My journal entry from Monday:
Today this week was incredibly
challenging, in all likelihood the toughest day I have had in Lesotho
yet. It was the day of our mini-PDM workshop. It was going to be long
and difficult no matter what.
Then I learned this morning that Ausi
Mareisi, my counterpart, had to work...but, 'M'e Mamphatsoe saud
someone was calling her supervisor to get her the time off to join me
in co-leading the workshop as planned. Despite this reassurance, I
could not help but be anxious.
This was my nightmare. The very idea of
doing the workshop effectively with people who speak no English,
using only my decent but inadequate Sesotho skills has literally been
my worst case scenario for the last month. It was a concept so awful
I tried not to consider it a possibility at all.
It turns out that Ausi Mareisi could
not leave her other job as her supervisor had disappeared. My worst
case scenario was now my reality. Rescheduling was not possible as we
had chairs, supplies, and meals provided by WorldVision. I wanted to
laugh or to cry.
I wanted to cry. I wanted a magical
ability to speak and hear Sesotho fluently for a day. I wanted to
have been assigned an organization full of English speakers, like
more of my PCV peers. Part of me even wanted to quit or at least to
hide in my house and ignore this reality.
By I did not join Peace Corps to quit
or hide in my house, I joined for challenges and new experiences; to
fully immerse myself in another country. And, the reality is,
nothing I have done thus far in Peace Corps would be new or
challenging without the language difference.
So, I took a deep breath, or five. I
apologized to the nearly twenty people present for speaking Sesotho
poorly, and I started the workshop.
We worked within my language abilities
until my supervisor and another leader in the organization arrived. I
let them know that Ausi Mareisi would not make it and they promptly
suggested I walk across the street to ask my friend to close his shop
so he could help with translations when needed.
Lucky for me, Abuti Sama is in fact a
good friend and he was willing to do just that. Unlike Ausi Mareisi,
he had never seen the material we were covering let alone attended an
entire training on it, so I really challenged him with my translation
requests. Often times, while he tried to figure out a way to say the
complex things I threw at him, I came up with easier explanations
that I could manage in Sesotho. Then, I would use him to confirm what
I said made sense.
In the seven-hour workshop, we did not
get nearly as much completed as we had ambitiously planned, but we
reached a unanimous conclusion to pursue an income generating project
of egg-laying chickens and to hopefully reinvigorate the previously
successful Vaseline project. Both of these meet with the outcome of
the Needs Assessment Ausi Mareisi and I previously completed. The egg
project has the benefit of also increasing food security in our
communities, a second need brought forth in the Needs Assessment.
Despite wanting to both laugh and cry
many times throughout the day, I cannot call it anything but a
success. I managed to go far beyond the language abilities I
recognize within myself, expressing hard topics in ways that everyone
understood. We shared an incredibly camaraderie throughout the day,
being playful with the language in ways I would not have understood
or joined a few months ago. Bo-'M'e all agreed upon a project, which
was completely unexpected. And, I had the excellent reminder that
people want to see my work here succeed and are willing to stop
everything to help.
It is pretty great to not only meet a
challenge, but also be forced to recognize how many people are there
to support me when I think I am going to have to deal with something
on my own.
MCCC’s Egg Laying Chicken Project has been in development
since March 2015. After many delays, MCCC and I were able to write a successful
grant proposal for a VAST grant through Peace Corps. VAST grants are funded by
PEPFAR to help with HIV-related work and OVC (Orphan and Vulnerable Children)
care. It is due to MCCC’s work with OCVs that qualified us for the VAST grant.
Otherwise, we would have applied for a PCPP [Peace Corps Partnership Program]
grant and would have been asking for assistance in funding this grant proposal.
I encourage you to consider supporting other PCPP projects.
Posts about this project include:
Workshop Woe, Busiest
of Birthdays, Checking
Out Chickens, A Day with
Bo-’M’e, Chicken Coop Construction Day
One, Day
Two, Day, Three, Day Four, Day Five 
