Archive for the ‘Letters from Africa’ Category
March 6, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
This part Southern Africa just can’t seem to get a break. The rains simply won’t stop. Everyone here says they have never seen this much rain in their lives. In Church last week the congregation was praying for the rain to stop! This is unprecedented. At every service I’ve been to for the past two years the prayers have been for rain. “Be careful what you wish for”, has gained a whole new significance.
The road (if you could call it a road – a track really) to this village is now entirely washed out. Not even 4×4s can get within several kilometers of the village. I’ve had to do a lot of village to village traveling these last few weeks and every trip has been a very wet adventure. There is one area that is a series of sandstone rocks that has to be climbed either up or down to get to and from a neighboring village. It is no a waterfall that must be scaled. To say I’ve been getting wet is such an understatement. Yesterday I rode Lance to a meeting in Mate. We had to cross a river. I gave him his head and balanced with my feet up on the saddle. The water came over his stomach but my brave horse kept his footing and we didn’t have to swim. Just my trailing skirt got wet. The ever-watching villagers ululated and clapped when we reached the other side. Sometimes this job is really fun!
But the rain is exacting a terrible toll on the fragile economy here. Some crops are rotting in the fields. It’s time for the corn and sorghum to be drying out for harvest but it just keeps raining. Our winter vegetable fields, which lie in lowland close to the river, were completely washed out just after planting. We lost every seed and every seedling and had to spend valuable resources replanting. At the moment they are OK.
Here’s the worst part. The group that determines where the UNWFP food will be delivered –a totally corrupt group of officials collectively called the DMC (disaster management committee) just issued the edict that because northern Lesotho has been getting such wonderful rain, we have no more need for food deliveries – they are diverting our food elsewhere. My guess is into somebody’s pocket. Without even visiting our projects to determine the consequences of this decision they gave us 30 days notice. This is such a disaster for our projects. The 95 families that are fed by the UNWFP work projects are the poorest of the poor. Either they don’t have fields to plant or they didn’t have money to buy seeds for their fields or they are too old or sick to do the grueling labor that farming their land requires. We have an additional 57 families that are caring for orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) that we’ve finally, after months of negotiations been able to get onto a UNWFP program for food aid and they too are now cut off. This DMC decision spells potential starvation for many of these good people.
I’ve just sent a letter to the head of the UNWFP protesting this decision. I wrote it but it was signed by the Member of Parliament for this area, the chairman of the Menkhoaneng Community Development Association and several chiefs. I’m hoping it will make a difference. As Peace Corps volunteers we are supposed to avoid any political involvement but this situation is testing my resolve to remain politically neutral. I have good friends at the newspapers that I would like to ask to write an expose on the DMC. We’ll see. The DMC is the same group that allowed 400 50kgt bags of cornmeal to rot in a warehouse because they had spent the funds for delivery on “workshops” at a posh resort in South Africa. This was during the time that we were pleading for help and being told there was no food available –a time when we were burying adult corpses weighing 80 pounds.
On the positive side, what we’re doing in face of these recent challenges is planting winter vegetables like mad. There are still lots of good fields. We’ve ceased work on the cultural village and every able-bodied man, woman and child is working on expanding our community-cooperative gardens. If the winter is mild we should have cabbage, swiss chard, beets and a type of spinach that is tough and resilient to cold. We are also buying all the excess corn and sorghum from those lucky farmers who’ve escaped the floods to help get the poorest of the poor through the coming winter months. We’ve received some generous contributions to the American Friends Fund lately and the Association is doing an admirable and intelligent job is allocating the money wisely. No one has starved to death in this or the surrounding villages for over a year now and our goal is to maintain that record. The steely determination of these good villagers to protect those in need in their community is very inspiring. It spurs my efforts to bang on the doors
of those in power.
The Village Association has applied for another PCV to replace me when I leave in July. I’m so hoping they get one. There are so many more applicants than there are volunteers. Really, the Peace Corps should be a much bigger organization. Do you know the annual budget for the entire global operation is somewhere around $350 million? We spend that in less than a week in Iraq.
I recently attended an all-volunteer conference in Maseru. The session on “best practices” made me so proud to be an American. The work that my fellow PCVs are doing here is making a real difference. You’d be astounded and proud of their accomplishments – computer labs, orphanages, traveling puppet shows to teach children about AIDS, income generating projects like pig farms and craft shops – it’s just wonderful. In this little country, where the Peace Corps has been active for almost 40 years, everyone loves Americans. They see us as helpful and generous and peaceful. In many ways this is a very comfortable place to be.
And on that note I’ll close with love from the quite soggy heart of Africa,
Peggi
Dear Family & Friends,
Some of the lessons I’m learning in this Peace Corps assignment are very difficult to accept. Perhaps the most challenging one is that “different” does not necessarily mean “wrong”.
Let me tell you the story of one of our family’s donkeys.
I called this little donkey “Sweetheart”. She was the oldest of our three donkeys and the one I always used to fetch water. She was so patient. She would stand motionless at the side of the high mountain spring while I carefully filled the two containers hung over her back. I never filled them all the way – they were so heavy and she was so small. Sweetheart would then lead me back down the steep mountain trail to the house where I would transfer the precious water to my storage containers. She often followed me around like a puppy. I always gave her special treats – apples and an occasional watermelon rind.
The family and villagers considered my gentle treatment of this animal very odd. Donkeys are beasts of burden here and are beaten more frequently than any other animal. I’ve seen donkeys loaded down with enormous burdens beaten until their knees buckle for not walking fast enough.
