Top Five Experiences of 2018 (so far...)

My girl Tizzy and I pose after camp ends. 

5: Easter Camp

My current position does not put me in direct contact with kids nearly often enough anymore. As a result, doing Community Camp over Easter weekend was one of my favorite moments of the whole year. We had nearly one hundred children for four days and it was so much fun to interact with and observe them as they participated in ropes course, life skills sessions, and a talent show. Equally inspiring was getting to work with such incredible camp staff and volunteers. I love getting to watch these amazing professionals model incredible youth development skills and I love building strong friendships with them. 

Kayaking in Mozambique

4: Mozambique

In February, my friend Katie and I went on my last big Peace Corps vacation: Tofo, Mozambique. Our prime reason for picking this spot was that it is one of the best places to see whale sharks. It took us three days of travel to get there from Lesotho and we unfortunately did not get to see any whale sharks, however, the trip was still wonderful.

While Katie got scuba certified, I spent my days relaxing and walking on the beach, writing, wandering through the small beach town, and reading. It was the most peaceful and least demanding vacation I have ever enjoyed. Tofo Beach is truly stunning. I also took some time to bird nerd on a mangrove kayaking trip.

3: Herdboy Health Outreaches

My host organization has partnered with the District Health Management Teams in three districts in Lesotho to bring health services to herdboys in rural areas. Herdboys or balisana are a unique population in Lesotho.

They are marginalized from typical communities and social interactions through a lot of unfounded stereotypes. In my experience, most herders are wonderfully caring and friendly men-some young, some old. Due to stigma and discrimination, however, they also often live isolated lives and therefore do not get access to most government services including health care.

At the health outreach in Ha Popa, Thaba Tseka: beautiful views, a crazy bumpy ride in the truck with my colleagues,
the "road" we traveled, and a group of balisana that insisted we take pictures together. 

So far this year, we have done a handful of health outreaches to encourage balisana to get health care in the future. By bringing the services outside of the clinical setting, we have seen larger numbers of herders accessing medical tests including BMI, tuberculosis, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and HIV testing services. Those that need additional follow up are being referred for additional medical care and the local clinics are following up to ensure that these services are received.

For me, these outreaches have also allowed me to get into more rural parts of Lesotho than I had previously visited. Our first outreach in Thaba Tseka involved a bumpy three-hour drive on something almost resembling a road to reach the village of Ha Popa. It was quite the adventure. The balisana there were so welcoming and fun to hang out with as they waited in line for their various health tests.

Grabbing a late lunch with my friend Pontso on a holiday.

2. Moments with Friends

This may sound like a generic cop out, but it is still true. Whether working or playing, I have had some of my favorite adventures with friends. The longer I live in Lesotho, the stronger my local friendships become and the more I cherish these relationships. The opportunities to catch up with friends over a meal or a football game is something I took for granted in the US. The reality is that making it happen between transportation challenges and rules that require I be home before dark make these moments much fewer and more precious.

With Rets'elisitsoe and his brother,
Ralethola (one of my best friends), after the
wedding. 

1. Weddings!!!

2018 has been the year for weddings. Every year I have been in Lesotho, I have attended a wedding or two. This year, however, I seem to be attending almost one per month!

First, there was my friend Rets’elisitsoe’s wedding in January. Here in Lesotho, the groom must be escorted into the church by a female family member. Due to some travel delays, Rets’elisitsoe’s cousin was running late and so he decided that I would  be his official escort and sit in the front row for the ceremony. It was an incredible honor to be quickly adopted into the family of two of my closest friends in country and to then participate in the wedding activities at his house the next day as well.

Then, a few weeks later, my friends Tori and Mpho-who married in America-returned to Lesotho for the traditional wedding ceremony that takes place with the groom’s family following a wedding. Tori completed her Peace Corps service in 2015, so the opportunity to catch up with her after more than 18 months and to be a part of this special day was truly wonderful. 

With Mpho and Tori at their wedding celebration in March

The third wedding I attended was in my community, but for the sister of someone I have known, respected, and adored for the entire time I have been in Lesotho. It was fun to hang out with the bridesmaids before the wedding, join the convoy of BMWs for the trip to and from the church, and help out with logistics and serving during the reception. 

