F.A.Q.'s about my R.E.I. Adventure Pants

Q. Michael, I understand that before coming to Lesotho, you purchased a pair of pants from R.E.I., and that these pants were marketed as "Adventure Pants." Would you care to discuss some of the harrowing adventures you have had, along with some photographic evidence?

A. I would.

Q. Carry on.

A. Very well. I have had two harrowing adventures wearing those pants. My first harrowing adventure occurred one day when I was walking back from school and did not open the gate to my yard wide enough, and a loose wire scraped across the pants.

Perilous!

 Q. Wow. Well we're all just glad you're ok. And the other adventure?

A. The second adventure happened one morning when I was getting ready and thought that I could iron pants made chiefly of nylon.

Hair-raising!

Q. It's stories like that that make you realize just how far away you are. What's next for you? Kilimanjaro? The Matterhorn?

A. I think I'll go read a book.

A few scattered observations on Sesotho

As you know, the Basotho of Lesotho speak Sesotho. I think that’s pretty obvious. However, occasionally the Basotho will host a moeti (visitor) who is a lekhooa (white person), and they (the Basotho) will have to teach him (the white person) how to speak Sesotho.

I have had a wonderful time learning Sesotho. I can’t say I am very good at speaking or understanding it in my actual day-to-day activities, but I sure enjoy studying it. Here are a few things I have learned and observed.

Demonstrative pronouns

As you know, we English-speakers have two demonstrative pronouns: this and that. As in “This? This here? This avocado is my avocado. If you would like an avocado of your own, you are just going to have to march yourself over there and get that avocado.”

In Sesotho, there are three demonstrative pronouns. They’ve got two that mean much the same as our this and that, but then they’ve also got a third demonstrative pronoun which means not here, not there, but even farther over there. I thought that this was an extremely silly notion (and was, incidentally, a little embarrassed and defensive that English has only two pronouns for demonstrating while Sesotho has three). But then I came across this passage in Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue, a book about the English language: “Today we have two demonstrative pronouns, this and that, but in Shakespeare’s day there was a third, yon, which denoted a further distance than that. You could talk about this hat, that hat, and yon hat.” So I am glad that we do, in fact, have Demonstrative Pronoun Parity (DPP).

Noun classes

And yet, we don’t. Sorry. Sesotho nouns are grouped into fourteen noun classes: seven singular classes along with their respective plural ones. For example, for people, you have the singular mo- group paired with the plural ba- group: a single person is motho, while multiple people are batho. This is a nifty system for organizing, but also means that each noun class has its own accompanying suite of grammatical features. So when I say that there are three demonstrative pronouns in Sesotho, I mean that there are three for each noun class. But it gets better. This does not necessarily mean that there are 42 distinct demonstrative pronouns. Some noun classes, following no discernible pattern, share demonstrative pronouns with each other. For example, looking at the rough this equivalent, we have the plural noun class me- sharing the demonstrative pronoun ena with the singular noun class “junk” (more on this below). So I could have meroho ena (these vegetables) and nku ena (this sheep), but moroho ona (this vegetable) and linku tsena (these sheep). Here are some pictures for your further enrichment.

The “Junk” class

Bound up in the structure and vocabulary of any language is its history. With Sesotho, the most obvious example comes with the “junk” class. As you can see in the above diagrams, you can sort most of the other noun classes by their prefixes. A chair, setulo, goes in the se- group while bread, bohobe, goes in the bo- group. But the “junk” class is a free for all. While it no doubt contains words that have been in the Sesotho lexicon as long as bread and chairs, it is also the all-purpose receptacle for loanwords. So a quick look through the nouns that fall into the “junk” class reveals a large number of words (and by extension, the concepts/things they represent) that are likely recent additions to the Sesotho language and to Basotho culture. I can only readily identify those words that seem taken from English (though I’ve been fooled by false cognates before!), but you can see that things like kofi (coffee), oache (watch), and peneapole (pineapple) must have come from other languages and cultures fairly recently.

Ho tsela tsela kapa tsela hatselela

or

To cross a road or path six times

Another fun thing to note is the similarities between semantically related words. Is fun the wrong word? This is what I do while everyone’s watching Breaking Bad. Anyway, as you noticed while translating the above subtitle, the word tsela means both road and path. The action “to cross,” something that you often do with roads and paths (second only, I believe, to “walking/driving down them”), is also “tsela.” With a little tweaking, you can also see that “tsela” makes its way into the word for “six times” and also the standard “six” (tseleletseng). This is, I am told, because when you count on your fingers (using a standard human hand), you must cross from one hand to the other when it’s time for six.