At any rate, last week Sweetheart was taken with the other family donkeys to fetch long grass from a distant field to feed the cows. On the way back, burdened with a load taller than she was, she fell off a ledge and either broke or dislocated her leg. The herd boys somehow got her home and placed her lying on her side by my hut. Matjeeka said they would probably have to slaughter her. I begged her to give me a day or two to see if there was anything I could do. I gave her some of the painkiller I had left over from
Lance’s accident, petted and brushed her, fed her apples and sweet grass and hoped for the best. By the next day, Friday, she could stand although the leg was obviously badly damaged. She could put no weight on it at all but she could hobble around a bit on three legs before falling over. By Saturday she could hobble around for a few hours then would get as close to my hut as possible and collapse.
During all this time we were visited by many of the men of the village. They all gave their opinion that this was now a useless animal and should be slaughtered. I knew they were right about the useless part. By Sunday, her fate was sealed. Five very somber men came with the tools of slaughter. My brother Tjeeka came to me and said, “Don’t worry, don’t worry.” I went into my hut, closed the door, curtained the windows and cried. I cursed these people for their “cruelty”.
By Monday morning I’d gained enough composure to once again join in the family activities. My first sight upon coming outside my hut was several of our dogs gnawing on Sweethearts sawed off legs. One of the puppies was swinging her tail around like a toy. Sweetheart’s hide was stretched and drying in the sun. Her severed head lay beside the largest cooking cauldron
ready to be boiled and her flayed body lay covered with flies by the cooking hut. I rushed back to the seclusion of my hut but threw up before I could get inside.
Later that day my friend and village elder, Setsomi, came to visit. He is a very wise man. The news that I was upset and perhaps ill had spread. In our now quite effective part English, part Sesotho conversational style we discussed our different cultures. While we were having this conversation Matjeeka brought him, as is the custom here, a large plate of food. It was papa (maize meal) and donkey. She asked if I wanted to eat. I said, “No thank you.” Setsomi said, “But this is meat – a great gift from your friend
(meaning Sweetheart)”.
Although there is no way in this lifetime that I could eat this meat, I knew he was right. Sweetheart was providing her final gift – much needed protein to many villagers. The men who slaughtered her had the privilege of eating the brain. When they came to do this later that evening they made a little ceremony of it. They said, ”This donkey was old like M’e Ntabby (that’s me), and M’e Ntabby loved her. We thank her for her kindness to this animal.”
Although this was in no way any apology for slaughtering the animal I know this was their way of acknowledging my relationship with her and trying, in the way of their culture, to help me feel better about it. These are very good and kind people. They are trying as hard to understand me as I am them and they are giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Not one morsel of this fine animal was wasted. For two days we had a continual stream of visitors – many orphans and the poorest of the village came to dine on this precious meat. Sharing with the underprivileged is such an engrained part of this culture that it is never questioned.
The clearest message I’ve gotten from this cross-cultural experience is that there can really be only one life. The key for each of us is to live the sliver we’ve been given to the very best of our ability. I know Sweetheart did.
With love from the strange but beautiful heart of Africa,
Peggi
Dear Family and Friends,
I really think the drought is over. It’s been raining pretty steadily since November; the crops look great, the rivers are full and the cows look fat and healthy. I read somewhere that the drought cycles in this part of Africa often last around seven years and are followed by a like number of years of average to above-average rainfall. Hopefully we are now in the later cycle.
A lot has been happening around here. I’m feeling a huge sense of urgency to get all our village projects up, running and self-sustaining. We’re starting over again with the Cultural Village project. Just now the workers are leveling out the area, removing ash and saving as many stones as possible. In addition, we’ve started one last and large community agriculture project. It’s a five-year program beginning with a big (three hectares) community vegetable garden. We’re combining everything we know about nutrition for children and AIDS patients, permaculture and water harvesting into a project to grow food for our village orphans and housebound sick people while at the same time employing the maximum number of volunteers in a UN food for work program. The UN has already approved phase one of this four-phased project.
We’ve been able to add 20 more families to the monthly food distribution. These families will be
responsible for maintaining the garden. In phase two we can add 30 more families who will contribute workers to build a water retention dam in the village. Phase three of the program will involve cultivating another six hectares with all the grains we need to feed the chickens in our community chicken farm. This eliminates the cost of feed for the chickens and keeps all our volunteer workers on the UNWFP program. The final phase of the project is to build a community greenhouse. Each phase of this new project requires lots of training and coordination not to mention writing the grants to get the financial aid necessary to fund the project. The UN provides
food only – all funds for seeds, building materials etc. have to come from elsewhere – I’m flooding NGO’s with grant proposals.
I can’t tell you how pleased I am with the Menkhoaneng Community Development Association (MCDA). Our newly elected executive committee is taking real responsibility in following through on everything that needs to be done on our various projects. I find my job is to act as an advocate for these people with the various NGO’s and government ministries, create written
proposals and grants and act as an advisor at all the meetings. I leave for Maseru tomorrow to try to drum up some support for the dam project. We need an unbelievable amount of cement.
Also, I just returned from another very fun trip around South Africa with two good friends from the US, Karen Fitt and Joyce Virnich. We visited one of the finest game reserves in SA called Shamwari. We hadn’t pulled fifty yards into the reserve when a very large Cape cobra slithered across the road directly in front of our car. When the screaming subsided (just kidding) we forged onward. I’ll only speak of one of the many wonderful animal encounters we enjoyed at Shamwari. It involved elephants – lots of them. We toured the reserve in a completely open Land Rover with our handsome, knowledgeable guide. We were on a narrow dirt road driving through a big grove of prickly pear cactus when we spotted some elephants headed directly towards us. We stopped the car and just sat there as a whole herd of the huge pachyderms, all females and their many baby, toddler and adolescent offspring surrounded our car. They had come to picnic on prickly pear. The toddlers played “I can push you off the road” with their age mates butting heads and entwining trunks. One little fellow practiced his charging technique on our car flaring out his ears, raising his trunk and charging us while his mother looked benignly on. It felt like a real family picnic. Our guide said it was the finest elephant encounter he’d had in years. We stayed a long time taking photos and just enjoying being so up close and personal with these beautiful animals.
