Dear Friends and family:

This is my first shot at an Internet connection since I arrived in Africa and my hands are shaking. There is so much to say and so little time.

I arrived here in Lesotho late on June 2nd. We were met at the Bloemfontein airport by a group of PC staff and our Peace Corps country director, Jean McGrath Thomas. They sang a traditional African welcome and loaded our bedraggled group into vans for the 30 km trip to Mazenod, Lesotho, the site for our first two and final three weeks of training. This training site is an old Catholic monastery that has been converted into a conference center. We each have tiny rooms, formerly monk’s cells. Everything is quite basic; there is no central heat but small space heaters to warm our classrooms. The bathrooms are indoors (a real luxury in these parts), unheated and communal. The food is simple, quite strange and plentiful – more about food later if I don’t lose this connection.

A little about this group of volunteers; there are 28 of us divided into two general groups, Community Health advisors and Community Economic Development advisors. Community Health advisors include volunteers with backgrounds in Permaculture, Nutrition and HIV/AIDS. There are 15 in this general CH group. I am in the Community Economic Development group. We are divided into Community Development Advisors, Youth Development Advisors and Business Management Advisors. I am a Business Management Advisor. The credentials of both groups are varied and impressive. We have fresh out of college volunteers with degrees ranging from furniture design and crafts to nutrition to third world diseases. There are seasoned executives and health care workers, two lawyers and several PhD’s. Our ages range from 23 to 75. Our 75 year old is an energetic female entomologist. This is her forth trip to Africa as a medical / health volunteer. She is inspiring all of us.

Our training is both interesting and intense. It is divided into four sections: language, culture, health and safety and technical training. We start each morning by singing both the Lesotho and American national anthems. The Lesotho anthem is beautiful. It is sung in traditional African polyrhythmic harmonies with overlapping time signatures. You should have heard us at first. Our trainers, mostly native Basotho, were in stitches we sounded so bad. This music that comes so naturally to them is really tricky. We are, however, quite determined and getting better. Music in such an integral part of this culture. We have about 15 native Basotho trainers and they begin many sessions with high-spirited songs and dances that pertain to whatever it is we are about to learn. Really, they could professional entertainers – they are great. Their performances always produce wild applause and whistles from us – we love it!

We spend hours every day trying to learn this inscrutable (so far) language. We are in very small groups for language classes – four students to one teacher. They switch us around depending on our progress. We are all finding it very difficult.

Our health and safety classes are facilitated either by one of the two doctors on the PC staff or by the PC national security officer. The national security officer is an ex-marine whose previous post was security officer for six US embassies. He really knows his stuff. Basically, we are learning survival, evasion and escape. In addition to personal safety we’ve been taught an Emergency Action Plan that coordinates our activities in case things go really bad. PC volunteers have been evacuated from Lesotho twice in the past. The record for the safety of PC volunteers is excellent and it is due, to a great part, to the training we receive.

If it sounds like I am pleased with this training, believe it – I am. The Peace Corps is not scrimping on the quality of either the trainers or the training program. I feel that I am in very good hands and learning what I need to know to be both safe and effective in the assignment I will soon be given.

The culture classes are, perhaps the most fascinating of all. This culture is so different from ours. The list of do’s and don'ts seems almost endless. For instance, all washing is done by hand and it is absolutely forbidden to wash dishes in the same basin in which you wash clothes. Also, everything is dried outside but you must never hang underwear outside. If you do hang it on the line you must put a towel over it so no one can see it.

The plight of women in this country is dreadful, at least by our American standards. In this patriarchal society women are treated as commodities and have few rights. Women are legal minors under the law and cannot negotiate credit, buy or own land, have bank accounts etc. without their husband’s consent. Unmarried or widowed women fall under the control of a male guardian, a brother – in –law or uncle. Women are sold into marriage. The bride price, or lobola is paid by the husband’s family and often has dreadful ramifications for the women. Often fathers-in-law feel they have the right to have sex with their son’s wife – after all, he paid for her. Women’s sexuality should be completely invisible. They are taught to never initiate sex. They are to be submissive, passive and respecting to their husbands. Women are told nothing of sex before their marriage. Men, on the other hand, prove their manhood through sex. They are expected to have multiple partners and in this HIV/AIDS ridden nation the gift many grooms bring to their brides is a death sentence. 55% of the infection rate is among women.

We are receiving extensive training on the HIV/AIDS issue and I hope to send out a future email on that topic alone.

On a more positive note, we had a delightful surprise at the end of our first week of training. U.S. Ambassador Robert Loftis invited us all to his house for a welcoming party. It was wonderful. He was charming, informative and a gracious host. His home was beautiful; filled with treasures he and his wife (who unfortunately was in the hospital and could not attend) had collected during their 24 years in the Foreign Service. We were all completely impressed, made to feel quite important to our country’s efforts in this country and left the party elated and encouraged.

Did I mention this isn’t exactly easy? Getting around is difficult. Communications are difficult. We are surrounded by poverty and death and the problems seem almost insurmountable. No matter what we do it will be a tiny drop in a huge bucket of woes. But we can’t just give up. This country really wants our help. Last week representatives from the villages, organizations and ministries that have requested volunteers visited the training center. There were sadly more of them than there are of us to fill positions. And all the positions are so in need of help. There were three different jobs that really appealed to me. I wish I could do them all. One was to help a group of women who have started a weaving cooperative market their products. They have few business skills but incredible weaving skills. Their products are beautiful. Another man and women represented an organization of a group of diverse individual businesses called the Matible Business cooperative. They want, in effect, to have a chamber of commerce but don’t know how to organize it. They also all need training in basic business management, pricing and record keeping. There were also several villages represented by people that want to attract tourists. This country has some incredibly beautiful and interesting areas that offer prime opportunities for eco-tourism. So much to do so few volunteers is the reality of the situation here.

I am now at the end of our third week of training and am living in a small village called Bokone. It is a very poor but picturesque place without electricity, central heat of running water. I live with a family in a seperate small room that has a two burner gas stove fueled by a big, scary gas cylinder. I am trying very hard not to blow myself up (-: The cylinder also fuels a gas heater that we have been warned to never run at night. Getting out of my sleeping bag in the morning is always the biggeat challenge of the day - it is cold here at night but beautiful, sunny and dry during the day. During my first week here the M'e (mother) taught me how to cook some of the locally available foods like steamed bread (delicious) and lesheleshele(a sorgum gruel-very nutritious)and the local vegetables. I am now on my own and am in the city of Maseru today to buy food supplies for the coming week. This Internet cafe was a sight for sore eyes. It is my first stop.

I really like life in the village. It is simple and wholesome. The villagers are delighted to have PCV's staying there-there are 11 of us, all Community Economic Development volunteers in Bokone. We bring in much needed income. In the morning we all walk from our various homes to the chief's house for classes. The language classes are conducted in Sesotho and no one in my home speaks English so the only Engilsh I hear is in the technical, cultural, safety and health classes. The language is coming slowly but it is coming.

There is so much more to tell but my time is running out so that's it for now.

Stay well, stay safe and please keep me in your thoughts and prayers.

Snail mail is great so please don't hesitate to write(-:
Peggi

Dear Friends and Family;

All is well here in Lesotho. The “total immersion” phase of my training is over. I left the Village of Bokone five days ago and went directly to the village where I will be working for the next two years. I just returned from there to the monastery in Mazenod for the last ten days of training and the much anticipated and feared LANGUAGE EXAM. It is next Saturday. These last few days are intense language study as our trainers try to prepare us for the test.

It’s been an eventful few weeks and I want to tell you everything.

We left Bokone in grand style. The village threw a great Feast for us. The Peace Corps provided all the food. Preparing food for 500 people without refrigeration, running water or electricity is quite a trick and the women of Bokone really knew how to pull it off. I worked with the M’e’s(Mothers) on the food prep mostly because they are all my buddies now and also because I wanted to see how they did it. The day before the feast we peeled, chopped and shredded several hundred pounds of vegetables which were stored in big tubs overnight. Early the next morning the cooking began. Great black cast iron cauldrons were filled with oil and set over wood fires outside. The chicken was cooked in these. In various buildings within the Chief’s compound we put together salads, cooked moroho (a vegetable mixture) and prepared baked beans.

The village men’s part in this was to put up the tent. There had been some serious joala brewing going on all the previous week – joala is a strong sour tasting brew made from sorghum and yeast. The guys started dipping into this at about 7:30 a.m. It took 30 men 5 hours to get the 20x30 foot tent up. They were having a great time.

When the feast began we, the 11 PCV’s, were brought to the three-sided tent and seated with the chief and some other PC dignitaries. The villagers sat on the ground in a huge semi-circle in front of the tent. Festivities began with native dances by the village maidens. They wore traditional string skirts. They were shy and beautiful and danced with both rhythm and grace. The program continued with marvelous Basotho music sung by various village groups and lots of speeches. About half way through the program we heard this low chanting coming from behind the tent. This was not on the program. The men had decided to go, put on some wild warrior-type costumes and entertain us with tribal war dances. They were, I must say, all skunk drunk. It was the best part of the program. They were leaping in the air, stomping their feet, brandishing spears (sticks, actually) and doing lots of fearsome war cries. Several of them kept falling down. The crowd loved it. Women would run out to them and do this “adoration dance” around them trilling that high uniquely African call. Then the food was served. We, as the guests of honor, ate first followed by all the men then the women and lastly the children. When we realized how the eating order would be we all felt bad. The children just stood patiently by with big hungry eyes waiting for their turn to eat. They waited for over an hour. Our PC directive is to not try to change the culture here but, I’ll tell you, some of the cultural realities here are very hard to standby and watch. There was no chicken left by the time the children ate. I saw some of them eating the bones from their mother’s plates! Late in the afternoon we all said fond goodbyes to our village families, returned to Mazenod for one night and were taken the next day to our job sites around the country.

