November 26, 2006 (written by Janeen)

Today feels a little more like the Christmas season. I put up the few decorations we have and we are listening to Christmas music. It’s fun!

Here is the anticipated list that I promised in my last blog. I know the suspense is high!!!

As the anniversary of being in Lesotho has come and gone, I thought I’d create a list of things that I have learned and how I’ve changed.

Things I’ve Learned and How I’ve Changed

I can now bridge cards when shuffling

I am willing to try new foods and have found that I do like onions. I’ve even gone so far as eaten some raw, though I still don’t want to put them on my hamburgers.

Sadly, I have become more cynical and jaded. Many people want to help poor people in developing countries and their way of helping is often sending money. I know that a lot of money is being sent to Lesotho in general. It doesn’t seem to be helping the people that need it most, but the ministers get to drive around in Mercedes Benz cars. Does that sound right?!?!

I have a new love for cats. Don’t worry I have not become a cat lady, but I no longer fear them and even would go as far as saying that I love the little guy that we’ve got! AND I wouldn’t be opposed to having a cat when I get home.

We’ve changed the way we shop for food. This is mainly out of necessity, but we make a list of the meals we want to eat for the week and only buy the things we need. This has also changed how we eat. If we didn’t buy snack food, we don’t eat snack food. Of course its not like home where you can jump in your car when you have a craving. We have to walk to the road, wait for a taxi, & ride to town. It is a pretty big deal! Needless to say we’ve both lost weight. I gained some back after the vacation with Jason’s family, but we both look and feel healthy. We hope that we can keep that trend going when we get home!

I am now afraid of dogs. At least I am here in Lesotho. Even the ones that look cute can run at you out of the blue. They are trained to be mean and they are. Jason has been rushed at and almost attacked at least 3 times. I wouldn’t hesitate to throw a rock at a dog if I felt I was in danger, and that wasn’t the case when I first arrived.

I’ve learned that making fresh bread is not only delicious but rewarding, especially if you tried something new. Today I just made ginger bread and it was pretty good for a first attempt.

I’ve learned that you can make some pretty neat toys with what you may normally just throw away.

I’ve realized that we make A LOT of trash. We’ve tried to cut down by utilizing every last resource and making a compost pile, but we still have a large footprint on the earth. I’ll keep this in mind when I get home and hopefully keep the same ideals of making the smallest footprint possible. In fact I have told Jason that when we shop for a house, finding a community that recycles is important to me.

I’ve learned that you can bake almost anything in a Dutch oven.

I’ve learned to appreciate all the resources we have at home. You don’t realize what you’ve got until its gone!

I’ve learned how to bathe with a small amount of water. Albeit, I still enjoy some nice long hot showers.

I’ve learned to appreciate the rain. At home I looked at is as a nuisance that made my hair frizzy and made all the California drivers forget how to drive. Here, I see it as a necessity and it is especially for those who depend on their fields to support them. In fact, I get excited when it rains here. I even jumped up and down with joy when the first rains of the season came.

I have learned to be more patient. The emphasis here is on the more as I have not perfected this trait and don’t think I ever will. There is a part of me that screams inside every time we have a staff meeting that takes three hours when it could have been done in one.

I have found that it is pretty cool to be able to go outside to your garden
and pick fresh vegetables for a meal. Of course all I have done to help with the garden is provide student workers (weeding is a good punishment) and I occasionally water the garden. I give Jason all the credit for the success. We have corn, green beans, peas, sunflowers, tomatoes, cucumber, rape, swiss chard, onions, basil, cilantro, green squash, and carrots. Its SWEET!

I’ve been reassured that God provides for us. We get paid quarterly which makes it difficult to budget for 3 months on an already small salary. We usually are penny pinching towards the end of the pay period, but we always seem to make it. This last time we got a generous gift from a couple of Irish people who were visiting Lesotho and that helped get us through without stress to the next pay check.

I’ve learned that there will always be challenges and you have to give it all you got and just accept that everything is not going to be perfect.

That is about all I can think of for now. I’ll update my list as I think of more. Hope you enjoyed reading it!

November 26th, 2007

Hey to all my friends and family around the globe. It has been a few weeks since I have written anything other than my Thanksgiving wishes. I hope that you are all enjoying the holiday season (Hanukkah starts on Dec. 4th) and are enjoying all those sweet foods and wonderful parties. We are not alone (lots of friends) here and that makes being away from you a little bit easier.

Despite some sad news last week (my favorite teacher’s husband died) we are doing really pretty well. As you have read in Janeen’s blog we are learning a lot about ourselves and our world. The fun part is that we get to impart some of this knowledge onto our fellow volunteers. Last week Janeen and I did 3 days of technical training with the new group. They are 23 bright and eager people from a variety of different backgrounds and places around the U.S. It is really nice being around their optimism and exuberant energy. It refreshes the body and soul.

On top of being around those positive new people, we were also invited to go to the American Ambassadors house for Thanksgiving dinner. We wouldn’t really have been normally invited but he had invited all of the trainees to dinner and since we were in town we got a chance to go with them. Let me tell you, it was awesome. We arrived about an hour before dinner after a long day of thundershowers. It was cool but not cold and he had a heated pool for us to swim in. Now I have not swam in a heated pool for maybe a year and a half and after living in Lesotho for so long it really did feel like a giant chlorinated bath. It was pretty outstanding.

After swimming and playing the mandatory pool games (marco polo, colors, etc.) we sat down to a huge feast. I have eaten well here at funerals or other parties but we Americans know how to party. There were approximately 40 people there and we had 4 turkeys with like 12 sides. This does not include all the chips and fresh veggie platters before dinner. These were all washed down with beer, wine and soda provided by the Ambassador. After dinner we enjoyed all 6 desserts. That’s right 6 desserts. We definitely pigged out. I had to sit down multiple times after dinner and just breathe so that I would not go into food shock. It was pretty great!

All in all though I would say the best part of being at the ambassadors was the way that he made us feel. Our previous ambassador did not exactly reach out to Peace Corps as part of the mission in Lesotho. In contrast the current ambassador expressed his feeling of gratitude to us as members of the greater mission of the United States government and welcomed us as informal ambassadors to the country of Lesotho. He really made us feel like we are part of something larger than ourselves and even though we don’t get all the perks and respect of the state department people, we are still important to what is going on here. It was a really nice thing to hear especially at this point in our service.

I concluded the evening running around and playing with kids for about an hour (doesn’t sound like me at all right? Could have been rubbing shoulders with the ambassador instead I was the clown for the kids. Man where are my priorities?). It was a blast. I don’t really get to do it all that often at school because if you play with 1 child in 2 minutes you will have 100 around you. This can be seriously overwhelming. So I enjoyed not having more than 5 at one time that I would get mobbed by. It was really fun. I was a tickle monster.

So now we are back home. It rained really well today. We are happy about that to be sure. We hope that the weather wherever you are is good and that you are happy and safe.

All the best, Jason

November 24, 2007(written by Janeen)

Well it has been quite some time since I have last written a blog. The last month or so I have been busy with school, but I am happy to say that on November 21st I finished my last obligation for the school year. I am done grading, done with meetings, done with everything for 2 months! School starts again January 21st. Of course I still have projects to work on, but I can take a very relaxed pace. AND even better is that we have family coming in less than a month! YIPPEE! Mom, Dad, Grandma & Grandpa Lansford, Andy, Mari, & Lynette all arrive December 23rd. We’ll definitely be having a Merry Christmas here!

Jason and I just finished two days helping train the new group of education volunteers. Today they are going to the village. I can remember the strange overwhelming feeling of going to the village and having NO IDEA what they were saying to me. I just told some of them the story about how our mother wanted us to iron the clothes we were wearing. The situation went something like this: When she mentioned something about ironing, I brought different clothes for her to iron. Then I took the ironing board into our bedroom thinking she wanted me to iron there. Finally after at least 20 minutes or so, we changed clothes so that she could iron the clothes we were wearing. My skirt was a peasant style skirt that is supposed to be wrinkled, so she struggled to iron that and I didn’t have the heart (or the words) to tell her not to iron it. So I had creased ironed in wrinkles on my skirt that day!!

Since we have now passed the year mark, (Yes we have been gone a year now!) I’ve been thinking about making a list talking about how I’ve changed and what I’ve learned. Now that I’ll have more time at home I’ll be sure to get on that and get it posted. Some things will be funny, some will be sad, and some neutral. Here’s one example: I have learned how to bridge when shuffling cards. Some of you may not be impressed, but it is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do and just thought that I was completely incompetent, BUT I have learned that I am not! You should all be proud!

Well I need to sign off now so I can make it to the post office before it closes. We’ve had some difficulties with packages here. Lesotho started charging outrageous taxes to pick up boxes. It has been fixed and we recently got 3 packages (1 from Gma & Gpa D & 2 from Aunt Sharon & Uncle Bob—Thanks!) without the taxes, but we have 5 waiting for us that we could not afford to pick up. For some reason the Maseru post office can’t relay the message of canceling the fees to our post office. So, I have to run to the post office today and get some proof that the taxes should be removed in order to pick up the 5 packages waiting for us! Whew! Now after explaining all that I really have to go!

