so, my Saturday was spent at another funeral. Really, there have been a lot of deaths of late in my village. This funeral was for my host uncle, my ntate’s brother, whose son is also one of my students. It started later than any funeral I have yet been to, at 1:30 instead of roughly 11 am. So I was sitting around the deceased’s house for a while just hanging out. I got to meet some other cousins of mine who live in jo-burg, which was nice. They all seemed pretty cool and I was invited to visit them in Soweto sometime. My ‘m’e told me that this would be a shorter funeral than most. It was. It was only 1 ½ hours long. It was also the funniest funeral I’ve ever attended, perhaps proving that I have lived in Lesotho too long. First, as I think I have said, funeral’s begin with the family congregating in the house, where the casket is, to view the body. Well, the top was taken off the casket and it turned out that the body had shifted in transit from the funeral home to the house. Someone had to stick their hands in and shift his head to the proper position. I think I was in a morbidly humorous mood and thought this was a little funny. Then a cousin came in to view the body, clapped his hands together and then threw them up in the air shaking them back and forth at the wrists. All I could think was, “jazz hands, jazz hands” and then I had to try not to smile while this poor kid was collapsing onto the ground in grief. Then there was then woman who I later found out habitually arrives at funerals drunk. Whenever anyone started a song (this happens a lot between speakers) she would blare out the lyrics but she couldn’t quite get the vowels out right, so she ended up sounding like a sheep bleating. Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a. and when the preachers got up individually to give sermons (there were three of them) she would periodically shout at the top of her voice, “AMEN!!!” There were others exclaiming, “amen,” but softly. My ‘m’e and I happened to be sitting next to one another and we would turn and look at each other and try not to laugh. Both she and my chief at one point tried to quiet the woman. It did no good. She was hilarious.
A bunch of my students also came to the funeral because it was the father of a student who died. They were part of the choir and sang both at the funeral and the burial. They sounded beautiful.
The rest of my week, excepting Wednesday, was pretty slow. I got to school on Wednesday just before morning assembly and no teachers had yet arrived. Morning assembly was finished and still no teachers. Now, it’s not uncommon for most teachers to not be at school on time, but usually at least one of my male teachers (they seem to be in general more punctual and responsible) to be there. One of my male teachers showed up a few minutes later and told me that one of the students had been stabbed in the chest by a herd boy on the way to school this morning and the other teachers were helping him, calling the police, trying to track down the herd boy (he had run away), etc. turns out that the student thakabanna, is fine, he was stabbed low in the chest and not deeply, so that’s good.
Shortly after this I got a good example of the humor caused by students’ sometimes weak knowledge of English. Fyi: this is perhaps to some, a bit of a risqué story. Sorry, mom. I was writing notes on the board in my biology class while my students copied (I can’t talk while writing notes because the students can’t write and listen at the same time). One of my female students came up to me and said, “Madam I have just started masturbating. Can I go ask _______ [I forgot the other student’s name] for a pad and go to the toilet?” well, I of course processed the word “masturbate” immediately as it was said and was completely shocked until my brain registered the word “pad” and I realized that she meant to say “menstruating.” I didn’t correct her because I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the class. I did however give her permission while trying my best not to laugh in her face. I turned back to the board to begin writing again and smiled. I told a couple other teachers about this later on because I thought it was funny. One didn’t know what the word “masturbate” meant. The other explained it as, “you know, what lesbians do.” I sighed to myself and mentally shook my head.
I’m heading into maseru tomorrow. I have a peace corps meeting Monday through Wednesday and wanted to get in a few days early so I could use the computers.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Stolen Solar Panel – 30/8/08 – 5/9/08
That’s pretty much my news for the week: my solar panel was stolen. I came into town on Saturday and when I returned home it was gone. I guess I was somewhat tempting fate because I leave the thing outside, but my family is usually at home and I live I a quiet area of my village, so I figured it’d be ok. My family was really upset over the theft. I let them handle how to deal with it since I don’t understand the legal system here. Sunday morning my ntate went and talked with the chief, to tell her what had happened. The solar panel was stolen sometime between noon and 5:30, when I returned home. My m’e said that she suspected this boy who comes to the house sometimes because he is a friend of the family’s herd boy.
