Bloemfontastic!

So the first half of the school year has ended and I find myself getting into all sorts of things. I’m back at my site and finishing up my basketball hoop project. The welding is finally complete and all I have to do now is paint the hoops and backboards! Take a look at the photos and let me know what you think. A lot of planning, designing and hard work has gone into them so I hope you enjoy them as much as the students will. When I got back to my site all I wanted to do was take a hot shower and go to bed. Unfortunately after waiting two hours for the water to heat up nothing came out when I turned it on. Today I grabbed my friend Ntate Makhotsa and we tore off a side panel of the house and were able to repair a pipe that came apart, gotta love the cold snowy weather in Thaba-Tseka to wreck havoc on your plumbing. So today I should be all good, we will see. Besides having to grade stacks of papers what else has been going on?
Before I went to South Africa LHDA held a big party and BBQ with the Lodge for the opening ceremonies of the World Cup. It was really a lot of fun and the food was great. It was a nice way to celebrate with all of my friends around the village since everyone had been anticipating that moment for a long time. Last week I went to Bloemfontein with a few of my friends for some FIFA World Cup action. My supervisor was able to hook us up last minute with a place to stay that was a two minute walk from the stadium! We stayed with a nun who was great as well as very accommodating. We were all able to get tickets to see Slovakia play Paraguay. The game was fun, Paraguay winning 2-0. It was fantastic to see patriots for both sides all decked out in their countries colors, wigs, and all sorts of things. Unfortunately both sides represent red, white, and blue just like the good ole US of A so I was kind of confused as to where I was for a bit. That combined with the fufuzelas (loud horn things) made for a very intense day. Did I mention that Budweiser is the sponsored beer of the 2010 world cup, which also made for a real blast. On a side note there is a McDonalds in Bloemfontein! Quarter Pounders with cheese and egg mcmuffins did well for my psychological health, but not so well for my gastrointestinal… I will leave it at that. We got back to Lesotho and were able to watch the USA beat Algeria in stoppage time to advance them to the next round of the World Cup, so cheers boys!
I am still planning the trip to Mozambique for ten days in the middle of July so if anyone has any travel suggestions I would love to hear them. As of now I am just relaxing and waiting for the next half of the school year to start in August. I am also eagerly anticipating my father and his friend Scotts visit to Lesotho in November, cant wait dad! I hope everyone back home is well and are enjoying the warm and sunny Florida sunshine. I will be snow dodging and trying to get off the mountain as much as PC will allow me so I wont get snowed in =) Sorry for the sporadic post, but my brain has been truly over stimulated after visiting SA. I will edit this as more detail come to mind. Enjoy the photos!

Africold!

And just as the second quarter of the school year ends so does any sign of warm weather. Its funny how the seasons can often reflect ones own personal emotions. When I arrived in Lesotho it was stifling, with frequent torrential downpours. In my head I was eager to begin my journey in Africa, yet somewhat cautious and fearful of the unknown. As autumn approached the heat subsided and I could feel myself getting comfortable with my surroundings. Faces became familiar and teaching became routine. Now I find myself 25% done with my teaching assignment. Physically and emotionally exhausted I find the snowfall on the last day of school comical. Is the weather telling me that its time to relax and cool down? I think the next two months will be filled with much self-reflection and eventually excitement towards the third quarter of school where things will surely be heating up as will the weather.
So much for trying to be poetic! So what am I in store for the next two months? Fortunately I have just beaten a three day bout with some sort of stomach bug, glad that’s over! They say the closest friend you make in Peace Corps is the amoeba you bring home. Well if that’s the case I should start thinking of a name for him/her, perhaps Hendrix. On a more exciting note World Cup starts tomorrow! Everyone you see is in complete jubilation, hoping the best for their team. Most Basotho are cheering for Bafana Bafana (South Africa.) As you can bet I will be rooting for good ole team USA, yeehaw! Italy, naturally will be my second team. If all goes well I will be in Bloemfontein on the 20th for a game, which will be exciting. The end of the holiday will find me in the tropical paradise of Mozambique for ten days. Yeah I know Peace Corps life can be pretty sweet sometimes. Like I always say work hard, play hard. In recent news the new CHED 10’ volunteers arrived in the mountain Kingdom on June 4th. I look forward to meeting them and wish them good luck in their CBT training.
Tomorrow there is a huge BBQ here at the lodge to celebrate the opening ceremonies and game between Bafana Bafana and Mexico. Expect many pictures of world cup action as I attempt to infiltrate the soccer hooligan lifestyle, joke. As this month comes to an end I am also eagerly anticipating the 4th of July. You can bet there will be a hog roast, American flag bandanas, Garth Brooks and a movie like Independence Day playing. Someone drink a Budweiser for me and we will be all set, thanks in advance =)
So here I sit writing this blog post. It is frigid outside and it just stopped snowing. Tonight I am having a few village friends over my house for dinner. My Italian friend is coming over later to help me prepare an Italian feast, which I am eagerly anticipating since I can now stomach and hold down food! The menu consists of homemade Italian red sauce, baked rainbow trout and potatoes and homemade garlic bread. Yes, I will take a picture of it. To all of my friends and family back home I hope you are enjoying the summer time. Please think of me every time you go to the beach, take the boat out, eat a slice of pizza, go to Carrabas, or do anything American. For now I will turn on the gas heater and start to prepare this sauce, you know it has to cook all day if you want authentic flavors! Love you guys lots!
PS: I shaved the beard, these pictures are from last week!

