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Dear Family and Friends,

I’ve wanted to write you a letter to describe some of the stranger customs and beliefs here in the Mountain Kingdom. This lazy Sunday morning seems to be the perfect time to do so especially since recently it seems that I’ve been immersed in situations ruled by the Basotho culture.

One of them has to do with my horse, Lance.  As you know he is a stallion.
Gentle as he is there is not a thing wrong with any of his hormonal instincts and when the herd boys have him out grazing with the cattle if there is a mare in season anywhere in the area he leads them a merry (excuse the pun) chase.  Last week he completely succeeded in eluding capture until after he’d coupled with a lovely white mare.

This caused quite a stir.  The owner of the mare, if she dropped a foal, would be indebted to me as owner of the stud.  Also, unpre-arranged mating of animals is seen as very bad form and put my herd boy in the position of not doing his job.

I entered the situation when my herd boy, Mokabitso, arrived home leading Lance and followed by a rather large group of interested villagers. Mokabitso explained to me that to insure that Lance had not impregnated the mare he must now ride him at a full gallop until he is drenched in sweat and completely exhausted.  I said, “Makabitso, the deed is done.  Nothing we do to Lance will make any difference in whether that mare is pregnant.”  He looked at me with the pity one gives to one who is blatantly uninformed or just plain stupid.  The growing crowd of villagers enthusiastically backed his position.  Matjeeka, who is a qualified home-health worker agreed – it must be done.

I seldom allow anyone to ride Lance.  I said, “O.K. I’ll get the saddle and ride him.”  This was met by gasps of horror.  Lance had to be ridden bareback by a virile male or, of course, the cure wouldn’t work.  The villagers were shaking their heads in disbelief – how could this educated Lekhooa (white person) be so stupid?

Lance was ridden until he could hardly walk.  It took me an hour to just cool him down enough to put him in for the night.

I took this situation to my English class the next day to see if I could find a voice of reason among the very intelligent people in that class.  Not one of them doubted the efficacy of this method of birth control.  I drew a diagram – we talked about how the mating process works – the class evolved into biology and sex ed.  I could not convince a single person to accept my viewpoint.  The closest thing I got to any agreement was a statement that what I said may be true in other parts of the world but here in Lesotho this is how it works.

Here’s another bit of animal husbandry I’ll bet you didn’t know.  Did you know that here in Lesotho if you mate your pig and she becomes pregnant the sow who seeded her must not be slaughtered until the piglets are born?  If he is, all the piglets will die.

Just one more:  Two nights ago one of our cows dropped a beautiful little calf.  Matjeeka and I were out dealing with this situation – actually, Matjeeka was dealing with it; I was just holding the flashlight and making helpful comments like, “Holy Cow!”.  Anyway, when the afterbirth came out we had to scoop it up with a stick and hang it in a tree!  By now, of course, I know better than to argue.  I just said, “Is this branch high enough?”  The placenta carries the spirit of the animal and hanging it in the tree assures the off spring will grow strong and healthy and not get lost!?.

Everything is going quite well here.  Our HIV/AIDS training last week was a resounding success.  Over 100 people got tested for the virus – this is a bit of a record in this country where fear and denial rule in the area of HIV awareness.  The caps I had printed with “I know My Status.  Do You?” on them were so popular I’m convinced this should be a National Campaign.  The trainers told their packed audiences that it means the same as saying “I’m smart and want to live.  Do you?”

My own situation is still unclear.  The woman with whom I could possibly have mixed blood in the dog bite incident tested positive for the virus so I am still taking the post exposure medication.  The good news is that it is very effective and my exposure risk was small to begin with – but to say I don’t want to take any chances is a huge under statement.  The medicine is quite dreadful.  I feel sick all the time but there are only 7 days left of taking what I now term my “nasty pills”.

The great news is that two of my wonderful sisters, Patty and Pam, are arriving here on July 27th.  I should be 100% again by then and we’re planning a really nice vacation beginning here in the village and ending in Capetown, South Africa.  You will, of course, get a full report.

That’s about it from here.  I hope your summer is passing pleasantly and that this letter finds you well and happy.

With love from the heart of Africa,

Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

This is such a good news/bad news letter that I’m having trouble deciding which to tell you first.

Heck, let’s start with the good news.  My various projects are going so well.  Just after complaining to you that I couldn’t get funding for the HIV/AIDS training program – Voila! Along comes a letter from Jeff Jenks, president of the Southeast Michigan Returned PCV’s, and they are offering to fund the whole program.  Thank you SEMIRPCV’s!!!  Another excellent International group, PSI, is providing all the trainers and people to do the counseling and HIV testing.  This program is going to make a very significant difference in the level of HIV/AIDS awareness in the remote villages I serve.

And things are finally starting to move on the Cultural Village Project.  On June 15th we had a large group of VIP’s from both local and national government visit the site.  They brought TV cameras and lots of hullabaloo.

The minister to the Prime Minister, the second most powerful person in government voiced his commitment to the project.  The speech made by the Minister of Tourism Environment and Culture was televised and as the camera spanned the crowd many of the Villagers, some who have never even seen a TV were on television.  We had a Pitso (Village Meeting) the day after the event and when I told them they’d been on TV the enthusiasm was overwhelming. The ministers all had lunch at my place.  I told the top dog Minister about my problem getting food for our workers.  He asked for a copy of my proposal.  I just happened to have a copy along with a list of every worker’s name. He said he would give it his personal attention.

Then, this past Wednesday, we had our first ever group of “tourists”.  O.K. sure, they were new PCV’s and this was a part of their training but to our Village they were Americans coming to see the holy place where the great Moshoeshoe I was born.  The Village put on a show I think the PCV’s will never forget.  Everyone was decked out in traditional tribal clothes.  Many had painted their bodies with a mixture of sheep fat and red ochre pigment.

The Sangomas did wild dances, their naked bodies covered with bells and animal skins.  A group of elders and young strong men took us up into the caves where Moshoeshoe first hid his people during the terrible Lifanqane wars.  The handsome young warriors accompanying us up the mountain to the caves practically carried the young female PVC’s up the difficult parts.

