It has been a long time since I wrote a blog post. We have been really swamped out here, and I haven’t found much time to write.
We just wrapped up our Youth Action Week last Saturday. It was a great week for us, SMARTD, and the community. We were joined by Volker Schlott and Jocelyn B. Smith from Germany, who helped us form a mass choir featuring over 80 students from three area schools. They also wrote a brand new song titled “Matla a ho na”, or “The Power Within”. We shot a ton of video over the course of the week, which is headed back to Germany to be edited in to a short film. I will post when it gets released.
Over the course of the week, we met the students at each of the three schools. One school had over 120 students turn out for the rehearsal! The kids, teachers, and our guest musicians all had a lot of fun learning the new song, singing old songs, dancing, and working on their voices. We also had the opportunity to show our guests a few of the SMARTD projects.
We traveled out to a remote village where we visited a women’s group who have built an extensive system of gabions, stone walls, and catchment tanks to control erosion and heal gullies on the side of a mountain. It is a massive amount of work, all done by hand by just twelve women. It is women like these that truly inspire me. These women are not paid to do this backbreaking work (imagine hauling sandstone rocks up the side of a mountain endlessly, week after week). They do it because they care about their homes and their community, and they want to stop the erosion and reclaim the land belonging to them. They aren’t doing this for handouts, they are doing it simply because it is the right thing to do. Amazing. It is these kind of people who will make or break Lesotho as development continues, not politicians or foreign aid workers.
We have also started working with an area primary school. Once a week, we provide training for their teachers in the national Life Skills Syllabus. We are also providing them with computer training, which has been a lot of fun. We have only had one lesson so far, but everybody had a blast. Unlike the States, there is no stigma regarding age and the ability to learn new technologies. It is great to see men and women of all ages really diving in. It is amazing how much faster you learn if you aren’t convinced that you are “too old” to learn new tricks.
As the schools close for summer break and everyone gets ready to wind down for the holidays, we are going to be headed in to Maseru for more training. We have a lot of exciting things planned for the new year. We will open the youth and IT centers full-time. We hope to expand our Life Skills Trainings to other schools. We are also reaching an agreement to bring, for the first time, high-speed Internet to our area. This is no small endeavor, and watch for an announcement in the next couple of months on what you can do to help with that project.
-Wes
Monday, November 22, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Preparations, budgeting, and purchasing
Time for a quick update on what we have been doing.
The past few weeks have been pretty slow as our preparations for the youth and resource center wrapped up and we waited on our funding to arrive so we could makes our purchases and actually start setting up. Our funding was approved (in part) and arrived a few weeks ago, which led to a few frantic days of rehashing our budgets. We have also spent some time working with the staff here on revamping their budgeting and planning procedures. All very exciting stuff. Though I'm sure you're craving more of this riveting information, I'll spare you the details.
Things continue to go very well. We are wrapping up a trip to Maseru where we picked up the four computers for the IT center, as well as a ton of stuff for the youth center. We are literally going back with a truck-load of stuff. It is very exciting to see things coming together. Back in Qacha's Nek, the carpenter is finishing the painting of our new bookshelves so we can stock them and move the desks back in to the resource center and set up the computers. Meanwhile, the artist is painting several large murals on outdoor walls on subjects such as HIV/AIDS and healthy living, nutrition, hand washing, and geography.
The next month will be very busy as we prepare for a Youth Action Week we will be hosting alongside our German supporters and the opening of the youth and resource center. We are also conducting trainings for the primary school teachers so they can start teaching life skills to their kids. The school is great, and we are very grateful to be able to work with them.
Otherwise, not much is new. We are continuing to settle in to our house and Qacha's Nek. Lesotho is feeling like home, and it is strange to think about living back in the States with all the luxuries we were used to. We miss everyone back home- wish you were here!
-Wes
The past few weeks have been pretty slow as our preparations for the youth and resource center wrapped up and we waited on our funding to arrive so we could makes our purchases and actually start setting up. Our funding was approved (in part) and arrived a few weeks ago, which led to a few frantic days of rehashing our budgets. We have also spent some time working with the staff here on revamping their budgeting and planning procedures. All very exciting stuff. Though I'm sure you're craving more of this riveting information, I'll spare you the details.
Things continue to go very well. We are wrapping up a trip to Maseru where we picked up the four computers for the IT center, as well as a ton of stuff for the youth center. We are literally going back with a truck-load of stuff. It is very exciting to see things coming together. Back in Qacha's Nek, the carpenter is finishing the painting of our new bookshelves so we can stock them and move the desks back in to the resource center and set up the computers. Meanwhile, the artist is painting several large murals on outdoor walls on subjects such as HIV/AIDS and healthy living, nutrition, hand washing, and geography.
The next month will be very busy as we prepare for a Youth Action Week we will be hosting alongside our German supporters and the opening of the youth and resource center. We are also conducting trainings for the primary school teachers so they can start teaching life skills to their kids. The school is great, and we are very grateful to be able to work with them.
Otherwise, not much is new. We are continuing to settle in to our house and Qacha's Nek. Lesotho is feeling like home, and it is strange to think about living back in the States with all the luxuries we were used to. We miss everyone back home- wish you were here!
-Wes
Monday, September 20, 2010
First 5 Weeks in Qacha's Nek
We have been at site for five weeks now, and we are getting settled in to life and work in Qacha’s Nek. We have our house set up and it is starting to resemble a home rather than a temporary habitation. It is nice to finally be able to settle down and really unpack.
We work pretty regular hours- from 8:00 AM to 2:30 – 4:30, depending on the day’s activities. Our work is pretty varied. A lot of our time thus far has been spent meeting people in the community and attending workshops and meetings for our organization.
Much of my work also involves organizing the logistics needed to make the organization more efficient, such as setting up a schedule for transportation usage, and organizing materials and assisting with the technology they are already using.
Brandi spends a significant amount of time organizing materials for the Youth Resource Center, as well as meeting with supporting community members like the school principles to discuss how we can assist them and they can assist us.
We spent much of the previous two weeks budgeting as well. Our organization receives their funding for the fourth quarter next month, and we had to research and draft detailed purchasing plans to have our funding approved.
Life in our village is a little different than at home. After struggling with a problematic generator for weeks, they finally connected the permanent power lines a couple weeks ago. Having electricity all the time is a huge blessing. Water, on the other hand, is still problematic. We get it at night- sometimes. Maybe once a week in our house, though the compound gets it more frequently. Getting water in the house is a major cause for celebration. We can (slowly) fill up our four water buckets, and washing dishes becomes a thousand times easier. The first time we got enough water for the sink to work, I did all the dishes with a giant grin on my face. Go hug your dishwasher. Hug it right now. If we don’t have running water (the majority of the time, in other words), we go down to the compound buckets and fill them by hand, then haul them back. It isn’t far, fortunately, but the buckets get very heavy. For the record, just flushing a toilet, washing dishes, and drinking, two people go through about 40-80 liters of water a day. Ask me how I know.
We cook mostly everything we eat ourselves, from scratch. If we want Mexican food (assuming we have much-coveted refried beans from Maseru), Brandi makes tortillas from scratch, guacamole from scratch (also requiring precious, rare, and easily-spoiled avocados), and I cook bone-in chicken (all that is available) and then de-bone it afterwards for burritos. All dishes are similarly difficult. We are getting to be accomplished cooks.
There are three exceptions. If the field staff is here, the compound matron cooks everybody a huge Basotho lunch, usually with a starch such as rice, samp (think creamed corn), or papa (a stiff corn meal…thing), a couple vegetables such as steamed or fried greens, peas, pumpkin, or beet root, and chicken. It is awesome. On Saturdays, we sometimes go down to the road to our favorite food trailer. This is literally a tiny inoperable trailer that is converted to function as a miniature restaurant. She also makes Basotho food- usually papa, meroho (steamed greens), and chicken (during the week) or pork (pig’s ear, to be specific, which is remarkably bacon-like, served on Saturdays). She also makes incredible fries (chips here) that are rarely available.
