Four Items

Here are some random but noteworthy events that have taken place in 2011 (can't believe I'm so backed up here...):

1. Sometime mid-January, I was walking to my school with friends. As we reached the mountaintop, clouds suddenly turned dark and it started to rain. In an instant, I heard the loudest sound/saw the brightest light I've ever seen. Though, I didn't process it right away. The first thing I noticed, before registering the sound or light, was that I was on my hands and knees. Turns out, lightning had struck a few yards away, and the force had thrown me to the ground. We ran into the nearest building, and after collecting ourselves, realized we were totally fine. Lesson learned: Don't walk on the summit of a mountain in a storm.

Then, one night a week later, I was sitting in my house watching Lost on my computer (watching entire TV series that you missed while in America, on your laptop alone in the dark, is a favorite PCV pasttime). The computer battery was running low so I plugged into my solar panel (which sits on my roof) through a car battery (which sits in my house). As I continued watching, it started to rain, which was so noisy on my tin roof that I couldn't hear the show. I plugged in headphones. The second I touched the headphones to my ears, I am not exactly sure but I think lightning struck my roof. It was very loud. And I think the electric current flowed through the panel, through the car battery, through the computer, and out the headphones, because a massive spark flew out from my ear, big enough that I could see it with my peripheral vision. My heart pounded and my head ached for about 30 minutes. My nerves were all the more racked after the events of the week before.

I'll confess I've been a little scared of lightning since that day. But I don't totally understand how this is possible, because I think if it really happened this way, my computer should have been fried (it's not) and/or I should be dead (I'm not). I welcome any phsyics/electrical engineering/meteorology experts who can make sense of it. Lesson learned: don't plug your head into your tin roof during a storm.

2. My mother's friend/neighbor, Ellen, donated enough money to sponsor a bunch of my best and most needy students! So far, the money has been used to keep 6 of my brightest students in school. There is enough still for a few more. Thank you, Ellen! Their thank you letters are on the way to Baltimore.

3. One day I gave a maths test in Form A (8th grade) which ended early. I gave kids the option to pass the extra time by telling them to "Write a funny story." Here's a very revealing but seriously disturbing one from a young boy named Moteri:

"Funny Story

Now we are happy because we have parents. My parents buy me anything that I like and the love me and also I love them because is my parents. All day they meet me also I meet because is my parents they shy me whe a make noti in somewhere.

My parents die because they burn at night and a cry for them because the died now we are lonnly We are funny."

On a lighter note, here's another one from a very smart young girl named Mokhantso:

"A man without senses

there was a man without head some boy dicided to found his head they touch him under the armpits they heard his head laughing under the rock and he was been stuck by a rock and run away them left his head!!!!"

4. My mom visited in April! She loved Lesotho, and Lesotho loved her. We had a great time touring the country, and especially visiting my school. There she received a very warm welcome from my coworkers and especially my students. They were in awe. Makhooa have parents, too. Thanks, mom!

We also went to Cape Town, which is a truly amazing city. Even better than advertised. Aside from a lot of really good quality mother-son bonding (aw), the highlight was probably my successful running of the Two Oceans Half Marathon. I finished in around 2:10 (the website says 2:15 but it lies!). Considering I never ran much before, it felt pretty good. And I was stunned to find that the race itself was actually a blast.

OK, more soon! Actually, I already wrote what will become the next post. I'll post it separately so it looks like I'm working harder (JM I hope you're happy :D).

Why I More or Less Stopped Writing (And Why I'm Writing Now)

Fine and you? [still my favorite Basotho English form of greeting]

So, I'm still alive and well. For those who have yelled at me for not writing on here in so long, I am sorry. I've been bad, I guess. It's been over 3 months since I hurriedly threw on a text-less post full of safari pictures (and just as long since I promised to hurry back with descriptions of those pictures). But I have some reasons, whose validity you can decide for yourself. In short, they are three-fold:

1. My daily life here hasn't been as jolly as it once was. I'm not suffering, per se, but it's just not so exciting. So I'm less motivated to come on here and tell the world about things like my sense of stagnation, my growing distaste for various aspects of work, and so on.

