Thursday, May 22, 2008
3 new posts
hey - just wanted everyone to know that i've posted 3 new articles, and maybe i'll be writing another tomorrow or saturday.
The More You Play with Me the Happier You Will Be
The above is the advertisement on some dolls’ boxes at Pep in Mohale’s Hoek. Pep is like a small version of Target. These dolls look like Bratz wanna-be’s. They’re pretty scary. I love thinking of the reaction the company would get in the States for trying to use that advertisement to sell the dolls. I can only imagine the lawsuits that would ensue… I thought the ad was kinda scary. I keep meaning to bring in my camera to take a picture of the box, and keep forgetting.
I also don’t remember how much I have written about the public transportation here. Mainly it’s mini-buses. If you’re really lucky you can get a Quantum or a Sprinter. Then you have air-conditioning and heating, and the seats are less likely to wobble back and forth as you move, as though they might come apart from the rest of the car. The mini-buses themselves are interesting. Most of them have doors that no longer have handles, and are therefore jerry-rigged to open. And you can actually see the road through the floors of many of the taxis. And then, Lesotho also has four + ones, know to us Americans as taxis. They mainly travel locally, and as far as I can tell are usually in at least somewhat better condition than the taxis. Regardless, most public transport owners (transportation is not government-owned here, though that is changing in at least somewhat in Maseru) like to decorate their vehicles. The primary form of decoration on the exterior is stickers that are words or short phrases. For example, in Mohale’s Hoek there is a mini-bus carrying a sticker on its hood stating, “Life is so Tricky.” Aaahhh, taxi philosophy. There is another that has a sticker reading “The Palace” on its side. Then there are the 4 + 1’s, “Two Bop” and “Five Bop.” I often wonder if the people have any idea what these stickers mean, or if they just buy the ones that match the color of their particular vehicle. My guess is the latter. Especially when min-buses have stickers reading things like “The Punisher”. I’ve heard, but not seen for myself, that there is a minibus in Maseru with a sticker reading “Taliban”. My favorite Mohale’s Hoek stickers are ones stating “Always Arrive” and “Arrive Alive”. Comforting. I even saw a private car with a sticker on the windshield reading “Tear Gas”. Really, do the owners understand what that is? I hope not.
And there are also proper buses that run between the camp towns. My favorite is the purple one that, in shiny letters written on both sides of the bus, reads “Ghetto Tours”. I’ve never had the pleasure of riding in that one, but someday maybe I will live the dream. I have ridden in a bus labeled “Lehooa Tours”. Lehooa (might be spelling that wrong – I forget how) means “white person”. Lesotho, how I love thee.
I can also now say that I have played soccer with a tennis ball. Soccer balls are expensive, especially nice ones, and between the barbed wire fences and the rocks they usually don’t last long. So a lot of kids use tennis balls. Those things are darned tricky to stop with your foot. Some of the kids are really good with them, though. Seriously, they have amazing ball control when playing soccer with a tennis ball. A boy who lives across the dirt path from me, Lefo, can do rainbows and everything. He comes home after school, borrows my tennis ball, and plays keep away from my dog. It’s pretty cute to watch. And it’s comforting to know that not all kids are afraid of my dog.
Actually, the kids are getting much better with her. Some of the ones who were most afraid have started to play with her, and they don’t even freak out when she jumps up on them, or barks. Not that I want her to be doing this, but she’s a puppy, so she’s learning. Anyways, these are big steps for the kids here, especially since many of them are not so much afraid of dogs as terrified. And the kids who are getting over their fears are helping the other kids to do so. Hooray for progress. This is not true of everyone, though. A couple days ago this woman who is probably about my age was walking down the path in front of my house. My dog was off sniffing something in a field on the other side of the path, not paying any attention to the woman. This woman however, saw the dog, started screaming, and ran towards the back door of my M’e and Ntate’s house. Of course, this attracts the dog’s attention and she thinks “Ooooooooo, something fun to chase.” Next thing I know, I hear a combination of this woman trying to beat down my M’e’s door and the dog barking. The kids around all started laughing at her, and honestly, I almost did too. It was so ridiculous. And I had a student of mine come to visit me who hid behind me when the dog came around, wrapped her hands around my waist, and started turning me to keep me between herself and my dog. Not even my dog. My puppy. Whew.
