Found Poetry

• God almighty saved our little sally because god heard their prayer it can work miracles sally grew up to be a nanny

• Oh! what ails me?

what?
listen: i will raise my hands up. I will kneel down until i feel pain

• always life seems easier to people who concentrate on education sometimes life seems tough and sky becomes duck to people who are vexatious

• 1. grocery

2. clothing
3. BELIEFS NEEDS
4. INSURANCE
5. AGRICULTURE
6. MAINTENANCE
7.

• cold blood means the animal that live in water and freeze to death every time
  

SLackers

Hey! Back again! My school is mildly killing my soul so i keep escaping. This next week is just exams anyway and the more i avoid invigilation duties, the better. especially since i suck at it, because you see the kids looking at each other's papers, and the other teachers just whack 'em with a big stick, but i still can't bring myself to get medievil on their asses. and also i really don't want to take their tests and give them zeros because the exam is their only grade, we're not allowed to include assignments or class participation or anything into the grade, and these poor kids' families are going hungry to pay their school fees, and then to f-them over by giving them a zero? i can't! ugh so i'm just ineffective to the extreme. and also this is all me rationalizing the fact that i'm missing a week of school in order to bum around the capital and go to all these random parties happening.

A lot of volunteers hate coming to Maseru because it's all big (by our standards- there are about 500,000 people here) and busy and smelly and kind of overwhelming but once you get past all of that it becomes the land of electric lights, avoiding work, couches, vegetables, cheese, the internet, and movies! I love doing nothing and seeing other volunteers and hanging out and staying up after dark and trying to remember what on earth i used to do online all day long, and eating pizza and all sorts of wondrous activities.

When here i exist almost solely on vegetables, cheese, and whiskey. it's beautiful (but expensive) I'll be here until this coming weekend so i'll be able to respond promptly to emails, etc. My official reason for staying is that i need to compile/edit the rogue newsletter i've become the editor of. This issue i'm trying to make electronic so i can save on photocopy/stampage fees but i need to locate a scanner... if it does become electronic i may be able to upload it to the 'net so it's possible you all can see, and marvel at the fact that you don't understand a word of it becasue it's all so lesotho-centric! hoo-rah!

The Windy City

31 August

There have been gale-force winds, day and night for a few weeks now but they haven't managed to blow in any clouds. we need rain so badly, but every day it's all frickin cloudless and sunny. i miss the rain so much! ahh ptown. anyway the wind makes going outside miserable, since it's so dry these huge dust clouds come up and roam the town, making it hard to see (i'm considering investing in goggles) and blowing dirt into my eyes ears nose mouth clothes house EVERYTHING. it's all full of a layer of grit. I can't wait for winter to be over! the peach trees have started to blossom, and it's so perty.

1 Sept

While i love my mud hut for its insulative properties, problems arise when things like modern windows and doors are installed. The dry mud crumbles away from the metal frame so i have HUGE gaps around my window and door, and mud chunks are always falling off onto my floor. This is all fine and breezy in the summer, but in winter, especially with these tornadic winds about it becomes very lame. Last night i duct taped my window closed and around the cracks, and along all the edges and f-ing snow was still somehow blowing into my house. grr. my bed's right next to the window too so i had to make a little cave in my mounds of blankets to keep from freezing to death.

Victoria's Pictures

since you all love me and want to see my face, here are some pics from vic's camera that i'm actually in! (i realize i'm not really in any of my own pics)

from the desert to the ocean, quadbike style


where i belong
tai chi at dune 45

i likes me some sand
action! that's me landing on my head

rolling is hard work

cave dwelling, with strong ankles
i wanna poke it

Pup tents

small children in blankets! at the cultural festival
these toy cars the little boys make out of wire and old tin cans. they're super cool
ahh the professor
dinosaur bone ceiling. and yes that is a light bulb, it is there to mock me
town

20 August

we got a new puppy! My abuti named this one Spots after our previous puppy, Spots, who was stoned to death in january (Neither dog has/had spots, btw). I had previously named this puppy Professor Picklesworth, so i guess we'll just have to let the dog decide which name it prefers. It's super cute and amazing and i have reaffirmed that dogs are WAAY better than cats, especially whiny cats named parkinsons who may or may not have given me fleas.

the professor and I

school is going well, it's really tiring, but good, and i love my students incredibly (in a completely appropriate platonic sort of way) and we have 6 new teachers this semester who are all really nice. 4 are student teachers so they're all young and hip and stuff. and my two favorite teachers are Ntate Chelete (transl: Mr. Money) and Ntate Letsatsi (Mr. Sunshine). The Basotho have great names, sometimes.

It's almost springtime so i can plant my garden soon (Thanks, uncle jim!) and then i will have more than onions, carrots, and cabbage, vegetable-wise.

I missed all of last week of school because i am a derelict (I know, inappropriate word usage, but i like the way it sounds). I went down to the capital for a meeting with staff (I represent my district in the volunteer union, of sorts) then stayed for a workshop put on by an organization called "Men as Partners" which, though it sounds gay-rights centered, is really gender-equality centered. it's a movement to try to get men involved in womens' empowerment in southern africa, to get them to understand why women should be empowered and support their mothers/sisters/wives/girlfriends/etc. It was a great workshop, but very adult specific, so i'm trying to come up with a way to adapt the activities for primary/high school aged people. I think instituting the mindset of "women are just as good as men and should have the same rights" will be a lot more successful with the younger crowd, who're less set in their ways.