O.K. so here’s the scoop on my job. Actually, I have two jobs. The first is to work with the Ministry of Tourism to develop a cultural village and tourist attraction at the site of the birthplace of the great Moshoeshoe I, the revered founder and father of Lesotho. He was born in the beautiful but remote Village of Menkhoaneng in the northern mountains of Lesotho. The second part of my job is to work with a group of farmers in the Village next to Menkhoaneng, Mate, to establish a commercial nursery cooperative. They grow fruit trees and want to expand their product line and have both a retail and wholesale operation. They need a business plan and training in basic business procedures.

Both of these opportunities are really exciting to me, especially the cultural center. So, with my job description in hand and the names of the village chiefs and some other contacts in both villages, I loaded my stuff into a PC Range Rovers and with one of our drivers, Ntate Majara, headed up north. The village of Menkoaneng is located in the mountains above the beautiful Hlotse Valley. We turned off the main road onto a dirt road that leads to Lesotho’s gorgeous Ts’ehlanyane National Park. About 21 km down this road we turned off the road altogether and simply started driving up the mountain. I had been told there was no road to the village but I was thinking no paved road. There is actually no road at all! It was the single most hair-raising four-wheel drive experience of my life. Majara was fearless. He took that vehicle through gullies and along ledges and up sheer rock faces that I would have sworn could not be done. He found my new home, a family compound pretty much carved out of the side of the mountain. It is beautiful up there. My house is a traditional Basotho rondavel. It is a round structure made of stones with a thatched roof. The inside walls are plastered in the traditional way with a mixture of mud and cow dung. They are painted a pretty blue. The building is 13 feet in diameter – it seemed quite large after my place in Bokone and the high conical thatched roof gives it a particularly open feeling. It has two small windows positioned to catch both the sunrise and the sunset. As I walk out my front door I’m greeted with a spectacular view of the valley below. It has absolutely no amenities but tons of ambience and I love it.

We arrived late and were greeted by several representatives of both the Ministry of Tourism and the Lesotho Highlands Development Association (LHDA). It was Friday so they, after giving me an overview of the project, said they would see me on Tuesday to take me back down to the road and show me how to catch the first of three buses to Mazenod. I was on my own.

The next morning two village elders visited me. These two old wizened men grilled me in Sesotho. When I answered them in Sesotho they would say”Bua Sesotho!” (Speak Sesotho). They are so unused to hearing any accent to their language that they couldn’t understand me even when I was speaking their language! After a pretty comical but exhausting two hours I think they were satisfied at least with my credentials if not with my mastery of their language. They reported back to the chief and a Pitso or village gathering was called for the next day to introduce me to the village. I stayed up almost all night preparing my talk. The M’e of the house speaks pretty good English and she helped me with both my pronunciation and grammar and let me practice on her until she could understand me.

The next morning we headed to the chief’s place. There were four chairs placed upon a little hill and about 150 people gathered in a big semi-circle at the foot of the hill. I sat between the chief and an elder who could speak English. There were some introductory remarks by the chief and elders then I spoke. I told them how happy I was to be here at this beautiful and historically important place, the “Bethlehem of Lesotho”. I told them that I came from America where we revere our forefathers just as they revere the great Moshoeshoe. I described the cultural village we would build together to honor their great king and to bring jobs and money to the village. I said the first phase of this project must be a road! (All of this information came from the approved plan of the Dept. of Tourism which I had received upon arrival) There was a lot of trilling and waving especially at the part about the road. Then I answered questions – this part I did in English with the English-speaking guy to my left translating. They told me to leave then. I went back to my rondavel wondering if I had really screwed up. The Pitso went on for several more hours. When the Pitso finally broke up people started stopping by to introduce themselves. I had said in my talk that I looked forward to meeting every one of them and they were taking me at my word. One of the most interesting people to stop by was the village witch doctor or “sangoma”. She, it turns out is my next-door neighbor. Her compound is about 100 yards down the mountain. I had heard beautiful eerie chanting and drums for the previous two nights and wondered where it was coming from. One of the children of my family said it was the “spirit people being called”. It was, of course, coming from her place. She took me to her compound and showed me her “clinic”. I felt like I had stepped into a scene from “Harry Potter”. It was in a beautiful rondavel and was filled with herbs and potions and magic things. There was a big owl that was like what a taxidermist would have just before it was stuffed. She put it on her arm like a puppet and said it was very powerful magic. There were black cast iron cauldrons and drums and skins of animals. Her potions and herbs were on shelves mostly stored in old snuff tins. It was fantastic in every sense of the word.

My dreams that night were very strange. The next morning I was sitting in front of my hut (yes, rondavels are referred to here as “huts”) admiring the view when my M’e came out of her house (cinderblock square buildings are referred to as “houses”) carrying a sledgehammer and a shovel. I asked her what she was doing and she said, “Today we build the road”. I grabbed my walking stick and followed her to where the entire village was gathered similarly equipped to begin carving a road out of the mountain. It had to be seen to be believed. Women with babies tied to their backs hacked away at the mountain, filled baskets with stones and moved them to fill in crevices. After I left the pitso it was decided to have a 15-day work project. From 8am till 1pm all the villagers that are not herding animals will work on the road. These people are incredible.

Ntate Setsomi, one of my original visiting elders and the chairman of the village cultural center committee, decided then that he should take me along with my M’e whose name is Matjeeka, to the next village, Mate, to meet the chief there. He said he would get his horse and meet us at our place. When I saw him coming with his horse, I went into my hut (I love saying “hut”J) and got a carrot for his horse. I handed it to him and he thanked me solemnly (he is a very solemn kind of guy) and began to eat it! I said “Would you like a little chocolate to go with that carrot?” and gave him half my chocolate bar. In perfect Basotho style, he mounted his horse and Matjeeka and I, like a couple of sqaws followed him on foot. Oh well, when in Rome….It was a long and very strenuous trek across the side of the mountain to the next village. At one point we were going through some tall grass and Matjeeka said, “You must watch for snakes here”. I said, “Are they dangerous snakes?” She turned very seriously to me and said, “You must not let that snake bite you. You must try to kill it with a rock.” Oh my God!!! The only rocks to hit any snake I see will be those kicked up by my boots as I run screaming in the other direction! To say I was on the lookout for snakes for the rest of the trek is a huge understatement. My eyes never left the area around my feet. My Leki walking stick was at the ready every step of the way to ward of the filthily beasts. It took almost two hours to get to the village, the site of my other “office”. I really need a horse. At one point we had to wade across the shallow part of a river. Once again Matjeeka said, “Watch for snakes here. They are very bad ones. They will squeeze you.” My mind flashed to the Tarzan film where the Lord of the jungle struggles with the giant python in a river. By the time we got to the chief’s place I was a wreck. Oh, and by the way, he wasn’t there! We met with a few elders, said we would stop by again (!!!) and made the long trek back home. My enthusiasm for my second job is seriously on the wane.

Well, my dears, once again I have gone on too long. I have a great fear that Internet opportunities are going to get even scarcer for me once I’m permanently up in those mountains but I will do my best to get to a computer once in a while. As soon as possible I am going to get a solar panel and battery set up so that at least I can use my laptop and charge a cell phone.

May this letter find you in good health and good spirits.

Love,
Peggi

Hi Everybody,

Well, first things first. Mother and baby are doing just fine. His head is still a little Nefertiti-looking but we took him to the clinic and the doctor said he’s fine. He is totally adorable. His name is Motlatsi. It means “helper”. All Basotho names have meanings. My name here, which was given to me when I lived in the village of Bokone is Nthabiseng. It means “rejoice with me”. It is also the custom here to take on the surname of the family with whom you live so my last name is Qualehang. The “Q” is pronounced with that famous Bantu “click”. Another culturally interesting thing about names in Lesotho is that they can change during your lifetime. Motlasti’s mom Madineo will now be known as Mamotlatsi or “mother of Motlasti. A woman is almost always named after her firstborn son. Perhaps my next email will focus on interesting cultural aspects of this country - there are many and some of them are really strange!

But today, I would rather cry on your shoulder about my Internet woes and apologize for not answering any of your wonderful responses to my emails - it has simply been impossible. Using AOL here has been a nightmare. I can get into it sometimes but cannot respond to your emails or send out new ones. I sent out letter #4 from the resource center in Hlotse on a landline but at $3.00 per minute, I had to make it quick. I’m in an Internet café now in South Africa and hope to send this on my new Hotmail account. The address this comes from (pjtpeacecorp@hotmail.com) will be the one I’ll use for the rest of my time here so please put me in your book (-: In fact, a quick reply to this will assure me you are getting this and that I’ve got your address correct. Another really unfortunate AOL happening is that I know some of you sent me notes in August. I saw them in there on one of my five minute connections but didn’t have a chance to open them. Today, when I got into AOL they were gone!)-: Just mail starting in September was in there soooo if you still have a note you sent in August in your “old mail” folder could you send it again? I almost cried when I realized I wouldn’t be able to get these wonderful messages from the home front. I can’t tell you how much it means to me to hear from you. Not only do your words of encouragement make me feel absolutely wonderful but your letters are my bridge to a reality that enables me to deal with so much that is so challenging and strange here.

So much has happened in the last few weeks it’s hard to decide what to tell you. The Cultural Village project is going well. The reconstruction of the original rondavel in which Moshoeshoe I, father and founder of Lesotho, was born is almost complete. I wish I could attach a photo to this letter. It looks so beautiful. Especially now that Spring has come to the valley. The graceful thatched structure sits on a hillside at the base of a beautiful pine forest overlooking a valley that is currently pink with peach blossoms. The villagers building it are so proud of what they are doing. They sing praises to their king as they work. Moshoeshoe is revered almost as a god here in Lesotho. He was a great leader. In a time of dreadful warfare he was a man of peace who brought under his protection all who wanted shelter. He established this mountain kingdom as a refuge for those fleeing the wrath of Shaka the Zulu during the time of what is called the difaqane (displacement). Using the diplomatic sophistication of missionaries as his advisors he was able to negotiate treaties, establish a government and create a country. The history of this country and of the village of Menkhoaneng is fascinating. I’ve just been given the assignment to write the eco-cultural tour guide scripts so I’ve been doing some interesting research. I’ve also been enjoying putting together marketing materials on the project, writing letters to international charities for funds to pay the workers, working with government ministers to give visibility to the project in parliament and just dealing with the complexities of living in this interesting and challenging country.

