My dear friend Mackenzie and I sat together on our fifteen hour flight from America to Africa last year. Prior to Peace Corps, she worked in Lesotho. Peace Corps had always been a goal for her and she is certainly maximizing her experience now that she is here.
I really admire her openness, positive attitude, and creative soul. She is one of the most unique women I have encountered and every time we talk, I leave our conversations feeling both happy and inspired.
Mackenzie lives not far from the capital of Lesotho, Maseru. She works with Blue Cross, a drug abuse prevention and treatment organization working throughout the country. Her work as a Peace Corps Volunteer with such a well established organization is far different than my own loosely structured organization, job, and site. She is an incredibly busy woman!
Both women's soccer teams that Mackenzie coaches.
She teaches life skills classes with the people in the inpatient drug and alcohol abuse rehabilitation program. Additionally, she is out in the community constantly. She teaches life skills at two primary schools and two high schools in the surrounding area every week. She meets with two HIV+ Support Groups through Red Cross; one for men and one for women. She has a women's walking group that meets weekly and an after school youth running club that runs three times weekly. She even uses her weekends for work, coaching two women's soccer teams. She has helped put together women's soccer tournaments through Blue Cross.
The "I Aspire to Be" Chalkboard
Somehow in the midst of all of those activities, she also has found time to do some really neat projects in the community. Her creative spirit has been put to great use and can be seen throughout her community. Outside a local shop is now an "I Aspire to Be..." chalkboard where people can declare and share their dreams. She and men from the community have been painting red ribbons throughout area villages to increase HIV awareness.
Although it is still in the early stages, she is working with her community to start a piggery as an income-generating activity for the community members.
The empowered women of Camp Glow
Additionally, Mackenzie co-planned and co-directed a GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) camp in her area last month. The camp was a 3-day camp with 60 young women from seven Maseru District schools attending. It was a huge success with exclusively local funding. The campers participated in sessions on leadership, self empowerment, HIV Prevention, gender equality, drug and alcohol abuse, and how to start a GLOW club at their own school. After it received local television attention, people starting contacting Blue Cross so she is already contemplating doing a second camp before we finish our service!
Life skills graduates at Blue Cross
Mackenzie and a counterpart working on the chalkboard
One week it was still glorious autumn,
the colorful and lush green areas already varying shades of brown.
The days warm enough for short sleeves, the nights cool enough to
bundle up in sweaters, socks, and even hats.
Then, overnight it seemed although it
was actually while I was in Swaziland at Bushfire, winter arrived.
Days that had previous bordered seventy degrees now only creep into
the fifties and nights drop to freezing most of the time. The
temperature inside my hut plummeted into the low fifties, making me
finally pull out my long johns for the first time after over one year
in country.
Winter here is Lesotho is mild compared
to the frigid and biting winters of New England. Last year, I spent
the winter, my first three months in country, thinking, “Is this
it??” But, I had just survived an unusually cold winter in Northern
New Hampshire and barely enjoyed spring before flying to the Southern
Hemisphere for Winter 2014 the sequel.
This year, having enjoyed and adapted
to summer, I found myself mentally unprepared for winter's sudden
onset.
It certainly did not help that it made
its appearance during a week I was out of site and finally had
challenged myself to pack minimally for both the trip to Bushfire and
a week working for Peace Corps in another district. It also did not
help that winter literally stormed in, with two days of rain and
temperatures in the thirties to forties. Winter is the dry season.
When it is cold and dry, Chacos and socks can be justified as just
enough and easily adaptable to warming daytime weather. When it
pours, however, it becomes a moronic choice of footwear and one may
have to suffer through two days without fully feeling ones toes. One
may also realize that not packing a raincoat was a poor choice.
A historically overpacker might
suddenly feel ill prepared after being proud for overcoming their
overpacking compulsion and have a terrible regression.
But I'm not whining. Just noting how
startling the arrival of winter was.
And with winter in Lesotho comes a few
other things worth noting:
Beauty: Beautiful sights
including vistas such as snow covered mountains in the distance or
foggy valleys and frozen water crystals on weeds in the bright
morning sun.
Sun: The increased need for
sunscreen. Over the summer, if I left my house with keys, I also had
my umbrella. It traveled with me more than my wallet or phone.