Easy Tiger

What a great few weeks it has been. The weather is starting to get cold, but that has not curbed all of the action that has been going on in village. Lets try to summarize the past three weeks of my life…
BBQed, ate sheep, ate cow, at cow testicle… mushy but not bad.
Birthday party, many friends, good times.
Dart practice with police, up coming tournament soon, excited!
Another birthday party, more friends, more good times.
Threw an American football, got excited again.
Played wiffle ball, extremely excited.
Met an Italian who worked on dam, cooked homemade sauce together.
Frequently hang out with Italian, made breadcrumb fried trout.
Got paid by Peace Corps, finally, thanks.
15k walk for African Heroes day, inside tour of the dam, BBQ, party!
Continued work on bball hoops, still keeping fingers crossed, still excited!
Trip planned for Maseru for District Aids meeting, too much travel.
Built shelf for spices above stove, Bob Villa is jealous.
Toenail is growing back.
Ate KFC ice cream, delicious.
Starting exam testing, looking forward to break.
Namibia or Mozambique?
Went fishing for the first time, caught worms, no luck…
World Cup soon, want a ticket, Bloemfontein game hopefully.
Newbies arrive in a week.
Im getting old.
As you can see things have been busy. Sorry I didn’t go in to detail but I have a busy day of traveling tomorrow and just wrote down random stuff that came from my head. Hope you enjoyed the post and the pictures!

TCBing!

Well hello again! I will preface this blog post like all others and apologize for my lack of updates. With that being said what has been going on in my life. After the trip to Durban it was time to get back to work, which honestly was not easy. It was amazing to me that after less then six months I had forgotten about all of my modern day conveniences that I had left behind in the states. Unfortunately Durban quickly reminded of everything that I once had =) No worries though after a week or two back in my new home country I was quickly reminded of how I can live without them and with that as a mental comfort I was back to work. So what have I been working on? I have been put in charge of coaching our basketball team, which has been a lot of fun. Playing with the kids is great and the exercise is an added bonus I suppose. We make the most out of our practice facility, which is essentially a netball court. Think basketball without the dribbling and no backboards on the hoops. So my new pilgrimage has been to construct some new hoops for my Ballers, woot! I’ve made friends with the local welder who does work for the school and he has been great. Yes, he is the one who helped my dream of a BBQ come to fruition. Anyway he reminds of my dad. I showed him a rough sketch of a design I had and he went to work adding things and making sure all of my angles and measurements were correct. I was able to get an old pole from the school that’s 20ft long. My friend cut it in half and I had him weld on some plates we came up with to the tops of each. (See Photos) From the pictures you can see I also framed out the size of the backboard out of black scrap metal that was left over from student beds that were made from the boarding. My friend is going to mend all of that together and we will have two frames we can attach to the backboards when I get them. You can also see that I managed to snake two brand new Dunlop Basketball rims! The idea is that the metal frames will be about 3ft away from the pole. The frames will be holding the rim and backboard and will be connected to the main pole and attached at the metal plates we welded on. If my vision comes true they will look like NBA hoops but sized down for high school basketball. Anyway as you can tell we have been putting a lot of work into this and I am really excited about the outcome.