We send our love to all of you and are certainly thinking of all our friends and family as the Christmas holiday approaches.

We hope you have a wonderful season.

November 22, 2007 (written by Jason and Janeen)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! We love and miss you all and we hope that you have a happy and healthy holiday!! All our Love

November 10, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hey all the peoples in the world. It is Jason yet again. I know you are all thinking, 'why hasn't Janeen written a blog in a while'? The short answer is, is that she is marking like a mad woman. You see our jobs are inherenetly different. She has a lot of marking at the end of the quarters while I have very little work all the time. So I have time to do things like read, blog, ponder the deep questions of life and other such endevours. Thus many of you can spend you days (or nights) being bored to death by my irrelevant comments about life and the nature of things.

Life is getting back to somewhat semblance of normallcy. I am in Maseru for a meeting and because of this I will be missing the funeral of Motlatsi. I am pretty good about this though as I am slowly coming to terms with his death and what that means at large. I am feeling really weird about being so self-absorbed about this. I mean, he was 16 years old. His family seems to be taking it in stride but I am having a really hard time moving past it. It affected my whole last week and I was a rather large pain in the butt to live with (sorry Janeen).

I will work this out but it is just really stupid. I don't want to feel bad about feeling bad, but what can you do?
Otherwise, we still don't know anything about the packages. We will keep you up to date as we love getting packages here. It really makes us happy when we open them and see all the love poured out on us. Please keep sending letters and cards. We love those just as much.

My best friend comes in just 17 days and I am PUMPED!! Can't wait to see him.

All the best
Jason

November 5, 2007 (written by Jason)

So last week I wrote a really emotional e-mail. I really appreciate all the words of encouragement. It has been a long and really weird week. It was emotional going to school today talking to the teachers about the funeral and working out how it is going to work. It looks like due to a prior commitment that I won’t be going to the boy’s funeral. I think that this is probably better for me anyway. I am going to go to the families house on Thursday and pay my respects then.

The crazy part is that we have been gone now for exactly 1 year. We had our going away party on the 3rd of last year. We then left for Washington on the 4th really early in the morning. I can’t believe that this year has already flown by. It is totally nuts. We have had our ups and downs here but I still feel that we are happy to have come.

One thing that is frustrating is that the postal service here has decided that it is going to start charging sales tax (on what exactly we still don’t know) that is about 20 to 30 US dollars per package. Needless to say because our salaries are around 250 dollars they are sitting in storage until we get paid or they revoke the sales tax. My favorite part about all this is that the post office never notified us that this change would take place. We just went in one day and the charge had increased by 500%. It is so the way things sometimes work here. Cracks me up!
Well I hope that you are all doing good. We love and miss you all. Drop us a line if you get a chance!
Peace Corps Out!
Jason

November 1, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello to all the readers around the globe. I hope that as you are reading this that you are happy and healthy. Life here is an up and down journey as I know that many of your lives are as well. Last time I posted a rather extensive blog (one person even called it a novel). I am really sorry about that but I am trying to get you to understand the depth and gravitas of what we are experiencing here.

Along that line, almost immediately after I posted the blog I wrote last week, a teacher from one of my schools called me to notify me that one of our students had passed away. His name was Motlatsi and he was in standard 6 (Sixth Grade). He was a young and beautiful person. He was one of the few students that took it upon themselves to really engage me as an adult and as a person. He was tall and handsome and his singing voice rang exquisitely above all the rest as he sang in the school choir.

I think what is most difficult about this is that he probably died of something that if he were in a country where his health was monitored and the right medicines were administered, he may have gone on to be a productive and integral part of figuring things out in this country. The death of one so young with so much promise makes my heart heavy with the tears I can not shed. I feel nothing but regret and sadness but my heart won’t let me weep. I think this is part of the self-preservation that takes place here.

We are ensconced in so much death. Basotho family members, colleagues, neighbors and students die every week. With the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our country we see funeral tents up all around the country side on Friday and Saturday (the traditional days to bury someone here). We become callused to these events.

Yet when someone young or close dies, it rips the callus of our hearts and exposes the raw flesh underneath. We have little to buffer us from the blow that this brings to us. It is so real and so raw, it is difficult to know what to do with this. We sit and we try and understand why but we are often found wanting.

All the best
Jason

October 26th, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hey all! How cool is it that I have been able to post a blog twice this week? I mean man this is the cat’s pajamas. I really appreciate all the well wishers that sent me their stories telling me about their experiences with being sick. I am currently asking them if I can post them because they are super funny. Not to make fun of their pain but so that you can feel their pain as I did and put perspective on how I felt this week.
I am fine today, finally. I missed 3 days of work this week; 2 because of my sickness and today because the weather is getting nasty. So I am making the most of it by posting another blog and sending out a message of love and inspiration to you. You guys are all so good to us. The people that have sent care packages, and you know who you are and those many of you who have sent e-mails and letters, have really blessed our hearts.

Many of you have heard that we have a few students staying with us because of their mothers lack of funds to pay for housing for them. We have decided that because of the shear size of our house that we would open our doors to them and give them a free place to stay.
This has been one of the most rewarding parts of our service thus far. I see in a personal way the way I am able to influence these kids to make good decisions and teach them discipline in their lives. We are also able to provide them with new foods and experiences that they would not normally have (pizza, lentil burgers, stir-fry, etc.). It is really a neat little family we have founded here. In many ways I feel that we get more out of them than they get from us.

Peace Corps service is filled with all sorts of highs and lows. This year we have been stuck in the monotonous routine of daily schedules like many of you back home and have experienced all sorts of interesting and strange cultural interaction that is far from the normative. I want to share a letter that a friend and colleague wrote some time ago. She is far more insightful and reflective on life here, than I have been in the numerous blogs I have written. I hope you enjoy her letter and that it gives you a small picture as to life here.

Just so you know you can write us anytime regarding any questions you have and I would love to expound on them in detail. Love you all
Jason

Taken from http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/outside_do.html

Knowledge is like a baobab tree -- no two hands can encompass it." (Ghanaian proverb)
March 24, 2007
Public Letter #7:
"What Can I Send You?"
This letter is tough to write and maybe tough to read. It's my answer to your question, "What can I send you? What do you need?" Maybe you've asked it and maybe I've answered, "Soccer balls for children. Sports bras for teen girls on the track team. Easy-to-read books for students and 2007 calendars for schools. Hands-on activity books for teachers."

But these are not things that people in my village truly need. They are short-gap answers – things that you can send and I can give that make both of us, as Americans, feel good, feel like we've addressed, in some small way, the poverty that is Africa.

But poverty is huge, grinding, complex, layered. It has no easy solution. The soccer balls get confiscated by older kids or punctured on barbed wire fences. The girls' running team disbands because the teacher is "sick." Books are locked away in the principal's office. A teacher decides she has no time to do hands-on learning activities because she's pressured to keep up with the syllabus.

It's like giving a child candy – the pleasure is momentary, for the child and the giver. The candy solves no major problem, perhaps even creates one.

What Kids Need is Education

What the children need is education – school fees and school texts for secondary school, school shoes and school uniforms for standards (grades) 1-12. School uniforms cost $10 - $30; shoes cost $10-$30 and feet keep growing; a year of high school texts costs $35; high school fees range from $150 to $800/year, depending on the school. These are huge amounts for a country whose people live on $1 or $2/day = just $400-$1000/year. I remember the Tibetan community trying to get us Madisonians each to support one child in Daramsala, northern India, for $245/year. While it was an attractive idea for me, I never did it. I figured I was putting out thousands of dollars a year for "my own" Tibetan refugee family, and that was enough.

Like you, I also saw the "Adopt a Child" ads in the back of magazines. Now I'm at the other side of those glossy photos, and I see that "adopting a child" truly makes a difference in a child's life. Education is one answer. If you want to help one child, send money to Friends of Lesotho. They are helping us Peace Corps Volunteers provide high school scholarships – we can each nominate five village children, and I've already located my five. Each will receive 500 Rand ($90) toward school fees – a great program. ( www.friendsoflesotho.org) Mention my name. Maybe we can get 100 drop-outs and orphans back in school.

What Adults Need Are Jobs

But Lesotho doesn't need to save one child – it needs to support 100,000 orphans, and to give education to ALL its children. To do this, yes, it needs help from outside Lesotho. But the country needs jobs. Parents want to support and educate their OWN children and the nieces and nephews of their sisters and brothers who've died, who've they promised, on deathbeds, in tears, that yes, they'd look after the children. So it's jobs we need, if we're to educate children.

And where are the jobs? For Basotho people, jobs are not in Lesotho. Just a few government jobs, which are shabby, which lack the infrastructure that makes government effective, and which invite "dipping into the till." Oh, one can be a driver of taxi's, or a farmer, or a shop keeper, but here we're talking about eeking by – taking the small, sweating coins of one's neighbors.