My friends flew home from Cape Town and I took a train back. The train, which ran on electric wires, broke down nine times. I had a sleeper compartment that I shared with an Indian woman and her beautiful three-year-old daughter so I was perfectly comfortable during the two full days it took to get back to this area. I got off the train in Bethlehem, a small town about three hours from Lesotho. There I rented a truck to get myself and a lot of stuff up to Menkhoaneng. I had a long list of supplies needed for our projects not to mention 50 kg bags food for Lance and the dogs. Although it had rained a few days previously, I was able to get the truck to the village. My plan was to return the truck to Bethlehem the next day and return to the village by public transport and on foot. The downpour began just an hour after I got to the village. It rained all night. I’d also made arrangements to take a bunch of our AIDS patients who are now on ARV’s to the hospital for their monthly supply of drugs on my way to Bethlehem. We all stood around the truck in the morning wondering what to do. Finally with a whole team of volunteers armed with shovels and a
serious “can do” attitude we headed down the mountain. It’s nine kilometers to the road and although we’ve been working on this access “road” for the whole two years I’ve been here it is a long way from being complete. Add to this the erosion and damage done by the recent storms and anyone in their right mind would say it was impassable. None of us was in our right minds.
It was a wonderful, muddy, wet, tiring and totally heart-warming experience. We had sangomas, herd boys, women and children literally building a road under the wheels of the truck. I went down to the hubcaps in muck several times. The workers shoveled paths behind and in front of
the wheels, filled the paths with stones and all pushed. I drove that truck like a maniac. When we finally got to a point where I knew the truck could make it on it’s own we had an ad hoc celebration singing songs, dancing and having the sangomas say prayers of gratitude. It took almost all day but everybody who needed to got to the hospital and I got the truck returned to
Bethlehem. Matjeeka went with me all the way so I wouldn’t be walking back up the mountain alone in the dark. It was not an easy day but it was one during which I felt completely surrounded by love. It was a perfect Peace Corps day.
I’ll sign off now. It’s Friday and the brother of one of our most dedicated volunteers died this week. Tomorrow is his funeral, which I’ll miss because of the Maseru trip so I’m going over to her house tonight to help prepare food for the funeral and take some small gifts – candles, matches, peanut butter, bread and tea. I really love this woman; her English is a bad as my Sesotho and we always try to tell each other jokes. When I don’t get what she’s saying she just yells it out louder – so do I. It’s become a regular thing with us – it’s pretty funny. But I’m sure there will be only tears tonight. Her brother was just 32 years old and beloved by all – a fine man with five sisters, a wife, mother and two children left to grieve for him. We got him on ARV’s but too late.
Wishing you all a very happy Valentines Day from the warm, if saddened, heart of Africa,
Love,
Peggi
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Family and Friends;
I hope your holidays were wonderful. Christmas here in Africa was simply grand this year. My daughter, Elizabeth, arrived at the Jo-burg airport on Christmas morning. Having her walk through the customs gate into my welcoming arms was the finest gift imaginable. Her good husband, Andrew, couldn’t come with her due to some last minute complications and we really missed him but we had a mother/daughter holiday that I will always treasure.
Now, I sure don’t want these letters to turn into travelogs but Liz and I experienced a few things that I hope you might find interesting. One was our guided tour of Soweto. Frankly, it’s a place that wasn’t high on my “must see” list. I had visions of a horribly dangerous, unattractive slum. Elizabeth, however, had spent a great deal of her time as a student at UC Berkeley protesting against apartheid and for the freeing of Mandela so I thought she might enjoy seeing where the whole thing started. I’d heard about this guy, Jabu, who was born and raised in Soweto and now has a little tour company. I’d had several phone conversations with him beforehand and arranged for a private tour of his stomping grounds on December 26th. He picked us up at the guesthouse we were staying in and I was delighted to see he was a giant of a man – a Zulu weighing in at around 300 pounds. He told us it was all muscle (it wasn’t) (-: He had been born in the poorest area of the huge township of Soweto and had made his way comfortably into the middle class.
That was one of the surprises of this place. There are areas of Soweto where the houses are valued in the millions of rand. There are other areas called unofficial settlements where the shacks are made of tin, sticks, plastic and anything else the residents can scrounge up. Over 3.5 million call Soweto home. What surprised us the most was the sense of pride and hope about the place. The residents are proud of the part they played in attaining freedom for their people and have a hopeful confidence that the new government will do it’s job in providing both economic stability and educational opportunities. At one point Jabu let us out of the car in a very poor area. He turned us over to a “local” guide assuring us we would be perfectly safe as we walked into the bowels of this destitute area. I say destitute because of the lack of any plumbing, electricity and the shanty construction. Toilets were porta-potties each one shared by at least 90 families. But all along the way were perfectly tended little gardens. We saw signs that said, “Make someone smile today.” Children greeted us politely and with big smiles. We went into one corrugated-iron shack and met the family. The man was obviously suffering from TB maybe AIDS, the floor was dirt, and they had literally nothing. Our guide invited us to ask questions and they told us of their plight but expressed hope for the future. We gave them a small gift of money and left.