Everybody loved it.  The food was all the ancient things Moshoeshoe would have eaten at a tribal feast – it was delicious.  I had notified the newspapers and three reporters and cameramen came.  The Public Eve is going to do a special insert on Menkhoaneng.  The minister of tourism told me she has finally gotten an empowered executive committee together with whom I can begin serious work on the development of a business plan for the project.  I am stoked!

Everything is so wonderful except what happened just this morning.  This is the bad news.  I think I mentioned we have a lot of dogs – six to be exact, three of whom are four month old puppies.  I just love these puppies.  Early every morning I let them into my hut for a big bowl of warm milk, oatmeal, dog chunks and whatever food I didn’t eat from last night’s supper.  This morning there were some chunks of grizzle from some unidentified meat the family gave me.  I hadn’t touched it – a donkey died recently and I was very suspicious.

Anyway, one of the puppies got a piece of it stuck in his throat.  I tried to get it out giving him sort of Hiemlich, I tried to get my fingers into his throat.  The poor little thing bit me several times with his sharp little teeth.  I called for help and one of the daughters in the family came running.  We tried to hold his mouth open and get the big chunk out – she was bitten too.  Our hands got pretty bloody.  The poor darling little dog died.  When it was over, I poured liquid disinfectant over our hands and it wasn’t until we were washing our hands together in a basin that I realized my big mistake.  We were mixing our blood.

I called our Peace Corps doctor immediately – woke him up, in fact.  He told me to come to Maseru immediately.  When I got here he began rabies shots and started me on a drug called Lamivudine/zidovudine.  It’s a PEP treatment.

That stands for post exposure prophylaxis.  I take two tablets a day for 30 days – the side effect is nausea.  I have to stay in Maseru until Tuesday for the last rabies shot.

When I return to the village I’m going to ask the young women who helped me if she will go into the clinic for a HIV test. I’ll take her, I’ll hold her hand, and I’ll pay her if necessary. As Dr. Johnson pointed out the chances statistically are one in three that she is positive. The PEP treatment if started within 24 hours of exposure is very effective but it sure would be great to know that she’s negative.  Over the next few weeks and months my blood will be tested frequently.  I feel certain that I’m not infected but the next few weeks are going to be a bit nerve-racking.

So that’s the bad news.  It’s probably nothing.  My exposure was slight and the medical response quick.

So that’s it – the good, the bad and the bloody.  I will, of course, let you know the minute I get the ”all clear”.

Now I’m thinking I should have started with the bad news – this is not a very upbeat note on which to end this letter.  Please read the first few paragraphs again – life is good here, I am happy and all is well.

Love,
Peggi

Dear Friends and Family,

In so many ways my life here is getting easier and easier.  A couple of weeks ago the father of the family I live with returned from his job in the mines of South Africa with a huge package strapped to his back.  It was a dismantled telephone antenna.  Matjeeka and the herd boys installed in on a tall pole by the house and so we now have telephone reception right here!  I had little hope that we would actually get a signal but we do.  So now, instead of climbing up a mountain on the other side of the valley to make phone calls, I just walk next door.  It’s simply bloody marvelous.

And then there is my house-cleaning situation.  I think I mentioned that it is very culturally appropriate for me to hire help for housekeeping and laundry.  The Peace Corps also encourages us to do so. The first young woman who was helping me with both chores was able to save enough money to go back to school.  She is a brilliant, beautiful girl of 20 and is now, with a little extra financial help from you and me, attending nursing school. When she left I decided to split up her job so that two young women could be employed - one for housekeeping and one for laundry.  The young lady who got the housekeeping part of the job is Matseliso Nti.  She wanted to learn how to keep house for a “lokhooa”(white person) so she could go get a full time job in South Africa.  She was fabulous.  She cleaned for me twice a week and my hut sparkled.  Her big chance came with some visiting relatives who said she could go with them to SA and they would find her a full time position.

She was thrilled and I was happy for her sending her off with a letter of reference and an extra bit of money.  We arranged for a third young woman to take her place.

I guess I should mention that working for me is the only employment opportunity available in this village.  It is a hotly contested position. These, pronounced Thaysee, started just before I left for Maseru last week.  She too was just great; responsible, honest and thorough. I returned from Maseru last night to a cozy, spotless hut smelling of lavender floor wax (yes, my cement floor is waxed and polished to a dangerously slippery sheen–I walk in socks at my own peril).

This morning, first thing, Matseliso was at my door in tears.  The job in South Africa fell through.  These was standing behind Matseliso also crying. “Was she going to lose her job?  Would Matseliso get her old job back?”

What a quandary.  I decided to get the girls together with their mothers and try to work it out.  So now, my friends, I have help every day!  These is to come every morning for just a half hour and do my dishes and sweep the floor.  Matseliso is to come on Saturdays and do a “complete” cleaning job.  These started this morning and instead of just working a half hour cleaned the whole place. When I returned from teaching English in a neighboring village I found she had done everything except shine my shoes.  Matseliso will do that on Saturday.

So, would you like to retire to a third world country where you can live like royalty on your social security check?  Come to Lesotho.  I pay these young women what is considered high wages.  These gets 5 rand per day (85 cents).  Matseliso gets 20 rand for working 3-4 hours on Saturday (about $3.30).  Both of these positions are considered “cushy” jobs.  A laborer who works in the fields all day (sunrise to sunset) hand hoeing or harvesting is paid about 15 rand.  My rent for this rondavel is 150 rand per month–about $25.00. 

I also employ a full time herd boy to look after Lance when I am not riding him or when I am traveling to Maseru.  He takes Lance to places that have good grass and watches him eat.  In good weather he also takes Lance to the river to bathe him.  I pay this herd boy a regular full time herd boy salary (150 rand per month) plus benefits (housing in the cooking hut of our compound, food, candy and anything I think he would like that I can buy for him in Maseru). He takes absolutely wonderful care of my horse and he is taking very seriously my “gentle” approach to animals.   He knows Lance must not be beaten.  In fact, last week I saw him berate another herd boy who kicked a dog.  I brought him into my hut, congratulated him and gave him a 20 rand tip

However, as easy as my life in the village is getting, doing my actual job of community economic development is becoming more difficult.  This past week I visited every NGO (non-governmental organization) headquarters in Maseru trying to get funding for both the HIV/AIDS training program needed in the villages in my district as well as food for work for the construction projects we have going on. 