Challenging in what way you ask? Well, working with my computer, printer and digital camera using solar power has stretched my technical acumen (or lack there of) to the limit. The solar panels I bought don’t work. I’ve made three trips to various towns trying to find one that will charge the car battery that makes my technology here happen. Let me tell you what a trip to town is like. Today was typical. I left my house at 7:00 am and hiked for an hour to a place where a bus does eventually come by. Today, for instance, I waited for two hours. Now these busses and taxis are not the air conditioned, luxury vehicles we enjoy in the States. No, the busses are ancient things than lumber slowly on these mountainous roads. They are always packed with Basotho, their luggage and occasionally livestock - especially chickens. Chickens are carried live in a plastic bag with just their heads sticking out. They stay amazingly calm. Today I sat next to a women on a seat meant for two people with her, her three children one of whom was tied by a blanket to her back and two of which were jammed in at our knees. And she had a live, plastic bagged chicken. I held the chicken for a while so she could nurse her youngest. It’s not that I mind any of this, the exercise walking to the bus stop is great and there are always interesting people along the way. Today on the bus ride into town I was also accompanied by several women from my village. One of them wants to set up a little shop. She was standing in the aisle next to me so we began discussing the idea of creating a business plan. Everyone within earshot who could understand our jumbled Sesotho/English added their two cents worth to the conversation. It was really fun. We decided that I should go with her to the bank to get a loan taking with us the business plan that we will create this weekend in my solar powered hut. This is exactly what I came here to do so I have no complaints. And, I love these people. They are so earnest in their desire to alliviate the poverty in which they are trapped. They work harder and longer than seems possible. It is such a privilege to be a small part of the solution here - I love it. Anyway, once in town it is a taxi to the border. A taxi is called a kombi or koloi. They are actually vans that don’t leave until they are filled to overflowing. If a taxi is meant to hold 12 it will leave when it has fifteen people crammed into it. The border, which is a bridged river, must be crossed on foot then it’s another kombi into the small South African town of Ficksburg. I came here today to meet my friend Lois (the PCV lawyer), to hook into the Internet and dump AOL and to see about getting a better solar panel. Lois is now involved in a “Women in Law” group in Lesotho and is preparing to take part in a test case to try to overturn the constitutional restrictions placed on women. I think I mentioned in a previous email that women here have few legal rights. They cannot own property or even open a bank account without a family male giving them written permission. They are treated legally as “minors”. This is hugely up Lois’s alley. Both times she presented cases in front of our US Supreme Court they dealt with civil rights. Anyway, lunch conversation was scintillating not just in content but also because it was in English and we got to use big words(-: After we leave this Internet café we will return to Hlotse where I will spend the night at the PCV resource center. Lois can get back to her place before dark but I can’t. It is simply not possible for me to go to town and get back up to my village in the same day. I tried it once and came very close to being stranded in the middle of nowhere at dark. I had missed the last kombi. On that occasion I did my first and, I hope, only hitchhiking. A nice old black man in a truck gave me a ride using a route new to me and dropped me at a place where I could see the mountain on which I live. I really didn’t look too far away. I headed cross country taking the “as the crow flies” route. I arrived home after dark, using my pen light flashlight to help me navigate the last 20 minutes of an extremely difficult trek (we’re talking narrow rock ledges here). It was really just too much. I won’t do it again but I certainly can’t complain about any lack of adventure in this assignment.

I’m still working on the horse issue. I’ve filled out the required PC paperwork and am waiting for a reply. Last Saturday a member of Parliament that lives in this valley stopped by my hut (now really, where else in the world would that happen?) to pick up some things I had written for him and asked if I would make some suggestions on where to situate rondavels for pony trekking trips between Menkhoaneng and the Ts’ehlanyane National Park. For that, I must have a horse - I jumped at the assignment and reported it immediately to the PC. I can almost hear the pitter patter of little hooves in my future.

Other news is that I now have a cell phone. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the only place where I can get a signal is on the other side of the valley. I do have voice mail, however, and hike over there to check my messages twice a week so feel free to give me a jingle.

Peggi Tabor

Dear friends and family,

Sometimes, except for the foreign language spoken here and the look of the village, this place seems quite similar to home. People go about their business, cook dinner, take care of their families and deal with normal every day issues. Then, out of the blue, I’ll find myself in a totally African cultural event and this place seems very strange indeed.

So, my friends, this email will focus one of the more unusual cultural practices I have witnessed here in Lesotho.

The subject is funerals. The entire ceremony surrounding funerals here is an interesting mix of tribal rituals and Christian practices. With the mortality rate at an all time high, there are funerals in this village every single weekend so I’ve had the opportunity to participate in many aspects of funeral and mourning practices.

Wakes are usually held of Fridays. It is proper to visit the house of the deceased, bringing a gift of food or a few rand and to pay ones respects. If it is a man who has died, his wife will be laying on the floor on a thin mattress covered in a blanket. She will only moan and cry. All close relatives to the deceased shave their heads – both male and female. You wouldn’t believe how many people walk around here with shaved heads. A male relative of her husband is the spokesperson. He receives the gifts and condolences inside the house. Outside, people will be drinking joala and acting pretty much like people do at an Irish wake – it’s a wee bit of a party outside the hut.

Traditionally, a cow or sheep is slaughtered, both for the funeral feast on Saturday and because in very traditional families the corpse will be wrapped in the skin for burial although in this era of increased poverty this practice in on the wane. The Basotho believe the cow or sheep’s hide keeps the deceased warm in the afterworld. They also believe that if they don’t do this the deceased will haunt them and cause them to have very bad luck. Ancestor worship is very big here. It is one of the reasons Catholicism has been so popular. The Basotho see the Saints as ancestors and the Devil as chief of the evil spirits for whom they are always on the look out. I’ve spoken to many very level headed people that truly believe their ancestors talk to them in their dreams and give them advice to which they are obliged by both custom and belief to follow. I’m told it is not uncommon to hear in court cases statements such as, “My evil old uncle Charlie, who died in ’89 told me to do it.”

Burials usually take place on Saturday. In the villages an ox-drawn cart takes the casket to the cemetery with the wife, supported by relatives, walking behind it. Everybody chants a sort of a dirge.

There is another big feast to celebrate the end of the mourning period. This used to take place six months to a year after death but with so many deaths these days it is often shortened to a month.

I attended one of these ceremonies last Sunday.

The man who died in this instance died about a month ago. Mourning is a serious commitment for the widow and must be followed to the letter. She must shave her head, wear the same dress and shoes everyday and sit only on the floor for the entire period of mourning. During the entire period of mourning, which could last up to a year, she must not leave her property or speak above a whisper. She must keep her eyes downcast and display utter grief – her reputation and future treatment by her in-laws depends on it. During the initial funeral rites the women of the family shave not just her head but take her into a room and shave her entire body. She is then dressed in her “widows weeds”. She seriously does have a lot to be unhappy about even if she couldn’t stand the guy she is mourning. All her husbands possessions now belong to his relatives. Even she is now legally a ward of her brothers-in-law. There are no poorer people in this country than widows.

Actually, I had been invited to part of the preparation for this feast on Thursday to watch the women make joala in preparation for Sunday’s party. They cooked it outside in huge metal drums over wood fires. They made gigantic amounts of it – maybe 50 gallons. And the stuff is strong! – or so they tell me(-: Anyway, on Sunday by the time I arrived to the end-of-mourning feast it had been going on for a long time. Many of the guests were seriously drunk. Moderation is not a long suit of the Basotho. The dearly departed’s two sisters led me, each holding onto one of my arms through a crowd of far too amorously inebriated men, several of whom planted dreadful sloppy kisses on my cheeks. All I could do was turn my head away so they couldn’t get near my mouth. They brought me to a rondavel from which was coming very rhythmic chanting accompanied by drums and whistles. They shoved me into the absolutely jammed packed room. I couldn’t see a thing at first but as my eyes adjusted to the dimness what I saw was extraordinary. There was no furniture in the simple, round, thatched roofed structure except a single chair. Women sat crammed together in two or three rows around the entire circumference on the room. There were plastic pails of joala strategically set about on the floor – I counted eight pails. On the lone chair sat the widow. She was stark naked. In a small open circle in the center of the room three beautiful, big women dressed in the traditional short stringed skirts were dancing very rhythmic, almost hypnotic dances while the seated women chanted and trilled, some beating drums. The costume the dancers wore was made of two parts. The underskirt is made entirely of strings of bottle caps, hundreds of them, that jingle as they dance. On top of the jingly “bustle” is a full skirt made entirely of white strips of the type of plastic of which cheerleader pom poms are made. The skirt doesn’t meet in the front. The dancers private parts are covered by a little fringed apron or in some cases a hankie. The skirts are cut to a length so that at the back the ladies cheeks are partially exposed. When I arrived, the dancers were wearing their bras on top but as the night progressed these were discarded – to enthusiastic trilling by the audience (all female). It had to be over 100 degrees in there. Sweat poured off the dancers who danced until they about dropped and were then replaced by others who threw off their “street clothes” and donned the little skirts. I had my camera and although it was dark I got some pretty good shots. I had been seated next to the chief (who, in this village is a woman – more on that later) who kept saying, “isn’t this nice?” I was having a little trouble breathing – no one seemed to be wearing either cologne or deodorant so the body order was rather overwhelming and there was little oxygen in this tightly sealed hut. The women passed around the buckets of joala and either sipped directly from the bucket or dipped in their big metal cups and slugged it down. Thinking only of bacteria, I was not tempted to taste it. Finally, a couple of women pulled me to my feet and said the men outside wanted to have their photos taken. I went outside and shot lots of photos. The posing that went on was priceless. These are some of my best shots yet. I decided to go home, download the photos and come back with my laptop to give a little slideshow. It was quite a hit. I’m sure many of the villagers present had never before seen themselves in a photo much less on a computer screen. Keeping them from touching the screen as they pointed, screaming with delight at their images was my biggest challenge. Oh, about the naked widow. Still inside the hut, she was dressed in all new clothes generously provided by her in-laws, total benefactors of her husband’s estate.

