Begin: the month of Pulungoane -

Abuti in the Mountain Kingdom

Mountaintop wild Gazanias

Hello Dear Readers,

As always, we hope you are reading this post in good health, with central heating and hot running water.

I've lately been reading a couple blog posts from other PCVs, and they strike me as so much more poetic than the tone that I've become accustomed to. I thought I'd take the opportunity to at least provide a link to a post written by another volunteer here in Lesotho that was recently published in our volunteer newsletter it is actually a blog kept up by a volunteer who used to be a journalist - so you know its got to be good! If you have the time to check out other posts, she actually does an excellent job at capturing a lot of the little things about PC that make it the way it is... and she likes to cook, so that is good by me. This story is one she did about circumcision, a big issue here.

Maybe you are wondering about the title... I recently had a Sesotho lesson with Sister Magdalena where I finally learned the names of the months in Sesotho. Usually when you learn a new language, you begin with days of the week and the months and numbers etc... but, probably for this same reason, most people here use the English names for things now. Up until now, I've not learned them, because I've been "saving my brain space" for words that I really need to use often in Sesotho - like the word for aphid (hoaba).

We did this Sesotho lesson mostly because once I started really hearing the names, why and the traditions behind the months, I couldn't stop listening to her ... they were very interesting and I'll take this opportunity to share with you because it says a lot about the traditional culture and values:

First of all the year begins with spring (selemo which also means year) -

Phato (August): for mophato which is the house used for the boys when they go to initiation school, because this is the time for circumcision at the initiation school

Loetse (September): Is when the boys go to look after the animals at the cattle camps (refer to June and July)

Mphalane (October): The boys smear their bodies with red clay, wear beads and they whistle at the initiation schools

Pulungoane (November): The Pulu is a wild animal (which is of course no longer here, because there are no wild animals left in Lesotho) that used to have their babies during this time (ngoana means baby in Sesotho)

Tsitoe (December): Is named for the insect that makes this sound during this month

Perekhong (January): She had forgotten what this month stands for (she is 70 something after all...)

Hlakola (February): Hlakola in Sesotho is the verb for "to wipe" and this is the time that the pollen from the sorghum comes off of the leaves and it looks like they have been wiped clean

Thlakubele (March): Is the month that the sorghum (mabele) begins to form grain

Mesa (April): The word is taken from the Sesotho word besa which means to roast or start a fire, because this is the month where people roast the field corn in the fire

Motshanong (May): This is the month where they say "the sorghum is laughing at the birds" (nonyana is the word for bird, hence the non at the end of the name) this is because the grain has finally gotten so hard that the birds can no longer eat it

Phutjoane and Phupu (June and July): Are the begining of winter when it is said that the men must go to the cattle posts in the mountains to take care of the animals because it is too harsh for the boys...

I wish I could say some of those names for you because they contain a lot of the unique (hard) sounds of Sesotho, but I was really fascinated by the association with the month, hopefully you all enjoy.

Otherwise, I'll limit our newsy tidbits, but I took a bunch of photos yesterday when I went with some other NGO and government partners to a community event. The objective was to talk to women about nutrition for their under 5 year old children, the rights of women and children and HIV/AIDS. We also took the measurements of the children and gave them deworming and vitamin A tablets.

The regional cheif (standing and wearing the traditional Seshoeshoe ) and welcoming the presenters (sitting in chairs) and the community, the really nice building is the Community Council building and it was built with German development funds

I really like this woman with her traditional blanket on her head to protect from the sun, the other traditional blanket for women around her waist, the bottle of traditional sour sorghum porridge (motoho) next to her and her child playing.

 

This was the woman talking about women's and children's rights

Adorable!