Currently the American Friends of Menkhoaneng fund (your money and mine) is covering all costs but I’m looking for sustainable funding sources to take over.  According to the mission statements of the NGO’s I visited the projects I am asking for help with are right in line with what they are supposed to be doing.  However, they all said they have no funds.  I can’t tell you how obvious it is that a huge part of the money international donors give to third world countries goes to setting up the organizations but does not go to actually helping the people the funds are meant for. 

I left well equipped and fully staffed offices whose parking lots were filled with brand new “agency” vehicles with the same answer: “We have no funds available for your projects”.  The only glimmer of hope I got was from World Vision who said they would “partner” with us in getting some of the PACT money that will come into Lesotho in July from the US.  That means that I will write the proposal grants and they will submit them to PACT along with grants for other monies they are asking for. 

I’m going to do it, of course, but I’m worried that the money will come to World Vision and somehow not find its way to the villagers for which it is meant.  This happened to me before with a grant I wrote for funding from World Bank through the ministry of Tourism and the whole thing went into a boondoogle for government employees. It made me so angry I got physically ill.

The other ‘good guys” in my opinion are the UN World Food Program people.  They have accepted and approved my proposal for food for our workers but just now most world food help is still going to tsunami victims.  I know it will come eventually but patience has not yet become a long suit of mine. And, I am emptying our American Friends coffers just buying basic meal for gruel.  We should be able to get food help from NGO programs.  I like to use our money for the small things, like getting the sick to hospitals, buying medicines etc.

The challenge is to not give up.  This past week while I was in Maseru at the T. house several of the volunteers from my group were heading home.  No one blames them and the Peace Corps staff is wonderful about making their transition out of service fast and painless.  Usually when someone says they want to leave they are out of the country within 72 hours.  My meetings in Maseru were so discouraging that I was looking at these fine people with a certain degree of envy.  However, now that I’m back in the village and once again with these wonderful people who are trying so hard just to survive I want to stay and try to help them.  They really deserve a better life than that which fate and circumstance has given them.  There is not much that can be done about fate but maybe circumstance.  Tomorrow I’ll begin writing the World Vision proposal–we’ll see.

It’s now a several days later–sometimes these letters are written over time between visits to Maseru. Today was wonderful, a true African experience.

Setsomi Seeiso, our head village elder, came to my hut this morning to invite me to an ancient traditional ceremony that was taking place at his family compound today.  I grabbed my camera and we headed for his place.

Ancestor worship is a very important part of the religious beliefs within all the Bantu tribal cultures.  Burial rites are ritualistic, ceremonial and very tribal.  An important part of the ancient beliefs is to bury the deceased in a cowhide.  This keeps them warm in the afterlife and prevents them from coming back to their children in dreams and balling them out - even putting curses on them - for their lack of concern. 

Today at Setsomi’s place three hides were being prepared for this use.  The cows had been killed for the funeral feasts and their hides staked out to dry.  Today they were to be scraped and pounded into softness by the men of the family. There were many Sangomas there and about 30 men.  The men knelt around the hides and either scraped away at them or rhythmically lifted and squeezed them pounding them into the ground.  It takes a lot of pounding to soften up these hides. While they scraped and pounded they chanted repetitive prayer-type songs to the ancestors. 

Their voices were wonderful - deep and strong.   A lead chanter gave the one-line refrain and the chorus repeated it over and over.  It was quite hypnotic.

The few women present (just family members - this is a man’s ceremony) joined in the music with the high pitched trilling ululation that signifies pleasure for what the men were doing.  Delicious food simmered in large three legged black cauldrons that sat over wood fires tended by the women in the family.

The food was the traditional feast fare – papa (maize meal), moroho (green vegetables), mokopu (pumpkin) and nama (chicken).  I was given a large plate of food and led into the dining room of the “best” house in the compound; a cinderblock structure with a corrugated metal roof.  I was seated at their table.  I said, “Can I eat outside?”  Setsomi’s wife said, “No, you are our special guest.  You must eat here.”  They obviously thought it was more polite to seat me on a chair alone in the dining room than for me to sit on the ground outside with everybody else.  I ate fast and rejoined the party.  Pails of joala, the home brew, had made their appearance and the men were getting into their cups.  When the largest hide was finished it was ceremoniously draped around Setsomi and the men began a series of very warrior- like dances and songs.  They brandished sticks and looked fierce. 

Dagga (marijuana) is also a big part of this culture. Although it is technically illegal one of the side gardens of this house was full of it and the sweet aroma drifted over the party.  The dances got wilder and wilder.  Setsomi came over to me thanked me for coming and pretty much told me it was time for me to leave.  He takes very seriously his responsibility for my welfare in this village and I think he wanted me safely home before the party got too rowdy.  I was thinking the same thing myself and was quite ready to say my farewells and high tail it to the safety of my hut.  I was escorted home by two Sangomas neither of whom was completely sober but both of whom were the soul of politeness.

Days like this make it all worthwhile.  I love these good people.

We’re going to have our first group of American “tourists” visit the cultural village site on June 22nd.  They are actually the new group of Community Economic Development volunteers and a visit to my site is part of their training.  Tomorrow our Community Committee will meet here to put together an eco-cultural program for them.  The whole village is hugely excited about having all these American visitors.  This will be the most white people many of them have ever seen at one time.  I’m hoping we can give them a day they will long remember.

This letter really got too long - sorry.

Love,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends;

I’ve been thinking a lot about the incredible luxury of central heating lately. Autumn is here and the days are filled with warm sunshine, temperatures climbing to the pleasant 60’s & 70’s. The fields are a sepia palette of rust and gold as sorghum and maize continue to ripen and dry for harvesting. But the nights bring on icy winds. On many mornings light frost is everywhere.

I think I told you about my heating arrangements. I have propane gas tanks; two of them. They’re huge. They look like the bombs that E. Pickens rode down to global destruction in “Dr. Strangelove”. During training I made about every mistake one can make with these potential bombs including leaving both the tank valve open and a hotplate burner on – unlit – while I visited the latrine. Upon returning, not only was my room filled with gas but also the entire house to which it was attached was primed to ignite. The mother of the family with whom I was living ran out, advised me of the peril we were all in and proceeded to turn off my tank and fumigate the place. She saved the day and a lesson was learned.

