today, pictures pheela

staff room on friday (of course there was a chicken wandering around when i went in)


Left to Right: Katleho, 'm'e moipoma (my former counterpart who just quit being a teacher in order to go back to school to get her high school degree), kori, myself, 'm'e moroesi (my new counterpart)


went out for the day with Ro, Cullen and John at John's town.


found this cave


cadbury assorted slabs of chocolate for sale at shoprite

my bicycle request was approved by the peace corps

SOOOO siked

Pictures pheela

View from near the school


My rondavel


Family's Compound


My toilet


Backyard


Roof of my brother's living quarters


Hen


Cheesin in my rondavel


An article featuring me graduating from training, another featuring me dancing during graduation and an article from the local paper about a man stabbing a policeman with a spear


Family duck


I hate these geese so much


Tiger


My brother's quarters and their "stove"


Storage

So as I write this, I’m hanging out in the VRC (Volunteer Resource Center) in Qacha’s Nek.
The VRC is a room, five feet by ten feet of what feels like a little bit of heaven. There’s a computer, a big bookshelf packed with a lot of classics, and electricity (even a lightswitch with a working light)! There’s also a flush toilet and a running faucet around the corner, and although neither of these things actually increases my quality of life by much, it makes everything here seem so much easier and more pleasant.
The reason I’m enjoying this comfort is because my dog bit me yesterday. I was attempting to apply tick/louse medicine to him, of which he’s terrified and a few minutes after trapping and pinning him, I attempted to pet him and he found his revenge by cutting my hand a tad. This is the kind of injury I wouldn’t even consider in America, but the Peace Corps has a pretty strict “dog bite” policy that requires me to get a Rabies shot for the most provoked bites (and I understand and appreciate the rule). Tiger (my dog) has been acting a bit weird recently and I figured I’d rather stay on the safe side.
So instead of writing lesson plans for tomorrow, I’m taking it easy on Qacha’s Nek and eating a little bit of cheese with some Frank’s Red Hot (thanks to a package from home!). This is definitely a luxury meal here, for better or worse.

On the Tsoelike Sweat:
This past weekend was the Tsoelike Sweat (it’s alliterative if pronounced correctly, this I promise). I met up with Gwen and hung out at Christina’s place in Ha Monteko (a 4 rand 4+1 ride out of the camptown) on Friday. Three other girls came over after finishing a backpacking trip (on their way back home) so we had a packed night at Christina’s (and even snuck in some good scary stories, provoked by a mix of local insects/herd boys/and strange episodes from the home front).
On Saturday Gwen, Christina, and I headed out to Au Plaas (part of Tsoelike in the same way Ha Sterling [where I live] is part of Tebellong) and met up with Chris, Ben, and Victoria. We hiked down the little canyon near Chris’ place and set up our Sweat Lodge right next to the river Chris lives near. We all went out and gathered some kindling/mild firewood to add to the stuff that Chris had bought from his school (hauling it down was not a lot of fun for my back). An hour later we had the fire blazing and a few rocks sitting inside accumulating heat.
After letting the rocks heat for a while, we put them inside our sweat lodge (constructed of two rain-flies from tents and a whole bunch of burlap bags stretched over the top). We read some poetry and Chris poured water over our coals and we got a nice sweat/steam going on inside. After doing this for a while we ran outside and went for a wonderful swim in the river which definitely invigorated all of us (it’s a little chilly in Qacha’s, maybe 65 or 70 degrees F outside on this day). We spent the rest of the night Braai’ing (BBQ’ing) and having ourselves a fair amount of drink and lots of good talk/hanging out. Most of us forewent the tents we’d constructed and chose to sleep outside (and even endured a middle of the night drizzle). We hiked out the next day and had a GREAT time over the course of the weekend.

