Donations to the Poor Mountain Girl Living in a Hut

So, this list is mostly for my mom. But if others want to use the following information in a way that is beneficial to me, i will not complain.

Package Wonders
goldfish crackers/ cheeze-its
pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, pistachios, almonds (tamari roasted!), cashews
dried fruit (mango, apricot, and cranberries are faves but all are good. except prunes, not so into those)
candy (dark chocolate, nerds, skittles, starburst, cookies n cream bars, andes mints, reeses, chewy spree, sour straws, sour patch kids, etc etc etc)
that cheesy soup mix stuff from bear creek or whatever
crystal light or other drink mix (all flavors except orange, all brands except Tang. i can actually get that here.)
salmon/tuna steaks from t. joes
salsa con queso dip
mini whiskey bottles
fun food mixes (just add water type stuff: scone mixes, soup mixes, etc)
other fun trader joesy type foods, or snack type foods
cholula
magazines (make magazine, scientific american, wired, intouch, us weekly)
glitter (fine grain, a range of colors (unmixed))
pencils, pens, erasers, rulers, etc. to give away to my students for being good
new music! data cds are ok because i have access to computers
tv shows (30 rock, coupling, how i met your mother, the office)
new anime (dan i think that one's up to you, unless other readers also enjoy anime....)
movies (any and all, pretty much)
love letters
photos

Slap that Baby, Make him Dance

So, i'm back in country! I'm in the capital now until mid-month, there's a slew of conferences and things i have to attend here before i go back to my hut. Which is good, i'm getting a slow step-down from America. First i went to Durban, in South Africa for 4 days or so. we stayed at an amazing hostel right on the beach about 45mins outside of the city, which was nice. it was just slow and relaxed and i sat on the beach all day. I got off the plane from san diego in johannesberg (about 30 hours of travel time), then hopped on a 7 hour bus to durban, then met some friends at a restaurant there where i changed in the restaurant bathroom, passed off my bags to some friends that were going back to the hostel, and went straight out to a club to go dance, and was up til oh-dark-thirty in the morning. The next day (new years eve) my immune system, after a month of near constant abuse, decided to say fuck you, and shut down.
new years eve i spent on a stool in some club trying to get the energy to dance to like half a song, then going to sit back down, and new years day i woke up with no voice, swollen lungs, and mucus everywhere. i was a wreck. so i stayed as horizontal as possible the next few days, on the beach or in bed in our closet-like room in the hostel. I'm still kind of gross and mucusy but am slowly getting better. unfortunately STUPID M_F-ING METH HEADS have ruined my life here as well. South Africa just made sudafed no longer over-the-counter, so i can't get any decongestant.

Oh! and we had a twilight-zone sort of moment in Durban, we were on a taxi, trying to get to the taxi rank where the long distance taxis are, so we could get back to lesotho and the driver and the conductor of our taxi had never heard of lesotho before! I understand americans not knowing, but them not knowing was like a californian having never heard of nevada. it's totally crazy. So we pulled out a map and showed them the country of lesotho, you know, that country that is encased within their home country of south africa. So they went to the police station to ask them if they'd heard of Lesotho, and how to get there. We were so exasperated. finally we got dropped off where we started, with a refund, and had to try again with a new taxi.

I'm gearing up for a week of different conferences here in the capital. One starts tomorrow, the "all volunteer conference" where all 80-90 volunteers in Lesotho come together to do god knows what (i haven't attended one of these before, so i have no idea what it entails). and I've been asked to emcee! woo! i guess i'm entertaining... unfortunately i'm only funny when in small groups/not on the spot, so i don't know if i'll accept the gig or not. my public speaking skillz are not that great.

So I'm going to start some sort of soccer program with my neighborhood when i go back. I received a very generous donation of three soccerballs from a friend in America, and I'm excited to go back and play! I think I'll keep one at my house, one at Vic's house (her place borders the soccer field) and one at school. oh! and Jason, if you are reading this 1. thanks! and 2. i lost the address for your music server, can you email it to me? rereilly at gmail

It's now time for... quote of the week! this gem comes from Ms. Britney Spears
"Love me, hate me, think what you will about me, but all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to if you seek Amy."
once you puzzle that one through, you will be on step closer to nirvana, and one-ness with the divine essence of the mulitverse.

There Are So Many White People Here

I've been informed that i should be keeping my potential readers abreast of my current activities.