My big project that will take place in the near future involves a few of my friends who are in the CHED community health and economic development sector of Peace Corps. I have been picking their brains about building raised gardens and we have come up with something that is going to benefit the school and the children in countless ways. I want to build gardens throughout the school compound. My school has 5 forms A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2, D, and E. These equate to 8^th through 12^th grade. I want each of these classes to have their own raised garden that will be monitored throughout the year by their class teacher. Why build these gardens? The first reason is to give all of the children in the school an additional source of nutrition. My school does a great job in feeding the kids, but additional sources of nutrition are always a bonus especially when you are dealing with OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children). It will also help the kids learn about gardening, which is something the agriculture teachers can use as an outside teaching tool. The class teachers can also have competitions to see which class can grow the most vegetables and give prizes to the ones who do the best. I have learned that competition among kids is great and makes them really try hard, its awesome to see how hard these kids work for a sticker, I can only imagine what they would do for some fresh vegetables. I was also thinking that if there are extra vegetables they can be sold throughout the year to fund other school projects. This project would also serve as a barometer for how my greenhouse project later down the road will go. The best part about the project is that its entirely free. They are pretty much built out of stones, some wood, aloe, old tin cans and cardboard. Materials of which can all be found right here in village! I have even talked to my friend who works with the UN WFP (World Food Programme) and she is trying to secure me a few hundred seeds of assorted vegetable species. Keep your fingers crossed this is a big undertaking, but I have the school staff and other support from other PCVs.

Lastly I am still trying to sort out problems I am having with the PC WWS (World Wise Schools Program). The program matches volunteers with classrooms abroad to classrooms in the US so they can be pen pals. The correspondent I was matched with has not replied to me so I have been sending emails to PC Washington and with not much nudging they are going to give me a new correspondence. My kids were really happy to hear this and I will let you know how their writing is. I will even try to post some of the questions and responses I get in a couple of months. I’m sure they are going to be great.

Day to day life here is going. Everyday I feel more confident in the work I am achieving and the direction that my life is going in. Last weekend we had a Thaba-Tseka sports weekend here and 5 other schools showed up. The competition was from Thursday to Sunday and the students competed in soccer, netball, volleyball, and basketball. Our school did pretty well and we are sending a couple of the teams to another qualifying match in two weeks. If they win that they get to go to Maseru to play for the national games, pretty cool. I need to get those hoops built so my team can really practice =) On Friday I organized another BBQ and collected money from a lot of the teachers around the district and bought another sheep. It was cool getting to meet the other teachers from around the district and see what projects and teaching methods they have been working on. Socializing here in Africa has not only been fun, but has also proven to be a great way to network with people, seriously.

I also want to throw a shout out to my fellow Thaba-Tseka friend Oz who is going home next week after serving his two years. We are gonna miss you bud. On a lighter note a baby threw up on me while I was on public last week, oh Lesotho. I made calzones. I made the best brownies in the world, thanks Mom for the Funfetti icing! I am getting really good at pool. That’s about all for now I will post some more random musings later when they come to me. Yes, it is getting super cold here and my masotho friend who doesn’t speak English hand gestured to me that he thinks that it will snow next week. He probably is better then the meteorologist in Florida lol. Love and miss you guys a lot. Khotso!

PS: My Students like to dance! Durban Pt 2 is coming.

Durban Pictures 2

Here are a few more Durban pictures! Ill continue the vacation story soon. The pictures are of me hanging with some Zulus I met on North Beach at the Indian Ocean in Durban, my friends and I at uShaka water park, Sharks Rugby game and the last one is of the uShaka aquarium. Enjoi!