A father with his daughter (who just took a deworming tablet)

As you can see from the photos- it was actually sunny yesterday! So, it seems that summer has officially arrived. We are enjoying the longer days, the fresh peas and greens, and not having to go to bed at 7pm because it is so cold in our house we can't stand it any more! People are already starting to talk about peaches and the frogs have been croaking loudly throughout the nights. We've both been really busy lately, so, by the time we get home from working and walking around so much, we are exhausted and we guiltily confess that we've been watching TV (on our computer) rather than reading. We've just finished both Band of Brothers and The Pacific miniseries! This weekend we made hamburgers with fries, cinnamon rolls, empanadas with refried bean paste from U.S. and cheese slices (don't judge us! There is no free-range, organic Havarti... here!), chocolate-peanut butter cake, rhubarb scones and fennel-herb bread. So, at least we are continuing to eat relatively well, but we are really wishing our garden would grow a little faster so we can enjoy some fresh veggies:-)

I'll wrap it up with that and wish you all a happy election day, at the very least from what we hear, it will be a relief for the campaigning to stop!

All our best from Lesotho,

Carol and Shane

Happy Halloween!

I saw this yesterday on my way back from the field, the song on the radio was "As Long As You Love Me" by the Backstreet boys (which me and the driver admittedly were rocking out to and singing along) - It is what you think and I think beats the lambs from last week. Is this photo worthy of "going viral?"

 

 

Hello Dear Readers,


 Neither of us can believe October has passed already and the auspicious holiday of treats and costumes is upon us. Unfortunately, we have been doing a terrible job at recognizing holidays    while we are here, because no one celebrates here and we can't even carve pumpkins because it is Spring!

Foxglove

When I say that we can't believe that October is on its way out, I'm very serious. Our second year of Peace Corps has been flying by, just like they said it would. Both of us have also been feeling pretty good about things. I think we won't realize how much we've really changed and grown from this (mostly in a good way) until we get back, but I really think I'm seeing some of it already!) We are learning how to get things done, and to expect obstacles. For example, today: Shane is submitting a back-up copy by email of a grant application that was sent to Maseru by hand, he started to send this email 2 hours in advance because he wanted to make sure to give himself enough time for all of the things to go wrong, electric being out, internet being down, a long line at the net cafe... and whatever else.... All in all life is good, and I'll elaborate as the blog unfolds, but I want to say, I don't think there are too many things in life where it is actually worth it and enjoyable to actively work, often 10 hours a day 6 days a week (though according to PC we work 24/7), meeting so many challenges, let alone discomforts- for $250 a month!

We are reasonably good at, at least recognizing some celebrations - such as our 7th anniversary of dating... Since there aren't a whole lot of options of ways to celebrate, we cooked delicious food, including bruschetta made from scratch (the baguettes took two days of prep!) and we had parmesean and tomato and mushroom (they don't look so good on the photo do they?) We also had a salad, with many of the ingredients being from our garden and "homemade" lentil sprouts, and to top it off we had wine and Scrabble. We also talked about the fun memories we have together. It was a great way to acknowledge our time together. I'm sure we aren't crazy enough to actually celebrate this, but our cat is now 1 year old, which is pretty good for Lesotho. It is a happy and spoiled house cat, despite all of the trauma it has had "being taken care of" such as when we have washed it... We really enjoy playing with it, when it sits on our laps - constantly, and it just loves attention and affection. It must go to another volunteer when we leave!

YUM!

The weather has been dreary lately, rainy, misty, overcast and chilly at least some part of every day. It makes walking everywhere much less plesant, and unfortunately has resulted in cancelation of some of our activities to boot. (I believe that we are still luckier than the poor people in New York who just got hit with the hurricane though!) At the same time, it is preferable to the drought we had last year, it is really great to see people out working in their gardens and fields. Last Saturday I actually had a chance to get out into our garden - all of the rain has really brought on the weeds! I had a great time out there, pulling the weeds, transplanting, adding some more successions of other veggies and just checking things out. We now have three stages of compost! Our newest pile, the one that just got turned over to really get started and the oldest one that is just on the brink of being ready to use - believe or not, that is quite exciting!  We also had a fun visitor last weekend, one of the CHED 12 group. She is a woman from San Fransico who was a practicing acupuncturist before she left. She knows a ton about healing herbs and has been really getting into garden here too. Shane really enjoyed talking to her about "the healing arts" including Chinease medicine, and of course - food and gardening. We always enjoy fun visitors! I also took her to visit the bee guys that I'm working with, who were going to take honey last Friday, but found there wasn't as much there as they hoped, but here are some photos anyways -

That's me hold the smoker, right before I got stung...