Jabu lived through and fully participated those terrible years beginning with the riots of 1976 and he gave us a riveting historical tour. We went into a church riddled with bullet holes where residents had tried to flee from the armed and shooting police. We saw the homes of Nelson Mandela (modest), Desmond Tutu (elegant) and the notorious Winnie Mandela (a Palace). The current government has made lots of promises to those living in the worst slums and has built a huge area of modest little subsidized three-room homes that can be purchased for about 16,000 rand ($2,500). There is an impossibly long waiting list that has many politicians very nervous.
We left the place with a great sense of hope for the people of South Africa.
They have the most democratic constitution of the face of the earth. They went through a transition from Apartheid to Democracy that is termed by most of the South Africans I talk to as “miraculous”. There was certainly bloodshed but there was not the civil war so many feared. One of the most impressive traits of the black South African is their capacity for forgiveness. The feeling I’ve gotten since being here is that they just want to move on. They are well on their way.
Of course, we spent a couple of days in my village. Elizabeth met everyone. I’d let it be known that I was not having a party but I’d asked many of those I work closest with to stop by and meet Liz. One young man who is involved in our cultural dance group asked if I’d like him to stop by with a few male dancers to show Liz some of the cultural dances. I said, “fine” expecting four or five of them to come by. We were making sandwiches for our expected guests when we heard deep rhythmic chanting. Matjeeka poked her head into my hut and said, “Your dancers are coming.” About forty men and boys, all brandishing sticks topped with shredded plastic danced into the yard in tight formation. They entertained us all afternoon and, of course, many villagers joined the ad hoc party. Liz and I kept excusing ourselves to make more sandwiches. Fortunately, we had two watermelons and many cases of sodas. Everyone got a little something.
Two of my favorite Sangomas showed up and performed the trance-inducing dance they use for their healings. One of them, Majone, took us to her house to show Elizabeth her “clinic” with its wall of snuff cans filled with herbs.
Really, every minute of Elizabeth’s visit was fun. We visited a game park that raises the rare white lions. They raise them to be completely comfortable with people. We walked into the lounge of this beautiful African lodge and saw a playpen in the corner. I thought someone had brought their baby but when we looked inside there were two darling little snowy white lion cubs. The owners said we could play with them! And play with them we did. Playing with those lion cubs while listening to the roar of their full-grown relatives in the distance was a thrill. There was also a little “house” meerkat that would not get out of Liz’s lap. We went on a couple of game drives and got up close to many beautiful African animals.
It made me so happy to have Elizabeth see and experience why I love South Africa and Lesotho so much. These are wonderful people I live with – kind, hospitable and generous. Don’t get me wrong; I’m counting the months till I return to the US (seven!) but I will certainly leave a bit of my heart here in the Mountain Kingdom.
Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2006,
Khotso, Pula, Nala (Peace, Rain, Prosperity),
Love, Peggi
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Friends and Family;
Things are rather somber just now in Menkhoaneng. We’ve had an event that has shocked and disturbed everyone. A week ago Sunday a so-far unidentified group of vandals set fire to our beautiful Cultural Village and it burnt to the ground.
The primary suspects are a group of boys from an initiation school high in the mountains behind the village. These initiation schools are controversial in so many ways. On the one hand, they preserve many aspects of ancient Basotho culture. The boys learn the traditional roles and responsibilities of men. The experience inspires a love of their culture and gives many of them a membership into an exclusive society that they cherish – perhaps a bit like what the masons of our culture must experience.
What goes on at these schools is very secret. We all know that the boys are circumcised on about the third day and learn things about herding animals, sex, warfare (i.e. fighting with sticks and spears) and lots of traditional songs and dances which only the initiated are ever allowed to perform. On the negative side this is often an opportunity for the rampant spread of AIDS. Sangomas often use the same razor on each boy. The sangoma who accompanied the boys from our village, a good friend of mine, took over 100 new blades – a gift from the American Friends of Menkhoaneng. I’ve heard that this is very tough training with powerful male bonding and testosterone levels can get very high. The two schools involved in the fire had been attacking each other far beyond what is acceptable in the simulated “warfare” that is a part of the training. Lots of threats were made about burning down each others villages. The police and most of the villagers here believe that our beautiful Cultural Village was the victim of this animosity.
I’ve just returned from almost a week in Maseru meeting with various ministers and stakeholders in the Cultural Village project. The amount of national high-level concern over this event is amazing seeing how much trouble I’ve had getting any of these stakeholders to put their money where their mouths are regarding coughing up funding for the Project.
Anyway, the king is upset, the parliament is hotly debating the whole initiation school issue, everyone with clout is sending their own investigators to the village and the question on whether we will proceed with building a Cultural Village at this site is very much up in the air.
The site is considered holy ground by many Basotho and there is a growing contingent that feel it should remain untouched. Even the archeological group that was here working on excavating some of the ruins has been sent packing.
I’ve been accompanying investigators around the village on their interviews.
I feel like a not too bright Jessica Fletcher.
Officials from the Peace Corps were here this morning just to satisfy themselves that I am in no danger. I’m sure I am not. They did advise me, however, to take off my Jessica Fletcher hat and step as far away from the investigation as possible. I agreed to do so. Actually, the investigation is pretty much over and during the primary interviews I traveled for a day with a very sharp female detective who said she will tell me everything on my next trip to Butha Buthe. I gave her a whole bag of detective novels featuring female detectives. I think we’re going to be friends.
Christmas is around the corner. It doesn’t feel much like the holiday season here – no TV flaunting the latest gift ideas, weather that feels like summer (it is summer here) and not a decoration in sight – but it will be a nice time of families getting together sharing whatever they have with friends and many church services. My daughter, Elizabeth, is arriving on Christmas Day with her husband Andrew. I am counting the days and have planned a rather whirlwind tour of Lesotho for them. They can only stay a week but I know it will be a memorable one for all of us.