On a more depressing note, the volunteers have district meetings quarterly to discuss how projects are going, vent frustrations, etc. Mohale’s Hoek’s was last week. One of the volunteer’s who teaches at a small village secondary school was telling us that she had started a volleyball team at her school, and that they had had their first match the week before, against a school in a more urban area. Now, trash talking in America usually involves some insult to the person’s skills, intelligence, their mother, or to the person’s being overweight (at least as far as girls are concerned). Not here. The volunteers school, being new to the game, wasn’t a strong team, and they were not at all prepared for jeering student from the other school who apparently were yelling things like, “What do you eat? You eat nothing but papa. You so skinny, you don’t eat no protein.” Papa is the staple grain here. Basically refined cornmeal and water. The students from the other school were insulting these kids because they were from a poor village and didn’t have money to buy more expensive foods like meat for protein. If that wasn’t low enough, the students from the other school also yelled, “What’s your CD4 count?” That’s really low, especially in a country as decimated by AIDS as this one, and in which there is such a stigma against AIDS. And, of course, this is just another way of continuing the stigma.
Because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from getting too depressed, we started joking around about insults we could make up that would be pertinent to this country. Your mother jokes really aren’t understood here. People don’t get why you would be talking about their mother. So we thought, “What about ‘Your kobo’ jokes?” A kobo is a blanket, and blankets are very important here. People wear them throughout winter and even in summer, wrapped around their shoulders, or sometimes women wear them wrapped around their waists. Anyways, someone came up with, “Your blanket is so tattered, it looks like a dishrag,” and, “Your blanket is so ripped, I wouldn’t use it on my sheep.” Maybe you don’t get it back home, but I thought the jokes were pretty funny.
Well, I was going to talk a little bit about Basotho culture, but this is probably a long enough blog for now. Hope all is well.
I also don’t remember how much I have written about the public transportation here. Mainly it’s mini-buses. If you’re really lucky you can get a Quantum or a Sprinter. Then you have air-conditioning and heating, and the seats are less likely to wobble back and forth as you move, as though they might come apart from the rest of the car. The mini-buses themselves are interesting. Most of them have doors that no longer have handles, and are therefore jerry-rigged to open. And you can actually see the road through the floors of many of the taxis. And then, Lesotho also has four + ones, know to us Americans as taxis. They mainly travel locally, and as far as I can tell are usually in at least somewhat better condition than the taxis. Regardless, most public transport owners (transportation is not government-owned here, though that is changing in at least somewhat in Maseru) like to decorate their vehicles. The primary form of decoration on the exterior is stickers that are words or short phrases. For example, in Mohale’s Hoek there is a mini-bus carrying a sticker on its hood stating, “Life is so Tricky.” Aaahhh, taxi philosophy. There is another that has a sticker reading “The Palace” on its side. Then there are the 4 + 1’s, “Two Bop” and “Five Bop.” I often wonder if the people have any idea what these stickers mean, or if they just buy the ones that match the color of their particular vehicle. My guess is the latter. Especially when min-buses have stickers reading things like “The Punisher”. I’ve heard, but not seen for myself, that there is a minibus in Maseru with a sticker reading “Taliban”. My favorite Mohale’s Hoek stickers are ones stating “Always Arrive” and “Arrive Alive”. Comforting. I even saw a private car with a sticker on the windshield reading “Tear Gas”. Really, do the owners understand what that is? I hope not.
And there are also proper buses that run between the camp towns. My favorite is the purple one that, in shiny letters written on both sides of the bus, reads “Ghetto Tours”. I’ve never had the pleasure of riding in that one, but someday maybe I will live the dream. I have ridden in a bus labeled “Lehooa Tours”. Lehooa (might be spelling that wrong – I forget how) means “white person”. Lesotho, how I love thee.
I can also now say that I have played soccer with a tennis ball. Soccer balls are expensive, especially nice ones, and between the barbed wire fences and the rocks they usually don’t last long. So a lot of kids use tennis balls. Those things are darned tricky to stop with your foot. Some of the kids are really good with them, though. Seriously, they have amazing ball control when playing soccer with a tennis ball. A boy who lives across the dirt path from me, Lefo, can do rainbows and everything. He comes home after school, borrows my tennis ball, and plays keep away from my dog. It’s pretty cute to watch. And it’s comforting to know that not all kids are afraid of my dog.
