Saturday, October 01, 2005

PICTURES UberTraditional.jpg GirlsDance.jpg ManDance.jpg HorseShow.jpg TraditionalMen1.jpg TraditionalMen2.jpg Singers.jpg TraditionalMen.jpg Lauren&Qachile.jpg

The Festival was fantastic. It only took about an hour to get there on public transportation. Then ‘Me Qachile and I found a great spot and settled down for a few hours (in our traditional dresses, of course). The Prime Minister and First Lady were both there as was the Queen and apparently the three-year-old Princess as well, though I didn’t see her. There were horse shows and poetry and singing and dancing, some modern and some traditional, and all beautiful. It was a wonderful day and I am so glad that I went even though I was thoroughly exhausted by mid-afternoon. Sun + heat + lots of dust ? cure for a cold. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures.

  Friday, September 30, 2005

Well, now I’m fully suffering the consequences of having been in the cold for an hour without the appropriate attire. I’ve got a cold that is escalating by the minute. What I wouldn’t give for some Tylenol Cold and Flu.

The past few days have been pretty productive. I’ve had some wonderful discussions with the Foundation for Professional Development (a South African-based foundation that runs health training programs all over southern Africa), negotiations are nearly complete with USAID, we’ve got some new work with the IFC, and we’re a smidge closer to getting an office space.

I ate lunch with ‘Me Qachile today. It was so good to get to see her again. We stopped by her older brother’s place, so I could meet him. He was so gracious and officially welcomed me to the family with open arms, giving me the Matla surname. It was such a wonderful moment and made me so happy to have a Basotho family.

Tomorrow is the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival. I wanted to go with ‘Me Qachile, who insisted that I needed to wear traditional dress for the occasion. So we went to buy the fabric and then one of her friends came to take my measurements and will make the dress overnight. It amazes me that I could get the fabric and a custom-made traditional dress in one night for about US$35.

I may not have mentioned it before, but Nthunya is getting married in November. He has been crazy busy running errands to prepare for the big day. He picked me up from Daniella’s this morning and dropped me off at the Ministry of Health. When we arrived, he pointed out the sheep in the back of the truck. I rode the whole way without noticing that there was a sheep right behind me.

  Tuesday, September 27, 2005

YAY sleep! I have finally had a restful night’s sleep! The oh so wonderful mattress and snuggly duvet cover don’t make up for the ridiculous amount of noise coming from the barnyard animals next door. They’ve got at least 3 roosters. Who needs that many roosters!?! No one, I tell you! I can handle the cats meowing, the dogs barking, and the goats…making some very weird noise I don’t know how to explain…but roosters are SUPPOSED to wake you up. And when they start at 4am and literally DON’T stop until well after you leave in the morning, it makes for a rather rough night of sleep. So Sunday night was not so good, but apparently as long as I am completely exhausted when I go to bed, I can sleep through it, so I got a good night’s sleep last night.

Nthunya suggested that we go try to buy them. Then we can slaughter them and have no more roosters. I think it’s a great idea, and I fully intend to try it. Roosters usually go for about R30 (US $5). Even if we pay R100 (US $16), it’s a small price to pay for some good sleep.

The last two days, Nthunya and I attended a USAID meeting for all the United States Government Partners working in Lesotho. There are quite a lot of us now. I think it was quite a productive meeting and this is a wonderful opportunity for solid coordination of activities and a strong collaboration (which rarely occurs in this field) and should help to minimize wasted resources, improve information exchange, and really strengthen all US activities in Lesotho…or so we hope.

I have also met with the nurse clinician, ‘Me Yolisa, at the clinic Boston University helped to set up at the Lesotho College of Education (LCE). It took us more than 2 hours to discuss all the things that still need done. Needless to say, we’ve got a lot of work to do in the next 5 weeks, but ‘Me Yolisa is wonderful and very capable, so I expect that it will be a pleasure.

It is absolutely insane that we don’t have an office here (we are trying to reconcile this as quickly as possible). Nthunya has been essentially working from his car and rotating between the Peace Corps House, LCE, and random restaurants to plug his computer in so he can get work done. I’ve only been doing it for 2 days and it’s nearly impossible. I don’t know how he got any work done at all! And now he’s had to send his car for repair, so our “office” is gone for a day or two.

I took a taxi to Daniella’s since the car was dropped for service. I was sitting in the back seat and something about the car seemed odd to me. It took me until we were outside Daniella’s door to realize what it was. No headrests! The car was actually designed without headrests.


And now I have a key to Daniella’s place. Unfortunately, this was only after I waited outside for an hour with only the doggies, Mac and Sotho, to keep me warm. Apparently it snowed in Capetown, so a coldfront came in and I got to enjoy it to the fullest.

  Sunday, September 25, 2005

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAP PAP!!!

I managed to hold out until 8pm before I collapsed last night. Unfortunately, I woke up three hours later and could NOT get back to sleep until about 4am. My luggage arrived at long last but not in time for me to change before Allison’s party. I’ve now been wearing the same pants for 4 days. Yay for my new travel pants!

Allison’s party was amazing. She prepared quite the feast, complete with rice crispy treats. I feel like I don’t know anyone. There are some familiar faces…Diana with DFID, Gerhardt with Lancer’s, Bertrand with UNICEF, and Allison of course, but that was really it. I did meet a couple people I had been emailing for the last few months for business… although it took embarrassingly long to make the connection. And thanks to Daniella and friends, most people have at least heard of me in some way at some point. For instance:

JED: Where are you staying?
ME: With Daniella.
LUKE: Your staying at Daniella’s? I live in her guest house. She didn’t even mention you were coming. Where are you sleeping?
ME: The blue room. That’s where I stayed when she first moved in. The key actually says “Lauren’s Room.”
LUKE: Oh, so you’re the one with the keys.
ME: Yep, I’m the key girl.

So I went to Daniella’s after the party. We ordered pizza, I picked it up and drove on the right side of the road (which is the wrong side of the rode) and nearly got killed, we ate, and now I’m going to bed and wishing for a full night’s sleep. Man, my bed is comfortable.