I hope each of you has a wonderful Christmas filled with all the people you love and things you like to do. May your every Christmas dream come true.
Love,
Peggi
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Friends and Family:
The rainy season is upon us. The Village mood is happy with the expectation of a good growing season. So far it’s rained every day for the last five days. It’s been perfect rain, gentle and frequent. Matjeeka has been sorting out her seeds from last year’s crops to begin planting and her son, Tjeeka, has returned from his job in South Africa to help. There is excitement and optimism in the air. I’ve been using our watery abundance to wash everything I own. For the last few months my clothes have been washed in filthy, parasite-infested donga water. Now, when I put even the “clean” items into our fresh rainwater it immediately becomes dirty.
It is no wonder that summer storms are met with an almost reverential awe here in Lesotho. They pass through with such powerful grandeur. We don’t get “socked in” with the flat gray skies of my home State, Michigan. Instead, magnificent storms with dark billowy clouds rumble through sending flashes of lightening in their wake and dousing us with blessed rain. They leave us with air that is fresh and delicious and few hours of sunshine before the next great storm rolls through.
Actually, I’ve just returned from a weekend of R&R. I went to a lovely, quiet resort just over the border in South Africa with a delightful group of friends. Our group consisted of another PCV, Elizabeth Cohen, who is working in an AIDS clinic in Butha Buthe, Dr. Edith Semone a truly wonderful OBGYN from Switzerland who is working in a hospital far up in the mountains, her mother, currently visiting from Switzerland to help with the children and Edith’s two beautiful little children ages 3 and 5.
The resort we visited, Wyndford, has a spectacular mountain location with expansive views and many perfectly tended English-style perennial gardens. The property is quite large although the maximum capacity is 30 guests. The same family has owned Wyndford for 25 years. They are descended from some of the earliest English settlers in South Africa. We rented a large chalet and wallowed in the luxury of satellite TV (mostly tuned to the cartoon network for the little ones), endless games of Scrabble played in both English and French and delicious meals prepared by our very hospitable hosts and served with great style on linen clad tables complete with fresh flower bouquets and crystal. I was in heaven – I think we all were.
It was raining for much of the weekend but between gentle storms we went on long, beautiful hikes, the little ones keeping up with amazing Swiss agility and stamina. The area is home to some stone age San wall paintings as well as some historically interesting Boer dwellings tucked into sandstone caves that were used as hiding places during the Boer wars of 1899-1902.
The two little ones made me so hungry for my own beautiful grandchildren. To Edith’s delight I courted them outrageously and before our weekend was over they were snuggled in with me laughing at my accent as I read to them from their French story books.
I returned home Sunday feeling completely relaxed and refreshed and have been doing laundry and cooking big pots of food for my continual stream of visitors ever since.
So much is going on with our various projects. I’ve been working with some great folks from the Maluti Drakensberg Transfrontier Project (MDTP) and it looks as thought we may finally make some progress on the Cultural Village Project. World Bank finances MDTP and we are planning a two-day workshop next month to get all the stakeholders together and try to streamline and combine our efforts. My fingers are crossed.
We also have a new country director, Hill Denham. He and his family are from Evergreen Colorado, have extensive previous Peace Corps experience, and have already won the hearts of all of us volunteers. Hill actually visited my site for a whole day. Not only did he visit but because of some car and driver complications he came with me on public transport from the closest camp town, Butha Buthe. This meant he waited two hours in the hot sun with me for a koloi, squeezed into the small van with 18 other passengers to bump along the lousy roads then walked the last seven kms to the village. He visited all our village projects saying just the right things to the workers. He was a big hit and I am delighted that this empathetic, intelligent and completely supportive man is running the PCV program here.
So, at the moment, I haven’t a single complaint. It’s 4:30 am just now. I can hear the family preparing the oxen, cart etc. to go to the fields to plant. I want to join them for a while so must run. Life is good.
I hope this letter finds you content, healthy and enjoying all the good things this life has to offer.
With love from the quite damp but warm heart of Africa.
Peggi
September 7, 2007
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Family and Friends,
Can you stand another letter about our farm animals? I’ll try to keep it brief.
You may recall that one of our cows had a calf a month or so ago –I assisted with a flashlight – remember? Well, our other cow, I call her Bessie, was brought home from the fields last Tuesday because she was about to give birth. I don’t know how many of you have seen this but it’s pretty amazing.
The calf’s feet and head came out first then it’s body. Most of this happened while Bessie was calmly munching on a pile of grass but just before actually dropping the calf she walked around in a circle. She then licked the little one clean and the baby was on its feet within less than an hour looking under its mother for some milk. This all went just fine but the afterbirth didn’t come out. It didn’t come out Tuesday or Wednesday in spite of a rash of bazaar cultural potions being administered to poor Bessie. Matjeeka was really worried so on Thursday I traveled to the closest town that has a vet. We had a long talk. He told me that the problem could be solved with a pill. Well, not a pill exactly, a suppository. He gave me the soap cake sized suppository, a plastic glove that went from my hand to my armpit and very exact instruction on what to do. I said, “Please tell me you’re kidding.” He wasn’t.
Now wouldn’t you think one of these professional herd boys would offer to do the deed? Not on your life. They looked at me like I was crazy. No way were they going to stick their arm you-know-where. They did, however, put ropes around Bessie’s legs and bring her to the ground. She was not at all impressed with this latest remedy and struggled so much that it took me several tries to get my arm in deep enough. I’ll admit that this was mostly because I was so nervous and at first pulled out when she struggled. When I finally got my hand in to the right place to leave the pill she made a huge heave and I got knocked onto my back into a pile of very fresh dung.