I now have an almost anal procedure that I follow to light both my cooking burner and the heater – and to turn them off. So far, so good. My current issue with my heating and cooking system is refilling the darn gas tanks. The tanks, even empty, weigh a ton. They can only be refilled in town – way down the mountain. Here’s the current procedure. A herd boy and I hitch up the oxen and load the empty tank into a cart. We take this to a point where it can be off loaded to a pickup truck. I have arrangements with several pickup owners in the valley. In town we exchange the empty tank for a full one and return to a prearranged ox-cart pickup. It’s a hassle to say the least. As a result I’ve become very frugal about heat. I find myself hanging around cooking fires outside at night listening to long stories told in a language I understand only minimally then scurrying into my hut, jumping into my sleeping bag resplendent in my mittens and stocking cap.

Can this, I ask myself, really be Africa? This Mountain Kingdom has a ski resort that I definitely plan to visit this winter and will report upon to you. I’ll just bet their rental gear is circa long ago – we’ll see.

In many ways living here is what life must have been like in rural America in the early 1900’s – without the propane tanks. To the villagers, my hut is very luxurious. Clean, gas heat is considered hugely extravagant. On cold days I always turn on the heat for visitors and they love it. They sit huddled around my gas heater, munching PB&J’s, sipping tea and trying to think of reasons to stay all day. Most huts are heated with wood and dung fires - inside. It’s terrible. The roofs theoretically absorb the smoke but they don’t really. People sit inside breathing in dense smoke. In bad weather women cook over these indoor fires with babes wrapped to their backs – their tiny lungs filling with particulate matter. Lung and breathing problems are very common here.

In rereading this letter, I think I’m a little depressed. It’s been a lousy week. The food shipments that were supposed to come from the UN Food for Work Program didn’t arrive. The local distribution official, after a month of assurances that she would put our village on her areas’ distribution list, decided that we really belonged to another district. I wanted to strangle her. It means starting all over again with proposals, justifications - mountains of paperwork. In the meantime we continue to bury heartbreakingly bone thin corpses.

On the bright side, the cooperative is doing well and I’m working with another PCV to initiate HIV/AIDS training for 54 home health care workers, 9 sangomas and 7 community leaders. HIV/AIDS and poverty go so hand in hand here. If we can in any way initiate the behavioral interventions necessary to stop the spread of this disease we will be taking a positive step. I’m excited about the training program and will spend most of next week in Maseru lining up speakers, resources and funding. I also just spent a most enjoyable day writing a constitution with the executive committee from the newly formed Menkhoaneng Community Development Association. This will be the umbrella group that directs the Co-operative, the construction group that builds the toilets for the school and the workers who are being trained in traditional building methods for the Cultural Village project. We will register this new constitution (which is very much like a business plan) with the central government and become an official CBO (Community Based Organization). Hopefully, this will allow this association to run effectively for many years after I leave. The meeting, which took place in my hut today for nine hours, was a joy. We had both of my laptops going full blast, the constitution being written in both English (by me with much serious input by community leaders) then translated into Sesotho (by a brilliant local teacher). I was able to serve wonderful food – Bear Creek Farms minestrone soup, steamed bread, chocolate bars and cans of soft drinks – it gave us all a feeling of affluence. The group left just as the sun was setting into a colorful sky graced with a bright full moon.

I just read an excerpt from Jeffery Sachs book, “The End of Poverty” and was hugely inspired. My sister sent it to me from the March 14th issue of Time. Sachs runs the UN Millennium Fund and has stunningly brilliant ideas on how to end world poverty. It would just take 0.7% of the GNP of donor countries to halve poverty by 2015 – sure sounds good to me.

Tomorrow is going to be really fun. I’m going to the Cultural Village Project to take photos of all the volunteer workers. They’ve been primed to show up spiffy. We’re going to make official badges for everybody. They’ll say, “Moshoeshoe I Cultural Village Volunteer”. We’re hoping they will be worn as a badge of honor.

With love from the currently quite chilly heart of Africa,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s been raining for four days – torrentially. The rain so defines our activities around here. On the first day of downpour Matjeeka and I ran around outside putting pails and basins under every stream coming from the roof to catch and store as much water as possible. We soon filled every available container. On day two there was a break between storms so we gaily started washing everything is sight - blankets, rugs our hair - you name it we washed it. We played like children splashing our wealth of water at each other. The next storm overtook our efforts so much of our well rinsed stuff is still in a soggy heap. Oh well, one thing’s for sure, the sun will shine again in the beautiful mountain kingdom of Lesotho.

Today I’m cooking. I was supposed to go to a meeting of the Boselee Association in Mate to help them work on their business plan but the river is much too deep for Lance (my horse) to cross and the paths are running torrents of rain and silt. I have a cadre of children who are happy to act as runners for me for a few coins. They have no problem traveling in this weather, in fact, they enjoy it. I sent several out this morning in various directions to deliver messages for me and request people I need to meet with to call on me today

Also, we just harvested a bunch of pumpkins. They are delicious! Yesterday I made pumpkin bread that we enjoyed in Matjeeka’s house last night at a Community Coop Committee meeting. Today I’m making pumpkin soup, pumpkin scones, pumpkin soufflé and roasted pumpkin seeds. Have I told you how I bake? There is, of course, no oven here but I bought a very large heavy cast aluminum pot. It’s 15” in diameter and 11” tall. I set an empty tuna can in the bottom of it and then a 13” diameter tempered glass plate on top of the can. It makes an amazingly efficient stovetop oven. Just now there is a nice pumpkin roasting in it. The focus of this weeks cooking class is, you guessed it – the incredible edible pumpkin.

Fall is in the air. Nights are getting chilly –in the low 50’s. We’ll soon start harvesting maize and sorghum. I went with some farmers to harvest wheat last week just before the rains started. What a job! I couldn’t believe how much effort goes into filling a 50 kg bag of wheat kernels. It’s a very organized process. Everyone knows what he or she is supposed to do. Men use scythes to cut down the wheat. Women follow them and gather it into big bundles. These bundles are carried over to a rocky place where women take small bunches and whack it against the rocks to make the kernels come off. The kernels are poured from one basket to another so the breeze can blow away the chaff. Finally, the precious kernels are poured into woven sacks to be taken to the mill or to be taken home and ground into flour on a grinding rock.

