Peggi Tabor Letters #1 - Peace Corps Training
Dear Friends and family:
This is my first shot at an Internet connection since I arrived in Africa and my hands are shaking. There is so much to say and so little time. I arrived here in Lesotho late on June 2nd. We were met at the Bloomfontein airport by a group of PC staff and our Peace Corps country director, Jean McGrath Thomas. They sang a traditional African welcome and loaded our bedraggled group into vans for the 30 km trip to Mazenod, Lesotho, the site for our first two and final three weeks of training.
This training site is an old Catholic monastery that has been converted into a conference center. We each have tiny rooms, formerly monk’s cells. Everything is quite basic; there is no central heat but small space heaters to warm our classrooms. The bathrooms are indoors (a real luxury in these parts), unheated and communal. The food is simple, quite strange and plentiful - more about food later if I don’t lose this connection.
A little about this group of volunteers; there are 28 of us divided into two general groups, Community Health advisors and Community Economic Development advisors. Community Health advisors include volunteers with backgrounds in Permaculture, Nutrition and HIV/AIDS. There are 15 in this general CH group. I am in the Community Economic Development group. We are divided into Community Development Advisors, Youth Development Advisors and Business Management Advisors. I am a Business Management Advisor.
The credentials of both groups are varied and impressive. We have fresh out of college volunteers with degrees ranging from furniture design and crafts to nutrition to third world diseases. There are seasoned executives and health care workers, two lawyers and several PhD’s. Our ages range from 23 to 75. Our 75 year old is an energetic female entomologist. This is her forth trip to Africa as a medical / health volunteer. She is inspiring all of us.
Our training is both interesting and intense. It is divided into four
sections: language, culture, health and safety and technical training. We start each morning by singing both the Lesotho and American national anthems. The Lesotho anthem is beautiful. It is sung in traditional African polyrhythmic harmonies with overlapping time signatures. You should have heard us at first. Our trainers, mostly native Basotho, were in stitches we sounded so bad. This music that comes so naturally to them is really tricky. We are, however, quite determined and getting better.
Music in such an integral part of this culture. We have about 15 native Basotho trainers and they begin many sessions with high-spirited songs and dances that pertain to whatever it is we are about to learn. Really, they could be professional entertainers - they are great. Their performances always produce wild applause and whistles from us - we love it! We spend hours every day trying to learn this inscrutable (so far) language.
We are in very small groups for language classes - four students to one teacher. They switch us around depending on our progress. We are all finding it very difficult. Our health and safety classes are facilitated either by one of the two doctors on the PC staff or by the PC national security officer. The national security officer is an ex-marine whose previous post was security officer for six US embassies. He really knows his stuff.
Basically, we are learning survival, evasion and escape. In addition to personal safety we’ve been taught an Emergency Action Plan that coordinates our activities in case things go really bad. PC volunteers have been evacuated from Lesotho twice in the past. The record for the safety of PC volunteers is excellent and it is due, to a great part, to the training we receive. If it sounds like I am pleased with this training, believe it - I am. The Peace Corps is not scrimping on the quality of either the trainers or the training program. I feel that I am in very good hands and learning what I need to know to be both safe and effective in the assignment I will soon be given.
The culture classes are, perhaps the most fascinating of all. This culture is so different from ours. The list of do’s and don’ts seems almost endless. For instance, all washing is done by hand and it is absolutely forbidden to wash dishes in the same basin in which you wash clothes. Also, everything is dried outside but you must never hang underwear outside. If you do hang it on the line you must put a towel over it so no one can see it.
The plight of women in this country is dreadful, at least by our American standards. In this patriarchal society women are treated as commodities and have few rights. Women are legal minors under the law and cannot negotiate credit, buy or own land, have bank accounts etc. without their husband’s consent. Unmarried or widowed women fall under the control of a male guardian, a brother-in-law or uncle.
Women are sold into marriage. The bride price, or lobola is paid by the husband’s family and often has dreadful ramifications for the women. Often fathers-in-law feel they have the right to have sex with their son’s wife - after all, he paid for her. Women’s sexuality should be completely invisible. They are taught to never initiate sex. They are to be submissive, passive and respecting to their husbands. Women are told nothing of sex before their marriage.
Men, on the other hand, prove their manhood through sex. They are expected to have multiple partners and in this HIV/AIDS ridden nation the gift many grooms bring to their brides is a death sentence. 55% of the infection rate is among women. We are receiving extensive training on the HIV/AIDS issue and I hope to send out a future email on that topic alone.
On a more positive note, we had a delightful surprise at the end of our first week of training. U.S. Ambassador Robert Loftis invited us all to his house for a welcoming party. It was wonderful. He was charming, informative and a gracious host. His home was beautiful; filled with treasures he and his wife (who unfortunately was in the hospital and could not attend) had collected during their 24 years in the Foreign Service. We were all completely impressed, made to feel quite important to our country’s efforts in this country and left the party elated and encouraged.
Did I mention this isn’t exactly easy? Getting around is difficult. Communications are difficult. We are surrounded by poverty and death and the problems seem almost insurmountable. No matter what we do it will be a tiny drop in a huge bucket of woes. But we can’t just give up. This country really wants our help. Last week representatives from the villages, organizations and ministries that have requested volunteers visited the training center. There were sadly more of them than there are of us to fill positions. And all the positions are so in need of help.
There were three different jobs that really appealed to me. I wish I could do them all. One was to help a group of women who have started a weaving cooperative market their products. They
have few business skills but incredible weaving skills. Their products are beautiful. Another man and women represented an organization of a group of diverse individual businesses called the Matible Business cooperative. They want, in effect, to have a chamber of commerce but don’t know how to organize it. They also all need training in basic business management, pricing and record keeping.There were also several villages represented by people that want to attract tourists. This country has some incredibly beautiful and interesting areas that offer prime opportunities for eco-tourism.
So much to do so few volunteers is the reality of the situation here. I am now at the end of our third week of training and am living in a small village called Bokone. It is a very poor but picturesque place without electricity, central heat or running water. I live with a family in a seperate small room that has a two burner gas stove fueled by a big, scary gas cylinder. I am trying very hard not to blow myself up (-: The cylinder also fuels a gas heater that we have been warned to never run at night.
Getting out of my sleeping bag in the morning is always the biggeat challenge of the day - it is cold here at night but beautiful, sunny and dry during the day. During my first week here the M’e (mother) taught me how to cook some of the locally available foods like steamed bread (delicious) and lesheleshele(a sorgum gruel-very nutritious)and the local vegetables.
I am now on my own and am in the city of Maseru today to buy food supplies for the coming week. This Internet cafe was a sight for sore eyes. It is my first stop. I really like life in the village. It is simple and wholesome. The villagers are delighted to have PCV’s staying there-there are 11 of us, all Community Economic Development volunteers in Bokone. We bring in much needed income.
In the morning we all walk from our various homes to the chief’s house for classes. The language classes are conducted in Sesotho and no one in my home speaks English so the only Engilsh I hear is in the technical, cultural, safety and health classes. The language is coming slowly but it is coming. There is so much more to tell but my time is running out so that’s it for now.
Stay well, stay safe and please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Snail mail is great so please don’t hesitate to write(-: Peggi