Also, i'm no longer in the newest group of volunteers! (groups come every 6 months, with education (Ed) vols arriving in nov. and community health and economic development (CHED) vols coming in june) so it's kind of like high school with a 4-group hierarchy and the new CHEDS were sworn in, which makes me like a sophmore! woo! i really want to help out with the training of the new ED volunteers when they come in Nov, but i won't get a choice in the matter, my boss said he just chooses the vols he thinks are "responsible, professional, etc" and while i am responsible, i'm not the most professional gal around, i still need to work on the whole think-before-i-speak thing, and to filter out inappropriate comments. So really I don't know if he'll let me help. I'll just have to wait and see.

So there have been multiple taxi strikes since i've been here because the cost of a taxi-bus license was raised from M200 to M1000. This is the government trying to raise money to buy busses to help regulate/expand the transportation system here. and we just got TWO BRAND NEW BUSSES! in the Thaba-Tseka-Maseru line! So now if i want i can ride in a bus that's not from 1970 that breaks down/explodes every other trip! Hoorah progress! Also the paving of the road is going well so my trip is about an hour shorter and 5000 times safer than it used to be. TT is entering the 21st century, slowly but surely. Next thing you know we might have INTERNET! probably not during my tenure here, though.

24 August

So when deciding to enter the peace corps, i readied myself (ish) for being away from home for 2 years. It's part of the whole deal, and i did/have still accepted that, except my dear mom and dad love me! and so they have offered to fly me home for christmas! holy crap! i told them that i'd think about it because my initial reaction is, No! I'm here for 2 years stick it out YOU CAN DO IT. also the culture shock of going home then leaving it again seems like it might be a bit too much. But i can't stop thinking about it, and i'm already super super excited! So i'm going to look for plane tickets, and hopefully i can find some that aren't too expensive. anyone that'll be in the san diego area in december, GET READY! it'll be super awesome! woo! i'll probably have to lie to my coworkers about it though because they'll ask me to buy them all sorts of things. they still think i'm rich.

Sometimes i make my teeth shine with List-erine

and my sneakers gave me an unfortunate b-list-er on my heel. lame.

Things I do When I'm Bored
1. Make lists
2. Do crosswords
3. Make crosswords for friends
4. Sit by the coal stove in the staff room with my coworkers
5. Draw pictures
6. Make comics
7. Play "if you had one day in USA, what would you..." [eat, drink, do, etc.]
8. Think about dating celebrities (Shia LeBeouf and the singer of Snow Patrol are some odd recurring ones)
9. Make up scenarios for where i'll live/what i'll do/ awesome guys i'll meet upon my return to the states
10. Try not to flirt with my coworkers
11. Not study sesotho
12. Read old science textbooks (the ones donated by christian schools are weeirrd)
13. Read other random books (right now i'm trying to battle my way through Clavell's Shogun)
14. Play with spots II/Professor Picklesworth
15. Harass Parkinsons (and no the alliteration in pet names was not intended)
16. Shadow dance with myself (candle light makes for good shadows)
17. Think of interesting food combinations
18. Clean my hut
19. Try not to bake tasty things
20. Attempt to do the splits
21. Call Victoria on the walkie-talkie
22. Dance like a Mosotho man (involves a lot of pelvic thrusts)
23. Practice juggling (if i have enough similar sized fruit)
24. Memorize the words to cheesy pop songs
25. Stare at my dinosaur bone ceiling
26. Think deep mature thoughts and reflect on my life and grow as a person
27. Draw "cave paintings" on my latrine walls with a brown crayon
28. Lie as still as possible for as long as possible and see if i lose substance


Things That Increase My Heart Rate
1. Almost getting impaled by a mad cow
2. Cheese
3. Madeline Cozad
4. Thoughts of the weekend
5. Blasting Avril, Britney, or happy hardcore in the morning to get myself out of bed
6. Doing sit ups in the neverending Battle Against the Fetus
7. Completely finishing a crossword with no cheating
8. Hugs
9. Hiking to/from school (especially if i need to pee and am rushing)
10. Jumping Jacks
11. Thinking about kisses
12. The phone ringing
13. My students saying "Yes, we understand" and meaning it
14. Thinking about GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS!!

Things That Make Me Sad and/or Annoyed
1. Today is friday. I last bathed on monday
2. Fleas
3. Hearing an anonymous student call me "'Me Lekhooa" and not knowing what to do about it
4. Not everyone is as excited by the periodic table as I am
5. Apparently the teachers at my school are going to have to wear uniforms, too. I'm confused as to how this will work
6. Random smelly herdboys coming to my house and asking me to give and/or buy them a sheep
7. Gross smelly obnoxious herdboys on the bus who dance over me with their yucky old blankets draping so I can't lean back in my seat for the ENTIRE 6 hour bus ride. (and also having everyone else on the bus laugh at me, like haha white girl getting harassed by herdboys. jerks.)
8. Realizing i need to pee half hour into a 6 hour bus ride
9. My fetus is unchanged by the 100-150 situps i'm doing each day
10. Wondering if my sister is sick all the time because she has aids, or if her immune system just sucks.
11. wind
12. wind in a dusty country

Things I Know Now But Didn't Before
1. Springbok is the tastiest meat evar
2. The difference between rabbits and hares
3. The 5 characteristics of minerals
4. Inappropriate and funny are not always the same thing
5. Chocolate oatmeal rocks my socks off
6. L.A., Cleveland, and Queens are all right near each other
7. Shredding carrots can sometimes be dangerous
8. RIP Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes
9. The movie "Friday" is a lot funnier if you pretend it was filmed in Lesotho
10. Including words like "speculum" and "catheter" in my cursing/insults is fun
11. The sesotho word "noka" can, depending on vocal inflection/context mean "river", "to salt something", or "thigh", and this is potentially confusing
12. Britney, you go girl. I fully support and eagerly anticipate your grand comeback