 

 

 

I am also officially a "beekeeper" now: I got stung while we were doing this, just above my ankle - the darn thing flew up my pants leg! I love these guys though, they really are doing great - we've been slowly but surely working to get them registered with the government as an organization, and make a business plan and next, putting together some proposals to get a bit more start-up capital for them to really take off!

 

Something else that I've been really excited about is introducing yoga to a group of the professional women here. They love it! I heard from one of their bosses at a clinic that he opened up one of the exam rooms to find one of his staff members practicing her "moves"! (I think that is good...) I had nine women come last Wednesday - that is pretty darn good for this nascent club and the fact that pretty much no one had ever even heard of yoga before I started talking about it!

 

 

I really wish I could say more about what Shane is up to. He is just continuing to push the projects forward at Snake Park, Child and Gender Protection and the Martial Arts Academy. He's doing really great work supporting them, and helping them deal with all of the challenges that arise. He's written so many project proposals since he's been here! Now, some of it is really starting to pay off, Snake Park is going to be getting some support from two different sources! One of them to build a "green" building on the park for day activities, but it will include things that are novel here - like maximizing solar capture and energy efficiency and considering insulative properties. That should be really cool once it gets going. He's also doing a lot of waiting, waiting for the protective suit for the women's self-defense program and waiting (still) for the floor mats for the Academy. He's also been trying to body build again. This comes with the requirement of eating at minimum 85 grams of protein a day, which can be a bit demanding on a diet of dried green peas, peanut butter, oatmeal and eggs - really, that is a lot of peanut butter!

 

 

As you can see we are both keeping quite busy (I didn't even write all of it!) but it has been really good, and lately I've actually had a few people acknowledge the positive impact I've made on their lives and that we should change our citizenship and move to Lesotho but that at least they will remember me for a long time after I've left here. You can imagine, it is heartwarming and heartbreaking because I already see how hard of a time I'm going to have leaving these relationships behind, but knowing that we have to! In that vein, we are really working to figure out the logistics of grad school. Shane has officially decided that being a Doctor (of Osteopathy most likely) is what he really wants to be when he grows up. This means that I will (hopefully) get accepted into a program begining straight from PC next August and he will take the hard science classes that he needs as pre req, take the MCAT, and then (hopefully) get accepted into a program during the 2nd year of my Master's (prefferably, close by...) In any case, the logistics of this are a bit more complex than it would seem, but - at least we have time to think about it all and try our best to work out "the best" solution.

 

One last note - last week we got a lovely letter from my grandma that she had posted 2 weeks prior, the same day we finally got my cousin's high school graduation invites posted May 10th!

 

That's the latest from our lives here in Lesotho. As always, we hope to hear from you and we think about all our dear friends and family so often.

 

Hugs from Lesotho,

 

Carol and Shane

Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

To melt your hearts!

 

 

Hello Dear Friends and Family,

It's been awhile again - and a lot has happened in the last few weeks! As many of you know and most prominently was that I got sick (with flu?) and had some challenges with that. Including a really misearble 8 hour taxi ride to Maseru, a series of ever-enjoyable encounters with PC medical, traumatic blood draws, allergic reactions, an eye opening experience with some of the top-notch health care in Lesotho, them trying to drown me in IV fluid and so on... I have half a mind to write a bit more about the experience, talking about the quality of care here at one of the best facilities - how it compares to what I see at the government hospital locally, and of course as health care is a big issue in the U.S. right now - what it was like compared to how it likely would have been if I got something like this in America. Let me know what you guys think about that, but I don't think I'm up to it right now. So, that accounts for about 9 days of lapsed time since the last post.

