So some of you may remember that I have the worst luck with technology EVER. Well being in Africa has not changed that at all. My laptop is broken Like won’t turn on broken. Granted, this time it’s my fault, but still it sucks. I am sending it to Maseru and hopefully someone will fix it, if not I have to wait a month until I go down myself in October. That’s the only way all my pictures won’t get lost forever…
Anyways, I had a super fun weekend. I went to Butha Buthe on Friday because a ton of PCVs were meeting up on Saturday. I had a blast. I got to know a bunch of PCVs better and see almost my whole group again! Basically good times all around. I managed to get a ride down to BB (like 2-3 hours away and expensive) with a women who works for CARE Lesotho (which works with GROW). The best part of this story is that it was me and the woman and TWO SHEEP! They were put in bags in the trunk of the SUV. Like 45 mins into our trip one of them totally escaped! We looked back and it was standing up in the back! It was hilarious and we had to stop and ask some herd boys on the side of the road to tie it up again lol….oh Lesotho…
Yesterday (Tuesday) I went to village with GROW and actually participated in a workshop for community based health care workers. I gave a presentation on nutrition. They don’t speak English and I don’t speak Sesotho so I had one of the other presenters translate. Unfortunately it didn’t really go very well. The women just didn’t get it. But at least I tried I guess.
Not that much else has been going on. Clearly I live a boring life. I’m working on taking pictures of Mokhotlong so that when I am in Maseru next I will post them for you. Thanks for the letters! They really help so much!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Mouse Attack
So, the other night I was laying on my bed doing some work on my computer when out of the corner of my eye I see something move in the corner by my front door. I look AND listen for a minute and dismiss the whole thing. I see something again. This time I’m more curious…and slightly paranoid. I watch for a longer time and nothing. Then I see it. A MOUSE. I obviously gave a little shriek and started to panic. I get out of my bed, grab my broom and headlamp (for the dark spaces), and cautiously look around. No sign of the mouse. I pull everything out from against the wall so I can see better and still nothing. I go back to my bed (broom in hand) and keep watch for the mouse. Those of you who know me may remember my aversion/fear of animals, especially those that can hide. I begin to doubt myself, and think that maybe I just imagined the mouse… house is not that big and I couldn’t find the stupid thing anywhere. So I text my neighbor who works with me and she calls my other neighbor and tells me to talk to little sister. So I essentially run across the room and out the door to her sister’s house. Her sister found the mouse in about 3 seconds, and together with my other neighbor they killed the nasty thing. I legit have goose bumps just thinking about it. Thank goodness for my superhero neighbors who are not in least afraid of mice because I defiantly would have gotten no sleep at all that night!
Aside from the mouse hunt, not a ton has been going on here. I planted my garden! And when I say “I” I mean that my Mphoso came over and planted my garden. Radishes and broccoli…I know, who eats radishes? Answer: not me, but I’ll give them away or something. They have started to sprout and everything.
I finally met my Chief this week! This is the real bug news of my week given that the Chief was the first person I was supposed to meet. My Basotho friend Tifi agreed to go with me (as a translator) and I’m actually going to be giving a workshop to the village’s support groups about HIV and AIDS. In another stroke of luck, Tifi agreed to translate the workshop too! Then Tifi came with me to visit some of the schools here. The visits went really well and I’m super grateful that he was around. It was probably the most productive day I’ve had here lol (I also did a TON of laundry that morning). However, I did get a somewhat monstrous sunburn that day…the sun block is officially in use now.
Last weekend I went to St James again with the other volunteers here for a youth workshop for Ben’s students. The workshop went really well and I learned a lot from being there. I also learned about anther myth floating around: that pregnant girls make all her classmates fall asleep, because when her baby is sleeping in her womb, everyone around her falls asleep. Classic. This week the volunteers are coming here to town and we are having a workshop at the high school here where James works. I’m really excited because I want to start a youth group at the school and will start making connections.
Other than that I’ve been living a pretty boring life. Reading books, watching the 5 movies that I have on my computer over and over again…nothing particularly interesting. Next weekend I am going to the next district Butha Buthe for a PC get together where I will see my friends again! But that’s all I have to say, so have a good one! Thanks for reading!
Aside from the mouse hunt, not a ton has been going on here. I planted my garden! And when I say “I” I mean that my Mphoso came over and planted my garden. Radishes and broccoli…I know, who eats radishes? Answer: not me, but I’ll give them away or something. They have started to sprout and everything.
I finally met my Chief this week! This is the real bug news of my week given that the Chief was the first person I was supposed to meet. My Basotho friend Tifi agreed to go with me (as a translator) and I’m actually going to be giving a workshop to the village’s support groups about HIV and AIDS. In another stroke of luck, Tifi agreed to translate the workshop too! Then Tifi came with me to visit some of the schools here. The visits went really well and I’m super grateful that he was around. It was probably the most productive day I’ve had here lol (I also did a TON of laundry that morning). However, I did get a somewhat monstrous sunburn that day…the sun block is officially in use now.
Last weekend I went to St James again with the other volunteers here for a youth workshop for Ben’s students. The workshop went really well and I learned a lot from being there. I also learned about anther myth floating around: that pregnant girls make all her classmates fall asleep, because when her baby is sleeping in her womb, everyone around her falls asleep. Classic. This week the volunteers are coming here to town and we are having a workshop at the high school here where James works. I’m really excited because I want to start a youth group at the school and will start making connections.