I worked with the women gathering the bundles for a while and then tried my hand at whacking the wheat on the rocks. I didn’t last very long – probably worked three hours at the most – it was exhausting. The men and women I was with worked from sun up to sunset. Their endurance is quite humbling.

The experience gave me a whole new respect for the flour I used to bake that pumpkin bread yesterday. This organically grown, stone ground, whole-wheat flour is, by the way, delicious.

Oh, my luggage was finally found. I was able to pick it up at the Maseru airport. That’s the good news. The bad news was that some customs inspector along the way decided to open the big can of Bear Creek Farms powdered cheddar cheese soup I’d bought at Sam’s Club – seal and all – and didn’t bother to put the lid back on. There was powdered cheddar cheese in every tiny crevice of every item in that suitcase. Fortunately, I was staying at the T. house so I dumped everything into the big bathtub and sent down the drain huge batches of weak soup. Even now my beautiful Briggs and Riley suitcase has a slight cheesy smell.

Oh well. At least it was good for some cheesy humor from my fellow PCV’s at the T. house. And, I’m thrilled to have all the treasures that were in that bag. The grandmother of the little orphan girl who got one of the winter coats said she slept in it! She refuses to take it off. My visitors this week have been fed tuna salad sandwiches with real mayo. And, of course, all that beef jerky – what can I say? This is really living!

Well, I think the pumpkin is done and it needs to cool before being turned into scones etc. It smells great in here. I’m expecting lots of visitors today to discuss the toilet and water tank project for the Primary school and want to have lots of snacks for them. We’re going to build the toilets in traditional Basotho style. They’ll be rondavels circa 1785 – the time of Moshoeshoe’s birth.

The idea of this project in addition to providing the school with sanitary latrines and water is to teach the young people in the village the various building crafts they will need to be skilled workers on the Cultural Village project. Today some of our old master craftsmen and women are stopping by so we can schedule training sessions in rope weaving, thatching and stonecutting. We’re going to pay them in food from the village coop. Also, the treasurer of the committee is coming over so we can set up the books for the project. I’ve really got to get busy.

I truly love this job. Everyday is interesting and different and challenging. I hope some of you will give a thought to doing a stint in the Peace Corps. Only I know the incredible pool of talent, generosity and endless capabilities this letter reaches in its distribution. Think about it. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is fascinating, fun and a great adventure. You might really love it and at least from where I sit it sure seems that the world could use a few more PCVs.

With love from the warm heart of Africa,

Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

I’m back in Lesotho after a fun and fabulous two weeks in the good old USA. In my heart I am singing “God Bless America”. What an incredibly wonderful country we live in. Huge Thank you’s are due to so many of you — for the parties, the breakfast, lunch and dinner extravaganzas, the contributions to the American friends of Menkhoaneng fund, the wonderful way you all let me talk about my exploits non-stop in English– it was great! Snail mail thank you notes are on the way. Actually, I’ve had plenty of time to write them.

The airlines lost my luggage so I’m still at the T. house in Maseru waiting for word. It doesn’t look good. It seems to have disappeared into thin air if you’ll excuse the pun. In the meantime, I’ve had three full days to meet with members of parliament, government ministers and UN representatives about the cultural village project as well as my latest idea for our village. The latter is the main subject of this email.

Just before I left the village for my trip, I met with the council of elders who are in charge of deciding how the money in the fund should be spent. They asked if I thought our American friends would mind if they bought food with it. So far, we’ve been spending it on medical transport, hospital costs, medical supplies for the poorest of the villagers and books for my English classes. The program to date is a huge success. I know many lives have been saved and many more made more bearable. There is a new sense of hopefulness in the village. However, I may have mentioned that the disaster relief food shipments the village was receiving have been cut off. Not only did we have a problem with a dishonest official redirecting our food supplies for private gain but also the terrible tsunami disaster has redirected international donations to that very deserving part of the world.

The Disaster Management food warehouses in Maseru are empty. Both the UN and the DMA are looking for new ideas on how to deal with the food shortage problem. So here is the idea I’m going to present to the village council upon my return to Menkhoaneng tomorrow. Both the MP in charge of our area as well as the UN official I discussed it with gave it a “thumbs up”. But, of course, unless the villagers embrace it “as their own” it won’t work.

I’ve noticed while traveling around the village that several of the farming families who are still healthy are able to produce more corn, sorghum or beans than their family needs. There is no viable market for this excess. I’d like to start a program in which we form a Village Cooperative that buys the excess production and distributes it to hut-bound sick people, especially HIV/AIDS sufferers as well as the workers who will be building the toilets for the school (more on that later), and volunteers who work in our “meals without wheels” program. We may even be able to start a school lunch program.

My hope is to develop and implement this program and document the process in such a way that it becomes a model for the UN disaster relief people to use as part of their focus on sustainable nourishment enhancement. They told me that if our village can get this to work and I can show on paper how much it costs and what positive effect it has on the community I can write a grant for the program to continue for years after I’ve left. I’m hugely excited about this.

So all of you who so generously contributed to the fund during my visit will be making this program a reality. I’ll set up separate books for the community cooperative committee to manage. The villagers who manage their fields well and have excess food to sell will be able to earn actual cash. I think it will be an incentive for all those able to work, to work very hard and perhaps practice some of the crop improvement programs my permaculture PCV colleagues are promoting. It will address the big controversy about disaster relief grain shipments lowering the price of South African produce and it will save many in our village from starvation. It’s a terrible thing but we’ve had at least three villagers that I know of die of starvation since my arrival.

The other project I started working on before I left was getting toilets and water for our village school. This school is just awful. There are 270 students, only three very underpaid teachers ($60.00 per month!), no toilet facilities at all, no water available anywhere nearby, no desks or chairs – just wooden benches – it’s really sad. The principal came to me some time ago to ask for help. I found a resource to which I can submit a grant for the money for the bricks and cement to build latrines and buy a water catching tank (the school has a metal roof). The villagers will do all the work – the grant source will not pay for the labor but your contributions will. We’ll pay them in food from the cooperative.