When we got back from Maseru (Shane was diligently with me and amazing! I also got a lot of much appreciated support from some of the Peace Corps staff, as well as really meaningful support of family back home and even several of our Basotho friends here at site), we pretty much hit the ground running with a visit from the upper management of WFP (and even World Vision) Lesotho, it was a really great and productive visit professionally and we had some great social opportunities as well. This was followed by an invite to a WFP meeting in Maseru, so back I went - it was busy, but great! The meeting was really helpful and informative, I had a chance to not only network some more with World Vision but also with an FAO - I'm really hoping that those meetings will also be fruitful in supporting some of the projects that I've been working on. At the same time, I was really welcomed by some of my collegues at WFP and had a great time, eating great food and having great conversation with them after the meetings. The only downside is that Shane was stuck here in Qacha's Nek studying Chemistry...  I also got to meet up with one of my PCV friends who lives "up North" and we don't get to see each other very much - it was a great suprise and gave us an opportunity to start thinking about planning a backpacking trip together! She said she got to see all of the PCVs who were recruited to welcome the newest PCV trainees - the 2013 Education volunteers as they landed at the airport. That was pretty exciting news and we are looking forward to welcoming them when they get to their sites in December. On Sunday we got to return from Maseru in brand new cars (like 50km new!) from WFP - very much needed! so, that was also kinda fun. It is a switch from the Toyota Land Cruiser to Nissan Patrols, so we'll see how the Nissan performs in this rugged landscape lacking infrastructure!

Coming back late last Sunday night, I realized that the week ahead would also be busy. Having the opportunity to go to 3 schools and do various activities with the kids - I taught at one school about Integrated Pest Management, at another about HIV/AIDS and the other about Assertiveness. I really love when I have the opportunity to got to the schools! Below are some photos that I took while I was out. The weather has been really changing a lot - sometimes hot and sunny, sometimes misty, rain with SERIOUS thunderstorms, yesterday we had some small-ish hail (Shane was feeling tough because he walked home in it!) The moisture though, has been a real blessing - last year during this time, everyone was hoping for rain that didn't come until the middle of December. People have really been plowing their fields and planting now. I've even noticed that it seems there is a lot of fallow fields that look like they haven't been planted in quite a few years, that are being plowed up and planted. I look at this with a hopeful eye that the food security of Lesotho may improve - at least for this year... If you look closely at the 2nd photo you'll even see a tractor! (Not a real one because it isn't John Deere, but a tractor nonetheless) and you can see the road in the foreground of both photos- this is one of the main roads in the district.

In the meantime my other projects haven't exactly been waiting for me. We had Nutrition Corner this week for the nursing mothers, where we cooked traditional sorghum porridge but added peanut butter to increase the protein for the babies. I was also supposed to resume yoga classes this week on Wednesday but the huge storm required me to cancel it, but we're crossing our fingers that the weather will hold out so we can start on Monday. I'm also working with some local counterparts to try to put together something like a "Farmer's Market" once a month here in the district, so that has been fun, but has been a bit demanding as we start it up. Even the beekeeping project and the water tank project have been missing me, but I met last night with the beekeepers and we worked on their business plan. They got really excited when we put up the estimated annual sales on the cash flow projections!

Shane's counterpart at Snake Park has had some other committments to attend to lately, one being a workshop for grant funding that they are very excited to be recieving, so they haven't been doing a lot of work together with Snake Park. Shane has been working with his team to give several more Fight Like a Girl workshops, which are getting extremely positive responses from both the girls and the teachers. He has also decided to stop his running training program and switch back to the body building program - so, we have to figure out how to get him over 80 grams of protein per day!

So, I think this will influence my activities in the kitchen. However, all of this going to Maseru has meant that we have gotten to eat some treats - like cheese! And avocados, yogurt and mushrooms, so that has been pretty great. I made caramelized onion and mushroom parmesean calzones this week and "ghetto" mozzerella sticks. We had tuna burgers last night with avocado based spread and of course we've had- guacamole! Tonight, egg rolls and this weekend I hope to try my hand at baking German Stollen (fruit) bread, though I think you're supposed to bake it for the winter solstice... It should still be delicious regardless of the time of year.