There are jobs in South Africa – grueling jobs in the diamond or copper mines or in textile factories owned by the Chinese. There are jobs in America – for doctors, scientists, professors. So Lesotho sends its strong and able men, its educated men and women, far away. Do they come back? Do they better Lesotho? They do, but it's not a viable solution. The men in South Africa come back shells of men, and they bring HIV/AIDS. The sisters and brothers in America help younger siblings come to America, leaving elderly mothers in the village, without help for everyday chores, without daughters and sons for everyday laughter.

The World Steals from Africa

Lesotho is a country / Africa is a continent stripped of resources, from its diamonds and spices and endangered species to its doctors and nurses and writers. The world has taken from Africa, but not given back. It's a continent of 52 countries, unconnected by highways, airports, trains or train tracks, ships or shipping companies. A company from China or Germany opens a factory here, creates "jobs" (cheap labor). The company does not build an Interstate highway. It builds a little highway or water way that is unashamedly direct – from the factory to the port, or from the factory to the airport. It must make a profit; it cannot afford to build a road for the "people."

It's easy for Americans to think of Africa being poor, a wasteland, a pit of problems. It's harder for us to acknowledge or research how much of our greatness, how much of our wealth came and continues to come from African mines, mountains, veldts. It's harder to count how many nurses and doctors in our hospitals and HMO's come from countries with African names, how many professors in our in our universities represent the best and brightest of their own countries. It's harder yet to see how inter-locking directorates of global corporations (South African Airlines / Shell Oil / KFC / banks) skim the cream off the continent. Africa staffs and supplies not just North America, but also South America, China, Europe.

So, yes, please keep sending the soccer balls and children's books. But know they are not really what my village needs.

What My Village Needs

It is hard for you to send initiative and problem solving skills. That's what my village needs. When you think how you yourself learned "initiative" and "problem solving", you'll think of a long line of experiences, tiny successes that came from kindergarten (which we don't have here), summer camp (which we don't have here), sports teams (which we don't have here), singing in a musical or acting in a play (no after-school activities here), or the attention of a gifted teacher or doting relative (which hardly exist in this adult-impoverished society).

The hardest time of day for me here is 4 pm in the afternoon. I usually need to walk uptown to buy some tomatoes or to go to the post office. Schools are out, and the road is lined with kids, still in their school uniforms, with NOTHING to do. They just "hang." Well, teens everywhere like to hang, talk to best friends, call out and tease classmates, flirt with the older boys (taxi drivers), smoke their first cigarettes. But teens in many other countries have options – they can work on a computer; play on a soccer team; do homework using charts, graphs, calculators, magic markers, glitter; go to a mall; read a magazine in a library. They can take ballet or piano lessons or play in a garage band. They might own or be able to use a camera, an i-pod, a CD player, a camera phone. All these create early experiences with initiative and problem solving.

My high school teacher Volunteer friend Sara up the hill says that when she gives her kids an assignment to compose, "How I'd solve Lesotho's problems if I were Prime Minister," they all write, "I'd ask America for more money."

In Lesotho, problem solving and funding and new projects come from the Outside. Someone like me turns up (virtually unsolicited), in a village so people ask, "What can you give us?" That was what I encountered my first day here (Public Letter #4 – One Day Down, 724 to Go). It's what I meet daily, in various forms. Kids say, "Give me money?" "Give me candy?" Adults say, "When are you going to invite me to dinner?" "When are you going to do a workshop at my school?"

What White People Are Good For

White people arepeople who are here briefly, who go away, who somehow have access to resources that the village doesn't. Get what you can, while you can.

Peace Corps asks us to create SUSTAINABLE projects. The country is a skeleton of past projects brought by various NGO's (non-governmental organizations like Red Cross or World Vision, etc.) Clinics unstaffed; empty teacher resource centers used as a place to urinate; shells of buildings with peeling signs in front of them, like "GDZ Germany Seedling Center" or "Community Sewing School." The volunteer leaves, the project collapses.

It's not because people are lazy – it's because they are not skilled, not confident, not persistent, don't have telephone networks and acquaintance networks and computer networks to put them in touch with real help. Volunteers can start a project; we can seldom stick around to maintain it.

What I call "initiative" and "problem solving skills" are in reality skills built on huge, interlinked infrastructure systems. Infrastructure – it's a boring word – but it's what my village needs. Roads that lead somewhere; a public official who can get you a service you need; a service that is hooked to other services.

The idea that a Peace Corps Volunteer can do anything more than be friendly to neighborhood kids and teach a few people a few things is pretty ridiculous. Do we need 10,000 computers – which I might write a grant for? No – we need 10,000,000 computers. Do we need 2,000 trees planted – which I might help with? No – we need 2,000,000,000 trees planted. Do we need South Africa to complete Phase II of the Katze Dam and pay us $2.65 million Rand a year for the water? No – we need South Africa to help us train a generation of hydro-engineers, so we can manage our own damn dam, and by the way, the price should be $2.65 million Rand per day, not per year.

That's what we need. Some hard negotiators who quit giving away the continent.

And Now for The Good News

To end on a positive note – two items:I recently sent a set of 90 slides on a CD for a PowerPoint presentation for the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies conference. We did a "live by telephone" interconnect, with me yakking in the background on a speaker phone, while the slides cycled through. What I tried to show in the slides was the absolute, stark beauty of this country, and the joy and resourcefulness of children. Children here, without "options" or "infrastructure" and with few adults in their lives, create volumes of laughter, joy, fun, games. They are strong, lovely, imaginative. The slides show them building clay animals with mud from the river, playing games with old wheel rims, playing dolls and house with scraps from the trash heap. They are merry and strong. I think many American kids would love their freedom to roam, and their dawn-to-dusk days outdoors amidst majestic mountains and bleating baby goats and meandering river gullies.

With a bit of inquiry (initiative, problem solving), I think you can get your hands on a copy of the CD, if you'd like to see it or to show it to your kids.

The second positive thought I have about what you can "do" for Africa is what you are already doing – loving children and giving them genuine attention, building stronger local communities with community planning and recycling, teaching problem solving and initiative, being empathetic, working to end the wars in Iraq and in the Sudan, writing me letters to reflect on our shared lives on this planet. These are the things that matter, that in the long run help Africa and help America. Africa's problems will be solved by a world of educated and empathetic people, by a planet not racked by global warming, by governments not at war, by a sense that we are a global community and must reprioritize resources for "people."

What can I send YOU?

I send you love from Lesotho. Autumn is on its way. The mornings are now often chilly. Inside my rondavel the candle is burning; the two teen boys who live with 'M'e Mabokang in the big(ger) house are laughing, bringing buckets of water. Our rooster is crowing. A new day dawns.

Madeline / Sesotho name "M'e Lerato" (Lerato = Love)

NOTE ADDRESS**:1/2007 – 11/30/08
Madeline Uraneck / ('M'e Lerato)
PO Box 172Mt. Morosi, 750 LESOTHO AFRICA
E-mail – for best results e-mail it AND air mail it. 90 cents to air mail a letter from USA to Lesothoglobalmaddy@gmail.com (I get to Internet sites only rarely)
After 1/2009:C/o Marilee Sushoreba1818 Adams StreetMadison WI 53711 *** USA(608) 255-0772 E-mail: msushore@facstaff.wisc.edu**

(Any mail previously sent to Maseru will reach me, don't worry)

PREVIOUS PUBLIC LETTERS
Request them (one or two – not all) from my sister Susan in Oregon: s_uraneck@yahoo.com
1. First Impressions (November 11, 2006) – via e-mail
2. First Impressions, Continued: A Mountain Village (November 16, 2006) - hand-written
3. HIV/AIDS in Lesotho (December 4, 2006) – via e-mailPublished in WorldView Magazine
4. What's Your Name? 4 Weeks in a Basotho Village (December 31, 2006) – via e-mail
5. One Day Down: 724 to go (January 3, 2007) – via e-mail
6. Collecting Best Days (February 26, 2007) – via e-mail
7. What Can I Send You? (March 24, 2007) – via e-mail

Why I hate being sick...

October 22, 2007 (written by Jason)

So today I am sick. Yeah I know we all get sick it is just part of life. But this is the annoying sick. Not the debilitating sick that some of us get from time to time. This is the swollen throat, itchy eyes, achy muscles sick that could go one of two ways. It could be done and over with tomorrow, to where I feel good enough to return to work. Or I could slide farther down into the hole that is sick and not get out of bed. Now if I had my choice I would rather go to work tomorrow. Sure there might not be a lot to do there (I mean there is tons to do but very little that gets done), but it sure beats sitting around the house all day. Even if I did get the internet back up!

That does rock by the way! Now I can hear from you. Tell me about the worst time you got sick. Where were you? Did you have anybody to take care of you? Give me the gory details. I hope that this at least makes you laugh!