Sometimes it sheltered me from the thunderstorms that mark the rainy
season, but far more often it protected me from the sun. I literally
used it all the time. Now that winter is here, the sun has become my
best friend. Like a cold blooded animal, I soak up its warmth
whenever possible. As a result, I am getting my healthy sailor's glow
back, which someday will frustrate the dermatologist I have not yet
met.
Greetings: Additions to all
greetings. After learning how someone is, it is customary to follow
up with either “Serame se joang?” (Sar-rah-may say jwang) or “Hoa
Bata!” (Ho-ah bah-tah). The former means “How is the cold?” and
the latter “It is cold!” From there, it is expected that a
conversation will ensue related to it being cold.
Wardrobe Commentaries: In my
case, this conversation also includes a commentary in Sesotho about
how I am not wearing enough to handle the cold or an appreciation
that I have started to wear a Charlie-the blanket that married women
and cold girls wear pinned around their waist.
The other day
I was wearing the New England Cold Weather Special of an LL Bean
Flannel topped by an LL Bean vest combined with a toasty knit hat and
thick jeans. As I walked, villagers stopped me, incredibly concerned
by my lack of Charlie and a jacket. It was in the thirties and they
could not fathom that I was not frozen.
As I thought about
this, I understood. In America, we have the luxury of buying really
nicely made clothes for the weather we will face. My New Englander
Special is most likely warmer than most Basotho's warmest jacket. My
fancy winter fabrics are not readily available to people in Lesotho
and so the idea that I am comfortable in lightweight but toasty
layers is literally incomprehensible and probably giving me a
reputation as a little bit crazy!
Winter Comparisons: Questions
about winter in America. Over the summer, people did not ask me much
about what our weather was like back home, but now that cold weather
has made a reappearance, people are desperate to know how it
compares.
In my experience, the Basotho believe Lesotho
winters are the hardest things in the world. Considering that most
people's interactions are primarily limited to Africa and Africans,
this makes sense. Lesotho's winters are the coldest and toughest in
Africa.
People here are stunned to learn that winters in New
England are even colder than here and that we get lots of snow. But,
to be honest, winters in New England are a bit easier than this one
is showing itself to be. Because in New England, I always had a warm
place to go. Even in the century old house I grew up in, where we
heated only the downstairs and my bedroom was akin to a refrigerator,
there was always a wood-stove to curl up next to when the cold became
too much.
Since I am trying to tough it out and save money by
not using my little gas heater, the only warmth I am currently
curling up around is a warm mug! And the reality is, for most people
in my village that is true for them as well. The lucky families can
afford gas to cook inside their house. The luckier families have a
wood burning stove they will occasionally use when it is too cold
outside. But most people still do their cooking outside on an open
fire. Their warmth comes from wearing their blankets and basking in
the sunlight when it is there. And that makes their winter experience
seem a lot tougher than those aggressive New England winters I grew
up with.
After 51 weeks in Lesotho, I finally
took my first vacation. It was actually only a long weekend trip. I
traveled with twenty-one other volunteers to Swaziland for Bushfire,
a three-day music festival.
The travel was pretty uneventful.
Another volunteer and I had arranged a private sprinter to take us
from Lesotho through South Africa to Swaziland. We listened to poor
intel, however, and therefore were operating with the misguided
understanding that the trip would take us eleven hours. In reality,
it was only a seven hour drive, which we learned at about 10:00 PM
while at a gas station in South Africa. This was the same moment we
learned that the border crossing from South Africa to Swaziland was
four hours away and closed at midnight.
Thus, we spent five extra hours at the
border gate waiting for it to reopen at 7. Despite this, people were
in pretty good spirits and mostly relaxed when we reached the
Bushfire campgrounds.
The festival itself was incredibly fun
and relaxing. Since we arrived early Friday morning and events did
not start until later in the day, we had time to take showers, nap,
and relax before things got started.
I was unprepared for exactly how free
and relaxed I felt at Bushfire. Excluding “Consolidation Vacation,”
this was my first time out of Lesotho since joining Peace Corps. I
have become so accustomed to adapting to the Basotho cultural norms,
that I did not even realize I was still doing so. And yet, once in
Swaziland, at an event known for drawing a diverse crowd, I found
myself relishing a freedom I had not realized I was missing. Having
experienced this, I now understand why we were told in Pre-Service
Training that days in country are work days even if we are not
actively working on a given day.
