back to maseru or aug 11 through aug 19

this was a pretty slow week. on tuesday my host sisters took 'm'e matukiso to see a doctor, which was good. she had been complaining of chest and neck pains for a few days, which had me pretty worried. they tried to go to bloemfontein but the doctor wouldn't see them without an appointment so they ended up in ladybrand. ladybrand is a town just across the maseru border, with some decent doctors. anyways, they didn't get back until dusk. 'm'e matukiso has diabetes and it turned out that the stress of tsotlo's death and funeral had caused both her blood sugar and blood pressure to rise pretty dramatically. so the doctor have her meds and told her to come back in a month to see how she is doing. i'm just so glad that she went, because that could've been pretty dangerous, obviously.
other than that, i had a pretty normal week. went to school. the sister-in-law of one of my teachers died of hiv a few weeks ago, and it is customary for the co-workers to visit before the funeral. the funeral was scheduled for saturday. i went to school on wednesday and my teachers got in the hour long discussion about what day to visit. they had planned on thursday, but wanted to change it to wednesday (that day) because they had not expected the weather to be so cold and they weren't properly dressed. that was seriously and argument. it wasn't even that cold. a little windy maybe. but then someone brought up that they hadn't planned on going wednesday, and was anyone going to the actualy funeral on saturday who could stay behind to close the school. of course, no one wanted to stay behind to close the school, so the decision was finally reached to close school early so all teachers could go. then there was another hour long discussion concerning how close of a relative had to die to warrant a visit from the co-workers. this debate finally ended at about 1:45, and we had another 45 minute walk by basotho walking pace to the tarred road, where we had to wait a while for a taxi.
while waiting, one of my teachers pipes up and asks me if sex change operations are performed in the states. i answered in the affirmative, wondering where this question originated. found out there had been an article in the paper about a man having a baby. of course, this was a man who had been a woman before having a sex change, but i'm not sure that the article properly explained that (i haven't actually seen this article) so there were a lot of curious basotho. i've talked with a few other volunteers who've had to field fun questions of this variety.
the bus finally came and we went to the teacher's house to offer our condolences, pray, etc. then i went home.
on thursday i went into town in yet another failed attempt to meet with the national aids commission about a project i'm working on. i had actually contacted the woman, and she said she'd be in town, but when i got to town and called her she was like, "oh, sorry i thought you meant maseru." aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh. seriously, all i need from this woman are some forms i have to fill out, and i don't understand why she can't just give them to someone else in the office to give to me, if she is going to be in maseru. apparently this doesn't work. and i asked her if she could just leave them with peace corps headquarters in maseru, as nac headquarters is only maybe a quarter mile away, but i guess that was too much work, too. so i have to try to get up with her again later this week.
anyways, frustrated by my thwarted efforts to fill out forms, i went to the hotel in town where pcv's have a small office room and did some work on the computer for a while. i ran into another volunteer and we grabbed lunch. while there, we ran into ntate majara, who works for peace corps. turns out he was in town because one of the new volunteers in the area had quite, so he had to get her to take her back to maseru. we told him to bring her back by if she wanted, so that we could say goodbye to her. so ntate majara came back a while later with kate. she said she had to leave because of some family troubles, which is rough. it's sad when people leave, and she seemed really cool and was going to be a pretty close neighbor. sigh.
saturday night the mohale's hoek district decided to have a welcome party/meeting for the new volunteer in the country, lorian. she's the only new volunteer in the hoek, now that kate's left. we had tacos for dinner and just hung out and chatted. we were at a volunteer's, nicole's site. she lives near town, has electricity and running water, and has a large house (we're talking multiple rooms here, people), which is nice for gatherings. she also happens to live on a catholic church organization's site, because she works for the organization. and, the catholic church happened to be holding an annual meeting of paritioners from all over lesotho while we were there. now, formal church dress includes a skirt and a shirt with a matching cape and hat. the color depends on which church you're from. so there were hundreds of bo m'e outside singing and blowing whistles. another volunteer, jessica, cut my hair outside, which created a bit of entertainment for the women. we also watched sweeny todd on her computer later that night. weird movie. the next morning we had pancakes for breakfast! yum. i love food.
from there i had to come into maseru because my hand is still not ok. there had been a rash/legion there for a month, so peace corps had made an appointment for me to see a dermatologist in bloemfontein early monday. i came into maseru intending to drop my stuff off at the peace corps house and then go into the office to work. didn't happen. i spent sunday afternoon patching another hole in my jeans (i now have matching elephant patches on either side of my inner thigh) and obsessively watching the first season of heroes on dvd. i'd never seen the show, and i think i like it because it reminds me of x-men.
anywho, i went to the doctor monday, and he said that he thought my problem was a photoallergic reaction to the sun, probably combined with the doxycycline (an antimalarial) i'd been on while in namibia, gave me some medicine, and sent me on my way. the joys of being white.
oh, i did still manage to post pics on flickr. all my vacation pictures are now up and organized in a set, along with a couple pictures i've taken since. enjoy
ann