I"M IN AMERICA!!!!!!!!
my tummy hurts and i want to purchase everything i see.

my cell for while i'm here is 760 908 9976, i realize i'm not supposed to just post my phone number online, because that paves the way for stalkers and telemarketers, but since i'm in a crazy mood i'm just doin it.

At any rate, give me a call!

Public Transport, How I Love Thee

i almost missed the bus because i was dilly dallying around my hut, i had a premonition that i wasn't meant to ride that claptrap bus. I had a potential ride later in the day, but victoria convinced me to take the bus to make sure i get to the capital for thanksgiving, and not spend it alone in my hut.
So anyways I had to run up a mountain with my huge backpack to flag the bus down on the street, luckily i got one of the last seats, next to an obese but friendly and nice smelling 'me. Then the bus went and sat around outside someone's house for like an hour while the driver did god knows what. Then we finally got on the road, and were hauling ass when i hear a big thumpy squelchy noise. I figure it was nothing because we kept going, but then the driver stopped and reversed back to the scene of the squelch, and apparently we had run over a donkey! it was all in a pile on the road with it's donkey friend sniffing it. The driver then had a shouting match out the door with the donkey owner, they were going too fast for me to follow what they were saying, and then we vroomed off.

Then we picked up a bunch more passengers and i ended up with a smelly blanket man standing in the aisle next to me, leaning over my seat with his icky blanket all up in my face. ugh. so i took a sleepy pill and passed out for an hour or so, and woke up to a different man sitting next to me in the aisle vomiting into his bucket hat, and swaying his head so it kept almost bumping my thigh. I tried to shrink away but the lady on my other side was taking up both her seat and part of mine, so i curled around and kind of side-spooned this random lady trying to keep vomit man away from me. Luckily Basotho are used to excessive physical contact with strangers so she didn't seem to mind me cuddling with her. Someone gave vomit man a plastic bag to put his vomit hat in, which he then left UNDER MY SEAT, and exited the bus. I was wearing flip flops and couldn't put my feet down on the floor for the next 3 hours because vomit juice was leaking out of the bag all over the floor beneath me. At least people opened the windows for once, so it didn't smell too bad. Or maybe i'm just so used to bad smells in general this didn't bother me too much.

Then I got to town, went to Colleens, showered for a year, and had some amazing thanksgiving feastiness! And then went swimming in a pool! I drank too much beer though.

The End.

Chairman Mao has been haunting my dreams

4 Nov

So we have to fill out these trimester report forms every few months, which consists of a sheaf of papers asking us to quantify exactly how many people we've helped and in what way. the numbers all get compiled and sent to washington d.c. where peace corps can be like "ok, exactly 4,000 15-24 year olds were told to use condoms. We need that number to be 6,000 by 2011" or something. At any rate for my 1st trimester report i had all sorts of stuff to write down with teaching, science kit workshops, childrens' health day, debates, etc. and felt good about my service here. For the one i just filled out, i had NOTHING to write, other than teaching. It was pathetic! ugh, I apparently lost all vigor after winter break. Then i remembered: oh, yeah! I'm at school for an ungodly number of hours every day with double shifting. Also, all sports, clubs and debates were cancelled for the forseeable future because there's no actual after/before school time in which to do these. There's only 2 weeks of classes left, then exams, then home! Then i'll be back all refreshed and excited to get shit done next year. Also new ED volunteers arrive 14 nov and i'm helping with training! I get to do a session on the use of visual aids, nutrition, and something else i think. also i get to mooch free lunch!

I was walking home with my coworker yesterday and after spending 20 minutes telling her i will not get her a job in USA, nor will i just pass her CV around, but she's welcome to visit me and do that herself anytime. Then she told me if/when she visits america she doesn't want to go where a lot of black people are because they're crooks. I then gently pointed out that she was black. THen i thought about it, and the only example Basotho have seen of blacks and whites coexisting (if they've seen any) is South Africa. So high density black areas are mostly all in teh townships wehre people are dirt poor and so of course there's crime. She's convinced white people don't mug/carjack/hold up people. I tried to tell her, "yeah we (as in whiteys) do that too" but like most things i try to tell anybody here, she didn't listen/ doesn't believe me. It's just all so uphill trying to tell anybody something they don't already know/suspect. It's also ridiculously difficult to convince people that Lesotho and S. Africa are not the only countries with HIV/AIDS epidemics and that (gasp) we even have it in America, the land of sunshine and lollipops!

