All Good Things...

    I have attempted to blog several times with no success. I am aware it has been quite some time since my last post and I apologize for keeping you all in suspense. Writing anything at all this year has been a real struggle. The novelty of being a volunteer seems to have finally worn off and I find it hard to continue to identify the humor in situations I encounter on a daily basis; for example, the taxi breaking down EVERY time I am on it. It’s all good fun the first time it happens, but now…
   
     If I have learned anything while in Lesotho it is that I have a relatively short supply of patience, evidenced in my blood pressure levels during my mid-service medical examination. However, despite my shortcomings, it has been an eventful year. Much has occurred in the past…9 months?!
   
    First and foremost I must report an event that took place just last weekend; my COS conference. For those unfamiliar with the PC lingo (typical government organization that it is), COS stands for Close of Service, Completion of Service or, if you are a glass half full kind of person, Continuation of Service.
   
    The COS conference is a conference held three months before each Volunteer group is allowed to leave their country of service, having completed the 27 month commitment they made. At this point, Volunteers are given lots of paper work to fill out (again, typical of the government organization that it is), some advice for the “next chapter” and their official COS date. So, I now know on which day I am allowed to leave Lesotho. Are you prepared? Sitting down? Drum roll, please. Cue the most popular marathon theme song, and…deep breath, December 5th!
   
    Of course, many of you are aware that mom and dad recently replaced Sharity and me with two furry look-alikes -- apparently they have developed similar personalities to us as well. Now, the moment I found out my date I shot mom and dad an email informing them of the good news. The next communication I had from them was an emailed video of the puppies (I get at least one video a day from them) without any comment about the COS date-- that was the confirmation I needed of our replacement, Sharity, in case you were interested. I’m fairly certain Sharity and I have been written out of the will by now. I can only imagine what this year’s Christmas card will look like…
   
    As for the past 9 months in Lesotho, much is as it was last year. Similar school events have taken place, the pigs still roam the school compound (thus, no use in planting a garden, though some teachers did try, to no avail), the taxi breaks down every day, and the computer lab is still just a room in which to charge cell phones. But don’t worry, I have some good things to report as well!
   
    Good thing #1: Cell signal is 100% all the time! Now that I’ve said as much the tower will be struck by lightning.

    Good thing #2: I have the most amazing friends in the world! During my winter break my friends Maren Pratt, aspiring dentist, Joy Bulen, aspiring lawyer, and Dany Zemmel, aspiring humanitarian/ecologist, made time in their busy lives to visit me. For two weeks I enjoyed their company, again taking road tripping to a new level (sorry, but how many people can say they have taken a road trip in South Africa with their best friends?). We enjoyed Kruger National Park, Swaziland, St. Lucia Estuary, and a little arts and crafts town called Clarens.
  
For those who are interested in vacationing in South Africa some day, Kruger was by far one of my favorite destinations. Highly recommended considering I have a video of a pride of lions meandering down the road not 10 ft from the car we were in (yes, we had the windows rolled down). AMAZING! Swaziland was particularly interesting for me because it was given independence from England around the same time Lesotho; yet the development of each country is strikingly different (for elaboration, ask me when I get home). St. Lucia was stunning; particularly the trees—everything was green in a time when Lesotho was all shades of brown— and the hippo and croc signs may have helped with keeping us entertained as well. In addition the avocadoes were the size of large grapefruits, mmmm! Finally, Clarens, a town frequented by people such as Brad Pitt and ……. According to Lonely Planet, was a quaint little town, mostly Afrikaans speaking, with shop after shop of goods and gallery after gallery of local art. We enjoyed ourselves, to say the least. Girls, I owe you!

    Good thing #3: I have my COS date!! Pop the champagne!

    Good thing #4: Speaking about alcohol! I decided to engage in a personal project. Let’s call it an experiment. Peach wine! During peach season, I took the opportunity to hike into one of the more remote valleys to collect the juiciest peaches. With these peaches (and a little encouragement/package from Joy) I successfully brewed my very own peach wine. Now, it is rather strong so I’m not entirely sure you can classify it as wine, but it hits the spot. Dad would be proud. Which brings me to my next announcement: I have decided brewing is my passion and life goal—I think a father/daughter brewing line is in order. Don’t worry, I will keep my day job.

    Teaching is as it has been. My students really struggle with learning mathematics in English. And I honestly don’t understand why they have to. By putting a restriction on the language the subject is taught in they (people in the Lesotho government making these decisions) are limiting the number of natural mathematicians and scientists they could be cultivating. I know, personally, I am not a naturally gifted linguist, but I love science and math has always been easy for me. So I would think the same would apply to many people across the world. Hmm, something to contemplate…

    I have also recently become more discouraged by the number of students that are generally not interested in the lessons I present. When the high score in class is 51% you can understand my predicament. My thoughts are along the lines of “if you don’t want to be here, why are you wasting my time?” But then again I realize that a class would be rather boring to me as well if I didn’t understand half of what was being said during the lesson. As I said, this year has been a particular struggle; one that I don’t remember experiencing last year.

