Basotho Wedding Update

Hi All!

We’re finally on vacation and enjoying it to the max. It’s been a bit rainy over here (from what we’ve heard that’s really out of the ordinary) but the temperature is 70+, so it’s not too shabby for December!

We’re headed to Durban next week where we are told it will be a lot warmer, and we’ll be at the Indian Ocean, which is supposed to be beautiful and warm. Apparently the South Coast of South Africa is known for its shark attacks. The beaches we’ll go to have shark nets, but I don’t think I’ll be wading in too far!

Anyway, I had a few requests for a report from the Basotho wedding we attended last weekend, so I though I would do that today. The first thing you need to know is that Basotho weddings actually consist of several parts there’s the traditional ceremony that bonds the couple together in the eyes of the culture, then there’s the church ceremony that bonds them in the eyes of God, and then there’s the reception, which is the party part. We got invited to the party part (since the traditional ceremony is sort of private and takes place beforehand and the church part is very long).

The first adventure was finding the venue. It was only about 15 minutes from our house, but in a part of town where there is an open-air market, which means one wrong turn in the car can lead to a very, very slow crawl down a pedestrian street! We were traveling with a colleague from India who was unfazed by the massive number of people, but we were both overwhelmed.

Once we arrived, we sat outside for a bit. There was a small room inside where there was a buffet line, and it seemed like we were going to get our food there and then come sit outside again, but no sooner had we made ourselves comfortable then they called us in. The bride’s colleagues were called first, which we thought was weird, but apparently it’s because that’s who all the foreigners were and they thought they should seat us first. It turns out that there was another room behind the first that was HUGE and decorated elaborately for about 300 people! Here’s the picture:

Once we were seated, we had a long while to wait while the other 300 guests were seated too. It was quite an ordeal. The worst part was that there was a limited supply of ginger beer and papaya juice and it was quite hot in the hall. Note to self: bring a bottle of water to all public events in future.

The outfits were quite a site at this wedding. The invitation said “Attire: Red and Silver or Traditional”. I wasn't quite sure what to do with that (my red and silver attire is limited, after all, and “traditional” to me means blue jeans and a t-shirt, which I didn’t think was quite appropriate!). Other people had on red seshoeshoes (It’s pronounced sheh-shway-shway. That’s the traditional dress in Lesotho. The women in that picture above in the lower right-hand corner have them on) or even prom dresses in silver and red!

Our favorites, however, were the Swazis who all came wearing some version of a blanket with their king, Mswati III, printed on it. Here is a picture:

You will note that they also have elaborate beaded jewelry and the women wear a sort of hair net, while some of the men had a comb stuck in their hair sticking up at the back. It was quite a site!

For reference, apparently the king of Swaziland is quite popular, but also lives in extreme opulence amidst his very, very poor constituents. He also has 14 wives, which is not quite caught up to his father, who had 70, so the saying goes, “When in Swaziland, watch your wives and daughters!”


The last people to enter were, of course, the bride and groom and their entourage. It was kind of cool because they all danced down the aisle. Apparently, that is traditional (not a fad like it currently is in the U.S.). Here is a picture:

You’ll note that the wedding party was dressed in traditional Western dress. That is an option here for anyone who can afford it, and it’s becoming more and more popular, we’re told. The bride, who is the preschool teacher at our school, looked beautiful in her fishtail dress. The stark white against her ebony skin made a stunning combo!

Then it came time to eat, but first the host had to give us directions as to how we should proceed up to the buffet lines. He gave the directions in Sesotho and then the kid next to him translated into English. The translations were very literal so everything came out, “We will eat immediately. You must get in line right now. We will eat until we’re full right now, immediately.” *lol* Despite all the immediacy, it took about 20 minutes for the instructions alone!

The food was pretty traditional Sesotho fare -- beef, lamb, rice, and cooked carrots. It was meat-heavy, which is the way the Basotho like it. If only there had been a little more liquid to wash down all that meat! For desert there was a little bowl with a piece of specialty bread (mine was banana and Jay’s was pound cake) and then custard underneath with fruit mixed in. It was...interesting. :)

When we took our leave, the bride saw us stand up (out of all of those 300 people! I guess our white skin stuck out a little!), and asked us to come up to the head table, which was on a stage, to say goodbye to her. It was a little bit embarrassing. Then her father found us afterward and wanted to shake our hands and thank us for coming. It was all a little much! Apparently it was a big deal that I was the only school colleague who went to the bridal shower, and it really impressed the family. Who knew?!

