That time I stuck a yowling cat in a box… :)

My cat, Pina, has now graced me with several litters of kittens. For all intensive purposes, she's a veritable feline-producing machine. Ha! And obviously, I can't complain... I mean who doesn't just LOVE the idea of having 3 fuzzy bundles of kitten nestled in your bed, and tumbling around your house. They've been delightful! Yet every time Pina has kittens, I have to face the stressful prospect of finding them homes.

And it's not a difficult task to find willing owners- many Basotho love cats and appreciate them for their "rat-killing" abilities. Finding a GOOD Basotho home, by American standards, is another thing. I want homes that I know will feed the kittens, and make sure they have shelter during freezing weather. And this is a tough request...
So when my dear friend Makabelo complained about having a mouse problem in her new house, and I had a house full of kittens, it seemed like an ideal match! Only one problem... Makabelo lives in Maseru, nearly 5 hours away from Botha-Bothe.

Yet as a testament to our friendship and my desire to find good homes for the kittens, I packed my bags, and stuffed a cat in a box. :)

It. Was. Miserable. From the moment, that kitty was stuffed in the cardboard box for the five-hr trip on PUBLIC transport, it yowled like I was trying to murder it. I'd say poor thing, but I honestly felt much more mortified for myself. I hate public displays and drawing attention- And this, in a country where I draw a considerable amount of attention by just STANDING on a roadside. Now add a yowling cat in a box, and I'm a walking lekhooa comedy act. I was in hell.
But I put on a smile and whipped out my Sesotho... As we sat on the village taxi, I apologized and attempted to laugh off my yowling feline friend with comedy... "Ke soabile, bo-Me! Motsoalle oa ka o batla catz, empa o lula Maseru! Pephi! Catz e lerata haholo! Tola! Tola, catz!" (I'm so sorry, mothers! My friend wants this cat but she lives in Maseru! Sorry! This cat is so loud! Shhh! Shhhn, cat!"

Bo-Me LOVED it. They ate it all up. They just laughed and laughed and laughed. And in that moment I found a new reason to love Basotho, just a little bit more. Not one person shot me an angry or irritated look. Despite my mortification, not one person judged me. Things happen. Noise happens. Akward situations with animals on public transport happen, and it's just a part of life. An American would have demanded I get off, bo-Me just chuckled and started asking me questions. In fact, when the taxi later got a flat tire on my dirt road and we all had to get out and start walking, bo-Me grabbed the box and merrily started juggling it between themselves- helping to carry my loud, obnoxious screaming box of cat. It was yet another testament to the spirit of community that is so special in this culture.

And once on the taxis- of which there were many between my little village in northern Lesotho and the capital- taxi drivers could not have been less concerned or troubled. Yowling cat? No problem! Just pump up the famu music! I never, in all of my years living in Lesotho, throught I would EVER be tolerant of, no less THANKFUL for blaring famu music. But in that moment, I was! Halleleujah for bo-Ntate and their famu music! :)

The cat made it to Maseru safely, and now lives a life of true luxury for a Basotho cat. Tumisang, Lily, and Kabelo named her Kitty, and she gets spoiled with milk, meat scraps, and living inside the house. So the trip turned out to be worth it in the end, and everyone lived happily ever after.

And I was given just a few more reason to be thankful for the small kindnesses of strangers. :)

With Love from Lesotho…. Mary E.

My Trip to Paradise… Also known as Mozambique!

In June 2014, several of my PCV friends, Will, Amanda, Jiggetts, and I, took off for a 10 day vacation in Mozambique. The trip there are back was trying, but oh-so-worth-it the moment we stepped foot in the crystal blue, lukewarm Indian Ocean!

The trip to the coast of Mozambique in south-eastern Africa took us through three countries. On the first morning, we rallied together in Maputsoe, to cross the Lesotho border together and take a taxi from Ficksburg. The trip to Johannesburg was typical, minus an infuriating run in with some corrupt S. African policemen along the way (see my blog-post on Discrimination for the full story)… We arrived in the ever-so-sketchy taxi rank in Johannesburg, where we hired a porter to make the terrifying 5-6 block walk through the dangerous streets of Joburg to the Central Bus Terminal. After a few hours of waiting, we were on an overnight bus to Maputo, Mozambique!

But as all world-travelers know… Nothing ever goes as planned. Our Intercape bus liner refused to wait for us at the border to Mozambique when the border crossing’s computer system went down and we were unable to get our Visa’s. So we stood and watched the giant bus leave, as we waited helplessly in line for a Visa. Luckily, Peace Corps Volunteers are nothing if not resourceful… Ha! We rallied our spirits for an adventure, marveled at our first glimpses of Mozambique as the sun started to rise, pulled on our hiking packs, and started walking! Not far down the road we found a taxi rank, where we used broken Spanish (which, just for the record, is NOTHING like Portuguese! But little did we know at the time… Ha!) to negotiate a driver to take us the final hour drive into Maputo!

Our one day stay in Maputo was brief, but after some quick cat-naps and hot showers at our hostel, we set out to explore the city! Coming from Lesotho, I was SO impressed with the level of infrastructure and architecture. While the Portuguese certainly left most of Mozambique in war-torn tatters when they left, they    

certainly also left behind a legacy of amazing architecture, food, and their language. It was such an incredibly interesting combination of European and African influences, all mixed into one beautiful, tropical country.

