the adventures continue...

Kadi, Alex, and I have been wanting to volunteer at the SOS children’s home across from the clinic. We talked to Dr. Pii (head clinic administrator) and he called their director. We met him on Friday and he told us about a camp they were having in Malealea (mountainous district about two hours north of Maseru) for eighty of their high schoolers. He arranged to have a car pick us up on Saturday morning and we ended up spending all day with them.

We were used to working with kids a lot younger than us (at Ensured Salvation Orphanage and the Baylor Clinic), so it was a much different experience working with teenagers my age and older. About half the kids were double orphans and lived full time at SOS, while the other half were single orphans (or double orphans staying with relatives) that live outside of the orphanage, but that the center still supports.

They arranged for us to go pony trekking in the morning and then meet the kids in the afternoon.

pony trekking:

typical basotho hut

me riding

kadi riding


we took victory jumps when we reached the top of the mountain!

kadi

me

pony-horse

more pony-horses

alex, our very own hose whisperer

pretty scenery

ntate tour guide

more pretty landscape shots

pondering the meaning of life

alex (kind of new girl who goes to UNC) and me


okay, mom, don't have a heart attack. if i had fallen, i'm sure the thicket of bushes and trees hundreds of feet below me would have cushioned the fall.

basotho woman


after we finished our pony trek, the camp coordinator picked us up and took us to the work site. we had heard that the kids were helping build a road and paint a school and assumed that we'd meet up with the girls. buuut, change of plans, he ended up dropping us off at the boys work site.

we road in the pick up truck down rocky, bumpy roads on the mountain side. we finally reached the worksite and jumped out of the truck. as soon as we did, we looked up the hill to see forty high school (ages 15-20) boys staring down at us. they all stopped working, leaned against their shovels and pick axes that they'd stuck into the ground, and gave us cold, "we are judging you and you obviously don't belong here" looks. i didn't know what to do, so in a moment of desperation, i decided to rely on the usually successful "smile widely and wave frantically to seem friendly" approach. it wasn't really reciprocated, but i continued anyways. the coordinator then gave us a brief introduction in sesotho and left us to work.
my feminist desire to prove that i wasn't some weak, pampered, white, American girl drove me to take a few leaping steps up the hill, grab a shovel lying on the ground, and, with every ounce of strength and determination i had, drive it deep into the soil and fill the wheelbarrow with my overwhelmingly impressive strength.

and, while that was how i saw things happening in my mind, in real life my shovel smashed into stone and my entire body bounced back with the reverberating energy waves. as my ears filled with chuckles around me, i became even more determined and tried once more. i actually ended up getting a good handful of dirt on it this time and proudly placed it in the barrow. the guys shrugged and continued about their work.
and, just when i was beginning to get almost-two-handfuls of dirt worth on my shovel with every swing, a boy walked over, gave me a "you are incompetent" look and reached his hand out. i reluctantly handed over my shovel.
but, i was still determined to prove myself! as soon as they filled the wheelbarrow i snatched the handles before anyone else could and twisted my face with sheer pig-headed tenacity. i gripped the handles tightly and slowly lifted the load that under normal circumstances would have been to heavy for me to even attempt to push. then i took baby step by baby step down the hill until i reached the dirt mound and emptied it. i heard whistles instead of laughs this time and beamed with pride.

i continued with this job and, even though a boy took it upon himself to assist me with the future loads, i knew that i'd proven somewhat proven myself. eventually the guys even began making small conversation and i saw the potential forming for us all to become friends.

after they had rendered me incompetent and had taken away my shovel

my wheelbarrow helper and me

more wheelbarrow-ing

hard at work

after work, we headed back to the campsite and helped prepare lunch

leftover breakfast: polony, six slices of bread, and margarine

"netball"

making lunch

helping with lunch

cooking assistants (making tripe and samp)

new friends! (most of them were actually older than me)

school where they were staying

Day 45 (aka, a lesson in appreciating your washing machine)

In this post, I want to make a special shout out to the basketball team. I just want to let you all know that I discovered two amazing new work out plans sure to get us ready and fit for next season. I call the first one finally-tell-the-clinic-that-your-washing-machine-filter-is-broken-and-have-them-send-it-to-Joburg-so-you’re-forced-to-handwash-your-clothes-all-night and the second (the one I believe most effective in improving your upper body strength) called pick-axe-a-road-through-the-Lesotho-mountains-side.