In other news, we were able to get our cat a rabies shot - which was kind of a relief because I had heard something about a rabies outbreak and it would be really sad for us if something like that happened to Serurubele, so hopefully we are in the clear now. By the way, the vet informed me that he would only give our cat the shot if we promised to vote for Obama - we've had quite a few pro-Obama Basotho approach us here... so, there's some globalization for you! Our garden is coming along, we still have some rabbits/birds/moles eating things, but we have some kale growing up and the tomato seedlings are really taking off, and some beans and squash are starting to come up along with our potatoes. It is so funny being in this early summer mode as we're hearing all about fall up there, even if I go to look up recipes and things online, there is all this talk about pumpkin and fall fare and halloween - it is a bit confusing! Let's see, Shane has finished The Kite Runner and is primarily reading a Chemistry textbook, while I'm still working on The Long Walk to Freedom- Nelson Mandela's autobiography.

I think I'll go ahead and wrap up with that but we look forward to hearing from you and I'll try to not have such a long lapse before my next post - hope you enjoyed our news from Lesotho and we are sending all our best your way!

Carol and Shane
 

Not hiding...

Lesotho slide...

 

It has been awhile since my last post! It is common here, if a Mosotho hasn't seen you for a while to ask why you have been hiding yourself... hence the title of this post.

The previous post was put up right before we left for our mid-service training near Maseru - yes, we have officially passed the mid-point of our service, we have 10 months left! We enjoyed the training, it was fun to catch up with the other PCVs in our group and see all of the accomplishments of our terrific volunteers. We also got to stay in a pretty swanky (for Lesotho) hotel where we got three full meals a day and bathed with hot running water! After the training, as Shane and I awaited our transport, we got to spend time in Maseru. Peace Corps sent us to the dentist, and then we went to the mall! We got to go grocery shopping in a real grocery store, eat pizza at a nice restaurant, I got to have a real mocha, we even checked out some new clothes (the people in the shops didn't know that we can't afford them!) And to top it all off we went and saw Dark Knight in the movie theater! We got large soda, popcorn and candy too and the whole thing cost us just over $10- imagine. As one of our fellow PCVs noted, we have been in Lesotho far too long, if Maseru is that exciting for us.

September has been eventful in our Peace Corps world, I'm not sure which stars aligned this way, but it really hasn't been a great month for me, as well as several other volunteers we know. I'll spare you the details, but we were supposed to have a BBQ party to welcome our new CHED 12 volunteers, but most of us weren't in the mood to celebrate and the weather happened to be cold, rainy and terrible for an outdoor BBQ on the planned date. So, we got together briefly with the others, and we also had the pleasure of hosting Lin and Bruce again, we had a great time drinking coffee, playing cards, cooking, talking and we even got to see a fun suprise from Sister Magdaleana:

Adorable Tabby Kittens!

 

 

who also gave us the first rhubarb of the season which we enjoyed in a very delicious apple rhubarb crisp.

As for our projects, Shane has been continuing to do really well. They have currently submitted a preliminary proposal for the construction of a Green Building on the Snake Park, that will be used for meetings, workshops, etc... but also as a dojo for the martial arts academy. They are pretty excited about that. They are still axiously awaiting the mats for the academy that were in the last grant. Shane has also assemble a team to go teach the Fight Like a Girl women's escape training to high schools around the district and that has been going really well so far,

Shane with his FLAG crew

 



and it sounds like the girls are very receptive to it - but they are still waiting for the protective suit to be sent from the states so the girls can get the realistic scenario training that is fundamental to the program philosophy. He has otherwise been doing really well, he is diligently trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up and how we can make it happen. He finished reading Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer, has been working on Body By Science, and he just started The Kite Runner.

New Puff Adder brought to Snake Park in a WFP bag



As for me, last week things fell apart a bit - PC challenges! Fortunately they seem to be on the way up this week. The electricity has been off at the WFP office/education building since the begining of this month. Also, we have been registering people for the Emergengy Feeding that is a response to the Prime Minister's announcement of the food shortage crisis, so - the car has not been available for my school activities. This has led me to reach out to my secondary projects, 'M'e Matumelo (from the bakery) and I had been working on doing a business training about record keeping for some of the women with micro-business here in town. Unfortunately, after a lot of good and hard work planning, she came to me two days before the workshop saying that she was having some pretty severe family problems and she wouldn't be able to go through with the workshop. So, we decided to ask one of the trainers from the government ministry to step in a just do a quick and dirty one day training, so that we wouldn't have to cancel.