On school matters:
I did recently find out that one of my coworkers (a teacher) impregnated a Form E student (senior year high school by American standards) last year (maybe the year before?). Apparently shortly afterwards he had an affair with another of my coworkers (a female teacher) and he reportedly beat her. She threatened to contact the police, but I don’t know how far all of that went, but the situation was “resolved” well before I came (she was probably shamed into keeping quiet).
My best friend at school, and my counterpart (PC sets up people in the community/job that are supposed to aide the transition of PCVs to their community/job) is leaving my school. She’s leaving because she’s going to take her COSC (senior level exam). This means that one of the most competent teachers I work with is leaving to return to school so she can practice for the equivalent of the SATs in America. Also of note is the fact that I am indeed the oldest teacher in my school (aside from the principal who teaches Sesotho only) out of 10. I am also only one of three of the ten teachers with a tertiary degree (this means most of the teachers in my school have the same degree that the students they’re teaching hope to obtain by the completion of school).
In other news, one of my students in Form C, A sophomore of high school, has dropped out due to pregnancy. Fortunately due to the young age of teachers at my school, we remain rather liberal (despite the fact that I teach for an Anglican Christian school) and even encouraged the student to return to studies. Unfortunately she has apparently teased several past impregnated girls so she probably will not return.
Another Form C student’s parent was murdered. Apparently his father had been after a married woman for a while, was beaten nearly to death (the family assumed they’d killed him) and continued to pursue the same woman. The second time the family, utilizing a spear was able to successfully (?) murder the boy’s father, so he’s now a double orphan. Unfortunately, this makes him one of the many at my school. Lesotho is supposed to reimburse at least partial tuition on these students (those who are double orphans) but they inconsistently come through on their promises. Fortunately, my school is rather liberal and will allow him to continue assuming that the government will pay (this is not true in all places).
Not that everything in school is sad and bad, there’s plenty of great stuff going on. The Form B’s are doing quite well in their quarter presentation (they have a big test every quarter… theirs is coming up next week). The Form A’s are working hard (their English is still pretty horrid). I have a hard time assessing the Form C’s because I only teach them Physics and English Literature (not language) so it’s hard to get a good general standing from them, but their summaries of the horrible British play we’re reading are pretty good.

On Vacation:
Looks like I’ll be heading to Bloemfontein (sp?) in South Africa for my first break (before April 6th I won’t be able to leave the country due to PC regulations). I’ll be crashing at a friend’s friend’s place thereabouts and will spend a fair amount of time between coffee shops, book stores and a movie theatre (none of which exist in the country in which I dwell) with Jack (and I have no idea who else is involved in this caper, it seems most people are heading to Durban, which rests on the coast of the Zulu Nation and is about as close and expensive for me to visit as Maseru, so I’ll definitely be heading over there at another point).

On actually arriving in Maseru:
Turns out the Rabies shot has to be done in two sessions (the first was today... I had three shots during preservice training) and another on saturday. So that means I'll be chilling here till then. AKA I'll be on the internet a bunch and reading a bunch and being really smelly (only brought one change of clothes cause I thought I'd only be here for an overnight)
SO IF YOU EMAIL ME AT BRETTMBURK@GMAIL.COM I'LL WRITE YOU BACK WITHIN A DAY UP TILL SATURDAY!

+1 week

the internet is real slow in the camptown, so only three pictures for now. they're older than the last set and I never uploaded them (and the computer picked randomly which ones to upload for whatever reason)
more in two weeks when I'm back in Maseru for more PC training








just got a load of packages, super siked. I also just mailed out letters to 9 different people. so everyone who's been slacking about writing to me needs to pick up the pace

one of my students dropped out because she was pregnant this week

another one's father was beaten to death by a family for being in love with a married woman

and so it goes

tsoelike sweat lodge this weekend
I'm siked!

4 months in Lesotho

Tiger (my dog) lounging:


My family's baby cow in my front yard (so cute, loves to run, so dumb)






Back yard (I have to walk this way to use my latrine)






Cooking rondavel/where my boabuti (brothers) sleep


View from halfway up the mountain I live on


Aids ribbon above my place. My littlest brother (tsepo) and my neighbor (mohapi) followed me up. I live right at the base of this part of the mountain.


The Boys (my brother is further away)


my whole village (the school and stuff is there...)




The pyramid that I summitted while taking these pictures (I had to hike up to where the picture was taken from, then down to the river, then up again to the top via the back side)


Cheesin


Lesotho's "wild life"


The river I jumped across on the way there (boulder hopped) and had to take off my shoes and socks and walk across on the way back.