I went home shortly after showing the photos. People were getting really rowdy, pulling at my arms, grabbing at my computer and demanding that I take more photos. I hugged my laptop to my chest and made a hasty exit.

Now, about our female chief. How, in this very patriarchal society can there be female chiefs you may ask?

Well, the lineage of the village chiefdom must go thru the eldest son. If he dies, his wife (his first wife, polygamy is quite legal here) is chief until her eldest son comes of age. In the case of this village, not only has the male chief died but the eldest son has died as well. This means that when our current chief dies, her daughter-in-law will hold the title until her son, now 3, is old enough to rule.

Although the chief in this village is given a lot of respect, and is, if fact, a very fine woman, the village is actually run by a council of elders, all male. They treat the chief with great deference but they make all the decisions, head all the committees and pretty much run the show around here. I like our chief a lot. Her name is Masephoko Nthodi. I have spent enjoyable hours in her hut listening to her stories of the great Moshoeshoe, a direct ancestor of her late husband.

Her surviving sons attend my language classes. Did I tell you I’m teaching English classes now? I’ve decided that I have a better chance of teaching this entire village to speak English than I do of ever becoming fluent in Sesotho (-:

The language classes are great fun. We’re learning lots of good old American songs. The first one was “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” followed by the Doe, Ray, Me song from the “Sound of Music”. Both the village witch doctors attend my classes. I love looking at them with their tightly beaded hair and crazy teeth studiously writing down the verbs of the day.

At the request of some of the village women I’ve also just begun cooking classes. We had our first one two weeks ago and it was a disaster. We held it at a neighbor’s house whose kitchen is relatively large – relative to my two-burner gas hot plate tucked into a corner of my hut, anything is large. Anyway, I was in my element whipping up pasta primavera, talking about nutrition and hygiene, feeling for all the world like Africa’s answer to Julia Child and just waiting to hear the moans of delight as my audience of about twenty dug into the heaping plates of pasta primavera that I passed out to everyone.

There were no moans of delight; just a rather embarrassed silence and requests for more salt. They buried that pasta in salt. When I tasted it I was truly horrified. It was dreadful – bitter and spoiled tasting. I think some of the tomatoes were bad. I was mortified but actually didn’t say anything because once everyone added a teaspoon or so of salt to their plates they wolfed the horrible concoction down. Perhaps they thought this is what American food is supposed to taste like. Matjeeka admitted to me later that she threw up when she got home. I was sick too – pass the Pepto Bismol! How ironic that the first food sickness I get in this village is from my own cooking!

The second class was this past Tuesday. Except for two young women who follow me everywhere, no one came! I had made another pasta primavera just so they could sample what it was supposed to taste like and was planning on preparing French toast and omelets. My “girls” tasted the pasta, smiled knowingly at each other then went out and spread the word. Within a half hour the class was full. The food all turned out just fine. After class about five of the women walked me to my hut all singing “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” It was a good day.

Oh, oh. This letter is getting a bit longish, isn’t it? And I haven’t even told you about my horse(-: I found a beautiful chestnut stallion in the next village and rode him for the first time yesterday. It felt so great to be back in the saddle again. He was quite calm and didn’t do anything crazy but I’m going to ride him much more before making any deals with the owner. Currently, I’m just renting him by the hour for15 rand an hour. That’s $2.50 and is considered top rate here. The owner is thrilled. So am I.

Until next time, Khotso, Pula, Nala.

Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

There is so much beauty here; it may be the beauty and peacefulness of this place that makes the tragedy bearable. Yesterday one of my English students died. She was seventeen and she was eight months pregnant. She was a beautiful girl. Her unborn child died with her. The Sangoma (traditional healer) had brought her to my house two weeks ago because her legs were swollen and she was feeling ill. I tell the villagers that I am not a doctor and know nothing of medicine but they come anyway. During training we were told not to even try to help in medical situations but that directive is difficult to follow – especially with my big black medical bag filled with things these people need a lot more than I do. In Mpheng’s case, the girl who died, I urged her to get to the clinic, told her to stop eating salt, drink lots of boiled water and to raise her feet up and rest. The terrible fact is that she could not go to the clinic because she had no money and no insurance. Now, of course, I wish I had given her the money. I wish I had taken her to the clinic myself. I’ve done it for others; why didn’t I do it for her? She was found unconscious in her hut and died as her family rushed her in the village’s one vehicle to the clinic. She was one of my advanced students. They have a writing assignment every week. The first assignment was to tell about themselves. Her story was typical. She was born in this village; she was now living with her mother for the last three months of pregnancy, as is the custom. She was excited and afraid about giving birth. She was looking forward to returning to her husband’s home to raise her child. She hoped someday to be able to return to school and become a nurse to help the people of Menkhoaneng. Hers was the third death in this village in the past two weeks. All these victims of poverty lack of medical care and dreadful hygiene were under 30 years of age. One of the deaths was definitely AIDS although this is never spoken of – there is great denial here.

Some of you have written and requested a viewpoint other than my normal rather Pollyanna one of life here in Africa. Today I am in the perfect mood to share some of the dark side.

Where to start? The drought, perhaps. This part of Africa is now in the forth year of drought. What was once a great flowing river through this valley, the Hlotse River, is now a trickle. For many people of lowland villages around here, this trickle is their only water source. They use this filthy water to bathe, wash their laundry, cook and drink. Water-born diseases are rampant. No one but me boils water. Boiling water is something I stress every chance I get but so far, no one has bought into the concept. Fuel is scarce and getting the papa cooked takes priority. Boiling water is seen as an unattainable luxury both in terms of fuel and time.

Until just today my family went up to a small natural spring near the summit of the mountain behind this homestead to get our cooking and drinking water. Matjeeka and I would take two mules and four 25 liter plastic containers and hike up. The spring is or rather was, about 3 feet in diameter and sat at the base of a big fissure in the mountain. The water was always scummy on top and grey in color. We would carefully fill the containers, seal them and then heft them, two tied together, onto the donkeys. After Matjeeka filled another 20-liter bucket to carry on her head (a still unbelievable feat to me), we would head back down to the house. It would take us a little over an hour to make the trip.

This morning Matjeeka told me that this spring too had dried up. The other option is much further but is still a spring rather than the filthy river. I offered to go with her today but she refused to let me. She is very protective of me, thinks I am terribly old, and knows I’ve been having problems with my knees. She brought me a bucket of very grey water about an hour ago. She had been gone a long time.

When I first arrived here, I tried to make a 20-liter bucket of water last two days. We were taught how to do this during our Village training. I can now stretch it to four days. You would be amazed how little water it takes to wash, do dishes, cook and bathe when you really concentrate on conservation.

Here is an example. When I do dishes I first rinse all food off the plates with about a cup of water. This water I take out and give to the dogs. Any water with nourishment in it is given to the animals. Then I put a tiny bit of my antibacterial dish soap on a sponge and with another cup of boiled water wash the dishes. I place them in an enamel pan and after they are washed carefully pour about two cups of boiling water over them rinsing off the soap. This water I usually use one more time to clean the floor or wipe down my spiffy plastic furniture. Then I take it out and pour in into the garden or on my compost heap. Anyway, you get the picture. All “grey” water is used for agriculture.

Food. Getting enough to eat is a problem for most of the villagers. I may have told you that we’ve arranged to pay the workers who are building the road and the Cultural Village with bags of rice and flour donated by the World Disaster Relief Fund. It has been a godsend. No child now goes hungry in the three participating villages. We use 70 workers at a time on the two projects. They work from 9am to 2 or 3 pm every day and for two weeks work they each get 25 kgs of wheat flour and 25 kgs of rice. The villagers rotate every two weeks so that everyone gets a chance to work. The project is actually feeding three villages.

I never really understood what subsistence living meant until coming here. Although I can say that starvation is on the decline, the reality is the people here eat the very same things every day. It is a simple flour or corn meal gruel and now with the work payments, rice. There are still a few cabbages and pumpkins available in some gardens, which are cooked in too much salt to add moroho (vegetables) to the diet. If a family doesn’t raise it or grow it they don’t get to eat it. Vitamin deficiency is evident in every child. My house is jammed packed with food – luxurious food like peanut butter, apples, oranges, canned meats anything I can tote back from my weekly visits to the camp towns. My “office hours” when I am here at the hut are 24/7 and I encourage students, workers just everybody to stop by. I always serve snacks. It makes me hugely happy to see these folks eat – especially the children. Watching their wide-eyed anticipation while they very politely hold out both hands to accept a peanut butter and jam sandwich is worth a lot.

The Basotho are a proud people. I have to always make this look like it’s not just handouts. “I was just going to eat and I’ve made too much” is my official line. As a result, I’m gaining weight! After dropping about 20-25 lbs in the first few of months here, I can tell now it’s coming back – damn. I cook large pots of food every chance I get so that there is always food prepared. This cooking and feeding is one of my very favorite parts of being here. I know it’s not “sustainable”, a PC requirement for our activities, but it sure makes me feel happy and fills a lot of empty bellies.

You’ve probably guessed that I don’t usually compose these letters while online. I write them at home and take them on a disc with me whenever I think I might get an Internet connection. It’s been a week now since Mpheng’s death. Life goes on. Her funeral was especially sad. No one even mentioned the baby. The custom here is to not acknowledge a child’s birth until it is a few months old. The infant mortality rate is so high that I think this is one of the customs that make reality bearable.

My current work focus it to get some crafts going here in the villages. The challenge is that these are farmers not artisans. Every time I get to a crafts shop I buy some examples of things I think we could possibly make to sell to the tourists that I very optimistically hope will visit the Cultural Village. So far the reproduction of these articles has been pretty lousy. I’m working on getting some good teachers in for a workshop. Once these folks know the techniques I think they will be able to make some saleable items.

