Care Packages

I've been getting a lot of letters and emails from folks asking me what I need in here in Lesotho if they send me a care package. I have received a few care packages already and they have been amazing. It's really expensive to ship and Idon't really "need" anything - except letters & photos :). But if your sending a package anyway here is a few things that are "favorites" that I can't find here in Lesotho.

* Drinks - Double SpicedChai Tea, cocoa, crystal light, propel/gatorade etc...
* Sour Jelly Belly's, Jolly Ranchers...
* Cliff Bars, Luna Bars, Granola Bars etc... "On the go" types of "meals"
* Meat - I can get cans of tuna here, but those individual packages of salmon, chicken breasts, are great.
* Reading materials - newspaper articles, magazines, books
* Seeds - cold, drought resistant seeds
* Maps/Posters - those National Geographic ones mail nicely - I'll use them in my classrooms. Maps of the world, posters on reproductive health, nature, diversity, etc...
* Seasonings; taco, cheese, pesto..... anything that can flavor rice, pasta, cabbage and cornmeal :)
* Anything that makes me laugh......

Some Notes on Shipping things...
It's really expensive! The cheapest way to ship is padded envelopes and flat rate boxes. There is a international flat rate box, I think it's around $40 to ship and there is no weight limit. Please claim things as missionary supplies, religious materials, used clothing, educational materials etc. A few "God Bless You's" and religious phrases on the boxes really help also. Packages arrive here (and S.Africa) and can be searched and sometimes things dissapear. There is a lot of missionary influence here and other volunteers have found boxes that are labeled religious are not even opened and searched.



A lot of people have asked about sending things for the villagers. I have to be really careful and I can't give out things in my community. I get asked for things all the time - because of missionaries and other NGO's that stop by the schools and hand out toys, clothes, candy, blankets, books etc - then leave. Some villagers re-sell the donations, other use actually put them to use - but regardless I don't think it helps them much in the way that I want to help them.

If I handed things out it would be really difficult for me to live there for the next 2 years and I'm not sure it would help much. I want people to see me as a source of knowledge and resources, not a source of gifts etc. Things that I could use to help the villagers are seeds (that I could plant in my school gardens) (drought & cold resistant) and posters/maps. I could use them as teaching materials for my schools. If you know anyone that has National geographic maps they want to get rid of (the ones that fold up and can be mailed easily) those would be great. The walls are bare mud or concrete. I draw posters on paper I brought but my artistic skills are not that great. Also, if you know of anyone that had posters on reproductive health, photos & posters of diversity in America (everyone thinks all americans are white and rich), and posters of conservation/nature/gardening that would be amazing. I teach in English - because that's the medium but props would help them understand my heavily accented english...

If I start a project that needs financial assistance I'll let everyone know via email. Technically I have to go through the Peace corps and they have a website where you can donate to projects that pcv's post. I probally won't because I don't think it's a sustainable impact here to give people any money or to start a huge project and then leave. I've seen a lot of botched programs and projects where lots of donated money was spent and as soon as the NGO or volunteer left the program also fell through... I have only been here 6 months though and my attitude and knowledge about things could change.

Christmas in Africa

It's a beautiful summer day here in Lesotho. I've just returned from a week at Bethel, the site of my friend KJ. She's a teacher at the Permaculture/Technical school and lives in a really sweet house on the school compound. To get to her site we had to ride buses and taxi's for hours, hike for several miles down to a river, ferry across the river in a boat and ride in the back of a truck to her house. It was an all day adventure.

It wasn't feeling much like XMAS until we went into KJ's house. The weather here has been really warm and there isn't as much Christmas "hype" in the stores, radio etc. It's weird being in the S.Hemisphere. KJ went all out with decorations and made a construction paper fire, stockings and snowflakes. To celebrate Christmas we spent several days eating fantastic food, watched "It's a Wonderful Life" (on a laptop), decorated cookies, exchanged funny gifts and enjoyed each others company. I loved hiking around and seeing another part of Lesotho (and collecting rocks :) ) We had access to solar electricity, flush toilets and hot showers, it was awesome! I also was able to receive a few phone calls from home. I had to answer the calls in a field, where the best signal came through. I talked to some of my family in the pouring down rain, but it was awesome to say hello and hear everyones voices.

