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| Our Cat... eating morho (cabbage) I wonder if he'd like some papa with that? |
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| Lesotho "papa donkeys" coming from the grocery store |
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| We'll miss having lunch with you at Quick Serve - awesome PCVs |
Hello Dear Readers,
2 weeks left! We can scarcely believe that
we are such a short time away from completing our Peace Corps service – and
getting our “R”. We will soon be “Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs)” as
they say, Peace Corps service is imprinted on your for the rest of your life;
as a result, you are never an “ex-PCV.” It is amazing that something that was
once a dream is now so close to being behind us, but we are ready to move
forward, celebrating the fact that we have been here. As many of those close to
us know, once we leave Lesotho,
we will be on the fast track to getting ourselves to Washington State,
where I’m very excited to begin pursuing a Master’s in Soil Science. It will
also be a great place for Shane to continue working toward his goals and he has
also been madly applying to some great jobs, also on campus.
We haven’t been up to very much that is
outstanding, which is why I haven’t posted lately. We are in the thick of
wrapping up our lives here, while simultaneously trying to orient ourselves to
the idea of being prepared to return to America. This is everything from
reading papers on carbon sequestration to distributing our worldly possessions
of Lesotho to our community, trying to decide whether to rent a U-haul or buy a
trailer (Thanks for all of your help Dads!) and so many other logistical things
– even trying to decide how to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary
between our homecoming and school starting! The new group of “Healthy Youth”
volunteers are now about half-way through their training and thinking about
their sites. We had a chance to meet one from Minneapolis , who was super-jealous of our
plans to be celebrating our return by going to Valley Fair!
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| Hopefully some of the last washing I'll have to do in a bucket! |
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| Our weak Lesotho yard sale |
Shane’s massage students have started their
student clinics now, and it has been going very well for them and both of our
hard work in training them has really paid off – we are looking forward to
hearing about their success, even after we return. Shane has still been working
hard with his counterparts on the Women’s Escape Training and Gender Rights
Awareness national campaign. It has been going well, but like most things here
– a bit slower than we as Americans would like to see. He has also been
training a lot of Jiu jit su especially trying to push one of his local
counterparts to a level where he is ready to be tested for his blue belt.
Things have been slowing down quite a bit
for us with our projects as things wrap up. It is also winter here, so things
are generally slower. All of the schools closed in the middle of June, I
enjoyed visiting our neighboring preschool and also we visited and said our
goodbye to the kids of the local primary school (who I’ve enjoyed greeting in
English as we’ve passed each other on many days of the last 2 years).
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Look at this naughty guy! He can use a cell phone at least as well as I can...
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| All of the pre-schoolers and their teachers |
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| The last day of primary school - they had all of class 5, 6 and 7 line up according to their class rank |
My last
Market Day was at the end of June, it was sad. We also had the opportunity to
face some challenges together. One of them is that one of the modes of
transport that approximately half of the district uses – the bus, has been on
strike for more than a month, another was that we didn’t have a car to
transport the chairs, tables, tent, etc… required for the market day, and
additionally, we couldn’t ask the prisoners to help us put up the tent as we
usually do, because the guards at the prison were on a go slow, and weren’t
willing to chaperone the prisoners to help us… but we overcame it all, and the
show went on, albeit with a smaller crowd than usual, likely due to the colder
weather and reduced ability of transport. BEDCO, one of the organizations I’ve
been focusing on working with to implement this project, honored me with a few
lovely gifts, and I gave a speech in horrible Sesotho, hoping to encourage the
community continue the work to develop the Market.
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| Setting up the tent |
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| Mapaballo with her delicious bread |
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| Oranges?! |
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| Thanks BEDCO! |
Shane and I went to the
orphanage last week and enjoyed playing some of the games, like Twister, with
them that the Welsh left for them.
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| I love these kids! |
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| A lot! |
We have also been playing a weekly game of
UNO with the Sisters, which is amazingly entertaining and really fun for all of
us!
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| And the Sisters too! |
I’ve been continuing to work with ‘M’e Matumelo at the bakery, who
unfortunately suffered a break-in to the container a few weeks ago.
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| Can you see the huge hole in the side? |
One of our
more awesome achievements is that even though 1 year ago she didn’t know
anything about using a computer, and was totally afraid of them – among other
things, she has learned how to email so that we can keep in touch once we are
back state-side. I also really appreciate that she is coordinating our farewell
party, we are looking forward to celebrating our time with the community and
have even bought a sheep to be roasted for the “feast.” My friend and fellow
yogini, Ausi Maleshoane has been continuing to excel in yoga, and we even made
some yoga blocks last week from some of the edges of Shane’s Jiu Jit Su mats.
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| Making yoga blocks - duct tape everytime... |
The
library has been under renovation for a few months now, so, unfortunately we
have not been able to continue with the youth reading program.
We've been spending some fun time with some of the other PCVs in our district, something notable from last month was that we celebrated Father's Day by doing a "5k" walk with one of our volunteers who was widowed by prostate cancer and she has done the 5k prostate cancer walk for several years, first with her husband and after he passed with family and friends back home - and now in Lesotho with us and another volunteer. The walk was quite scenic and the day was beautiful and we had a chance to recognize prostate cancer and honor the memory of our friend's late husband.
We celebrated the 4th of July
this year with 3 other, awesome, volunteers from our district. The highlight
was the cake that we made together that looked like the American flag when you
cut a slice! We looked at a few photos of fireworks and also had Sloppy Joes.
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| Happy, happy... |
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| 4th of July |
We
also finally got a chance to watch the Hobbit. Of all of the media, past and
current that we have watched since being here, that is one that we were both
really jonesing to watch, it was amazing – but seriously, 3 parts… I recently
finished the second book in the Pillars of the Earth series – World Without
End, my 3rd 1000+ page book since being in Peace Corps. I also
enjoyed finishing Bringing it to the Table by Wendell Barry, filled with his
essays past and current regarding various topics of agriculture and food. Shane
is currently reading Man’s Search for Meaning, while I have started The
Corrections, an Oprah book club book that is set in present-day America. As we
continue to look forward, I have even been dreaming consistently about the U.S.
and home, even as I frequently wake up to rats, bats (or, as Shane says –
birds) scurrying in our ceiling, here in Lesotho.
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| Congratulations Ausit Khotso for getting into the University - we wish you the best! |
Our friends The Welsh and our other dear
friends the Buers are all back home, and we are hearing news of their
experiences with reentry and reverse culture shock and realize that we will
soon be working to cope with that, though – we have succeeded in making our
first several weeks back a bit of a whirlwind, so, maybe we won’t notice.
I think that about wraps things up for now
– stayed tuned for our last post or two. If there is anything in particular
that you would like to read about before we go, please let us know. We will
soon be posting some of our Peace Corps totals, including how many Kg’s of
Peanut Butter, care packages and games of Scrabble during our service and
possibly the complete book lists for both Shane and I (or at least relative
numbers). So, if anyone wants to venture guesses on any of these in the
comments, and you get relatively close to the actual numbers, we’ll bring you a
treat from Lesotho!
Stay cool up there and keep well,
Hugs from Lesotho,
Carol and Shane
Here's a few other Lesotho-y photos:
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| Knitting man |
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| Shane buying pre-paid airtime from this guy's "shop" can you see the phone, radio and bell? |
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| Walking to town |
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| The office toilet - please note the "toilet paper'' |
