Welcome to Southern Africa

I've already posted about the places I've seen in Lesotho so I would now like to take the time to post a bit about some of the places I've seen outside of Lesotho.
Africa is a great place to travel because once you get here, everything else is ridiculously cheap.  I have not spent more that $400 on a vacation here and that includes transport, accommodations, souvenirs, and food.  I have rarely paid more than $12 a night for clean accommodations with a hot shower and a decent communal kitchen (that being said I probably have very low standards).
I highly encourage people to visit Southern Africa.  It seems that people have this idea that Africa is filled with starving children, malaria, and vast desserts; and yes this is sometimes true but Africa also has some amazing tourist sites.

South Africa

South Africa...enough said.  After the World Cup, South Africa has made a place for its self outside of the "oppressive regime" category.  I've seen Capetown (really more like America), Durban (like India but cleaner), Pretoria (a very pretty suburb outside of Johannesburg), and Clarenes (which you have never heard off).

Capetown has some awesome wineries and wine tours including ones with cheese!

I'll say a little about Clarens.  Clarens calls itself, the jewel of the Freestate, and it's a quaint little place right outside of the Lesotho border.  It's actually a nice place to see if you are visiting Lesotho.  The contrast between the two places is shocking.  It's also a good place to get some Basotho crafts and some good food lacking in Lesotho.

The beautiful Maluti Mountains (in Lesotho)

Clarens has a cute little brewery where you can taste all the beers for free before making your order

The brewery even makes a few ciders: apple, pineapple, cherry, and a seasonal berry.

Hmmm...cheesecake

Basotho crafts!

Mozambique

I found Mozambique to be very different from the other Southern African countries I have visited.  For one, they speak Portuguese!  All the other countries I visited people will be speaking the local, African languages so hearing Portuguese is so disorienting.  On top of that very few people speak English.  That being said Mozambique was one of my favorite trips because it was so different from Lesotho; tropical, the ocean, and different food.

 Beautiful beach and beautiful weather for the middle of winter

Sugar cane everywhere

An apple was ridiculously expensive but tropical fruits like papaya and coconut were very cheap

Swaziland

Swaziland, the other tiny country in Southern Africa.  On the border of Mozambique it shares a lot with that country and with South Africa.  We stayed at a nature reserve and did a horse back tour of the park.

Another tropical country

My horse did not like me

The animals are surprisingly calm when you drive past them

Traditional Swazi clothing

Botswana

Botswana is a large country and I was only able to see its capital.  Without access to a private car I wasn't able to see the true sites of the country found at the Northern most end.  I've heard that some of these reserves are so exclusive that they advertise their prices in US dollars not in Pula, the local currency.  We stayed close to Mokolodi Nature Reserve and had a chance to see a few animals.

If I remember correctly this a male and female khudu

Warthogs; did you know that when they run their tails go up?

The zebras in Botswana have brown stripes on their behinds

A very rare site, this mother and baby rhino came very close to our tour

Because of the food they eat, these male giraffes get darker the older they are (from the sun)

It's a Jungle Out There

These past few weeks I've been counting down, 8 weeks, 6, 1 month....now I'm at 3 weeks left in Lesotho.
Leaving Lesotho was a hard decision to make and it still is.  Peace Corps doesn't just kick you out after 2 years; you have options to extend and flexibility on where and what you would be doing.  It was a very attractive option for me and there were a lot of reasons I could think of staying.
At the end the decision to leave was 60/40 and at different times the ratio changes.  Lesotho has been my home for the past two years and I've known little else during that time.  I've gotten used to the way of life, the people, my host family, my colleagues, and above all my fellow PCVs.  As a volunteer you are open to opportunities you could never have as a working person.  I considered using another year in Peace Corps to get experience for my career.  But at the end my decision to leave rested on two main things: I was tired of being a volunteer with the rules and policies I had to abide by and I missed home. I knew it was time to go back and move on with life.
You might think going home is the easy part but it's actually not.  Peace Corps spends so much time, materials, and effort preparing you to come to a new country; they spend two days on preparing you to go back home.  I imagine my homecoming to be little like Mogli's discovery of modern civilization in The Jungle Book but more like Tom Hank's return home in Castaway.  I know things have changed, people have changed, and while I can remember exactly what life was like in October 2011, I doubt most of you reading this post can.  There's actually a technical term for readjusting to coming back home: reverse homesickness.
So here's a warning to all my well wishing friends and family who can't wait to see me, ask me about how Africa is, what I ate for two years, why I didn't lose weight, and any other well wishing conversations you might wish have with me: be gentle with me, because while I can't wait to see you all I'm also figuring out my place in a world that hasn't seen me in two years.  I ask for you forgiveness now for all the times I may just shut down 'cause I'm tired of talking about a time that most of you could never understand.  And above all I ask for your patience as I play catch up on the past two years both on your lives and the rest of the world.  It'll take some time to fully readjust but I'm jumping back in to America with both feet.  I might have a little trouble remembering how to swim but with all of your love and support I know I won't be drowning.