Actually, the kids are getting much better with her. Some of the ones who were most afraid have started to play with her, and they don’t even freak out when she jumps up on them, or barks. Not that I want her to be doing this, but she’s a puppy, so she’s learning. Anyways, these are big steps for the kids here, especially since many of them are not so much afraid of dogs as terrified. And the kids who are getting over their fears are helping the other kids to do so. Hooray for progress. This is not true of everyone, though. A couple days ago this woman who is probably about my age was walking down the path in front of my house. My dog was off sniffing something in a field on the other side of the path, not paying any attention to the woman. This woman however, saw the dog, started screaming, and ran towards the back door of my M’e and Ntate’s house. Of course, this attracts the dog’s attention and she thinks “Ooooooooo, something fun to chase.” Next thing I know, I hear a combination of this woman trying to beat down my M’e’s door and the dog barking. The kids around all started laughing at her, and honestly, I almost did too. It was so ridiculous. And I had a student of mine come to visit me who hid behind me when the dog came around, wrapped her hands around my waist, and started turning me to keep me between herself and my dog. Not even my dog. My puppy. Whew.
On a more depressing note, the volunteers have district meetings quarterly to discuss how projects are going, vent frustrations, etc. Mohale’s Hoek’s was last week. One of the volunteer’s who teaches at a small village secondary school was telling us that she had started a volleyball team at her school, and that they had had their first match the week before, against a school in a more urban area. Now, trash talking in America usually involves some insult to the person’s skills, intelligence, their mother, or to the person’s being overweight (at least as far as girls are concerned). Not here. The volunteers school, being new to the game, wasn’t a strong team, and they were not at all prepared for jeering student from the other school who apparently were yelling things like, “What do you eat? You eat nothing but papa. You so skinny, you don’t eat no protein.” Papa is the staple grain here. Basically refined cornmeal and water. The students from the other school were insulting these kids because they were from a poor village and didn’t have money to buy more expensive foods like meat for protein. If that wasn’t low enough, the students from the other school also yelled, “What’s your CD4 count?” That’s really low, especially in a country as decimated by AIDS as this one, and in which there is such a stigma against AIDS. And, of course, this is just another way of continuing the stigma.
Because sometimes you have to laugh to keep from getting too depressed, we started joking around about insults we could make up that would be pertinent to this country. Your mother jokes really aren’t understood here. People don’t get why you would be talking about their mother. So we thought, “What about ‘Your kobo’ jokes?” A kobo is a blanket, and blankets are very important here. People wear them throughout winter and even in summer, wrapped around their shoulders, or sometimes women wear them wrapped around their waists. Anyways, someone came up with, “Your blanket is so tattered, it looks like a dishrag,” and, “Your blanket is so ripped, I wouldn’t use it on my sheep.” Maybe you don’t get it back home, but I thought the jokes were pretty funny.
Well, I was going to talk a little bit about Basotho culture, but this is probably a long enough blog for now. Hope all is well.
Worse than muzak (and bologna) 5/10/08
So, I’m not sure if I’ve yet expanded on the sensual horrors that this country, in conjunction with South Africa, has wrought, so let me do so now. Yep, they’ve come up with music worse that that of muzak and a processed meat even grosser than bologna; actually, it’s called polony. So, concerning the music; it uses accordions. And crying babies sometimes. And the singers, all of whom are men, aren’t actually singing, they’re talking to the music. I think this musical style originated in the mines, and that’s something, but it’s incredibly offensive to my Western ears. And what’s worse, it’s played on most of the public transportation here. And not played gently, as background music, but cranked to the full capacity of the vehicles speakers. The people here love it, though, so I guess it’s good that they’re proud of their own music. I mention this because I was forced to listen to such music on my way to Mohale’s Hoek this morning. Half way through my ride, though, the music switched to some horrible pop song that’s sung in English and is probably American. This change brought me relief. And, realizing that, I became depressed. Seriously, I’m happy to hear the Backstreet Boys now. Yep, really. At least they’re better than accordions and screaming babies. They’re also better than the “changes in my life” and “my dream is to fly over the rainbow so high” songs that are popular here. Though it’s much more amusing to watch my students dance to those songs.
