Ke rata ditaba le metsi haholo!

All of the Baithoupi babacha "New Volunteers" at Thaba-Bosiu "Mountain of the Night." We took a trip there during training. It is where King Moshoeshoe I founded the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho.

Sorry to all of my avid readers for the lack of posting. Unfortunately the compound where I live was without power for a few days, so the laptop was in hibernation. So where to start… I have been at my site for almost a week now and everything has been wonderful. I can honestly say I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. I live in the district of Thaba-Tseka which is in the highlands. I stay in the village of Katse which is in the northern part near the border to Leribe district. I am surrounded by large mountains that are stunning and are snow capped for many months of the year. I am also a 10 minute walk from the Katse dam, the largest dam in Africa. There is water everywhere and I can even see the dam reservoir from my backyard. The compound I live in is very nice. I am very fortunate to have many luxuries that most of my Peace Corps colleagues do not have, like running water and electricity! The house also has a guest bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and master bedroom… pretty sweet. Since school does not start until Monday I have been slowly settling in. My supervisor is great and got me some paint that I asked for so I could give a few of the walls a few coats of paint. The kitchen even has a refrigerator and an electric stove! There is also a lodge resort about a 10 minute walk from me. The food there is great and it will be a nice get a way when I need to take a mental health stress free day. It is located right on the dam reservoir. I have even made friends with one of the staff there. He is a real nice guy that I will be tutoring English to and in return he will teach me how to cook Basotho food, pretty sweet deal I think. So for the past week I have just been walking around meeting people and getting to know the area. We have to small grocery shops, think the size of a bedroom, a couple of small restaurants, think the size of a bedroom, and a bar, think the size of a bedroom… you get the idea. Some of the bo ntate have been teaching me how to play Snooker, which is essentially pool but with a few different rules. Maya I think about you every time I play, not quite the same as Gator City but it will have to do for the time being. The first thing I did when I got to site was build a fire pit. Im no boy scout, but I think it turned out pretty good. The next order of business was a BBQ. So for the past week I have been collecting these large boulders to build this BBQ stand. I would say it is about half way complete. The police chief even gave me a piece of an old car to serve as the part to cradle the charcoal. All I need is a few more stones and a make shift grill and I will be all set. Im going to have the police over for a Brie “BBQ” when it is finished, they seemed excited. On a side note I saw the milky way for the first time in Africa, wow how something so simple can make you so excited. I haven’t seen that since the British Virgin Islands, love you baby! I would like to thank everyone that has sent me letters or called me. A special thanks goes out to Karsten and Beth for the Christmas card. The picture was priceless and Im glad to see you are still rocking that sweet mustache brosef. My mailing address and phone number are on my facebook if you want to call or send me something. The cheapest way is through skype, it costs like 30 cents a minute. A birthday shout out next month would be great =) Monday starts the beginning of the new school year and with it brings a new chapter in my Peace Corps journey. I am still unsure of what classes I will be teaching, but I think my Supervisor is thinking of putting me in form D and E chemistry. That equates to like 11th and 12th grade. The school facilities are really superb. It actually looks like a small high school you would find in the United States, well sort of. They are even as we speak building another building that houses 3 more classes rooms and 2 bathrooms. The school is very new and was built in 2006 I believe. Sorry guys Im having a hard time uploading photos, the internet is very slow here. One photo is taking over 30 minutes.... and most of the time they dont show up. PS: I cooked pasta for the maintenance man last night and he freaked out, he definitely loves italian food!

Here is a picture of the front of my house, the window on the left is my bedroom, the window on the right is the living room!

Khotsong

This post has been a long time coming, but I promise they will start to be more frequent. I have just bought a wireless modem so now its blogging time. Tomorrow is swearing in! After 8 weeks of training it is time to become a PCV, score! Anyway today we are having a banquet with our supervisors that we will be working with for the next two years. Sorry for this short post but I have to get ready and the battery on the laptop is almost done, but here are a few pictures that I have been promising. There will be a lot more in the next few days!

Me shaking hands with the US Ambassador to Lesotho. Ambassador Nolan.
These are a few of my students at Berea Secondary School. A really great group of kids that I learned a lot from and enjoyed teaching tremendously during CBT, hopefully I will be visiting them sometime during the middle of this year to see how they are progressing on their studies. And a final note to my friends, set up a skype and call me its super cheap. You can get the number from my parents, would love to hear from you all.