And I hope too that tomorrow finds me on my way to school and not stuck trying to stay warm eating soup and lying around.
All the best
Jason

October 21, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Well I am in Maseru and will be here all week! If you want to send an email, I'll be likely to respond! Yes, we are still alive despite the absence of a new blog post! :) Here is what we've written recently (one from Jason and a boring one from me).

October 20, 2007(written by Jason)
Hello to all my peeps out there in cyberland! This is Jason coming at you for the first time in 2 months or so. What is up with that? I promised that I would do my best to be on top of blogging so that I would make sure that you weren’t left out in the cold as to what is going on with us. I have failed you all and for that I am deeply sorry.

But now I have the chance to make up for lost time. I am going to come to you with a super long special edition (that most of you will probably just ignore anyway! he he he). As you can tell I am in kind of a giddy mood this morning. I made pancakes and coffee and that just puts in me in a good mood I guess. This is also the first blog that I am writing from the laptop that my parents lugged to Lesotho on their vacation, but I am getting way ahead of myself.

These last few months flew by with my birthday, my family coming to visit and lots of other little activities thrown in to keep us exceedingly busy. Way back in the beginning of September, the Education group of 2005-2007 had their COS (close of service) conference. I got a chance to be there as I am part of the group known as PSN (peer support network) to do a session on grief and loss. It sounds like a crappy topic to talk about but it is really important as Peace Corps volunteers we are thrown in the midst of a hectic life and have very few opportunities to actually reflect about what we are going through and what that means to us a people in the great big world. It was a great session and I cried (if you know me you know that is really not that strange. I cry at Kodak commercials like Lloyd and Harry in Dumb and Dumber).

After that, we had my birthday party. I can’t believe that I am already 28 years old. I know that for some of you out there that 28 seems very young and that you would give your right ear (or maybe a finger nail) to be 28 again. However to me, 28 is getting up there. Most of my friends, from what I hear are already having their second or third child, while Janeen and I are still globe trotting, playing development worker and what not. It is not that I am not happy about that but I definitely won’t be a millionaire before 30, unless something drastic happens in the year when I get home. But that is ok too. Too much pressure sometimes is put on making money and not enough is put on living life and that is definitely what Janeen and I are doing. We are making the most of our crazy lives and are having a blast doing it.

Lesotho as we have said has had a rather large drought for some time. Well the day after my family arrived for their vacation with us, the heavens decided that it was time for a thorough soaking of this parched country. My brother claims that he has a direct line to God and that his prayers made the difference. We seem to think that God was just impressed to hear from Mike and decided to show him what was up. The funny part is since it started raining, it hasn’t really let up. I mean some rain is good; a lot of rain is better but flooding rains, come on already. My buddy up the hill or mountain lives in a village that you have to cross a river by boat to get there and he said that 2 people have drowned in the last month. So thanks a lot Mike!! Way to go!

More about my family's visit. What can I tell you? They came, they saw, they cried…The story behind this is that my school that I work for wanted to do something nice for my family. So, they put the whole school in the large building and had songs and speeches, a traditional way to honor people in this culture. Then at the end of the celebration, they brought out some gifts for my mom and my brothers fiancé. This was when the water works turned on. I mean they went for it too. It was at this time that my teachers began to worry that they had insulted my family or something. You see, crying is not that common amongst adults here except at funerals or if your football team loses. So when they saw them crying when they brought out the gifts, they got a very frightened looks on their faces. I had to explain that they were crying out of happiness and that they should not be worried. This seemed to amuse them, but I don’t think that they really fully believed me.

We had a great time traveling around in our little car, seeing many parts of the Southern Africa region before they had to head back home. It was really a great time to be together even if my parents did think that they were going into the middle of the bush. In case I haven’t said this in the past, Lesotho is not the bush. It is sparsely vegetated and even less so after a long drought. So if you think that I have to hack my way through the jungle to get to school, readjust your radar to think of something like New Mexico or Arizona.

Now we are back into somewhat normal life here. I am clocking the KM away on my bike as I have ridden it 9 times in the last 14 days. School is also winding down for us and I am trying to get my teachers to start preparing for next year and the years after that by encouraging small changes to the way they teach. This week for example, I taught my class 1/2 teacher to do a morning introduction activity that involved the date, the weather, the alphabet and some songs. It sounds rather basic but this was a huge improvement for this teacher. She loves it, the kids love it and I am just glad to see them doing something that I recommend. All in all a pretty big success in a land with few success to be had.

Just so you know, my family is thinking about putting together a project to help my school. I will be writing more about that including putting the proposal up in the following weeks. If you are interested in helping, shoot me an e-mail and I can give you more details. Until then please don’t forget to write (e-mail, snail mail, carrier pigeon, whatever). We love getting little notes hearing what you are up to. Also make sure to pass these sites on to your friends and let them know that some people are somewhere doing something… I think
All the best, Jason

October 11, 2007(written by Janeen)
Well we have been back in Lesotho for four days. It was great to see Mom & Dad Sam as well as Mike and his fiancée Heidi (we really like her by the way). We did some site-seeing in Lesotho and then headed to South Africa, where we went to Durban, followed by St. Lucia where we went on some game drives. Unfortunately we only saw 2 (buffalo and rhino) out of the “Big 5” animals. The elephants, lions, and leopards were hiding that day. We saw A LOT of deer, different types too. We also saw some baboons, monkeys, zebra, and giraffe. It was pretty impressive to just be driving along and seeing these animals right next to the car. The last stop was Swaziland. We were all impressed with Swaziland. I thought that it would be a lot like Lesotho, and there were many similarities, but overall I would say that Swaziland is more developed. We stayed at Mvubu Falls Hotel, went craft shopping, and also hiked to the falls.

The trip of course had to come to an end. Last Sunday we made the ever so pleasant 6 hour trip from Johannesburg to Maseru cramped in a 15 passenger taxi with our bags (and all the other passenger’s bags). Fortunately Jason and I packed VERY light. We each only brought a small backpack. We’ve gotten quite used to wearing our clothes more than once. It was hard saying good-bye knowing that it will be over a year before we see them again AND knowing that Mike & Heidi will be married by the time we come home. It’s been a challenge getting back into the swing of things.

I only have one month left of the school year. We went 2 weeks longer over the winter and now we will have an extra long summer break! I still have a lot I want to cover before school is out, but the break will be VERY nice because Kelly is coming for a visit at the end of November and my family is coming in December. Plus I have some activities I want to develop for next year that I just don’t have the energy to complete after school.

I will be in Maseru for an entire week beginning Oct. 21st through the 26th (that means I’ll have internet access all week if you want to email). I will be working on developing some lesson plans and helping prepare for the next group of education volunteers who will arrive in November, which means that we have almost been here a year. It’s crazy because it feels like it has gone so quickly, but yet we are only about ½ way done. We still REALLY miss family and friends too. I do have to mention that our mail has been trickling down. There are only about 3 or 4 people who still mail on a somewhat regular basis, and just so you know my letter writing policy states that “I will only write to those who write to us! AND I’ll send birthday cards if I know when your birthday is.” So if you haven’t gotten a letter from us, (or pretty much, me…Jason MIGHT tag a short note at the end) it’s because you haven’t written us!

OK enough of the guilt trip. We hope all is going well in your half of the hemisphere. By the way we finally got rain! It had been dry for quite some time. We had a lake at the bottom of our mountain that had completely dried up, animals had started to die of dehydration, but the rains have finally blessed us. In fact we had a short shower today. We hope it keeps up!Love you and miss you all!

September 2, 2007 (written by Janeen)

YIPPEE! Today is hot! Ok I bet all you are still experiencing some temps in the 100s, but I am happy to see the warmth of spring and am even excited for summer to come!

Things here are going well. Next weekend we are having a little celebration for Jason’s birthday. It will be a little early, but what can you do when your birthday is on a Tuesday and your closest (geographically) friends live at least an hour or more away via public transport, which means it could be SEVERAL hours away? After the bash, my school is having a pageant and a talent show. We are having this event to raise funds for the 30th anniversary celebration that my school will have on the 6th of October. They think that the king will come to the anniversary celebration and want to make the place look spiffy as well as have some nice eats. SO… we have to raise funds to do so. One fundraiser fizzled, but I think we can try it again. We only raised 60 rand (the equivalent of just less than $10) in a photo taking fundraiser. My guess was that many kids had not budgeted to spend 5 rand on a photo. Many students went home this weekend so maybe they will want to buy a photo for 5 rand this week! On Friday we raised 800 rand by charging students a 2 rand entrance fee to watch a movie. Jason and I suggested this a LONG time ago. We wanted them to buy a projector and pay for the projector by showing movies. NOW that they see a need for it, it sounds like a good idea. This time they just had three TV screens. Maybe they’ll rethink our idea after the 30th celebration. Anyway, so the Miss Tšakholo pageant and talent show will be this Saturday. I think it will go well. I am helping to coordinate it, but the prefects are the ones who are really putting on the show. One class is organizing a raffle too-- all this to raise funds for the 30th celebration. It’s funny to me that they make a big deal over this event, but only left 2 months to plan it---including raising funds! I’m sure things will turn out fine, but will just be busy until then.