In City Hall in Maputo, Mozambique.

The next morning we were back to the road! Only this time instead of a comfortable bus it was a local taxi… But if there’s anything we know, it’s public transport! The taxi to the little beach town of Tofo left at 4:30am, and didn’t arrive until about 4pm that evening… So needless to say it was a LONG day. But we did get to see a lot of the Mozambiquan country-side… Scattered along the lush, tropical landscape were little family compounds and village clearings. Women in brightly colored African-print wrap skirts toted fire wood along the roads, and sold bananas and cassava roots out of giant baskets. The houses, made of sticks and woven grass seemed the antithesis of rondavals in Lesotho… They were built to be breezy and cool in the heat and humidity of this coastal climate. It was truly beautiful countryside.

At some point during the morning, a very old woman slowly boarded the taxi and took the seat next to me… Since I don’t speak Portuguese nor any of the MANY indigenous languages spoken by the people in the area, I simply gave her a smile and moved my giant pack out of her way. But a few miles down the road, I started to feel queasy. “Do you smell fish?!” I whispered to Will. “Something smells awful!” “Yeah… I definitely smell… something?” We started to search, glancing around the old woman crammed between us in the tightly packed taxi. Eventually, we gave up the search. But when the little old lady departed about an hour later, I looked down in horror. On the floor of the taxi sat a dead fish, that she’d apparently dropped and stepped on. The floor was covered in fish slime, that had spread to cover both of our hiking packs that sat in the aisle. Needless to say, it was a rather smelly trip from there on out… Ha!

And let me tell you… When travelling in Mozambique (or actually, just Africa in general) be cautious of your fluid intake, because one pee-break in 10 hours is simply not enough. Ha! About 6 hours into the trip, we all thought we were going to have a seriously embarrassing problem. But just when it was getting “critical”, the bus pulled to the side of the road, just outside a small village. “This is it!” we all rejoiced, as we watched all the locals on the taxi depart. Clearly the women knew where they were going, so Amanda, Jiggetts, and I fell in line and hoped they were going to a toilet! As it turns out they were, just not one like anything we’d ever seen! “What is this?! What do we do?!” Jiggetts exclaimed as we entered the one-room, cinder-block with a concrete trough running around the wall. “I have no idea, but I think bo-‘Me are about to show us!” I said, laughing. As we observed the women squat, right in front of each other, over the trough, we realized this was going to be a very public experience. Women lined up front-to-back up on the trough, squatted, and did their business. Afterwards, they picked up a ladle in a bucket of water near the wall and poured water over their waste to wash it down a drain in the corner… Now I should preface this by saying I have used a LOT of different toilets in my travels, but this was a TOTALLY new experience. But nothing motivates you to forge bravely into the unknown quite like a full bladder, with another 5-6 hours on the road still to come… So in we went! Yet another grand adventure to travelling!

We finally arrived in Tofo exhausted, hot, and convinced we’d never get on public transport again… But it was all worth it the moment we saw our little bungalow right ON the beach. The weather was gorgeous, a perfect antidote to the freezing cold winter we’d left behind in the mountains of Lesotho.

Our beach bungalows in Tofo.

  My lovely travelling companions… Dominique, Amanda, Will, Jiggetts, and I.

Tofo Beach

 

Families gathering food from the ocean in the early morning.

  

View from our beach bungalow… Talk about paradise, right?!

Each morning we woke up and gorged ourselves on fresh fruit and fresh baked baguettes, that women all over the village sold out of big baskets for nearly nothing. The fruit was amazing… I swear I think I never had a real banana until I went to Mozambique: half the size, but 10 times the flavor. There were mangos, papayas, oranges, nectarines, GIANT avocados, pineapples, bananas, passion fruit, and dozens of other fruits I didn’t even recognize. In the afternoons, as we sunbathed on the nearly empty beach, little boys would come buy selling fresh coconuts. The would take out their machetes and with two whacks crack the tops off for us… Then out with the local rum and pineapple! We added it right to the coconut juice in the shell: our version of a pina colada on the beach! We ate seafood for nearly every meal EVERY day… And the manager of our hotel, Beano, was absolutely phenomenal and tracked us down fresh fish for a braii one evening. The ladies and I spent WAY too much money craft and fabric shopping in the village, where I found an amazing hand-carved wooden mask from northern Mozambique. We spent one whole afternoon getting Swedish massages from a local ex-pat scuba-diving, yoga- teaching couple. The entire week was the definition of what a vacation  should be! Ha!

A beautiful little mosque in Inhambabane, Mozambique. 
 

We found these local men carving along the roadside outside Inhambabane.

  

The boys and I, ready for an afternoon of doing NOTHING. :)

 

The bread woman, who saw us every morning for fresh baguettes! Yum!

Ernesto and his sister worked at the lodge where we stayed, and joined us for a seafood braii one night! Fun!

Did I mention we ate a LOT of seafood?!

