I apologize for bad language featured in this blog and other emails.

First post-living in a village blog! I now live in a one room roundavel in ha Mofoka. Here instead of multi-room houses, families have 2-4 one room houses. I live with a curmudgeony old lady named ‘Me Malineo Mosoue. She is nice and means well, but she is still a curmudgeon. She doesn’t speak a word of English, so we have a lot of misunderstandings and arguments about everything from my curtains (open or close) to the arrangement of my stuff in my house, to my clothes, to when I leave for school, etc. All the other volunteers (as far as I can tell) have siblings at least who can help translate. Not me though! I guess my stories of current happenings with the ‘me (‘me means mother) are fun for my co-volunteers to hear about. My new name is Nthabeleng (en-tah-bee-leng), which means something along the lines of “happy”, which (this comment is for portlanders only) reminds me of Happy, that dour grumpy woman who works at the slev on 28th and steele.

It has been very rainy here, and when it rains, it really RAINS. With earth shaking heart stopping thunder, and lightning that seems like fireworks outside my window. And rain dumping buckets and buckets until I feel like I’m going to float away…

ok, so i'm feeling much more normal now, but to be truthful about me, i'm going to transcribe some of my journalyness i wrote yesterday. Since i'm on the other side of the world and am communicating through this weird third party (my blag), i'm going to be more honest about what's going on inmy head.

so it's really really lonely here a lot. i'm so isolated, i can't speak to my 'me at all, all the people in the village are pretty cool, but still only want to talk to me because i'm white, and because they want my earrings or my shoes or for me to take them back to america with me. the language barrier is really tough. and having small children follow me and giggle everywhere i go. My friend Madeline (a PCV who live next to me) had some nightmares, and woke up the other morning expecting to be comforted by familiarity, but instead had to realize "holy shit, i'm living in a hut in africa"... which pretty much sums up my nights and mornings too. it's a lot to get used to.

Regina Spektor came on my ipod the other day, and i almost wept, it reminded me so much of portland, of driving around in the rain, of riding my bike through oaks bottom on my way to work, of rain on the willamette. No matter all the hot sunny summers, portland will always be rainy in my mind, i think. anyway it got me to thinking of things i miss, here are some:

the feeling of holding someone's hand in mine, of swinging our linked hands back and forth while we walk, of kisses on the forehead, i miss pie societies, back when they were at tessa's house on 51st. I miss sitting around tessa's basement all day long watching bad tv shows, steadily working our way through bottles of wine, i miss trivia at the gladstone with unmitigated disaster, i miss pool at the pub at teh end of the universe, shuffleboard at the yukon, talking to dan, listening to dan, laying on the grass in sellwood park all day, getting sunburnt. i miss lazy sundays on the couch with jen, of going out to breakfast with my housies (lots and bri), rock climbing, kickball, joe, riding around in cait's car blasting cheesy music, barbeques, staying up drinking until 6 or 7 am joking around with diana mark and dan, sitting on the porch at the hedge house, drunken nights in bill and abe's (now just abe's) basement, fireworks, OMSI, the chemlab office/social room, Reed college and all the awesome dorks that gravitate there, and i miss my gigantic bed with all the down comforters. Mostly i miss my best friends, whom i can say or do anything around. My co-volunteers here are totally awesome but it isn't the same. Hopefully i'll feel better when i'm settled in my own place, not living with a crazy old lady and having all my clothes in a suitcase.

Also, i miss flushing toilets that don't have their own fly population.

I really don't mind teh no plumbing/electricity thing, except teh pit latrines are stinky and fly-ey. I actually used the fly population as an analogy for the electron cloud in metal atoms when teaching. yeah science!

The taxi music here totally rocks. there are two types: one is really cheesy house music, which i LOVE. and the other is Lesotho's own brand of music, which involves a button accordion, a casio keyboard, and some guy with a gruff voice yelling in sesotho. i don't know how the button accordian came to be so popular here, but man is it. also sometimes there are synthesized animal and or baby noises. i don't like those so much. THey blast the music SO LOUD here though.

i start practice teaching on monday. ack! i'm teaching form b maths and form e chemistry ( form a= 8th grade, and so on to e=12th) my form b class has about 50 kids i think, and form e is 11. that's how the schools are here, there is a tiny fraction of each grade that progresses on to the next one.

THe food here is SO BLAND> breakfast is lesheleshele, which is sorgum porridge, apparetnly it's like cream of wheat. i'm not a huge fan. then all other meals are papa (maize meal, a.k.a styrofoam, and moroho, which is shredded greens, mostly cabbage, cooked in a pound of oil) everything here has a pound of oil and a pound of salt. today we get to shop so from now on we cook for ourselves. i can't wait!! the food wasn't too bad this past week, just i like deciding what i eat. also i like deciding what i wear, where i go, etc. everybody here is all up in my business! if there is one tiny spot on my skirt i can't wear it to class (these are peace corps culture/policy/health/sesotho classes. not formal.) so i've become paranoid about getting dirty or my 'me will yell at me.

oh! the names,. it's cool. there are no words to refer to other people impersonally, like "guy" or "lady". all young males are abuti (brother) all young females are ausi (sister) older men are ntate (father) and older women are 'me (mother). i like it. also everyone really does act like family. it's taken Madeline a week to figure out who's in her family and not, because all the brothers sisters cousins, distant relatives, neighbors, etc. all act like they are one family and take care of each other.

we made friends with 4 girls, they're all like 18 or 19, (but are in forms A and B...) and they are so funny. they didn't think there were mountains or trees in america, and if there were, they must be some alien species. also they think hiv/aids is only in lesotho and s. africa, and the rest of the world ignores it and doesn't care because it's not affected. they still don't believe us that it's in america. and it's treated likea n inevitable thing here. one girl said she tested negative, but by the next time she'll prob be + because it's just this inevitable thing that happens and you can't do anything about it. crap times up


this blog was looong!

p.s. love the emails, you are all bad friends it's true. and please send me christmas cards! oh! and someone in portland, can you send me cajun spice and sweet hungarian paprika from limbo!


love you all!!