With my dear friend Ototo at her sister's wedding in April

To keep up the wedding theme, I just returned from another friend's wedding. This one brought me out to Quthing, a district I hadn't visited before that is about three hours south of Maseru. Even better, I traveled and spent the day with some of my favorite guys in Lesotho. For once, I already knew both the bride and groom and am so glad that I was able to be there for their special day.

In Quthing with some of my favorite guys; Tlebele, Moseli, Ralethola, and Matseli. 

All smiles with the groom. 

Too Much Travel

From the end of October until mid-February, I managed to only leave my district twice; once for a Thanksgiving celebration with some friends at Malealea Lodge and for my incredible holiday trip to Durban and St. Lucia. I went four months only passing through Maseru on my way to and from Thanksgiving at Malealea. Although there are many things that can only be bought in Maseru, I loved being at home in my community and my district.

Since mid-March, however, I have made nearly weekly trips to Maseru-all of them overnight. To be honest, despite getting a lot of important work done while at the Peace Corps office, I am quite sick of the city and the travel. Each trip takes between four and seven hours each direction. Finally, the regularity of these travels is tapering.

So much of my life in the last few months has been like my
friend Dani in this photo...on the road.

So, given my clear affinity for the city and for entire days spent traveling between my village in Botha Bothe and Lesotho’s capital, why on earth am I going so often?

Sometime in December, I messed up my knee. I wrote it off as a torn or pulled hamstring and relaxed my then intense workout schedule. Over the ensuing two months, the knee alternated between mostly fine, a little uncomfortable, and possessed. Finally, I acknowledged it was getting worse and contacted the Peace Corps Medical Officer [PCMO].

Having a real medical issue—more than a quick trip to the local ER—has been one of my two biggest anxieties during service. I have no qualms about being far from medical care; with a decade of wilderness medical responder certificates, I am pretty relaxed about the possibility of injury or illness in a remote setting. Instead, I am terrified something could happen that would “make me unfit for service,” in other words, the idea of being sent home for medical care gives me hives.

So, anxiety aside, I have been working closely with our PCMO for the last three months. I was sent to Bloemfontein, South Africa to a specialist, which determined that my knee was surgical. PC Washington, PCMO, and I felt a more conservative plan might be better, so we have been trying physiotherapy, which is only available in Maseru.

Styling with a snazzy red
racing stripe to help my
IT band behave during
a week of Physio.

Weekly sojourns away from my site make things difficult. It is hard to explain to people who only see a doctor for emergencies and life threatening conditions that I am leaving the village every week to see a doctor when I do not appear sickly. When I tell them there is a problem with my knee and it is incredibly painful, they are sympathetic and empathize with me by sharing the joints that cause them pain. I have no doubt that some have far more serious conditions than mine, yet physiotherapy or surgery will never be a part of their lives.

Traveling to Maseru for two to three days each week also means that when I am in village, I am busier than usual, trying to fit everything into a smaller time frame. I find myself juggling different meetings and trainings around when I am available. As a result, I end up with no time for rest or for personal maintenance in a world where typical chores take more time than my schedule allows.

Clothes, bedding, and more on the line.

At one point, I had gone over two weeks without doing laundry. Since we had not had rain, I needed daylight to walk to the spring to complete the chore. With days getting shorter as winter approaches, that simply did not exist for me. (I also secretly had reservations about the walk with heavy wet laundry making my knee worse.) Thankfully my brother took notice of my dilemma and brought me water to do my laundry. I did my scrubbing by candlelight Sunday night and early Monday morning before hanging everything on the line.

I then spent the day in town with some women from my organization as we worked on our chicken project. I was feeling like I could conquer the world and get a million things done in a day until I was waiting at the taxi rank for a ride home and a huge storm rolled in. By the time I reached my village, I had given up. I knew that everything on the line would be drenched and that with my departure for Maseru at dawn the next morning, I had no idea how I would keep everything from growing mildew.