So, there’s the story! Sorry it’s so long winded! Hope you’ve enjoyed your vicarious experience of a Basotho wedding. :)

Of Birthdays, Kittens, and Christmas Cookies

We’ve had a lovely weekend here in good old Maseru. Friday was my (Sarah's) 29th birthday. Thanks to everyone for the well-wishes. It was a beautiful day – the first birthday I’ve ever worn a skirt and sandals and had reason to say “It’s really hot out!”. We started the day with pancakes in the shape of the letters of my name and a chat with my mom and her entourage in Montana

.

Then we went to school for a short day followed by lunch at the fish restaurant in the mall and ice cream from the new candy store there. After that we came home for a nap and then went to visit an abandoned kitten for whom our friends were trying to find a home. We decided to adopt her. More about that in a minute. We finished the day with dinner at the fancy Lesotho Sun Hotel’s Chinese restaurant. It is the nicest restaurant in Maseru – hands down! Here are some pictures of the view and the restaurant. The Masotho waiter really wanted me to wear a bib, and even came over and tied it on. *lol*

So, as I mentioned, we decided to adopt the tiny kitten from our friends (they have two cats and a dog already and their animals were feeling a bit put out by the little one). We’ve named her Seaduma (say-ah-doo-mah), which is Sesotho for thunder. She was found abandoned in our friends’ yard during a thunderstorm, so they had already brainstormed names that included rain and storm and thunder. She’s probably 3 months old and is quite healthy despite her difficult beginning. Unfortunately, people here are sometimes so desperate for food that they resort to eating domestic animals like cats and dogs. It was very fortuitous that Seaduma wandered into the right yard! We’re delighted to have her with us – it’s nice to have a snuggler again. Here is a picture:

Saturday, then, was the official start to the Christmas season for this branch of the Harrington clan. I put on Christmas music and made cookies for the entire morning. We were able to procure most of the ingredients for our favorite recipes, but chocolate chips come like this:

And since most of our recipes call for ½ a cup or more, that wasn’t going to cut it, so I made my own:

The first batch came out well (with Smarties substituted for red and green M&Ms).

We also went to school to finish up final details for costumes for the little kids’ play that is coming up on Thursday. It turns out that having an art degree at a small school in Africa means you automatically get volunteered for things like making costumes for the play. *sigh* At least they’re kinda cute.

Today we were meant to go hiking, but it’s pouring, so we’re in for the day. I’ll complete the rest of the cookies and wrap them up in festive packages to distribute at school, we’ll play with the kitten, we have a chat planned with Jay’s parents, and there may even be time for reading (I’m reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett and it’s hard to take myself away from it).

We hope you are well and enjoying the holiday season. We’ve heard that there’s lots of snow in many places in the U.S. It’s weird trying to have Christmas during the summer, and we’re missing the snow a bit, but it’s really nice to not have to shovel! Good luck with all that!

Love,

S&J

A Quick, Positive Update from Lesotho

1) It is December 1^st, and I am delighted to be eating this for dinner:

2) We received our first piece of mail today at our mailbox. A little envelope straight from Kalispell, Montana, U.S.A. to Ladybrand, South Africa -- phenomenal.

3) Our Christmas trip to Durban and the South Coast is all booked, and we’re raring to go! Just 12 more days of school and some weekends in between. We're almost there!

To end, here are some pictures of amazing things we’ve encountered recently:

This is a picture of a sunset from our back door.

Here is the naughty, overweight dog Jay tutored through the Hash Club hike last Sunday.

This is what grasshoppers look like in Africa. Have you ever seen such a huge grasshopper in all your life?! They all had their babies on their backs.

Here we are after a hike. Every week we get in trouble for wearing our Red Sox hats since the "religious advisor" is a Mets fan, but we do it anyway. :)

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! It’s Sarah writing. We hope you are well and in full celebration mode.

We are having a pleasant day here in Maseru. It’s a little bit overcast and about 75° F, which is much different than most of the places you are, we know! . It’s not a holiday here except at the American School and American Embassy, thus we’re among the few Americans making a big meal happen. We’re happy to be trying Thanksgiving out African-style.

