Not catching fish

On Sunday, I finally got to go on a hike down to the river with Tumane, Likhetho, and Kamohelo. They told me that we probably wouldn't see any fish, it being winter and all, so we left the spears at home. It was about two hour's vigorous walk from Matholeng to the riverbed, and the boys were happy to point out sites that they considered photo-worthy. I'm putting up a small sampling of the photos:

At one point as we were walking down the valley, the boys pointed to a cave where, they said, lipila (dee-peel-uh) probably lived. I do not know what lipila are, but the boys told me they are small creatures who, if they see your exposed ears, will bite them and never let go. Tumane pinched his ear between his knuckles and said, "like a padlock." They suggested that I put my hat back on to protect my ears. I did so, and gave them a solemn nod to show them I understood the seriousness of the situation. We never did see any lipila, but we did see some of their tracks.

Cover those ears!

And here's a picture of your correspondent standing on a rock:

Our next adventure, the boys tell me, will be to a site where we can see cave paintings from the Khoi-San people who lived here before I did (I understand there have also been some other people in between us). Can't wait!

Lilotho

The other day, I was walking with a friend from my village, Kapari, and he told me that one thing that could help me in my Sesotho studies would be to learn some lilotho, which are riddles. I asked my students to write some down, and they came up with this list.

I even understand two of them!

My favorite one is number 13: "Litsoene tse peli li hloa thaba empa li sa fihlelle ka'holmo." This translates to: two monkeys are climbing a mountain, but they do not arrive to the top.

The answer is: "litsebe," which means "ears." Ha!

The other one I understand is number 5: "'M'e o sekoti, ntate o khopo, bana bese ba bararo." This means: "The mother is the basin, the father is the lid, and their children are three."

The answer is: "sekoaelo, pitsa, maoto a mararo," which is a kind of three-legged pot that people use to cook over open fires.

The cutting edge

Prospective volunteers can sometimes be a little anxious about how well they will be taken care of once they arrive to their country of service. I cannot speak of other countries, but I can tell you that the technophiles of Peace Corps/Lesotho deploy an impressive suite of modern technology to help facilitate volunteer care, as evidenced by this quotation from an actual email I received today from the medical office: "In the effort of serving you better we made some modifications sometime back about how you could contact us at the Medical Unit.  This scenario was tried and tested, and it was felt that we needed one more thing to make it easier and accessible for all- an answering machine."

Honest Abe and climate change

Well, I told you that I’d have some more quotations from Abraham Lincoln for you, and I don’t intend to disappoint. This one is from the same speech to a Springfield, Illinois temperance society. “Few can be induced to labor exclusively for posterity, and none will do it enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us; and theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do very little for it, unless we are made to think we are at the same time doing something for ourselves.”

One of the observations you will often see in discussions about climate change is the disproportionate burden borne by developing countries, that often the countries least responsible for contributing to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are most affected by the unpredictable weather patterns those increases create.

In the United States, many of the things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint (driving less, eating responsibly-produced food, etc.) are not immediately beneficial to us and so must fall under the category of “labor exclusively for posterity.” Even things that might benefit us directly (lower electric bills if you have a solar set-up) still have steep up-front costs (the thousands and thousands of dollars you need to spend to get a solar set-up). So, as Pres. Lincoln notes, few have been induced.

But in Lesotho, two factors combine to make any labor done to adapt to climate change (and note that the option in regions with already minimal footprints is simply to adapt) not labor for posterity but labor for self.

One: the effects have already been noticed. Whether or not these specific weather patterns can be causally linked to rising carbon dioxide levels, most people here note that something abnormal is going on. I arrived on the heels of a six-month drought, and Shakhane (my counterpart/the Grade 5 teacher) told me that planting had been delayed two months from its normal time. Adapting to the changing climate is not something you should do for your children, it is something you must do for yourself.