I felt completely overwhelmed until I rounded the corner of my hut to find my clothes gone. I have never been so grateful to find an empty clothesline. My brothers had no idea where my clothing and bedding were, but I knew that someone in the community had grabbed them before the rain came. The mystery of who had saved my week was solved an hour later when the clothes returned complements of a very slow elderly woman who lives nearby. For her to walk to our house, take down the clothes, and walk back home with them must have taken her nearly an hour!

After all of my back and forth travels, a dozen appointments, and lengthy PT homework assignments, I am pleased to be able to say that my knee appears to be on the mend. Two weeks ago, I reported my first pain free week, which allowed us to decrease my visit schedule. Since then, I angered it once but was able to correct the issues at home. After a check-in this week, I have a whole month before my next appointment.

Needless to say, I am thrilled. 

World AIDS Day

Happy World AIDS Day!

I remember living in America, being blissfully ignorant about the vital importance of this day and continued work in HIV care and treatment. My how things change!

Now, I live in Lesotho, surrounded by the second highest HIV rate in the world. When people die from illness, it is almost always HIV-related. When people die from illness, HIV is almost never mentioned.

Just as it does in America, HIV in Lesotho continues to carry an incredible stigma and huge amounts of discrimination. It seems that in America, because it can be transmitted through sexual activity and intravenous drug use, it is seen as scary and the repercussions of someone’s sins. The reality is, however, that here in Lesotho, the people most likely to contract HIV are young women ages 15-24. Many contract HIV through unprotected sex with their husband or an older partner. Many do not feel empowered to say no to sex or to insist upon condom usage in their relationship. Many have had only one partner.

Dribbling around risks
in life is an important
skill.

It is time for us as a world to look past the fallacy that someone did something wrong to contract HIV and to instead move toward helping to limit the scope of this disease.

Thanks to Anti-retroviral therapies, a person with HIV can live a long and productive life through maintenance medication, just as a person with diabetes, high blood pressure, and any number of other chronic conditions can. Additionally, an HIV positive person who religiously takes their medications can decrease their viral load so profoundly that the risk of them passing it to a sexual partner or to a child through birth or breast milk is incredibly reduced. There is simply no reason to stigmatize this disease!

A participant does push ups after hitting the "cone" for
risk of multiple partners during Risk Field.

For World AIDS Day here in Lesotho, my awesome counterparts and I added to the PC Skillz Grassroot Soccer Intervention we were already doing. Our practices today playing a game called Risk Field which uses risks like older partners, multiple partners, not using condoms, and combing alcohol and sex to show how HIV impacts not only the infected person but their family and friends and their entire community. We also played a game called Fact or Nonsense, which let us decide whether statements were true or not before learning more about the real facts. 

We finished up the day with empowerment. Since the theme of this year's World AIDS Day is "The Time to Act is Now," everyone came up with something they can do to help stop the impact of HIV/AIDS. Here is what they shared: 

Fact: Abstinence is the most effective way to avoid HIV.

Fact: The older your sexual partner, the more likely you are to get HIV.

"I will advise them [infected persons] to go to the health center for ARVs"

"I will tell them to abstain from sex..."

"I will form a social group"

"I will advise people to use condoms when having sex."

"I will tell them to go to the hospital.
I will tell them to have one boyfriend or girlfriend."

"I will tell them to have protected sex."

"I will abstain."

I will use condoms every time I have sex."

 How will you help reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS?
The time to act is now!

Top Ten Surprises After One Year as a PCV

One year ago today, I swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer with these seventeen amazing individuals!

It has been exactly one year since I finished Pre-Service Training and swore in as an official Peace Corps Volunteer. The year has been everything I expected and more than I imagined. Peace Corps service has not been without surprises. Here are the Top Ten things that have surprised me during my first year of service:

10. I polish floors

I do not think I had ever polished a floor before moving to Lesotho. Here, I find myself on my hands and knees polishing at least every other month. Keeping the linoleum on my dirt floor clean is a constant chore. I sweep more than daily to remove the sand that blows in and the dust that falls from the thatch roof. This all moves much easier when the friction is reduced thanks to floor polish. Of course, that reduced friction also turns my floor into an uneven skating rink for a few days, but that is just part of the fun!