Also we have no supplies, no capitalization, nothing. So here is my suggestion. Many of you have asked if there is anything you can do to help here. And some of you have spent fortunes in postage to send me wonderful things that I have distributed to schools and villagers and have made great use of myself, thank you, thank you, thank you. If you’ve done this please ignore the following. But, it you’re scratching your head thinking, “What can I possibly send her”, here is my suggestion.

The reality is that I can buy everything these people need right here. Things like English/Sesotho dictionaries, writing tablets, ringworm medicine, lice kits, vitamins the special needles needed for weaving grass, woodworking tools - the list is endless. I can hand people 100 rand ($17.00) that can get them to a clinic and maybe save their life. With very little capitalization, I can set up a crafts cooperative, teach local villagers how to run it and leave them with a sustainable way to make some money.

Now, again, if you’ve already sent things please ignore this request. And really, please feel no obligation to contribute to this. I can and will continue to do this the traditional Peace Corps way, which is to find resources within the villages to make good things happen. I can and will also continue to attempt to get aid through grants and just buy the things these folks need myself. A little bit of money goes a long way here. But being the ordinary American that I am, I want it all for these people and I want it now!

This won’t even be tax deductible. But if you want to contribute a few dollars, I can promise you it will be put to very pragmatic good use. Now, only if you really want to, you can send your contribution to:

Peggi Tabor
C/o Telia Fuller
28509 Eastbrook Court
Farmington Hills, MI 48334

If it is a check, please make it out to Telia. He can then deposit it to an account that I can access from here in the local currency. Please don’t send me any money. Clearing American checks is a nightmare and if there is cash in an envelope chances are it won’t be in it when it arrives. I will let you know what I spend the money on and will send photos when possible of whomever it is you help with a thank you note – from them if they are one of my English students.

Well this has sure been a hard letter to write. I hope no one is offended and really don’t feel at all pressured to send anything. We have been told by the Peace Corps that we are not here to play Santa Claus. It’s just that I have never seen so many empty stockings.

Love,
Peggi

It’s raining! It’s been raining off and on for several days. If you’d like to put music in your mind to accompany this letter, please make it the Halleluiah chorus form Handle’s “Messiah”.

The villagers have started seriously tilling fields. Up until now the ground in which maize and sorgum was planted last year has just been too hard to till although almost all the home gardens have been planted. Cultivating is done mostly by oxen-drawn ploughs or simply by hand with a hoe. Optimism is in the air. Of course, it’s too early to tell but if these nicely spaced, rain filled storms are signaling an end to the drought this is really big news.

So, not only is it actually raining but the villagers here are so excited about the contributions you’ve sent us. I don’t even know what to say about your generosity. Contributions in response to my last letter have been flowing in. I met with the village elders and sangomas and told them that my friends in America have sent money and asked for their ideas on how best to spend it. They agreed that transportation for the sickest and poorest in the village to the hospital is a priority. I’ve contracted with a very nice taxi driver in Butha Buthe to come to the village every Monday to take those that need it most to the hospital. Either one of the sangomas or I will accompany them. After everyone has seen a doctor (also paid for by you (-: ) the driver will bring them back to the village. The villagers think this is a real miracle. We’ve allocated about ¾ of the money for this program. I absolutely know that your generosity will be saving lives.

The other 25% of the fund will be spent on other village priorities. How to Speak English books and dictionaries for our adult English classes are high on the priority list. I visited a very good school in a village quite far from here and got recommendations from the principle on what books to use to teach English. My students can hardly believe they are going to have books. First pencils now books! It just doesn’t get much better than this.

We’ve set up a fund called “Our Friends in America”. I want the villagers to run it just for the experience of managing money and learning simple balance book and cash flow statement procedures. Actually, I’m not turning the money over to anyone. This can be just too much temptation to these desperately poor people. But, I do want them to make the decisions on what the funds should be used for and I do want them to learn to keep records.

So, things are quite jolly here at the moment. Everyone is feeling so optimistic. The Cultural Village project goes well in spite of the fact that the food payments have been arbitrarily cut off. I’m headed for the capital, Maseru, tomorrow to once again plead our case at the Ministries. The villagers have been working on the project for over a month now for free. There is no reason at all for this – I thought our payment situation was set in stone – not so, it seems. The Ministries here are plagued with corruption and I have the unhappy feeling that the rice and flour payments are going into someone’s pocket. I think I now know whose. Tomorrow is my day to try to diplomatically uncover the fraud and get the food payments flowing again. I hope it works.

Well, for once this is a short letter. Every day I learn more things about this interesting culture that I want to share with you. Perhaps the next letter will be about more of the unusual cultural aspects of the Bantu tribe with whom I live.

Until then, say well and happy and please know that the wonderful contributions you sent are making a huge difference here.

Thank you, and love,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s hard to decide which are lovelier, the sunrises or the sunsets. This morning was particularly beautiful; soft pinks against the delicate blue sky and an air crisp and clean after a gentle rain shower during the night. I stood outside for a while and breathed in the pristine air while listening to the sounds of the village waking up.

It’s busy here at sunrise. The predawn hours are the noisiest of the day. Donkeys bray, cocks crow and dogs bark as people hustle about building the early morning fires to cook the day’s papa. It is prepared outside over wood and dung fires in large, black, three legged cast iron cauldrons. By dawn today, Tjeeka, this family’s only son, had already hitched up the two family oxen to go to a distant field to plough and plant maize and sorghum. By first light everybody is up and at it. M’e Matjeeka, after her papa is underway, sweeps all the dirt and grass in the courtyard. At first, I thought this was really strange but the reality is that since all the animals here are pretty much “free range” she is sweeping up dung of various kinds. This she meticulously adds to her gardens or, in the case of some of the cow dung saves for either burning or plastering walls and floors.

Let me try to describe the family compound in which I live. It is located on a wide ledge almost exactly half way up a small mountain. Many of the mountains here are quite distinctive. They look like almost prefect cones – this one is like that. It is part of the ancient Clarens sandstone deposits. We’re surrounded by much larger mountains, the Drakensberge or Maluti range and we overlook the beautiful Hlotse valley. The ledge upon which this homestead sits is perhaps 40 feet deep and 100 feet long. The buildings form a U shape around a central courtyard which overlooks the valley below. Just below this ledge is another upon which are built the round stone kraals for the donkeys and oxen. Below that is a third ledge that acts as a village “road”. It leads in one direction through a forest to the Cultural Village site and in the other into the main village area, to one of the schools where I teach and to the chief’s place. There are four buildings in this compound, a thatched roofed cooking hut, my rondavel, and two square cement block – metal roofed buildings in which the family lives. We all have million dollar views.

I keep my door open almost all the time. I have an additional metal burglar bar door (a PC requirement) that keeps the larger animals out and allows me to watch the activities in the courtyard while enjoying the view. We have five dogs, a mother and four puppies. Two of the puppies are hers. The other two just arrived last week. Their mother died. They can’t be more than 5 weeks old and still want to nurse. Our mother dog won’t let them near her so I am feeding them powered milk. They seem to think I am their mother now and want to be in my hut – a real no-no in the Basotho culture. Dogs simply don’t go inside houses. I’ve put up a barrier so they can’t get in but they stay exactly outside my door snuggled together on a little blanket waiting for their next meal. And truthfully, the tiniest runt is sleeping in my lap as I type this (-: Let’s just call it “cultural exchange”.

We also have a rooster, several hens and innumerable chicks all of which roam freely around the courtyard as well as a black baby pig who also looks longingly through the bars into my hut. The horse, oxen and donkeys go out to either work or graze every day but we have one baby donkey that stays home “mowing” the grassy areas of the courtyard or sleeping on one of the warm sandy patches. It’s all quite pastoral and peaceful.

The family vegetable garden is on a slope to the right of the compound just outside my east-facing window. The Basotho are incredible gardeners. There is not one square foot of tillable ground wasted. Although the pickings are a bit slim at the moment, a wonderful assortment of summer vegetables is sprouting in neat little rows. This garden receives all our “grey” water which is carefully applied to each plant by hand.

I love being here at the homestead but find myself heading into the capital, Maseru, almost every week to deal with project issues. It’s a long haul to get there. Depending on how lucky I am catching kolois the journey can take from six to 12 hours. Last week it took me 11 ½ hours to make the 125 km journey. By the time I reached the T. house I was frazzled. Oh, have I explained the T. house yet?

The T or transit house is a big, old rambling place just across from the American Embassy that belongs to the Peace Corps and is used by PCV’s who need to overnight in the city. It is surrounded by razor wire topped security fences, has 24/7 security guards and is a safe haven in a very dangerous city. It has a large communal kitchen, baths, hot water, six big bedrooms with bunk beds in them, a library full of wonderful books and videos, a TV with video player and more espirit de corps than you can shake a stick at. It’s a bit ramshackle and run down but it is home away from home to all of us here.

When I arrived there last Monday there were already several of my colleagues sitting around the kitchen chatting. I was in such a miserable mood. My trip in had been long, harrowing and I’d missed an important late afternoon meeting. At my last taxi change, I’d picked up two beers and a box of fried chicken. I headed straight into one of the wonderful indoor bathrooms, poured a deep hot bath and soaked eating chicken and drinking beer and coming to the conclusion that “It just doesn’t get much better than this.” Boy, have my standards changed!

What else can I tell you? Things are going quite well here. Everybody in the village is still so amazed about the “American friends of Menkhoaneng” fund. Sick people are getting to the hospital; this week I’ll purchase the school books and we’ve started a Youth Group whose first project will be to plant some apple trees and herb gardens. All these things are thanks to you and your generousity.

That’s it for now from the warm heart of Africa to you.