Lesotho has given us a little fight about having Thanksgiving today. The water has been out since yesterday, which is not the worst thing since we drink and cook with mostly bottled water anyway, but it means we can’t have showers before our guests arrive this evening. We’ll get through that one.

The county has also hit us with intermittent power outages. Thankfully we’ve been on for about three hours now, and the turkey is coming right along, so we’re hopeful. It might be an eat-out Thanksgiving, and, while that would have been a memorable event too, we think that our eat-in event could be nice. We’ve invited the French teacher from AISL and her fiancé to join us. We’re planning on introducing them to some new American dishes, and we’ll have lots to talk about since they’re busy planning a wedding and getting ready for a new little one.

Today is also the Roof of Africa Road Race -- a motorcycle event that closes down several major roads in Maseru for most of the day. The trek to pick up a few last minute items this morning was a long one, and now we’re even more convinced that Basotho drivers are totally out of their minds!

This Thanksgiving we’re thinking a lot about home and the people there for whom we are so thankful. It’s hard to be so far away on a day when one is meant to be so close. I’ve been thinking about specific people as I create dishes that remind me of them – it’s funny how peeling an apple, mashing potatoes, making pie crust (Jay did the work there) or basting a turkey takes on a whole new meaning at Thanksgiving. Please know that we love and appreciate each and every one of you and we’re with you in spirit, if not in person.

In honor of today’s thankful nature, I thought I would post a poem that I created alongside my 9^th graders, who were completing the poem as part of their multi-genre autobiographies. It’s a kind of form poem called a “Where I’m From” poem, and I’m quite delighted with how mine’s coming along.

Read, enjoy, eat lots of Turkey, stuff yourself with pie, and be well.

With much love and thanks,

Sarah and Jay

Where I Am From

By Sarah Harrington

I am from music notes.

From goose jerky and coffee with vanilla creamer.

I am from a brown apartment on Hawthorne Avenue with an enchanted backyard where I once saw the Easter Bunny (I swear).

From 936 6^th Avenue West – the first address I memorized –

Where I played house with Billy and Brianne;

Our bikes were corvettes and our mud was delectable.

From Northridge by the Junior High,

A one story ranch once guarded by an ill-trained golden retriever

Who was replaced by a black and white peekachoo.

I am from Going-to-the-Sun Road and the granite of New Hampshire.

I am from jigsaw puzzles on rainy afternoons at the Cape house,

Cribbage at the kitchen table in St. John,

And Bridge by the sliding glass doors in Cleveland where we spied hummingbirds and were awed by grandma’s nimble shuffling.

I am from “Look people in the eye” and “What if the wind changes and your face freezes that way?”

From “Don’t get married ‘till your 30” and “Never ride a mudercycle”

I am from New Mexican desert, the Rockies, the Canadian Maritimes, and the Oklahoman prairie.

From Germany, Ireland, England.

From Arby’s roastbeef, creamed asparagus on toast, black olives on my fingers, and spider pee tea.

I am from Lutheran guilt and obligations to the Catholic Women’s League.

From spirituality more than church.

From the Dr. father who dared to leave his Dr. father’s Oklahoma roots,

A mother who became American to be part of a “real election”,

And a complex web of “steps” and “just like family”s

I am from humid basements and uninsulated attics

Where family photos, school projects of yore, and well-loved children’s books gather dust

Until the time they re-emerge to be cherished by my children.

Don't Drink the Water...

The moral of the story of living in Africa turns out to be: Don't drink the water. Although we have been careful to drink only bottled water or boiled water, apparently boiling isn't enough around these parts during the rainy season, and we've both been sick for weeks and weeks. It's been quite a damper on our time.

We ended up learning about South African health care in our quest to get better. A few interesting things about doctors here:
1) Your appointment actually starts that the time they say
2) The doctor meets you and takes you to his/her office where he/she talks to you directly and then examines you on the bed in his/her office -- no waiting; no one except the doctor. It's crazy.
3) A doctors visit without insurance costs $40, and prescriptions are similarly priced. Thus an entire experience without insurance costs less than $100. *wow*

While we were in Ladybrand getting better, we also had time to stop by the post office there and sign up for a post office box. We have discovered that Lesotho doesn't quite have a functioning mail service. Apparently you're supposed to consult your crystal ball to know if you have a package, and even then you have to go hunting for it around the post office and pay for them to give it to you. We've heard better things about South African service, so we're hopeful. We'll let you know if our efforts yield any results. To be safe, we're suggesting I-Tunes e-mail gift certificates to anyone who asks us what we would like for Birthday/Christmas. Internet may not be fast, but it is reliable.