9. I live here!
This one is a bit of a cheat as I was stumped for a tenth surprise. But the reality is that every day I cannot help but wonder at the roads my life has taken. I am amazed that I live in this beautiful country filled with wonderful, welcoming, and generous people. It is as if I awake every day expecting it to be a dream, but it is not. It is my actual life!

8. Easy Weight Loss

Everyone I spoke with before Peace Corps warned me that women gain weight in Peace Corps while men typically lose it. This is obviously a broad generalization but is believed to be due to the high starch based diets found in developing nations. In my case, however, I have lost weight with absolutely no effort. My activity level is pretty much where it was in America or lower, however, cooking for myself for the first time in over a decade is probably contributing. I also believe not thinking about it helps a lot. In America, women are bombarded by ideas of how they should look and their value in all ways is at least partially dependent upon their looks and what they wear. In Lesotho, this is significantly reduced, people look how they look and wear what they have. Since I have only a small mirror, I spend very little time thinking about how I look. If it were not for the scale at the Peace Corps office and my tape measure, I would have no idea I have lost around fifty pounds. Of course, this could also be due to wearing all the same clothes I brought with me. Sadly, this also means that said clothes are ill fitting and less flattering. I now roll my skirts to avoid stepping on them, my skinny jeans are saggy jeans, and shirts now resemble tents. But, since I only see these thing in pictures, I am finding I do not really care!

7. Phone Dependency

When I was sailing, I would turn off my phone for weeks at a time. Once I switched to dry land, I still was prone to leaving my phone behind or keeping it on silent. I could get away with charging it only two to three times a week. Now, my phone is a constant companion. I am quick to reply to WhatsApp messages and phone calls. Some of this is cultural as the Basotho expect someone to stop a conversation to answer a call. But some of it is also that this phone my connection to friends and family around the world. Some days, it is the only English I experience. Every day it is a chance to keep up with things happening in the lives of people I love, people I am going years without seeing.

6. I Don't Miss Much

I do not often miss places or things. There are moments I think, “Ooh, I would love to get sushi right now,” and I definitely would miss brewed coffee if my friends and family did not keep me incredibly well stocked thanks to amazing care packages. But, for the most part, I am so content with what I have here that I do not miss home. When I am headed to the big city (Sarcasm...Maseru is only big in the tiny context of Lesotho), I try to brainstorm a list of supplies and foods I should buy as Maseru has so many more options than Butha Buthe. But, when I walk into the comparatively larger and well stocked stores in Maseru, I quickly become overwhelmed. I cross most of the items off my list without purchase and walk out content with only one or two treats like chocolate chips, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, or a spice only available in the capital.

I have tried to convince myself I need to buy new cloths that fit, but similarly, I walk into the stores, become overwhelmed, and decide my oversized clothes will do for another year. In one year, I have purchased the following clothing: slippers, one skirt, dress shirt, one t-shirt, two tank tops, and two traditional Seshoeshoe dresses.

I truly expected part of the hardship people discuss before Peace Corps to be missing things in America-showers, driving, shopping, electricity, machines, diverse restaurants and food-and I was astonished to learn that I only miss the friends and family I have left behind. 

5. I Crave Time with other Americans

My first few months after swearing in as a PCV, I was quite content to spend all of my time in my village. Seeing other PCVs in town was nice, but not necessary. Now, a year later, I find myself desperate to spend time with the same people I would brush off to spend a quiet day in my community. The longer I am here, the more I appreciate times with other volunteers. It is not just that these are incredible individuals with a sense of adventure and purpose like my own. It is also the ease of spending time with people who understand my cultural reference points. While I am old enough that most of them just look confused when I start talking about Punky Brewster, they know much of the same music, television ads, movies, and so on. As my grandfather would say, we share a cultural IQ that allows us to enjoy easier camaraderie and jokes.

