first week back

i woke up the morning after arriving home and went outside to find my 'm'e just arriving back from somewhere. she walked up to me and gave me a big hug. she always brightens my day. she makes it a lot easier to return to lesotho after vacations. anyways, we talked for about a half hour on what had been going on in my absence and what plans i had for the next month or so. we are going to hopefully have a library appreciation day soon, and then an hiv/aids testing and education day in a couple of months. unfortunately, not all was pleasant news. on of my standard 6 students, who is about 13 or 14, is pregnant. the father is one of my standard 7 students. a secondary student who lives near me, and who i like a lot, came by and told me that all but 3 of my 120-something form a students had failed their june exams. most of the form b students failed, too, i later found out. my principal blamed a couple of the teachers at my school who are very lax, lazy, and just not good. basically, there is a problem with a couple of the teachers not coming to class half the time, or insulting the students. and he doesn't want to fire them because he is thinking about what will happen to their families if they are fired. which is nice, it's good that he's concerned for their welfare. all the same, he's either damaging the teachers' families or damaging the over 200 students currently at the school. apparently the school board wants to fire them. we'll see what happens with that.
i also found out that yes, my 'm'e did send my sheets to get washed by one of my students. this student used almost an entire 2 kg box of laundry detergent and half a bottle of bleach (this made me cringe) to clean my sheets. or so she claimed. sounded a bit fishy to me. seriously, maybe my dog had gotten my sheets a little muddy, but using 2 kg of soap is a little extravagant. i presume that she used a lot of my soap for herself. this is a little frustrating because she and her sister are double orphans who had asked for money. i started giving them my laundry to do a few months ago as a way for them to earn money because they need it. but i don't like being used. so i'm trying to sort out whether i want to keep trying to get them to do laundry or not.
so that was sunday. on monday, i walked into town to try to talk with the national aids commission (nac) about my proposal to put hiv/aids education phrases on the trash cans in mohale's hoek. i have a verbal consent, but am waiting for written consent. i can't start without the written consent. so basically nothing had changed in the three-plus weeks that i had been on vacation and out of town. the woman told me to return wednesday. maybe she would've heard something by then. i also started writing all of the blogs that've just been posted. it took a few hours over a couple days to complete them. i talked with a member of my support group, ntate none, who had said that the group would be gardening on tuesday. so on tuesday i headed out to garden.
i think the support group just gets me to garden for comic relief. i am not a gardener. i can't hoe a whole correctly apparently. but i did get better over the four hours spent in the garden. this is a new garden, the fourth my support group has, and we were planting peas to grow for the orphans and aids patients in the village. the how i was using was not made of finished wood, so after a couple hours i stopped to remove a splinter. i also noticed i had a blister. my support group thought this was hilarious. silly city girl with her soft hands! yeah, yeah. so, i took a break and asked the bo 'm'e if they knew any gardening songs. they sang one and then asked me to sing. d'oh! i guess i dug that hole myself, though. i couldn't think of any gardening songs, so i sang "old mcdonald". they didn't understand the lyrics, but laughed heartily when i got to the part where i snorted like a pig (the first animal mcdonald had on this particular farm was a pig). then i explained the lyrics, and that it was a childrens' song, and went on to sing a couple more verses. soon after this, ntate none returned (no idea where he'd gone). i know he returned because he ran in yelling "viva volunteers! no surrender! the spirit of no surrender!" this was actually stated in english. except the "viva" of course. this was one thing i was not expecting to hear in lesotho, and it made me burst out laughing. i have no idea where this came from or where he'd heard it in lesotho, but the fact that the phrase had made it to a small village in the middle of a very poor, small, little-known southern african country not known for revolutions was pretty surprising. ntate none said it a couple more times throughout the day, and i chuckled to myself every time.
so tuesday went and wednesday came, and i was back in town to talk with nac. except the woman never showed up. i finished writing most of the blogs about my trip and returned home. the big news wednesday evening was that my cat has apparently been sneaking off at night to visit a male cat up the hill. maybe there will be kittens for me sometime this spring/summer. nice.
thursday was the king's birthday, and my family had invited me to a celebration at the racetrack in mohale's hoek. this is where all celebrations occur. one of my host sisters is head of the criminally insane ward of the prison in mohale's hoek and was going to be participating in the ceremony. basically the prison guards and police officers did a bunch of marching together. my family was really proud of lerato (my host sister). she was one of the people closest to the front of the line, which meant she was in a position of authority. it was really nice to go and watch, just to feel like i was a part of my host family, and that i could join in with their happiness. it was also good to see lerato again. i like her a lot. she's a couple years older than me and is very nice and also very studious. she's actually trying to apply to study psychology in the uk so that she can further her career in the prisons. hopefully that will be successful.
also at this celebration, some of the prisoners were able to perform some traditional dances. it was really nice i thought, to be able to involve the prisoners, to make them feel like a part of the community.
all that finished a little after noon, so we grabbed some free food at the celebration and headed home. on friday i thought that i was going to be gardening again, but no one showed up, so i figured i walk into town again to try the woman at nac. the couple times i'd been into town earlier i had worn my ipod so as to avoid having to listen to people yelling at me. i didn't have it this time, and didn't want to go home, so i started walking. well, first a taxi conductor grabbed me to try to force me into his taxi. this isn't incredibly uncommon, but it's still really annoying and i wanted to punch him. i restrained myself and continued to walk, but also had to deal with a bunch of "good afternoon. give me money"'s from kids on the road. i braved all of this and made it into town. no luck with nac. i ran into a couple volunteers, though, and talked with them for a while and then headed home.
i got home at about 4:15, and my burglar bars on my house decided to rebel against me. i couldn't unlock them. my key wouldn't turn. i couldn't get it. my 'm'e couldn't get it. my ntate, my 'm'e's son, our neighbor, and a more skilled community member couldn't get the lock to work. so, at about 5:15 i decided alternate action would have to be taken. i called peace corps. unfortunately it was late on a friday afternoon, so they wouldn't be able to come until saturday, so i had to find another place to sleep. thankfully another volunteer, nicole, lives near me. but all of my money was locked in my house and nicole lived 6 miles away. this was too far to walk in the 45 minutes before dark. so i borrowed money from my 'm'e and showed up on nicole's doorstep at 6, locked out of my house. on the plus side, my mail had come and while i might not be able to enter my house, i had received my driver's license from the states (i'd had to renew it).
so i stayed at nicole's and got to talk with her for a while, which was nice. i like her. and then i left early the next morning to head home, as i was told that someone would be coming at about 10 am to fix my door. no one showed up until 3 pm. at that time i was hungry (food locked inside my house), thirsty (water locked inside my house), and hot (i had been sitting outside for a while). so basically i was a little cranky. but everything worked out, the lock was broken and replaced in about 20 minutes, and i had a free ride into maseru, which is where i am now.
just another typical week in lesotho.