Durban Part 1

As always I will preface this post by apologizing to my friends and family for the absurd amount of time it is taking me in between these posts. In my defense however, which really is only worth about, well nothing really, I have been extremely busy over the last month. As fast as I came to my site for the first time like a wild gypsy it was already the end of March and time to leave. The first quarter of school wrapped up quite nicely and it was time to go back to Maseru for 10 days for phase III training. It was nice to see all of my colleagues again and hear of their numerous trials and tribulations. The training was actually rather good so kudos to PC Lesotho for that. Even the capital city of a third world country is sensory overload after you have lived in the middle of the mountains for three months. Some of the highlights of the gathering include a trip to the new movie theater to see Avatar. The movie was aweful, but it was nice to smell popcorn and sit in air conditioning for a while for only about 2 bucks. We also held the first annual PC Lesotho Mustache games which was a blast thanks to Mr Vino for making that happen, details on this will be told in person =) I also went to my first Maseru night club with a gang of friends which was ridiculous. The local MCs who were rapping were pretty good. I can only imagine what runs through the locals minds when almost 40 foreigners raid a bar, hilarious I say. So lets skip to the vacation! After 3 months at site and 10 days doing “extensive” PC training we were all ready for some R and R. I went to Durban with 10 of my new closest PC buds. The trip from Ficksburg to Durban was 190R (about 30US) and usually takes about 5 hours. Well due to getting pulled over by the SA police three times due to a cracked windshield in the Kombi it took us over 7, TIA. The trip was eventful and we saw zebras, monkeys, and a baboon chilling on the side of the road, a definite perk of living in Africa. So my first experience into living in a hostel was fantastic. We stayed at the Hippo Hide Hostel in Durban and it was great. They even claim to have the largest rock pool in the southern hemisphere and a honesty system self serve bar, at this point I’m still not sure which is more impressive, but I digress. The first day finds us unwinding in the pool for a bit and heading to the Suncoast beach for dinner. There we messed around in the casino for a bit and ate fresh sushi on the water. Ya you can probably imagine how amazing it was. Just to smell the salt water knocked my socks off. The beach was closed, but using my boyish charm I was able to convince a SA police officer to escort us down for 5 minutes so we could put our feet in the Indian Ocean for a few minutes. See picture below. Wow it was great to be back at sea level! Day two Parker and I made breakfast for everyone… what?! Fresh cheese? And scrambled eggs? WOOT! We decided to spend part of the afternoon at the mall just to get a real culture shock. Was it big? Three stories and bigger then any mall I have ever been in. I think some dude said it had 27 entrances, yikes! Lets not forget KFC and subway. It was here I had my first draught beer in 5 months at a nice little pub on the top floor. Yep… just like I remembered. I will say that it took a while to let everything soak in and remember that things that I was seeing still do exist. That night we all decided to go eat some Indian food. Durban has the highest Indian population outside of India so needless to say the food was pretty authentic and amazingly good. On a recommendation from the waiter we ended up at this pretty lame dance club, you win some you lose some, either way I still had fun. The next day was the pinnacle of the vacation. A few of us decided to go to the water park uShaka which is right on the Indian ocean. Lets not forget an ample serving of McDonalds breakfast, yeah I know egg mcmuffin incredible! The park was great, my favorite part was the lazy river that went through parts of the aquarium, totally awesome. (See Picture below). Later that day we went to a SA Sharks rugby game. This could be the most fun thing I did on the vacation. My friend Sonny says soccer is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans and rugby is a hooligans game played by gentleman. That made me laugh pretty hard. The game was intense and the Sharks actually won which was pretty cool. To top it of was a pitcher of beer and some comical banter I had with a few of the local fans, those guys were great. We ended the day by going to one of the most amazing sea food restaurants I have ever been to called Wilson’s Warf. It was located right on the pier and was incredible. Im pretty sure the waitress ripped me off at the end, but either the way the meal was still super cheap and after a day like that I just wanted to go to bed. We spent the next morning eating eggs benedict at an Italian eatery down the street wow how I have missed you old friend. Part 2 to be continued….

la la voca

Here are some notes I jotted down over the last two weeks.

Today I had a very sentimental moment that brought several tears to my eye. The tears were filled with joy, but painful in a way. Let me explain. I came home after a long day and put on the Beatles album “Let it Be.” The first thought that came into my head was long weeks spent at my grandparent’s house in Hollywood. Just like it was yesterday I can remember hearing these songs playing on the oldies station of my grandfathers huge white car, I think it was a cutlass. How simple times were back then. Playing botchy ball and bowling at the pool house, all great times, the perfect image I have of my grandparents. This got me to thinking about music that reminds me of my friends and family. For my one and only father, lets see… It would have to be Starcastle or Texas Flood. I’ll never forget that Stevie Ray album that inspired me to pick up the guitar and never put it down. For that gift I cannot thank you enough. For my dearest mum… There are a few that come to mind namely Toad the Wet Sprocket, Steely Dan “Katy Lied,” and Ryan Adams “Heartbreaker.” The album; however, that will always remind me of you is “August and Everything After” by the Counting Crows. Another album I can listen to all the way through everyday. For my love Maya there can be many. We have shared so much music it is hard to say. For you it would have to be the Jets to Brazil album we listened to that first night we hung out and shared music on your bed, oh Kanapaha, how long ago it seems since you lived there. For Hless Jon it is easy Chutes to Narrow by the Shins. Also anothing by Hot Chip reminds me of the autumn days spent in your apartment in Lakeland sitting on the patio smoking hookah and drinking a nice Congelton homebrew. Andy would have to be any Thrice album, oh I can just picture you know singing the lyrics in the kitchen making your protein shake and MCS dinners lol. For Brett it is “Through Being Cool” by Saves the Day. Every time I hear that album I think of you buddy and the countless nights we spent screaming our lungs out and playing “I’m Sorry I’m leaving” on the guitar are some of my favorite memories. Uncle Jesse you know what I’m going to say for you. That’s right “Full Collapse” by Thursday. Kent… my brother from another mother, there are too many to count. All of those rigged mixed tapes we played through that old stereo in my garage while we played basketball. It would probably be the big tymers album with “snake” on it. My point is that even though I may not be with you guys I still am with you all of the times in the silly memories I play out in my head every time one of those songs comes up on shuffle. The memories we have shared have been countless, ridiculous, sometimes hazardous, and just flat out absurd, and I have loved every one of them. Thank you guys, thank you.