The doctor said it could take some hours for the pill to work so we kept a vigil on Bessie throughout the night. By morning only some of the placenta had come out so we had to go to step two which was a repeat of the first procedure with the difference that this time I pulled the thing out.
You know, when I get home I want to live a very quiet life. I want my animal husbandry to not extend beyond taking Peepers for his morning walks.
But that’s not for another ten months. In the meantime, Lance is still lame but doing better. I’m giving him good medicine (phenylbutazone), massaging his legs twice a day with something called Deep Ice and keeping him quietly in the corral. We have nine new puppies and more chickens than I care to think about. I spend my evenings sipping tea and reading about poultry production, water harvesting methods and any trash novel I can get my hands on.
The countryside gets more beautiful each day as summer approaches. We’ve had two storms so soon the villagers will start plowing fields for planting.
I’m trying to get a big herb garden started by our newly formed youth committee but so far I’m doing all the work, which is a Peace Corps no-no.
We are supposed to be transferring skills here. When I focus on the sustainability of some of my projects I get depressed.
It is Saturday so, of course, I’m going to a funeral. It seems impossible that so many people are dying – it’s almost always AIDS. Traditionally, funerals are on Saturdays but lately there have been so many that they’ve been on other weekdays as well. In the past two weeks I’ve been to five. I no longer go for the complete service – it takes 4 – 5 hours. I either show up the night before the actual burial to pay my respects and leave a gift of money or I go to the home of the deceased the day of the funeral just before the village carries the casket to the burial grounds and walk with the mourners to and from the burial site. Funerals are very pragmatic here.
The villagers dig the grave, lower the body and then the men take turns filling it in as the women chant and pray. Afterwards there is always food all prepared by friends and family of the deceased. Frequently on the day after the funeral people will come to the bereaves house and help out in any way possible. Last Sunday I visited a woman who had just lost her only son.
I felt so badly for her. The number of deaths here does not in any way lessen the intensity of the pain. Losing a child causes the same agonizing grief here as it does in our culture. Many women were there. Some were gathering up all the clothes and blankets in the house and taking them to the river to wash. Some were mixing cow dung with sand and water to re-mud the floor of her house. They had taken everything outside. The mother was on a mattress outside under a blanket in heavy grief. I helped with the floor – there were many tears mixed with the mud that day.
I’ll try to think of something cheerier to write about next time. In the meantime be safe, be well and be grateful that you live in the good old USA.
Love,
Peggi
August 12, 2007
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Family and Friends,
So much has happened here since I last wrote to you. Nothing earth shattering and so I’ve just been pouring it into my journal-which is now pushing 300 pages. But I love keeping in touch and sharing a bit about life as a PCV in Africa. It’s been another period of good news and bad news events.
On the positive side we have little Motlatsi back. He is the beautiful baby boy I had the privilege of helping into this world my first night on the job here in the village. I think I told you about the lobola issue. Tjeeka, Motlatsi’s father and the son of the family with whom I live, “stole” his wife. That is he took her from her home and kept her away in hiding for several days. According to tribal custom they were then legally married but there was still the question of the lobola or bride price to be paid.
Malineo, now known as Mamotlatsi (mother of Motlatsi), is a beautiful, gentle, obedient girl from a good family in a neighboring village -her Dad figured she was worth a lot. The lobola negotiations did not go well. Then she had a son. This increased her bride price considerably. As soon as little Motlatsi was deemed old enough to travel – three months by tribal custom, her family came en mass and took mother and child away. There were absolutely no visiting rights. Nena, the father of this family, has been sending every dime he can home from his job in the South African mines for the past year to buy back his daughter-in-law and grandson. Last month we were finally able to get them back. I chipped in two cows.
The celebration party went on for days. It was mostly a women and girls thing but there were plenty of men here as well – we made 55 gallons of joala (beer)! We started cooking and bringing precious water from distant wells several days before the actual homecoming. We slaughtered two sheep and countless chickens. On the day of the homecoming dozens of women from Bethe Bethe (Mamotlasti’s village) came in a singing and dancing procession carrying all the brides possession on their heads – it was like a dowry – plates, blankets everything presented for all to admire. All the young women and girls from the village were here dancing, chanting and doing a lot of ritualistic bathing. The chanting and praying went on all night and throughout all of the next day. I don’t know how they do it. All night celebrations are much the norm here. I was totally exhausted and I, unlike any of the family, could escape for moments of repose in my hut. Anyway, the party lasted from start to finish – meaning when all the joala was gone – five days!
Now we have mom and baby here and they are a joy. Little Motlatsi crawls around bare-bottomed and charms us all. He picks up language so quickly.
The first words he learned from me were “No, no, no”. For a while he was calling me “No,no.” He crawls into my hut and pees on the floor – oh well.
The worst recent news is that Lance had an accident and is now lame. We have a new herd boy named Liphapang who is in serious trouble with me. He did a dreadful thing to Lance. I’ve mentioned previously that Lance chased mares. Well, Liphapang decided the thing to do was to hobble him so he couldn’t run away! Not only that but he didn’t undo the hobbling ropes before sending Lance up a torturous mountain path. Lance took a bad fall and has sprained or torn muscles in his rear legs. He can hardly walk.
This happened in the evening two weeks ago. I was in my hut cooking when Matjeeka came running in saying, “Come quick, Lance very hurt.” I dropped everything and took off at a run with Matjeeka at my heels. If I’d realized how far away Lance was I would have at least changed shoes. I was wearing a cotton dress and my house clogs. Lance was on a narrow ledge of a particularly difficult path down the back of the mountain we live on. Two herd boys were with him – both looking very guilty. It took us a quite a while to get down to him. His back legs simply wouldn’t hold his weight he kept falling – it was horrible.