Love,
Peggi

Dear friends and family,

Today is Thanksgiving. I hope you are all enjoying this happy holiday in the company of friends, family and loved ones. It’s just 5:00 am here and after writing this I’m headed to a beautiful place called Semonkong where I’m meeting about 20 of my fellow PCV’s to celebrate the holiday. We’re staying for the whole weekend – it promises to be a fun little vacation. Semonkong is one of the more developed tourist areas in the country. There is a lodge there and the area boasts the highest waterfall in southern Africa. It is owned and operated by a very hospitable and charming white South African couple and they have even promised to have turkey for us. It is a bird unknown in these parts. Perhaps the best part of this trip is that I’m being driven there! Ntate Toti our “mercy wagon” driver is picking me up in about an hour. On the way we are making a stop at the bank where he will get a small business loan based on the business plan we’ve developed. I’m hoping he becomes the most successful taxi service in Lesotho – he sure deserves it. He is for sure the only one with a fully developed business plan(-: I love this job!

Driving our poor and sick to the clinic is not an easy task. This past Monday was typical. Ntate Toti’s only vehicle is a car so for the hospital trips he often borrows a van from a friend. Something always goes wrong! This week he could only manage a pickup truck. Three of our patients couldn’t walk and had to be carried from their huts to the truck. Our village is a tough place to get around in. There are just steep narrow paths between the homesteads. It took a couple of hours to get the seven patients aboard. One of our sangomas – the biggest and strongest one, Lefa, came along with me to get the patients through the rather long process of seeing a doctor or nurse. This is sad to say but having a white person along, especially a Peace Corps volunteer, really short cuts the process – I get extremely unfair but pragmatically helpful preferential treatment. It still takes all day. Our first stop is the clinic in a neighboring village. Two nurses run this small local medical facility. One of them is registered – the other is a wonderful but marginally qualified woman – they both deserve the Mother Theresa Award. There are always a hundred or so people waiting. Nurse Zim and I have an arrangement. She quickly sees our critical patients, gives them a referral to the hospital then Toti and I continue on to the hospital in Butha Buthe with them while Sangoma Lefa stays with the others at the clinic. Our slips from Nurse Zim guarantee that our people will get in to see the one resident doctor at the hospital. Of this weeks patients, four have full blown AIDS, two were suffering from extreme malnutrition simply because they are too weak to care for themselves – one of them is mentally challenged. One man, a sweet little man of about 40, had had a stroke and was paralyzed on his left side. I know that if these people had been taken to an American hospital six of the seven would have been admitted but here, with the lack of facilities, they were all released to home care. We’re trying to set up a better home care system in the village. Our Youth Committee may get involved in a “meals on wheels” without the wheels, of course, sort of food delivery service. Anyway we’re working on it. There is so much to do here.

Oh, just to continue with the “something always goes wrong” theme, on our way home after picking up Lefa and the clinic patients we were on the steepest part of the track to the village when the truck simply couldn’t do it. We all piled out and helped push the truck up the hill. Then the truck just quit! It was something electrical. Lefa and Toti got under the hood and miraculously fixed it! The rest of the ride home was joyous, we sang, laughed and talked about how lucky we are to have such brilliant mechanics with us. Toti and Lefa were beaming.

You may think from my descriptions of the problems here that this is a depressing place but it’s really not. The Basotho are such an up beat, happy lot. There is always singing, laughing and telling good stories going on. And, there is the natural beauty of the place. The mountains are green now and the valley below us is a patchwork of plowed and planted fields. The rains have been pretty good so far. We all have our fingers crossed that this year is a good harvest. We are approaching our summer months and it is getting hot! Now this is really starting to feel like the Africa I had expected. The temperature gets to 90 degrees even here in the mountains. But, as they say in Arizona, it’s a dry heat.

Did I tell you the Peace Corps finally let me get horse? He’s just wonderful, not the one I described previously but another stallion from a neighboring village. He’s white with a black mane and tail. He is the skinniest horse you can imagine. He looks like the horse often pictured with Don Quixote. I’m trying to decide what to name him. Does anyone know the name of Don Quixote’s horse? That would be perfect.

We’re feeding him a lot. This horse thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. I’m thrilled with him. He is gentle, does the famous Basotho Pony trippling gait and will be a beautiful animal when he has gained a few hundred pounds. My life is so much easier now. I ride him to the villages in which I teach and work. Usually some nice villager will watch him for me and let him graze while I teach or meet with elders. In fact, in the village of Mate, which I often visit, the chief has assigned an old man to be this horse’s guardian whenever I am there. Some villager will see me coming and put out the call. By the time I arrive the man will be there, take my horse, unbridle and unsaddle him and lead him to the juiciest patches of grass. This is the Lesotho anwer to executive parking (-: This job has some great perks!

On that happy note, I will wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. Of the countless things for which I’m grateful you, my beloved friends and family, are right at the top. Your love, kindness, generosity and encouragement make me feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

I really love you guys.

Peggi

Dear Family and Friends:

The insects here are quite interesting. Two that immediately come to mind are the dung beetle and the thatch spider. I’ve been quite intimate with both.

The dung beetle is a beautiful insect. They get quite large here – it seems all insects here are super-sized. These beetles are shiny black. The ones I’ve seen get to about the size of a silver dollar. They have the same beautiful ancient markings as the scarabs I saw in Egypt except the dung beetles are perfectly round. Yesterday as I sat on a rock happily watching my horse graze on our lush spring grass (it was a slow day) I watched these critters deal with my horses’ dung. They are ambitious. They roll up a ball of it about five to ten times their size and roll it away for the family feast. What perfect recycling.

The thatch spiders are another story. I am at war with them. They live in my thatch roof and come in two varieties. The scarier looking ones are the big brown hairy leg monsters used in Hollywood jungle scenes to scare the living begeebers out of you. It sure works with me. These guys get as big as your fist. The interesting thing is that these spiders are harmless – not poisonous and they eat lots of other creepy critters that I would just as well do without. I now consider them my friends although when I see one every hair on my body rises and I have to go into my mantra about sentient beings. The spiders with whom I am engaged to the death are quite beautiful but poisonous. They have bodies about the size of a dime and long, graceful, non-hairy legs. They move incredibly fast. They are poisonous but not deadly. I’ve been bitten three times and I’ve killed four of them. I consider the score four for three. The first time I was bitten was pretty bad. They bite at night and this happened during the cold months so the only exposed part of my body outside of my mummy sleeping bag was my face and one hand. I was bitten on the wrist. My arm went numb for a few days and the area around the bite got ugly – like bad poison ivy. Since then either smaller spiders are biting me or I am developing immunity. I prefer to think the latter.

The reality is they do live up there in the thatch and I live down here and I do have my big brown furry friends to keep them under control. Whenever I see one of the furry ones I just wish them bon appetite – neighbors might think this is a blood curdling scream but it’s really just “bon appetite” – real loud!

Enough about bugs. We have been having fabulous rains. Crops are shooting out of the ground. Everybody is working furiously getting seeds planted – even me. I feel like Johnny Appleseed running around the village with my stash of herb and Colorado mountain wildflower seeds. I think we can grow the herbs, dry them and sell them to tourists as “herbs de Menkhoaneng” aka herbs de Provence.

The wildflowers are simply for esthetic effect. I don’t know if they are indigenous to the area, probably not, but can columbine, Indian brush etc. really hurt? There is lots of cosmos here and, frankly, not much of currently existing flora is Stone Age original. Next week I am meeting with an archeological paleontologist whose job it is to keep this place “pure”. I will follow his direction but I hope he will allow the wildflowers.

Everyone in the village, and in the country, is hoping that the current wonderful rains signal an end to the drought. They have been torrential. Today I taught English classes in Mate. There is a river to cross. Previously, my horse has had no problem walking through the little stream. Last week we went across up to his belly. This week everyone told me not to chance it. There is a narrow little footbridge further up the river that no self respecting Basotho pony will attempt (it’s metal and the sound of their hooves panics them). So, grudgingly, I walked the 18 km round trip. My advisors were right. The river was fearsome – a torrent of rushing, silt filled water. Rain here is both good and bad news. The good, of course, is that the crops have a chance of survival. The bad is the issue of erosion. For decades fields have been planted without proper attention to either terracing or to crop rotation. The result is a once fertile country whose face is now horribly scarred with erosion ditches called dongas. Donga reclamation is a national objective and certainly an issue in our attempt to revert this valley to its initial pristine beauty. It is a major challenge.

I will spend most of next week in Maseru in meetings with various Ministries. I don’t like to leave the beauty, safety and relative comfort of this village but the people who can make things happen are in the capital. Sometimes I feel like a lobbyist.

It’s difficult to believe that the Christmas holiday season is upon us. For one thing it is now summer here. And, although this is a Christian country, Christmas is not celebrated in anything close to the attention it is given in the US. It’s probably just the poverty. There is simply no money for toys or gifts. I plan to spend the holiday in the village. The tradition here is to visit friends and share food. You can imagine my cooking plans. Every time I get to a camp town I haul back as much as I can possibly carry. The last couple of trips I’ve taken a tall strong village girl with me to help. She loves the adventure - most villagers never go to town – the taxi fare is $1.50 – way beyond their means. And, of course, we do lunch, talk to lots of interesting people and shop ‘til we drop. It’s always fun.

The village knows I’ll be here for Christmas and I think everybody will be stopping over – there are about 500 people in this village –it should be an interesting day. I don’t know how many people from neighboring villages will stop by, lately while in other villages people stop me to say they will be celebrating Christmas with me – the day could get completely out of hand. I’ll let you know. I’m just hoping to keep from feeling too blue about being so far from all those I love. My heart will be firmly in America that day.

Happily, my reservations for a visit home are firmly set and I have my airline tickets in hand. I’ll be arriving in Michigan on February 14th and will stay until March 1st. I hope to see as many of you as possible although I will probably stay put in Michigan. However, please consider that time just one big “open house” and come on over!

May you enjoy the very happiest of holiday seasons.

Love, Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

Let’s just say it wasn’t my best Christmas ever. Although it was certainly the most unusual.

Yesterday, Christmas eve, got off to a messy start. There was a huge storm during the night whose powerful winds drove rain and mud through the opening around the door of my hut and flooded the entire structure as I soundly slept. I awakened to find two inches of muddy water everywhere. Many of my books, which lay in neat stacks around the perimeter of this place, were ruined, as were most lots of the things stored in cardboard boxes under my cot. Oh well, its just stuff. Fortunately, I’d stored all of the Christmas gifts and goodies in the main house.

