So, due to the requests for me to get to the point and put my thousands of words into photos, here they are!
drying out meroho (leafy greens) and maize to get us through the winter
my sis sewing a dress
the two facial expressions i most often inspire in the children of lesotho:
small furry creatures that like to plague me. parkinsons on the left, tsotse (theif/criminal) on right
two bo-ausi making snowflakes with me in my roundavel
water balloons Lesotho Style (don't worry they weren't used)
huddled around the coal stove in the staff room. N. Chelete is rockin out to my headphones, i think i'm introducing him to Blackalicious as a counterargument to Lil Bow Wow being legit music.
more Rockin Out. please do not notice the chubbsy faced whitey on the right.
I found an appropriate whiskey for my profession
30 June:
I found an appropriate whiskey for my professionok, this is SO F-ING SLOW. so i'm giving you words while i wait for pictures. damn you internet, and damn you all websites that have imbedded flash or a million jpegs causing me to be unable to access you unless i wait the 20 minutes for everything to download. The makers of websites have totally forgotten that dial up internet does indeed still exist, and is used by a large part of the world. or a large part of my world, at least.
30 June:
So I didn't get to hang out with the old lady because she was in the hospital. While waiting for her to show i was able to watch some awesome music videos from some botswanan music group, a movie called Matilda about some mischevious little girl that's so smart and has read so many books that she can move shit with her mind and so defeats the evil headmistress, and also a dvd containing every britney spears music video ever made (there are like 20!). i forgot how awesome britney used to be.
Then yesterday i hiked to the river (1.5-2hrs down/up a mtn) with a bunch of kids and Ben, an american with grand multimedia plans for the future of lesotho. We went to fish, but with nothing to bait the hooks with we didn't catch much. Instead we roasted corn, took a bunch of pictures with a film-less camera, swung on swings woven from still attached branches, threw rocks, played with "water balloons" (condoms we found by the river), got really wet trying to ford the river, and really singed trying to dry off over a fire. All in all, a super awesome day. Of course my camera ran out of batteries after 4 pictures. i have chronic power struggles with that battery inhaler. (did you spot the pun?! yes....)
Right now i'm in the staff room at school, i stopped by to say hi to the teachers doing winter classes, deliver mail, and discuss the merits of 'Lil Bow Wow'. (I'm not sure who that is, but my position is anti, based on the name alone)
+Warning+: This is me ranting without a lot of factual support/well thought through arguments, so you might want to skip it in favor of more pretty pictures.
2 July:
It's a perversion, an indecency, what i'm doing here. It's just so blatantly selfish. The basotho, many of them, see it too and have us volunteers for it. What fucking retard would give up a good life for this sort of poverty? That we can be so blasé, so unconcerned about what we have that we'd give it up to come "help" here, it's an affront. It's like rubbing their noses in it. We can leave, go home whenever we want. Even the most educated and motivated mosotho is hard pressed to find a job/higher education in South Africa, and Lesotho itself is just dead ends. This whole place is dead ends for people used to dead ends. They see, and know what it is to be born here and not there are are so stubbornly proud. I love the Basotho for their national pride. In this nation of zero resources, one of the recipients of the highest amt foreign aid per capita, this place where imports at least triple the exports, they still stand so tall. We fucking americans, who denounce our country, who put Canadian flags on our luggage when abroad, who are we? We let ourselves be defined by such fads, such limited factors. Sure the administration sucks, but i've never met a mosotho who defined themself or their country by the actions of their corrupt ill equipped government. It never even occurred to them to act like the actions of the Prime Minister reflect the national consciousness, or their own dignity at all. (I realize these are horrifically sweeping statements and that neither of these are ideal positions with many finer points, but this isn't going to be that in depth. i'm just ranting.)
The Basotho are smart enough to be proud of what they have: their independence, their traditions, their own people, music genre, and the 'best' way of preparing papa (maize meal). I'm so sick of Americans lamenting so much with such vehemence. We ran out of actual complaints and have lost our sense of what we have accomplished at the same time. I don't want to feel guilty about what i have, what i grew up with, and i don't. I do feel like an ass for taking it all for granted. Roads, hospitals, youth centers, movie theaters, diversity, grocery stores, a largely progressive populace, all of it.
Oh, it's romantic in a way, living in a mud hut, reading by candle light, lending my "vast knowledge and experience" at the high school. Nothing I do, nothing peace corps ever does, is sustainable though. This really is a "get paid to see the world" gig for recent college grads. I knew that upon entering, in face it's one main reason i applied. Being here, though, it makes me feel like an idiot, flaunting what i had to go on a jaunt to the third world for a couple years. At the end of this I'll just be abandoning the students I've spent 2 years convincing to trust me, listen to me, learn from me. They'll really just learn that i left them. I've gotten innumerable stories about "that lekhooa" that used to live here and promised this and that, then left and forgot about everyone here and what they promised. I'm just another in the parade of halfway-caring better offs to come and leave.
p.s. sorry for all the run on sentences. and negativity. i know there are lots of positives, and this isnt all and everything. i'm entitled to be negative sometimes, alright?
2 comments:
I heard that the Peace Corps started as a way to get all of the liberal kids, filled with dewey-eyed optimism and progressive resolve, out of the country so they could get whacked with a humble stick and then bow down with humility to their corporate-archy homeland upon their return. Or maybe I made that up. Hmmm. Either way, I hear your frustrations. I've been annoyed, lately in a similar, or maybe opposite way. So here I am in Marin County. An undeniably beautiful, rich (in terms of resources), and generally progressive area. Awesome, right? Well, yeah, it is. But at the SAME TIME you see another side of this space. There's sort of a xenophobic attitude about the place, and a very potent "more sustainable than thou" mojo which kind of tastes like wine gone to vinegar... sour. What's more is that folks will parade around with gusto about their "environmentalism" which, as I see it, is a way to keep development (of any kind) out. Not as away to preserve fragile ecosystems, but as a way to preserve their elitist, sometimes racist, sense of rural shangrila-sans-anyone-resembling-middle-class.
I'm not saying I'm some astute progressive who "really" knows whats going on. But you can't help but be disheartened by the moanings of the state of organic agriculture when it comes from the mouth of anti-capitalist millionaires who treat sustainability as a status thing. fuckers. I mean, Marin county has refused. REFUSED. on a number of occasions to allow light rail to pass through. They want to keep things isolated and car-based. I mean, Point Reyes Station used to be called Station for a reason: there was a trolly that went through there. But they ripped it out years ago. Yarrr.
"Somedays even my rocketship underpants don't help." Calvin
All this being said, it's also not really based on well researched facts and such, but it's been on my mind and I felt like participating in a rant from this side of the world.
Becky,
I joined the VSO because I wanted to distance myself from the United States government, but now I realize it's all the same: Development is an industry, plain and simple.
I don't delude myself to think I'm actually helping anyone here in Kenya, but my students and colleagues seem genuinely grateful for my help. So for now I just keep on keepin' on and hope none of the locals see how unsustainable my being here actually is.
On a side note, when I was interviewing for the Peace Corps and VSO they had me contact returned volunteers and one of them had good advice. She said something like, "after two years you may not have accomplished anything, but in the end it's really about the cultural exchange." So I take every opportunity to hang with the locals, learn how to cook their food, etc. I honestly believe they're teaching me more than I'm teaching them...
Adios,
Alan
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