Our final option is to venture in to Qacha’s Nek camp town, as we did last Friday. Qacha’s Nek is about 45 minutes away by private car. On Friday, we took public as nobody was headed that way by private. Taking public means you walk down to the road and catch one of the handful of “combis” clustered along the road. A combi is a small bus made to seat around 15 people. They actually usually carry closer to 20, sometimes more. Combis don’t leave until they are full, which means if you are the first person there, you might wait a long time. Fortunately, shortly after we arrived at the road, a partly full combi roared up and quickly filled with people who had been waiting with other combis. Even more fortunately, we were able to score the coveted seats in the front row next to the driver. The combi was beat to hell, and it was a probably only through creative engineering and repair and a series of miracles that the thing moved at all. This worked in our favor though, as the front seat backs were broken, making them similar to recliners. We are talking luxury of the highest order.
So we jumped in and the driver reached across, tied the door shut using a hole in the tape covering the void the window had once occupied and the grab handle, and we roared off. Hills ground the combi to a crawl, but through expedient (and exhilarating, or terrifying, depending on your individual capacity for risking violent death by combi wreck) use of the downhill slopes, we were able to make incredible time.
Living in a more developed village as we do, Qacha’s Nek holds little draw. The shopping isn’t any better than our own village. There are two things that hold our attention, though. The first is our P.O. box. The second is pizza.
Through the direction of other volunteers and ambiguous pointing from the locals, we tracked down Quick Serve, a restaurant with absolutely no sign or identification of any sort. This does not however, cut down on its popularity. I have no idea why, or how it came to be, but Italian food is very popular in Lesotho. Thus, Quick Serve makes a fine pizza. After a completely worthwhile hour wait, we got two incredible pizzas with olives, onions, green peppers, and shredded chicken, as well as Quick Serve’s staple item, french fries. It was one of the better meals I have had since arriving.
We were less fortunate on the combi ride back. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the combi to fill, followed by another hour and a half to make it home. We spent this time crammed, four abreast, in the back row, our packs jammed on to our laps and our knees in the seatbacks in front of us. This is more standard fare for riding public, and clarifies why, when disclosed to one of our coworkers that we had taken public to get in to town, her response was an astounded “Why?!”. All in all, not bad though.
-Wes
We work pretty regular hours- from 8:00 AM to 2:30 – 4:30, depending on the day’s activities. Our work is pretty varied. A lot of our time thus far has been spent meeting people in the community and attending workshops and meetings for our organization.
Much of my work also involves organizing the logistics needed to make the organization more efficient, such as setting up a schedule for transportation usage, and organizing materials and assisting with the technology they are already using.
Brandi spends a significant amount of time organizing materials for the Youth Resource Center, as well as meeting with supporting community members like the school principles to discuss how we can assist them and they can assist us.
We spent much of the previous two weeks budgeting as well. Our organization receives their funding for the fourth quarter next month, and we had to research and draft detailed purchasing plans to have our funding approved.
Life in our village is a little different than at home. After struggling with a problematic generator for weeks, they finally connected the permanent power lines a couple weeks ago. Having electricity all the time is a huge blessing. Water, on the other hand, is still problematic. We get it at night- sometimes. Maybe once a week in our house, though the compound gets it more frequently. Getting water in the house is a major cause for celebration. We can (slowly) fill up our four water buckets, and washing dishes becomes a thousand times easier. The first time we got enough water for the sink to work, I did all the dishes with a giant grin on my face. Go hug your dishwasher. Hug it right now. If we don’t have running water (the majority of the time, in other words), we go down to the compound buckets and fill them by hand, then haul them back. It isn’t far, fortunately, but the buckets get very heavy. For the record, just flushing a toilet, washing dishes, and drinking, two people go through about 40-80 liters of water a day. Ask me how I know.
We cook mostly everything we eat ourselves, from scratch. If we want Mexican food (assuming we have much-coveted refried beans from Maseru), Brandi makes tortillas from scratch, guacamole from scratch (also requiring precious, rare, and easily-spoiled avocados), and I cook bone-in chicken (all that is available) and then de-bone it afterwards for burritos. All dishes are similarly difficult. We are getting to be accomplished cooks.
There are three exceptions. If the field staff is here, the compound matron cooks everybody a huge Basotho lunch, usually with a starch such as rice, samp (think creamed corn), or papa (a stiff corn meal…thing), a couple vegetables such as steamed or fried greens, peas, pumpkin, or beet root, and chicken. It is awesome. On Saturdays, we sometimes go down to the road to our favorite food trailer. This is literally a tiny inoperable trailer that is converted to function as a miniature restaurant. She also makes Basotho food- usually papa, meroho (steamed greens), and chicken (during the week) or pork (pig’s ear, to be specific, which is remarkably bacon-like, served on Saturdays). She also makes incredible fries (chips here) that are rarely available.
Our final option is to venture in to Qacha’s Nek camp town, as we did last Friday. Qacha’s Nek is about 45 minutes away by private car. On Friday, we took public as nobody was headed that way by private. Taking public means you walk down to the road and catch one of the handful of “combis” clustered along the road. A combi is a small bus made to seat around 15 people. They actually usually carry closer to 20, sometimes more. Combis don’t leave until they are full, which means if you are the first person there, you might wait a long time. Fortunately, shortly after we arrived at the road, a partly full combi roared up and quickly filled with people who had been waiting with other combis. Even more fortunately, we were able to score the coveted seats in the front row next to the driver. The combi was beat to hell, and it was a probably only through creative engineering and repair and a series of miracles that the thing moved at all. This worked in our favor though, as the front seat backs were broken, making them similar to recliners. We are talking luxury of the highest order.
So we jumped in and the driver reached across, tied the door shut using a hole in the tape covering the void the window had once occupied and the grab handle, and we roared off. Hills ground the combi to a crawl, but through expedient (and exhilarating, or terrifying, depending on your individual capacity for risking violent death by combi wreck) use of the downhill slopes, we were able to make incredible time.
Living in a more developed village as we do, Qacha’s Nek holds little draw. The shopping isn’t any better than our own village. There are two things that hold our attention, though. The first is our P.O. box. The second is pizza.
Through the direction of other volunteers and ambiguous pointing from the locals, we tracked down Quick Serve, a restaurant with absolutely no sign or identification of any sort. This does not however, cut down on its popularity. I have no idea why, or how it came to be, but Italian food is very popular in Lesotho. Thus, Quick Serve makes a fine pizza. After a completely worthwhile hour wait, we got two incredible pizzas with olives, onions, green peppers, and shredded chicken, as well as Quick Serve’s staple item, french fries. It was one of the better meals I have had since arriving.
We were less fortunate on the combi ride back. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the combi to fill, followed by another hour and a half to make it home. We spent this time crammed, four abreast, in the back row, our packs jammed on to our laps and our knees in the seatbacks in front of us. This is more standard fare for riding public, and clarifies why, when disclosed to one of our coworkers that we had taken public to get in to town, her response was an astounded “Why?!”. All in all, not bad though.
-Wes
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tom Maresco
Thank you to all of you that have sent your condolences to the Peace Corps Lesotho family in the wake of the tragic death of Tom Maresco. We had not had the opportunity to meet Tom, but the entire community here is shaken by his death.
By all accounts, Tom was an outstanding volunteer and an outstanding person. It was easy to see the enormous impact he made through the stories and the tears shared at his memorial by his fellow volunteers, Basotho and American counterparts, and students. We - both Basotho and American - are diminished by his passing.
Please continue to pray for the volunteers, counterparts, and students who were close to Tom, as well as for his family. Also, please pray that the investigation would be swift and successful, and that the coward who took such a vibrant man from his loved ones and from this country so much too soon would be brought to justice.
-Wes and Brandi
By all accounts, Tom was an outstanding volunteer and an outstanding person. It was easy to see the enormous impact he made through the stories and the tears shared at his memorial by his fellow volunteers, Basotho and American counterparts, and students. We - both Basotho and American - are diminished by his passing.
Please continue to pray for the volunteers, counterparts, and students who were close to Tom, as well as for his family. Also, please pray that the investigation would be swift and successful, and that the coward who took such a vibrant man from his loved ones and from this country so much too soon would be brought to justice.