There is so much to do and so little time. We are also having our big Moshoeshoe Day celebration on March 11th. I left a lot of organizational tools behind but word has it that the planning for this event is in a state of chaos. I’ll be stopping in the camp town of Hlotse on my way to the village tomorrow to meet with the district planning committee for this event.

And so, here I sit waiting for the airlines to find my luggage – it even has the power cord for this computer in it – damn! Oh well. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that it arrives. The South African Airlines official I spoke to this morning said cheerfully that only 1 out of 10 of the misdirected bags are never recovered!

On that note, I’ll sign off. May good health and happiness be with you always.

Love from the heart of Africa,
Peggi

Dear Friends and Family,

When I realized this is letter # 13 I almost changed it to # 14. That’s pretty silly isn’t it? But it rather illustrates what I wanted to tell you about in this letter, which are the superstitions, strange beliefs (strange to us, that is) and unusual tribal customs of the Basotho.

But first, a personal update. I’m living in the lap of luxury at the moment in our T. house in Maseru. I had a bit of an accident and so I’m here under the watchful eyes of our top rate PC doctors. It is nothing serious. A horse, not my wonderful horse but a nasty brute that has, actually, kicked me before–kicked me for the second time. It’s a long and boring story but let’s just say I couldn’t get out of the way in time and he got me in the lower leg. His hoof made a pretty deep gash, which I took care of as best I could in the village. Unfortunately, it festered. I came into Maseru to have it looked at and was taken to the hospital for a bit of unpleasant surgery.

My leg is now stitched up, propped up and doing fine. I feel like a princess. If I need to get anywhere I call for a car and driver. I had fresh brewed coffee, chilled watermelon and a tasty sweet roll for breakfast. My laptop is plugged into an actual wall socket. There is a phone at my right hand, a bathroom down the hall and several other PCV’s staying here at the moment that love to play Scrabble!! I love the Peace Corps!

Now, back to Basotho superstitions. I haven’t met anyone here who doesn’t believe in witchcraft. The most educated intelligent people believe in the power of the witch doctors to cast spells. There are lots of witch doctors here. They are not the traditional healers (Sangomas) I’ve spoken of in previous letters who focus on native herbal medicines. These men and women deal only in the occult. They take bizarre things like snakes blood and “eye of newt” and make magic potions. They deal only in curses and spells.

Everyone fears them and their powers. Here’s an example. The man I’m working with to help start a taxi service to remote mountain villages, Ntate Toti, lost his infant daughter two months ago. When I asked him if he knew what she died of he said matter-of-factly, “Witchcraft”. He went on to explain that someone who must have been envious of he and his beautiful wife put a spell on his wife’s breast milk and it poisoned the child.

As I’ve mentioned, this is a very Christian country. That fact, doesn’t in any way, interfere with widely held superstitions. In fact, Christian beliefs have been intermixed with ancient tribal beliefs into the very interesting and unique current culture. Two of the Sangomas I work closely with in our village are very good Catholics. When they are treating patients they give them herbal remedies all the time chanting to the Christian God, the ancestors of the patients, and any appropriate Christian saints whom they also consider as ancestors and intermediaries to the big “Chief”.

I attend meetings of community health care workers in our area. These wonderful, local and mostly uneducated women are the only caregivers to the hundreds of homebound sick many of whom are at the hospice point of their illnesses. Nurse Zim gives them some training in how to recognize and treat various illnesses, nutritional information and encouragement.

After this “technical” session the meeting turns into an almost revival religious meeting. Women will stand up and sway and chant and pray for some specific patient using the force of everyone’s positive thinking to affect a cure. It goes on for hours. In the absence of medical supplies, nutritious food and even the most basic sanitation who knows, perhaps it helps. It certainly seems to give everyone a psychological lift.

Here’s another example of cultural beliefs. You’ll remember my description of the birth of little Moklatsi my first night on the job. Well, his head came out really elongated from his long stint in the birth canal. M’e Matjeeka, after we’d cut the cord etc. ran outside and got a gourd that was the shape of a perfectly formed skull. She rubbed it all over Moklatsi’s tiny head explaining to me that this practice would make his head go into the perfect shape of the gourd in no time! The afterbirth was wrapped in a blanket and buried in the family ash pit. This assured that the spirit of this child would always be a protected part of this family and would not wander to the “dark side”.

This letter could go on for too long but I must tell you one more event that greatly affected the Peace Corps. The last group of trainees who arrived in October was just finishing their village training on December 2nd. This is storm season here and the electrical storms are incredible. Anyway, it wasn’t storming–just hot and muggy and there were some storm-looking clouds far off in the horizon. Some of the group was sitting under a tree. The rest were inside the school classrooms–which have the typical metal roofs. Two of the trainers were sitting on a metal box under the tree. Well, a bolt of lightening came out of nowhere, went through the three rooms of the building, knocked everybody down and seriously injured six people. The two trainers sitting on the metal box were the most affected–one paralyzed from the waist down. Many people had strange burns–like a burn on the back of the neck and on the bottoms of the feet. Everybody I’ve spoken to said it felt like a bomb going off.

Well, the villagers were sure it was Witchcraft. All the Peace Corps trainers and volunteers had to leave the village immediately. They were scheduled to have the big, happy farewell feast in a few days. It was canceled. Witchdoctors were brought into the village to cleanse and appease the evil spirits that had caused it. It is doubtful if Peace Corps will ever be able to use this village again for immersion training.

The other thing I really want to tell you about is the circumcision schools but that will have to wait for another time.

This might be the last letter before my trip home. I’m counting the days…23 to go. I’m bringing tons of photos and lots of stories of this interesting sojourn in Africa. I hope to see you then.

Love,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

11:45 pm Christmas 2004. Let’s just say it wasn’t my best Christmas ever — although it was certainly the most unusual.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, got off to a messy start. There was a huge storm during the night whose powerful winds drove rain and mud through the opening around the door of my hut and flooded the entire structure as I soundly slept. I awakened to find two inches of muddy water everywhere. Many of my books, which lay in neat stacks around the perimeter of this place, were ruined, as were most lots of the things stored in cardboard boxes under my cot. Oh well, its just stuff. Fortunately, I’d stored all of the Christmas gifts and goodies in the main house.