View from the pyramid (the mountain in the foreground is where I took the first set of pictures from, those in the background are South Africa)






The river I have to cross (the road in the background is the closest road to me, it takes about 30 minutes to get to the point where this was taken, and 15 down and ten back up, the way back is a lot worse as you can tell by the descent, especially with all my groceries in my bag)


Hey Everybody

So it’s been quite some time since I’ve been able to do a full update, so I hope you don’t expect me to encapsulate everything I’ve been up to in this post (but I’m going to try).

As I write this, I’m in Maseru at the T-House (Transit house) which also doubles as the training center. It’s 7am and I’m enjoying being able to use my own computer. It’s the first time in 7 weeks that it’s had power! My solar backpack can’t charge laptops, so I’ve been able to use my kindle, iPod and cell phone and keep them more or less charged. By more or less I mean there’s been a few days (and at one point a week) where it rained and there was constant cloud cover during the day, so I was barely able to maintain my cell phone’s charge and had to rely on my battery charger for my cell phone (don’t worry, rechargeable batteries are being recharged right now).

First, I’ll start with what happened for me to get to Maseru, the capital of this beautiful country. I left class Thursday right after lunch, about 1:15 P.M. From there, I walked to the river, which takes about 45. Then I wait for the boat, figure about 15 minutes to wait for them to get to my side and then to cross. Then I wait between 10 minutes and an hour and a half for the taxi to leave (they have to have enough passengers, the taxi is about the size of a conversion van). It then takes about an hour to get to the Qacha’s Nek camp-town. Then I have to spend the night.
My other option is to skip the trip to Qacha’s Nek and get on the bus/sprinter when it passes White Hill (where the boats are) but then there’s a slim to none chance that I’ll be able to snag a seat.

QN (Qacha’s Nek) has a VRC (Volunteer Resource Center) with a computer and electricity that I can crash at from now on (and charge my stuff! Woo!). I can also stay at one of the volunteer’s sites in the area, I crashed at Christina’s this weekend and Clare was there too (a volunteer from Quthing), we had fun and ate grilled cheese (mm!). I have to wake up at 5:30 so that I can catch a 4+1 (think 4 people can fit in the car + 1 driver, as I’m sure you can imagine, fitting 3 full sized adults in the back of a car can lead to a tight fit) in to the camp town, get on the Sprinter (a very large, sometimes comfortable conversion van: Sprinter is actually a model name for Mercedes-Benz who produces them, feel free to Google yourself a picture). Then I usually sit there or wander around (after claiming a seat) for about an hour before we finally head out from QN.

At this point I can enjoy the scenery AND all of the seeming near-misses created by the driver going 80km/h over the tops of hills and around corners, while passing lots of cars. It’s quite exciting (read: nerve-wracking) if I don’t put my head into a book. The ride takes between 6 and 9 hours depending upon how many stops we make (dropping people off and always picking people up, even if they have to stand and squish, but you adjust to the close-nature of these rides relatively quickly).
What made the ride particularly interesting this last time was the 12 year old girl I sat next to. I was zoning out staring at the DVD of local music (the video’s are really really really strange) and almost asleep when I look over and see the girl with a phone that looks just like mine in her hand. This is a little strange because while the phone isn’t extraordinary, most Basotho children I’ve encountered opt for the absolute cheapest phone. She put it away. I checked my pockets a minute later and realized that my own phone was missing (and I remembered it being in the pocket closest to her). I asked her in English then Sesotho if she had seen my cell phone. She responded with no. I asked Clare, who was riding with me to call, but there was no service. After 20 minutes (and making sure that I had checked all around me, anywhere it could have been) we finally got to a place where I had service and my phone rang… in her pocket. I chewed her out vocally for a little and she spent the rest of the ride really embarrassed (the phone had probably fallen out of my pocket and she took the opportunity to upgrade). Oh well, at least I got it back and learned that I definitely have to secure stuff in my pockets if I’m planning on Z’ing.

Ok, so that’s what it’s like for me to get here. Fortunately, for about the same cost and travel distance I can go to Durban in South Africa, which has much much much better everything (even Matatielle [sp?] right on the other side of the border from me has much better selection than Maseru). Unfortunately, I can’t do this until another month, when I’ve finished Phase III of my training.