4. Bra Stuffing

I have always been a well-endowed female. While movies and books are filled with pre-teen girls stuffing their bra to look a bit older, I am the one whose fourth grade school picture highlights that I should have been wearing a bra. (Mom, please do not scan and share said hideousness!) Thus, I have never stuffed my bra nor used it as a storage device as I filled up all usable space in my bra. However, here in Lesotho, my chest is considered small. As I wear skirts often, my bra often serves as my only available pockets. Any given day, it holds at least two of the following: toilet paper, keys, money, phone, pedometer, hand sanitizer, notebook, pen, camera, gum, etc. It helps that I find I now have a lot of extra space for all these goodies thanks to number eight.

3. Health without Wealth

Before leaving for a life in rural Africa, I anticipated living on hand sanitizer, vigilance about washing my food and hands, finally stopping my nail biting habit, and torturous rounds of illness. While I do occasionally wash my hands and use hand sanitizer, the reality is that with less effort spent on sanitation and less facilities for sanitation, I am healthier than I have ever been at home. In fourteen months, I have had two small colds, two minor injuries worthy of medical care (Remember my trip to the ER?), and only minimal GI issues. Other than my first two months at site, I have barely even needed the band-aids that Peace Corps supplies us.

It is not just me either, for the most part, the Basotho that are part of my every day life are also incredibly healthy. One of my brothers has been a bit more accident prone lately, marking the first two times I have seen anyone in my family bleed and the first time one of them has visited a doctor.

I clearly arrived with a preconceived notion that living away from all the pristine and overly sanitary opportunities in America would lead to more illness and more problems, but the reality, for me at least, is quite the opposite.  

2. Proud Ameri-sotho

In America, a lot of people spend time talking about how hated America is by the rest of the world. While I have not necessarily witnessed this concept during my travels in the Caribbean, Central America, or Europe, it still impacted my perception of America. Here in Southern Africa, however, whenever people learn I am from the United States, they are envious. The immediate response is either “I want to go there” or “Take me with you when you return.” Even when I note that life in America is not easy either, people still want to be there. America is their dream.

As Lesotho's political situation has unraveled in the last few months, the United States has threatened to cut off certain funding if the government does not take action. Many Basotho have shared their fear of this happening. They see America as the leader of all positive international involvement in the country. They worry that if America pulls funding, other countries and NGOs will follow the US's lead. Since most groups followed our direction when we left briefly last September due to the Coup, their fear is understandable.

Even as my pride in being an American increases by being here, the best complement I receive from villagers is “Ua Mosotho”. When I do things that are culturally considered to be Basotho, they are thrilled. Women in my village love to yell at people who try to speak English to me in town, making sure it is understood that I am a Mosotho, I speak Sesotho, and I am a child of Lesotho. Being that integrated and loved is a crowning achievement for me.

1. Reliance on Help

I have always been an independent person. My mother still jokes about my independent nature as a child. American culture embraces and encourages such independence. Here in Lesotho, accepting help and even seeking it out are encouraged. It is nothing to go to a new town without having a clear picture of where I need to get. The expectation is that when I arrive, I can ask people for directions and trust the answers I get. If I am unsure of how to deal with a situation, rather than trying by myself, I need only ask and Basotho are ready to help-such as with that rat I had a few months back and its siblings my brothers have since trapped. This is not because I am an American or a Peace Corps Volunteer, this is simply the way culture works here. People ask for help and would be surprised if it was not given.

I am always amazed by the amount of trust and help I need to succeed here. Coming from a culture where we are encouraged to deal with it on our own, asking for help can be a challenge for me. Sometimes I would rather stay in my hut and do nothing than go to a new place where I know I will have to rely on the help of strangers, but every time I ask for or receive help, I am awed by how wonderful it is. While I know that returning to America and keeping this new-found part of me will be a challenge, I hope I can. Giving and receiving help is an amazing way to keep connected to people, whether you know them well or not. And the reality is, most people are genuinely good people who only want to help out their fellow human.

World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day, a day that I do not remember acknowledging after graduating from college over a decade ago. Now, however, living in Lesotho, it takes on new significance.