    Needless to say, I have learned far more than I ever expected to learn through this two-year journey. And now I am ready for the next adventure. Bring on anything.

Ode to the Pigs of Tiping Secondary School (I think I smell bacon in my near future)

              Pigs are, I have decided, most definitely the bane of my existence. Upon arriving home after vacation in Cape Town I was given only a couple days of rest and relaxation before I was aggravated by the filthy creatures that roam the school compound. They have pens! They should stay in them! Now, Mé Mathabo claimed, when she came out before school opened, that the pigs broke their gates. I know for a fact that she opened the damn things. There are four grown pigs and 19 piglets roaming the school compound as we speak. Why? Because they are starving. Mé Mathabo claims the school cannot afford the feed needed to keep them. But what happened to the money gained from selling the last bunch of little monsters? I have no idea. As my father put it, ‘you have to be a pretty poor farmer to loose money on a pig project’. The best part about this situation is that she was once the agriculture teacher at one of the larger high schools in Quthing. Hmmm, something is not quite right.

           

            So, for two weeks I had to chase the little shits away from my garden. For two weeks I kept a metal rake next to my door so that at a moments notice (anytime I herd their vile grunting and snorting) I could run out screaming and yelling, waving it around, attempting to hit as many as possible; I’ve come to cherish the sound of their little squeals. Those are moments I wish Peace Corps kept secret cameras hidden around to document our two years at site; The Real World Peace Corps style. God only knows what the local people were thinking when they saw me do this (because it happened, on average, 15-20 times a day—they gave me quite a workout). 

           

            Then, one day, I had to leave my precious garden to attend my Mid-service conference (it’s the conference we have to officially mark our 1-year of service as a PCV, the point where if we early terminate our service we can still call ourselves Returned PCVs, or RPCVs. The R is a big deal) held in Morija. I was gone for 3 days but when I returned to Tiping I found my beautiful garden completely destroyed. No more green beans or peas, no more carrots or onions, no more lettuce, not even tomatoes or green peppers. Everything was gone. All that hard work, gone. Whelp, there is always an upside to every situation; no need to chase after pigs anymore--unless I want to hear them squeal. Hehehe

           

            Aside from the pigs, all is well here on my end (no, I am not going nutty, I promise). Great news! When I finally gave up hope that the cell tower was going to be anything but landscape decoration, it began to work. I am now the proud owner of a phone that gets service (most of the time). It’s all still a little buggy; every now and then the service will cut out for an hour, or a day, but overall it’s a huge improvement! I still can’t quite believe it’s working. I was able to have a conversation with my parents while sitting on my bed just the other day. Ahh what a luxury!

           

            School started, finally. After being postponed for two weeks, we opened this past Monday, the 28th. The postponement means we will continue the school semester two weeks into the winter break. Remember, my students have to walk to school everyday—it’s cold in June! It snows! This isn’t Texas. I don’t foresee a remarkable attendance rate but at least I live on the school compound. 

           

            Once again, I mentioned this in my last post, but I am now teaching Mathematics to Forms A, B and C. So far I am really enjoying it. It is definitely keeping me busy; our school day has 9 periods in it, Tuesday and Wednesday I teach 6 out of those 9 periods. The added workload forces me to stay well organized and I find that I work well under pressure.

           

            Not only am I increasing my class load, but also I am busy preparing to receive books from the African Library Project for a school library at Tiping. I was volunteered by the other teachers to take care of the school lunch program (which includes collecting money from students who can afford a school lunch, budgeting the money throughout the year, pricing food stuffs, and purchasing it all—or telling Mé Mathabo to purchase everything). I have officially started my girl’s soccer team. Finally, I plan to introduce the idea of a student senate to the school. Along with all of that, I seem to be something resembling Mé Mathabo’s personal assistant. Am I a pushover? Maybe.

            I am doing quite well: very happy to be back at school. As always, I wish you all the best and I miss you terribly, but this year is going to fly. Truly. I’ll be seeing you sooner than you know.

            Love and hugs,

            Sadie

P.S. Yes, I do still shave my underarms. And yes, I do still bathe everyday. Living without running water is considerably easier than living without cell service.

           

Sharity's P.O.V.

I have to admit that when the trip to Lesotho and South Africa was proposed, I was not thrilled by the prospect. That’s not to say that I did not eagerly want to see Sadie, her site, or South Africa. Yet, (1) the timing was terrible for me, (2) recent discoveries of food allergies and intolerances made me extremely apprehensive of unpredictable conditions and accommodations, and (3) I possess knowledge of what it is to travel with Dad, Mom, and Sadie for extended periods... Moreover, I did not have the time to adequately prepare for the trip, with regards to research about Lesotho and South Africa and familiarizing myself with the itinerary. To say that I experienced a great deal of anxiety prior to the trip would be an understatement.

But the trip itself was fantastic.