It was also getting dark and a nasty lightening storm was engulfing us on the mountainside. The lightening was terrifying Lance. We managed to get him to a broader ledge where he could lie down and I told Matjeeka to please go get my raincoat and blanket so I could spend the night with Lance and figure out how to get him home in the morning. She refused. We had our first big altercation. She said she was in charge of my safety, it was too dangerous, and the chiefs would punish her if anything happened to me. I said I wasn’t leaving Lance on that ledge; he would panic and fall again. We were both crying.
Finally, it was decided the herd boys, who were willing to do anything to make up for this bad accident, would take turns staying with Lance. By then it was pitch dark. We found our way back up the mountain by waiting for lightening flashes to see where we were. We actually had to crawl part of the way and arrived home soaking wet, covered in mud and pretty scratched up. At home I gathered up all my flashlights, blankets and rainwear and sent it with one of the herd boys back to Lance. Word spreads fast in this village – even in storms. Lots of herd boys got involved in rescuing Lance. I really don’t know how they did it but at dawn Lance, looking much the worse for wear, was home.
It just happened that I was having a council meeting at my house that morning. The first elder to arrive has a horse and had the “perfect” remedy for Lance. You won’t want to believe this but this is a “modern” traditional Basotho remedy for injured animals. He took a dry cell battery apart, scraped out some of the black powder inside of it, ground it on our grinding stone, mixed it with water and gave it, mixed with some wheat-germ porridge, to Lance to drink. As other elders arrived they all sagely agreed with this remedy. All I can say is it didn’t kill him. I’ve since talked to a vet – I can’t get one to come to the village, they simply don’t come here but he told me to just rest Lance and hope for the best.
It’s now been two weeks. He’s still lame but seems to be getting better each day. He is living the life of Riley. I keep bringing him more food and water and grooming him. He whinnies when he sees me coming. I just wonder if I’ll ever be able to ride him again.
Once again this letter is getting too long. And I want to tell you about our new, income-generating village chicken farm. It will have to wait for next time. All I can say, having just returned from an inspection of the noisy, smelly nasty birds, is (in the voice of Willie Nelson) “Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be chicken farmers.”
With love, from the heart of Africa,
Peggi
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Family and Friends,
It’s been a wonderful few weeks since I last wrote to you. My sisters came, saw and conquered the hearts of the Basotho. I’m feeling perfectly well with no lingering bad effects of the nasty pills and our various Village projects are coming along nicely.
Patty and Pam were a huge hit in the Village. Not only did they arrive with suitcases full of gifts for the villagers and me– but they immediately put their talents to work. We visited the primary school and after the children sang and danced for us they sang for them. Pam, a talented ESL teacher, held an impromptu language class for a group of little ones in front of my hut and from that point on was surrounded by adoring children.
Patty, our very own Boswell, spent much time chronicling what was going on in a journal. Patty is both a writer and an artist and the illustrations she drew in her journal fascinated our many visitors. She’d also brought a Polaroid camera – she was a very popular lady.
We had a party on Saturday. I’d invited about a hundred people but about two hundred came. The villagers went all out to welcome Patty and Pam. There were speeches, lots of traditional tribal singing and dancing – the sangomas came all painted in red ocher – everyone wanted to show our visitors the Basotho cultural of which they are so proud.
On Sunday, we headed out; first driving through the beautiful Maluti Mountains to stay at a lovely, quite remote mountain resort called Semonkong. The road through this high mountain region is scenic but treacherous. We put the 4×4 we’d rented through its paces – we even had a flat tire along the way, which was changed for us by some village boys. Patty gave them a 100 rand tip thus soundly establishing herself as a legend in that tiny mountain community. They’ll be talking about the fabulously rich Lekhooa for years.
We left Lesotho and headed down to the Cape. The difference between
Lesotho and South Africa is evident as soon as you cross the border. For one thing there are lots of white people over there and real stores, restaurants and fabulous guesthouses and hotels. It is definitely not a third world country. In the years since the end of apartide South Africa has gone through many changes. I think the transition and establishment of an integrated middle class is going well. There are still shockingly poor townships and slums sitting next to beautiful, prosperous towns. The human and economic scars of that dreadful era are everywhere but much is being done to ease them. The government of South Africa has the strongest and most ubiquitous affirmative action program I’ve ever seen.
We spent one night at a private game reserve that has been owned by the same white South African family for five generations. After a great safari during which we saw all the beautiful animals we could have wished for at amazingly close range, we sat around a blazing fire talking to several young men. Their families had lived in South Africa for generations and apartied ended when they were small children. None seemed particularly bitter but it was clear that a young white male in this country has no hope at all of gainful employment unless his family owns the business. It’s a complex issue that deserves much more than this brief reference – perhaps a later letter – but now I want to tell you more about the trip.
The southern coast of Africa is simply breathtakingly beautiful – soaring cliffs, verdant valleys and a sparkling blue ocean. We followed what is called the “Garden route” all the way from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town staying in beautiful seaside villages along the way. The hospitality of our South African hosts at the luxurious B&B’s we stayed in was uniformly excellent, the towns were quaint, the shopping and restaurants fun and fattening. The narrow but well-paved, winding road we followed was perfect for whale watching. This is the mating season of the southern right whale and we saw many spouts highlighted when one magnificent creature breached not 50 yards from our car as we approached Cape Town. We pulled over and stopped to watch it perform this amazing feat several times.