And yep, this country (actually it was probably South Africa) invented polony, bologna’s even grosser cousin. It has the same processed appearance as bologna, but is redder, and it comes in tubes. Bologna is at least cut into circular slices so that the senses are bombarded with only a small piece of grossness. Here, it comes in much larger sizes. And you can see people on the streets opening up the plastic covering and just eating it straight up. Restaurants here sell it on buttered bread. Another popular culinary method is to use a grater on the tube, like you would with cheese. Then add butter, or maybe a small amount of processed cheese between a couple of large slices of bread. Yum. Or, more appropriately, Bleah. This is what my kids eat whenever they go on school field trips or competitions. I’m trying to convince my teachers to opt for peanut butter: it’s cheaper, healthier, and less icky. My principal said that the kids might like peanut butter because it was a “sexy” option. Not sure exactly what they means, but maybe it’s wiser not to delve to deeply into the issue.
As might be guessed from the topics of this blog to now, not too much of interest has happened in my life this week. I have been finishing up a proposal to the National AIDS Commission (NAC) to get funding to paint HIV and AIDS messages on the 80 trash cans that the Community Council has placed around Mohale’s Hoek Camp town. That went to Maseru yesterday, and I should hear back within the month, hopefully. I got a local hardware store to agree to provide materials, but I still need money to pay someone to paint the messages, and for all 80 trash cans, it’s going to run around R3000.
I’m also trying to get funding to buy soccer uniforms for my school’s boys and girls teams. I’m going to Bloemfontein next week hopefully to talk with a sports store there because no stores in the area sell uniforms of good quality. I’m hoping I can talk the store into giving us a discount in return for screen-printing their logo on the jerseys. Then I’ll have to figure out a way to front the rest of the cost. And, unfortunately I have to buy a set of uniforms for my girls’ team and a set of uniforms for my boys team. I was hoping they could share, but no, the boys refuse to wear the shorts after the girls have worn them because, and shhhh, this is a secret, girls menstruate!!! And, OMG, what if they had their period while wearing the shorts?! I could understand if this was a fear of HIV, and might even be happy that they were thinking of such things. Then I could explain that they can’t contract HIV from dried blood. But no, this is simply a fear of femininity. I can’t wait until I get to teach my biology class about reproduction.
And I collected homework in my English classes. I had them write sentences using vocabulary words. 50% of them had the same sentences, or maybe almost the same sentences with slight alterations (i.e. changing the subject from “grandmother” to “grandfather”). This is how homework is done here: cheating. Sometimes I even sympathize with it. I caught a couple of my better students copying someone’s homework during break a couple days ago and asked why they hadn’t done it sooner. “Madam, we don’t have books” was the response. Books are not free to secondary and high school students – they have to pay for them. I really felt bad yelling at them about it because it would be like yelling at them because they were too poor to afford books. I asked if they could, in the future, maybe go to a friend’s house to do the homework together, but even that’s difficult if they are at school until it gets dark, which they are. We take for granted the beauty of electricity and street lights in the States, but when it gets dark here (and it gets dark at about 5:45 now), it’s really dark. And there is a very real danger, for the girls at least, of being assaulted, if not actually raped, if they are out late. I try not to give homework from books so that I know that everyone can do their work, and if they are cheating it’s because they are lazy. Then I feel okay about yelling at them.
I have to go to a meeting now, so I’ll finish up.
Hope everyone is well.
And yep, this country (actually it was probably South Africa) invented polony, bologna’s even grosser cousin. It has the same processed appearance as bologna, but is redder, and it comes in tubes. Bologna is at least cut into circular slices so that the senses are bombarded with only a small piece of grossness. Here, it comes in much larger sizes. And you can see people on the streets opening up the plastic covering and just eating it straight up. Restaurants here sell it on buttered bread. Another popular culinary method is to use a grater on the tube, like you would with cheese. Then add butter, or maybe a small amount of processed cheese between a couple of large slices of bread. Yum. Or, more appropriately, Bleah. This is what my kids eat whenever they go on school field trips or competitions. I’m trying to convince my teachers to opt for peanut butter: it’s cheaper, healthier, and less icky. My principal said that the kids might like peanut butter because it was a “sexy” option. Not sure exactly what they means, but maybe it’s wiser not to delve to deeply into the issue.