2. The honeymoon phase seems to be gone. In the beginning, no one (myself included) had much idea what my life here would be all about. But now, if you've been reading this blog at all since it started, you have a decent idea. So I'm sometimes reluctant to keep up writing. It sometimes feels like all I'd be saying is "Hey, look at me! My life is so different! Look at how different it is here!" But most people reading this already know that, so it has come to feel kind of self-indulgent to an unnecessary degree. Maybe that's all in my head, though, I'm not sure.

3. Many of the things I would like to write about would not win me many friends in the Basotho community. And as we all know, if you don't have anything nice to say...

But then, to be honest, that's an exaggeration. It's not that I have nothing nice to say. Far from it, actually.

So what prompted me to get back on the horse? A package I received recently from someone I've never met. A former Lesotho PCV named Becca sent me a package full of delicious foods, plus a very nice postcard. It mentioned that she enjoys reading my blog and encouraged me to keep on fighting the good fight. All in all, an extremely extremely nice, memorable gesture. Thank you, Becca. Your kindness will not be forgotten (and neither will be your exquisite Kraft Mac N Cheese).

I received the package in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, right after finishing a pretty irritating maths class. It immediately went from a bad day to a good day. And as I sat at my desk in the staff room devouring an entire bag of beef jerky in about 30 minutes, I contemplated what the package and the letter signified. I realized that this blog is perhaps more valuable than I can see. Which suggests that I ought to keep it up. So alas, here I am, ke teng.

With all that said, I have a lot of catching up to do.

But it will have to wait a little bit, because on Friday, my mom arrives to Lesotho. This is extremely exciting. We'll tour around a bit, and next week we'll fly to Cape Town so that she can see an incredible city and I can eat a lot and take decent showers for a few days. Also I'll run a half marathon on April 23rd.

So, provided the malaise doesn't hit me too hard, I'll be back soon.

Sharp!

safari

just finished our safari. in short it's been amazing. we have free internet for about an hour more so i'm gonna upload as many of our best pics/videos as possible. time is short, hence the lack of capitalization, among other things. i'll come back on later to edit this post and make it a bit more proper.

A Tribute to Hitchhiking

For a while now, I've debated whether to come clean on this blog about my deep love of hitchhiking in Lesotho. For one thing, I wouldn't want to alarm people [too much]. But more importantly, I've been worried that Peace Corps might get angry at me for confessing.

You see, for a while now, I've been under the impression that hitching is frowned upon by PC Lesotho. We definitely have a rule about riding in backs of open-bed trucks - if you do that, you will be on a plane back home pretty quickly. And no driving either. No problem there, I do neither of those things. But I THOUGHT it was best if at least I don't go out of my way to discuss the fact that I hitch.

Anyways, I recently picked up the PC Lesotho Handbook to see what it says on the matter. Here it is:

---------
Hitchhiking
Catching a ride in a safe vehicle with a person known to a Volunteer may be a good option for transportation. In Lesotho, Volunteers are highly discouraged from standing along the side of a road attempting to hitch a ride with a person unknown to them. However, we understand that in certain circumstances, Volunteers might judge a private ride to be safer than a kombi. If you decide to hitchhike:
- Never take a ride alone. Always ride in a group of two, or preferably more.
- Never take a ride if the driver or other passengers are drunk or drinking alcohol in the vehicle
- Private vehicles such as cars or SUVs are preferable to larger commercial vehicles
- Always ensure that the vehicle is in good condition (e.g., tires in good condition, no major body damage, no loud noises, no giant clouds of black smoke, etc.)
----------

So, OK, it's "highly discouraged," except for when it's safer. But, within the context of those four bullet points (all of which I support)... I claim it is ALWAYS safer. Seriously.