Bushfire included a really diverse
variety of performers from the Unites States, Europe, and Africa
covering most musical genres. I got to enjoy Nomsa M, 123, Haja
Madagascar and the Groovy People, Shortstraw, Tonik, Stelth Ulvang,
Sweet Sweet Moon, Sweet Honey in the Rock Freshlyground, Les Nubians,
Joana Serrat, The Soil, The Parlotones, Continental Drift, Amandla
Freedom Ensemble, Outcry, and a bit of Ghetto Villah.
Of these, my favorite moments were
definitely:
Hanging with Mackenzie-Fellow
PCV Mackenzie and I had planned months ago, before the Lesotho PCV
group swelled to huge numbers, that we would do Bushfire together.
While we occasionally hung out with other PCVs that were there, we
mostly did our own thing. We had splurged for a pre-erected tent in
the woods, which set us apart to begin with. Then we wandered in and
out together. We relaxed and chatted in our tent one afternoon while
listening to the music from the mainstage. She is a pretty incredible
human in general and it was wonderful spending so much time together
doing our thing at Bushfire.
Joana Serrat-a folk musician
from Spain who says her musical roots come from American artists like
Bob Dylan. I liked her music so much that I had to buy her album to
enjoy in my hut. I highly recommend checking her out.
Breakfast with Tonik-perhaps
the most unusual show I went to was Tonik, who I enjoyed both
Saturday and Sunday morning. They are a duo that claim to perform
“music without sound.” This seemed impossible until I popped into
the art exhibit barn they were playing in on Saturday morning. Around
them was a circle of people looking entranced with nice earphones on.
The Barn itself was filled with artwork and occasional light
percussion sounds but was otherwise silent. I wandered around for a
bit until someone leaving gave me their earphones. As I donned them,
I was stunned by the beautiful and rich sound I heard. The next day,
I had to visit again because I enjoyed their music so much.
Being a VIP-a
handful of us had splurged on the “Golden Lounge” tickets. The
Bushfire website had implied that the more expensive tickets came
with food so we were a bit disappointed to learn that was not
actually the case. I felt a bit ripped off at first, but by Saturday
was celebrating the extra expense. We had large seating areas in the
shade with waitstaff, which allowed me to avoid both sunburn and
sunscreen for the entirety of the festival. We had access to really
delicious and healthy tasting meals from a reasonably priced
restaurant instead of the corndogs and other festival booths. And
maybe most importantly, we had access to warm drinks so I could enjoy
hot coffee in the morning and hot chocolate when the nights turned
cold!
Ghetto Villah-most people know
that rap is not my favorite music genre, however, Mackenzie and I had
stayed in the small venue amphitheater after the Joana Serrat show
talking to her drummer. We stayed long enough that we were
accidentally there for the start of the rap duo's first few songs.
Midway through their second song, the vocalist came off the stage and
made very deliberate eye contact with me for an oddly long time while
singing. Mackenzie and I laughed about it. A few minutes later, he
slowly swaggered over to me while continuing to rap. He then put the
microphone in my face for the chorus and after I chimed in (I am
thankfully learning to quickly pick up songs I do not understand from
going to church in Lesotho) gave me a long hug. Mackenzie and I left
to see another performer on the main stage shortly after, but I am
certain that had we stayed, I would be announcing my new relationship
with a Swazi rap star!
Stelth Ulvang-Despite
the unique name, this was one of the American performers. He was the
first main stage performer on Sunday morning and he blew me away with
his ability to energize a tired crowd. His stage presence and
charisma were amazing. I can see why he earned the stop to tour with
the Lumineers and strongly recommend folks check him out.
Our return trip to Lesotho was shorter
than the trip to Swaziland. Maybe because we were tired, it seemed
like we all slept better during the trip back. Thus the only notable
moment was when we made a pit stop at a 24-hour McDonalds only to
learn that the interior was closed. As we were traveling in a group
of 23 on a mini-bus, we were not too keen on going through the
drive-thru. This changed into great enthusiasm when the staff told us
we could walk through the drive-thru, something most of us had
attempted and failed in America. Thus, twenty of us cheerily ignored
the cold and walked our way through the the drive-thru.
