Safe and Sound in Lesotho!

Lumela Friends and Family!

We're in Maseru today taking a short tour of the city, and visiting the Peace Corps Office... So I finally get the chance to write a little! Everything is going great! Our Pre-Service Training is absolutely exhausting, and they keep our days full to the brim with classes, lesctures, activities, and language lessons. Needless to say, a combination of 4 hours of language training a day and living with a family that speaks NO English, has had a very positive effect on my Sesotho. I'm already able to comfortably introduce myself to people, go through all the formal greetings, talk about myself, and compose basic statements. It's been really amazing to see how quickly immersion can improve language skills!
My family is wonderful... My host mother's (called 'M'e here, meaning mother) is 'M'e Malehlohonolo Mothobi, and she's absolutely wonderful. She takes amazing care of me, and loves telling everyone about her new daughter. :) It took me all of about an hour the first night, to realize that when they kept repeating "Limpho Mothobi" they were referring to me! So after a little confusion and botched translations, I finally discovered that my family had given me a Basotho name, Limpho (pronounced Dim-Poe)... In Sesotho, Limpho means "gift"... And 'M'e quite literally treats me as a gift to the family. I also have three younger siblings.... Toka is my abuti (brother) and is about 12 years old, Tsoanelo is my ausi (sister) and is about 5, and Thato our ngoana (baby) is 3 months old. They are lots of fun, and endlessly enjoy coloring with the colored pencils I brought. Every day Tsoanelo escorts me to me language lessons at 'M'e Makabelo's house (one of our language and cultrual trainers that is living in the village with us during training), and she meets me every day after class. :) I'm so glad for the company of the kids... They follow us everywhere.
We are quite the celebrities in our little village in the district of Berea (located about 30 km outside of Maseru, it's a relatively rural village). There are 16 PCVs ((Peace Corps Volunteers) of the 30 in my class living with me (with other host families in the village). It's nice to have the company, and having friends I see everyday who speak English and understand the challenges of "cultural immersion" is incredibly comforting. It's a nice transition to what I have coming when I finally move to my site in 7 weeks. We still don't know where our sites will be... I think we find out in week 5 of training (we're just at the end of week 1), but I'll be spending next week on my "Host Volunteer Visit". Essentially that's our first exposure to what life will really be like in country for us. I'm going to be traveling to one of the northern most (and highest altitude regions) of the country, named Mohoklotong (sp?). It's about 9 hours by public bus. I'll be staying with a volunteer named, Caitlin for 4 days, and going with her to work (she is a Secondary Science teacher, as I will be), and around her village. I'm excited and aaprehensive about my thrust in traveling cross-country with limited Sesotho, but I'm sure I'll have no option but to get the hang of it quickly.
I feel incredibly safe here. I now TOTALLY understand the emphasis Peace Corps places on integrating into your community. The Basotho are an incredibly friendly and welcoming people, and they know that we are here to help and absolutely want us here. It's a great source of pride for a Basotho family (like my own) to host a PCV... And they proudly display their new daughter/son to the community. We really are family- and it's a feeling of safety that can onyl come from fully engaging with the community. Everywhere we go we greet EVERYONE. You say hello, you ask how their family is, how they slept, how their life is, where they are going... It's VERY good practice to improve our fledgling language skills, but at the smae time it can get tedious when going the half mile to school take 45 minutes. But it's an important component of the safety in country. I absolutely love our Country Director and our other Trainers/Peace Corps Staff. I know I'm in good hands.

So everything is going great! 'M'e is never satisfied with how much I eat, and I've been in great health. We went hiking (in our one short 2 hours off) this past week, and the mountains are absolutely gorgeous. I feel incredibly blessed to get to wake up to such a beautiful mountain sunrise every morning. For anyone wondering, you can be assured that I honestly don't miss electricity or water. I rise with the sun at 5am every morning, boil my own water for a bath, bathe in a bucket just large enough to stand in, use an outdoor latrine, read at night by kerosene light, and am normally asleep my 7:30 or 8:00pm. :) It's a very simple, but good life and I'm happy with it! I've given up all my technology (to lock them in the PC safe at HQ during training), so I just went ahead and went cold-turkey on electronics... And I've honestly been so exhausted/busy I haven't noticed.

Anyway... I'll post more once I have internet more frequently. Hopefully I'll have a phone with internet access in a few weeks. Until then, lots of love!!!

Khotso! (Peace!) - Mary Elizabeth

Let the Journey Begin!

It’s hard to believe I’m finally here… Just a few days away from making my dream of returning to Africa (more-permanently) a reality. It feels oddly familiar to be surrounded by suitcases, and half-packed boxes yet again (I calculated a few days ago that this will be my 12th move!) I love the sensation of having a great adventure ahead… So much learning and exploring to come.

On October 10th, I will start the next chapter in my life… I’m moving to Lesotho (a small country in southern Africa) to work as a Secondary Science Teacher with the Peace Corps for the next 27 months. At this point, I feel that I have more questions than answers- I can’t be certain where I will be posted in the country, or where I will teach, or how I will manage to learn Sesotho in 2+ months, or under what conditions I will be living for the next two years of my life. Yet, I am oddly content. Nervous, to be certain, but confidant that I will face each challenge as it comes… And hopeful that I will be a stronger person at the end of it all.

 Lesotho, “The Mountain Kingdom” 

And without a doubt, I am excited. I am so incredibly blessed to get the opportunity to embrace this next adventure… Lucky to have a family that is supportive, friends that are willing to visit and write often, and an education that will hopefully allow me to contribute something to my new Basotho community. I guess it’s also rather convenient that I’m young (ie. stupid and crazy) enough to give up everything I know to go live in relative poverty for two years. :)

I know the transition will be difficult, but it is my hope that I will take each challenge as a lesson and opportunity for growth. I pray that in silence, I will learn to listen to my own voice/heart more clearly. I pray that in darkness, I will find comfort in the light and company of people. I pray that when I am in physical discomfort, I will become attuned to the rhythms of my own body. I pray that when I am alone, I will learn to savor my own thoughts and feelings. I pray that when I am overcome by the strangeness of the foreign, I will see more clearly the similarities in all humans. I pray that when I am homesick, I will learn to be thankful for the blessings of a safe home and loving family. I pray for strength, patience, peace, and compassion, so that I may give freely of myself and my talents.

Thank you in advance to everyone that has and will support me in this adventure over the next several years! I look forward to sharing the wonderful stories of my time abroad with you all here, and when I return safely in two years!

With Love from Virginia… <3 Mary Elizabeth