So today as I put on a nice, strapless summer dress that Jason bought me for our anniversary, I felt almost naked. The dress comes down to my knees (which haven’t seen much sunlight since maybe May) and exposing my upper chest and arms is just so strange. Anyway, that made me start thinking about the expectations that I had before coming here. Many of my expectations are false and made me laugh at myself a bit.

For example:
I thought that I might want to wear socks with all my shoes because it would be so dirty here…false. (Socks with dress shoes… what was I thinking?!?)
I thought that I would not care about what I look like… false. (My colleagues often dress WAY better than I do. Though there is some truth to this statement. I hardly ever wear make-up and during the winter I didn’t care if anything matched as long as I was warm!)
I thought I would not shave my legs… false. (I just can’t stand the itching AND my legs are pretty hairy even if it is blond!)
I thought that I would gain weight from eating a heavy starch diet… false. (I have actually lost weight and don’t eat the traditional Basotho food every day thus minimizing my starches)
I thought I would be living without electricity and running water… false (though I am not sad that I don’t have to make that sacrifice)
I thought that pit latrines would just be holes in the ground that you have to crouch down over to use the toilet… false (pit latrines actually have a toilet seat)
I thought I would become fluent in Sesotho…false (I teach English, hence I speak English. My Sesotho has probably decreased since training)
I thought I would have to wear dresses and skirts all the time… false (thankfully! We had to wear them in training and I was missing pants)
I thought that I would be teaching the beginning of English language…false (Most of my students have a basic level of English. I just have to improve it and help them understand their reading)
I’m sure there are more expectations I had that turned out to be false, but those are all I can think of right now.

August 16, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Good news! Today some girls in form C really put a smile on my face. I have received some books from home to add to the school library. Thankfully, I did not have to start a library from the beginning. At least there was something already in place that I get to help enhance. Anyway, my parents and grandparents have both sent some books. It has taken me some time to get them into the library (about a month) because I had to rearrange a bit, stamp the books with the school stamp, and glue in a small piece of paper for the return dates (plus it was winter break). Today 3 girls came in to check out a book and they squealed with excitement when I told them that there were new books. I couldn’t help but smile as they oohed and ahed over the new books. They were so excited that they had a hard time deciding which book they wanted to check out! So that made me feel good. Even if the library is often a disaster and many students can’t put the books away properly—I guess it is good that they are reading!

I just wrote a grant from Friends of Lesotho, and I was granted 500 rand to purchase different colored stickers to put on the spines of books. They are already in categories, but students have a hard time putting them back where they found them. So, I am hoping that the new color coded sticker system will help in maintaining the organization of the library. The idea is to create a system that will be easy to manage and someone will actually keep it up when I leave!

Other than that I am keeping busy. My form A students wrote their first quarter 3 exam yesterday. I am already half way done with the grading! Yippee! No composition this time though, so that always makes it easier. My form B students will write their first quarter 3 exam next week and they will have a composition. I am also working on developing a rubric so that I can be consistent when I grade the compositions and so that the students can know what to expect. I will share this with my colleagues too. It seems that I always have something to do and am working constantly from 7:40 until 4:30 everyday with almost no breaks in between. Then of course at 4:30 its just about time to start preparing dinner as well as dish out punishments to students who have not done their assignments! I’m often tired at 6:30, when we have just finished dinner and the dishes. We have been crawling into bed then and watching a DVD. It is still pretty cold at night, so it’s really the only warm spot! Did I mention it is REALLY hard to get out of bed at night?

Oh yeah! I also got nominated to be on the party planning committee to plan the 30th celebration of our school. I was not too excited about that, but the way they do it here is not very democratic. Here is how the meeting went. “We need a committee of teachers and I want to spend roughly 15,000 rand to throw this party. The committee will plan the program and find funds for the event. The planning needs not interfere with classes.”—headmaster. “We need to all use our outside resources to fund this”—head of English dept. “The committee members also need to be responsible”—teacher. “I nominate M’e Janeen”—deputy headmaster. “I second that”—another teacher… and BOOM I am on the committee along with 7 other staff members. One teacher appealed, but someone had already seconded that she be on the committee and of course she is on it whether she likes it or not! We’ve been meeting often, which means I have less time to work on my other mini-projects, but oh well. I am here as a volunteer at the school and this is what they want me doing. We’ve already planned a picture taking fundraiser—charging 5 rand per print when it costs 2. They are also going to show some movies and charge 2 rand as an entrance fee. We have written letters to businesses around to solicit funds as well. Apparently they want to raise funds to pay for the event initially and then any excess money they raise will be used towards development: like repairing the classrooms, building a science lab, etc. We’ll see what happens. At the event we may be selling T-shirts to raise funds as well as possibly doing an auction. We don’t have much time to plan this huge event as it will be on the 6th of October, so we’ll see what gets done. I have luckily stayed off the radar from taking any integral roles on the committee (i.e. chairperson, secretary, or treasurer).

Things are going well though! Jason is pretty busy too. He has been running to and from Maseru. Our funds have been interesting. We did take a nice vacation to Mauritius, and now we are 2 weeks away from being paid and we have about 575 rand left. I think we won’t starve, but we will probably have a larger than normal list of things we want when Sept. 1st rolls around! Peace Corps only pays us once every 3 months because all banks here charge a fee for EVERYTHING (deposits, withdrawals, ATM, going into the bank…everything!). So they save money by doing it that way, but it usually makes things tight around the last couple of weeks! Especially this time because we did a bit more visiting of other volunteers while we were out of school. Transport costs are usually the killer!

Well I guess it has been a while since I have written a blog and that is apparent by the way I have rambled on. So I hope I haven’t bored you too much!

Lots of love, Janeen

P.S. I had a really good lesson this week about question tags with my form B students. I get happy when that happens. That is really great, isn’t it?

August 11th, 2007


So I am here again. Man I am here way to often! But oh well that is the way the cookie crombles! I am here again on committee a.k.a. work group stuff. Got to get the Worldwise Schools stuff going and keep the Technology rolling to all the PCV's in the country (those were the two committees that I was in town for). The committees are actually really committed to improving processes and procedures here. It is a slow process but we are really doing some good things that will benefit the volunteers and more importantly the Basotho people.

I have had a lot of time as well to hang out with our new country director. His name is Ted Mooney and he is a super cool cat from New England. He was in the Hi-Tech sector and retired from his company in 2000. He did some consulting after that and decided that he wanted to make his way back to Peace Corps (he served in Senegal in the early 80's). I am learning a lot about him and we get to talk shop (hi-tech markets and the fall of the stock market). It is really fun and pushing me to keep learning while I am here.

Otherwise, we are back in school and doing well. We will be trying to be more up to date on the blogging and e-mailing. It is hard but we love to do it. We also love hearing from you (have I said this before) and would love to get some e-mails and letters. Thanks to Grandpa and Grandma D., Carla and Jack, and others for the awesome books! The school loves them!
Hope you are all well
All the best
Jason

Our Vacation

July 28, 2007 (written by Jason)

Greetings to all my peeps out in the world. So we are back in our home country of Lesotho after such an amazing, amazing time in the beautiful island nation of Mauritius. It is an amazing place that very few Americans ever get to experience because of the location. However if you ever have a chance to get to Africa and want to spend some time unwinding from that ever stressful Safari, Mauritius is the place to do it.

First off, the island is goregous. I mean seriously all you have to do to see what I am talking about is look at Google Images and type in Mauritius. The place is like something out of a story book. The green mountains jut out of the endless fields of sugarcane and end in the bluest water that I may have ever seen. Then with the beautiful environment came a hotel that felt like we were in the Taj Mahal after being at our site for nearly 8 months now. On top of all this the people of the island were nice and helpful in nearly every way. They made us feel safe and protected and above all relaxed.

But the vacation was not the only exciting thing to go on for us. As many of you know Harry Potter 7 hit the shelves on the 21st of July. I was the 5th person to purchase the book at the Mauritius Airport and I finished it in under 2 days. I won't say anything else to ruin it for those who haven't read it (unlike the NY Times), but it was a great book. Well done Ms. Rowling, well done.

Well that is pretty much it for us right now. School starts back up on the 1st of August and that will keep us pretty busy until my parents and siblings visit at the end of September. I am super excited about their coming and can't wait to see them. Keep letters and e-mails coming as we really miss all of you right now. We love you!
All the best
Jason

July 11, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello friends out there in the world. We are coming from you live t-minus 3 days until our island vacation. We are so excited about getting away for a few days that it has been hard to focus on anything else as of late. However we are getting some stuff done. Janeen finished all her reports, early, at that. She also has finished the leveling which she has talked about in other blogs. It is kind of a strange practice but the people here really enjoy knowing how they compare to eachother I guess.