Quite honestly, taxis/kombis are the unsafe mode of transport. These are 15 person vans, often packed with over 20 people (I've seen 26 once). Here is a picture of a kombi in unusually good condition.

Often times you are traveling on a route where there's only one kombi coming every hour or more. If you don't hitch, you take what you get. Sometimes this includes kombis that are barely functioning, kombis that are packed with sick people, drivers who are too young to have a license (but don't tell you), or drivers who are horribly reckless. Once two kombi drivers were so adamant that I should choose their kombi over a competitor that they assaulted me (I got away unscatched, thankfully). My friend had a screwdriver pulled on him in a similar situation. Fortunately, at this point we are all wise enough that, for the most part, we can spot a sketchy situation and find something better.

Not so ironically, yesterday I hitched with a guy who was returning from up north. There, he had been visiting a friend who had just been victim of a kombi that, when full of passengers, flipped over 4 times. She was badly injured, and a baby in the kombi was killed.

Now compare that to getting a hitch. While I can't prove that nothing unsafe ever happens in a hitch, I can definitely say that I've never heard of any PCV having a bad experience. People who own cars are almost always in the upper class of Lesotho. This means they are less desperate. It means they want less from you than, say, the drunk taxi conductor who tried to buy my female friend from me for 5 cows (a bad price, I'm told), or the abrasive woman who demanded that I give her money, then candy, then a job.   Plus there are seat belts.

And there are many other advantages beyond the safety.

1. It's cheaper. Occasionally a driver will ask for a few rand, but generally it's a nice perk to save some money.

2. It's faster. Kombis make tons of stops and break down quite often. Private vehicles don't really.

3. It's more comfortable. People won't angrily slam your window shut when you open it. You won't sit cramped between 3 obese women and their babies on a bench made for 3. There's no oppressively loud music.

4. The Restoration Theory. A friend of mine brought this up a while ago. When she said it, I immediately realized that I felt this way all along, only I never knew I felt it until she articulated it. The idea is that, as PCVs, we are always giving, and whenever we stop to take a breath, someone is there asking us to give more. Granted we came here expecting as much, but still it can be draining. So, getting a hitch helps to restore a sense of balance in our minds. It is genuinely fulfilling to be reminded that, as much as it feels like we are here to give endlessly to Basotho who were so recently strangers, there are Basotho who are willing to give something to us, even though we are total strangers to them.

5. It's fun! Among other reasons, I came to Peace Corps to meet new, interesting people, and to try to understand their lives. There is no better venue for a short interview with a total stranger than in a hitch. It's a captive audience, and usually they picked you up in the first place because they're excited to talk to someone different. Some of the interesting people I've hitched with:

• Members of Parliament
• A guy who owns a construction company in the capital of Botswana (who drove a $70000 car)
• The director of Lesotho's Outward Bound program
• A former soldier/former racecar driver (that is one person)
• A Phys-Ed teacher (probably the only one in this country, actually) who went to college in Cuba
• The director of the local funeral home
• An Indian Muslim shopowner, who told me a story about traveling to NYC 2 months after 9/11, and being arbitrarily thrown in jail for 2 months before being let go. He holds no ill will against America though, and he picked my friend and I up assuming we were American, but knowing we were in no way responsible for his imprisonment. He gave us his number in case we ever need a ride again. 
• A gay police officer (gay in Lesotho is rare)

And I'm sure I'm forgetting others. But mostly it tends just to be middle aged men, who are reasonably successful (enough to own a car and speak good English), who are married and have young children. These guys are always great to talk to, which leads to my final point...

6. Goal 2. Peace Corps is structured around 3 core goals:
"1. Helping the people of interested counties in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping to promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans."
I could write a ton about hitchhiking and goal 2, but I'll just say that some of the absolute best, most meaningful conversations I've had with Basotho have been while hitchhiking.

So, there you have it, my treatise on the merits of hitchhiking in Lesotho. Everyone back home, I miss you and hope you are well.