Admittedly, Dad and Mom are not savvy international travelers, though they did their best to prepare and cope. And, understandably, after a few days in our company Sadie could not help a brief bout of recidivism to her youngest child role. I perforce took up the mantle of leader, even if it meant bearing accusations of being a backseat driver. That was the least of my worries. Might you be familiar with the phrase “herding cats”? It applies here.

Anyway, Dad and Mom have already described to you Sadie’s initial bait and switch regarding our accommodations in Lesotho and the basic itinerary we followed as we made our way into and across South Africa. I more or less agree with their sentiments. I, like Mom, do not care for camping, so staying 3 nights at Sadie’s site was an adjustment, though all I had to hear was the word “latrine” and I knew exactly what the quality of the conditions would be and what to expect (thank goodness it wasn’t “hole in the ground, exposed to the elements”). In fact, her site ended up being far better than I had anticipated. Although, I could have done without the wretched Ralphie’s “gifts” of half dead lizard, desiccated mouse corpse, and ticks. At any rate, Lesotho and South Africa were beautiful and the people we met were wonderful.

I feel incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to travel to such faraway places with my family; indeed, I’m beginning to appreciate more and more the hilarity of the entire endeavor. It was a Christmas Vacation that I will never forget and which National Lampoon can never surpass.

Love to Dad, Mom, and Sadie.

Sharity

Mom's point of view

OK, so even though Sadie and Rusty have thoroughly filled you in on our trip to Southern Africa, no one will leave me alone until my perspective is communicated. This will be short. I want to begin by saying that I would not trade these few days in a land and culture very different from my own for anything - it was educational, enlightening and endearing.

I’m not going to begin by saying that I was my charming self, anyone who knows me well, knows that’s not even remotely possible. You have to remember I’m a spoiled, white American woman of a particular age that has been pampered. I agreed to spend one night at Sadie’s site without running water, electricity and an inside bathroom, I spent 3 nights. Not of my choosing. What I realized is, that if I have to, I can survive less than ideal conditions. Although, after one night when it was necessary for me to visit the latrine 4 times, no one really wants to live with me under those kinds of conditions. And remember I said I’m of a particular age, so when I say it’s time to go to the bathroom I don’t always have the time to stumble over everyone in the dark, find the flashlight, unlock the security gate with an old fashioned skeleton key, sprint several yards through the weeds, down the hill to the smelly latrine. There were certain garments that were thrown away, not making the trip back home.  Oh, and I almost forgot, it’s summer time there and there is no air conditioning - need I say more! I have to say I have a much greater appreciation for the young men and women serving humanity in remote parts of the world.

Sadie kept us all busy by showing us how to cook on a two burner gas contraption, hauling water, washing our clothes in a wash basin, and bucket bathing. You can’t imagine how good it felt to wash off, no matter the washing process after traveling for two whole days just to get to this remote location. Brushing our teeth and spitting in the bucket was also welcome after a couple of days by which time your teeth feel like they’ve got moss growing them. After the third night in remote Lesotho I was ready to head south into South Africa where I hoped the infrastructure would be more of what I am accustomed. And I’m happy to report that it was much more accommodating to my needs/wants (what’s the difference?). Anyway, throughout the entire trip I’m still sleep deprived and my blood sugar levels low, and though the entire trip progressed smoothly and without incidence my anxiety levels remained high. I’m a worrier and a “what if” er. But my kind husband and patient daughters understand my insecurities and made the trip wonderful and unforgettable in so many amazing ways! We saw beautiful country, met beautiful and endearing people and came away with a sincere appreciation for a part of the world I would never in a million years dreamed that I would get an opportunity to visit.

In closing, I want to say thank you to Sadie for being so brave in going so far away to serve people and humanity in an effort to make our world a better place. And I want to say thank you to Sharity for being the ultimate understanding daughter to me and incredible big sister to Sadie. You had the ability to understand and fulfill both our many needs. Love you both and pray for your safety daily!! Mom

Thank you

I would like to express a much appreciated thank you to Mark, Ann and Maren Pratt for allowing us to use your home as a staging area. Thank you for driving us to and picking up three weary (probably smelly) adventurers from the airport. The shower and lunch before we drove home were just what we needed.

Some more photos

Sharity and Arletta at the start of our 16 hour flight to Johannesburg.

Sharity and I after about 36-40 hours of travel at a motel at Mohale's Hoek.

Sadie, Aparna and Tishina.

Molly and Sadie inside Molly's rondeval.

Sadie's teaching colleague/neighbor and her twins.

Sadie demonstrating her water hauling technique. She didn't do it hands-free like the pros.

Some of Sadie's students that came to meet and visit with us.

Sadie is growing a garden - if she can keep the pigs out of it.

The pigs - four sows each with a brood of piglets that run around all over the compound.

Sadie in front of her room.

All around Cape Town

This dish made Sharity "very happy". Mussels in about a inch of butter.

Sadie and Molly in a pub on the water front.

Waiting for the wine tour bus on Long Street.

The family returning from Robben Island.