Khotso! Pula! Nala!

I finally made it to a computer! I cannot begin to describe the joy that I have had since I have been in Africa and Lesotho. Things are great here, today marks our 1 month in country. Things have been excellent. The first 2 weeks were training in Maseru, the capitol city. We have since moved to different host villages for more training and practice teaching. The village I live in in called Barea, which is subsiquently in the district of Barea. We taught for 2 weeks in Barea. The final days we spent testing the students and last friday we gave an assembly for the top 3 students in each class. One of my students got first place for his entire grade so i was extremely happy and proud, his name is Abuti Jon and he is really a great kid. I teach forms that would roughly equate to 12th grade science and 10th grade maths. Today I am back in Maseru to do some grocery shopping to get supplies to bring back to barea. I am sorry i cannot post pictures at this time. The internet cafe will not allow photos to be downloaded onto their computers which is really lame. I have some really good pictures and videos I will post once I am able to use the PC computer or get a wirelesss modem, whichever comes first.

Barea has been great. My host family has been taking extremely good care of me. I have a mom, 2 sisters, and 3 brothers. My mom is called 'M'e Manthihli. So far she has taught me how to wash clothes by hand, make bohobe (bread), and moroho (Basotho vegetables). We live about 30 minutes outside of Maseru in a village that is nestled into the side of a mountain. At the bottom there is a valley where another mountain starts to rise. My host mother gave me my Sesotho name which is Reitumetse (Ray-Two-Metsey). This means "the one we believe in". My host mother has said that I am a gift from god who has come to teach their children. These are pretty big shoes to fill, no? lol.

Today was an extremely exciting day for a number of reasons. 1 we get to go to Maseru which is always a welcome to break up village life. 2 we had Chinese food in Maseru which was AMAZING! 3 we found out our permanent site visits. This is where we will be for the next 2 years of our lives. I will be moving to the district of Thaba-Tseka in the mountains! By the grace of god I was placed in the nicest house of any volunteer currently serving in Lesotho. I am 5 minuters away from the Khotse Dam and many lakes and rivers... so excited about this. Are you ready mom...? I also have running water and electricity! The other volunteers cant believe it. They placed me in the village of Khotse. The school is brand new and was built in 2006. One of the faculty told me they wanted to place me in a school that had new teaching materials and an adequate facitility that would be conducive to my teaching styles. This was great news to hear as I have really enjoyed teaching the learners. The past two weeks in Barea have been great. I have learned so much and have had some really good constructive criticism to help my teaching methods. I did not realise how hard teaching is but thankfully it comes pretty natural to me. I would like to that all of the teachers I have had the pleasure of working with during my tenures in High School and the University of Florida. These teachers have shaped who I am and I cannot begin to express my deepest gratitudes towards them.

I want to thank all of my friends and family for their continued support. This has been a life changing experience and I have only been here for a month and I would not be able to do it without all of your thoughts and prayers. I want to especially thank my parents who have been the biggest blessing in my life and my girlfriend Maya! Goodluck baby climbing Kiliminjaro this week, Im so proud of you! If you guys have any questions please send them to my email: tmaresco@gmail.com and I will respond to them as soon as I can. If you would like to send me a package or a letter you can send them to:

Tom Maresco/PCV
Peace Corps/ Lesotho
PO Box 554
Maseru 100
Lesotho
Southern Africa

I would love to recieve a letter from you and I will definitly write you back. When I get the address for my permanent site in Khotse I will be sure to post it on here. I love all of you!
I wish you all the best and God Bless,
Reitumetse Tsenolti

PS: There is lots more to say but that is for another email... I am running out of internet time and I have to be back at the training center soon... eek!