The highlight of the trip, however, was Ocean Safari and deep-water snorkeling in the Indian Ocean! A few days into our trip we arranged to go out with a guide to look for dolphins, giant manta-rays (which that region of Mozambique is famous for!), sharks, and whales. We spent several hours going up and down the coat on the dive boat, but saw NOTHING. So  we decided instead to detour to two shallow-dive sites for some snorkeling in the local reefs… I’ve never been snorkeling before, and it took me a few minutes of relaxing to get the hang of my breathing. But once I figured it out, I LOVED it. The reefs were absolutely gorgeous… Covered with bright coral, schools of fish, and other creatures. We had a great time, and really started to get the hang of snorkeling.

 

Shots from our guide’s underwater camera, while at the shallow-dive site.

Launching and landing the speed boat in the ocean surf was honestly the scariest part of the whole experience… They’d drag it in with the tractor, and then it was up to us to get it out, hop in, and then hold on for dear life! Ha!

But we were still disappointed… Our guide said it was nearly unheard of to see nothing, so we decided to give it one last shot… The next morning we got up bright and early, and hit the ocean just after sunrise. This time we got lucky almost immediately! We saw multiple pods of dolphins, and giant manta-rays! Each time we spotted something, our guide and driver would guide the boat as close as possible, without scaring the animals and then we’d flip overboard to try to catch glimpses of them while snorkeling. The dolphins were notoriously skittish, and would dive almost before we could even hit the water…. But one of the giant manta-ray was AMAZING. He stayed, swimming around us in giant circles. He was massive, and glided so effortlessly. I was thankful that we’d spent some time practicing snorkeling the day before, otherwise I don’t think I would have been comfortable enough with the mask and equipment to focus on him… But as it was, we climbed back in the boat with some amazing mental images .

The whole gang on Day 2:
Ready to swim with some giant manta-rays!

You can’t see it… But there’s a manta-ray swimming around us!

We saw multiple pods of dolphins VERY close to our boat!

As we travelled further down the coast on the boat, we had the real find of the day… A pod of three migrating Humpback Whales, two adults and one baby. I can’t even begin to described how amazing it was to watch them swim. They were MASSIVE, and beautiful. They moved so effortlessly, at times swimming close enough to our boat that I could have thrown a ball and hit them. We tailed them for more than an hour, mesmerized by them. Without a doubt, it was the coolest animal encounter of my time in Mozambique.

At the end of our seven day trip, I boarded the bus back to Maputo relaxed and rejuvenated. Our trip was exactly the reprieve I needed from winter in Lesotho, and I will always remember is as lush, green, and gorgeous. Truly an adventure in paradise…

With Love from Mozambique… –Mary E.

What discrimination looks like...

While on the way to Mozambique last month, I was traveling in a public taxi from the Lesotho border to Johannesburg, South Africa with several PCV friends. About 30 minutes into the five hour trip, we encountered a police checkpoint along the highway, run by two black South African police officers. The officers flagged down the Quantum, which was carrying about 25 people (all Basotho and us) and packed to the rim with luggage. From the moment the driver pulled us over, something told me this wasn't a good situation. The officer who came over to open the sliding door was immediately confrontational. He rudely demanded in Sesotho that everyone get off the taxi with their luggage. As his gaze searched the taxi, he suddenly came across 5-6 white faces, buried with Basotho under bags in the back. Almost immediately his demeanor changed... He started to speak only in English, mocking our Mosotho driver who clearly had difficulty understanding him.

As we waited in line with our bags outside the taxi, everyone seemed resigned to the non-optional search, and Basotho willingly presented their bags. Without even the pretence of asking permission, they began digging around in people's bags, tossing them aside haphazardly after their search. As an American, this invasion of privacy immediately struck me as uncalled for and illegal. I stood to the side, quietly evaluating the situation, and pointedly avoiding the obvious line Basotho had made to have their bags searched. I had no intention of submitting to an unwarranted search of my luggage without a  good reason. As it turned out, however, I had no need to worry... I'd almost forgotten. I'm white. 

As I watched the Bastho passengers submit to the unlawful search, one of the officers sidled up beside me. "What's your name?" he asked, with a little too pointed interest. After a few minutes of answering his questions with patience, despite the unraveling situation in front of us, he leaned over and said, "Can you believe these Basotho? They're so stupid." I was immediately affronted. As I turned to him, I switched over to Sesotho in a pointed act of solidarity. "Ke lula Lesotho, Ntate, le batho ba mo." I said, harshly. "Ke ruta bana ka Lesotho. Hape ke tseba Basotho ba bohlale haholo... Ha u tsebe Basotho, Ntate." I said, moving away from him. Shock and surprise washed over his face, at my defense of "these people." Had I been almost any other white person in South Africa, he would have likely found me a willing ally... Ready to lambaste Basotho and rail on about their stupidity and incompetence. He couldn't have known that he'd stumbled upon the only 5 white people in all of South Africa who live with, work beside, and truly care for Basotho. He immediately realized he'd made a huge error in judgement about us. 