I have been keeping busy too. Today I was involved in a panel discussion with the new volunteers where we talked about the diversity of Peace Corps here in Lesotho. We talked about odd cultural interactions and the funny and sometimes ridiculous situations that go on here. All in all the PCT's said that it was the best training that they had so far. And as an added perk I got to have a nice lunch paid for by Peace Corps.
So I am waiting for my wife to arrive tomorrow so that we can spend a few days with friends before heading out to Jo'Burg. We hope that you are all enjoying your summers. We have heard it is hot but I hope that you are happy.
All the best
Jason

July 4, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Lumelang and Happy 4^th of July! It has been quite some time since I have written a blog. Jason has been to Maseru one more time than me and we were having problems with our internet connection here at school. My school just got internet. They already had the idea in their heads and then they saw our phone and access and decided to go ahead with it. We are actually using their Bluetooth connector right now with our air time. Another funny thing is that here you pre-pay for electricity. Each house has a box, but you have to buy it in town. So, the school was out of electricity, and we couldn’t use the computer there & now one is in our living room! ;) It feels strange having a computer in my home!

Anyway, I am proud to say that I finished grading my 200 exams today. It is such a relief! Now all I am left with are the reports and they should not be too bad. I was lucky to have help grading from our visitors. We have a few friends staying with us right now. The initial intent was to work on generating some curriculum that integrates HIV/AIDS education into our English lessons this week. We have done some of that, but not too much (because I still have been grading). We are planning to continue working tomorrow and the next day.

So there won’t be any fireworks for us tonight, but we do have some decorations thanks to our friend Bari. She sent flag socks; flag pinwheels; red, white, & blue star necklaces; and a sign. There are six of us celebrating together. We are going to BBQ some chicken and hang out.

Well, not much else is going on. It is nice having a break from teaching. I am really looking forward to getting out of the cold and going to Mauritius! :) We send our love & miss you all so much!

Love,
Janeen

July 4th, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello to all of you back home and happy 4th of July. We are at home enjoying the holiday with a few friends from here. We are also enjoying a reprieve from the cold streak of last week. We didn't really talk about it but we got a nice snow storm at our house. We had 3-4" of snow on our anniversary (June 27th) which was kind of strange. We figured that it might be the last time that we have snow on our anniversary unless of course it snows again next year.

As I am typing this Janeen has just wrapped up her final composition and is finished with her marking for the 2nd quarter. WOO HOO! It is really a big achievement as she had 204 to mark. That is a whole lot of reading as you all may know. She is still finding time though to respond to the many letters we have received lately. Good job and keep it up.

We hope that you all enjoy a great day of barbecue and weeny roasts. Have a few extra burgers for us and let us know what your favorite toppings are? Don't forget that comments and e-mails are really appreciated as well as the traditional snail mail. All the best,
Jason

June 29th, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hey all. Back again with a brand new addition! After a large snow storm earlier this week we are in town for the funeral of our village mother. It is a weird time for us as we have not really thought about what that would be like and what that would entail. Janeen was just saying that she had kind of dealt with it (as we found out about her passing on June 9th) but now that we are about to go and see our village again, that she is unsure how she will react.

I know that it will be a difficult time as this is the first real death that we have had to deal with. It is a strange feeling as we think of death in totally different perspective than than they do here. We have had friends lose some family members from home and the perspective that the people here have on it is, get over it. It is just death after all. I mean we see funerals every weekend as they are publicized with the huge rented tents that people get to honor the family members.

Anyway, this is on the heels of some other rather disappointing news. We found out this week that the Lesotho government has put an indefinite hold on all adoptions both in country and international. This comes as a surprise to us and it is a little disheartening as we had really gotten excited about the possibility. We have not given up hope yet but we are not really sure where this will put us in 18 months. So some prayers and petitions on our behalf would go a long way right now.

We do have a small (or rather large) bright spot in our future. We are headed to the islands of Mauritius in little less than 2 weeks. It will be a nice break from the inconsistent and some what bitter cold of Lesotho. We are going with some friends of ours here and are really excited. I think I am even going to finally get to try Kite Surfing (pending the wifes approval).

Anyway that is pretty much the scoop this week. Hope you are all well and happy.

All the Best
Jason

June 23rd, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello all of you all around the globe! I am away from my wife for officially the longest period of time that I have ever spent away from her. We have been married for 3 years on June 27th, 2007 and have been together for about 4 years. In that time the longest that I have been away from her was a period of time that we have spent apart was 3 days. Coming to this week, I have now been away from my amazing, beautiful, sophisticated and intelligent wife. So needless to say that I miss her.

However, the reason that I spent the week away from my gorgeous spouse was that I went up to the mountain to visit a good friend of mine. He was an 8 hour bus ride up the hill. I was not doing very well as I had developed as they call it here, symptoms of the common cold. They would also say "I am suffering from the common cold." It kind of kills me. Anyway, after getting up there I found that I am extremely glad to be living where I am living. The mountains while being very nice and pretty, it is super isolated. We had a good time altogether reading and enjoying it not being cold.

So now I am in Maseru again. I am here for a nerdling convention, otherwise known as the Technology committee. We basically are going to meet to and discuss ways that we can make volunteers lives easier while in country. We also will discuss how to create better opportunities to communicate our experiences here with technology and media. So that is what is going on here.

As you may know we are wrapping up the school for the first term. Janeen is working hard grading her students mid-term papers and would love to hear from all of you. I am so glad to read e-mails from you all and look forward to them. I hope you can get a chance to write to us and send us a quick note. All our love
Jason

June 11th, 2007 (Written by Jason and Janeen)

Today brings some sad news. On Saturday we were helping our friends with their 3 v. 3 soccer tourney which went really well. After the event we went to a local hotel for pizza and drinks to unwind and relax. Janeen and I were sitting waiting for our food when Janeen received a phone call. On the other end was a friend of ours who called to tell us that our Me’ (Mother) from our village stay had passed away. She was the one that I had written about many times how I was worried that she was not receiving the medical attention that she needed. It is a very sad loss for the both of us but we are going on as we knew that this would be a reality in our lives when we moved here. This is definitely the closest person to us that has passed away and has brought the reality of HIV/AIDS home for both of us.

On other news, I finally got our tickets for Mauritius after spending an entire day waiting and then having to return today to retrieve them. I left this morning with some friends who stayed the night, to go to the border and cross into South Africa to meet a courier. It was not until I got to the border that I realized that my passport was sitting in the closet back home. So I then had to go back home, collect my passport and go back over the border. I went to a little place that knows us well and they had the package that the courier left ready and waiting for me. It was great.

The weather has continued to be cold and rainy (off and on). We do love the sun so much now though as it is the warmest heater around and it is free. We are looking forward to some time off in a few weeks. Jason is going to go up to Thaba-Tseka to visit with a volunteer in the mountains. He will be packing all his warm clothes for that one and it will still probably be just enough. Janeen however will be holding down the fort here as she has school until the 29th of June.

After that we are going to be hosting some volunteers for a curriculum writing workshop in which we will try and add some detailed lessons for English teachers about HIV/AIDS. The goal is to make them something that can integrate in with a day’s lesson planning instead of having to think about how the volunteer can add HIV/AIDS into a lesson. This will hopefully reduce the workload of the teacher and get them to be more proactive about having HIV/AIDS stuff in their classroom.

Then we are off to Mauritius for a well deserved break from the cold. We will be staying there for a week before we return back home for a few weeks before the beginning of the 3rd quarter.

Adoption update: We are in the initial stages of communication with the Ministry of Social Welfare. They have told us that we have to work with an Adoption agency from home and so far they are only working with 2 agencies in the US; neither of which is in California. So we are excited but we still have a long way to go before the end of this process.
We would love to hear from any of you and hope that you are doing well. All the Best
Jason and Janeen

June 4, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hey there kids! Hope this finds you all doing really well. We noticed that our page views kind of peaked off in March. This is probably because we have not been posting as diligently as we were towards the beginning of our service. So I vow here and now that I will try and be more diligent in posting. However, this will probably be on our other website as I still can't get the school computer to work right. That address again is,
www.lifeofanominee.blogspot.com

Anyway, Janeen filled you all in on the haps with the Irish Ambassador. That was really fun being able to have a really deep and intellectual conversation with a seasoned verteran in the "system". He was extremely knowledgable about his job and had lots of interesting stories. I hope that over the next few years I am able to pow-wow with him and his family a little bit more.

Going into exams this week means that my first 2 quarters are pretty much done. The teachers are really just proctoring examinations. This means that I will really just be hanging around doing nothing but planning for the next term. It is good though because the teachers I think are sick of me telling them that they are doing good but they could still do "this and that" better. It does also give me a chance to catch up on some all important reading and journaling too.

I am also starting the process for a Peace Corps Partnership Grant. This is where all those of you who feel compeled, will be able to give to an actual project that I am involved in. It won't be too much money and it will go to something amazing. I am just building anticipation though as it still needs to be approved by our out-going Country Director. So stay tuned...