My chief scheduled a meeting with all of the boys who had been around the house that day. She scheduled it for Wednesday, though, which kind of baffled me. This gives the guy over 3 days to dispose of or hide the thing. So, of course the meeting produced nothing. And as far as I can tell it amounted to the boys being questioned:
“Did you take the solar panel?”
“No, madam.”
“Did you see the solar panel?”
“No, madam.”
Completely ineffective. Especially since the kids here are adept at lying. So I have little hope that it will be returned. I did notify my support group, though, and my ntate had let members of other communities know that it was taken. The solar panel is from America, so it’s pretty distinctively different from all of the solar panels you see here. So maybe someone will notice it and get a hold of us.
Just to round things out, I went to the police office in mohale’s hoek this morning to file a report. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to do anything. I sat there for an hour while a guy asked what happened and wrote really slowly a two-page report of what happened. Another guy questioned my as to my name, age, etc. general info. Basically. He asked my nationality. I said American. I noticed that he checked me as being Indian. “no,” I said, “I’m not Indian, I’m American. Check the box that says, “of other nationality.” there is an Indian option on the form because Indians make up probably the second largest minority in the country, behind Chinese. Meanwhile the guy writing the two-page report was occasionally questioning as to the proper spelling of certain words. He was also writing the report in first person, as if her were me: “I left my house Saturday morning. I left the solar panel outside…” hmmm. He finished writing the report and said they were through. I asked if he would like a description of the solar panel, especially since it’s unique looking. He said that no, if they found any solar panels they would take them and then bring me in to identify them. Yeah, I’m not getting my solar panel back.
Funny story from school: apparently some kids in my form a1 class decided to remove and hide the doorknob to the classroom door. One of the teachers finally found it and took the doorknob to the staffroom so the kids couldn’t hide again. Though the doorknob has been removed from the door, the latch is still functional. So if you close the door the latch slips in place, but there’s no knob to turn to release it. So now whenever I go to class I have to remove the doorknob from the staffroom, carry it to class, and insert it in the door so that I can actually get into the class. absolutely ridiculous. I love this country.
My chief scheduled a meeting with all of the boys who had been around the house that day. She scheduled it for Wednesday, though, which kind of baffled me. This gives the guy over 3 days to dispose of or hide the thing. So, of course the meeting produced nothing. And as far as I can tell it amounted to the boys being questioned:
“Did you take the solar panel?”
“No, madam.”
“Did you see the solar panel?”
“No, madam.”
Completely ineffective. Especially since the kids here are adept at lying. So I have little hope that it will be returned. I did notify my support group, though, and my ntate had let members of other communities know that it was taken. The solar panel is from America, so it’s pretty distinctively different from all of the solar panels you see here. So maybe someone will notice it and get a hold of us.
Just to round things out, I went to the police office in mohale’s hoek this morning to file a report. I’m pretty sure they’re not going to do anything. I sat there for an hour while a guy asked what happened and wrote really slowly a two-page report of what happened. Another guy questioned my as to my name, age, etc. general info. Basically. He asked my nationality. I said American. I noticed that he checked me as being Indian. “no,” I said, “I’m not Indian, I’m American. Check the box that says, “of other nationality.” there is an Indian option on the form because Indians make up probably the second largest minority in the country, behind Chinese. Meanwhile the guy writing the two-page report was occasionally questioning as to the proper spelling of certain words. He was also writing the report in first person, as if her were me: “I left my house Saturday morning. I left the solar panel outside…” hmmm. He finished writing the report and said they were through. I asked if he would like a description of the solar panel, especially since it’s unique looking. He said that no, if they found any solar panels they would take them and then bring me in to identify them. Yeah, I’m not getting my solar panel back.