James, Sadie and Rusty on the wine tour. Yes, we had to wear the hats.

Sadie seemed a bit too enthusiastic about the wine.

Last day before heading home.

Sadie Marie

Road trip - South Africa

Driving British style.

Sadie, Arletta and Sharity in their Besotho traditional skirts in Montagu.

Walking the historical path in Montague.

The girls overlooking Franschoek.

On site

This is an example of the quality of the road out to Saide's

A couple of students that go to the Tiping School.

Sadie preparing a traditional Besotho meal.

Sadie and Ralphie in front of her apartment/room.

Panorama of Tiping

This is Sadie's site looking north. The small buildings in the left are the out houses. The buildings in the distance (center) are the school buildings

Lesotho and South Africa - Dad's point of view

Hello everyone, Sadie's dad here. Sadie wanted us to blog about our trip to Lesotho and South Africa. I'll post some of our photos we took too.  Sorry this is so long.

I just read Sadie's post about our visit and I just have to take issue with her descriptions of me. I was my typical charming and fun-loving self the whole trip. I can't imagine what she was referring to. It was really good to see Sadie. She looked good and sounded very happy and upbeat.

The trip was brutal though. We had traveled more like 36 hours straight before we made it to Lesotho. Then, Sadie made us drive for three or four hours all around the country. I can tell she has adapted to "Africa time". I adjusted pretty quickly to driving on the left side of the road (I already knew how to drive a stick shift), although my sense of spatial depth was off by about a foot. Lesotho has a lot of pot holes on every type of road - dirt or pavement - and think I hit every one trying to dodge them. Also, every town and city has speed bumps at pedestrian crossings that you have to slow down to cross. I didn't know this and I went over a couple too fast - fast enough for the girls in the back to hit their heads on the roof. Oops. After a few hundred kilometers, I remembered some of my Driver's Ed instruction and I started doing better. 

It didn't take me long to ask myself, who thought a road trip in a foreign country, driving on the left side of the road with manual transmission, after traveling for 36 hours would be a good idea? I'm going to have to evaluate the decision making paradigm in our family. Let's just say, I had three backseat drivers telling me what to do. And many times, I was getting conflicting directions. The girls realized quickly, that I had to reset each time after we stopped somewhere - I took a couple of wide left turns where I should have been taking tight left turns - this would generate a lot of animated gesturing and screaming at me.

We met Tishina, Aparna and Molly the first day. They seem to be very nice and it is good to be able to put faces and personalities to the names. Tishina was with us from Maseru to Moyeni.  I don't know what she thought of us, we were getting a bit punchy by that time. After two or three stops along our way, we headed out to Sadie's site. The final leg of our drive was on really bad roads with wash-outs and massive rocks to drive over. Yes, I was calling it a goat path. I couldn't think of anything worse to call it. We were driving a little Ford of some sort. We scraped bottom a couple of times, but other than that, all my years of pasture driving experience hunting thistles paid off. No one even had to get out and push.

The time we spent at Sadie's site was fun. A lot like camping. Arletta doesn't like camping. Sadie's room was small and it was a tight squeeze with all four of us. It took us a couple of days to rest up. We took a lot of naps and Sadie did a great job entertaining us and cooking for us. The site is beautiful. It is very rugged and reminds me a lot of the Southwest in the U.S. - low mountains, plateau's and bluffs. She is actually fairly close to the camp town of Moyeni. I think she could hike there over the mountain faster than driving. As isolated as her site is, there are people all over this valley. Many little structures called rondevals along the slopes. Farm animals all over - cows, pigs, goats, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats. Her cat Ralphie was  a good kitty, but he doesn't have a girl friend. The other stray cat is male, so he has a boy friend. We met several of her teaching colleagues and students and Sadie demonstrated to us her new languages skills in Sesotho and some Xhosa (Kosa) while translating for us. She made her students introduce themselves in English for practice. Everyone was very friendly and I could tell Sadie has made good friends and is having a positive influence on her students whether she thinks so or not.

After resting up we took off on our road trip for Cape Town. We crossed the border to South Africa not to far from her site. The road immediately improved - no more pot holes. We made Grahamstown by about 4:00 p.m., found our B&B, then found a place where we had steaks. We finally had electricity, T.V. running water, plumbing and red meat. We took showers and went to bed. We had beds for the rest of our stay in South Africa. Since we were going to bed around 8:00 to 9:00 p.m., I was waking up around 4:30 in the morning. At that time in morning, the Har-Dee-Bar birds were cawing. They sound similar to crows, just a lot louder and more deranged. The Addo Elephant park was interesting. We saw a lot of the wildlife either on the drive to or in the park.