What was very nice was the quick mobilization of friends to help me out. A group of folks came over (and mind you this was 5:30 am) as soon as they heard and emptied my hut of every single thing and helped me clean it all up. I felt very taken care of. By noon I was cooking and preparing for the holiday celebration. In the late afternoon one of the Sangomas came over and we packed my saddlebags with food, candy and toys which we delivered to families with children who were too sick to come to my Christmas party. I wished I’d had a pair of reindeer antlers to put on my horse but no one here would have gotten the joke. It was a nice way to end the day.

Christmas morning started out so much like home. Excited young ones were definitely the first up. Just before 5:00 at the very first light, I could hear voices of children outside my hut. I had spent the late evening blowing up balloons and decking my halls as best I could with holiday cheer. It really did look a bit like Santa’s workshop in here. The children were adorable. They formed a very polite long line outside my door. I brought them in a few at a time and let them choose their gift. Everybody got candy and cookies and some small gift. It was really fun. I asked them if they had been good and elicited promises of good study habits and perfect obedience to their parents for the year to come. I felt gently possessed by the spirit of our families favorite Santa, my beloved departed brother- in-law Bill Barnes.

By 8 am there was a pretty big crowd here. Ntate Nena, the father of this house, who was home from his job as a South African mine worker for the holiday asked me to take a photo of this beautiful sheep (ram actually) that was being led around the courtyard. I took several. It was a magnificent animal with graceful curling horns and a gentle face. Then there was a bit of a ceremony as the patriarch of this family said this sheep was for me to formally welcome me to their home and the village. It was a huge gift and I was overwhelmed. I thought, ‘gee, this is great. I’ve got a horse and now this beautiful sheep. I wonder what I should feed it.” There were two Sangomas there (formerly known as witch doctors) both of whom did a sort of a chant and prayer. Then they asked me to say a prayer. I know very few. I recited the Christian Science Statement of Being followed by the Lord’s Prayer. I was feeling very grateful.

Then four big guys took my sheep, pulled it up by it’s legs threw it upon the ground and stuck a dull old knife into it’s neck. It was horrible. It made dreadful sounds as they sawed away at its throat. It took a long time to die. My tendency towards vegetarianism strengthened. I told myself that non-judgmental was the place to be and took photos. They are grisly.

The slaughtering process went on as I watched. Nothing is wasted. This was a very big celebration for this family. Nobody here gets to eat a lot of meat. With solemnity, they handed me, handed me!, the still warm liver. My ever-present tutor and cultural advisor M’e Matjeeka said it was now my honor to cook this for the assembled group. I took the bloody thing into my hut, set aside the mountain of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’d made and sliced and fried up these bits of my sheep. It really doesn’t do to get too attached to animals here.

From that point on it just didn’t seem like Christmas anymore. So much here is so strange. There was no recognizable music – just the incessant drumming. It was hot – almost stifling. Few words were spoken in English – I understand so little of what is going on around me. I longed for a real conversation, a Christmas carol, a twinkling light, a flake of snow, another white face.

Many wonderful friends and students from my classes and the project brought their entire families to visit. Some did traditional Basotho Christmas activities mostly centered on chanting prayers and singing. So many came, I really can’t say how many. It seemed like hundreds. I got so tired of it all. My hut was so crowded with sweating bodies – the body odor mixed with frying sheep got to be overwhelming. The children began to seem greedy as they snuck back into line for more presents. Some of them even changed their clothes to be in disguise. People I’d never met came to my house pretty much demanding gifts and food. Some were drunk; they asked for money; they didn’t get it. I did give away tons of stuff. I replenished my PB&J sandwich mountain several times. I cooked various disgusting parts of my sheep. I wished I were home. Twice during this long day I closed up my hut and headed for the mountain where I could get a phone signal but the connections were bad. I’m so happy today is behind me. By the end of the day I could feel myself morphing from the Christmas fairy to the Grinch.

I know I’ll never forget this Christmas but I’m trying to figure out what I’ve learned from it. Maybe nothing. Or perhaps something about how comfortable it is to be within our own culture and how easy it is to dislike that which is foreign to us. I really didn’t like some of these people today. These same Africans who have been so kind and warm and accepting of me today seemed strange and barbaric and seriously lacking in manners. But, being honest, they didn’t do anything that we don’t do. I’ve been to lots of crowded noisy parties that I loved –of course I could understand the language at those and most of the guests had recently bathed. Our kids are sometimes greedy, especially at this time of year. And who doesn’t enjoy a good rack of lamb now and again.

What was basically wrong with today was that it just wasn’t the way it is at home. So it would seem that viewpoint does indeed define our reality and is ultimately useless. It produces our prejudices. Without it we are all the same. So in the universal scheme of things maybe today wasn’t that bad.

I guess that’s just the Zen of it. Forgive this rambling. Tomorrow is another day. I’m hoping it will be a more enlightened one.

Love,
Peggi

Dear Friends and Family,

I’m writing this letter from the home of a fellow PCV in the beautiful town of Leribe. Our group is scattered throughout the country just now spending a couple of days with current, more tenured volunteers. It has been wonderful –
there is life after our “boot camp” is over. I sit here, in a house with both electricity and a computer, sipping a glass of wine as I write this. Life is indeed very good.

But, what I really want to tell you about in this email is what life is like where I am now living in the small mountain village of Bokone. Sundays in the Village are especially nice. It is the only day when we have no classes or scheduled “cultural experiences”. Living with these kind, hospitable villagers presents both a simple and complex view of life in rural Africa. The simplicity comes from the lack of “westernized” influences; the sense of communal oneness and the subsistence farming and herding that support the family with whom I live.

My room, in which I sleep, study, cook, do laundry and bathe is perhaps 8×10. It is an addition to the main house and is made of cinderblock with a corrugated tin roof. I can see the sky between the top of the blocks and the roof and when I wake in the morning frost covers my metal ceiling and any water left out has a thin layer of ice on it. I can’t tell you how comfortable and happy I am living in this tiny room. It makes no sense–but it is true. I sit studying at my little table with the door wide open to a breathtaking view of house garden, maize fields and beyond the majestic Maluti Mountains. Animals are all “free range” here. Huge African oxen pull carts loaded with the maize harvest down the lane that fronts this property. Chickens wander around pecking for stray kernels, many followed by their chicks. My family owns both sheep and cattle and the older sons take them daily from their stone kraals to the fields to graze. It is very African, very peaceful and very lovely.