In Cape Town we got rid of the car and let friendly tour guides show us the sites. The best was, perhaps, the wine tour. This is the off season so we luckily had the very knowledgeable owner of a tour company take us on a private tour of what he considered the best of the wine country. I don’t remember much of what we saw or tasted after about 3:00 but the food and wine we had was great and the scenery beautiful. We bought a carload of wine and continued our wine tasting in our stunning, oceanfront suite at the Peninsula resort all the rest of the week.
Patty said that the only thing she could compare our tour of Robbens Island to is a tour she had taken at Pearl Harbor. Both were quite somber experiences. All the guides at Robbens are former prisoners. We saw the cell where Nelson Mandela spent so many years and heard very sad stories.
It was all over way too soon. My wonderful sisters headed back to the US and I headed back to Lesotho. It took me longer to get back to my village than it took them to go the 10,000 miles to Michigan and to tell the truth I was in a bit of a moody funk for a couple of days – lonely and longing for indoor plumbing. Now, however, I’m back at work, feeling great and looking forward to my next vacation. Most of my PCV colleagues have traveled a lot more than I have since arriving here. Now I know why. This is a fascinating part of the world; I’d like to see it all.
It’s just about time for a meeting of our chicken farm volunteers so I must close. Did I tell you we got a grant from World Vision to start a chicken farm the proceeds from which are for our orphans? In ten days 200 layers are arriving ready to start laying eggs. We are working frantically getting the house they will live in ready for them.
As I watch the peach trees begin to blossom here as the first sign of spring appear, I think of the autumn you are about to enjoy and wish you all Khotso, Pula, Nala. (Peace, Rain, Prosperity.)
Love, Peggi
June 12, 2007
Filed under: Letters From Africa
Dear Family and Friends,
I’ve wanted to write you a letter to describe some of the stranger customs and beliefs here in the Mountain Kingdom. This lazy Sunday morning seems to be the perfect time to do so especially since recently it seems that I’ve been immersed in situations ruled by the Basotho culture.
One of them has to do with my horse, Lance. As you know he is a stallion.
Gentle as he is there is not a thing wrong with any of his hormonal instincts and when the herd boys have him out grazing with the cattle if there is a mare in season anywhere in the area he leads them a merry (excuse the pun) chase. Last week he completely succeeded in eluding capture until after he’d coupled with a lovely white mare.
This caused quite a stir. The owner of the mare, if she dropped a foal, would be indebted to me as owner of the stud. Also, unpre-arranged mating of animals is seen as very bad form and put my herd boy in the position of not doing his job.
I entered the situation when my herd boy, Mokabitso, arrived home leading Lance and followed by a rather large group of interested villagers. Mokabitso explained to me that to insure that Lance had not impregnated the mare he must now ride him at a full gallop until he is drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. I said, “Makabitso, the deed is done. Nothing we do to Lance will make any difference in whether that mare is pregnant.” He looked at me with the pity one gives to one who is blatantly uninformed or just plain stupid. The growing crowd of villagers enthusiastically backed his position. Matjeeka, who is a qualified home-health worker agreed – it must be done.
I seldom allow anyone to ride Lance. I said, “O.K. I’ll get the saddle and ride him.” This was met by gasps of horror. Lance had to be ridden bareback by a virile male or, of course, the cure wouldn’t work. The villagers were shaking their heads in disbelief – how could this educated Lekhooa (white person) be so stupid?
Lance was ridden until he could hardly walk. It took me an hour to just cool him down enough to put him in for the night.
I took this situation to my English class the next day to see if I could find a voice of reason among the very intelligent people in that class. Not one of them doubted the efficacy of this method of birth control. I drew a diagram – we talked about how the mating process works – the class evolved into biology and sex ed. I could not convince a single person to accept my viewpoint. The closest thing I got to any agreement was a statement that what I said may be true in other parts of the world but here in Lesotho this is how it works.
Here’s another bit of animal husbandry I’ll bet you didn’t know. Did you know that here in Lesotho if you mate your pig and she becomes pregnant the sow who seeded her must not be slaughtered until the piglets are born? If he is, all the piglets will die.
Just one more: Two nights ago one of our cows dropped a beautiful little calf. Matjeeka and I were out dealing with this situation – actually, Matjeeka was dealing with it; I was just holding the flashlight and making helpful comments like, “Holy Cow!”. Anyway, when the afterbirth came out we had to scoop it up with a stick and hang it in a tree! By now, of course, I know better than to argue. I just said, “Is this branch high enough?” The placenta carries the spirit of the animal and hanging it in the tree assures the off spring will grow strong and healthy and not get lost!?.
Everything is going quite well here. Our HIV/AIDS training last week was a resounding success. Over 100 people got tested for the virus – this is a bit of a record in this country where fear and denial rule in the area of HIV awareness. The caps I had printed with “I know My Status. Do You?” on them were so popular I’m convinced this should be a National Campaign. The trainers told their packed audiences that it means the same as saying “I’m smart and want to live. Do you?”
My own situation is still unclear. The woman with whom I could possibly have mixed blood in the dog bite incident tested positive for the virus so I am still taking the post exposure medication. The good news is that it is very effective and my exposure risk was small to begin with – but to say I don’t want to take any chances is a huge under statement. The medicine is quite dreadful. I feel sick all the time but there are only 7 days left of taking what I now term my “nasty pills”.
The great news is that two of my wonderful sisters, Patty and Pam, are arriving here on July 27th. I should be 100% again by then and we’re planning a really nice vacation beginning here in the village and ending in Capetown, South Africa. You will, of course, get a full report.
That’s about it from here. I hope your summer is passing pleasantly and that this letter finds you well and happy.
With love from the heart of Africa,
Peggi
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March 6th, 2008 | 
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