After two days we were on the road again and we managed to navigate to the town of Montagu. This was my favorite place on the trip. A pretty mountain town. I could have stayed there for a week. We hadn't been at our B&B fifteen minutes before the girls managed to find complimentary brandy in their rondeval and were sampling it. They were all smiles when I caught them. We relaxed for a little bit, then went shopping for food to cook on Christmas day. Our Christmas day dinner consisted of scrambled eggs, salad and wine. Chocolates for desert. Arletta, Sadie and I went to Christmas day mass at a small Catholic church. Sharity wasn't feeling well and didn't go with us. This B&B was the only place on the trip where we had internet connection. Everybody made good use of it.

Our final leg of the trip was a whirlwind tour of Cape Town. We managed to get into a hour long traffic jam along the beach on Boxing Day (day after Christmas). I think the entire population of Cape Town was on this one highway going to the beach. This really helped my disposition. We finally made it to our last B&B on Hout Bay. The next day Sadie showed us around Cape Town and we made to the part of the city where she was two years ago during her internship with the Red Cross Children's hospital. Later the same day we were on the waterfront and took a ferry over to Robben Island and toured the prison where Nelson Mandella was held. After the tour, we found a pub and had dinner - Sadie was working on the premise of keeping dad well fed. The following day we had fun on a wine tour of Stellenbosch and met James, another Peace Corps volunteer. Nothing starts a day like drinking wine at 9:30 a.m. James kept Sharity and I entertained with some stories of his first year. There seems to be a lot of poopy stories associated with being in the Peace Coprs. I agree with Sadie, the tour was enjoyable mainly because I wasn't driving.

We left Sadie at a Backpackers on Long Street on our last day. Sharity navigated me to the airport and off we went on our long flight home. Having the whole family together for an adventure like this will be more and more difficult to pull together in the future and I will always treasure the memories of this trip.  Before we left, I was teasing Sharity that she was going to be a pain, just like all previous family trips. Apparently for this trip, I was the pain. Sharity did a great job and was a good buffer between Sadie's enthusiasm and mine and Arletta's exhaustion and stress.

Thank you Sadie and Sharity for this wonderful, unique holiday. But, I don't think I will be traveling that far again any time soon. Next Christmas, I'm staying home.

Rusty

Happy Turkey Day (WOOPS! THIS NEVER GOT POSTED LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE!)

           I am technically done with my first year of teaching! It feels good. My students begin taking their final exams today so all I have left to do now is create their exams and then grade. School actually ends on November 29^th, but I’m done! I made it though my first year teaching!!!! Time to begin preparing for next year—now that I have a better understanding of what I’m doing and how o go about teaching, I need to focus on improving my teaching approaches and skills.

           

            Many things have happened over the past couple months; host volunteer visit, training of trainees, introducing Halloween to my students and the general, everyday living. Oh, and I shouldn’t forget to mention, 6 solar panels have recently been installed at my school in preparation for a computer lab.

           

            I’ll start with host volunteer visit (we volunteers have labeled it HVV because we think Peace Corps needs a few more acronyms). The HVV is the visit made by the new training group to current volunteers around Lesotho. It is the first opportunity trainees get to see what Lesotho is like outside of training village, and their first time to see what real schools look like and how they function. They embark on their journeys to different corners of Lesotho when they’ve been in Lesotho for a mere week and a half, so you can imagine how they were feeling—slightly overwhelmed.

           

            The trainee that came to my site was able to experience an enjoyable taxi ride, a comfortable bed, full amenities, a spacious toilet, and fully equipped school. HA! I wish. I missed school the day I had to collect her from the Quthing taxi rank because there is only one taxi that passes Tiping—at 7:15 in the morning. Tishina had the pleasure of playing mother goose, directing all the trainees from Maseru to Quthing, dumping trainees off in various districts along the way such as Mafeteng and Mohale’s Hoek. When they arrived in Quthing it was nearly three in the afternoon.

           

            Side note: I have been told to be in A’skop to catch the taxi back to Tiping by three if I want a ride home, so naturally, anytime I arrive in A’skop at three or before, the taxi doesn’t leave until 7 or 8 pm. On two occasions I have gotten to A’skop around 3:30—of course the taxi would be gone already. On those occasions I have no other choice but to turn around and stay another night at Tishina’s.

           

            Don’t worry; in the case of the visiting trainee we did not miss the taxi. Oh, no, it didn’t leave A’skop until 6:30. Again, this girl had only been in Lesotho for a little over a week so her Sesotho was still very much a work in progress so naturally the entire time we were sitting, waiting for the taxi to leave, she got more than enough practice in Sesotho and even Sexhosa—something Peace Corps failed to mention to her. Fun!!

           

            The next two days at school were productive and I believe she received a good representation of a typical rural Lesotho school. My teachers were very friendly, the perfect hosts. The students also received her very well. They were more curious about her than they’ve ever been about me. They also automatically assumed that we were sisters (we both have long blond hair). The following day I took her back into town where she was able to compare my school to that of a camp town school, Tishina’s. Her comment, “It really seems like it makes a difference how well they know English, based on their responsiveness.” We do what we can with what we’re given.