-Wes and Brandi
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Leaving CBT, Swearing In, and Qacha's Nek
A lot has happened since we last updated. The last few weeks have been extremely busy. Most importantly, all of us have officially sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers, and we are spread about the country at our individual sites!
All of our language tests, practical presentations, and exams are done. Our class scored well above the average, most likely due to the extra time we had in our training villages relative to previous groups. I scored Intermediate High and Brandi scored Intermediate Mid (though she had a harder tester than I did). We had three guys pull off Advanced Low, which is incredible.
On Sunday, August 8th, we had a ceremony with our bo-me and the chief, along with the Country Director of Peace Corps and her husband. The other two training villages had similar ceremonies. We were wished well and were able to thank the village, and then proceeded to a large feast the bo-me prepared. We gave our gift to our families, said good-bye, and boarded the bus for Maseru. It was difficult to leave what we had grown to know as home during these past two months.
We spent the next few days in Maseru getting ready to go to site. On Monday and Tuesday before swearing in, we attended a supervisor and counterpart workshop and met our supervisor for the first time. Our supervisor and counterparts are the host country nationals we will be working with at our post. For two days we discussed the ins and outs of working with a Peace Corps Volunteer and what our different roles would be in terms of work, housing, communication, and all the other facets of a working relationship across cultures.
On Wednesday, August 11th, we put on our Sunday best and headed to the Ambassador’s house for swearing in. Television crews and journalists were there to cover the event, along with our supervisors, some current volunteers, our trainers, and the Peace Corps staff. It was great to finally swear in after two months of training. Our three Advanced Low guys gave great speeches in Sesotho, and we received congratulations from the US Ambassador, the Minister of Health, and many other people, both Basotho and American. It was a really great day.
After swearing in, most people headed straight to their sites. Due to the distance to Qacha’s Nek, we had to wait until the next morning. We met our supervisor early in the morning and crammed all our things into his Hi-Lux and hit the road, passing about a billion students lining the road to the airport to wait for President Zuma from South Africa to arrive. After passing through Mafeteng, Mohales Hoek, and Quthing, we finally arrived at our new home in Ha Qacha’s Nek.
Our town is situated on the Senqu River, and our compound overlooks the river valley. Like the rest of Qacha’s Nek, our town is all high mountains and deep gorges, with striking scenery at a scale we aren’t used to seeing in flat Texas. The road there is littered with car-crushing boulders, big and small, that have fallen from the mountains and cliffs overhead, reminding you that you are never all-the-way safe here.
Our town is what would be called peri-urban here. It is a small town, but it has two many shops and facilities to really be called a village. We have three large (for Lesotho, think small Walgreens) well-stocked shops (one Chinese, one Indian, and one Basotho), along with both a primary and secondary school. The town has electricity provided by large petrol generators, but they shut off at night and from 10:00 – 12:00. The generators ran out of fuel yesterday as well, and we here it can sometimes be months before more arrives. Fortunately, our compound has a backup generator, so we at least get around four hours of power at night. We also have running water, with the caveat being that it doesn’t run. We got a little water (enough to fill our toilet tank, but not enough pressure to reach the taps) last night, but that is all we have seen. The water infrastructure is very old and cannot handle the strain of the growing population here.
Still, having sinks and an indoor toilet (even if the tank has to be manually filled) are major luxuries. We are counting our blessings. Our house is a four room “squaredoval” (square like a block house, but with a thatched roof like a rondaval), with a large room divided by a half wall into a kitchen and living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small storage room. It is great. Our compound also has several rondavals, a strip of motel-style rooms, a conference hall, a resource center, and a large kitchen and dining hall. It is a great place to live, and is well kept.
Brandi will be working as the Youth Desk Officer. She will be in charge of managing youth groups such as the choir and school-for-drop-outs that currently meet, as well as starting new groups and facilitating ways for the youth to be involved in our NGO’s projects.
I will be working as the Resource Center Manager, which will entail building our NGO’s capacity to maintain, enhance, and use the compound. Some of my tasks will include working out maintenance schedules, facilitating renovations and repairs, managing the construction and use of the IT center, and finding new ways to involve the community through the compound.
A big part of both of our jobs will be training the staff here to do everything above, since we are only here for two years.
The past few days have seen us meeting the important people in town, such as the chief, the principals of the schools, the police chief, the community council member, and the staff of the local clinic. In addition we have spent the past two days in a workshop with our coworkers to review the NGO’s project proposal from 2011 – 2013.
We are really excited to be here and to start digging in to our work. We have a lot of learning to do, but so far Qacha’s Nek and our partner NGO are treating us very well!
All of our language tests, practical presentations, and exams are done. Our class scored well above the average, most likely due to the extra time we had in our training villages relative to previous groups. I scored Intermediate High and Brandi scored Intermediate Mid (though she had a harder tester than I did). We had three guys pull off Advanced Low, which is incredible.
On Sunday, August 8th, we had a ceremony with our bo-me and the chief, along with the Country Director of Peace Corps and her husband. The other two training villages had similar ceremonies. We were wished well and were able to thank the village, and then proceeded to a large feast the bo-me prepared. We gave our gift to our families, said good-bye, and boarded the bus for Maseru. It was difficult to leave what we had grown to know as home during these past two months.
We spent the next few days in Maseru getting ready to go to site. On Monday and Tuesday before swearing in, we attended a supervisor and counterpart workshop and met our supervisor for the first time. Our supervisor and counterparts are the host country nationals we will be working with at our post. For two days we discussed the ins and outs of working with a Peace Corps Volunteer and what our different roles would be in terms of work, housing, communication, and all the other facets of a working relationship across cultures.
On Wednesday, August 11th, we put on our Sunday best and headed to the Ambassador’s house for swearing in. Television crews and journalists were there to cover the event, along with our supervisors, some current volunteers, our trainers, and the Peace Corps staff. It was great to finally swear in after two months of training. Our three Advanced Low guys gave great speeches in Sesotho, and we received congratulations from the US Ambassador, the Minister of Health, and many other people, both Basotho and American. It was a really great day.
After swearing in, most people headed straight to their sites. Due to the distance to Qacha’s Nek, we had to wait until the next morning. We met our supervisor early in the morning and crammed all our things into his Hi-Lux and hit the road, passing about a billion students lining the road to the airport to wait for President Zuma from South Africa to arrive. After passing through Mafeteng, Mohales Hoek, and Quthing, we finally arrived at our new home in Ha Qacha’s Nek.
Our town is situated on the Senqu River, and our compound overlooks the river valley. Like the rest of Qacha’s Nek, our town is all high mountains and deep gorges, with striking scenery at a scale we aren’t used to seeing in flat Texas. The road there is littered with car-crushing boulders, big and small, that have fallen from the mountains and cliffs overhead, reminding you that you are never all-the-way safe here.
Our town is what would be called peri-urban here. It is a small town, but it has two many shops and facilities to really be called a village. We have three large (for Lesotho, think small Walgreens) well-stocked shops (one Chinese, one Indian, and one Basotho), along with both a primary and secondary school. The town has electricity provided by large petrol generators, but they shut off at night and from 10:00 – 12:00. The generators ran out of fuel yesterday as well, and we here it can sometimes be months before more arrives. Fortunately, our compound has a backup generator, so we at least get around four hours of power at night. We also have running water, with the caveat being that it doesn’t run. We got a little water (enough to fill our toilet tank, but not enough pressure to reach the taps) last night, but that is all we have seen. The water infrastructure is very old and cannot handle the strain of the growing population here.
Still, having sinks and an indoor toilet (even if the tank has to be manually filled) are major luxuries. We are counting our blessings. Our house is a four room “squaredoval” (square like a block house, but with a thatched roof like a rondaval), with a large room divided by a half wall into a kitchen and living room, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a small storage room. It is great. Our compound also has several rondavals, a strip of motel-style rooms, a conference hall, a resource center, and a large kitchen and dining hall. It is a great place to live, and is well kept.
Brandi will be working as the Youth Desk Officer. She will be in charge of managing youth groups such as the choir and school-for-drop-outs that currently meet, as well as starting new groups and facilitating ways for the youth to be involved in our NGO’s projects.
