Finally an Update!

Sorry about waiting forever to update the blog, sometimes you just have other stuff to do.
So here's a little picture of what I've been up to since the end of September.
1) I went to Bloemfontein in South Africa the first week of October to get my ankle checked out by a specialist. Turns out, my ankle was fractured after all. It healed well but there is soft tissue issues and just yesterday I finally got the rehab routine for it.
2) When I got back from Bloem I was really really sick because I caught something on the bus on the way to Maseru. It may or may not have been swine flu...my clinic is ridiculous so who knows.
3) I went to Maseru again for a week to attend a workshop and had a great time with the other PCVs.
4) Work is boring and I'm working on talking to 2 of the local primary schools about teaching lifeskills for them.
5) Halloween. Halloween was super fun. I went as a highway (thanks for the idea mom). I had been planning on going as another PCV Tara because we look alot alike. People call me Baby Tara/Little Tara.
6) One of the PCVs I was closest with in Mokhotlong went back to America about 2 weeks ago. Sad for me. In another month, Violeta and I will be the only ones in Mokhotlong until January.
7) They turned the water off in my village for 5 days. Me and my neighbor Kefuoe had no clean dishes by the end of the week that we had to eat bread for dinner lol.
8) We've been having killer lightening storms lately. The lightening is really intense and makes me nervous.
I'm sure a ton more has happened but I'm having a hard time remembering what I did. When I think of something else I'll post another better update.

My Tech Demon Strikes Again

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!

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!

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.

Mokhotlong Life

I had written a blog post a while ago, but I never got a chance to post it—and now its really too late so I’m going to recap because so much has happened since I last updated.

So I’m officially a resident of Mokhotlong now. Living in the mountains is really great, so much prettier than the lowlands. I’ve been busy turning my house into MY house—nesting and whatnot. The first big event that happened since I last updated is that I got sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer; meaning that training is finally over and now I can be a real life volunteer! Swearing in was a pretty big deal this year because the Prime Minister’s wife gave a speech for us. That put us on TV and in the papers! I also had to give a speech for my group in Sesotho. I was nervous but it turned out ok…and it put me on TV and a couple people have recognized me on the street lol.

After swearing in we all had to leave to go to our new homes. I’m never particularly excited to go to and from Mokhotlong because it just takes SO long! In a private car it takes about 5 hours to get there, on public it takes about 9, and it takes at least 6 hours to get to Maseru on public. When I say public I’m talking about the bus. The bus is a fairly standard coach type bus—except that they fill all the seats (including putting all children under 8 on laps) and then proceed to fill the aisles so full that no one can move at all. Its definitely an experience.

I’ve been at site for about two weeks now. I work for an organization called GROW, which works with some of the rural villages. The people I work with are really friendly and I’m excited to start projects with them. I also really like Mokhotlong a lot, and just walking around the town I am getting ideas for community projects.

I live about 10 minutes from Grow, and about 30 minutes from town (walking). The walk is nice and people stare at me and shout “Hi” and stuff…typical. People are slowly learning my name, they confuse me with another volunteer who already left. Town is pretty small for a camp town. Its mostly a bunch of Chinese run stores (they call them Machinas). I’m having fun getting to know my way around, and the other volunteers have been really helpful in showing me things.

So there are 5 volunteers in Mokhotlong now; Violeta, Rachel, Ben, James, and Me. James lives in the camp town too, but the others live a little further away. Last weekend we all went to Ben’s site (a school) for my Newbie Party. It was so much fun. Violeta is a really great cook and made homemade manicotti, Italian bread, and a bittersweet chocolate pear cake (we all helped cook a little lol). It was great to get to know everyone a little better. Ben and James are leaving at the end of November though because their 2 years of service are up.

This weekend has been fairly uneventful—which is exactly what I needed. I sat outside my house yesterday and read a book…and got a sunburn! I know right, surprise surprise Kristine got a sunburn. And today I did my laundry and walked to town for a bit. In case you are wondering, I do NOT like to do laundry. 1) I always spill water on myself, 2) its super tiring to wash jeans and sweatshirts, 3) my neighbors and passers-by always stare at me and I’m pretty sure they are making fun of me, 4) its unacceptable to hang your underwear outside on the line, so a weeks worth of panties are strung across my house. But I fully intend to pay someone to do my laundry for me, so hopefully that will happen soon.

This is a pretty long blog so I’m going to wrap it up now. Thanks for the letters and FB messages everyone. Enjoy what’s left of your summer! I’m almost done with winter and about to start the windy season—please try to contain your jealously.

PS other volunteers have better access to internet than I do and have posted pictures onto Facebook—if you check my FB page you will see if I am in their albums and then you can look at their Lesotho pictures too (they will post more often).