Things are going well at school. I teach 30 classes a week, at 40 minutes each. I was teaching 19, but after having to constantly explain basic science to our “science teacher,” I decided to take over, so I’m now a science teacher. Unfortunately my school has absolutely no supplies, so any experiments or explanations have to come completely from me. I don’t even have a syllabus for what I’m supposed to teach, as I have yet to acquire one from the PC (they also have a bunch of other materials). I’ve also started teaching Life Skills, which are all the things that they teach you in Health class in America, plus a lot of AIDs/HIV education.

In further school news, 6 out of the 40 kids cheated on my last test in Form B. They were the 6 lowest grades ANYWAY, I don't know why they think cheating off the not so smart kid next to them is going to help them, but it's impossible to keep them from eying their neighbors papers when they're all crammed in 3 or 4 at a desk. Fortunately, they're not creative enough to change the wording on the answers, so when I'm marking, picking out the copies (THEY'RE EXACTLY THE SAME) is pretty simple.

My counterpart (my cultural liaison with the school) is leaving. This is a major bummer for me, as she’s basically my best friend at the school. She’s leaving to go back to HIGH SCHOOL and take her COSC (the test you take to graduate from high school) in Maseru. This should tell you a lot about the state of my school. She’s very smart and I’m sure she’ll pass, and at my school she only teaches agriculture and Development studies to the secondary kids (8th grade through sophomore year of highschool in the US). This is still pretty strange, having a teacher who hasn’t passed high school teaching essentially middle school kids. And she’s definitely one of the better teachers at the school.

At school last week there was a frog in the staff room in the morning. Most people would assume that Africans wouldn't run out of a room screaming because of a harmless frog. Those people would be wrong. I had to escort the critter off the premises before they would return to the room. SOO strange how ok they are with spiders and insects and other animals always being around, but a little frog can scare them so much.

In unrelated community news, the river that I have to cross has been killing people. Three people died last week by drowning where I have to cross. One committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. The other incident involved three people crossing the river in a boat filled with supplies. The boat flipped over about halfway and only one of the guys made it to shore. The Basotho are infamous for not being able to swim (and thus being terrified of water). As a result of these deaths (and a few others further upstream involving similar situations) I’m going to try to teach Basotho river workers how to swim when the river gets lower. I could probably even use this as my secondary project, develop a self-perpetuating swimming club.

The hiking’s been a lot of fun. I get to bushwhack (hike where there are no trails) on virtually every walk, and get to climb rocks and stuff, it’s lots of fun and it only takes me about an hour to get to a spot where I see nothing manmade and no one.
As a result of my hiking and my limited access to fatty foods (there’s no chips or anything really at the store in my village) I’m down to about 200 lbs. My goal is to stay at this weight, which means I’m gonna have to up my intake of Rama (margerine) and home-made baked goods (I’ve been making all sorts of breads and brownies and stuff from scratch, I love it).

I've been learning relatively little Sesotho because everyone around me speaks english all the time. This is both great and sucks for obvious reasons.

Lots of reading at site, lots of hanging out and enjoying the quiet. Unless my family’s geese are being loud, in which case I have to restrain myself from strangling them.

Khotso, Pula, Nala
Brett.

Ah, Lesotho

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=white+hill,+lesotho&sll=-30.071471,28.427811&sspn=0.146773,0.219727&ie=UTF8&ll=-30.072659,28.461456&spn=0.073386,0.109863&t=h&z=13

I live just north of the big river there.

Hello fine folks at home.
For those of you keeping score, it's been about 3 months since I came to Lesotho and about 1 month since I arrived in Ha Sterling in Tebellong, where I live.
Teaching has been going well so far. It's slow work and takes a lot of adjusting.
Some days the kids are GREAT and pick up on everything I teach and understand all my words and sit in silence and everything is WONDERFUL.
Other days the kids are terrible and they don't understand my english or my concepts or anything and they get up and walk across the room to talk to their friends and it sucks.

I teach Form A1 and A2 (8th grade or so) in Literature and English Grammar (Combined 7 times a week for each class, so 14 classes)
I teach Form B (Freshman) in Language 3 times a week.
I teach Form C (Sophomores) in Literature 4 times a week.