I will be working as the Resource Center Manager, which will entail building our NGO’s capacity to maintain, enhance, and use the compound. Some of my tasks will include working out maintenance schedules, facilitating renovations and repairs, managing the construction and use of the IT center, and finding new ways to involve the community through the compound.
A big part of both of our jobs will be training the staff here to do everything above, since we are only here for two years.
The past few days have seen us meeting the important people in town, such as the chief, the principals of the schools, the police chief, the community council member, and the staff of the local clinic. In addition we have spent the past two days in a workshop with our coworkers to review the NGO’s project proposal from 2011 – 2013.
We are really excited to be here and to start digging in to our work. We have a lot of learning to do, but so far Qacha’s Nek and our partner NGO are treating us very well!
Friday, July 23, 2010
We have our site!
We have a big update tonight. This morning our Country Director, Program Directors, and the rest of the staff in charge of selecting our sites announced where each of us would be spending the next two years of our lives and what we will be doing.
For those who are not in the loop, site placement is a long process and is probably the most nerve-racking and important thing we do in training. There were 33 sites available this year across the country. As couples, only 5 were available to us. We had to rank those sites and justify our rankings with personal preferences and qualifications. The Peace Corps staff then looked at our qualifications and essays and assigned sites.
We got our first choice. We will spend the next two years in the Qacha’s Nek district. Qacha’s Nek is in the highlands, and has few volunteers at this time. We will be in a small town, but will still be relatively isolated.
Brandi will be assisting our partner organization with youth development. She will be traveling to other villages to work with local youth, as well as assisting with developing youth programs.
I will be assisting the same organization as they set up a technology resource center. I will help with planning and ordering equipment, setting up the lab and training staff to maintain it, and designing curriculum.
We will both have many opportunities to work with area youth and with other area projects, as well as collaborating on each other’s jobs.
We could not be more excited about our placement. We are really looking forward to working with our Basotho counterparts in Qacha’s Nek.
For those who are not in the loop, site placement is a long process and is probably the most nerve-racking and important thing we do in training. There were 33 sites available this year across the country. As couples, only 5 were available to us. We had to rank those sites and justify our rankings with personal preferences and qualifications. The Peace Corps staff then looked at our qualifications and essays and assigned sites.
We got our first choice. We will spend the next two years in the Qacha’s Nek district. Qacha’s Nek is in the highlands, and has few volunteers at this time. We will be in a small town, but will still be relatively isolated.
Brandi will be assisting our partner organization with youth development. She will be traveling to other villages to work with local youth, as well as assisting with developing youth programs.
I will be assisting the same organization as they set up a technology resource center. I will help with planning and ordering equipment, setting up the lab and training staff to maintain it, and designing curriculum.
We will both have many opportunities to work with area youth and with other area projects, as well as collaborating on each other’s jobs.
We could not be more excited about our placement. We are really looking forward to working with our Basotho counterparts in Qacha’s Nek.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Time for Me to Update
Hello everyone!
I started writing this two weeks ago and never finished...here it is anyways...
Wes has done all of the posts lately, so I thought I would add something too. We are still doing well. We are in Maseru today and were able to get some AMAZING pizza at a local Italian restaurant. I never liked pizza much at home, but now I am so excited to get it.
As promised, I will talk about my site visit week before last. It was wonderful! The volunteer I visited lives in a beautiful valley. She works at a local clinic with a support group and at a primary school teaching teachers life skills. I was really impressed with the clinic. They had a large supply of medications, and were very organized. I was surprised to learn that they have a high immunization rate among the children that they serve, and that they provide family planning services. For 5 rand (less than a US dollar) you can buy a medical book to keep all of your records. Once you have that, you can go to any clinic and get any prescription needed for free. This includes all ARV therapy for HIV as well. These services are subsidized through the government, FBO's, and NGO's.
Karolina (who I visited) lives in a nice rondaval with on her host family's property. The second day I was there we climbed to mountain behind her house (something I never thought I would do!). It was beautiful!! Hopefully I will be able to post pictures soon.
This past week we also visited a pediatric HIV and AIDS clinic run by Baylor. It was amazing! It was really awesome to see the work that they are able to do here with the children and their families. Lesotho has the 3rd (sometimes 2nd) highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, and its ravaging effects are everywhere. We will write a post soon (hopefully) discussing HIV and AIDS more directly.
We just finished our 5th week of training. I can't believe that we have been here for that long. It is no longer strange to us that we live in Africa. Things that used to seem so bizarre to us now seem so commonplace (using pit latrines, pee buckets, hand washing clothes, cows blocking the road on the way to school, animal noises waking us up at all hours of the night, living by candlelight after about 6pm, etc). Today we were walking to the shop in our village and 20 or so sheep went barreling by us. It didn't even strike me as odd. Lol...I guess I didn't expect to adjust so quickly.
We are really close to the other volunteers in our village. They have become our second family. It will be hard in a month when we are all split up to go to our separate villages. However, I am sure that we will make sure to keep in touch.
We should be getting the packet with all of the possible site placements tomorrow. Everyone is VERY excited! We know that we have been very spoiled living in the training village. Every Saturday we have been taken to Maseru where we are allowed to spend the day shopping, using the internet, seeing movies, etc. You can get pretty much anything you want in Maseru from KFC to new release movies to sushi to great grocery stores. However, once we go to our sites, it is likely that we will not have quite the selection of goods and entertainment, so we are taking advantage of it now!
The pace of life is very slow here, and I enjoy that very much. Even though we are busy in training most of the day, we have plenty of time at night to read, drink tea, cook, and hang out. The training center in Maseru has a library with a ton of books. I have read Stolen Lives about a family who was jailed in Morocco for 20 years and the Lovely Bones. Both were very good!
That's where I left off a couple of weeks ago. We are now halfway through week 7. We should find out at the end of the week where our permanent site will be. We are pretty sure that we will be in one of the southern districts called Qacha's Nek. It is in the highlands, so we will have cold winters, but our house will most likely have running water and electricity. Wes wanted the highlands and I wanted electricity, so it works out for both of us. Once we know our actual job, I will make sure that we update again. Nothing else has really changed. We are both still doing well. I have definitely become a much better cook! I have learned to make all sorts of breads and tortillas from scratch. We are eating very well right now while we can still get a good grocery selection from Maseru. It will probably not be this way once we get to site.
We would really like to hear from people! Let us know what is going on with you, how things are at home, etc. You can send us facebook messages or emails. My email is blacorte02@yahoo.com and Wes' is weshelm@gmail.com.
At some point I will post a wish list of things that we would love to have in care packages. Right now we are doing well, but I am sure that we will be missing some things once we get to site.
Thank you to everyone that has been praying for us and Wes' family during this hard time. It has been hard for Wes to not be with his family, but we know that we are where we need to be and that Gran is at home with Jesus.
Brandi
I started writing this two weeks ago and never finished...here it is anyways...
Wes has done all of the posts lately, so I thought I would add something too. We are still doing well. We are in Maseru today and were able to get some AMAZING pizza at a local Italian restaurant. I never liked pizza much at home, but now I am so excited to get it.
As promised, I will talk about my site visit week before last. It was wonderful! The volunteer I visited lives in a beautiful valley. She works at a local clinic with a support group and at a primary school teaching teachers life skills. I was really impressed with the clinic. They had a large supply of medications, and were very organized. I was surprised to learn that they have a high immunization rate among the children that they serve, and that they provide family planning services. For 5 rand (less than a US dollar) you can buy a medical book to keep all of your records. Once you have that, you can go to any clinic and get any prescription needed for free. This includes all ARV therapy for HIV as well. These services are subsidized through the government, FBO's, and NGO's.
Karolina (who I visited) lives in a nice rondaval with on her host family's property. The second day I was there we climbed to mountain behind her house (something I never thought I would do!). It was beautiful!! Hopefully I will be able to post pictures soon.
This past week we also visited a pediatric HIV and AIDS clinic run by Baylor. It was amazing! It was really awesome to see the work that they are able to do here with the children and their families. Lesotho has the 3rd (sometimes 2nd) highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world, and its ravaging effects are everywhere. We will write a post soon (hopefully) discussing HIV and AIDS more directly.