Highlands Here I Come

So quite a few things have happened since I last updated this blog. Most notably I got my site placement! I will be living in Mokhotlong, in the camp town (which is sort of like a city). Mokhotlong (Mo-hot-long) is in the mountains on the eastern side of the country. I will be working with an organization called GROW, which works mainly with agriculture. I’m not super pumped about agriculture, but I will work it all out.
The day after we got our site placements we had to give village meeting (a pitso). My village chose to give a presentation on nutrition. It went really well and in general we were glad to just be done with it.
Last Saturday we had a barbeque. We drove to Buhta Buhte and went to this nice mountain lodge for a hike. I didn’t hike though (hiking in the boot is something I never want to do again). The volunteer that works with the lodge was the last volunteer to stay with my host family.
The last week went by pretty fast because we knew that we were in the tail end of training. Yesterday was the official end to community based training. We peeled and cut veggies with our host moms to prepare for the village feast that was being given for us. The feast was really fun. Some of the village girls performed a traditional dance for us and the bo-‘m’e and church choir sang. It was a lot of fun.
So most days I go to Irena’s or Melissa’s house and hang out with them and Chris (the North side of the village). We make dinner and just chill out. The other night we had a dance party outside Melissa’s house with her little nieces and nephews. All the Bokone people went to Irena’s house and we had an amazing dinner. We had Mexican night and made tortillas, meat, cornbread and veggies.
I totally miss my host family already. On my last night I played cards with my sister and cousins and made popcorn. It was really fun. My ‘m’e came in and gave me a t-shirt (all the trainees got them) and I gave her some pictures that I took of the family. About two weeks ago I became friends with my older brother Koali. He’s hilarious and I’m sad we weren’t friends the whole time lol. When Melissa and I taught him Go Fish it was the funniest thing ever! Also, although I haven't had the greatest luck with dogs, my family's dog was FABULOUS! At first I was scared of him because he's easily the biggest dog in Bokone, but ALL he wants to do is cuddle. Kevin (pcv) told me he named him bear because of all the bear hugs he gives. He would meet me at the road and walk me home at night and no other dogs would bother me...he was sooo sweet!
So now we’re back in Maseru at the training center for a few days and on Tuesday I go to visit my site. I took a shower for the first time in weeks and it was AMAZING! Also we all watched movies and are going to have a movie day tomorrow where we all watch movies all day. That’s just about it for now. I’ll let you all know how my site visit was! (a current ed volunteer Violeta is going to show me around on Wednesday).

New Update

So right now I am in TY again and we're going to visit Alison (a current volunteer) at her clinic...but we're food shopping first..aka using the internet. There hasn't been a ton of action since my last update, but here's what you missed. We had to give presentations yesterday in front of all of the trainers and the country director and program director, which was a little nerve wracking at first but ended up being totally fine. I did mine on making paper bag hand puppets of what you want to be when you grow up...and did most of the presentation in sesotho. Also I had some laundry accidents this week. First, I accidently set my wool socks on fire by putting them too close to my heater...booth pairs..oops. Second, I did some laundry, hung it on the line outside and when I went to go to school I saw that there was about 6 feet of raw meat hung on the line 6 inches from my clothes...gross. But these things happen and it just makes for another story to tell all of you. Also, I just want to shout out some penpal MVPs: thanks Jill and Hannah for being awesome with sending me letters, they totally made my days, and big shout out to Catherine for calling me!! You totally made my day better after the meat clothes incident!

Busy Week

So this past week the group was split up and sent to different areas for site visits with current volunteers. I went to Berea district with Elissa and Brice to stay with Merrill near the camp town TY. We had a blast. We got to hang out with her youth group and hike a mountain to reach the Ha Kome caves...which were super cool. To get to TY we had to take a kombi...aka a big white van that holds roughly 20 people. Kombis are a crazy experience. They aren't in the best condition and are generally packed full of people...but that just adds excitement to the trip. The best part is when they need to be puched backwards in order to start...much like a wind up toy car lol.
Since I got back from TY I've done some fun things. First I decided to try making Nisu..which came out ok given that I steamed it in a pot. We also took another mountain climbing trip to Thaba Bosiu on the 4th of July. On the 5th we were allowed to have a BBQ at the other training village that the Peace Corps paid for...which was so fun. Everybody was really excited to eat hamburgers. Overall it was a really fun week and when I have more time I will probably give more details, but alas, time is short so thats it for now.

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!

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 café 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!

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.

Packing and Goodbyes

So I have roughly 4 days left here until I head of to Lesotho. And given my ever increasing tendencies towards procrastination I'd say I'm doing fairly well in terms of getting things done. I have almost everything I need...all that's left is the random little things like makeup and drink mixes so nothing big.
Also, I managed to lay out all the clothes I'm planning on bringing. Let me paint you a little picture of how the whole clothing thing is going...first I gave away all the clothes that I'm not taking with me (sigh), then I bought some new "durable" (aka borderline hideous) clothes to replace them. Today I piled them on the floor and just looked at them. My mission for tomorrow is to actually pack them.
A few details: This is the blog I will be writing (obviously) and I will try to update it as much as possible so be patient! I was just reading the blog of one PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer) and she seems to update fairly frequently with pictures.
That's all for now...next time I update it will likely be from Lesotho! ahhh!
Also, I REALLY want people to write to me, so try to if you can! <3