The most memorable part of Christmas this year was getting in touch with our food source. We had ducks for xmas dinner (couldn't find a turkey). Casey and Andy each lopped the heads off of a duck, we then plucked them, gutted them and ate them for dinner. It was a dramatic, disgusting and humorous event. The ducks turned out fantastic, but it was a lot of work.

It was a fun week and one of the most memorable holidays I've ever had. Hope everyone in the states had a great holiday also.

Tomorrow Casey and I are headed to the Wildcoast to do some backpacking and relaxing on the Indian Ocean.

Returning Home

Many people ask me if I miss “home”. I know they mean the states… Idaho etc. Yes, I miss family & friends but right now my home is Africa. The remote village of Mashai is my residence and community for at least 20 more months. I have no idea where I’ll call home after that. Recently I spent several weeks in the hustle & bustle of Maseru and I was so happy to finally return to my home.

There is only one bus that goes past my village everyday, so if I missed the bus it means I’d have to wait until the next day (or several days if the bus isn’t running). I had spent the night before returning home to my village at a Peace Corps party at a nice hotel in Maseru. One of the volunteers rented a huge sweet for the night and stocked an entire fridge and freezer full of liquor and soda. We spent hours visiting, eating and dancing. It was a long, memorable and fun night. There was a little political unrest before I returned home and I didn’t want to get stuck in Maseru so I jumped on the bus even after a long night of partying with other volunteers.

I had had about 3 hours of sleep and nothing in my stomach as I walked through the “taxi rank” at 6:00am. It was still early in the morning, so I didn’t attract as much attention as usual but I was still cranky, tired and a little hung over, so I was not your typical friendly Pam. I probably “snapped” at a few Bo-Ntate and kids begging for sweets. The taxi rank is my least favorite place to be, especially alone. I stepped onto the bus after a swift walk through the taxi rank.

After handing my huge backpack to the Ntate on top of the bus I eased onto the green metal seat and greeted everyone around me. I was fortunate to get a seat and to have several familiar faces of other teachers or villagers I recognized. My stomach and head were pounding so I sunk down low in seat, hoping to draw the least amount of attention as possible. The bus had a familiar smell of gasoline, body sweat, exhaust and livestock.

We sat on the bus for an hour or more before leaving the taxi rank. Women carried baskets of fruit, bread, plastic combs, mirrors and many other random items to purchase past our open windows. You could hear the murmur of voices on the bus, the honking of other buses preparing to leave, taxi conductors yelling locations, chickens clacking, babies crying and lambs baying.

After about 1.5 hr of pavement and accelerated speeds over the “God Help Me Pass” we descended into the river gorge near Mohale Dam, this is where the pavement ends. The bus goes much slower on the gravel roads, but it’s still scary at times. The huge buses carry about 80 passengers – both sitting and standing and various livestock and baggage. It curves around sharp bends in the road, blind corners and non existent guard rails. On my bus, we have to ford a river when it’s flooding (or get off and ride a boat if it’s too high). The shocks are non existent and you get bounced around on your seat or off your feet if you’re standing in the bus. During this particular trip the bus broke down once and we also had a flat tire. It took 10 hours total from the time I left Maseru to the time I arrived to my village. The sun was beginning to set behind the Maloti Mountains as I walked to my house.

I had spent almost 3 weeks in Maseru & visiting other volunteers, so I was nervous returning to my village after such a long time away. I wondered if my community would forget who I was, if my garden would be ok, if my cat would end up dinner for someone and if the lizards, ants and spiders had taken over my house.