We just finished our 5th week of training. I can't believe that we have been here for that long. It is no longer strange to us that we live in Africa. Things that used to seem so bizarre to us now seem so commonplace (using pit latrines, pee buckets, hand washing clothes, cows blocking the road on the way to school, animal noises waking us up at all hours of the night, living by candlelight after about 6pm, etc). Today we were walking to the shop in our village and 20 or so sheep went barreling by us. It didn't even strike me as odd. Lol...I guess I didn't expect to adjust so quickly.
We are really close to the other volunteers in our village. They have become our second family. It will be hard in a month when we are all split up to go to our separate villages. However, I am sure that we will make sure to keep in touch.
We should be getting the packet with all of the possible site placements tomorrow. Everyone is VERY excited! We know that we have been very spoiled living in the training village. Every Saturday we have been taken to Maseru where we are allowed to spend the day shopping, using the internet, seeing movies, etc. You can get pretty much anything you want in Maseru from KFC to new release movies to sushi to great grocery stores. However, once we go to our sites, it is likely that we will not have quite the selection of goods and entertainment, so we are taking advantage of it now!
The pace of life is very slow here, and I enjoy that very much. Even though we are busy in training most of the day, we have plenty of time at night to read, drink tea, cook, and hang out. The training center in Maseru has a library with a ton of books. I have read Stolen Lives about a family who was jailed in Morocco for 20 years and the Lovely Bones. Both were very good!
That's where I left off a couple of weeks ago. We are now halfway through week 7. We should find out at the end of the week where our permanent site will be. We are pretty sure that we will be in one of the southern districts called Qacha's Nek. It is in the highlands, so we will have cold winters, but our house will most likely have running water and electricity. Wes wanted the highlands and I wanted electricity, so it works out for both of us. Once we know our actual job, I will make sure that we update again. Nothing else has really changed. We are both still doing well. I have definitely become a much better cook! I have learned to make all sorts of breads and tortillas from scratch. We are eating very well right now while we can still get a good grocery selection from Maseru. It will probably not be this way once we get to site.
We would really like to hear from people! Let us know what is going on with you, how things are at home, etc. You can send us facebook messages or emails. My email is blacorte02@yahoo.com and Wes' is weshelm@gmail.com.
At some point I will post a wish list of things that we would love to have in care packages. Right now we are doing well, but I am sure that we will be missing some things once we get to site.
Thank you to everyone that has been praying for us and Wes' family during this hard time. It has been hard for Wes to not be with his family, but we know that we are where we need to be and that Gran is at home with Jesus.
Brandi
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Training, Weeks 1 - 4
As promised, here is a wrap-up of our first four weeks here in Lesotho.
We arrived on June 4th, and were brought to the Peace Corps Training Center, where we stayed two nights. The training center is a nice place, with running water, electricity, and hot showers. We got to know our group and got basic introductions to language, safety and security, and culture.
On day three, we received our village placements for Community Based Training. Our group of 28 was split in to three and placed in small villages near Maseru. We re-packed our things and were brought to our village that afternoon, where we were greeted by the village kids and many excited bo-m’e (moms). We were introduced to our host m’e, who then gave us our Sesotho names. Unfortunately, we were mistakenly introduced as twins and received Sesotho names accordingly (Ntate Neo and M’e Lineo). This has led to some confusion, but I am starting to get good at explaining in Sesotho that we are married, and I am not sleeping with my sister, to many bo-ntate. Good times.
After the ceremony, a bunch of kids carried our stuff to our house, where we got to meet more of our family. I can’t tell you how many bo-ausi (sisters) and bo-abuti (brothers) we have across Lesotho, but we have four bo-ausi and two bo-abuti living with us. Our M’e and Ntate both speak a little English, and have been great at taking care of us and teaching us new words and phrases. One of our ausis is fluent in English, and has also been very helpful.
We live in a family farm compound at the edge of town. Our family lives in a tin-roofed cinder block house with a kitchen and living room, and we live in a small one-room house of the same construction adjacent to the main house. Outside, our family has cattle and pig pens, a chicken coop, and a large garden. We have no running water or electricity, but we have adapted easily, though our latrine is a bit fuller than our noses might prefer. We heat our house (while we are awake) with a small propane heater, and bath using large buckets (bathing is very cold, by the way). Water for bathing, cleaning, and cooking is kept in two large buckets. All our drinking water must be boiled. It frequently drops below freezing at night; so staying warm is sometimes a problem. I usually sleep under two thick blankets while wearing layers, while Brandi prefers to sleep on top of the bed inside a 20* sleeping bag.
Our Ntate and Abuti, along with herd boys from the village, take the cattle and sheep our daily to graze outside the village. Our M’e and bo-ausi, as well as our youngest abuti, spend the day around the house keeping things running.
Our days in the following weeks consisted of Sesotho lessons in the morning from 8:30 – 9:45 or 10:00, followed by tea. One of the perks of training is free tea, cookies, and fruit daily. We then catch a small bus to the central village hosting trainees, where we receive morning and afternoon sessions in a variety of subjects, including Peace Corps policy, HIV/AIDS, culture, agriculture, business, health, nutrition, and youth. The sessions are intensive, and we get a ton of information thrown at us each day. It can be overwhelming at times, but we are learning quickly.
During the first two weeks, our M’e cooked all our meals for us. Breakfast was corn flakes or lesheleshele (a type of sorghum porridge), peanut butter on bread, and hard-boiled or baked eggs. Dinners included traditional Papa le Moroho, a stiff corn meal with bitter green vegetables, with tuna in tomato sauce; chicken, either boiled or fried (fried is outstanding), with moroho and mokupa (mashed pumpkin, which is kind of like sweet potatoes), fish and chips (our favorite), and spaghetti with a strange, but good, meat sauce. Lunch was always a peanut butter sandwich on homemade bread, either with cheese and tomato or hard-boiled eggs.
On the second week our M’e showed us how to cook things like papa, lesheleshele, and bread, as well as how to do dishes and wash our cloths. You have to re-learn everything here, as nothing is the same as the states. Everything takes twice as long and four times as much effort here. We often joked that we were back in high school, learning chores, with a dog-enforced curfew, and concerned moms back home wondering where we were and concerned with our safety and well being.
On the third week, we started cooking for ourselves and doing all our own chores. At this point, our days looked something like this:
6:15 – I wake up and turn on the heater and set the water to boil, then dive back in bed to stay warm.
6:30 – We get up, start getting ready, make breakfast, take out waste water and dump the pee bucket (Yes, we have a pee bucket. Remember, it is below freezing at night and there are dogs outside. You don’t go out if you don’t have to.)
8:15 – Say goodbye to the family and walk to school for Sesotho.
8:30 – 4:00 – School
4:00 – Most days, we walk 30 minutes back to our village. If we are feeling lazy, sick, or it is super cold, we catch the bus, but it takes longer since it has to go to another village before ours, and time is of the essence since sun down is around 6:30.
4:00 – 5:00 – We usually hang out with our family or with other trainees. One day we went and watched a chicken get slaughtered. Entertainment can be hard to come by, though we did get to see all the USA world cup games, up until USA decided that sucking was more fun than actually playing well.
5:30 – 7:30 – We cook dinner sometime in here, clean dishes, study Sesotho, and get ready for bed.
8:00 – 9:00 – We go to bed. By this time, you have exhausted all your options and there isn’t really much reason to stay up. I am getting more sleep over here than I ever have in my life.
On the second Saturday we went in to Maseru for the first time to do a little shopping, buy cell phones (e-mail me for the number), and explore the taxi rank. The taxi rank is a sprawling complex of vendor sheds, combis (small buses), and buses. As you walk through, everyone screams for your attention and business, and you are very conscious that you stand out. We have been through it a few times now and are getting used to it and growing in confidence, but it was a little intimidating at first.