Two: the strategies for adapting to climate change (at least that I’ve seen) have the additional benefit of making one’s daily life easier. I use a propane-powered stove, but many people in Matholeng burn wood. My propane tank, full, weighs 11.3 kg, or just under 25 lbs. I grunt and sweat and complain every time I have to lug a new one from the road up the mountain to my house. But one tank—which must provide fuel to cook all my food, boil all my drinking water, and heat the water for my bucket baths—lasts about 40 days. I don’t have to carry that propane tank very often.

I am not sure how long it takes to burn through 25 lbs of wood, but I imagine it’s a great deal shorter than 40 days. My host father, ntate Matlere Thamae, works at the local NGO as its Climate Change Resource Officer. One of his newest initiatives is to sell wood-burning stoves to people in the surrounding villages. These stoves come in three different sizes and, he has told me, are about 80% more efficient than putting your wood fire out in the open. This would be a very small step to mitigate the effects of climate change, but more importantly, the purchaser would now have to carry 80% less wood. Their labor benefits posterity, but they are, in a very real, palpable way, “at the same time doing something for [them]selves.”

 

Ntate Matlere with some of the new stoves.

80 per cent. We're talking about per cent here.

And reducing the use of wood would have a tremendous ripple effect. Trees are naturally very important because of their ability to eat carbon dioxide and poop oxygen (you may be wondering how I got so smart at science, and let me tell you that I have quite the background; I once took a class called “Chemistry for Citizens”). More oxygen and less carbon dioxide is a good thing for us humans. But let’s take it local.

In Lesotho, one of the greatest environmental concerns is the pervasive soil erosion. The entire country is a high mountain plateau, and most of our rain finds its way into the Senqu River and then out into South Africa. Large ditches called dongas scar the countryside where the water streams down from the mountains. There are very few trees to keep the soil in place, so much of the fertile topsoil gets carried away. Plenty of people and organizations have tried to remedy this by planting trees, but it is difficult to convince those who live in nearby villages to let those trees be. When confronted with the immediate need of fuel to cook food with, the slightly longer-term need of fertile topsoil gets swept aside. If 80% more trees are left where they stand, more soil will be left in place.

Which brings us to food security. Shakhane recently attended a government workshop for 5^th-grade teachers and high school agriculture teachers about a new method of farming called “Conservation agriculture.” This is another approach that, while it will certainly be beneficial to posterity, it is also immediately, tangibly beneficial to people living in Lesotho today (even shorter term than just the better crop yields they might see). I am thinking specifically of the 1^st Principle of Conservation Agriculture: minimum soil disturbance. This helps to protect the soil from erosion and conserves soil moisture, but what it practically means is that you no longer have to hoe the fields to break up the soil before planting. (I have heard that) hoeing is very difficult work, and the other teachers readily approved of the new approach.

This is a very high-quality pamphlet.

Spend less time disturbing the soil and more time with your kids. Win win.

One of the main points of Peace Corps service is to build capacity, which entails the transfer of any skills the volunteer might have to members of the local population, so that the locals may use those skills long after the volunteer has left. So I would have been remiss in my duty if I had not suggested an approach to dealing with climate change that has been useful in America. “Have you tried,” I asked, “denying it?”

“Denying what?”

“Climate change. You know, you could just say that it’s not happening.”

“But it is happening.”

“Yes, but… what if it weren’t?”

“But it is.”

“Look, I believe that you believe that. But, and bear with me here: what if it weren’t?”

(looking around at others) “Does anyone know what he’s talking about?”

Khosi, artist

The other day, I was at SMARTD (the place I am now, where there is internet), and I met a fellow named Khosi. We started talking, and he told me how he draws, and he showed me pictures of some of his work. He is from Berea, which is the district I trained in, but currently lives in Ha Sekake and works at the local court. He invited me over to where he stays to show me his current project. It is going to be a display putting Mother Teresa in counterpoint to 'M'e Mantsebo (Queen of Basutoland pre-Independence) with a poem in between.

Khosi at work

Mother Teresa

'M'e Mantsebo

Food thoughts II: lijo li monate!

Due to the United States Embassy’s continual and, in my view, unreasonable refusals to let me use the diplomatic pouch for ordering pizza, I have been forced to learn how to make my own food while living here.

