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!