What a weekend, what a weekend. For me the weekend actually started on Wednesday when I held the swim meet for my kids. It was great all of the school and staff were in attendance and it was gratifying to see that all of my hard work cleaning the pool and coordinating the even was paying off. I had 30 students compete in the event which was awesome. We had 6 individual heats to start everything off. Then I ran three heats of the top placed swimmers and finally and 3 man team race. The kids had a great time and so did I. I need to look into getting cheap speedos made for the swimming club because a lot of them do not have the proper attire and have to share swim trunks throughout the competition.

Thursday after athletic practice the school bought a sheep so we could have a BBQ for the staff party on Friday. This time my colleagues gave me the honors of doing the dirty work. They did not think I could do it and I was not even sure if I could pull through, but when it was all said and done I had another sheep under my belt. We skinned the sheep and had the innards for dinner that night community style. Yes liver, kidneys, heart, intestines and stomach included. That stuff really isn’t my cup of tea but its honestly not that bad once you get over the shock and awe of it.

Friday was a bittersweet day for me as it was my Mayas birthday. Alice and wonderland came out that day and we had been anticipating it for quite some time. I wish I could have been there, but she knows I was thinking about her. That day school was let out early so we could have time to run the inter-house athletic competitions. All of the students are divided up into five houses. I am the housemaster for house 1. I named my house the “Red House” in honor of Jimi Hendrix. It came to me as I was reading a biography about JImi that my dad gave me before I moved to Lesotho. So I always wear a red bandana and made a red flag for my kids out of my broomstick handle and a red piece of cloth. The kids love it and wave it around while they constantly dance, its great. All year we will compete in athletics and sports and the house who has the most points at the end will win an nku (sheep.) Today the events were boys and girls 100M, 200M, 400M, 3600M, 4800M, and 4x4. I was really proud of my kids they ran hard and earned third place. As a Peace Corps Volunteer you wear many hats and today I had the coach hat on. Despite their best efforts my girls were not placing in any of the events, so I gave them a pep talk and some words of encouragement it was great. I could see they were trying their hardest and as a coach that is all you can ask for. I put the burden on my boys and told them I really needed them to step up. Now mind you some of these kids run in multiple races. By the end of the day they were exhausted and we still had the relay to do. I challenged them and they came in first in the relay. The house when mad and where joisting them on there shoulders parading them around on their shoulders singing Basotho cheers and waving around the flag I had crafted. Indeed it was a great day to be alive.

Friday night we had a staff party at my house to celebrate the JC exam results (10^th grade). We BBQed the sheep and danced all night. There may have also been a few libations here and there =) It was great to spend some time with my principal and teachers outside of the work place.

Saturday I straightened up the house and we had a relaxing night by a fire I made and cooked the rest of the sheep and ate plenty of the staple food Papa. I even had a nice Peace Corps moment when I taught a few teachers about constellations. Ntate Matete really enjoyed the allure of Orion and was excited when he finally was able to view it in the night sky.

Sunday, the day of relaxation. The male teachers woke me up banging on my door and had oh such a wonderful surprise for me. They had a big stainless steel pot and inside was a cooked sheep head. Why not right? Nothing like a little jaw meat at 11 in the morning I say. I deferred on the eyeballs and ears as it was already an overwhelming experience. Things have been going well here, looking forward to seeing my friends in Maseru later this month.