Hope that you all are doing great. We would love to hear from all of you. So send us an e-mail, letter, messenger pigeon or any other such device any time.
All the best
Jason

June 4, 2007 (written by Janeen)

So we're in Maseru again, but today we have a meeting scheduled with the Department of Social Welfare at 2. We are going to talk with the head of the department about the adoption process and hopefully get the ball rolling today. We are very excited and are praying for a smooth process.

This weekend has been enjoyable. On Saturday we went up to TY to join our friends as they celebrated 2 girls' birthdays. It was fun and we got to see some volunteers from the northern part of the country that we have not seen in over a month.

Yesterday afternoon we enjoyed lunch with the Irish Ambassador and his wife. They are very generous people. Jason met Dee when she was at our school finding students to give scholarships. She also works a lot with different orphanages in Lesotho. They both have big hearts and especially enjoy the children here. It was great to be able to sit and talk with them.

Well we'll hopefully have an update for you about the adoption process soon, but you'll have to check the other blog because we will not be in Maseru for a while (I have used up my 5 days. Luckily the quarter is almost over.)

May 29, 2007 (written by Jason)

So yet another exciting adventure in the story of Jason and Janeen. I am in Maseru for a medical appointment, which they did not have me down for and am taking care of some other business whilst I am here. We are now in the thick of winter and have offically survived our first frost filled week. The coldest day of the last week was Tuesday. Janeen in her blog said that "Jason thinks that if it were to rain today, that it would not be rain, but snow." Well shortly thereafter it surely did do just that.

After figuring out the coal stove we did eventually warm during the evenings, however by this time I had already got some sort of flu bug. It lead to many trips to the toilet on Friday and basically ruined the plans for us to head to a friend's place in the mountains. We did get to see our friend off though who is just finishing her service. It was a good weekend.

Now I am killing time waiting for the doctor as they did not make me an appointment. So I hope that you all are reading this and checking up on us from time to time. All our Love!

May 21, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Brrrrr! I am writing to you with my long underwear, a t-shirt, a fleece jacket, and my windbreaker on AND I am still cold! I also am wearing an earmuff type headband, a scarf, tights, pants, and gloves. I guess the only way to get warm is to put even more clothing on! Winter has arrived! I think it is worse today because it is so windy! Jason thinks that if it were to rain today, that it would not be rain, but snow. Poor me! I’ve only ever lived in Southern California and this cold thing is NOT my cup of tea. Not to mention that I have had several cups of tea and coffee already today!

I am proctoring an exam for students who missed the English exam last Monday. Many students were absent because they had to go home to collect school fees. In fact, I’ve had one student who is in my B1 class who has not returned since they have asked for the second quarter school fees. I hope that he can make it back, but he has been gone over a week now and of course is missing important information in all classes! I asked about him from other students and they were not able to tell me anything. Its sad to think that he has dropped out because his family is not able to pay. It of course makes me want to pay for his schooling and then I think about all the kids who can’t even afford to come to school at all. Of course orphans get their school fees paid for by the government, but that does not include the cost of renting books, uniforms, or any additional fees that schools have (i.e. my school has a building fee and a computer fee). So THAT makes me want to pay for everyone! Of course I can’t afford to do that, but I just wish that they could all get a good education.

That’s enough blabbery thoughts for today. We get our next stipend on June 1, and we are crunching pennies (we get paid once every 3 months because the bank charges even for deposits & Peace Corps wants to save $)! The joys of Peace Corps volunteers!  Miss you and love you all!

May 22, 2007 (written by Jason)

Ok so I will second the cold thing. Today on my way to school I wore a t-shirt, a wool sweater, a windproof vest and an outer shell jacket. Even with all of these things the wind bites through me like a knife. I can’t even begin to imagine the poor little boys and girls who have nothing but thin outer jackets, wholly shoes and thin pants or skirts with no stockings. It makes me want to hold all of them all day so that they stop shivering. The teachers at my school do what they can but it is so little and there are so many.

Things have been tough emotionally lately. I know that I am making an impact on my teachers but the progress is slow and the results are poor. Tomorrow, they want me to give a few model lessons. I am fine with this as the lessons that I have observed are very weak. I hope that I will be of some help to these teachers! Who knows though really?

One positive thing is that my school did finally finish their grant proposal for the U.S. Embassy grant. I think that our chances are pretty weak but who knows right?? Ok I am cold now to the core and am going to go home and start a fire. God bless the coal stove.
All the best
Jason

May 14, 2007 (written by Jason)

Ok So I just wanted to say a quick whats up to everyone. As Janeen said we had a nice wekend and it was fun to get on the internet and do somethings (inclding the update of this site. Hope you enjoy!). I also have been trying to stay much more motivated as I often run out of things to do at school. This means I have been writing out the projects that I am actively involved in and am trying to get them accomplished in a timely manner. It is a good way to stay organized and focused on what needs to get done now and in the future.

I finally got a crop in the ground so soon I could even call myself a farmer. That should be fun. We planted beans, peas, onions, carrots and of course rape. That is right their is a plant called rape. Apperently it is a lot like spinach so we will see.

Well I better go. Janeen already left for the market and I am meeting her. All our love to you, wherever this may find you!


May 14, 2007 (written by Janeen)

This weekend we have spent our time in Maseru lounging around at the transit house (a house owned by Peace Corps for volunteer use when in Maseru). We have watched several movies and taken a few hot showers. (NICE—especially since we didn’t have to heat the water on the stove before jumping into the shower) Yesterday we also had the opportunity to visit with the directors of Beautiful Gate, a center that cares for abandoned and HIV/AIDS affected children. They are just about to move into permanent facilities and they are amazing. Just talking with them got us excited. According to Lesotho law, we are unable to adopt directly through the center, but the kids there were absolutely adorable. The visit was very affirming and even though we were already convinced that we want to adopt here, we became even more assured! In fact, Jason even picked up a baby to hold ALL BY HIMSELF. Normally, I have to shove a baby at him and say, “You need practice.” At the center, there were 2 rooms of children. The first room we visited had the toddlers. One three-year-old child came up to us right away and grabbed my hand. He was so cute, and has quite a sad story. He is the oldest one there and has seen many other children come and go. We were told that each time new prospective parents come through, he is hoping that they will be his! Apparently his new parents have been in the process of adopting him for over a year now, and have had so much trouble, that they are starting back at square one again! Anyway, today we are headed back home. Jason is trying to download a later edition of Internet Explorer in hopes that we will be able to post blogs to this site. We’ll see!

May 12, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Yeah! We are finally able to post on our site!! In town the internet has been sketchy and we have been unable to post here. However, I am in Maseru right now and it now works at the Peace Corps office! yippee! They just installed new computers here and we can now publish blogs here, where the internet is much faster than elsewhere.
ALSO, we have internet at our site now. We spent the big bucks and bought a bluetooth phone, so that we could have access using the computers at my school. We have had that for about a month, but it is still terribly slow and a tad expensive for a Peace Corps salary (roughly 20-30 licente a minute). HOWEVER, we just found out that we can purchase data bundles instead of using air time for the internet. We can purchase 10 mega-bites for 10 rand. Now, that turns out to be 2-3 licente per minute-- very affordable, even on a Peace Corps budget! The internet is still slow, but it is not the amount of minutes that matter, it is the amount of information being sent/received so we can be on for longer and have it cost less. Yeah! So, all of you that complain about your hand cramping when writing letters, can now just email! :) Though the snail mail letters really do make us feel good, so those can still keep coming & I will still be writing responses!

By the way, we have been posting on Jason's blog www.lifeofanominee.blogspot.com since this site has been finicky. If there are no posts here, be sure to check that one out.

Well, I have several papers to grade this weekend, so I better get going.

Lots of love-- Janeen

May 2, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Well it has been a while since I have written a blog! Our computers at school are finally virus free and all the software works. Yippee! Jason had to download something off the internet in order to fix the problem. He finished fixing everything just after we got back from vacation. I just realized that the last blog I wrote was a bit of a sad one. I was having a hard time getting back into the swing of things. I have good news to report that I am doing much better. I taught some good lessons and am enjoying my students again. We have already given the first exam for the second quarter. For my form A students it was a reading comprehension exam and for form B it was a composition. I am finished grading the form A students’ exams and am going to start the form B students’ exams today. I also gave them 3 choices for topics so at least I won’t have to read 100 of the same paper!

It is starting to get pretty cold here. In fact the other day it was snowing. It wasn’t cold enough for it to stay on the ground, but it was definitely snowing! I’ve heard the winter here is harder to bear because there is no escape from the cold. You go from a cold building to another cold building. At home you only have to brave the cold when you leave a building! Jason and I have a coal stove that we are going to test out. Our other option is our standing gas heater (I’m told that only heats a small radius). The days are not unbearable. I’ve been wearing layers, and shedding some throughout the day. The evenings are the challenge, which is why we will probably start going to bed at like 7!