           

            Oh well! I hope I was a good host at least! We made a deep-dish pizza one night for dinner. Everything was homemade (the sauce and the dough) except for the cheese (which I had the trainee pick up in Maseru before she came to Tiping). I might add that it was extremely tasty. Success! Remember, I have to cook everything on a gas stove because I don’t have an oven.

           

            Less than two weeks after the trainees returned to training village from HVV, I arrived in their training villages to actually help with their training (because I am an expert at teaching of course. Yup) I spent three days with the trainees, helping the PC staff and teachers from the Lesotho College of Education prepare these trainees for what they should expect once they get to site. Sessions include everything from how the build good relationships to classroom management to assessment concepts (all required sessions for trainees from PC Washington). While in training the information you are given is useful, you know you need it. However, going through the training of trainees you realize just how important the information is. After only one year experience teaching I know how badly these new volunteers need to pay attention, but paying attention is difficult while in training. You are constantly treated like a child and the ADD is so much worse then you remember it ever being in high school or college.

           

            I returned to Tiping for a week and am now to the present day, sitting in a hotel room. I am, once again, helping with training. This time it is for a workshop that is held at a hotel in Mohale’s Hoek, score! I’m not sure how I lucked out on this opportunity. Someone must be praying that I get a shower… didn’t think I smelled that badly. It has been a productive workshop for the volunteers. They meet their Introductory Liaison, IL, or the person who is supposed to baby-sit the volunteer at their sites for the first three months of service, for the first time and embark on a trip to their very own sites for a three-day stay. They still have three weeks left of training before they swear in and go to their sites permanently so it is only a short visit; a brief taste of their new homes for the next two years. 

           

            Anyway, moving on. I seem to mark my time here by big events; I always have my mind on the next big thing. For the past month I have been thinking about training the new group. Now that I’m actually here in training, and it is almost over, my new focus is on my family’s upcoming visit to Lesotho. My parents and my sister are making the effort to see me in December. They arrive in Lesotho on the 19^th and will depart from Cape Town on the 29^th.

           

            Not only do I get to see my family for the yuletide season, but we’ll also be celebrating my wonderful mother’s 50^th birthday (I’m sure she’s not too happy that I just mentioned her birthday, but it had to be made known!). Now, I can’t give too many details about the trip because I’ll need something to write about after they leave, but I can reveal that we are taking family road-tripping to a whole new level. It’s something we haven’t done in many years (and for good reason-- I’m slightly apprehensive about hours in the car with my sister). Whatever happens, I’m sure it will make for a good story—or two.

           

            They have their tickets and have been getting the necessary shots so there’s no backing out now! And of course they will be experiencing my site with all of it’s modern conveniences-- I’m still working on how I’m going to fit 4 sleeping people into my room and I’m tempted to leave Sharity at my house for the whole 10 days while the rest of us make our way to Cape Town (so she can REALLY experience Lesotho). Just kidding! Muah! Muah!

           

            Finally, not to sound like a crazy cat lady, but I came home from training a couple weeks ago to find Ralphy’s girlfriend sitting on a chair in my room. I typically leave my window open if I leave over the weekend so that Ralphy can come and go as he wishes. This was an unwelcome surprise. This cat is deathly skinny and absolutely filthy. I’m happy that Ralphy has allowed this cat free range of my room; I really want fleas and other bugs in my bed.

           

            As always, I appreciate everyone’s support and I hope all is well back home. I miss everyone dearly! Especially, as the Christmas season approaches I find myself longing for the family dinners and the hot cider by the Christmas tree. Christmas in the summer just isn’t right. I also want to wish you all a happy Turkey Day! Enjoy the good food and company.

Hugs and kisses,

--Sadie

           

Family and Christmas

            I apologize in advance for the length of this post; so much has happened between then and now. On the agenda for today is an update on my school then I will jump into my Christmas and New Year’s vacation with my parents and sister. I have also asked that they prepare their own observations and commentary in order to post them here. I want to make sure you get the full picture.

Tiping

            I mentioned in my last post that my school was to receive a computer lab; well, it has been installed. The donating group, CBS (Computer Business Services?), installed 20 computers in an extra classroom along with 6 large solar panels to power them. The organization selected one school from each district in Lesotho as pilot schools for education in computer literacy. Therefore, there are 10 pilot schools throughout Lesotho and Tiping is one of them!!! Exciting!

           

            Even more exciting (especially for me) is that the organization pressured a cell provider into erecting a cell tower on the mountain across from my school which means communication will be easier for me soon, very soon. Now, they have been working on this cell tower for the past 2 months (or more). I went on vacation for two weeks thinking it would be working by the time I came home, but yet again I have fallen into the trap of wishful thinking. I can see it! It looks completed, standing tall and smug, looking down at me, taunting me. My palm is itching, begging to spend endless hours texting my life away. Sigh.