Lesotho has one of the highest HIV rates in the world. A year ago, as I was preparing to move here, it was the third highest rate. In my invitation to serve, Peace Corps stressed the realities this brings by noting that I would make friends and they would die during my two years of service.

Now, I am a few days from my six month mark and the real impact of living in a place with such a high HIV rate is still sinking in. In the meantime, the county has moved and now claims the second highest HIV rate in the world, having just surpassed Botswana.

What are the implications of nearly one in four people in a country being HIV positive? There are too many to list them all, however, here are a few:
-An unusually high number of orphaned children in a country without the resources to provide for them. According to UNICEF, 150,000 children are orphaned by AIDS. Keep in mind our population is under 2 million, so that is around 13% of the total population in Lesotho.
-A life expectancy of only 48.7 years.
-A high number of HIV positive children due to Mother to Child Transmission.
-People being afraid to get tested because of strong stigma associated with being HIV positive.
-Economic issues in a country that is already impoverished. Consider what it means when a large part of the population either has HIV or has a family member with HIV, they may be unable to work, tend their gardens for food, or otherwise help their family but they still need money for transportation to the clinic and good nutrition is even more critical than for someone who is HIV negative.

My Peace Corps program is called Healthy Youth. Designed with the Lesotho government, it has three main goals:
1-To help youth adopt healthy behaviors that will decrease the spread of HIV.
2-To help infected youth apply behaviors that mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS and improve their quality of life.
3-To help youth in areas impacted by HIV (all of Lesotho) to be prepared for adulthood and the professional world.

It is my job to try and counteract some of the impacts of HIV in Lesotho. This includes educating people about how HIV is spread and how it is not spread (it is spread through blood, breast milk, semen, and vaginal fluids...not saliva, it cannot survive outside of the body for more than a few minutes, etc), stressing the importance of knowing one's status and taking ARVs (anti-retroviral medication) regularly if one is positive, and providing youth with the life skills to stand up for themselves in relationships so as to decrease their likelihood of getting HIV.

While this may sound easy while reading it on a computer in a country with a low HIV rate, think about how difficult it is to do something foryour own health even though you know for a fact the choice you are currently making will shorten your life. How was that fast food feast the other day? Are you still smoking, even if only occasionally? Did you do that workout yesterday or simply land on the couch for another NCIS marathon? Is your cholesterol high but the bacon too tasty to give up? More salt on that? The reality is, we all make small decisions every day that we know put us at risk of major health problems in the future, but the present is more enjoyable because of those decisions. We know what we should do, but it doesn't always happen.

And so, here in Lesotho, we educate, we support, we inform, and we try to gradually bring about behavior change. There are some rally neat ways to do this. Over the weekend my host brother and I attended a Grassroot Soccer training. We are now ready to teach teens more about protecting themselves and supporting one another through incredibly well developed games that serve as metaphors related to HIV/AIDS. Every month I help at a support group for HIV positive teens.

Lesotho and the international community have also been approaching it from the medical side. To fight Mother to Child Transmission, every pregnant women who goes for prenatal care if tested for HIV. If positive, she is prescribed ARVs. Her child is also then put on treatment after birth. HIV positive mothers are allowed to breastfeed but are told to stop as soon as solid food is introduced as this increases the likelihood of transmission. Eventually, if the child infant continues to test negative, they are taken off the medication. The mother should!d stay on it, as stopping ARV treatment usually results in a big drop in the person's CD4 count.

Another medical push going on right now is VMMC or Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision. Studies elsewhere in Africa have shown that being circumcised reduces a man's risk of contracting HIV by 60%. This is because the cells of the foreskin are more membraneous than the rest of the penis and therefore removing them significantly decreases the likelihood of contracting the virus. VMMC is available for free in all districts of Lesotho and also includes HIV testing and education about other ways to reduce risk such as abstinence, one mutually faithful partner, and using condoms correctly every time.

This year people around the world have been hyper-conscious about Ebola. Today, I want to challenge you to think about another virus, one that is impacting far more people, in far more places. While it may not kill with the same speed or media frenzy of Ebola, it deserves far more attention.