What was very nice was the quick mobilization of friends to help me out. A group of folks came over (and mind you this was 5:30 am) as soon as they heard and emptied my hut of every single thing and helped me clean it all up. I felt very taken care of. By noon I was cooking and preparing for the holiday celebration. In the late afternoon one of the sangomas came over and we packed my saddlebags with food, candy and toys which we delivered to families with children who were too sick to come to my Christmas party. I wished I’d had a pair of reindeer antlers to put on my horse but no one here would have gotten the joke. It was a nice way to end the day.

Christmas morning started out so much like home. Excited young ones were definitely the first up. Just before 5:00 at the very first light, I could hear voices of children outside my hut. I had spent the late evening blowing up balloons and decking my halls as best I could with holiday cheer. It really did look a bit like Santa’s workshop in here. The children were adorable. They formed a very polite long line outside my door. I brought them in a few at a time and let them choose their gift. Everybody got candy and cookies and some small gift. It was really fun. I asked them if they had been good and elicited promises of good study habits and perfect obedience to their parents for the year to come. I felt gently possessed by the spirit of our families favorite Santa, my beloved departed brother-in-law Bill Barnes.

By 8 am there was a pretty big crowd here. Ntate Nena, the father of this house, who was home from his job as a South African mine worker for the holiday asked me to take a photo of this beautiful sheep (ram actually) that was being led around the courtyard. I took several. It was a magnificent animal with graceful curling horns and a gentle face. Then there was a bit of a ceremony as the patriarch of this family said this sheep was for me to formally welcome me to their home and the village. It was a huge gift and I was overwhelmed. I thought, ‘gee, this is great. I’ve got a horse and now this beautiful sheep. I wonder what I should feed it.” There were two Sangomas there (formerly known as witch doctors) both of whom did a sort of a chant and prayer. Then they asked me to say a prayer. I know very few. I recited the Christian Science Statement of Being followed by the Lord’s Prayer. I was feeling very grateful.

Then four big guys took my sheep, pulled it up by it’s legs threw it upon the ground and suck a dull old knife into it’s neck. It was horrible. It made dreadful sounds as they sawed away at its throat. It took a long time to die. My tendency towards vegetarianism strengthened. I told myself that non-judgmental was the place to be and took photos. They are grisly.

The slaughtering process went on as I watched. Nothing is wasted. This was a very big celebration for this family. Nobody here gets to eat a lot of meat. With solemnity, they handed me, handed me!, the still warm liver. My ever-present tutor and cultural advisor M’e Matjeeka said it was now my honor to cook this for the assembled group. I took the bloody thing into my hut, set aside the mountain of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I’d made and sliced and fried up these bits of my sheep. It really doesn’t do to get too attached to animals here.

From that point on it just didn’t seem like Christmas anymore. So much here is so strange. There was no recognizable music – just the incessant drumming. It was hot – almost stifling. Few words were spoken in English – I understand so little of what is going on around me. I longed for a real conversation, a Christmas carol, a twinkling light, a flake of snow, another white face.

Many wonderful friends and students from my classes and the project brought their entire families to visit. Some did traditional Basotho Christmas activities mostly centered on chanting prayers and singing. So many came, I really can’t say how many. It seemed like hundreds. I got so tired of it all. My hut was so crowded with sweating bodies – the body odor mixed with frying sheep got to be overwhelming. The children began to seem greedy as they snuck back into line for more presents. Some of them even changed their clothes to be in disguise. People I’d never met came to my house pretty much demanding gifts and food. Some were drunk; they asked for money; they didn’t get it. I did give away tons of stuff. I replenished my PB&J sandwich mountain several times. I cooked various disgusting parts of my sheep. I wished I were home. Twice during this long day I closed up my hut and headed for the mountain where I can get a phone signal but the connections were bad. I’m so happy today is behind me. By the end of the day I could feel myself morphing from the Christmas fairy to the Grinch.

I know I’ll never forget this Christmas but I’m trying to figure out what I’ve learned from it. Maybe nothing. Or perhaps something about how comfortable it is to be within our own culture and how easy it is to dislike that which is foreign to us. I really didn’t like some of these people today. These same Africans who have been so kind and warm and accepting of me today seemed strange and barbaric and seriously lacking in manners. But, being honest, they didn’t do anything that we don’t do. I’ve been to lots of crowded noisy parties that I loved –of course I could understand the language at those and most of the guests had recently bathed. Our kids are sometimes greedy, especially at this time of year. And who doesn’t enjoy a good rack of lamb now and again.

What was basically wrong with today was that it just wasn’t the way it is at home. So it would seem that viewpoint does indeed define our reality and is ultimately useless. It produces our prejudices. Without it we are all the same. So in the universal scheme of things maybe today wasn’t that bad.

I guess that’s just the Zen of it. Forgive this rambling. Tomorrow is another day. I’m hoping it will be a more enlightened one.

Love,
Peggi

Dear Friends and Family,

When I realized this is letter # 13 I almost changed it to # 14. That’s pretty silly isn’t it? But it rather illustrates what I wanted to tell you about in this letter, which are the superstitions, strange beliefs (strange to us, that is) and unusual tribal customs of the Basotho.

But first, a personal update. I’m living in the lap of luxury at the moment in our T. house in Maseru. I had a bit of an accident and so I’m here under the watchful eyes of our top rate PC doctors. It is nothing serious. A horse, not my wonderful horse but a nasty brute that has, actually, kicked me before kicked me for the second time. It’s a long and boring story but let’s just say I couldn’t get out of the way in time and he got me in the lower leg. His hoof made a pretty deep gash, which I took care of as best I could in the village. Unfortunately, it festered. I came into Maseru to have it looked at and was taken to the hospital for a bit of unpleasant surgery. My leg is now stitched up, propped up and doing fine. I feel like a princess. If I need to get anywhere I call for a car and driver. I had fresh brewed coffee, chilled watermelon and a tasty sweet roll for breakfast. My laptop is plugged into an actual wall socket. There is a phone at my right hand, a bathroom down the hall and several other PCV’s staying here at the moment that love to play Scrabble!! I love the Peace Corps!

Now, back to Basotho superstitions. I haven’t met anyone here who doesn’t believe in witchcraft. The most educated intelligent people believe in the power of the witch doctors to cast spells. There are lots of witch doctors here. They are not the traditional healers (Sangomas) I’ve spoken of in previous letters who focus on native herbal medicines. These men and women deal only in the occult. They take bizarre things like snakes blood and “eye of newt” and make magic potions. They deal only in curses and spells. Everyone fears them and their powers. Here’s an example. The man I’m working with to help start a taxi service to remote mountain villages, Ntate Toti, lost his infant daughter two months ago. When I asked him if he knew what she died of he said matter-of-factly, “Witchcraft”. He went on to explain that someone who must have been envious of he and his beautiful wife put a spell on his wife’s breast milk and it poisoned the child.

As I’ve mentioned, this is a very Christian country. That fact, doesn’t in any way, interfere with widely held superstitions. In fact, Christian beliefs have been intermixed with ancient tribal beliefs into the very interesting and unique current culture. Two of the sangomas I work closely with in our village are very good Catholics. When they are treating patients they give them herbal remedies all the time chanting to the Christian God, the ancestors of the patients, and any appropriate Christian saints whom they also consider as ancestors and intermediaries to the big ”Chief”.

I attend meetings of community health care workers in our area. These wonderful, local and mostly uneducated women are the only caregivers to the hundreds of homebound sick many of whom are at the hospice point of their illnesses. Nurse Zim gives them some training in how to recognize and treat various illnesses, nutritional information and encouragement. After this “technical” session the meeting turns into an almost revival religious meeting. Women will stand up and sway and chant and pray for some specific patient using the force of everyone’s positive thinking to affect a cure. It goes on for hours. In the absence of medical supplies, nutritious food and even the most basic sanitation who knows, perhaps it helps. It certainly seems to give everyone a psychological lift.

Here’s another example of cultural beliefs. You’ll remember my description of the birth of little Moklatsi my first night on the job. Well, his head came out really elongated from his long stint in the birth canal. M’e Matjeeka, after we’d cut the cord etc. ran outside and got a gourd that was the shape of a perfectly formed skull. She rubbed it all over Moklatsi’s tiny head explaining to me that this practice would make his head go into the perfect shape of the gourd in no time! The afterbirth was wrapped in a blanket and buried in the family ash pit. This assured that the spirit of this child would always be a protected part of this family and would not wander to the “dark side”.

This letter could go on for too long but I must tell you one more event that greatly affected the Peace Corps. The last group of trainees who arrived in October was just finishing their village training on December 2nd. This is storm season here and the electrical storms are incredible. Anyway, it wasn’t storming just hot and muggy and there were some storm-looking clouds far off in the horizon. Some of the group was sitting under a tree. The rest were inside the school classrooms – which have the typical metal roofs. Two of the trainers were sitting on a metal box under the tree. Well, a bolt of lightening came out of nowhere, went through the three rooms of the building, knocked everybody down and seriously injured six people. The two trainers sitting on the metal box were the most affected – one paralyzed from the waist down. Many people had strange burns – like a burn on the back of the neck and on the bottoms of the feet. Everybody I’ve spoken to said it felt like a bomb going off.

Well, the villagers were sure it was Witchcraft. All the Peace Corps trainers and volunteers had to leave the village immediately. They were scheduled to have the big, happy farewell feast in a few days. It was canceled. Witchdoctors were brought into the village to cleanse and appease the evil spirits that had caused it. It is doubtful if Peace Corps will ever be able to use this village again for immersion training.

The other thing I really want to tell you about is the circumcision schools but that will have to wait for another time.

This might be the last letter before my trip home. I’m counting the days! – 23 to go. I’m bringing tons of photos and lots of stories of this interesting sojourn in Africa. I hope to see you then.