Yet these two particular police officers seemed to enjoy the attention, and proceeded to press the issue.... Making an obnoxious show about saying that they had the right to search any Mosotho they wanted to, with or without permission. It was the definition of a power trip. We eventually boarded the taxi again, ready to get  back on the road and leave these two pompous officers and their prejudices behind. As we settled in, however, we noticed that a young woman from the front of the taxi, and a little boy and his older brother, who had sat beside me in the back, were still standing outside. The officers were yelling at them in Sesotho, and even without any knowledge of the language, I could have told you something was wrong. As the minutes dragged on, and the three passengers outside pleaded with the officers for leniency, the woman next to me leaned over. "The man and woman don't have a valid passport on them, and the officers are saying they have to arrest them," she said with a regretful shake of her head. "Is that legal, 'Me?" I asked, confused at what seemed like a fairly severe punishment for a minor infraction "Technically they are supposed to have a passport if they are Basotho citizens, but the young man says that he and his little brother are actually South African citizens who live in Ficksburg and he doesn't have a passport." As I listened carefully to the yelling and pleading outside, I caught that the young man who had been sitting beside me was taking his little brother home to their mother, who lives outside Johanneburg. They were coming from their grandmother's house in Ficksburg, near the Lesotho border. 

When the officer heard this excuse, he laughed meanly. "They are Basotho!" he railed on. "Of course they are Basotho... Look here." He said, roughly jerking the little boy towards the window near my seat in the back. I watched as he pulled the boys left arm up, and slid up his shirt sleeve. He searched the skin on the inside of his fore-arm for something I couldn't see. "Aha!" he said. "See! Basotho!" He shouted triumphantly. I looked towards the place where he pointed and saw a small scar. It made a tiny, almost unnoticeable bump on the inside of the boy's arm. The 'Me beside me leaned over again upon seeing my confused look. "All babies born in Lesotho are marked on the inside of their left forearm." "Why?!" I said with a little more force than I'd intended. "So that people will know they are Basotho." My jaw almost dropped in shock, as I turned to look at my friend, Amanda, who also had a look of horror plastered on her face. We both thought it immediately... "It's ethnic branding." I whispered to her, appalled at this new knowledge. The tiny mark on every Basotho's forearm was used to distinguish them from other peoples in southern Africa. It was a tool of discrimination. And we were witnessing it firsthand. 

After a few minutes, the Basotho on the taxi started pleading with the officers. "Please, bo-Ntate... Pease forgive them. They will get passports. They won't do it again. Please have mercy." The officer approached the door to the khombi, glancing into the back of the taxi with a leer. "What do you think I should do?" he said directly to us, with a smirk that said he was enjoying this show of power a little too much. "We think you should have a little compassion, Ntate," Amanda said gently. "These people have said that they wouldn't do it again, and this boy needs his brother to take him to his mother." "I don't care what these people say!" the officer laughed mockingly. "They broke the law and I can arrest them all, if I want!" he said, gesturing to the entire van full of Basotho. "I understand you may have cause to take the woman and young man, but the little boy has a valid passport," Amanda's husband, Will, chipped in. "Surely you wouldn't arrest him when he's done nothing wrong."

This conversation went around in circles for the next ten minutes. Eventually, the officers put the three Basotho into their police van, including the little boy who had not broken the law. "Ntate, don't do this... Have a little compassion." the Basotho and we pleaded. "At least give us the little boy to take to his mother in Johannesburg," I said. "My friends and I will take responsibility for getting him to his mother." Everyone understood that, false charges or not, the expense of traveling to some police outpost 5 hours from Johannesburg and paying the bribe to have the boys released could easily break a poor family financially. The officers completely ignored the pleas of the Basotho, but we knew that as white people we held some sway in this situation. They clearly loved the attention, especially from Amanda and I, the only two white women on the khombi. And neither of us were ready to walk away from this situation without a fight, when we knew we had the potential to make a difference. 

So we adamantly argued that the police release the boy to us. Eventually, after playing to their egos, they agreed to release the boy from custody. As he settled back into his seat next to me, tears streamed down his face. I gave him a gentle pat, "It's going to be okay. Let's call your mother in Joburg and tell her." I said. This only upset him more, and Amanda took the opportunity to make one last push in defense of the young man and woman still in handcuffs. "Have a little sympathy, Ntate. This poor child is scared without his brother, and it may be that his story is true and he IS a legal South Africa citizen." we argued. "What will you give me for my kindness?" the man said with a sneer. "Nothing, Ntate." I responded angrily. "We won't give you anything... But it's the kind thing to do. These people have done nothing to you, and yet you have terrified this boy and threatened them all. We're done, Ntate." I said, closing the window beside me firmly and turning away from him to face the front.

At this clear signal from us that this 45 minute negotiation was over, he suddenly and unexpectedly gave in. "Fine... I'll release them this once, but ONLY to show you what a generous person I am," he said, directly to Amanda and I. I swallowed my disgust. "Thank you, Ntate. We appreciate your compassion." We turned around determined to end the conversation. 

When the young man and woman finally got back on the taxi, they both looked shaken. The little boy immediately grabbed his brother's hand, as he took a seat beside him. The poor boy continued to sob uncontrollably for the next five minutes, as his brother whispered assurances that everything was okay now.

As we finally pulled back out onto the road and left the two police officers behind, I was also slightly shsken to realize that I'd just defied and argued with the South African police. It was an action that was ENTIRELY uncharacteristic for me. But as we all agreed while discussing it afterwards, these were specific circumstances... There was safety in numbers for us, and an added influence as white Americans in a country where race is still a very present issue. We had pushed our luck this time, and it worked out. But when Basotho turned to thank us, we assured them that we never would have argued with an authority figure like that in America. At the end of the day, I felt good about standing up for Basotho. I knew that we had been on the right side of the moral line. It made me sad to think that black South Africans, who just decades ago were treated horrendously by whites, would treat Basotho with a similar disdain. The horror of Basotho being ethnically branded and discriminated against stayed with me for several days afterwards.... When I thought about it, I pictured the little bump on the forearms of all my kids. A mark that was put there without their consent, just minutes after birth. A mark that might one day be used to justify their poor treatment or humiliation. Now when I hear the word discrimination, I'll think of that day on the taxi... Of the injustice that some people endure, for no other reason than their place of birth. 