Before I blab on too much, I need to share an experience that really touched me this week. Yesterday we were traveling on a bus back home from town and this frail man got on just before the bus left the rank. He had sores on his face and his entire face was sunken in so much that I could see all the facial bones. Jason noticed him right away and pointed him out to me. I realize we were speculating, but he had the signs of a person with AIDS. It really hit me hard to see a person in this condition because it made the disease real. Because there are no signs when a person is HIV positive, the reality of the disease has not really affected me. As of now, we have not been to any funerals and most of the funerals we have heard about have been from car accidents. Seeing him made me realize that about 25% (or more) of people in this country will die in that way. The only thing they can do is go on ARVs which only allows them to live longer. The HIV will eventually progress into AIDS and they will die. I guess there is some hope though. Magic Johnson is still living a healthy life. Though he is not living in a country where opportunistic diseases are rampant (TB, etc). Grandpa Durkee just sent me an article with an interesting statistic- There is an 85% fatality rate of people with both HIV and TB. Anyway, it hit me this week. I am going to continue to have conversations with my students about it. I also had an idea of creating a lesson plan book with ready made lessons that integrate HIV/AIDS education into English. The thought is that the students need to talk about it enough that they feel comfortable talking about it. The language needs to become regular so that there is not so much shock factor and if or when the disease affects them (I don’t think there is anyone not affected by the disease), they will be prepared.

Once again, it has been almost 6 month since we have been here and we still miss you all like crazy! All these births and weddings are making us miss you even more! We send our love and wish we could be there with you sharing your memories!

May 2, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello to all my huge fans out there. I know we have not been blogging as much as I said we would but you have to understand that life here moves at a totally different pace than back home. Our lives are really a number of boring routines that you would have a hard time reading if we were to just write the same things over and over again. It is like when we get together with PCV’s, we know that certain things will dominate conversation; e.g. Politics, Corporal Punishment in the classroom, and who is “hooking up” with whom around the Peace Corps circles. But I digress, as some memorable stuff is going on.

So it took me about 6 months but for the first time I actually was thronged by a group of kids at school. Many of you back home know that kids and I just get each other but for some reason or another I was keeping my distance from kids and what not. Today though after reading an entire Newsweek magazine waiting for class to start, I asked myself a simple question; “How badly do these kids need an adult to just recognize them?”

This was spurred on by one little boy Neo, who is in standard 1. He is this cute little independent man but whenever I am outside, he is right there beside me grabbing my hand and leaning against me. This led me to my experiment. So today at lunch, I took the kids out to the play area (a big grass lot) and played helicopter and airplane. I had to quit after about 30 kids though because by then, I had the entire 1, 2, and 3 classes mobbing me wanting me to swing them around. The truly sad part was after we quit, the students just wanted to be near me. Students were holding my hands, touching my clothes, just wanting to be near an adult who took interest in them. It was exhausting but fun and exhilarating as well.

Otherwise, things are going along as normal. School is fine. We would love to hear from anyone out there. We miss you all. Take care!
Jason

April 17, 2007 (written by Jason)

Well I have been talking about doing this for a while but it finally happened. I got the internet hooked up at our site. It isn’t fast or flashy (yet) but it is the internet with e-mail and blogging capabilities. I am super excited as it isn’t really even that expensive. I hope to open the service up to the students, if I can get some funding from the school to do that. I want to be able to show them the basics of the internet and how it can help them with research and other things. It is pretty cool though. I also hope to get instant messenger back up on this computer so that we can set times to have live chats with groups of people back home. I think that it would really enhance our experience here and yours back at home. If you have any other ideas, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or shoot an e-mail to me or Janeen @
jason.samuelian@gmail.com
janeen_samuelian@yahoo.com

All the best
Jason

April 13th, 2007 (written by Jason)

What a crazy couple of weeks it has been. We are just beginning to settle back in to our quiet little lives here in Tsa-Kholo after the last few weeks of “big city” life and vacation. The transition has been a little difficult after having some well needed time off and time away. That is the problem though. We have heard with people going on vacation is that when they return to their homes in Lesotho, there is some feeling of dread. Not that we dread living here, which is not the case at all. It is just that after being able to drive (a rental car with the drivers side on the right; manual transmission which was weird but you get used to it), stay out at night passed 7 p.m., go to restaurants and the movies (we saw 300 and Music and Lyrics), and just feel like life was a little more normal, going back to a cold house with a single light bulb hanging from the roof and a bathroom that smells like an odd combination of mildew and poop, is a little depressing (for those living in houses with none of these features I imagine the feeling is even more intensified).
Work can also be disappointing. I know that the first quarter can start slowly no matter where you are, but seeing that same pace carried into the next quarter is down right frustrating. I sat in class today and waited for 30 minutes while the teacher asked, “If you don’t understand ask me questions.” This is massively frustrating as the teacher knows that you are there to observe the best that she has to offer and that is pretty much the extent of her ability.
But it is not all bad being back in Lesotho. I have found that I have a liking to some of the simpler foods here. Roast corn known as Pone (not at all like roast corn in America) is one of my favorite snacks/meals here. It kind of tastes like unflavored corn-nuts or pop corn kernels partially popped. The pace of life is also kind of fun. I do like having long bike rides to think about things in life and taking naps in the afternoon after work. It is a pace of life that I know will not be able to be emulated as much back home, especially once we start a family.
It has also been great being home because we get to hear from all of you. Your packages and letters, this means we did receive it Kyle, Ronnie and yes you too Dakota ;-) have made all the difference in turning a bad day into a manageable one, although it does make us miss you something fierce. This is especially pertinent to all of you back home having babies. It really makes us wish that we could be there and celebrate the new lives with you.
One more quick shout out and then I am done. Congratulations to our best friends, Brad Blaze and Valerie Jorritsma (now Valerie Blaze), in the whole world on finally tying the knot. We have tried calling a few times to wish you well but have been unable to get a hold of you. This is the next best thing though. Announcing to the world, via the internet, our heart felt love and congratulations to you. Hope that you had a great time at the Adventura Spa Palace!
I think that is all I got to say today. We are still working on trying to get the internet here at school but I will definitely hit you all with a fatty blog once we do get that sucker rolling. All the best,
Jason

April 13th, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Well, I can’t really say that I am too excited to be back. The return to school meant that I had to finish grading 200 quarter exams, which all consisted of reading comprehension questions, grammar questions, and the dreaded compositions. This time the topic for Form A students was: “My first day at Tsakholo High School” and for Form B students: “A day when my friend disappointed me”. So I got to read about 100 of each of those. It can get just a tad boring and sometimes the essays all start to blur together. Though, I can say that I am almost through. I’ve only got about 50 more compositions to read. Then I get to fill out quarter reports for each student. All of this is due by Monday, so my first weekend of being back at school is of course going to consist of doing work! Our small home is in disarray, and needs a good sweep and mop (not to mention that I need to clean up my piles of clutter that have accumulated as I have spent my time grading, sleeping, eating, and going to class).
ANYWAY! I am going to stop complaining because the teachers here do this ALL the time, and I only have to deal with it for 2 years (I’m never going to be a high school teacher). For those of you out there that have ever thought, “Those who can’t do-teach” you are TOTALLY wrong. This is one of the most challenging jobs ever. Many days I get frustrated because I know that I can do better, or I wish that there were more hours in the day so that I could do all the things that I hope for.
And then there was how I was feeling this week—like I didn’t want to do any of it any more because I didn’t think that what I was doing was making any difference any way. Here a passing score is 40% and many students are happy just to pass. I am NOT okay with that and of course want my students to score in the 70% or higher range, but those are few. So of course I feel like I am failing because my students don’t do as well as I would hope. So I ask myself does it even matter that I am here? Am I really making any difference?
I guess I am probably just dealing with “coming home from vacation blues” and I am sure things will settle down. I do enjoy my students and I hope that I am teaching them well. It can just get you down sometimes when you know how much better things could be, you see what the reality is here, and then realize that my impact may only be small.
Thank you again for all of your correspondence. They really do help cheer us up when we are having a frustrating day! When we left for training & vacation I had just about caught up on my letters, but since being back I think we are about 10 letters behind, which of course will not get responses until AFTER I am done with all the exam & report madness! We miss you all so much!

April 1, 2007 (Written by Jason)

So James and myself, ditched our last language session meeting to come down to the VRC (volunteer resource center) and putz around a little bit on the computers here. We were just starting when these 2 older gentlemen came in and introduced themselves. Fred, a former volunteer in Columbia, back in the 70's, and Matt, a former worker down in Antarctica were coming through on vacation. Fred knew that Peace Corps volunteers are the real source for the on the ground information as to where to stay and what to do while in country.

The trully funny part was that Fred now lives in Mariposa, which for those of you not from the north is only like 30-45 minutes away from Sonora. It is kind of funny that things like this just seem to happen. I really do love the random nature of events as they happen around the world.
Ok well I thought that this was blog worthy. Sorry to bore you if it wasn't!
Jason