Videos from Swearing In

Before leaving the USA I received a Flip with the instruction to record some cultural events during my stay here.  For swearing in we had three performances which I was able to record and (with much trouble) am now able to share.

But first a little about music in Lesotho.  The Basotho are amazingly talented when it comes to singing. And where there is singing there is always dancing (as you will see in these videos); you can't have one with out the other.  There is also very little instrumentation.  I have seen the use of whistles and some percussion instruments but nothing fancy and nothing melodic.  The only instrument that is very common in Lesotho is a type of accordion instrument that is commonly heard in Famu music, a specific form of music only found in Lesotho.  There is a cult culture associated with this music.  From what I've heard, a singer (I've only heard males) uses the accordion as an accompaniment to his singing.  I've heard that the various artists are very competitive with the popularity of their music.  You can hear this music everywhere, in taxis, walking around town, and shops in the village.  But as popular as this music is, I, personally, am not a huge fan of this music.

But the lack of instrumental accompaniment doesn't stop the Basotho from sounding amazing for they are master harmonizers.  Basotho can harmonize in their sleep and they sound amazing all together.  I've seen instances where people just start singing and, with no prior practice, people will just join in and harmonize according to their vocal range.

Now the music in these videos are on the more traditional side but contemporary R&B has a prominent presence in the younger generations.  Kids here love Beyonce, R. Kelly (or Robert Kelly), Alicia Keyes, Jay Z, and I've heard some Adele on the radio (Shakira's popular for her one song...guess which one would make her popular in Southern Africa).  But what's interesting is that while these artists are beloved by everyone, only a few songs make it to Lesotho and they are known for those few songs.  So I'll be talking to kids and say, "I love this song by Beyonce," and they'll shake their heads and break out in "Single Ladies" (which everyone knows).

The first video is of the Berea High School choir.  This was the school I taught at during training to practice teaching.  I was in the back row and they were performing to the important people in front but I hope you can hear how good they are.

The second video is a mokhibo dance group from one of the other villages.

The final video is a litolobonya dance.

The Chicken Project

Sometime this July one of my PCV friends emailed me.  She said a guy from an international NGO had asked about me and wanted to talk to me about a project and she wanted my permission before forwarding him my contacts.  I gave her the go ahead curious what this project was.

This NGO is a well known organization in Lesotho.  It’s American funded and concentrates on helping OVC (orphaned and vulnerable children) and others affected by HIV/AIDS.  They used to have a presence in my area but I had heard that they had stopped soon after I had arrived.  Needless to say, I was six months away from leaving Lesotho and I wasn’t very interested in getting involved with a large project but I figured I’d stay minimally involved.

A few days later my contact came to see me in the village to talk about the details of the project.  He told me that the organization had some money (actually a lot of money) to do an agricultural project in this community and it had to benefit OVCs especially those affected by HIV/AIDS.

Now, I have very limited contact with my community and have never even attempted to do a project with them.  I have my reasons; one, I’m always busy at school. Two, the community doesn’t really seem to need anything that I could help them with (they want electricity, a community center, and a clinic in the village).  But above all I have no interest working with the chief who is a drunk or the elected official in the area who I have heard is also good for nothing.  So when World Vision wanted to do a project with the community I told him straight up that I had very little idea what was possible in this community but I could tell him anything he wanted about the school.  After telling him what the school was doing he decided to work with them.