Funny story from school: apparently some kids in my form a1 class decided to remove and hide the doorknob to the classroom door. One of the teachers finally found it and took the doorknob to the staffroom so the kids couldn’t hide again. Though the doorknob has been removed from the door, the latch is still functional. So if you close the door the latch slips in place, but there’s no knob to turn to release it. So now whenever I go to class I have to remove the doorknob from the staffroom, carry it to class, and insert it in the door so that I can actually get into the class. absolutely ridiculous. I love this country.
WHERE’S MY MONEY!!!
Life’s been pretty slow the past couple of weeks. Just been going to school, reading, working on a couple of other small projects. I’ve been converting toilet paper rolls into shakers that can be used by the eccd (preschool) students for games. I’ve made one set for numbers 1 – 10, one set for colors, and will soon be making a set for shapes. Basically I just put some small pebbles into the toilet paper rolls, tape them at both ends, and have the color/number/symbol/whatever written in English and Sesotho. Then ‘m’e matukiso can use the shakers with books from the library or just as a game in her class. Hopefully they’ll come in handy.
I have also recently gained an appreciation for city workers. All those people with the thankless jobs of picking up trash and keeping the city/town/village clean. Yeah, we don’t have those here. All trash gets burned or dumped down the pit latrine (pit latrines can be very handy actually. I’ve become fond of mine). This is all ok. The problem is road kill. It gets cleaned up pretty quickly in the states by some poor person. Here, no one is paid to do those things, so if something gets hit goodness knows how long it will be before it’s picked up. Well, I guess a cow would be pretty quick because it’s worth something and it’s pretty big. Dogs however are smaller and don’t matter. So I had a dog carcass sitting about a quarter mile from my house for a little under 2 weeks before it finally disappeared. And, of course it’s in the middle of the road. Drivers do try to avoid the body, but sometimes run over it anyway. So after about 2 weeks, besides the smell, the site was incredibly gruesome. It was on the route I use to walk my dog, so I had to walk by it every day and it gave me chills. You could tell by the face that the poor thing died in pain. It was just really sad.
And another sad story (sorry): I was talking with my principal on the way to school on Monday. He’d heard on the radio that there was a village in Lesotho in which people were intentionally infecting each other with HIV so that they could receive food aid. I can’t verify this, but I have talked with another volunteer who said it was done in south Africa, so it might be true. Geez.
And I went to another funeral last Saturday. It was for a teacher at st. patrick’s high school near mohale’s hoek camp town, who died of kidney failure. I didn’t know him, but my host sister had gone to st. patrick’s back in the day and he had been her teacher, so she wanted to go but didn’t want to go alone. She’s still trying to get over tsotlo’s death and didn’t know how it would affect her. So I went. Ntate putsoa, the deceased, was catholic, so there was a mass said at the beginning of the funeral. Strangest catholic service I’ve ever been to. Catholic masses are generally pretty formatted, so you can follow where you are in the service even if you don’t know the language. Nope. I could tell when the gospel was read because the priest read it, and communion was pretty obvious, but that’s about it. And most of the congregation went up to communion which surprised me. I wonder if they were really catholic. Anyways, after the mass, which lasted about 1 hour 15 minutes, 19 people stood up to speak about this man. Seriously. All in all the funeral lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes. And of course I’m sitting there not understanding much and the funeral is outside at the school and it’s windy and threatening to rain (it didn’t, thank goodness). Then we had to walk across the street to the graveyard to bury him. There are lots of graveyards in this country, so everyone lives within walking distance of one. So he was buried and then everyone went back to his house to eat, as is customary here. My host sister was totally fine throughout the service, so that was good. I’m glad I could be there for her but durn, that was a long funeral even by basotho standards. Interesting point: because ntate putsoa was a teacher, everyone who had graduated university or college was asked to wear their graduation gowns to the ceremony.
