Hello from Lesotho! This month's weather report is quite immediate! We're in the middle of a crashing thunderstorm. Let's hope our surge protector is working since this is my only opportunity to write before we drop down to South Africa first thing tomorrow for supplies. We're still having lots of sunny days with occasional rain systems and the, always gripping, Lesotho mountain electrical storms. Our cat dives under our bed when these demons strike and cannot be coaxed out until the noise is over. We went to Maseru this month and noted that the Lesotho lowlands were very dry with some maize crops showing real signs of stress. Ninety percent of the country's population lives in the lowlands, so some food shortages are a possibility. I read in the newspaper that one farm in the adjacent Free State, South Africa, hadn't had rain for 68 days The thunderstorm cells are quite random here, just like New Mexico where we reside in the States, and rainfall varies considerably from camp town to camp town. We'll keep our fingers crossed.

Lynn has our beautiful new computer up and running, so our students are getting their first look at the world according to Microsoft Encarta. Initial observations: they looked at pictures from California and did NOT know Mickey Mouse or other Disney characters (Lesotho does not have a McDonalds, either). To understand photos of Yellowstone's hot spring pools, we had to go to pictures of Hawaii's volcanoes shooting up geysers of red hot lava. Now we know that the center of the earth is hot and liquid. Pretty fun to see the wonderment on our students' faces. My woodshop has new floor tools trickling in (courtesy of Peace Corps SPA grants) and I am enjoying again the opportunity of teaching cabinet and furniture making to these young adults. The most basic lessons include working carefully and with precision - skills most young people here haven't had to draw on. Soon enough, though, they'll be seeing the beauty of a well cut right angle and a clean splined joint!

Lynn has another order of 15 glasses coming this week from her eye exam clinic project. Most are students. I perhaps alluded to this earlier, but with an AIDS pandemic swirling around us, the major complaint has been that there are no condoms available. Lynn and I purchased a simple dispenser and have access to condoms for 60 cents a hundred (!) We put up the dispenser in our conference hall here at the Farmer Training Centre and 700 have been distributed in two months. (People are quite shy about their personal lives, of course, so this is a good anonymous location.) We've been dismayed at how much of the AIDS initiative in Africa has been meetings and more meetings. So we're trying to do our small part to give these wonderful Basotho what they need to stay alive. This tiny effort, which takes five minutes a week, may be the most important contribution we make in the Peace Corps.

I'd be a liar if I denied that major reading opportunities aren't one of the most delicious side benefits of this job! Long evenings with no TV, unscheduled Delays, breakdowns, weekends rain cancelled events, etc. leave generous time to read. Experienced Vols ALWAYS pack a good book. Recent reads include Robert Kaplan's An Empire Wilderness on the strains in the American social fabric. Tom Friedman's popular The Lexus and the Olive Tree on globalization, good and bad, and a hair raising account of the first descent of the entire Amazon from 18,000' in Peru to the sea in one man kayaks. The author is Joe Kane; the book and its exact title have already disappeared into the Peace Corps book reader's universe to be read again and again and again. Tip to new volunteers: bring a few books from the States pass 'em on. Our one indulgence is a New Yorker subscription. Fabulous. Pass 'em on...

Finally this month we change country directors. Carol Chappell (RPCV Russia) who has done a terrific job of rebuilding Peace Corps Lesotho after the political upheavals of 1998 is retiring and we are welcoming Christine Djondo (RPCV Cameroon) and her family to share our hopes and dreams in Africa!

Eric and Lynn
Qacha's Nek