Saturday, June 27, 2009

Village Life

So I haven’t had a ton of time to update this blog lately…but let’s not forget..this IS Africa. I have a new name! Since my arrival in Bokone I have been officially named Limpho Thelingoane. Limpho (DimPo TEdingwane) means “many gifts.” I have a ‘M’e (aka host mom) and Ntate (dad) and 4 brothers and a sister…plus lots of grandkids, cousins, etc.
I LOVE Bokone. Its pretty much the most beautiful place ever. It was really cool the other day because we woke up the other morning and all of a sudden there was snow on the mountains in the distance! Also, we saw the end of a rainbow on Tuesday! When does that EVER happen! I took a picture of it though so no worries.
The first week of village we ate all of our meals with our families, which was cool. My family LOVES to play cards so I had a great time with them. Each day we got to cook something with our ‘M’e, the best thing was cooking steamed bread (which is super yummy). Now, we are on our own and are cooking for ourselves.
Here’s a little snapshot into my life here. My alarm goes off at around 6:15 am and I get up and turn my heater on and start boiling my bath water. I get back into bed for like 20 mins and then go and empty my pee bucket (yup I said pee bucket) into the latrine. Then I take a bucket bath and wash my underwear (they stress the importance of doing this EVERY day, no joke). I then get dressed and started boiling water for my breakfast. I sweep my floor, eat, make my bed (takes like 1 min b/c it’s a sleeping bag) and then head to school at like 8. At school we sing the Lesotho national anthem and usually go to Sesotho class. Then we have been heading to the other village for group sessions on health, youth, agriculture, business etc. We have lunch, then are done at 4pm. After that I usually play with the little kids for a while and then make dinner. Bed time is very shortly after dinner (usually like 8pm).
So there you have it folks, A day in the life of Kristine. I’m heading to Berea tomorrow with Brice and Elissa to stay with a current volunteer for like a week!
I almost forgot to mention some things about living here. First, right outside my house there is a cow/donkey pen, a chicken coop (with roosters who have ZERO sense of time), and dogs and cats. As you know, its winter here in Lesotho. It has been COLD here this week. Its cool because for the past few days when I wake up and walk to school the ground is white with all the frost.
I miss you all!

Friday, June 12, 2009

Injuries and Immunizations

So sorry about the delay in posting any updates. Actually, I take that back, I’m really not sorry at all…I’m in Africa. But I do have a legit reason for not updating. Let me take you back to 4 days ago (some of you were lucky enough to get an email from me…I must love them more). About 2 hours after finding that by standing on a garden wall and holding our laptops over our heads we could catch wireless here on the compound I had a bit of an accident—shock and surprise I had an accident. I fell and severely sprained my ankle L It totally killed and generally sucks, but my fellow trainees and the PC staff have been super supportive. Dr J looked at and gave me a boot that I’ve been hobbling around in for the past few days and I went to the hospital for X-rays and thankfully no breaks! It’s looking pretty hideous these days with all the bruising and swelling but I plan on hobbling my way over to the internet cafĂ© today.

We’ve mostly been doing trainings. We’re leaving really soon for our training villages, which is super exciting. Today we are going shopping for stuff we will need. And for those of you who are interested in the “series of shots” we have been getting, for me the shot count is 5 (some people had to get more!). We’re all pretty sore from the 2 we got yesterday though.

Anyways, I’m picking up the language faster than I thought I would. Our teachers (bo-‘m’e) are hilarious and very patient with us. We are on tea break right now. Note to Hannah: the guest speaker we just had works for World Vision! He is the finance manager here is Lesotho.

My computer battery is dying so I’m ending here. Write me letters!

Getting Settled

Lumelang bo m’e le bo ntate, (Hi ladies and gentlemen)

So clearly I’ve mastered the local language in record time…obviously that is a complete lie. We’ve had one Sasotho lesson so far and I don’t think that any of us will really “master” the language. OMG this is technically a ‘click’ language too! But only on words that have Qs in them and a lot of people don’t use them. And to be honest the greeting to this doesn’t really mean hi ladies and gentlemen, it actually is hi women and men but that’s neither here nor there…

Since I haven’t updated since I got here I’ll sum up the events so far. At JKF we saw Ben from LOST and sort of stalked him from a gift shop. The plane ride wasn’t bad at all despite being 15 hours long. Once in Jo’Burg we went straight to the hotel where we ordered food and then proceeded to sleep for the rest of the day. Our plane to Maseru was the smallest plane I have ever been on (max like 26 people). Our luggage was 200 kgs over and therefore about half remained in SA….with the added mystery of not knowing whose didn’t make it. Shock and surprise my bag containing all of my clothes didn’t make it. But thankfully they arrived yesterday afternoon.

Lesotho is BEAUTIFUL. The mountains are ridiculously pretty, and I swear the sky is bluer here (side note: if I make up words just go with it). The training center where we live is really different than I thought it would be. It’s actually sort of a commune type setup, we have guards that control the gate. There are 4 bedrooms with 6 bunks in each, and there is a big livingroom area with a big tv and movies, a nice kitchen and a few bathrooms. In the other main building we use there is a dining room type area where we eat that is attached to our classroom area. There’s a library too. We got to go into the city a bit and went to the grocery store today…note to my Florence girls it’s like a million times better than Standa. And we have 2 tea breaks a day, and are drinking tea like 24/7.

Today is our free day to do whatever so most of us played a bug game of volleyball…I eventually will stop sucking at it. Also, we have a current volunteer living with us named Meghan and she’s been super helpful. Next week (on Sunday) we are leaving here to move in with host families in 2 villages for about 6 weeks. We’re all pretty excited about it but we’ll miss the washing machine and hot water showers….

Anyways, it turns out that I won’t have a ton of access to the internet during these 3 months of training so the updates will maybe be once a week at most. But, I’m going to get a cell phone soon and I can text the US! Its SUPER expensive for me to call the US (15 rand a min. for me, 15 cents for you to call me) so for those of you who want to talk to me get a calling card and phone me! I’ll post my cell number when I get it (and my mom will have it as soon as I get one so you can always ask her). (fyi I’m 6 hrs ahead).

So that’s all I have for now. Sala hankle!

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Let the journey begin...

So right now I am sitting at the computer in my amazing hotel room (king size bed and everything) in Philly. I got in yesterday and went to "Staging" (aka registration/ pre-pre service training). It was great to finally meet the people in my program. There are 16 of us total and I'm like 95% sure that I'm the youngest one here.
Everyone seems really nice though. We bonded over Thai food for dinner.
So I don't know if there's a time stamp on this but it's 2:45 am....we have to checkout at 3am. You can imagine how excited we all are about this.....
We are about to drive to Laguardia in NY, where we board our 15 hour plane ride to Johanesburg (spelling?). We then are confined to our hotel in Jo'burg until we meet at the airport at 3 am the day for Maseru, Lesotho!
Well I have to go, but I will try and update as soon as I can!
Love you all.