With Love from Lesotho... Mary E. 

The Solidarity of Women

I was travelling to Maseru this past weekend on a public khombi (taxi). It's a long, occasionally arduous, journey that takes me across the breadth of northern Lesotho, through multiple camptowns and districts.

A few miles outside the camptown, Botha-Bothe, the taxi driver swerved to the side of the road. As the door rolled open for the waiting, road-side passengers, I saw a young woman waiting to climb on. She was wrapped in a traditional kobo (blanket), that held a peacefully sleeping infant snug against her back. On her hip she masterfully balanced a squirming little boy. The ground at her feet was covered with a small pile of mis-matched luggage, an immediate give-away that, like me, she was making a cross country trip.

As the other passengers found seats near the back of the noisy and overcrowded taxi, I watched her eyes dart towards the front seat, where I sat alone. I saw the momentary hesitancy, as she struggled to decide how to juggle her load. Then her eyes briefly met mine. It was a single moment. An unspoken understanding. A dance repeated by Basotho women, day-after-day on dusty-road-after-dusty-road, across Lesotho... Without hesitating, I reached out to take the sleeping baby she offered me.

In America, having a complete stranger reach for your child, without a single word of introduction would be untenable. In Lesotho, it's expected. Desired. Needed. Women help women. Mothers support mothers. For Basotho women, mothering is an act of an entire community. Anyone's child is everyone's child. Women frequently feed and care for children that are not their own, in such a way that village friends are often raised with the closeness of siblings. So after more than a year and a half living in Lesotho, this dance has become second nature to me. It's an unspoken understanding that, if my lap is empty of other luggage, a child or infant is welcomed to it.

After some logistical rearranging, we finally settled in side-by-side, sharing the small space with two children and an overwhelming pile of luggage. In my arms, I held a large, yet deceptively light bundle, with a sleeping baby girl nestled deep inside. 'Me attempted to fruitlessly settle the squirming and active toddler.

"U ea kae, 'Me?" (Where are you going, mother?), I asked.
"Maseru," she smiled wearily. 
"Le na," (And me) I echoed quietly, in agreement. "U lula Maseru?" (You live in Maseru?)

"Che... Re chaketse lelapa leso." (No... We're visiting my family.) 

And there we were... Two women. Bound in solidarity to a single mission.

About an hour into the trip, the baby in my lap awoke. Chubby, little fingers reached out of the nest of blankets to explore the foreign texture of my dangling curls and bright earrings. The  heavy winter blanket left pools of sweat on my arms and legs, that slowly soaked through my clothes, making them stick to me uncomfortably. As the mountains of Lesotho flew by at a distance, I couldn't help but marvel at how different child-rearing practices could be between two cultures. I am certain I have photographic evidence, tucked away in some secret box in the top of a closet, that I spent most of my infancy running around defiantly without clothes. Yet Basotho religiously swaddle their infants in mountains of blankets, even in the heat of summer. A practice which makes me certain that the childhood risk of suffocation far outweighs that of catching a trifling cold.

After a while, the interest in my foreign hair and clothing was not enough to outweigh the needs of an empty stomach. 'Me and I slowly shuffled loads... The hungry, crying infant to her; the now moderately pacified little boy to me. At the sight of his sister nursing, however, my new friend started to stir restlessly. I dug into the bottom of my bag, searching for a misplaced banana I'd bought at a roadside fruit stand a few hours back. In true childlike manners, his sticky fingers covered my hands and arm in banana before he nestled in to sleep on my chest. Without a word, only a knowing smile, 'Me dug into a big green bag for a small towel and reached over to wipe a chunk of banana off my forearm. Eventually the satiated infant also slept, and we settled in for several more hours on the sweltering and constantly stopping taxi. I'll never understand how Basotho babies manage to sleep through blaring fame music, honking horns, and the obnoxious calls of the taxi conductor out the window, "Palama! Palama! Ua palama, Ntate?!" (Get on! Get on! You're getting on, Ntate?!)

Several hours later, in the midafternoon heat, we reached the capital. As we pulled into the taxi rank, overflowing with noise and people bustling about, we let the other passengers depart first. 'Me slowly shuffled the sleeping baby onto her back and began to organize and gather bags. I waved over a boy with a wheelbarrow for hire to help load the bags and transfer them to her next taxi. As I finally handed over a drowsy little boy, we smiled and parted ways with a simple, "Tsamaea hantle, 'Me." (Go well, mother) and off we went in opposite directions. 

I walked away sweaty and sore, but with a small smile that stayed with me throughout the day. Perhaps it was the sweetness of the babies that had slept in my lap all afternoon, or maybe it was happiness at the sense of belonging in this unspoken alliance of women. I love that Basotho women openly embrace motherhood as an act of many. They know something that I often worry American mothers have forgotten... Motherhood requires support. It is an experience to be shared, a weight that seems lighter when carried by the hands of many. 'Me could have made it to Maseru without me, but I love that I live in a culture where I and she know that she would never have to... If it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else. There is always a helping hand. 