The classes all read on a very low level compared to Americans and each class has between 50 and 65 kids. It's a struggle because they encompass every level (Advanced, medium and low) in the same class so I have to teach to all of them

My fellow teachers are great. I'm actually one of the oldest at 25 (there's another 25 year old), and very few of them have any sort of tertiary education (college/university). They had a party for me and I got to see how Africans drink (A LOTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT). I watched three guys down 2 cases of beer. A case here is 12 750 mL bottles (roughly the size of a 40). (I was not one of those guys, I was fine with my six pack). I do miss good beer terribly. If anyone can find a way to send me some gourmet beers, I'd love you forever.

The town I live in is great. It's very remote, and last weekend the river I have to cross was flooded so I could not come in to the camptown (where I am now). Fortunately there's a shop (very expensive) in my town and there's tons of fresh produce grown locally. I take about half a dozen peaches off the trees near the school and eat them every day. I can also buy fresh potatoes, eggs, corn, tomatoes, grapes, and currants locally for dirt cheap. I bought a 30 pound bag of potatoes for 35 rand ($3.75 US). They were great. I have already lost a bunch of weight (on the last notch of one of my belts) but still have a bit of a gut. There's virtually no way for me to get fats for foods, all the oils are sunflower oils and even that I don't use a lot of (unless I treat myself to french fries!)

I do lots of hiking in my area, as I live near the top of one mountain next to ranges and ranges of mountains. It's gorgeous. There's green everywhere, a big river (the Senqu or the Orange) and the people are wonderful. Today I met Koloi who speaks perfect english in a way that's almost unnerving compared to the accent I'm used to from my colleagues. I also met a doctor from the hospital, who also speaks english quite well and is a very knowledgable and cool dude who happens to be on the internet right next to me. He's from Cameroon and speaks Sesotho as well as I do (not very) but English and French (I'm gonna see if I can use him to practice). I hope to get a peace corps bike soon!

I have not received any letters in a month, as they're all in Maseru, which I won't be in till the end of March. Fortunately, my friend Gwen will be picking things up for me (I hope) in Maseru this weekend and I should see her next weekend at my peace corps welcoming party for the district, Qacha's Nek. I promise promise that I'll write you back, I just sent out a bunch of letters and hope to send out more next time I'm in town (bought a huge sheet of stamps and envelopes and I have TONS of free time, I read a book every day or every other day and still manage to get out and do stuff)

Anyway, before I head out, I have a little wish list:
Red and Green Crossword puzzle book (or any New York Times crossword puzzle books aside from the Black and White one which I have)
a good paperback dictionary
any books on crafts and skills I can develop with the little I have out here (my mom sent me a harmonica and book)
anything with lots of information in it, I'd love to learn more about science and math
The Believer (it's a magazine published by Mcsweeneys)
any books or magazines that you liked and think I would enjoy

WORD UP
Brett

New mailing address for BMB

Brett's internet is down, so I'm doing this little update for him.

Brett would like you to send your letters and packages here, to his new address.

Brett Burk, PCV
PO Box 361
Qacha's Nek, 600 Lesotho
Southern Africa

From what I understand, if you have sent him anything to his address in Maseru, he will still get it. However, it will just take awhile for him to make it back to the capital to get it.

So update your address book, people!

xo danie.

EDIT: PS.. Brett's lovely mama got him a subscription to the new yorker, so no need to send those anymore, but other magazines are lovely.

Few more days as a PCT

I just found out that Lesotho is technically a Fourth World Country. Check it on wikipedia.

I swear in as a PCV on Thursday morning.
I tested as intermediate-medium on my Sesotho language test (one more thing I can put on my resume! I speak two of South Africa's 11 official languages).
Things have been going really well here, I'm super excited to get out to site and start taking care of business.
Been reading a ton, plan to keep reading a ton.

I don't know when I'll be able to update this again (might be as much as a month). Write me letters! I'll write back and it will entertain me!

Love y'all
Brett

ps: check out the blogs on the right side of the page, they're from other people in my class and some will update a bunch (and you can see pictures and descriptions of events and the culture!)

