  You can’t drive over it, you have to fly.

Mosotho: But how long would it take IF we did drive?

Me: *few moments of frustrated silence* Maybe a few days.  Let’s say 5 days.

Rulers: Basotho are some of the neatest people I have met.  Let me correct that: THE neatest people I have met.  They clean their houses everyday, move every piece of furniture to get every speck of dust, polish their floors, weed their lawns, sweep the dirt outside, to create a clean environment.  And with the limited technology they use (no vacuum cleaners or lawn mowers) it takes a lot of time.  This neatness translates in to the classroom.  The students will only use blue or black pen and if they start writing in blue they refuse to switch colors if their pen runs out.  Drawings are always done in pencil.  After much effort my students will write notes in pencil if their pen is not working but only after asking me.  And they insist on using rulers to make sure every line is perfectly straight.  This can get very annoying, waiting for 40 students to draw straight lines and since not everyone has a ruler waiting for half the class to finish with theirs and pass it to the other half of the class to begin drawing their lines.  I was teaching electronic configuration (how electrons are arranged in an atom) for my Form As and they insisted on using a compass to draw perfect circles for each orbital.  That class took forever.

Papa: I’ve talked about this carbohydrate before and I will not miss eating this everyday.  But on that note…

Maize: I’m a bit tired of this plant, growing everywhere, eaten by everyone.  And I thought the US was being taken over by corn.

Pumping water: As great as my arms are starting to look it’s a pain to have to plan ahead with your water.  I can’t just decide to take a bath because I need to make sure I have enough water in my bucket, and I need to wait half an hour for the water to heat up.  I am very much looking forward to opening a faucet and for water to just come out.

Happy Independence Day!

Peace Corps Goal 2: To promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served.

It was a cold winters day.

On July 4th this year I decided to celebrate American Independence Day with my students by teaching them a little bit about America.  A few months before the event I contacted the embassy to get a video I could show my students.  I invited all my students to join me.

Watching the video on my laptop

On July 4th 2013 Lesotho (after many sunny days) was cloudy
and cold and, as I've said in previous posts, weather has a lot to do with how many students will come to school.  Plus it was the middle of winter break and the only students who were coming for winter classes were the Form Cs and Form Es.
To support me two of my PCV friends came to the event (and stayed after to properly celebrate the holiday) and the Public Affairs Officer from the U.S. Embassy in Maseru, Sue Harville.
About 30 students came to the event, mostly Form Cs and Es.  We watched a few clips from the embassy video.  To be honest the video wasn't that great but I tried to make it work.  The video was a compilations of advertisements for various cities, national parks, and universities.  So we watched a few clips on American Universities, talked about what it was like to be an American student, and watched a video on the diversity within America.

Everyone was happy with their certificates.

To thank the students for coming I created a certificate which I passed out at the end.
I can't say it was an amazing event but I've learned to take the small wins when I can.  While the videos were confusing I think my students were able to take something back.  And I had fun with my friends afterwards.

Happy July 4th!

Narin, myself, and Chelsea.

The Face of HIV/AIDS

It’s hard to make friends in a foreign country.  The culture is different, and when you live in a village not a lot of people speak enough English to have a real conversation with.  And above that, of those who do speak decent English it’s hard to get a real conversation going when you don’t have much in common.  About a month after moving to site I made a friend in my village.  She was a petite girl, about 25 years old, and was a student primary school teacher.  Our relationship started the strangest way: she came up to me one day in the village, introduced herself to me, and simply said, “I want to be your friend.”  And so we exchanged phone numbers and thus our friendship began.

Itumeleng (that’s her name) was an attractive friend to me because she spoke great English and she was one of the few people in my village who had something more than a high school education.  Every week she’d stop by my house after school and we’d talk a little bit.  I learned that she had a boy friend who had another girl friend and refused to break up with her, that her mother was very sick, and that she was helping raise her brother’s children.

A few weeks after meeting her she came to my house in the morning saying that she was not feeling well.  Her throat was bothering her and she needed money to go to town and see a doctor.  For whatever reason I trusted that she would return any money I borrowed her and gave her 20 rand.  And she did return the money.

The next week she came back saying that she had to go see the doctor again and asked to borrow 20 rand again.  I gave it to her and she returned it and when I asked her what the doctor said she shrugged her shoulders and said he had given her some medicine.

I didn’t see her again for some time.  The next time I saw her I was sitting in a taxi going to my camptown and she just happened to be in the taxi next to me.  She looked horrible; in fact, I barely recognized her.  I asked her how her health was, and she said it was better and that she was going in to town for some classes.  I also ended up seeing her when we were both heading back to village where my host mother saw her and exclaimed how she couldn’t recognize her from how much weight she had lost.

A few weeks later my host mother came to me and said that Itumeleng was very sick and was no longer going to school.  I went to visit her a few times at her house sometimes with my host mother, sometimes with out.  On one of those visits she told me that her sister has gotten her some medicine (it could have been traditional medicine from a witch doctor) to help her but it ended up making her feel worse.

About a month later my host mother came to me saying that Itumeleng was getting worse and that she needed to see a doctor in town.  She was going to give twenty rand to the family to help them with the costs and she asked if I would do the same and I did.  We saw her the next day to find out that the government hospital wanted to do a chest x-ray and they didn’t have one.  So she had come home with nothing to show for her trip.  A few days later my host mother asked if I could give money again to help pay for her to go to a private doctor and again I obliged.  I saw her the next day, and again the doctor hadn’t really said anything (which now I know can be typical of doctors here).  The strange thing was before going to her place my host mother started taking about taking pills, and how when someone has HIV/AIDS they should take their ARVs.  I didn’t really understand if my host mother knew Itumeleng had HIV, or she just assumed since she lost so much weight (which is a common assumption in Lesotho when someone drastically loses weight).  But my host mother gave her a similar speech when we went to visit.  That was the last time I saw her.

About a week later my host mother told me that Itumeleng had passed away that afternoon.  We went to her house where other villagers were also there.  The body was wrapped in a bed sheet and was on the floor and through the bed sheet you could see all her bones.  We waited there until a car from the funeral company came to take the body.  We sang some hymns, washed our hands, and went home.

Her funeral was a month later and when I talked to other villagers about her death everyone had a different theory.  My host mother told me that she had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS some time back and stopped taking her ARVs for some reason.  And, she told me, that when someone stops taking ARVs they get sick very quickly.  Another person told me that when she only got tested for HIV recently and by that time it was too late, taking ARVs would have done no good.

The reason I write this post at this time, when this all happened almost exactly a year back is that I just deleted her contact from my phone about a week ago.  I like to go through my phone contacts and delete anyone who I can no longer remember who they are and every time I passed by her name I did nothing until last week.  I can’t say she was a close friend, but I still wish she was still here.

One of the first things I learned about Lesotho is that it has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, almost 25%.  And in training we talked a lot about the numbers of HIV, prevalence in women versus men, number of children affected, and until Itumeleng’s death that’s all they were, numbers.  But now those numbers have a face and the honest truth is that it really doesn’t matter that 1 in 4 people are HIV positive because when it’s you that’s affected by it the only number that matters is 1.  One child born with HIV/AIDS is too much, one parent dying from HIV/AIDS too much, one friend lost is too much.

There’s no lesson to this story I’m sharing, nothing that I want you to take away, and at the moment I don’t wish to go in to the current state of HIV/AIDS in Lesotho.  I just wish to remember a friend, someone who had so much potential, and who left this world much to early.  R.I.P. Itumeleng Linale