School started in a few weeks and he came by to speak with the teachers on what projects we could do.  When I spoke to him in July he was thinking about a chicken projects (which we already do at the school as a practical project but he wanted to expand it), a piggery (which the school had but was having problems with so we slaughtered the pigs), and an orchard (which at that time I was working with Ministry of Forestry to get one at my school already so he suggested we just add more trees).  I also suggested getting rabbits (which one of my teachers had told me about and seemed like a good project).  When he came to the school and spoke to the teachers he insisted on doing a chicken project which the school was not interested in expanding.  Raising chickens takes a lot of work and they preferred a piggery where the NGO could help them build a proper home (which we did not have funds to do) and help us buy new pigs to start off with.  Pigs take much less work to take care of but since World Vision insisted on chickens the school reluctantly agreed; they weren’t going to argue on something that was coming for free.

The old and new chicken houses

And so my contact submitted his business plan for approval, hired locals to build a new chicken house, and started working on acquiring the chickens.  When he was planning the project he told me that to make a real profit the school needs to be able to raise 500 chickens at a time and our chicken house could only handle 100.  So I was under the impression that the new building would be very large yet at the end it was around the same size as the previous.

A few weeks later, on a Thursday, he came by to check on the progress.  On that day we were having our farewell for our Form E’s (saying good bye) but I left to see him to get an idea what was going on.  He told me that he would bring the chicken food on Friday and the chickens would be coming soon.  I warned him that on Friday the school ended at 1pm and the next week we had vacation.  He nodded his head as if it wasn’t a problem and I reported to the rest of my co-workers.

He didn’t come on Friday, he ended up coming on Saturday which, by chance, some students and teachers were there to go to a competition so we were able to store the food away before leaving.  Later that week, when we had no school, he came to drop off the chickens.  Since there was no one there to take care of them he took them to town to the deputy principal’s house to take care of them until school began.

The chickens with small feeders and drinkers

On Monday the chickens were transported to school and the next week I asked my co-worker minding the chickens when we were going to get them (no one had told me that they had already come).  It was only then she told me the story and mentioned that ever since they were delivered to my deputy, one chick had been dying each day.  Hoping it was due to shock from the transport they were waiting to see what would happen.

That Friday, since the chickens were still dying, they bought medicine and put it in their water hoping to stop the problem and my co-workers told me the whole story.  The new house was not built properly; it leaked and had no ventilation so they had to leave the door open which allowed animals, rats, and other unwanted animals to enter.  On top of that, since they had no warning when the chicks were arriving, they had no time to clean the house and there might be some mold or bacteria that could be making the chickens sick.  So that weekend my co-workers, with the help of some students, cleaned the old chicken house and moved the chickens in there hoping to see a change.  There was none.

The traditional medicine

A few days later, seeing that the medicine didn’t work, my co-workers did an autopsy on one of the dead chicks.  They saw that the liver was enlarged and there was a yellow coat around it.  They decided to try a traditional Basotho medicine to help the chickens.  They found the plant in the village and squeezed its juices in to the water.

There have been other problems with the project.  This project is supposed to benefit certain students yet World Vision has not spoken to us on how they would like us to identify these students or how it should help them.  While the school is more than capable of figuring this out ourselves a good project manager would make sure we have a process for this project to continue in to the longer term.  And we have no idea if and when he will bring the rest of the chickens he promised.

I spoke to some of my volunteer friends about this since I had expected this project to go more smoothly and be better managed.  They said they weren’t surprised.  When I was discussing this project with him, he said he wanted this project to be finished by September and I understand that he needed it to be done by the end of the fiscal year.  And I suspect that when reporting on the number of children helped by this project he will report “200” the size of my school, not the number of OVCs here since he never asked for such a report from us.  But I have heard that this is typical of NGOs here.

With adult feeders and drinkers

When I first spoke with the NGO I was told about the various projects he did in my village and how they all failed but now I can see why.  With such poor communication, no regard for what the actual needs of the organization are, and no plan for the future, it’s obvious to see how the results are all the same.  It makes me wonder if these organizations lack the skills and knowledge to understand this or they simply don’t want to put in the time.  I’ve spoken to many people who work for NGO’s and I’ve realized that for them this is just a job.