The third Saturday, we went to TY, a camp town in Berea to do our shopping. On the way, we explored traditional cave houses built under a rock overhang. It was a living museum, as the houses were still occupied, and we got to meet and talk with their residents. Where Maseru looks like a modern, western town (well, outside the taxi rank), TY looks like you would expect Africa to look. The whole place is bustling with activity along one main drag, where we explored shops trying to find the staples we needed to cook for ourselves. It is in these types of towns that most of us will do our shopping once we reach our permanent homes, so it was good to see what will be available.
On the fourth week, we were sent out on site visits. We traveled back to Maseru early Saturday morning to meet up with current volunteers, who would take us out to their sites via public transport. I was paired with another female trainee (Brandi went elsewhere), and we met up with our volunteer, a guy living Mohales Hoek. We bought some groceries in Maseru and headed for the rank, where we caught a nicer combi called a Quantum. We rode this with 15-20 other passengers to the Mohales Hoek camp town about two hours away. We had a couple hours until our bus left, so we dropped our stuff off on the bus and explored the town a bit (in general, you can trust people you know to take care of your stuff, and our volunteer knew half the people on the bus). Afterwards, we crammed in to the bus and rode four and a half more hours out to his site. Public transport is nothing like the states. For one, even on that long of a bus ride, you cram in. The aisles were full and we were all three crammed in to one bench seat. The bus had no air conditioning and was scalding hot in the afternoon sun, but you still have to fight to keep the window open because the Basotho prefer them closed. Also, every bus in Lesotho is a party bus – there are no open container laws here, so the bo-ntate in front of us were hammered by the time we arrived. Oh, and the paved road ended thirty minutes in to the trip. That said, your expectations here change rapidly, and the ride was labeled overall as “not too bad”.
Our volunteer has a gorgeous rondaval (a round, thatched-roof building) divided in to two rooms in a river valley. The country was gorgeous and we got to do a good deal of hiking, mainly because you have to hike to get anywhere (including down a steep slope and across a river to get to the shop). We also got to spend a lot of time with his “crew”, a group of teenagers that came over and hung out outside his house at all hours of the day and night. We had a great time talking with them. Highlights included introducing possibly the first game of air hockey to ever be played in Lesotho via my iPad with the drums of the sangoma (traditional healers) sounding off in the distance, and teaching the guys to sing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and other great songs in the middle of the night.
Brandi got to visit a female volunteer working with a clinic near TY. I’ll let her talk more about that in her own post, as I probably wouldn’t do it justice.
We got back to Maseru last Wednesday, where we did some shopping, enjoyed a cheeseburger, got more shots, and headed home to the village. We did laundry, relaxed in the sun (we are going through a warm snap), and did a nice Mexican potluck with the other five volunteers in our village. We are down by two, as one trainee had to drop out and another had to return home for a short time (though she will be back on Monday!), so pray for us in that regard- our village has been hard-hit with difficulties, though we are a scrappy bunch.
Things are certainly different here, but we love it. God is definitely looking out for us and challenging us in many ways. We are adjusting quickly to the new language, new ways of doing things, and the new culture. Our jobs are going to be very difficulty, bordering on impossible, so pray for lots of little miracles when we reach our site placement in August. Despite the difficulty, this is exactly where we want to be, and we are going to be doing exactly the kind of work we want to be doing. We are truly blessed to be here, and we are more aware of it each day. With the difficulty of our new lives comes enormous reward.
We will try to write some articles about Basotho culture and other subjects we are learning in the coming weeks, so check back here. We will also keep you updated on what is going on in our day-to-day lives. Also, we would love to here from you guys back home – it is easy to feel really out of touch, so even mundane stuff makes us feel connected. Shoot us e-mails or facebook Brandi if you think about us – contact from home makes hard days easier. We miss everybody, but we couldn’t be happier about where we are!
-Wes and Brandi
We arrived on June 4th, and were brought to the Peace Corps Training Center, where we stayed two nights. The training center is a nice place, with running water, electricity, and hot showers. We got to know our group and got basic introductions to language, safety and security, and culture.
On day three, we received our village placements for Community Based Training. Our group of 28 was split in to three and placed in small villages near Maseru. We re-packed our things and were brought to our village that afternoon, where we were greeted by the village kids and many excited bo-m’e (moms). We were introduced to our host m’e, who then gave us our Sesotho names. Unfortunately, we were mistakenly introduced as twins and received Sesotho names accordingly (Ntate Neo and M’e Lineo). This has led to some confusion, but I am starting to get good at explaining in Sesotho that we are married, and I am not sleeping with my sister, to many bo-ntate. Good times.
After the ceremony, a bunch of kids carried our stuff to our house, where we got to meet more of our family. I can’t tell you how many bo-ausi (sisters) and bo-abuti (brothers) we have across Lesotho, but we have four bo-ausi and two bo-abuti living with us. Our M’e and Ntate both speak a little English, and have been great at taking care of us and teaching us new words and phrases. One of our ausis is fluent in English, and has also been very helpful.
We live in a family farm compound at the edge of town. Our family lives in a tin-roofed cinder block house with a kitchen and living room, and we live in a small one-room house of the same construction adjacent to the main house. Outside, our family has cattle and pig pens, a chicken coop, and a large garden. We have no running water or electricity, but we have adapted easily, though our latrine is a bit fuller than our noses might prefer. We heat our house (while we are awake) with a small propane heater, and bath using large buckets (bathing is very cold, by the way). Water for bathing, cleaning, and cooking is kept in two large buckets. All our drinking water must be boiled. It frequently drops below freezing at night; so staying warm is sometimes a problem. I usually sleep under two thick blankets while wearing layers, while Brandi prefers to sleep on top of the bed inside a 20* sleeping bag.
Our Ntate and Abuti, along with herd boys from the village, take the cattle and sheep our daily to graze outside the village. Our M’e and bo-ausi, as well as our youngest abuti, spend the day around the house keeping things running.
Our days in the following weeks consisted of Sesotho lessons in the morning from 8:30 – 9:45 or 10:00, followed by tea. One of the perks of training is free tea, cookies, and fruit daily. We then catch a small bus to the central village hosting trainees, where we receive morning and afternoon sessions in a variety of subjects, including Peace Corps policy, HIV/AIDS, culture, agriculture, business, health, nutrition, and youth. The sessions are intensive, and we get a ton of information thrown at us each day. It can be overwhelming at times, but we are learning quickly.
During the first two weeks, our M’e cooked all our meals for us. Breakfast was corn flakes or lesheleshele (a type of sorghum porridge), peanut butter on bread, and hard-boiled or baked eggs. Dinners included traditional Papa le Moroho, a stiff corn meal with bitter green vegetables, with tuna in tomato sauce; chicken, either boiled or fried (fried is outstanding), with moroho and mokupa (mashed pumpkin, which is kind of like sweet potatoes), fish and chips (our favorite), and spaghetti with a strange, but good, meat sauce. Lunch was always a peanut butter sandwich on homemade bread, either with cheese and tomato or hard-boiled eggs.
On the second week our M’e showed us how to cook things like papa, lesheleshele, and bread, as well as how to do dishes and wash our cloths. You have to re-learn everything here, as nothing is the same as the states. Everything takes twice as long and four times as much effort here. We often joked that we were back in high school, learning chores, with a dog-enforced curfew, and concerned moms back home wondering where we were and concerned with our safety and well being.
On the third week, we started cooking for ourselves and doing all our own chores. At this point, our days looked something like this:
6:15 – I wake up and turn on the heater and set the water to boil, then dive back in bed to stay warm.
6:30 – We get up, start getting ready, make breakfast, take out waste water and dump the pee bucket (Yes, we have a pee bucket. Remember, it is below freezing at night and there are dogs outside. You don’t go out if you don’t have to.)
8:15 – Say goodbye to the family and walk to school for Sesotho.
8:30 – 4:00 – School
4:00 – Most days, we walk 30 minutes back to our village. If we are feeling lazy, sick, or it is super cold, we catch the bus, but it takes longer since it has to go to another village before ours, and time is of the essence since sun down is around 6:30.
4:00 – 5:00 – We usually hang out with our family or with other trainees. One day we went and watched a chicken get slaughtered. Entertainment can be hard to come by, though we did get to see all the USA world cup games, up until USA decided that sucking was more fun than actually playing well.