Women help women. Mothers support mothers. 

It's a special thing to experience.... The solidarity of women. 

With Love from Lesotho... Mary E. 

The Value of “Home.”

I’ve been travelling the developing world since I was an undergraduate in college… As such, I’ve been lucky enough to witness poverty and suffering, in many forms. It’s an experience that changes me anew every time. It never gets easier. After each trip abroad, whether to South America or Africa, I’d return home and begin the not-so-easy process of shifting through conflicting emotions about my life and the injustice of the world. Back at home, ensconced in the safety and comfort of the western world, I would find myself in tears as I took a hot shower, or feel wracked by guilt when I had to throw away uneaten food. I’d shuffle through my life, for weeks or months afterwards, wondering why I rolled a winning hand in the great lottery of life.

So when I bought my plane tickets to travel home to visit my family after 16 months of living in Lesotho, I was understandably nervous. My previous trips, only weeks to months in length, had always had an extreme affect on my emotional and psychological states afterwards- But this experience had far surpassed all of those in term of challenges, realizations, joys, failures, and triumphs. Lesotho was, and is, so much more than all those previous experiences put together. Yet I wanted my brief time home to be joyous- full of love and laughter- not wracked with guilt. I had no idea what I would feel like going home again… Or if I ever could “go home” again.

When I stepped off the plane at Dulles International Airport in mid-December, I walked right past my father. I didn’t even recognize him. Several months of retirement has transformed him from stern-faced, buzz-cut-military, to jolly, rotund, and relaxed, with a giant-graying beard. My sister, nearly tackled me from behind in a giant bear hug, that immediately convinced me that, despite being an 18 year old college student now, some things never change. My mother wrapped me in a tearful hug that never seemed to end- A moment I’d imagined again and again on my loneliest nights in the Maluti Mountains. “You look so well! You look SO well!” I heard her whisper repeatedly under her breath, a half-prayer and half-praise. My brother’s face lit up in a laughing, ear-to-ear smile, as he proudly showed me his new car: his first step into adulthood after graduating from college the previous May. And then there was Casey… Our comical, and slightly chubby, yellow lab had joined my entire family for the four-hour car-trip up to the airport in DC. She valiantly competed with my siblings for who was the happiest to see me.

On the way home, we stopped at a Chick-Fil-A to grab a late 10pm, mid-trip snack. As we squished all five of us into the red plastic booth, that was probably meant for a much smaller family than our large, boistrous bunch, the joy was palpable. I felt complete again… Perhaps for the first time in 16 months. As we sat there, all-smiles, tripping over each other for control of the conversation, I knew the feeling of completion was mutual. At that Chick-Fil-A, somewhere on the interstate between Fredricksburg and Richmond, I finally felt it again… Home.

The next 3 weeks were a chaotic, joyful, lazy, beautiful, and loud amalgamate of family visits, Christmas parties, long walks through the country, Christmas caroling, crackling wood fires, too much good food, afternoons spent curled up in pajamas watching movies with my siblings, all-to-brief visits with friends, and late night talks with my mom over puzzles. It was exactly what it should have been. It was home.

I was simply happy. I felt myself relax in a way that I realized, perhaps I hadn’t in my entire time living in Lesotho. I wasn’t self-conscious. I reveled in the anonimity of walking around a town where people didn’t stare, point, or interrogate me out of curiosity. I relaxed in the comfort of social interactions I understood, conversations I could have without frantically translating between languages in my head, or situations where I knew how to behave. It was liberating.

On Christmas morning, my family and I sat around on the big, fluffy-red couches in my parent’s living room, under the spectacle of our sparkling Christmas tree, the floor strewn with half opened gifts and piles of wrapping paper… And I found myself thinking about my kids in Ha Selomo. And my thoughts were nothing but happy. I found myself smiling, thinking about Mokhoo and Nthatisi tearfully hugging me goodbye as I prepared to leave, waving frantically and chasing the taxi down the dirt-road out of village. I didn’t feel sad for their absence. I didn’t wish they were here. I didn’t pity them, waking up in Ha Selomo. I didn’t feel guilty at my being in America while they were 8000 miles away. Because in that moment I realized…

Everyone deserves home.

Home for me happens to be the Shenandoah Valley, and the smell of homemade macaroni and cheese. It’s a hug from my mom, and the sound of Drayton’s laugh. It’s rolling around on the floor with my dog, until we’re both happily exhausted. It’s a quiet walk to check on the cows with my Dad, and snuggling up in bed with my sister in the early morning, when she’s still half-asleep. It’s Christmas morning: with a tree, presents, and the feel of playing Christmas carols on the piano from my grandmother’s old sheet-music. But for my kids, this wouldn’t feel like home. And I know… I know because I’ve spent the last 16 months living in a place, country, and culture that I love. But Lesotho will never feel like this for me.

And on Christmas, my kids deserve home, too. THEIR home.