Ha u e tsoara ke’eng?

To say that you have a headache in Sesotho, you say Ke tsoereke hlooho, which means basically “I am suffering [from the] head,” but translated literally means “I am touching [the] head.” The other day I was suffering from my head, and I told my class so, and one of my students, Rapelang, said something in response and everyone laughed. Later he explained to me that he had said Ha u e tsoara ke’eng? Playing off the literal meaning, this question translates to “Why aren’t you touching it?”

This made me think of the joke we have where you ask someone if his or her face hurts and then tell him or her that it is killing you. I told them about this joke and they laughed, but I’m not sure if they laughed because they understood it and thought it was funny or because I had told them it was a joke.

Back 2 School

At a recent staff meeting, 'm'e Faso mentioned that Matholeng would have a "Back to School" day before closing for winter break. I was somewhat confused by this, because in the United States "Back to School" often refers to a night near the beginning of the school year during which parents come to school and meet all of the teachers and your Chinese teacher tells your parents that she thinks you will potentially be a good student, but that you need to stop sitting next to Dan Morrison because together you two distract the rest of the class.

But in Lesotho, "Back to School" refers to something that is different and, in my opinion, much more fun. Here, it means that the teachers all dress up in old school uniforms and the students dress in private clothes. I think that this occasion is more aptly described as "Back 2 School," hence the title of this post.

Here is a picture:

Left to right: ntate Thamae, Me, 'm'e Makoae, 'm'e Mosakeng, 'm'e Faso, and 'm'e Ntsiuoa

Honest Abe and behavior change

One of the aims of the Peace Corps volunteer is to facilitate, broadly put, behavior change. This ranges from things like teaching practices to healthy living (specifically, in Lesotho, with respect to HIV/AIDS). I think that people can sometimes forget just how slow behavior change happens, and get frustrated when education doesn’t immediately correct the problem. When you know which lifestyle changes are required to avoid a major health problem and see that these changes are, in your opinion, self-evidently in the target group’s best interests, it’s difficult to recognize that information is almost never, in and of itself, enough.

Think how long it took for percentages of people who smoke cigarettes after the Surgeon General provided irrefutable proof that smoking causes lung cancer. Think how many people still smoke. Think about the resistance to wearing seat belts, and think about the fact that residents of New Hampshire are not required to wear them after the age of 18.

Despite overwhelming statistical evidence that these things (smoking, not wearing seat-belts, risky sexual behaviors) can lead to death, people still do them. This is because while statistics and facts and figures can provide a very useful framework for understanding the world, they are not a part of day-to-day life. You don’t sit next to a percentage in the front seat of your car and you don’t share a pack of cigarettes with a bar graph.

Real behavior change happens when you notice a difference of behavior between you and your friends, you and your family members, you and a person you admire. Seeing the statistic that around 23% of adults in Lesotho have HIV/AIDS? Fine. Hearing your teacher tell you the ABCs (Abstain, Be Faithful, Condomise)? Good. Having a frank talk with a parent, or an older brother or sister, about your future and how that might be affected by contracting AIDS? Great. Hearing your best friend say that he would never have unprotected sex, or would never have multiple partners? Terrific.

This, I think, can be one of the real strengths of Peace Corps Volunteers; the mission of Peace Corps has always been to promote friendship and peace. Provided you are not constantly heckling people with facts about HIV and AIDS, or shooting judgmental looks at people who drink beer and smoke cigarettes, your community will be able to see you as what you are: just another person. Eventually, these topics will come up on their own, and when or if people do ask your opinion, they will ask it not looking for your view as a Peace Corps Volunteer or a development worker or a foreigner, but as the person they’ve seen lugging water buckets back from the tap, or the person they know is teaching their children, or perhaps even the person they’ve checked in on while he was too sick to leave his rondavel and was probably not too fun to be around. Or maybe not. Behavior change is very, very slow.