The complexity of this village life is, unfortunately, primarily tragic. It is focused on the realities of both poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic that haunt this peaceful place. The HIV/AIDS issue here is huge beyond imagining. It impacts every family, every day. Here are a few sobering statistics:

• A Basotho who turned 15 in 2000 has a 74% chance of becoming HIV positive by his or her 50th birthday.
• Africa houses 70% of global HIV/AIDS cases. The southern Sahara region, this region, has the five most highly infected countries – Lesotho, with a 32% to 41% infection rate is #4 and by far the poorest country challenged to fight this terrible plague.
• In Lesotho today there are a minimum of 330,000 adults living with the HIV virus. In this tiny country of less than 2 million people, 70 die every day of the virus. Those 25,550 annual deaths join an already high death rate acerbated by poverty, famine and lack of medical care.

HIV/AIDS affects absolutely everything. In my work, as a Community Economic Development advisor, I must face the reality that there is no institutional memory. In a country where written, defined processes are not the norm the knowledge of how to run businesses, ministries and other cultural organizations dies with the leaders of these institutions. Make no mistake; the people dying are good people. They are dedicated individuals intent on helping their country and their communities and they are dying —in droves. It is heartbreaking.

As hopeless and frustrating as this is, there are good things happening here and the Peace Corps is one of them. One of the biggest challenges we face is convincing people that solutions are possible. We focus on the positive. For instance, over half the people in this country are negative – and, people care. The government is directing a large percentage of its scarce resources towards HIV/AIDS education. This is, after all, a preventable, stoppable disease. I now know more about safe sex and condoms than I care to mention.

The current campaign, which we Peace Corps volunteers (PCV’s) are taking to every village is the ABC’s of AIDS prevention – i.e. ABSTAIN, BE FAITHFUL, USE CONDOMS. I’m most comfortable discussing A&B and am working on a rather impassioned plea (in Sesotho, of course) on these issues. Demonstrating effective condom application, using either carrots or cucumbers, is just not something I am comfortable doing. We have, however, lots of PCV’s who are great at it! God bless them!

Speaking of God, I’ve been going to church every Sunday (don’t faint, siblings). I totally enjoy it. The singing is outstanding – Lesotho is known within Africa as the country of song – everybody can sing, and harmonically! Also, Sunday services, outside of funerals are the social event of the week and a great opportunity to meet and talk to all the villagers. In Bokone, I attend a tiny Catholic church. It is a satellite church to the main Mission, which is a two-hour trek across the mountains from the village. For the past two weeks hardly anyone was in this tiny church. Last Sunday, the chief priest from the mission, Father Gabriel, conducted a full Mass and the church was packed. I was the only white person in the congregation. During his sermon he came to me, introduced me (I understood very little of this), pulled me to my feet and invited me to speak. I said every darn thing I know how to say in Sesotho – it was pathetic and inane including such remarks as “your children are beautiful” and “you ride your horses well” but it received a huge, if undeserved, ovation.

So many things that happen here warm my heart. One cannot help but love these kind and welcoming people. So I’ve decided that since 95% of Basotho are Catholic, I will be totally participative while here. As a pragmatic and hopeful agnostic with strong Buddhist leanings, I figure if there is a God, she will surely approve and if there isn’t it is still a culturally appropriate way to integrate into the community. Interesting events since my last email include:

Corn shucking: The all-important maize harvest is being brought in.
Families spend the days in the fields hand pulling the ears off the stalks. Wagonloads of corn are brought by ox-drawn carts and dumped on the large stone patios which front most houses in the villages. Here the older women sit in circles around huge piles of cobs. They hold a cob on a flat stone and strike it with another flat stone. Kernels fly and by the end of the day there is a big pile of kernels that are carried in baskets on their heads to a central area where they are loaded on other carts to go to the mill to be ground into meal that is the basic of the dietary staple – papa.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been helping the women shuck after school. It’s a very companionable way to spend the early evenings and I am making some friends – I’m getting quite good at it except for the basket on the head part – my attempts at which cause gales of laughter among my fellow shuckers.

My first big boo-boo: We all cross train in one another’s specialities. Last week we were learning how to conduct HIV/AIDS workshops for youth. This included learning a bunch of games. One of them was a “tag” sort of game. While trying not to get “tagged” I tripped and fell into a nasty barbed wire fence. It became an ad-hoc first aid session. One PCV ran to her nearby house to get the big medical kit we are all issued and another PCV, a RN, demonstrated how to clean, treat and bandage wounds without touching blood. Blood is a very big bug-a-boo here. None of us want to get near it. She, Susan, did a great job and we all got a good lesson in first aid. I received the additional insight to avoid running backwards, over rough terrain in a long skirt.

Royal watching: You may have heard that Price Harry was here for a few months. He spent much of his time working and visiting PC sites. I had the chance to stay at one, an orphanage, a couple of weeks ago. The Mantase Orphanage is run by a really outstanding PCV. Her name is Miranda Lopez. In two years she has turned this place around. It is now a model site with solar power, great organic gardens used to feed the orphans and beautiful traditional Basotho architecture of round, stone, thatched-roofed rondavels that are
reminiscent of the Hobbits Village in “Lord of the Rings”. Anyway, Prince Harry worked there for a couple of weeks and Miranda reports that he is really a nice guy. He fit in with all the PCV’s with whom he hung out throughout his stay in Lesotho. He is an artistic sort of guy and is not all that happy with his dad’s royal command to attend a military school. He would rather follow his mother’s example of good public works. While he was here the BBC filmed a documentary about his visit. It is supposed to air in the US. If anyone sees it and can, would you please copy it? Everybody here is dying to see it.
These emails are really long, aren’t they? There is still so much more I would like to tell but it can wait until next time. If you have time, please reply to this and tell me what is going on in your life. As interesting as this place is, I still feel very, very far away and yearn for news from home. May you each stay very well and completely happy.

Khotso, Pula, Nala (Peace, Rain, Prosperity)

Peggi

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