fun police stories

i've heard a couple great police stories in the past few days that warrant sharing. both are about the mohale's hoek police:

the first happened a while ago, before i came to lesotho. the police had made a big drug bust and had bags full of marajuana to use as evidence at the trial. after the trial though, they had to do something with all of the weed and decided that they should just destroy all the evidence. they piles all of the bags together just outside the police compound and proceeded to burn all of it. bill, my supervisor's husband, was telling me this. he said that the wind was blowing just right that day, so that most of the camptown could smell it and ended up just a wee bit happier and more relaxed that normal. way to go, police.

then yesterday, a police car was driving through the camptown with its siren blaring. unfortunately there are a lot of potholes in the camptown roads. everytime a pot hole was hit, the car would come to a screeching halt, the siren would go off, the driver would go through the pot hole, and then the siren would go back on. just imagine a siren blaring for two seconds, then a pot hole being hit, siren goes off, three seconds or so to get over the pot hole, siren back on. repeat down an entire road. absolutely ridiculous.

12/8/09 a thief in the night

so we have thieves at mants'ase. some of the villagers are coming in the night. and what are they stealing, you ask? clothes? no. food? no. chicken poo. we have villagers coming into the orphanage at night to steal chicken poo. and what are they doing with their chicken poo? fertilizer? no. they are feeding it to the cows. there is a small amount of grain in the chicken poo. there are also worms in the chicken poo. no wonder all the cows end up diseased!
hmm. what else is going on in my life? my dogs are growing. some of the kids are becoming less afraid of them. i had a major breakthrough with one of the 6 year olds, moeketsi. he not only comes near the dogs willingly now, he will pet them with a big grin on his face. other than that, i've started tutoring one kid in maths. and i'm doing some intensive english reading practice. i had a 15 year old reading a book made for a 1st grade reading level here. it took a few hours to get through sentences like "some sharks are big", but she did it, and i think she felt a sense of accomplishment. i'm realizing that the kids are never taught the sounds of letters, so many of them will look at a word like "big" and say "table" or something, just as a guess. so i'm going to start going back to the basics with most of the kids, to teach them the sounds of letters and letter combinations.

2/8/2009 i really am going to be better about this. promise

i will start writing in my blog again. i will, gosh darn it!
so, i got back in to lesotho on thursday. the flight was pretty good, other than a screaming baby sitting near me. the people sitting to my right and left were normal-sized, the food was palatable (for the most part), etc.
i spent friday in maseru, hung out with some of the new volunteers (at least one is a total nerd - hooray!), played on the interwebbies. for with whom i've discussed pride and prejudice and zombies, i watched the trailer for the sequel book sense and sensibility and sea monsters. you know, i'm a little skeptical, and it's written by a different author than p&p&z, but we'll see...
i left for mohale's hoek on saturday. popped by the airport to see off an american girl named dominique. she came to visit mants'ase and liked it so much that she's going back to the states for a month and then returning to work at the orphanage for a year. i think this will be part of her university program. so, there will be another american there, and she seems to have some cool ideas. i'm excited to be working with her.
got back to mohale's hoek. stayed in town at barbara and bill's. they decided, saturday afternoon, that we should take a drive around the maphutseng valley because it's right behind mohale's hoek camp town, it's really pretty, and we can see the last of the snow. unfortunately, the last of the snow makes the mud road slippery. we hit a pretty sketchy patch going down hill. the car slid most of the way down sideways. this is probably not a safe way to drive. but after that, everthing was cool.
my dogs have grown an enormous amount. one of them (my former ewok) is no longer recognizable as his former self. i think he will actually end up being a pretty dog. it looks like maybe he has some spaniel or golden retriever in his history somewhere. the other is starting to form a ridge down his neck. hints of a rodesian ridgeback, perhaps?
i made it back out to the orphanage today, and hit the ground running. i had to catch up with all the kids, then i read the wizard of oz to some children while others were bathing. then i had to unpack, after which i had to sit down and have a chat with a kid who'd stabbed another kid in the butt last night. apparently they'd just been playing. so i got to talk about the dangers of playing with knives to a 15-year old boy.
oh, and we got a new girl at the orphanage, making our numbers now 54, or 4 over capacity. she's 11, and an abuse victim. so i met her, too.
and now i'm about to refresh my physics skills so i can help one of the girls here actually pass science this year. wish me luck.