I have been reading a book called The Essential Abraham Lincoln (published in a series called “Library of Freedom,” which raises several important questions. Chief among them: should I start referring to my rondavel as the Library of Freedom and see if it sticks?). This is a collection of speeches, letters, and proclamations, and I am enjoying it a lot and may be including a few quotations from Mr. Lincoln in my coming blog posts. For now, I want to leave you with a quote from a speech he gave to a Temperance Society early in his career back in Springfield.

When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great high road to his reason, and which, when once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than herculean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a  rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even to his own best interests.

Gaining trust

I noticed one good sign that I am integrating well into my community at a recent intramural soccer tournament: my students have become very protective of me. My school had gotten past the first round, and we were at Letsooa, a nearby Primary School, for the finals. I was standing outside the classroom that served as Matholeng’s base station, putting on some sunscreen, and I was drawing something of a crowd from the students from other schools. I had no problem with this, as I imagine they were just curious. Why’s he smearing white cream on his face? Isn’t he white enough already? What’s his problem? But the students from my school were not pleased that the others were staring at me, and they yelled at them to go away.

On the public acceptance of nose-picking

Some cultural differences between America and Lesotho will be, I’m sure, points of tension throughout my service (how adults interact with children, the prevalence of corporal punishment, etc.), but others are just kind of odd and funny. For example, in Lesotho, it is completely acceptable to pick your nose. Everyone, from my teachers to my students to people I talk to walking to town, picks his or her nose. It is completely normal, and this of course throws me off completely coming from America where you’re looked on like some kind of deviant if you pick your nose. People will be talking with me and, while keeping eye contact, go knuckle-deep exploring for treasure. It is an especially funny difference considering that I am a reckless spendthrift when it comes to Kleenexes, and my mother and father made sure that I had a stack of new handkerchiefs in my luggage before I left. Standing across from someone who, I have no doubt, would put a finger in each nostril if the situation required it, I feel like a real dandy taking out my little square of white linen and gently blowing my nose into it. Incidentally, this feeling isn’t helped by my habit of periodically dabbing sweat from my brow with the handkerchiefs and exclaiming “mercy!”

Lintlafatso li monate!

I think Peace Corps Volunteers can sometimes get overwhelmed when they realize the full scope of what “sustainable development” means. Personally, I see those two words and think: why not throw “delicious” in there too?

The Standard 7 students at Matholeng come to school on Saturday mornings, because at the end of the year they must take the Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), the national exam that has some bearing on their options for high school. I love that my school does this, because I know from talking with other volunteers that some schools have trouble fielding a full team of teachers even on weekdays. It’s unquestionably good that my school understands how important a solid primary education foundation is to building good lives for these kids. But it also makes me a little sad that they’re in there on Saturdays when they should have the opportunity to run around the village and wreak some low-key havoc, having fun doing whatever it is 12 year-olds do for leisure. So the other day I came to hang out with them and brought them some banana bread to eat when they finished their lesson. I have never been a good cook, but I have enjoyed picking a few things out of the volunteer cookbook to try, and am currently working towards my ten thousand hours on cooking banana bread.

They loved the banana bread (I know this because it has shown up in almost all of their compositions, in sentences like “And then we went and ate some banana bread” which appear under every topic from “Moshoeshoe’s Day” to “A Trip I Took” to “The Day I Was Nearly Bitten By a Snake”). So I asked if they wanted to learn how to cook it together next week, and they cheered.

Q: But did you use locally available materials? Otherwise it’s not sustainable and you are an embarrassing failure.

A: Of course I used locally available materials. Grow up.

‘M’e Faso, who is, as you know, the teacher of Standard 7 and the principal of Matholeng, helped me to assign students to bring various ingredients, and throughout the week the students came up to me to ask if banana bread was still happening next Saturday.

That Saturday, some of the Standard 7s came to my rondavel to help me carry up some of the equipment from my house. I went up there, and wrote the recipe on the board. I told them that this was just if they wanted to copy it down and use it later, but their reflexes kicked in and everyone copied it into their notebooks. They constantly impress me with their English, and I was proud to see how readily they applied it to reading and following the instructions. It was a great day, and a few of them even told me that they would try to cook it at their homes.

Cape Town chronicles: the final day

After climbing down from Lion’s Head, Eric and I, along with his co-intern Paul, went to an Ethiopian restaurant called Addis, which was terrific. I don’t remember the names of any of the dishes, but I did choose to purchase an “Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony,” which entailed the waiter bringing me a small tray with coffee, burning incense, and popcorn. Most of my coffee since coming to Lesotho has been instant, so it was nice to have some of the genuine article.