Women's small business training

 



At the same time, last week one of the guys who is working with the bees shattered his collarbone! So, he wasn't sure when he'll be up to getting together again! The water tank for the sisters is coming along and is almost finished, though the worker we hired has been a bit reluctant for some reason - so, we dealt with that last week too, but the tank is, in fact, finally almost finished!

Finishing up the tank

 



On a lighter note I did get to attend "Nutrition Corner" for nursing mothers and spronsored by EGPAF last week. We cooked "enriched papa" where we added eggs and milk for extra protein to the traditional staple - papa. We also talked about delivering assertive messages and even did practice role plays, including disscussing with their husbands the use of contraceptives and taking their children for the recommended clinic visits.

Yummy - enriched papa

 



I also had my first yoga class with some of the local, professional women last night and 5 showed up and seemed to like it - this is a great start and I am really hoping for it to continue. So, PC life continues. Our garden is growing pretty well, the rains haven't really come yet, so we are mostly watering by hand but it seems to be OK so far. We've had some rabbit nibbling on our stuff, but nothing devastating, so that is good. Other gardens around are starting to show signs of life too, and the farmers have mostly planted their fields - we saw this planter, which maybe has potential to be no-till...

Seeder

It is starting to get noticably warmer, which is also good. I've had three favorite things lately: one is our camp/solar shower that we recently hung up above our otherwise worthless bathtub - now we can boil the water, mix it up and have an up-to-7-minute shower! Number two is a triple decker PB&J, 3 slices PB between two, and jam between two... yes, these are the important things in life. Lastly, I have been in love with Parmesean cheese! We brought some back from Maseru and it is such a nice addition to almost anything, just to "kick it up a notch" normal lentil soup really does morph into something amazing with a few grates of Parm, cracked pepper and a drizzle of olive oil! We also made homemade ricotta and spinach with parmesean cheese stuffed ravioli from scratch, that was pretty delicious.I haven't been baking as much because I've been busy but recently made some pretty delicious banana bread and a friend inspired me to make bagels again. I've been reading a lot, I really enjoyed the book "We are all Welcome Here" I also read a book by Wallace Stegner - Crossing to Safety and just finished "Man's Search for Meaning" by holocaust survivor and "logotherapist" Victor Frankl.

I've got to run right now, so I'll leave it at that. Hope you all are doing well and enjoy the update and photos. All our best from Lesotho.

Hugs,
Carol and Shane

 

Happy Labor Day

 Hello Dear Readers,
We hope you all are reading this in good health and happiness.
As fall quickly approaches on you guys, I am really enjoying sharing my sentiments of spring with you all. So, here goes... with plenty of photos.

Yesterday, I was reading in our rocking chair. Outside the weather was sunny and in the high 60's, but quite windy. I noticed a bird perched on the peach tree in full bloom right outside our window and it was very lovely. By the way, I made sun tea yesterday - which by Shane's prediction means summer has arrived! We've been doing a bit of spring cleaning too, and I'm proud to say I've been a good house 'M'e and asked the woman who helps us do our wash to also wash our blankets, so for about 3 dollars a pop, our blankets joined the ranks of all the other blankets on the lines yesterday to celebrate the arrival of good weather, coming in at the end of the day with that clean and fresh smell exclusive to line dried things.

I went out to one of the WFP primary schools to do some agricultural education last week and on the way, I realized one of the things I've really (already?) grown to love in Lesotho. It is this time of year when the countryside is covered with pink blossoms. I've never seen anything like it in America, and I will miss it next year! In the above photos I tried to capture the loveliness as best I could. Below are a couple photos to prove that I do in fact do "development" work, and this time I was even using some of my education! You can see me - even giving the thumbs up (do I look like a PCV yet?)! And there is also the classroom and students taking notes below. Below that, is a photo of some of the guys Shane has been working with, enthusiastically about to depart for a martial arts tournament in a neighboring village.