And, these activities I participated in are the exact reason why it took so long for me to make a post.

step 1: (what I did) soak clothes for a few hours in cold water with dish soap
(what you're supposed to do) use hot water and laundry soap

step 2: (what I did) start scrubbing at 6pm, still using freezing water, using the scrub-with-your-knuckles-and-wrist technique kadi showed me (her grandmother lives in mali and taught her when she went to visit her)
(what you're supposed to do) use newly heated water, start scrubbing in the morning

step 3: (what I did) wake up at 6am to finish scrubbing them, rinse and wring them, carry the laundry tub proudly on my head during the 20 meter walk back to the clinic and hang them to dry
(what you're supposed to do) finish them midday and hang them, so you don't have to leave them outside all night

step 4: assess the damage. I ended up with 5 friction induced sores on my knuckles. I showed people in the clinic and they just stared at me like I was crazy, as if they'd never seen anyone fail so miserably at washing clothes by hand.

step 5: apply neosporin and bandage them up (all the bandaids fell off the next day during my work with sos, see post above)

step 6: wear clean clothes!! (this morning I spilled some oatmeal on my newly cleaned pants and almost started crying.)

Food.

before i left, i got plenty of questions of what i would eat here and if i would drop my vegetarian habits. i told them that if i was offered meat i would definitely eat it for fear of seeming rude otherwise. the first few weeks, i was in charge of buying and cooking my own food, so staying vegetarian and usually vegan was no big deal. buuut then i was slowly introduced to the local delicacies and, staying true to what i said before, i became more adventurous with what i ate. it's definitely been interesting.

adventure #1: chicken feet.


they actually just taste like chicken, only chewier

adventure #2: sheep's head.
the psychologist at the clinic brought some on friday as a special gift for us. she said the brain was her personal favorite. i ended up trying, what i think was, basic cheek meat.

she cut it before she brought us to save us from seeing the entire head, eyeballs and all.

moment of suspense!

it actually wasn't that bad. tasted pretty good if you didn't think about what you were eating.

kadi's turn, examining the meat

sheep's head, papa, and morojo

adventure #3: tripe.
on saturday we went to a camp for SOS orphanage's high schoolers. i ended up helping in the kitchen and recieved the job of cutting the tripe into small pieces. the woman in charge smiled at me and asked me if i knew what tripe was. "of course!" i replied, "it's a type of fish!"

nope. definitely not fish.
turns out it's cow innards. so i spent a good hour slicing up bits of intestine, lung, and other unidentifiable organs. it was surprisingly difficult to cut (i'd consider it the equivalent of slicing thick, slippery rubber). i tried to be as polite as possible and told them that it looked delicious. even though i left before they served dinner, they were kind enough to pack me some to take home.

don't worry, i'm now relatively skilled at this. feel free to call me up any time you need to prepare some cow intestines.

boiling stew.

and my specially prepared take away container (served with samp, boiled maiz). they waited for me to take a bit. it actually wasn't that bad. if you didn't think about what you were eating, it tasted pretty good. the only thing i found difficult to tolerate was the smell, as soon as i opened it, my nose was overwhelmed with the tripe-y smell.
but i have to say that, even though i found it a little unappetising at first, i really respect that they eat the entire animal. they spend so much time and effort raising their animals that when they finally slaughter them, they eat their heads, legs, body meat, and innards. they don't waste a single thing.


there are two types of food that people seem to really love here: chips and marshmallows.
i received a wonderful assortment of you're-such-a-foreigner/white-people-are-crazy looks while taking these pictures in the grocery store, but knew i had to share them!
tomato sauce.

fruit chutney.

the marshmallow section of the grocery store.

yes. there's definitely nothing more appetizing than gelatinous rodents.

coconut cream.

"pink and white" flavor?

kiwi and litchi.

toasted coconut.

apple and banana

apparently "twisty" is a flavor.

grape and strawberry, WITH smiley faces