It’s been a few weeks since my colleagues administered the traditional medicine to the chickens and they are all doing very well now.  We started out with a hundred chickens and fourteen have died.  Still, for the school this round is almost a hundred percent profit since we didn’t put any money in.  Though things were not going well with this project for some time my colleagues are excited by this income generating project and the ways they can develop the school using the funds generated from this project.  So all in all I think the project will have a happy ending.

The Village, the Goats, and the Little Sapplings

My school has a village problem.  I few months back I posted a link to see my village through Google Maps.  If you take a look at it you’ll see that my school is in the middle of the village with one side towards vast fields.  Most of us would think that people would respect the school educating their children but that’s not the case; the village is actually quite malicious to the school.

Min. of Forestry teaching students how to plant the trees

The herd boys, for instance, allow their cattle to graze on the school grounds and this is a huge problem.  Part of the agricultural program is to have practicals and part of this is crop production.  Every year the Form C’s raise crops with the hopes of selling them and every year almost all the crops are eaten by the cattle not to mention often trampled.  It’s not just that the herd boys walk their cattle through the school (which they often do at night); the herd boys don’t watch their cattle very carefully and every week we find stray cattle munching on school property.  For a long time the school would have some boys bring the strays to the chief in hopes that he would find the owner and punish them as a good chief should but that rarely is the case.  Thus, the problem persists.

The saplings looked like glorified branches

In August 2011 a new group of volunteers came to Lesotho and one of them was working for the Ministry of Agriculture in my local camptown.  She told me that the Ministry was giving away fruit trees for free.  I brought the idea to my Agriculture teacher and she jumped out of her seat with the idea of getting the school some trees.  Unfortunately the trees ran out before I had the chance to co-ordinate with the Ministry.

Basotho students know how to work!

The next year, in June, I decided to pursue the project and emailed someone from the Ministry of Forestry, the organization giving away the trees.  I soon set up an appointment with them to talk details and I brought my Agriculture teacher along since I have very little knowledge on the topic.  The meeting went great with my co-worker doing all the talking and co-ordination.  She set up a date for the Ministry to visit us and get a better idea how many trees they could give us.  All the school had to do was to start digging holes for the saplings.

By the end of June, just as schools were closing, the Ministry and the school set a date for when we would plant the saplings.  The day came and, with the help of the students, we planted over a hundred trees.  This project couldn’t have gone any better!

After a long days work, over a hundred trees planted

 I wish the story ended there for from this point things start going bad.  A few weeks after we planted the trees we noticed that some of the saplings were now missing; holes that had a tree in them now were empty.  When the Ministry came to plant the trees they brought many for the villagers to plant in their homes.  Unfortunately greed doesn’t have a limit.

The trees now have branches and have grown a little

Then there was the drought.  New trees need a lot of water and while the school did their best to water the trees at least once a week a bit of rain would have helped a lot.  Many of the trees seem to have gone dry and are no longer growing.

After that came the animals.  In September one of the trees started producing leaves and a few flower buds.  We were all so excited.  In a week, the tree was completely gone.  Other trees had been eaten and were half the size that they once were.  My colleagues tell me that this is the work of goats.

The first tree to have leaves.

About two weeks back I counted about ten saplings with leaves and I was happy since many of those had been eaten by goats.  The next week all those trees had lost their leaves.

It’s really quite sad seeing something you worked so hard for going to waste and knowing that there’s very little you can do about it.  My colleagues and I talk about building a fence but that takes money so there’s no guarantee that it will happen.  And at the rate the trees are being eaten and damaged its doubtful that even one will survive.  As I said in a previous post, not everything PCVs work at ends up going well and this is a project I thought was guaranteed to succeed.  Still, the school is hopeful that they will find a solution to the problem and get more trees in the next few years.  All I can do is hope that they do.

Somewhere Between Success and Failure

I wanted to write a post about the projects that have done and have succeeded in my community.  I titled it Success Stories and wrote about the school orchard and the library I set up here.  Yet the longer I watch these projects the more I doubt whether I really consider them a “success.”