As might be guessed from the topics of this blog to now, not too much of interest has happened in my life this week. I have been finishing up a proposal to the National AIDS Commission (NAC) to get funding to paint HIV and AIDS messages on the 80 trash cans that the Community Council has placed around Mohale’s Hoek Camp town. That went to Maseru yesterday, and I should hear back within the month, hopefully. I got a local hardware store to agree to provide materials, but I still need money to pay someone to paint the messages, and for all 80 trash cans, it’s going to run around R3000.
I’m also trying to get funding to buy soccer uniforms for my school’s boys and girls teams. I’m going to Bloemfontein next week hopefully to talk with a sports store there because no stores in the area sell uniforms of good quality. I’m hoping I can talk the store into giving us a discount in return for screen-printing their logo on the jerseys. Then I’ll have to figure out a way to front the rest of the cost. And, unfortunately I have to buy a set of uniforms for my girls’ team and a set of uniforms for my boys team. I was hoping they could share, but no, the boys refuse to wear the shorts after the girls have worn them because, and shhhh, this is a secret, girls menstruate!!! And, OMG, what if they had their period while wearing the shorts?! I could understand if this was a fear of HIV, and might even be happy that they were thinking of such things. Then I could explain that they can’t contract HIV from dried blood. But no, this is simply a fear of femininity. I can’t wait until I get to teach my biology class about reproduction.
And I collected homework in my English classes. I had them write sentences using vocabulary words. 50% of them had the same sentences, or maybe almost the same sentences with slight alterations (i.e. changing the subject from “grandmother” to “grandfather”). This is how homework is done here: cheating. Sometimes I even sympathize with it. I caught a couple of my better students copying someone’s homework during break a couple days ago and asked why they hadn’t done it sooner. “Madam, we don’t have books” was the response. Books are not free to secondary and high school students – they have to pay for them. I really felt bad yelling at them about it because it would be like yelling at them because they were too poor to afford books. I asked if they could, in the future, maybe go to a friend’s house to do the homework together, but even that’s difficult if they are at school until it gets dark, which they are. We take for granted the beauty of electricity and street lights in the States, but when it gets dark here (and it gets dark at about 5:45 now), it’s really dark. And there is a very real danger, for the girls at least, of being assaulted, if not actually raped, if they are out late. I try not to give homework from books so that I know that everyone can do their work, and if they are cheating it’s because they are lazy. Then I feel okay about yelling at them.
I have to go to a meeting now, so I’ll finish up.
Hope everyone is well.
I made a pumpkin pie!
Yep, that’s my big news for the week. I made a pumpkin pie. From scratch. With a Dutch oven. For those who don’t know, that’s a large pot with a tin can at the bottom of it, on which rests the item being baked. My host family has a garden complete with pumpkins, and they gave me one, so I peeled it, cut it up, cooked it until mushy and put it in a pie. I gave most of the pie to my host family, who said they liked it very much.
My m’e loves apples so I figure maybe my next venture will be an apple pie.
I’m typing right now with gloves on, which is proving a little difficult, but I’m cold so I’m not taking them off. Winter’s almost here now, and I’m really glad that I do not live in the highlands. They had snow as early as a couple weeks ago. I was going to buy a thermostat in town today, to keep track of how cold it got in my house, but I can’t find anywhere that sells them. Maybe when I go back to Maseru I’ll try.
I’m in town today to meet with the Community Council and the National AIDS Commission (NAC). The Community Council set up trash cans in town a couple months ago in an effort to beautify Mohale’s Hoek, I suppose. Most people just thrown trash wherever they feel like it, so there are empty bags floating in the breeze everywhere. Anyways, I have permission from the Community Council to paint facts about HIV and AIDS on all 80-something trash cans in the area, which is great. And I have gotten the local hardware store, Jandrell’s, to agree to donate the paint for the job. Basically, I would also love to have NAC’s endorsement, and see if they can front the cost of hiring someone to do the job well. Hopefully this will work out.