Lisztomania

So the final countdown has finally started. My last day of work is September 30th, so that leaves 12 nights of work left and 58 days until departure for staging (Nov 11th). After almost a year on Tokyo time I will be thrilled to be on a day schedule again. Sleeping in a bedroom with covered windows until 5pm is hardly healthy, even for a vampire. Everything seems to be slowly falling into place. Bills are getting paid and equipment for the trip is being acquired. Every week I have been trying to find deals on the web and purchase more gear for the trip. So far I got a pretty sweet NF duffel, Jacket, hiking shoes (thanks work), pants (thanks mom), Ipod Classic (thanks Maya!)and a camera (thanks dad). Next on the wishlist is a Backpack, lightweight pullover, Flip MinoHD cam, ASUS netbook, head lamp, sleeping bag, solar charger and some more clothes. I have also been meeting other volunteers from my group through the Lesotho November 2009 facebook group. Everyone seems really qualified and excited. I have also been trying to map out the remainder of my time here in the states which is kind of a surreal feeling. This includes seeing Blink 182, The Decemberists, Pinback, and Thursday. I am also going to a tattoo expo in Miami with Pops which I am really excited about. A trip to NYC is also in the works for a international non-profit banquet which I really hope works out. Would also be cool to see good ole H-less Jon in Rhode Island one last time while i'm up there. I must also tell you guys about a band Phoenix if you haven't heard of them. I just picked up their newest album "Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix" and it seriously is one the best and most refreshing albums I have listened to all year, so check them out. I also think they are on tour atm so you might be able to catch them if your interested. What else?... The Peace Corps Globe Talks at UF have started again which is cool because I get to see Amy my recruiter who I haven't hung out with in a while.... and no Amy I will not get in trouble before departure ( no FL/GA) and yes we should have an imported beer tasting, or any kind of social gathering for that matter. I'm sure Miss Meffert and her fancy shoes would love to be in attendance as well. Sorry for the scattered post, it has been a while since I have been on here and my blogging organizational skills are substandard.

Baxter Bark 3 times if your in Milwaukee!

The verdict: Lesotho! I recieved my formal invitation in the mail on August 5th to serve as a secondary ed science teacher. Staging date set for November 11th. I checked the mail on the way to band practice and there it was, I couldnt contain myself I yelled in my car for a few seconds. After a year in the application process the reward finally came. A thick blue packet contained in a FedEx envelope. I do find it very amusing that a government agency such as the Peace Corps uses FedEx instead of USPS, that must tell you something about the state of US mail. I spent some time reading over the large number of packets and called the next day to accept my invitation. The PO started asking me questions about what my job will entail and secondary projects I will be doing which kind of caught me off guard, but she seemed to be happy when I mentioned something about creating "income generating projects" score. Today I sent off the material for the Peace Corps passport which I will recieve at staging. Tomorrow I will write my aspiration statement and forward it along with "another" updated resume to the Lesotho PC office. This is quickly becoming a reality and day by day I realize more things I need to take care of. Someone created a Peace Corps Lesotho November 09 group so I have slowly been able to meet people I will be serving with which is pretty cool.

So I have been trying to decide when I'm going to leave my job. I'm pretty much set on leaving the last week of september. That will give me almost six weeks to get the last of everything in place and more importantly visit friends and family, without having to worry about working. Sorry if this post has been scatterbrained, way to much to process!

If You've Got an Impulse Let it Out!

So Peace Corps Headquarters must have read my blog I published last night. No sooner than five hours after I posted it I recieved an email saying that my Peace Corps status has been updated. When I checked it said I had been invited to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer!!!!!!!!! I honestly have not felt so happy/excited/accomplished since I got my acceptance letter from the University of Florida five years ago. Now the waiting game and mail man stalking begins, waiting for the coveted FedEx envelope which will tell me the exact country and leave date. I have a strong feeling it will be either Kenya (Nov 2nd) or Lesotho (Nov 10th). Either way it leaves about 3 months left in the States. So much work to do... money to save, one last bill to pay off, friends and family to see, job to quit, and supplies to buy.

Thanks everyone for your support and if you have any questions about the process let me know. I'll post a blog in a few days when I get the information in the mail. From what I hear there is still a bunch of paperwork to fill out and visas/passport to acquire!

Where is my mind?

It seems completely surreal to me that its already August. It's hard to believe that I have been nominated for almost nine months, when I look back that seems so long ago. I have been fortunate enough to keep my most idle mind busy for the most part, which makes the weeks go by pretty fast, especially when you dont hear anything from PC HQ for months at a time. I hope to hear from Placement soon so I can start making arrangements or so I can atleast start making other career options for the future and get back in school. As I have heard from the beginning the entire process is truely a test of patience. If I get invited for one of the two November dates (Kenya or Lesotho) it will mean my entire application will have taken just over a year. In two weeks is the tattoo convention and i'm going to see the Counting Crows with the parents so atleast I have somethings coming up to keep me busy. 3 more nights at work and then 4 day weekend, let the festivities begin!