One of the first things I learned how to make was bread. Now, one day during training my friend and fellow member of the Kose family, Tumisang, told our family that I bought bread. This was of course a character assassination of the basest sort and could not be abided. I don’t think I have to tell you that a man who can make bread with his own two hands but instead chooses to buy it cannot really be considered a man at all. I make the bread with a pretty simple recipe (wheat flour, salt, sugar, yeast, water, margarine) and cook it in a Dutch oven made from a large pot and a small tuna can.

Letlotlo means "glory," which is something men
who buy bread will never achieve.

One of the staple foods of the Basotho is papa, which is a mixture of maize meal and water. This food is important enough to merit its own vocabulary: instead of the standard verb ho fuluha for “to stir,” you must use ho soka, which means specifically “to stir papa.” I am not very good at making it, but am improving. One of our days off from school, ‘M’e Makoae, the 4^th grade teacher, invited me to come to her field to collect pone (maize [corn]). We spent the morning gathering, and when we came back to her house, we ate lunch with her family. I told her that her papa was far better than mine. We talked a little shop about how to make the best papa, and in the course of our conversation I revealed that I was stirring my papa with a spoon like some kind of ignoramus. In fact, you are supposed to stir your papa with a lesokoana, a wooden stick. A few days later, she gave me a lesokoana of my very own and that, combined with letting the mixture simmer much longer than I had been( 20 or so minutes, until it is about the consistency of mashed potatoes), has yielded some great results.

A near empty bag of maize meal under my new lesokoana.

Because this is my first time cooking for myself (excepting the few months I spent in New Zealand during which I ate only cereal and fried rice), I have been going through a prolonged trial and error approach to figuring out things that I like and am capable of cooking. After several weeks of what might generously be termed “soups” made of a chicken stock cube and any available vegetables, I have finally nailed down a few delicious items. Here are some of my greatest victories.

Look at this pizza.

A pulled pork sandwich made from the successor pig to
the one referenced in my "Some pig" post.

My 4th of July veggie burger on freshly-baked bread.

One of the benefits of Lesotho's location is the number of food products available from South Africa. I can always get peanut butter and other important necessities. However, it is sometimes very apparent that these products are marketed to South Africans, and to one group of South Africans in particular.

Probably not what the typical Basotho aunt looks like.

Two comments about domestic helpers

Comment one: I have a large curriculum that details the topics for each subject for Standards 6 and 7. For each topic, it has a few suggested activities and examples to aid the teacher with lesson planning. Here is a picture of Topic 11: Express emotions.

As you can see, one suggested example is “Yesterday I was angry with my domestic helper, she had scorched my shirt with a hot iron.” Now, I’m not one of these Thomas Piketty types who believes that there’s some kind of “problem” with “global inequality” of “wealth.” Really, no one gets angrier at his domestic helpers than I do. But I question the relevance of this example to my students’ daily lives.

Comment two: There are two longer works in English that every Basotho schoolchild reads (though I understand they are being fazed out with the arrival of the new integrated curriculum). One is a play called My Uncle Grey Bhonzo. It’s always tough to tell whether students really comprehend the English they read (even though they are happy to respond “yes” when I ask “Do you understand?”). So I was really happy when they began referencing the book to make jokes with each other. One of the characters is Bhadenga, a hapless, ridiculous domestic servant who is constantly being called back and forth by his master, Grey Bhonzo. Anytime someone knocks on the classroom door, one of the students runs to go unlock it (we latch the doors to keep them from blowing open with the wind), and if no student volunteers to open the door, one of the students will shout “Bhadenga! Open!”

What should you bring to Lesotho?

I intended to write this post and put it up on June 3^rd, which was the one-year anniversary of my receiving an invitation to serve in Lesotho. However, I have been alternatively busy and lazy (though more lazy than busy), and did not get around to it until just now. Sorry.