           

            I’m getting ahead of myself.  The real reason I am so excited about the cell tower is that with its introduction there are endless educational developments and opportunities for my students. Granted, we will need to take baby steps with the computers. It might be a while before we introduce the concept of the Internet let alone actual use of the Internet, but for me it will mean better teaching resources, better ideas. I have also been playing with the idea of beginning a film club (since we now have the ability to power a TV without using the generator). I want to teach some of my students about different genres of movies while at the same time exposing them to more English use, reinforcing their reasons to learn English and become fluent. On that note, I am reevaluating my package request list; if anyone is interested in sending a package but don’t know what to include, I would love USB drives with teenage appropriate movies loaded onto them and maybe, if you have them lying around, science, math, or English education cartoons. I see only great things coming from this development. Hopefully I am right.

           

Family Vacation/Educational Experience/Road Trip           

            All right, to the good stuff-- the family vacation; road tripping on a whole new level (that might have been an understatement). Overall, it was a good vacation and we didn’t have any real mishaps; aside from a little back tracking and taking dubious back roads, all was well! But you wouldn’t know that from the amount of cursing coming from the drivers seat. The family arrived in Lesotho at 8 am on the 19^th after almost 24 hours of traveling (they spent 13 hours in the Johannesburg airport on a layover—we could have driven back and forth twice in that amount of time).

           

            Anyway, I had been almost confident that I could get to the airport before they arrived so that I could get it all on video; however, we got stuck (Tishina came with me to pick them up from the airport) in the taxi rank haggling with a taxi driver over the price of a private ride to the airport; a combie to the airport from Maseru costs R9, this guy was asking R180 for two people! Grrr. We got lucky and were able to hop into a combie that was picking people up along the way—combies never leave unless they have every seat filled so I’m not sure how we managed it  (divine intervention, maybe?). We literally arrived on time and they were already in the lobby. Completely unexpected! I thought I would at least have a 15-minute window of time while they were going through customs and getting their luggage, but no.

           

            Well, we did the normal greetings with mom tearing up and dad laughing and saying, “hey sis!”  Sharity, not normally a big hugger, gave me a hug! They were tired but I had a full day planned for them. They couldn’t go to bed at 8 am. Had to kick the jetlag in the butt so I kept them on the move all day. They weren’t too happy with me either. First thing was first though; we had to get the rental car. Dad learned how to drive manual transmission on the left hand side of the road quickly because from the airport we went into the capital city, Maseru. I took them to the Peace Corps office where they were able to meet many of the PC staff, including my Assistant Program Country Director (APCD), Dr. Liphoto, a.k.a. my boss. Mom was mortified that I was taking them to the office when she didn’t even have makeup on! But everyone at the office was excited to meet them, makeup or no makeup—they see dirty PCVs all day, I don’t think they noticed.

           

            We went from the PC office to the one mall in Lesotho (actually, big news, they are building a second mall in Maseru—to bad we can’t even get a Shoprite-big grocery chain-in Quthing). We were able to pick up some groceries there, things that Sharity could eat, lots of veggies—or as dad calls it, rabbit food. From there we traveled to Mohale’s Hoek for lunch where we met Aparna. We should have probably just gotten a hotel room there but I was on a one-track mind to keep them awake and get out to my site. By this point people were getting rather grouchy. After lunch we made our way to Quthing where we dropped Tishina off and finally it was out to my site, but not before Mé Mathabo, my supervisor, had her say. I got call after call from her making plans then changing them. I think everyone was just overwhelmed by this point and Mé Mathabo exacerbated the situation perfectly. And we hadn’t even started in on the gravel roads yet!

           

            The last leg of our journey was the gravel road out to my site. It took an hour and a half to get out there but, to my amazement, the little car we rented did the job. We had gotten about 2 miles down the gravel road when mom asked if that was the worst of it. Now, you have to understand, we had been driving on the good, newly fixed, portion of the road; it was about to get much worse as they soon found out. I don’t know how many times I told them how bad the road is but they never listen to me! We did manage to bottom out a couple times. Dad began referring to it as the ‘goat path. By the time we reached my house it was about 4 pm. They made themselves at home and passed out immediately, happy to have their Odyssey over. At this point I dug out dads iPad and started watching the Dark Knight Rises which dad had brought for me—my equivalent of a Christmas stocking gift. I had a blissful evening.

           

            You would think that they would have slept for hours, but they were up and down all night—something about it being too hot?? Yup, Lesotho with no AC.  Then there were the latrine visits. Because my room is so small and we had every possible floor space covered, when one needed to go to the latrine all would wake due to the tripping, the flashlights and the unlocking of the door. This may be too much information but all volunteers in Lesotho are given a pee bucket when we first arrive in Lesotho. Some volunteers use it on a regular basis but because my latrine is literally right outside my front door I have no problem getting to the latrine at night. I could find it in the middle of the night with my eyes closed if I had to. But I foresaw this being a problem so I got the pee bucket out, just in case. It didn’t get used until the third night and not because no one had to pee.

           

            Even better than the latrine, Ralphy decided to make his appearance around 11 pm on the first night. He was able to find the two people who would appreciate him the least in a matter of minutes. He felt the need to sleep on Sharity’s pillow, eat in her ear, snuggle up with mom then repeat the rest of the night. I trained him well!

