Winter Break

Whoo!  Summer break is already sneaking away on me.

I’ve stayed awesomely busy lately.  I was a little worried that I’d be so bored out of my mind during the break that I’d be having time to dwell on how much I miss home and get positively depressed.  Never happened.

World cup has been great.  I made a bracket and picked Spain to win.  Lucky me.  I was certainly the least deserving but somehow or another I ended up with enough points to win a pool with a bunch of friends.  Irony.

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World Cup Games

I spent an obscene amount of money on my first game, Greece v. Nigeria.  I have some pictures up on my picasa web site.  Lucky for me, I got to go to another, much cheaper game.  On my way to a trip to Maseru I was invited to go go with a staff member and a number of other volunteers to see if I could get some cheap seats for the Switzerland v. Honduras game.  At first I was skeptical that I could make it fit into my schedule but then I realized…free transport, cheap tickets, and world cup…that’s a pretty beautiful combination that I had no justification for missing.

Our seats were ‘partially obstructed’ for 140 rand…less than 20 bucks.  Our pregame adventure was great.  We painted our faces for Honduras(go America).  One of the volunteers was given a full-size Honduran flag by another random fan, so we were pretty decked out.  We got to the game, and found out our seats were in the second row.  Our ‘partial obstruction’ was the ribbon board that surrounds the field, which only obstructed our view when the sideline plays were so close we couldn’t see the ball…but then the players were so close, i guess for 20 bucks it was a fair enough trade-off.

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Peace Corps Response Visitor

The reason I was in maseru to get to see the game was because I was picking up a Peace Corps Response volunteer who was going through a real quick training, mostly for language, to get him acclimated to life in Lesotho.  He had worked previously as a PCV in Bangladesh and the Philippines, so he knew the ropes, but Peace Corps still wanted him to do a site visit, to check out a village and see what life’s like in the country.  Lucky guy he was, he got to visit me.

We made some pizza and watched the U.S. v. Ghana game at an old Guest House in my Village.   Aside from the U.S. losing, the visit was a lot of fun.

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Scary Incident

A couple weeks ago I was sitting in my Rondavel, reading a book, when I got a polite “Koko” on my door.  I opened the door and saw my little host brother.  He told me he needed help.  My host Nkhono and Ntate were out, so I figured he needed something off the shelf or help with some school-work or something.  On my way to the house, he told me, “My sister, she is dead.”

Without divulging too much information (everything you read on my blog here is censored to an extent), my sister didn’t die.  I did have the single worst peace corps experience I’ve had so far, though.  I called khotso and he arranged some transport to the hospital and she came back later that night, a little confused, but alive and walking on her own.  Thankfully, she is back to her old self, now.

I was really frustrated with some peace corps policies that limit a volunteer’s involvement in such situations.  I wrote my Country Director an e-mail addressing my concerns, and she was very sympathetic and supportive.  She forwarded parts of the message to Peace Corps Washington, and they sent back a very disappointing, bureaucratic response that totally dismissed the value of human life.  That’s how it goes, though.  I understand where Washington is coming from, i guess.  They can’t afford to get their hands dirty in such situations.  Still…it’s unsettling on a number of levels.

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Books

My nerdiness is at a peak since coming to Lesotho.  I’ve been reading such epically cool books as “Dante’s Inferno” and “Science, a 4000 Year History” and somehow, really enjoying them.  I’m still reading some regular modern fiction, but somehow i’m really enjoying these extra-nerdy excursions.  I think my brain is hungry for knowledge.  My host family thinks i’m strange, as I sit in my rondavel with my door open letting the sunlight in, reading a book.  Lesotho doesn’t have much of a reading culture, and people laugh at me in disbelief when I say that reading is how I keep myself entertained.

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Future Plans

So I’ve got a lot going on the next few weeks.  I’ll be going to visit Berea Village, where I did my CBT(community based training) to visit my old host family.  I’ll be going with two other volunteers, and I’m really looking forward to spending some time in my old village.

One of my closest volunteer friends is also doing a garden project, building key-hole gardens for older women who take care of younger children.  I’ll be spending some time helping him with manual labor.  I like his village a lot, and am looking forward to it.

Peace Corps is also hosting an HIV/AIDS workshop to fill volunteers heads with information to help approach the topic in our areas.  I’m really looking forward to this, as our new country director is very experienced in HIV/AIDS work, I’m looking forward to understanding more about whats, hows and whys of HIV work in Lesotho as an education volunteer.

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Khotso’s School

I certainly have a newfound respect for America…the whole world looks up to us as an example of how things should be done.  It’s hard to believe that I was lucky enough to come from a place with so much opportunity.

In Africa, even if you are motivated and want to succeed, you hit wall after wall after wall.  If you are especially ambitious, you find a way through or around these walls…but after you find a way through one you just hit another…and another…and another…until you become so discouraged that you realize you’re doomed to sit idle in your country…stagnant and unproductive.  Most of the most intelligent Basotho I’ve met are alcoholics, and I think it’s for this very reason.  They live their lives unfulfilled in these villages with no way out…no way to contribute.

My friend Khotso has been trying for the last year and a half to continue his education.  He wants a tertiary Degree in Business…something that is offered, quite cheap, in Lesotho…but he knows that a degree in Lesotho is only respected in Lesotho.  In order to be taken seriously, he needs his degree from South Africa.

After working hard to raise the funds and apply, he finally got accepted to a good correspondence program in Rustenburg.  Taking care of applications and transcripts in a small village in central Lesotho is far from an easy task.  He had little-to no family support.  He was also busy making a living in the village doing whatever odd jobs he can.  Talk about busting through barriers.  He did it, though, and I was so happy for him.  His books came in the mail and he’s been squeezing whatever spare time he can into creating a schedule for his busy life and happily working on his studies.

The other day he was blindsided.  He got a phone call from the school saying that he had been un-admitted.  They seemed to have made a mistake in his acceptance.  His English scores were a bit lower than satisfactory the first time he took the SAT equivalent, so he took the English section again, this time doing much better.  The school said since he had only retaken English, they could not accept the scores.  He needed to take the english with all the other sections.  This coming after he had been admitted, after they sent him his books, after he scheduled his next several months to work hard and do well in his classes, after he had spent huge amounts of money on application fees, transport to the school(taking public makes it a multi-day event) for counseling sessions…all of that…how did they not catch this sooner?  What were his counselors doing, and how dare they call him after he had been accepted to say…”whoops…our bad, we were just kidding when we said you were in.”

I have no doubt that he will find a way to get in, but who knows how long it will take.  It could be another month…another year…another 2 years.  No doubt he’ll keep hitting wall after wall, each time getting a little more discouraged.  Right now the only thing driving him is himself.  His family doesn’t care if he goes to school, the village doesn’t care if he goes to school.  He wants it because he knows it’s what is necessary and right.  He wants a better life, he is motivated and hard-working, and for this, such treatment is his reward.

What would you do?  One thing I will say, is if you do get through Africa…you come out strong.

I would have given up a long time ago.

Tagged as: challenges, School, world cup