Other than that I’ve been living a pretty boring life. Reading books, watching the 5 movies that I have on my computer over and over again…nothing particularly interesting. Next weekend I am going to the next district Butha Buthe for a PC get together where I will see my friends again! But that’s all I have to say, so have a good one! Thanks for reading!
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Working Girl
So basically my life consists of work right now. I’ve also noticed that I start just about every blog with the work “so.” I thought about why I do this and this is what I came up with: I basically write these things the way I think/speak, therefore, when I start all these little stories of my life I would start with “so” if I was talking to you in person. Clearly I’m super bored right now and have filled a solid 3 minutes with a random side note.
I’ve been working with my organization GROW to figure out what I’m going to be doing there. Things are going better, and I guess I’m sort of lucky to have some structure…I’ve also been trying to get out and meet people and learn about my community. When I say my community I’m referring to the camp town. Right now I still don’t know anything at all about my village, although, I have ascertained that there is a bar somewhere in the vicinity of my house because I can hear the music at 3AM. I plan on learning more about my village soon though, so no worries on that front.
I’ve been going out to the rural villages a bit lately. Let me describe to you what these trips entail. (1) a long trip in some old pickup truck (extended cab), (2) the “roads” are bad and therefore you are slamming into the side of the car the whole time, (3) you are squished in with other people (this week I was one of 4 grown adults in the back seat of the truck for at least 2 hours), (4) you become invisible and the people around you speak lightening fast Sesotho, until they make fun of you for something, (5) you never get to go pee and are always starving by the time you get back. Usually I’m at each village for at most an hour and I don’t really do that much. So clearly this is time well spent. Just yesterday the truck actually DROVE OFF THE ROAD! Mind you, there are no rails to prevent you from careening off the mountain. Luckily we slid into the mountain instead of off it—plus there is no cell phone reception that far out. Yikes.
I’m pretty excited because Rachel is in town this week so I’ll have someone to hang out with. Also, PC is coming up so hopefully I’ll get my packages! Yay! This weekend I’m going to go to Ben’s site at St James School to watch a workshop that Rachel and Violeta are giving there. And if I get my packages, I’ll stay and go on a hike with them on Sunday. (I need the ankle brace in mom’s package in order to hike). Update on the ankle: it’s neither better nor worse really. This week it was really sore, but hopefully it will heal eventually.
Anyways, I’m at work right now (so obviously consumed with things to do) and I guess I should wrap this up. Quick note first: I am rarely on the internet. It’s expensive and SUPER SLOW here, so I send my blog posts to Jess and she posts them. The same for my pictures (which are really hard to send and almost impossible to post in Mokhotlong). So don’t think that I’m ignoring you or anything if I take a while to respond to emails or FB messages, its just that I’m a broke volunteer lol. I’ll load a bunch of pics at the end of November when I’m in Maseru.
I’ve been working with my organization GROW to figure out what I’m going to be doing there. Things are going better, and I guess I’m sort of lucky to have some structure…I’ve also been trying to get out and meet people and learn about my community. When I say my community I’m referring to the camp town. Right now I still don’t know anything at all about my village, although, I have ascertained that there is a bar somewhere in the vicinity of my house because I can hear the music at 3AM. I plan on learning more about my village soon though, so no worries on that front.
I’ve been going out to the rural villages a bit lately. Let me describe to you what these trips entail. (1) a long trip in some old pickup truck (extended cab), (2) the “roads” are bad and therefore you are slamming into the side of the car the whole time, (3) you are squished in with other people (this week I was one of 4 grown adults in the back seat of the truck for at least 2 hours), (4) you become invisible and the people around you speak lightening fast Sesotho, until they make fun of you for something, (5) you never get to go pee and are always starving by the time you get back. Usually I’m at each village for at most an hour and I don’t really do that much. So clearly this is time well spent. Just yesterday the truck actually DROVE OFF THE ROAD! Mind you, there are no rails to prevent you from careening off the mountain. Luckily we slid into the mountain instead of off it—plus there is no cell phone reception that far out. Yikes.
I’m pretty excited because Rachel is in town this week so I’ll have someone to hang out with. Also, PC is coming up so hopefully I’ll get my packages! Yay! This weekend I’m going to go to Ben’s site at St James School to watch a workshop that Rachel and Violeta are giving there. And if I get my packages, I’ll stay and go on a hike with them on Sunday. (I need the ankle brace in mom’s package in order to hike). Update on the ankle: it’s neither better nor worse really. This week it was really sore, but hopefully it will heal eventually.
Anyways, I’m at work right now (so obviously consumed with things to do) and I guess I should wrap this up. Quick note first: I am rarely on the internet. It’s expensive and SUPER SLOW here, so I send my blog posts to Jess and she posts them. The same for my pictures (which are really hard to send and almost impossible to post in Mokhotlong). So don’t think that I’m ignoring you or anything if I take a while to respond to emails or FB messages, its just that I’m a broke volunteer lol. I’ll load a bunch of pics at the end of November when I’m in Maseru.
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