5:30 – 7:30 – We cook dinner sometime in here, clean dishes, study Sesotho, and get ready for bed.
8:00 – 9:00 – We go to bed. By this time, you have exhausted all your options and there isn’t really much reason to stay up. I am getting more sleep over here than I ever have in my life.
On the second Saturday we went in to Maseru for the first time to do a little shopping, buy cell phones (e-mail me for the number), and explore the taxi rank. The taxi rank is a sprawling complex of vendor sheds, combis (small buses), and buses. As you walk through, everyone screams for your attention and business, and you are very conscious that you stand out. We have been through it a few times now and are getting used to it and growing in confidence, but it was a little intimidating at first.
The third Saturday, we went to TY, a camp town in Berea to do our shopping. On the way, we explored traditional cave houses built under a rock overhang. It was a living museum, as the houses were still occupied, and we got to meet and talk with their residents. Where Maseru looks like a modern, western town (well, outside the taxi rank), TY looks like you would expect Africa to look. The whole place is bustling with activity along one main drag, where we explored shops trying to find the staples we needed to cook for ourselves. It is in these types of towns that most of us will do our shopping once we reach our permanent homes, so it was good to see what will be available.
On the fourth week, we were sent out on site visits. We traveled back to Maseru early Saturday morning to meet up with current volunteers, who would take us out to their sites via public transport. I was paired with another female trainee (Brandi went elsewhere), and we met up with our volunteer, a guy living Mohales Hoek. We bought some groceries in Maseru and headed for the rank, where we caught a nicer combi called a Quantum. We rode this with 15-20 other passengers to the Mohales Hoek camp town about two hours away. We had a couple hours until our bus left, so we dropped our stuff off on the bus and explored the town a bit (in general, you can trust people you know to take care of your stuff, and our volunteer knew half the people on the bus). Afterwards, we crammed in to the bus and rode four and a half more hours out to his site. Public transport is nothing like the states. For one, even on that long of a bus ride, you cram in. The aisles were full and we were all three crammed in to one bench seat. The bus had no air conditioning and was scalding hot in the afternoon sun, but you still have to fight to keep the window open because the Basotho prefer them closed. Also, every bus in Lesotho is a party bus – there are no open container laws here, so the bo-ntate in front of us were hammered by the time we arrived. Oh, and the paved road ended thirty minutes in to the trip. That said, your expectations here change rapidly, and the ride was labeled overall as “not too bad”.
Our volunteer has a gorgeous rondaval (a round, thatched-roof building) divided in to two rooms in a river valley. The country was gorgeous and we got to do a good deal of hiking, mainly because you have to hike to get anywhere (including down a steep slope and across a river to get to the shop). We also got to spend a lot of time with his “crew”, a group of teenagers that came over and hung out outside his house at all hours of the day and night. We had a great time talking with them. Highlights included introducing possibly the first game of air hockey to ever be played in Lesotho via my iPad with the drums of the sangoma (traditional healers) sounding off in the distance, and teaching the guys to sing “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and other great songs in the middle of the night.
Brandi got to visit a female volunteer working with a clinic near TY. I’ll let her talk more about that in her own post, as I probably wouldn’t do it justice.
We got back to Maseru last Wednesday, where we did some shopping, enjoyed a cheeseburger, got more shots, and headed home to the village. We did laundry, relaxed in the sun (we are going through a warm snap), and did a nice Mexican potluck with the other five volunteers in our village. We are down by two, as one trainee had to drop out and another had to return home for a short time (though she will be back on Monday!), so pray for us in that regard- our village has been hard-hit with difficulties, though we are a scrappy bunch.
Things are certainly different here, but we love it. God is definitely looking out for us and challenging us in many ways. We are adjusting quickly to the new language, new ways of doing things, and the new culture. Our jobs are going to be very difficulty, bordering on impossible, so pray for lots of little miracles when we reach our site placement in August. Despite the difficulty, this is exactly where we want to be, and we are going to be doing exactly the kind of work we want to be doing. We are truly blessed to be here, and we are more aware of it each day. With the difficulty of our new lives comes enormous reward.
We will try to write some articles about Basotho culture and other subjects we are learning in the coming weeks, so check back here. We will also keep you updated on what is going on in our day-to-day lives. Also, we would love to here from you guys back home – it is easy to feel really out of touch, so even mundane stuff makes us feel connected. Shoot us e-mails or facebook Brandi if you think about us – contact from home makes hard days easier. We miss everybody, but we couldn’t be happier about where we are!
-Wes and Brandi
Friday, July 2, 2010
We have internet now (3G and EDGE signal are available across most of Lesotho), so we will start updating this more regularly. We are currently in Community Based Training in a small village, and will be here until mid-August. We will write up a summery of everything that we have been doing for the past month soon, but for now, here are a few ways our lives are different:
-I am posting this by the light of a paraffin lamp.
-Unless we are in town, we make everything we eat using a two burner propane stove.
-The closest thing to running water we have used in a month is pouring water out of a pitcher.
-Our refrigerator is the floor under our table, next to the wall. It stays cold enough 24/7 to keep cheese and butter fresh.
-We wake up to the sound of the cows being taken out to graze, the rooster crowing, and the pigs being fed. This all occurs within about 50 feet of where we sleep. And I thought barking dogs were bad at home.
-We have a sun-down curfew. It is enforced by wild dogs.
-We can see the southern cross and the milky way every night.
-We have four sisters and two brothers living in our family compound. There are more than I can remember elsewhere.
-Ke bua sesotho hayane, empa hamonate. Ke tla ithute ho bua sesotho hoholu, le ho kopane batho ba Lesotho ka motse oa ka.
We will post more later, but for now, we miss everybody but we are having a blast. I still don't think it has completely settled in that we live in Lesotho, and it definitely hasn't set in that this is really my job. I can't believe I am getting paid for this. We are very, very blessed. Please feel free to e-mail us... it may take us a few days to write back, but we would love to hear from everyone back home!
-Wes
-I am posting this by the light of a paraffin lamp.
-Unless we are in town, we make everything we eat using a two burner propane stove.
-The closest thing to running water we have used in a month is pouring water out of a pitcher.
-Our refrigerator is the floor under our table, next to the wall. It stays cold enough 24/7 to keep cheese and butter fresh.
-We wake up to the sound of the cows being taken out to graze, the rooster crowing, and the pigs being fed. This all occurs within about 50 feet of where we sleep. And I thought barking dogs were bad at home.
-We have a sun-down curfew. It is enforced by wild dogs.
-We can see the southern cross and the milky way every night.
-We have four sisters and two brothers living in our family compound. There are more than I can remember elsewhere.
-Ke bua sesotho hayane, empa hamonate. Ke tla ithute ho bua sesotho hoholu, le ho kopane batho ba Lesotho ka motse oa ka.
We will post more later, but for now, we miss everybody but we are having a blast. I still don't think it has completely settled in that we live in Lesotho, and it definitely hasn't set in that this is really my job. I can't believe I am getting paid for this. We are very, very blessed. Please feel free to e-mail us... it may take us a few days to write back, but we would love to hear from everyone back home!
-Wes
Friday, June 4, 2010
Staging and Travel
After a day of training and 20+ hours of travel, we are finally in Johannesburg! By the end of the night, we will be in Lesotho to start our training.
We left for staging in Philadelphia bright and early Wednesday morning. We got a crash course in the Peace Corps and are now officially Peace Corps Trainees! We also got to meet the other CHED volunteers that are going with us to Lesotho. It seems like we have a really great group and we are excited to get to know everybody better.
We left Philly in the middle of the night to bus over to our flight to South Africa. After a long stay in the airport, we made it on to our flight. 15 hours later, we are parked for another long airport stay while we wait on our flight to Maseru. Once we get there, we will meet with the Peace Corps doc and finally get some sleep (I hope).
It has been a lot of fun hearing everybody's stories, and we have been fortunate to meet several current and returned Peace Corps volunteers from Kenya and Malawi that stumbled across us in the airport and on our flight. Everybody has been very supportive, and I am more excited than ever to get started.
We are tired, grimy, I haven't slept in days, and our shoulders hurt from carrying bags, but we are excited to be here. The next few months at training are going to be intense, but we can't wait to get started!