           

            The next few days were fairly lazy. Everyone got to experience bucket bathing, cooking and cleaning without running water, and washing a couple loads of laundry by hand. Dad got his watercolors out and began working on some of the scenery while mom attempted to kill flies. One of the primary teachers came out with her 1-year-old twins to meet everyone so we had babies running around slobbering on everything. I also cooked a traditional meal of papa, moroho (greens) and linaoa (beans). They really didn’t respond well to the fare. I guess it’s something you have to acquire a taste for?

           

            The rest of the trip was spent driving through South Africa, making our way to Cape Town along the Garden Route. We played a fun game along the way of guess what the road signs mean. The driving was definitely my least favorite part of the trip though. We learned we have to keep dad well fed if it’s going to be a pleasant drive, wheaties and nuts don’t do the job.

           

            We spent two nights in a little college town about the size of Columbia, MO called Grahamstown, home to Rhodes University. While there we went out to eat at a pub called the Rat and Parrot. Dad was able to satisfy his need for good red meat since he hadn’t had any for a number of days. Like I said…keep him well fed. Also, while staying in Grahamstown we were able to visit the Addo Elephant Park. It is a drive-through safari park—no exiting your vehicle unless you want to be lion doo-doo. We spotted herds (lots of heards) of Elephants, a few zebras and a selection of other animals, but the bush is so thick during the summer months that it was difficult to spot other animals.

           

            After Grahamstown we drove to Montagu, a small town known for its dried fruits (Sharity would have been in heaven if everything hadn’t been closed for Christmas). Montagu was a beautiful little town in the heart of the South African wine country, located on the R-62, a famous scenic route in SA. Again, we spent two days at a bed and breakfast in Montagu before heading through the wine lands of Stellenbosch and Frenschoek to Cape Town. It was a breathtaking drive winding around rugged mountains, emerging into valleys covered in vineyards. So much wine! Anyone who loves wine should make his or her way to Stellenbosch at some point in his or her life.

           

            Activities in Cape Town revolved around tours; specifically, the Robben Island tour as well as a wine tour through the Stellenbosch wine lands for mom’s birthday. You can’t go to Cape Town without doing the Robben Island tour. It is a necessary educational experience. The wine tour was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip (not because of the wine, but because dad didn’t have to drive). It was a very good day, relaxed and fun. We learned a lot about the wine making process, South African wines, and pairing wine with cheese.

           

            The wine tour ended the vacation for the family. But if you know my mom, you know that she doesn’t ever go on vacation; she goes on educational experiences. I think it is safe to say that the trip was truly an educational experience for all of us. They flew out of Cape Town on the 29^th (ready to go home, I think) while I remained in Cape Town to meet with some Peace Corps friends for New Year’s Eve. The next few days I stayed at a dingy backpackers (not the best backpackers I’ve ever been to) on Long Street, which, it appears, is where the party is for anyone not from Cape Town. Since I had already completed a lot of the touristy activities there are to do in Cape Town I was able to spend my days shopping (in several different malls), relaxing, taking showers (so many showers!), drinking (moderately, of course), and eating (even better than the showers because of the sushi, East Indian Food Bizarre, pizza, Mexican food, etc. What I’m trying to say is that there was so much variety! My stomach was in food heaven). 

           

            Sadly, it came to an end all too soon. I had a wonderful Christmas season and New Year; I couldn’t have asked for better. Well, maybe…being able to see more family and friends from home could have made it just a little better.

           

Now

            I am now at my site sitting around, twiddling my thumbs. Actually, I really should be doing more than that—I have recently been informed that one of the teachers at Tiping Secondary School, the other math teacher, will not be returning and so I have the opportunity to take on her classes. Therefore, I will be teaching Form A, B and C mathematics while dropping the Form A science class I had last year. It is an increase of 7 forty-minute periods per week. I think I will enjoy it. I have discovered I really don’t care to teach science so this change is a welcome change. I should be preparing!

           

            The next few weeks will be spent reading, preparing and going to my mid-service conference! I have now been in Lesotho for over 14 months. I have been a sworn-in volunteer for just over 12 months. I have less than 12 months to go. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Is it too early to begin the countdown? I know this next year is going to fly by. There is so much I still want to do and I don’t know if there will be enough time. I have torn emotions; I would consider extending if I didn’t need to go back to school and get some kind of professional degree. Seeing family and having a glimpse of the modern amenities I once had were also deterrents from the extending service idea.

           

            As always, I miss you all so very much (another deterrent). I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year (the world didn’t end!!). Let us see what wonders 2013 will bring. I also want to thank you all for keeping up with my blog over the past year. That alone is encouraging and supportive. I am happy I have the opportunity to share my experience with you, to share another culture. I am often asked if I will take photos home to show people what the Basotho culture is like; I tell them I am already working on it. You should see the smiles I get from that.

            Wishing you the best for this year!

                        --Sadie Marie