On Sunday morning someone came by my family’s home to tell my family that a relative had died. He was the father of one of my students who I think is a cousin or something. The father died of T.B. the oldest son is arriving tomorrow and they will determine the date of the funeral then. I went to see the family on Monday and got to speak with my student’s (his name is kopano) mother. I don’t think she lives with the family anymore, but had come back for her husband’s death. She was blind. And kopano had gone to school. He had gone to the funeral home in the morning and then went to school. I guess he figured he had nothing else to do. I hope he’s ok. There’ve just been a lot of deaths in the past month.
And I’m getting over a nasty cold now. I’ve actually been laid up in bed the past couple days with a sore throat, runny nose, cough, all that good stuff. I’m still a little stuff but feeling a thousand times better than I was.
On a happier note, one of my students likes writing plays, and has written me a play about hiv/aids and making good choices. It’s in Sesotho, but my host sister lerato wants to help me so we’re getting together hopefully next week to translate it, review it, make sure all info is accurate, etc. I wanted to put on the show in October, over independence week when the kids are out of school, but I don’t think there’s time and so this might wait until after final exams in December. I’m pretty excited about it, though. I want to have a whole day of hiv/aids stuff. So there’s the play, and lerato has suggested getting a choir together to sing, which is great, and then I want to get some organizations in who can teach about hiv and do testing. But I think it’s going to be kind of a big project, so we’ll see how it works out. I have to find a venue and notify the chief, get permission and all that. But it’ll give me something to work on and look forward to.
Speaking of looking forward to things, my mother is coming in less than a month! I’m really excited. I don’t think I’ve ever been away from my family this long before, and it’ll be nice to see her. We’re going to spend a few days in cape town, and then she’s going to come back and stay in Lesotho with me for about a week. My host family here is actually really excited as well. It’s cute.
This just in: We in peace corps get paid quarterly, so we’re supposed to be getting paid now. Everyone was talking about how they had been paid, but my account was still basically empty so I called peace corps. They told me they dropped my account because I was going to be leaving next month. I told them no, I expected to be here a while yet. But there is a girl leaving in a couple weeks whose name is really similar to mine and apparently the administration confused the two of us and dropped me instead of her. Lovely. This isn’t actually the first time we’ve been confused. Last year during training people kept trying to give me her mail. I’d get all excited because I thought someone had written me, but no, the letters were for her. And medical has almost pulled her file for me before. And now I don’t have money. This is supposed to be rectified by the end of the day, though. Here’s hoping. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgh.
Hope all is well back home. Crazy to think, I’m one year down and one to go! This time next year I’ll probably be home!
I have also recently gained an appreciation for city workers. All those people with the thankless jobs of picking up trash and keeping the city/town/village clean. Yeah, we don’t have those here. All trash gets burned or dumped down the pit latrine (pit latrines can be very handy actually. I’ve become fond of mine). This is all ok. The problem is road kill. It gets cleaned up pretty quickly in the states by some poor person. Here, no one is paid to do those things, so if something gets hit goodness knows how long it will be before it’s picked up. Well, I guess a cow would be pretty quick because it’s worth something and it’s pretty big. Dogs however are smaller and don’t matter. So I had a dog carcass sitting about a quarter mile from my house for a little under 2 weeks before it finally disappeared. And, of course it’s in the middle of the road. Drivers do try to avoid the body, but sometimes run over it anyway. So after about 2 weeks, besides the smell, the site was incredibly gruesome. It was on the route I use to walk my dog, so I had to walk by it every day and it gave me chills. You could tell by the face that the poor thing died in pain. It was just really sad.
And another sad story (sorry): I was talking with my principal on the way to school on Monday. He’d heard on the radio that there was a village in Lesotho in which people were intentionally infecting each other with HIV so that they could receive food aid. I can’t verify this, but I have talked with another volunteer who said it was done in south Africa, so it might be true. Geez.