-Wes (Brandi is asleep on the floor... it has been a long few days...)
We left for staging in Philadelphia bright and early Wednesday morning. We got a crash course in the Peace Corps and are now officially Peace Corps Trainees! We also got to meet the other CHED volunteers that are going with us to Lesotho. It seems like we have a really great group and we are excited to get to know everybody better.
We left Philly in the middle of the night to bus over to our flight to South Africa. After a long stay in the airport, we made it on to our flight. 15 hours later, we are parked for another long airport stay while we wait on our flight to Maseru. Once we get there, we will meet with the Peace Corps doc and finally get some sleep (I hope).
It has been a lot of fun hearing everybody's stories, and we have been fortunate to meet several current and returned Peace Corps volunteers from Kenya and Malawi that stumbled across us in the airport and on our flight. Everybody has been very supportive, and I am more excited than ever to get started.
We are tired, grimy, I haven't slept in days, and our shoulders hurt from carrying bags, but we are excited to be here. The next few months at training are going to be intense, but we can't wait to get started!
-Wes (Brandi is asleep on the floor... it has been a long few days...)
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Contact Info
Hello Everyone!
If you are interested in sending us letters or packages while we are in training, I have attached an important letter from the Peace Corps below. Once we are done with training, we will have a different mailing address and I will make sure to get that out to everyone then!
If you do send a package, put a cross or "God Bless" or something along those lines on the outside. Apparently that adds a little bit security to it.
Brandi
Dear Families and Friends,
Greetings from the Lesotho desk at the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C.! It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Peace Corps circle of friendship. We receive many questions from family members and friends about life in Lesotho over the course of the Volunteers’ two years of service, so we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance.
1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho) Mail in Lesotho is fairly reliable. Volunteers find they generally receive mail and packages from the United States two to four weeks after it has been sent. The same is true in sending mail from Lesotho. Of course, there are exceptional cases in which a letter or a package might arrive within a shorter period or be substantially delayed. Some mail may simply not arrive. We suggest that in your first letters you ask the Volunteer to give an estimate of how long it takes for him/her to receive your letters, and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he/she has missed one.
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a rewarding experience; however, there will also be times that Volunteers will feel frustrated and they may write home telling of their "war" stories. Letters might describe recent illnesses, frustration with work, lack of resources, information, and infrastructure, etc. While the subject matter may be good reading material, it can often be misinterpreted on the home front. Volunteers have a support network in-country which includes other Peace Corps Volunteers, counterparts and community members at their site, as well as Peace Corps Lesotho staff. The Peace Corps’ highest priority is maintaining the good health and safety of every Volunteer. Peace Corps Lesotho maintains a medical unit with two full-time medical officers, who care for the Volunteers’ primary health care needs. Additional medical services, such as testing and basic treatments, are available in Lesotho and just over the border in South Africa. If the Volunteer is seriously ill, they will be transported to South Africa or to the United States.
If for some reason your communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member, you may want to contact the Lesotho desk or the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Headquarters, Washington, D.C. at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470. Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that a message can be sent to the Volunteer. The office is available 24-hours a day. For after hours calls, tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency, and the Duty Officer will call you back.
2. Telephone Calls. Telephone lines in Lesotho are not very reliable. During the pre-service training, opportunities for the trainees to call the United States will be limited. Volunteers may or may not have residential phones; however, some Volunteers choose to buy cell phones, use public phones, or find that a neighbor or the organization they work with has a phone they are able to use to make and receive calls on. They will be able to inform you of telephone numbers where you might reach them once they arrive at their permanent sites.
The Lesotho Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Maseru through phone calls and e-mail. However, these communications are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail, personal phone calls, or e-mail. Volunteers may have access to e-mail at internet cafes on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on their location.
3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to occasional thefts and customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may also use the following address to send letters and/or packages:
Name of Volunteer, PCV
U. S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 554
Maseru, 100
LESOTHO
It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Maseru. If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to the Country Director, c/o U. S. Peace Corps, 5 Bowker Road, Maseru, Lesotho (the phone number for the Peace Corps office in Lesotho is 266-22-313-871, as DHL will need this information). If you send the item to the Country Director, no liability can be assumed. For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com . Other courier services may operate in Maseru - DHL is only one possibility.
We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member or friend is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho. We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the Lesotho desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2331/2332, or locally, 202-692-2331/2332.
If you are interested in sending us letters or packages while we are in training, I have attached an important letter from the Peace Corps below. Once we are done with training, we will have a different mailing address and I will make sure to get that out to everyone then!
If you do send a package, put a cross or "God Bless" or something along those lines on the outside. Apparently that adds a little bit security to it.
Brandi
Dear Families and Friends,
Greetings from the Lesotho desk at the Peace Corps in Washington, D.C.! It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to the Peace Corps circle of friendship. We receive many questions from family members and friends about life in Lesotho over the course of the Volunteers’ two years of service, so we would like to offer you advice and assistance in advance.
1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho) Mail in Lesotho is fairly reliable. Volunteers find they generally receive mail and packages from the United States two to four weeks after it has been sent. The same is true in sending mail from Lesotho. Of course, there are exceptional cases in which a letter or a package might arrive within a shorter period or be substantially delayed. Some mail may simply not arrive. We suggest that in your first letters you ask the Volunteer to give an estimate of how long it takes for him/her to receive your letters, and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he/she has missed one.
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a rewarding experience; however, there will also be times that Volunteers will feel frustrated and they may write home telling of their "war" stories. Letters might describe recent illnesses, frustration with work, lack of resources, information, and infrastructure, etc. While the subject matter may be good reading material, it can often be misinterpreted on the home front. Volunteers have a support network in-country which includes other Peace Corps Volunteers, counterparts and community members at their site, as well as Peace Corps Lesotho staff. The Peace Corps’ highest priority is maintaining the good health and safety of every Volunteer. Peace Corps Lesotho maintains a medical unit with two full-time medical officers, who care for the Volunteers’ primary health care needs. Additional medical services, such as testing and basic treatments, are available in Lesotho and just over the border in South Africa. If the Volunteer is seriously ill, they will be transported to South Africa or to the United States.
If for some reason your communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member, you may want to contact the Lesotho desk or the Office of Special Services (OSS) at Peace Corps Headquarters, Washington, D.C. at 1-800-424-8580, extension 1470. Also, in the case of an emergency at home (death in the family, sudden illness, etc.), please do not hesitate to call OSS immediately, so that a message can be sent to the Volunteer. The office is available 24-hours a day. For after hours calls, tell the operator your name, telephone number, and the nature of the emergency, and the Duty Officer will call you back.
2. Telephone Calls. Telephone lines in Lesotho are not very reliable. During the pre-service training, opportunities for the trainees to call the United States will be limited. Volunteers may or may not have residential phones; however, some Volunteers choose to buy cell phones, use public phones, or find that a neighbor or the organization they work with has a phone they are able to use to make and receive calls on. They will be able to inform you of telephone numbers where you might reach them once they arrive at their permanent sites.
The Lesotho Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in Maseru through phone calls and e-mail. However, these communications are reserved for business only and cannot be used to relay personal messages. All communication between family members and the Volunteer should be done via international mail, personal phone calls, or e-mail. Volunteers may have access to e-mail at internet cafes on a weekly or monthly basis, depending on their location.
3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to occasional thefts and customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may also use the following address to send letters and/or packages:
Name of Volunteer, PCV
U. S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 554
Maseru, 100
LESOTHO
It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Maseru. If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to the Country Director, c/o U. S. Peace Corps, 5 Bowker Road, Maseru, Lesotho (the phone number for the Peace Corps office in Lesotho is 266-22-313-871, as DHL will need this information). If you send the item to the Country Director, no liability can be assumed. For more information about DHL, please call their toll free number, 1-800-CALL-DHL, or visit their web site at www.dhl.com . Other courier services may operate in Maseru - DHL is only one possibility.
We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member or friend is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Lesotho. We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the Lesotho desk in Washington, D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-424-8580, ext. 2331/2332, or locally, 202-692-2331/2332.
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