Love,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends:

I’m back in Lesotho after a fun and fabulous two weeks in the good old USA. In my heart I am singing “God Bless America”. What an incredibly wonderful country we live in. Huge Thank-you’s are due to so many of you - for the parties, the breakfast, lunch and dinner extravaganzas, the contributions to the American friends of Menkhoaneng fund, the wonderful way you all let me talk about my exploits non-stop in English- it was great! Snail mail thank you notes are on the way. Actually, I’ve had plenty of time to write them. The airlines lost my luggage so I’m still at the T. house in Maseru waiting for word. It doesn’t look good. It seems to have disappeared into thin air if you’ll excuse the pun.

In the meantime, I’ve had three full days to meet with members of parliament, government ministers and UN representatives about the cultural village project as well as my latest idea for our village. The latter is the main subject of this email.

Just before I left the village for my trip, I met with the council of elders who are in charge of deciding how the money in the fund should be spent. They asked if I thought our American friends would mind if they bought food with it. So far, we’ve been spending it on medical transport, hospital costs, medical supplies for the poorest of the villagers and books for my English classes. The program to date is a huge success. I know many lives have been saved and many more made more bearable. There is a new sense of hopefulness in the village. However, I may have mentioned that the disaster relief food shipments the village was receiving have been cut off. Not only did we have a problem with a dishonest official redirecting our food supplies for private gain but also the terrible tsunami disaster has redirected international donations to that very deserving part of the world. The Disaster Management food warehouses in Maseru are empty. Both the UN and the DMA are looking for new ideas on how to deal with the food shortage problem.

So here is the idea I’m going to present to the village council upon my return to Menkhoaneng tomorrow. Both the MP in charge of our area as well as the UN official I discussed it with gave it a thumbs up. But, of course, unless the villagers embrace it as their own it won’t work.

I’ve noticed while traveling around the village that several of the farming families who are still healthy are able to produce more corn, sorghum or beans than their family needs. There is no viable market for this excess. I’d like to start a program in which we form a Village Cooperative that buys the excess production and distributes it to hut-bound sick people, especially HIV/AIDS sufferers as well as the workers who will be building the toilets for the school (more on that later), and volunteers who work in our “meals without wheels” program. We may even be able to start a school lunch program.

My hope is to develop and implement this program and document the process in such a way that it becomes a model for the UN disaster relief people to use as part of their focus on sustainable nourishment enhancement. They told me that if our village can get this to work and I can show on paper how much it costs and what positive effect it has on the community I can write a grant for the program to continue for years after I’ve left. I’m hugely excited about this.

So all of you who so generously contributed to the fund during my visit will be making this program a reality. I’ll set up separate books for the community cooperative committee to manage. The villagers who manage their fields well and have excess food to sell will be able to earn actual cash. I think it will be an incentive for all those able to work to work very hard and perhaps practice some of the crop improvement programs my permaculture PCV colleagues are promoting. It will address the big controversy about disaster relief grain shipments lowering the price of South African produce and it will save many in our village from starvation. It’s a terrible thing but we’ve had at least three villagers that I know of die of starvation since my arrival.

The other project I started working on before I left was getting toilets and water for our village school. This school is just awful. There are 270 students, only three very underpaid teachers ($60.00 per month!), no toilet facilities at all, no water available anywhere nearby, no desks or chairs – just wooden benches – it’s really sad. The principal came to me some time ago to ask for help. I found a resource to which I can submit a grant for the money for the bricks and cement to build latrines and buy a water catching tank (the school has a metal roof). The villagers will do all the work – the grant source will not pay for the labor but your contributions will. We’ll pay them in food from the cooperative.

There is so much to do and so little time. We are also having our big Moshoeshoe Day celebration on March 11th. I left a lot of organizational tools behind but word has it that the planning for this event is in a state of chaos. I’ll be stopping in the camp town of Hlotse on my way to the village tomorrow to meet with the district planning committee for this event.

And so, here I sit waiting for the airlines to find my luggage – it even has the power cord for this computer in it – damn! Oh well. Please keep your fingers crossed for me that it arrives. The South African Airlines official I spoke to this morning said cheerfully that only 1 out of 10 of the misdirected bags are never recovered!

On that note, I’ll sign off. May good health and happiness be with you always.

Love from the heart of Africa,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends,

It’s been raining for four days – torrentially. The rain so defines our activities around here. On the first day of downpour Matjeeka and I ran around outside putting pails and basins under every stream coming from the roof to catch and store as much water as possible. We soon filled every available container. On day two there was a break between storms so we gaily started washing everything is sight –blankets, rugs our hair - you name it we washed it. We played like children splashing our wealth of water at each other. The next storm overtook our efforts so much of our well rinsed stuff is still in a soggy heap – Oh well, one thing’s for sure, the sun will shine again in the beautiful mountain kingdom of Lesotho.

Today I’m cooking. I was supposed to go to a meeting of the Boselee Association in Mate to help them work on their business plan but the river is much too deep for Lance (my horse) to cross and the paths are running torrents of rain and silt. I have a cadre of children who are happy to act as runners for me for a few coins. They have no problem traveling in this weather, in fact, they enjoy it. I sent several out this morning in various directions to deliver messages for me and request people I need to meet with to call on me today.

Also, we just harvested a bunch of pumpkins. They are delicious! Yesterday I made pumpkin bread that we enjoyed in Matjeeka’s house last night at a Community Coop Committee meeting. Today I’m making pumpkin soup, pumpkin scones, pumpkin soufflé and roasted pumpkin seeds. Have I told you how I bake? There is, of course, no oven here but I bought a very large heavy cast aluminum pot. It’s 15” in diameter and 11” tall. I set an empty tuna can in the bottom of it and then a 13” diameter tempered glass plate on top of the can. It makes an amazingly efficient stovetop oven. Just now there is a nice pumpkin roasting in it. The focus of this weeks cooking class is, you guessed it – the incredible edible pumpkin.

Fall is in the air. Nights are getting chilly –in the low 50’s. We’ll soon start harvesting maize and sorghum. I went with some farmers to harvest wheat last week just before the rains started. What a job! I couldn’t believe how much effort goes into filling a 50 kg bag of wheat kernels. It’s a very organized process. Everyone knows what he or she is supposed to do. Men use scythes to cut down the wheat. Women follow them and gather it into big bundles. These bundles are carried over to a rocky place where women take small bunches and whack it against the rocks to make the kernels come off. The kernels are poured from one basket to another so the breeze can blow away the chaff. Finally, the precious kernels are poured into woven sacks to be taken to the mill or to be taken home and ground into flour on a grinding rock. I worked with the women gathering the bundles for a while and then tried my hand at whacking the wheat on the rocks. I didn’t last very long – probably worked three hours at the most – it was exhausting. The men and women I was with worked from sun up to sunset. Their endurance is quite humbling.

The experience gave me a whole new respect for the flour I used to bake that pumpkin bread yesterday. This organically grown, stone ground, whole-wheat flour is, by the way, delicious.

Oh, my luggage was finally found. I was able to pick it up at the Maseru airport. That’s the good news. The bad news was that some customs inspector along the way decided to open the big can of Bear Creek Farms powdered cheddar cheese soup I’d bought at Sam’s Club – seal and all – and didn’t bother to put the lid back on. There was powdered cheddar cheese in every tiny crevice of every item in that suitcase. Fortunately, I was staying at the T. house so I dumped everything into the big bathtub and sent down the drain huge batches of weak soup. Even now my beautiful Briggs and Riley suitcase has a slight cheesy smell. Oh well. At least it was good for some cheesy humor from my fellow PCV’s at the T. house. And, I’m thrilled to have all the treasures that were in that bag. The grandmother of the little orphan girl who got one of the winter coats said she slept in it! She refuses to take it off. My visitors this week have been fed tuna salad sandwiches with real mayo. And, of course, all that beef jerky – what can I say? This is really living!

Well, I think the pumpkin is done and it needs to cool before being turned into scones etc. It smells great in here. I’m expecting lots of visitors today to discuss the toilet and water tank project for the Primary school and want to have lots of snacks for them. We’re going to build the toilets in traditional Basotho style. They’ll be rondavels circa 1785 – the time of Moshoeshoe’s birth. The idea of this project in addition to providing the school with sanitary latrines and water is to teach the young people in the village the various building crafts they will need to be skilled workers on the Cultural Village project. Today some of our old master craftsmen and women are stopping by so we can schedule training sessions in rope weaving, thatching and stonecutting. We’re going to pay them in food from the village coop. Also, the treasurer of the committee is coming over so we can set up the books for the project. I’ve really got to get busy.

I truly love this job. Everyday is interesting and different and challenging. I hope some of you will give a thought to doing a stint in the Peace Corps. Only I know the incredible pool of talent, generosity and endless capabilities this letter reaches in its distribution. Think about it. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is fascinating, fun and a great adventure. You might really love it and at least from where I sit it sure seems that the world could use a few more PCVs.

With love from the warm heart of Africa,
Peggi

Dear Family and Friends;

It’s hard for me to believe I’ve been here almost a year. I arrived in Africa on June 1, 2004 and figured in my heart of hearts I’d last about three weeks. Actually, my ultimate goal was to stick it out for a year. I figured then I’d be able to return home not in complete disgrace.

It doesn’t seem like I’ve gotten much done in the past twelve months – my list of unfinished projects is very long – I guess I’ll just have to stay a wee bit longer (-:

There is so much that I love about being here and so much else that makes me want to turn tail and catch the next flight out.

Here are some of the things I love about this experience:

· Serving in the US Peace Corps has been both an honor and a privilege. I love the organization - both it’ purpose and its ideals. I am impressed and inspired by my fellow PCVs and the good work they are doing here. And I enjoy a very gratifying sense of making my own, if very small, contribution to world peace and shared prosperity.

· The Basotho are in many ways a wonderful people – especially the Villagers. In a country challenged by extreme poverty and pandemic HIV/AIDS they carry on with their lives in a cheerful, positive way that demonstrates to me every day that it is not what we have in this life that counts but how we use it. They have taught me much and many have become my friends.

· And, of course, this is a beautiful place. The Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho is rugged and wild. The air is clean, the skies are brilliant blue and the nightly expanse of stars – horizon to horizon – opens my