As soon as the bus stopped below the hill to my village, several kids ran down the dusty red road to help me carry my bags and everyone greeted me as I hiked up the hill. I was still not feeling well 10 hours on that road, trying to talk Sesotho and sitting on metal benches is exhausting. For once I was glad for all the attention though. It was a nice welcoming from everyone. Many people asked if I’d brought them gifts, but everyone was really happy to see me. My Me’ greeted me with a big Basotho hand shake, hug and plate of papa (cornmeal). Several neighbors stopped by to visit as I was sweeping out the red dust that had accumulated in my hut. I got several comments about how boring things were while I was gone. I can only imagine… they didn’t have someone to watch and talk about while I was gone J.

Soon after returning home I sat on the stones outside my hut with my journal and watched the sunset over the mountains, my kitten was curled up on my lap purring away.

I was happy to be home.

The A Frame Chicken Tractor

I’m a 25 year old (that looks like she’s 16), unmarried, white American woman that is here to volunteer and live in Mashai for 2 years. I claim to have no money, seeds, food or candy to give but I’m here to teach children about Agriculture and HIV at the schools. I don’t speak Sesotho very well and I turn down "quality" marriage proposals from Basotho men. This is what the villagers of Mashai learned about me in my first few days at my new home.
I am the local celebrity and under constant observation by villagers and scrutinized for everything I do that’s not Basotho. People who come to visit immediately notice all the things I’m doing incorrectly like cooking papa, making my bed, washing my clothes, arranging my house and gardening. It was so frustrating for a while. My village mother was especially critical, which made things even more challenging because she’s the most respected woman in our village. I’m hardly an expert in gardening but I do know how to plant and care for vegetables and how to prevent soil erosion and conserve water.
When I started to plant and dig my plots this Spring (September) my Me’ would tell me I was doing everything wrong. My plots were not smooth enough, my seeds were not in a straight line, my mulch was sloppy and should be removed, and I shouldn’t plant more than one type of seed in each plot. I felt I was doing everything right but most of the Basotho women who came to visit felt the same as Me’. My issue was trying to find a compromise – I’m here to teach Permaculture and I didn’t feel like the gardening methods the Basotho do are environmentally sound or practical. There is so much soil erosion, a major drought, and not enough food. People here are not ready to change methods especially when the new ideas come from a "young girl" from America. I felt like there was no hope in teaching anything to the community women and my first growing season was very frustrating, but things changed after I built the A-Frame Chicken Tractor.
This Spring brought the birth of many farm animals around the village. My Me` had about 10 baby chicks running around the compound the first week of October. The bright yellow balls of fluff soon became victims of feral cats and quick falcons and after only a week she had half the chicks that were hatched. Many other villagers were also losing their baby chicks to the predators around the village. I remembered seeing a chicken house design for small chickens in a Permaculture book I was reading. One afternoon I collected many small sticks and constructed a small A framed chicken house. I didn’t have chicken wire so I used string, sticks and feed sacks. This chicken house is a small portable A framed house that protects chickens from predators and moves the chickens around to "fertilize" the soil, eat insects and dig up weeds in the garden.
I built the house while my Me’ was gone working in the fields and put the baby chickens in it. I had fun making it, it was like a big craft project and I knew if Me’ didn’t like it we could at least burn it to cook papa for dinner. That afternoon Me’ returned from the fields and saw the chicken house. She muttered some things in Sesotho and gave me a grin. She soon took charge of "positioning" the chicken house and would place it near road so people would yell over the fence and ask her about it. She bragged about her American daughter all week and soon villagers started coming to me with questions about agriculture. All because of some sticks, feed sacks and yarn. Within a couple of days several villagers came over to our compound, dragging sticks and holding wire to have me show them how to build the A-Frame chicken tractor. Me' started to listen to some of my suggestions on where to plant, what to plant etc. I've since introduced a few other permaculture methods to Mashai - and so far people really are really receptive. I too have learned a ton.
Now that my community knows me better I like to think they see me as a 25year old woman who has a lot of experience to share with people in the village. I know they treat me much different now. Also the eligible bachelors of Mashai now know that I'm definetly not here for marriage as I've spread the word I'll only marry a man that is willing to cook, clean and haul my buckets of water ;)