  

 

 

As I wax on about spring, Shane noted about the last post, how different the photos look from the actual experience. Walking home, the photos don't capture the feel of the wind and your heavy backpack, the smell of burning plastic and often urine or sewage, the sound of bells on the animals, the kids playing, overly loud music coming from shops and cars, and hearing poorly mantained cars drive too fast nearby. In any case, we're doing the best we can to convey the experience to you electronically. Also, on that note - if you have any suggestions for topics that you'd like to hear about, please email me or Shane or feel free to comment.

 

I've just been talking about the sensory experience of the place and I thought it would be a fun time to point out that in Sesotho, there is only one word that includes the sense of taste, touch/feeling(also includes feeling emotions), hearing and sometimes even smelling. I had 'my' library kids go outside last Saturday and write down what the experienced for each of their 5 senses... it was fun and of course, sounded like poetry, but I really noticed that they didn't sense nature as much as the human components around. I heard birds while they heard cars, and they even turned on their cell phone radios so they could hear music, they smelled food and saw houses. But they did great and hopefully got them thinking about expressing themselves and connecting to the environment.

 

I try not to get too philosophical as I write here on the blog because that can get tiresome. However, I'd like to mention something that I've been really impressed with about ourselves as our Peace Corps service has continued. We have always been pretty resourceful and creative, but PC has really given us an opportunity, out of neccesity, to constantly flex our resourcefulness muscles. As examples, I've included a photo of Serurubele playing with his new favorite toy that we have made him, it is a stick with a plastic bag on the end - he loves it. Also, below that you can see a photo of his scratching post and self-feeder that we made out of 2 peanut butter containers. Duct tape is usually at the core of a lot of these projects!

 

 

 

Several people have commented on my resourcefullness in cooking - thanks.. I really can't help myself and there really isn't a lot in the way of entertainment so... below, I present to you a photo of falafel from last weekend. Does it look like something from a restaurant? I homemade the pita bread, the 'feta' cheese, the honey-mustard sauce and of course the falafel balls, and then topped it all with cabbage and diced tomatoes. I have to say, it was pretty delicious and Shane was also happy!

 

 I've mentioned our seedlings previously, - here they are below "hardening off" and getting ready for being transplanted out to the garden. We might wait a bit longer so that we don't have to frequently water them by hand like our other seedbeds and newly germinated veggies. The wind is not only taking the soil also taking the soil moisture with it!

 

I know in some of our other posts I've talked about problems with livestock eating our crops, as well as rabbits, insects and even moles. One of our other challenges is very poor soil quality where we are growing, last year this, along with the other factors, really depressed any actual vegetable production. I tried to plant several successions of pea plots as well in attempt to green manure - and they got eaten by livestock too! Many of you already know this, but a pretty important factor in growing organic successfully is the legacy of your plots. I've been cursed by this several times and have had terrible luck growing several gardens now. So, this is year two, we've rolled up our sleeves, made a fence, have compost ready to go and have resigned our selves to hauling a lot of water. I'm not sure if that will be enough. So, Saturday I went into one of the small (shack-like) businesses that sells ag products to scope it all out, and even consider buying some fertilizer (I know what many of you are thinking...) regardless, what I found was actually interesting. I think most of our lovely readers are familiar enough with fertilizer to be suprised that all I found was 6-3-2-31... the 31 being sulphur. Most of it was parceled out into smaller (completely unmarked) 1 kg plastic bags available for about $1.50. I spoke with another ag minded PCV about what was available to him and he said that 2-3-2-22 and 3-2-1-25 was what he commonly found. I'm a lot more comfortable with soil building and organic nutrient input methods, but notheless I was extremely suprised not only by the low primary macronutrients but by the high sulphur! As I understand sulphur numbers like this are mainly for canola and alfalfa... certainly not maize, which is the main crop here! In any case, I suggested to the woman that owns the shop that she may help her customers by writing the numbers, at least, on the smaller plastic bags (PCV on duty 24/7...) and I returned and she actually had done that on a few, yay for the small victories of PC!

 

I think I'll wrap up now and wish you all a very nice labor day off and as I talk about our garden begining again - I hope you all are enjoying a bountiful harvest. Though I have been hearing a lot about the drought and even seeing some of the effects on global food prices and food aid! In any our best wishes and -

 

Thinking of you from Lesotho,

 

Carol and Shane