After dinner, we went to Eric’s favorite frozen yogurt place, which we had also gone to the night before. I would do injustice to the experience (and likely embarrass myself) if I tried to describe my joy at eating frozen yogurt after so many months of a more bare-bones dessert (which is under no circumstances a ball of margarine rolled in brown sugar). Then we went back to Eric’s apartment and, as we were two young men and it was a Saturday night, elected to watch the second half of How To Train Your Dragon (we had tried to watch the whole thing the night before, but I fell asleep around 9:30).

The next morning, my final day in Cape Town, we woke up early to climb Table Mountain. We went up a route called India Venster, venster being Afrikans for window, I think. At one point on the trail, there was a small window of rocks that looked out across the side of Table Mountain at a rock outcropping that allegedly looked like India. Say what you will about Afrikaners, but I am certain that they don’t know what India looks like. The trail was an excellent scrambly one though, with lots of climbing and some truly excellent views first of the City Bowl and then, as we wrapped around the side of the mountain, of the ocean. Incidentally, my camera ran out of battery on this hike.

This was a pretty challenging hike, and I was pretty tired when we came down, and I was glad the only plan remaining for the day was to make French Toast. I had, earlier in the weekend, expressed interest in going hang-gliding, and Eric was getting in touch with a guy who ran a hang-gliding company who he had befriended (Eric befriends these types of people, whereas I mostly befriend people at places that sell French fries). I wanted to go hang-gliding, but I also wanted to catch my bus back to Lesotho, and the hang-gliding slot would have been two hours before the bus’s departure. Eric told me I could give them all my luggage, hang-glide to a field, and then take a taxi to the bus station. Apparently, I could not hang-glide directly to the bus station. This was tempting, but I was very tired, and imagined I would, mo matter the guarantees of the hang-gliding guides, miss my bus.

And that was my first visit to Cape Town.

Cape Town chronicles: Khayelitsha to Lion's Head

I went to Cape Town because I'd heard it was a cool city to see, but also because I wanted to visit fellow Colby Mule and friend of the people Eric Barthold, who is working there this year as an intern for Grassroot Soccer. Eric had already had plenty of visitors this year, and did not have the time or inclination to take me on a tour of the various tourist attractions in Cape Town. So instead, I sort of shadowed Eric doing whatever he had planned. This ended up being great because a) Eric does some cool stuff in the course of his work that I'd never be able to see if I hadn't been there with him and b) he generally does more in three days than I attempt in that many weeks.

The first day, Eric had to go to the township of Khayelitsha (where he works) to help orchestrate a small soccer tournament with people who had participated in past Grassroot Soccer programs. Khayelitsha is a sprawling place with everything from sturdy-looking government-built housing to the type of smaller corrugated-iron structures I see in Lesotho. The tournament took place on a small asphalt court in a park with a nice new playground. It was definitely disconcerting to be around so many people - from what I can gather, the population of the Cape Town metropolitan area is almost twice that of all of Lesotho. At one point, Eric and I were leaning against his car and a large group of kids played a game where they would alternate poking each of us in the chest, which caused us to make silly faces. They speak Xhosa in Khayelitsha, so I got to practice with my very limited Xhosa (essentially stretching "nkosi" to mean everything).

As we were driving back from Khayelitsha late in the afternoon, Eric said he would need to work out before we got dinner, because he felt funny if he didn't get some exercise in during the day. I took this opportunity to sprawl out on the couch and read. When Eric returned from exercising, he told me he realized that he in fact had already exercised that day, and had forgotten the two soccer games he played during the tournament. This struck me as odd, because not only do I never forget when I have exercised in a given day, I usually don't let any of the people around me forget it either.

The next day we watched one of Eric's friends compete in the 2 Oceans ultra-marathon in the morning and then went to something called Old Biscuit Mill, which is sort of like a giant farmer's market, and I imagine maybe 90% of the vendors would describe their products as "artisanal" (the rest would use "bespoke"). The food was terrific and there were more people than I generally see in a month. After Old Biscuit Mill, Eric took me on a hike up Lion's Head, one of the mountains that looks over Cape Town.

"This is the school we went to!"