As an aside, Jandrell’s owns at least half of Mohale’s Hoek. Seriously. There’s a Jandrell’s Hardware, Jandrell’s Farming Supplies, Jandrell’s Gardening Supplies, a Jandrell’s furniture store, etc. There used to be a Jandrell’s grocery, but they sold it to Fraser’s, who now has 2 grocery stores in the town. Bear in mind that the town only has 2 roads. Another interesting fact is that these 2 stores bearing the same name, less than a quarter mile from each other, charge different prices for the same goods. I can only imagine that this is because one is in the taxi rink, so they figure they can jack up their prices and people will still buy them. And the concept of bulk buying to lower prices doesn’t exist here. 1 liter of yoghurt is roughly R5 more expensive than buying the same amount in smaller containers. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Yesterday, May 1st, was a holiday, so my support group didn’t meet. It was both Ascension Day and National Workers’ Day. I spent the day playing with my dog, baking a pumpkin pie, and finishing a good book called My Traitor’s Heart. If anyone is interested in reading a little about apartheid South Africa, mostly in the turbulent 1980’s, I would recommend it. So would Salmon Rushdie. It says so on the back of the cover. It’s nonfiction, and it’s about a white South African journalist who was born in 1954, in a family known for its racist views. In fact, a relative of his was responsible for the apartheid legislation. The author turned out to be much more moderate though. He went into exile for 8 years because he refused to join the army, and then returned to South Africa in the 1980’s when all hell was breaking loose. Most of the book is about stories he picked up from interviews, trying explain the chaos that was overtaking the country and the feel of apartheid. Apparently most people outside South Africa were comparing what was going on with the Civil Rights movement in the States. Anyways, I enjoyed the book.
Hope everyone back home is doing well. Enjoy your nice, temperature-controlled homes.
My m’e loves apples so I figure maybe my next venture will be an apple pie.
I’m typing right now with gloves on, which is proving a little difficult, but I’m cold so I’m not taking them off. Winter’s almost here now, and I’m really glad that I do not live in the highlands. They had snow as early as a couple weeks ago. I was going to buy a thermostat in town today, to keep track of how cold it got in my house, but I can’t find anywhere that sells them. Maybe when I go back to Maseru I’ll try.
I’m in town today to meet with the Community Council and the National AIDS Commission (NAC). The Community Council set up trash cans in town a couple months ago in an effort to beautify Mohale’s Hoek, I suppose. Most people just thrown trash wherever they feel like it, so there are empty bags floating in the breeze everywhere. Anyways, I have permission from the Community Council to paint facts about HIV and AIDS on all 80-something trash cans in the area, which is great. And I have gotten the local hardware store, Jandrell’s, to agree to donate the paint for the job. Basically, I would also love to have NAC’s endorsement, and see if they can front the cost of hiring someone to do the job well. Hopefully this will work out.
As an aside, Jandrell’s owns at least half of Mohale’s Hoek. Seriously. There’s a Jandrell’s Hardware, Jandrell’s Farming Supplies, Jandrell’s Gardening Supplies, a Jandrell’s furniture store, etc. There used to be a Jandrell’s grocery, but they sold it to Fraser’s, who now has 2 grocery stores in the town. Bear in mind that the town only has 2 roads. Another interesting fact is that these 2 stores bearing the same name, less than a quarter mile from each other, charge different prices for the same goods. I can only imagine that this is because one is in the taxi rink, so they figure they can jack up their prices and people will still buy them. And the concept of bulk buying to lower prices doesn’t exist here. 1 liter of yoghurt is roughly R5 more expensive than buying the same amount in smaller containers. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Yesterday, May 1st, was a holiday, so my support group didn’t meet. It was both Ascension Day and National Workers’ Day. I spent the day playing with my dog, baking a pumpkin pie, and finishing a good book called My Traitor’s Heart. If anyone is interested in reading a little about apartheid South Africa, mostly in the turbulent 1980’s, I would recommend it. So would Salmon Rushdie. It says so on the back of the cover. It’s nonfiction, and it’s about a white South African journalist who was born in 1954, in a family known for its racist views. In fact, a relative of his was responsible for the apartheid legislation. The author turned out to be much more moderate though. He went into exile for 8 years because he refused to join the army, and then returned to South Africa in the 1980’s when all hell was breaking loose. Most of the book is about stories he picked up from interviews, trying explain the chaos that was overtaking the country and the feel of apartheid. Apparently most people outside South Africa were comparing what was going on with the Civil Rights movement in the States. Anyways, I enjoyed the book.
Hope everyone back home is doing well. Enjoy your nice, temperature-controlled homes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)