They deserve waking up in the rondaval where they were born, to the smell of their mother cooking fresh papa le lebese (maize meal with warm milk) over an open fire. They deserve to celebrate Christmas in a church overflowing with the beautiful sounds of Sesotho hymns, where their grandmother will reach over to hold their hand halfway through the sermon. They deserve to spend the day running about village, in the afternoon heat. Playing with friends they’ve spent their whole lives with. Enjoying an ice-guava from the shopong, or running with wild laughter and abandon, down the hill to take a chilling plunge in the river.

Everyone deserves home.

After my trip back to America this past Christmas, I realize that I don’t have to feel guilty that I enjoy, love, and often miss my home. I need home. Everyone does. Every human being deserves a place in this world where they feel safe, secure, and loved. I don’t pity my children. I don’t pity Basotho. Our homes are simply very different, but I respect that we don’t always get to pick what feels like home. Mine might be in a big, white farmhouse, while theirs is a cozy, dirt-floored rondaval. Yet I would never do them the disrespect of thinking less of theirs, or assuming that they would feel the same way I do were they to magically awake in mine.

Every deserves home. Their OWN home.

With Love from Lesotho… –Mary E.

My Own Little Comedy Routine…

Two years ago, I sat in my one room apartment in Virginia Beach writing my Peace Corps application and longingly imagining what my life in some far corner of the world might be like. I had thousands of images and thoughts… Most of them looked somewhat like the inspiring Peace Corps ads plastered around college campuses across America: They depict a clean, laughing volunteer embracing little South American kids in a big hug, or a loving teacher smiling from a chalkboard at the front of some dilapidated classroom. Some days, albeit very rarely, that is my life. But that is NOT the whole story…

The whole story is that 99.9% of the time, my life in Lesotho is more like a very bad comedy routine that I’m just stumbling through, much to the amusement of my Basotho friends, family, and neighbors.

Like one weekend last year, when I was enjoying a typical lazy Saturday morning in bed, reading a book. As I sipped my daily precious cup of instant coffee, I felt something crunchy on my tongue… I froze, too scared to swallow. I knew EXACTLY what was about to happen. I stuck out my tongue, and picked something off of it: a curled up dead spider. I assume it had fallen from my grass roof, into my coffee. Needless to say, I didn’t drink coffee for a week.

Or how about the late Friday evening, when I returned to village, starving and exhausted after a long week away at a Peace Corps Training. I was rummaging through my food cabinet by candle light when I stumbled upon a half empty container of bacon bits! “Thank you, Mom!” I thought, as I threw them on top of some hastily boiled potatoes for dinner.

The next afternoon, I decided to use the last of my precious bacon bits to make a quick egg salad. I boiled the last 2 eggs in my house, added to chopped onions, and mayonnaise. Finally, I emptied the remaining bacon bits into the bowl. “Noooooooo!!!” I gasped, as I watched giant, fuzzy green chunks of former bacon fall into my perfectly edible egg salad. After a moment, of momentary gagging at the recollection of last nights dinner in the dark, I collected myself. “Come on now. Man up.” I thought, “No point in wasting perfectly good eggs over a little hairy mold!” My fomer-self, sitting on her comfortable couch in Virginia Beach, would have been utterly ashamed to see me now… But onward I plunged. I just plucked as much of those hairy bacon bits out as possible, and then grabbed a spoon and mixed everything else together well. :)

And of course there’s the ever-so-classic story of the night I stepped on a dead rat that my cat had left on the floor of my darkened rondaval… I knew the instant I felt the hairy, squishy warmth, crunch beneath my foot that this was NOT the Peace Corps fantasy I’d imagined when I hit “send” on my online application. I screamed, took two steps in an effort to escape, only to have my OTHER foot land in something chunky and wet… I knew even before I gathered my wits, through tears and gagging in disgust, that one foot was covered in dead rat and the other in cat vomit.

And for Peace Corps Volunteers, the laughable slogan “Shit happens” isn’t a cliche. It’s life. Seriously. Shit REALLY does just happen sometimes. And normally, when it does, you’re stuck on the very back seat of a crammed taxi, between two giant bo-‘Me, on some dirt road to nowhere in the middle of the Maluti Mountains. But to our credit, this is EXACTLY why Peace Corps Volunteers make the BEST travel companions. We have a strict “no judgment” policy because EVERYBODY has been there before.

My own “diarrhea on public transport” moment happened while I was traveling home from a Peace Corps Committee meeting, near the capitol last year. And when, in retrospect, I think about this story and laugh, I just thank God that I was travelling with my PCV friend, Alyssa.

Alyssa and I had gotten about 15 minutes outside of the capitol, with about 30 more minutes to go before we reached our friend, Beth’s village, when the inevitable panic that accompanies stomach pains set in. “Alyssa… I REALLY don’t feel well.” I said, giving her a ‘you know what I mean’ look. “My stomach is killing me. I don’t know if I can make it.” I said, starting to panic. But thank God for Alyssa, and her never-ending sarcasm and unflappable sense of humor. She turned to me in the back seat of that sweating hot, over-stuffed taxi, and looked me straight in the eye, in a completely uncharacteristic, dead serious, moment. “Okay… That’s totally okay. You just say the word and I will stop this WHOLE taxi.” she said with a stern look. “And if you can’t wait, then don’t you even worry about it, girl… It’s okay if you shit your pants. I gotch ya back, woman!” she added, with a laugh.