PCVs are obsessed with this one word, sustainability.  We are trained that we are here to do sustainable work.  We aren't here to build clinics and schools; we are here to transfer skills by working with local counterparts.  A lot of PCVs still do projects on their own, or projects that are unsustainable by nature, but I have chosen not to.  So for the first year of my time here I just observed and taught, trying to figure out what my school would really benefit from.

One of the things my co-workers kept talking about was having a school library.  A PCV in my village before me applied for an ALP (African Library Project) library.  She wanted it to be a community library and was going to place it in the community center.  Before she could do so a storm blew off part of the roof and so they decided to put the library in the primary school which had many extra classrooms.  There the books were organized, alphabetized, put away, and locked up, never to be seen again (okay, so I'm being a little dramatic).

My co-workers told me that they had tried using the library but having it in the primary school made it difficult to use.  The primary school, apparently, refused to share the books with the secondary school.  The primary school never used the library and my co-workers told me that the teachers were stealing the books.

So after much thought and talking to my principal I decided to bring a few hundred books to the secondary school and see how it went.  My principal and I want to the primary school together and spoke to the primary school principal about taking books and a few book shelves.  She reluctantly agreed (no one argues with the American).  She found the key, opened the door, and my principal and I took a quick look around.  The shelves were half empty and very dusty.  My principal told me that the last time she was here the shelves were full.  That day I took about 500 books and started organizing them.

In January this year my principal and I came up with a borrowing policy and general rules for the library.  It was her idea to chose a student to be responsible for the library instead of teachers and we picked the student librarian together.  And we opened the library.

Since then the library has been going well.  Students feel comfortable in the library and go during break, lunch, and free class periods.  Sometimes they bring books to study, sometimes they pick up a book to read.  And my co-workers encourage students to go to the library to read.

A library is so important in a place like Qhalasi.  My students get excited to go to the local camp town, some of them have never left the district.  Their worlds are so small.  Some of them have internet phones but they only use it to download music and Facebook.  Their worlds are so tiny and through reading they can learn about so much more.  Unfortunately this is the case for most areas in Lesotho and so volunteers like myself see a library as something that could change our kids’ lives.  But most libraries that have been established in Lesotho have been forgotten as soon as the PCV leaves.  Reading, most Basotho say, is not part of their culture.  Also, Basotho value the books in the library and many times prefer to preserve them by locking them up than using them.  And some of this could very well happen at my school.  The library is less than a year old, still interesting.  Next year the students may not find it so new and fascinating and stop using it.

One of the hardest parts of leaving Lesotho is letting go of everything that gave me a purpose these past two years.  After December there’s nothing I can do to ensure the library continues being used.  That’s something I have to leave for the people, my colleagues, who stay.  I hope that they have realized the value of the library and keep it going.  Only time will tell.

Our small library with desks, chairs, and three book shelves.  Since this picture I've added another book shelf and at least a hundred more books.

With some of my students who use the library regularly.

And Two Years Later...

Two years ago, on October 14th, 2011 I landed in a foreign country with 22 other strangers.  I had never been in such a tiny airport which felt crowded by the small group of us.  Soon after landing  I was rushed in to a car to drive me to my host village and to stay with a family that spoke about ten words of English.  I still remember my host mother lighting my paraffin lamp that first day, sitting with my host parents quietly as my host mother cooked my first meal in Lesotho and wondering that whole night what the hell I was doing here.
I'm happy to say things have changed since that first day.  I went back to visit my host mother about a year ago and we were able to converse and completely understand each other.  Things have changed so much that I could barely remember this date and had to ask a few volunteers and consulate a few calendars to be sure.
This anniversary is bitter sweet for I have about 7 weeks left as a volunteer.  I came here knowing I would be leaving one day but now that the date has come I'm having a hard time getting ready to leave.  Just as coming to this country seemed unreal, leaving it also seems unreal and life as anything other than a volunteer is daunting.  Yet life goes on and so I must leave Lesotho.
So happy 2 years to my fellow training group!  We've come a long way and I hope our adventures never stops.