In other news, I almost got mauled by a dog the size of a large wheelbarrow yesterday. I've been walking past that motherfudger at least twice a day for almost a year now and yesterday it decides to attack me! I had to sprint for a large pile of rocks to grab one and threaten to crush in the hellbeast's skull with and it shied away at the last moment but kept barking and growling just out of reach and i had to walk slowly and calmly away. Then when i got home my knees almost collapsed i was so freaked out. The dogs here do not mess around when attacking. Stupid dog, now i'm afraid to use that shortcut to school anymore. I'm considering getting a molamu (herdboy stick) to carry with me so i can smack it if it tries to consume me again.

Speaking of near death experiences, weekend before last I was in the capital and some friends and i decided to find a park to hang out in for the afternoon. We heard about one over by the taxi rink (a hellhole of disgust with really good deals on jewelry/pirated dvds etc.) so we go, and the entrance is kind of down a hill off the road, through a gate guarded by children (our first tip-off) then we entered this parallel universe of rolling hills and bit trees and slides and swings that was completely run by children. It was like Lord of the Flies. As soon as we entered (not only the only whiteys but also the only people over 15 years old) I noticed all the kids cock their heads toward us, like they were sniffing the air, sizing us up. We decided to be brave and continue and chose a corner at the back of the park to sit. As soon as we sat down we noticed all the kids sloowwly migrating over to the slides closest to us. Then finally their leader approached, a scrappy little boy, probably around 13 years old, and asked us for beer or sweets. As soon as he came up 20 other kids rushed over, then 30 more, so we were COMPLETELY surrounded and I kept thinking of this Joyce Carol Oates short story i read where this woman goes on a hike in a nature preserve and 15 small children attack and maul/rob/de-clothe her. So Vicki and I grab sticks and threatened to beat them (a normal occurrance here, i threaten small children almost daily) and we tried to tell them that we have no sweets and they're too young for beer and blah blah. They all stood just out of stick range and stared at us (people here, children and adults, have an amazing ability to/interest in staring at us while we go through normal daily routines, I've gotten used to being a monkey in their zoo) So finally two basotho friends who were meeting up with us arrived and helped extricate us from the mob. The children then followed us across the park, insisting that we wouldn't be able to get rid of them, and they were going to follow us around forever. Luckily they stopped at the gate and just stared after us like hungry souls (who also enjoy yelling obscenities)

So I had a dream the other night that I named my dog "Hooked on Phonics" and that I called her "Phonics" for short. Since I always follow my dreams, I've officially renamed Spots/Spads/Professor Picklesworth. I now dub her phonics.


12 Nov
So the "bell system" at my school consists fo a form B student with a watch and a hand bell. This means we're all at the mercy of a student to decide when classes change. I like to get in fights (jokingly) with the bell boy, telling him he's late, or early. He always responds with something like "the times are not similar, madam" and i say, "yeah because you're WRONG" but he's a pretty stand up kid, though. always stands strong and doesn't let me phase him . He does lengthen periods if he's into what we're learning/isn't done done with the classwork, and he shortens boring periods. Today he's m-f-ing 20 minutes late though! The classes are only 40 minutes long to begin with. Argh. Luckily I'm done with the syllabus and am only doing review games so it's ok to miss a class.

I'm a Cardboard Cutout!

the other maths teacher, N. Moalosi
'Me Tebello, geography prof

I am the braai master (with a school shirt!)

quick! where's waldo?

N. Moshoeshoe (named after the first king! I'm not sure if he's a decendant or not...)

Me with Ntate Letsatsi (lit. trans. Mr Sunshine)

Me with Ntate Chelete (lit: Mr. Money)

My students. They're being "badass niggers", and yes, they learn these words from American rap songs.

My school!

Into the Wilds

hiking trip photos:

the chief of Ha Jobo, (he's sitting outside his kitchen hut, where we slept) (m-fing kitchen huts smell like smoky bullshit and now my sleeping bag is forever tainted because the basotho never developed chimney technology)After getting minorly lost and hiking for about 10 - 10 1/2 hours, we were left on the precipice at the very very top of the mountain in the background, by that V where the two mountains come together, and had to hike to where this pic is taken. i thought i might die with jelly legs of doom