Aloe and Cactii

These photos are not really organized:
Photo's taken right outside my training village:


Just after touching down in Lesotho

My new dog, Tiger:

My room for the next two years:

View from the front door of my new house:




Lots of exciting stuff:
We had a ton of AIDs/HIV training, because Lesotho has the third highest percentage of AIDs prevalence in the world. There are about 2 million people in the country, and 24% has AIDs, which means that somewhere around 500,000 people in the country have the disease. There is a very strong social stigma regarding AIDs here, to the point that you will never hear about people dying from the disease, instead you will hear dozens of cases of people dying from ?the common cold? or ?a broken finger? etc? anything but this highly stigmatized disease.
At the end of the sessions we were all tested, and the testing here is very different than the United States. They prick your finger and put a drop of blood on this little slip of paper that functions similarly to an American pregnancy test, and then you stare at the paper for 15 minutes and hope that the paper doesn?t change color. I was tested shortly after leaving the states (negative) as a result there was virtually no chance that I was going to test positive, and it was still pretty frightening to sit and stare at this paper. I can only imagine what it?s like for Basotho, who stand essentially a 24% chance of having the disease. There are state-sponsored ARVs, which can treat the disease, but a large portion of the population doesn?t know that they exist and that they actually help. These people believe that knowing their status won?t do them any good, which contributes to the stigma.
Moving on from the HIV talk, I?ve had a very exciting week.
On the 24th, we moved out of our CBT (community based training) village , and had a huge feast as a result. We prepared the day before (peeled a whole lot of vegetables) and had about a hundred people show up, including my CD (country director) Ted, who surprisingly speaks very little Sesotho. My friend Cullen said to one of the trainers, ?Ha Ke Na Matata,? Ted responded, ?That?s not Sesotho?. The nearby Bo-?m?e (married females) corrected him (It sounds just like Ha Ku Na Matata, which you may remember from the Lion King (did I post about this already?) and means ?No worries?. We danced some with some of the crazier townsfolk and sung a bunch and then peaced out to the TC (Training center)
We had a few drinks and something like 20 packages which had just arrived were dropped off. We waited a few hours and opened them on Xmas eve, I got a new pair of shoes from my wonderful girlfriend and some teas and assorted things from my mom which are greatly appreciated.
I slept outside on my travel hammock and it was something like 75 degrees out at night (I believe it was in the 90s otherwise).
Christmas day we cooked all our own meals and we ate really well? ?M?e Mamothe, who is in charge of training, went to South Africa and picked up our grocery list, so we had almost all of the trimmings of home, and there were a boatload of good cooks.
We hung out the next day (boxing day is a holiday here!) and on the 27th departed for our permanent sites.
I showed up at about 3 o?clock at the river (the Senqu river, also known as the orange river) and took a boat across with my stuff (which had to be bailed a little, and was essentially a row-boat with logs with boards attached that served as paddles). I re-met my counterpart (who is essentially in charge of making sure I?m not committing cultural faux pas?) and my ?M?e and my Ntate, who will serve as my host family (along with a few sisters and brothers) . I moved all my stuff in and spent the next few days meeting the community and exploring the area.
I went to church on Sunday for a wedding ceremony. I showed up at 11:40 for an 11 ceremony (my counterpart showed up late). The entire ceremony was conducted in Sesotho, so I understood very little, but the wedding ceremony seemed pretty traditional. That is, until after the I do?s I was told it was time for donations (this was about 12:30). They call for donations in groups (first they?ll announce a school, then another, then a profession, then various church organizations, then just the bo?m?e and bontate). This means that most people go up a few times and every time a group is called they sing a very invigorated 5 minute long song. This took approximately 2 and a half hours. Then they did a wrap up, I was introduced to the community and then we took off for the party. I sat at the table of honor, which initially made me feel weird (I thought it was because I was white) until I realized that one of my sisters (who I had not met yet) was the maid of honor and I think the bride was a cousin. We ate really well (all feasts entail an open invite to the community and lots and lots of food).
I spent the rest of my time in my village, which is called Tebellong, hanging out with my dog, Tiger, my host family and checking the place out. I love the site and I?m very excited to start teaching.
Next post will entail some more specifics about the school and community members, I just haven?t posted in a while, so I?m sorry if this wasn?t very exciting.

LOVE YALL
-Brett