I assume that a big batch of invitations has gone out to the next crop of Education volunteers and that some of those, after a frenzied few minutes on Wikipedia finding out what, exactly, Lesotho is, have been accepted. Congratulations! Please bring me cheese.

As you might expect, I have a fair amount of advice for the incoming volunteers. I have trimmed it down from its original 50,000 words into what I hope is a useful, manageable post.

One of the biggest sources of anxiety during the lead-up to Peace Corps service is packing. What should you bring? What should you leave at home? Do they have toothpaste in Lesotho?

An important disclaimer: you are not going on a two-year camping trip. If someone had told me this one year ago, I would have responded haughtily that I already knew that, and probably would have even prefaced it with a duh. Yet a cursory look at what I brought, with particular respect to the large amount of quick-dry clothing, would show that this thought was lurking somewhere beneath the surface.

What I am trying to tell you is that not everything you bring needs to be a burly, durable item. Bring things that you like. Yes, some of the things you bring will break, or get worn down, or you will iron a giant hole in them because you are not very smart. That’s fine. You will then do what people in Lesotho do when they need new pants, or shoes, or a hooded sweatshirt that says “AUSPICIOUS TIMES FOR D-LOAD” on it: you will go to the store and buy the needed item.

Q. Do you have any recommendations for specific things I should bring?

A. Yes. One specific thing you should bring is a small memento that you can use/look at every day, such as your coffee mug depicting the noble River Otter that you bought at a gift shop in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, because this will remind you of the spring break trip you took there with your good friend Alec. I would caution you to not actually bring your good friend Alec; you may think now that you will have time to feed him and take him for walks, but things will get very busy during training and the responsibility will fall to your host family, and they will not be happy with you young man, not one bit.

The noble River Otter.

Another specific thing you should bring is a portable speaker. I bought a small Philips one at Wal-Mart for about 20 dollars, and it has been positively terrific for listening to audio-book versions of Jane Austen novels, though I understand some people also use their speakers for listening to music, and they have been similarly pleased. Mine can be charged via USB and usually lasts a week or two.

When you get tired of Jane Austen, try E-40's "Tell Me When To Go"

Yet another specific thing you should bring is a pack of wool socks. I highly recommend Smart Wool. I bought my first three pairs of Smart Wool socks for a trek in Philmont, New Mexico with the Boy Scouts about seven years ago, and those same three pairs, having been in fairly constant use this whole time, are still going strong. I also picked up a fourth pair in the laundry room of my sophomore-year dorm after they’d been on the floor for a few months. If the owner of those socks is reading this, I want to tell you sincerely that you will never see those socks again.

That's right, I posted a picture of a dirty, mismatched pair of socks
before I posted a picture of the outside of my house. That is
just the way my mind works.

If you are a coffee drinker, bring a French press. I understand that these are sold in the Pioneer Mall in Maseru, but I do not know anyone who has bought one there and cannot assure you of the quality. You can purchase ground coffee in Maseru, and while it’s not economical to drink it every day, you will really appreciate it when you do make it. Ground coffee is also easy to stuff into a care package (my Dad, after years of training methodically packing luggage into our car for long trips, could now probably put 40 pounds of ground coffee into an Altoids tin if he needed to).

It was a dark Vienna roast.

There are a few other things that you should bring, such as a good, sharp kitchen knife, photos of loved ones or loved things, and, I don’t know, a hat or something. But these are well-documented in other people’s packing lists and I feel no need to cover them in detail here.

A final important note: while it is true that your Peace Corps experience will change you, these changes will probably not occur all at once. I say this recalling that during my packing process, my mom would suggest that I should bring, for example, some tea bags. And I would think to myself, “Yes, I suppose I do like tea… But does Peace Corps Michael like to drink tea? He’ll probably be too busy inspiring children to reach their full potential. Better skip it.” But (as so often happens), my mom was right, and I do like tea here as much as I liked it when I lived in the U.S.A.

So: pack some things you like, don’t worry about forgetting anything because you can find most things you need here, and when it comes time to decide whether to bring a microfiber, quick-dry towel or a full-size, fluffy one, choose the fluffy one.