Despite my distress, I couldn’t help but chuckle at her blatant honesty. It really did make me feel better. But ten minutes later, I knew we’d reached a critical moment… And to Alyssa’s credit, she stayed true to her word. “Alyssa- I’ve got to get off this taxi NOW!” I said urgently. “No problem! I’ve got this!”… “Ummm! EXCUSE ME, bo-Ntate!” she bellowed from the back seat, over the blaring rhythm of famu music and Basotho villagers. “Re hloka ho teoha HONA joale!” (We need to get off RIGHT now!) With little to no fanfare, she forged an awkward, bumbling path out of the taxi- stepping over peoples’ laps, juggling luggage, and muttering “Ke soabile!” (Sorry!) “Phephi, ‘Me” (Sorry, mother!) and “Kea leboha, Ntate” (Thanks, father!) all the way. I just barely made it to a local shop, where a local Indian shopkeeper took pity on me and gave me the key to his latrine. After a painful few minutes, we finally hit the road again, but our trip included two more pits stops before we finally reached Beth’s village. There I spent most of my night ensconced in her latrine, much to the concern of her very worried host mother (who probably thought the lekhooa (white) visitor was going to die on her watch.) By the end of Alyssa’s and my trip, I was miserable and just happy to be home. And Alyssa was a trooper the whole way… “Look, girl… Sometimes shit just happens.” :)

With Love from Lesotho… –Mary E.

Celebrating International Women's Day!

Hopolang introduces our International Women's Day program!

This morning I arrived to school at 6:50am... As I crossed the school compound, dressed in a white polo and cardigan, I caught the excited smiles of my Young Women's Group members- peeking out of dusty windows and rushing across the school grounds to join morning study. Decked out in mismatched whites and creams to raise awareness for violence against women, they came running to meet me at the door of the Science Lab. "We're so very excited, Madam!" "You look so sharp, 'Me Limpho!" "Look at us all looking so smart in our white!" They clamored. Their excitement was infectious.

When Assembly started that morning, I watched my girls, normally shy and scared in front of a crowd, come to the front with a clear swagger of pride and obvious glee. Over the next 20 minutes, they beautifully executed the short poetry program and prayer that we had diligently rehearsed for the past 3 weeks. Hopolang and Nkareng, from Form D, gave a rousing and inspiring introduction to the history of International Women's Day, that had female students in the crowd shouting in laughter, "Yes! Women! We are beautiful!" Afterwards, I watched quiet and timid Mathope deliver a poem entitled "A Woman's Worth" with such emotion it nearly made me cry. Then four of my Form B girls, locked hands in solidarity, as they recited one of my favorite poems- Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou.

In that moment, I watched my girls transform. As if by the flip of a switch, they managed to temporarily internalize and own their strength and beauty. Qualities I knew were there all along, buried somewhere deep beneath teenage insecurities and a culture that demands submission to the opinions, intellect, and physical needs of men. For this one day, they were more than smart, beautiful, and worthy... They believed they were.

In the midst of the program, I turned around to look at my fellow teachers. A knowing, albeit hesitant smile graced the faces of my female colleagues... Funny, amazing, loving, and confident Basotho women who had never once thought of celebrating their own femininity, until I suggested it. And while they looked on, almost as passive observers, I noticed that every single female teacher was wearing white. From head to toe, each signaled a modest, yet profound echo of agreement to the statements my girls were making in front of the entire school.

Then my gaze passed from them to the male teachers... My colleagues. My friends. Not a single one wore white today. And that's when I realized... Much in the same way that my female colleagues had shown their tentative support for International Women's Day in the color of their clothes, my male colleagues had demonstrated their apprehension, and perhaps even slight resistance to it, in their dress as well. They smiled, supported, and applauded, but did not participate. When my fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and friend, Brendan, (who lives in a neighboring village) took the stage to read a poem he'd composed to honor women, I watched momentary shock and confusion grace their faces. I smiled proudly as Brendan, a white man, whom my male colleagues proudly claim as part of "bo-Ntate" (the men), spoke about his belief that men and women are equal. That women should be respected as human beings with rights, intelligence, and strength. The incredible irony, that his 5 minute contribution to the day may have made a more profound impact on my students and faculty, than my WEEKS of behind the scenes work, was not lost on me.

Just as the subtleties of issues of gender inequality are not lost on me... Like this morning, when I arrived at school and greeted one of my colleagues. I watched his eyes, not shyly, rove over my body for an extended second. I endured his comments about how much he likes it when I wear blue jeans, and how good women always look in white. I swallowed with a false smile the burning realization that my wearing white as a statement of my human rights not to be sexually harassed or abused was completely lost on him. For him, my clothes were not making a political statement, but a sexual one.

When I think about these issues, it makes me appreciate how lucky I was to be raised in a family and country where women before me have adamantly defended, sacrificed for, and protected my freedom to vote, attend school, and contribute to the world as an equal partner. I think about how damaging it is to a human being's self-esteem to be raised in a country, culture, or family that views you as lesser, weaker, or needy. It's crippling to the human spirit in a way that eats away at you slowly, and so subtly, that you never fully realize that you're less than you could have been.

And that knowledge makes me appreciate the miracle of what I witnessed my girls do today. It makes me proud to see them take this simultaneously tiny and monumental step towards owning and respecting themselves.

It makes me proud to be a woman.

With Love from Lesotho... -Mary E.