And I went to another funeral last Saturday. It was for a teacher at st. patrick’s high school near mohale’s hoek camp town, who died of kidney failure. I didn’t know him, but my host sister had gone to st. patrick’s back in the day and he had been her teacher, so she wanted to go but didn’t want to go alone. She’s still trying to get over tsotlo’s death and didn’t know how it would affect her. So I went. Ntate putsoa, the deceased, was catholic, so there was a mass said at the beginning of the funeral. Strangest catholic service I’ve ever been to. Catholic masses are generally pretty formatted, so you can follow where you are in the service even if you don’t know the language. Nope. I could tell when the gospel was read because the priest read it, and communion was pretty obvious, but that’s about it. And most of the congregation went up to communion which surprised me. I wonder if they were really catholic. Anyways, after the mass, which lasted about 1 hour 15 minutes, 19 people stood up to speak about this man. Seriously. All in all the funeral lasted 4 hours and 45 minutes. And of course I’m sitting there not understanding much and the funeral is outside at the school and it’s windy and threatening to rain (it didn’t, thank goodness). Then we had to walk across the street to the graveyard to bury him. There are lots of graveyards in this country, so everyone lives within walking distance of one. So he was buried and then everyone went back to his house to eat, as is customary here. My host sister was totally fine throughout the service, so that was good. I’m glad I could be there for her but durn, that was a long funeral even by basotho standards. Interesting point: because ntate putsoa was a teacher, everyone who had graduated university or college was asked to wear their graduation gowns to the ceremony.
On Sunday morning someone came by my family’s home to tell my family that a relative had died. He was the father of one of my students who I think is a cousin or something. The father died of T.B. the oldest son is arriving tomorrow and they will determine the date of the funeral then. I went to see the family on Monday and got to speak with my student’s (his name is kopano) mother. I don’t think she lives with the family anymore, but had come back for her husband’s death. She was blind. And kopano had gone to school. He had gone to the funeral home in the morning and then went to school. I guess he figured he had nothing else to do. I hope he’s ok. There’ve just been a lot of deaths in the past month.
And I’m getting over a nasty cold now. I’ve actually been laid up in bed the past couple days with a sore throat, runny nose, cough, all that good stuff. I’m still a little stuff but feeling a thousand times better than I was.
On a happier note, one of my students likes writing plays, and has written me a play about hiv/aids and making good choices. It’s in Sesotho, but my host sister lerato wants to help me so we’re getting together hopefully next week to translate it, review it, make sure all info is accurate, etc. I wanted to put on the show in October, over independence week when the kids are out of school, but I don’t think there’s time and so this might wait until after final exams in December. I’m pretty excited about it, though. I want to have a whole day of hiv/aids stuff. So there’s the play, and lerato has suggested getting a choir together to sing, which is great, and then I want to get some organizations in who can teach about hiv and do testing. But I think it’s going to be kind of a big project, so we’ll see how it works out. I have to find a venue and notify the chief, get permission and all that. But it’ll give me something to work on and look forward to.
Speaking of looking forward to things, my mother is coming in less than a month! I’m really excited. I don’t think I’ve ever been away from my family this long before, and it’ll be nice to see her. We’re going to spend a few days in cape town, and then she’s going to come back and stay in Lesotho with me for about a week. My host family here is actually really excited as well. It’s cute.
This just in: We in peace corps get paid quarterly, so we’re supposed to be getting paid now. Everyone was talking about how they had been paid, but my account was still basically empty so I called peace corps. They told me they dropped my account because I was going to be leaving next month. I told them no, I expected to be here a while yet. But there is a girl leaving in a couple weeks whose name is really similar to mine and apparently the administration confused the two of us and dropped me instead of her. Lovely. This isn’t actually the first time we’ve been confused. Last year during training people kept trying to give me her mail. I’d get all excited because I thought someone had written me, but no, the letters were for her. And medical has almost pulled her file for me before. And now I don’t have money. This is supposed to be rectified by the end of the day, though. Here’s hoping. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgh.
Hope all is well back home. Crazy to think, I’m one year down and one to go! This time next year I’ll probably be home!
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