In other news, it's the end of first trimester at AISL. The kids are presenting student-led conferences next week, and we've been trying to do the impossible: get a group of 17 teenagers organized. We'll both be up to our eyeballs in grading for the next week or two, but luckily we have a long weekend coming up for Thanksgiving, so we'll have some extra time. (Don't worry. They import turkeys and we'll be sure to get our fill of that too!).

To round up this short, but long over-due post, I'll give you a picture of the little rodent friend who lives in the rocks outside our home office window. As best we can tell he's a Sloggett's Vlei Rat. The name doesn't do him justice. He's really cute.

That's all for now. 'Till next time!
~S&J

Happy Halloween!

Hi All,

We hope you’re having a lovely Halloween. Before we get to that, though, a few more pictures from the conference in Kenya. First off, this is a pic of the largest swimming pool in Africa, which happens to be located at the Safari Park Hotel, where the conference was held. It is actually a string of pools that are attached to one another. This is just one of them. As you can see, it is quite showy.

This is the group of conference goers on the last night of the conference at the gala dinner. We wore Basotho blankets – it was my first experience with that! We had a good time, but we were all exhausted. It was a long week, and we were glad to return “home” last Friday.

My advice on Nairobi: Stay away for a few more years until they’re done with construction of the huge highway leading out of the city. It’s hard to get anywhere in the city right now, and thus one feels stuck at his/her hotel most of the time. Do feel free to fly into Nairobi on your way to beautiful things like safaris and Mt. Kilimanjaro (which I saw through the window of our plane on the way out!). It was too bad that we didn’t have time for a real Kenyan experience while there.

Okay, on to current matters! It’s a beautiful Sunday Halloween here in Maseru. It’s about 80 degrees out and feels a lot like Monzanillo, Mexico did last February (except there’s no beautiful beach to go to). Unfortunately, Jay has been under the weather, so we didn’t do much adult celebrating, but we did have fun at school with an extensive day of festivities on Friday. There was a parade and then a circuit of activities. Here’s us in our outfits:

It is the first Halloween in our lives where we’ve gotten sun burnt. We didn’t see that one coming! Definitely need to remember the sunscreen next year…

In the evening, we threw a dance party for the 6-9^th graders. It was their first school dance ever, and it was a huge success. One family even donated use of a dance lights and fog machine from their lighting store. It made for a very festive atmosphere. Here are some pictures from the evening:

It was nice to chaperone a middle school dance in which

A) The kids actually danced (as opposed to going to a girls’ corner and a boys’ corner as can sometimes happen at a middle school dance) and

B) There were no public displays of affection or skirts sneaking higher and higher as girls and boys dance waaaaaaaay too closely.

I actually enjoyed being a chaperone….and I don’t say that very often. Anyway, Mr. Mott has promised them another dance before Christmas, and they are all very excited.

People here don’t really go trick-or-treating. It’s not a part of their culture, and it’s not safe to be outside walking around after dark, so tonight will be another quiet night in. Hope you are well and enjoying your Halloween festivities. Would love to hear from you soon!

~S&J

Update from the Conference

Hello from Nairobi, Kenya!

It’s Sarah writing, and I’m delighted to report that Nairobi is a happening place to be, and is treating us quite well. The conference is at this amazing complex called “Safari Park”, which has a hotel, five restaurants, three swimming pools, and loads of other amenities. We were all impressed with how large it all was! Here is a picture of the elephant statue in the lobby. Quite a welcome, eh?

We were struck by the purple blossoms on the Jacaranda trees here. They’re everywhere, and they make the place so festive! I’m told that these trees are also in Pretoria, South Africa and Johannesburg, but this is the first I’ve seen. Here is a picture of one of them:

So far the conference has been interesting. Our key note speaker Sunday evening was Valerie Bloom, a Jamaican poet, who basically did an interactive poetry reading instead of talking at us. It was a wonderfully enriching and fun experience. I also took an all day session with her today, and came away with a lot of great ideas for helping students write creatively. I’ll definitely be putting those into action A.S.A.P.

Today for our key note we heard from John Joseph, and Australian educator who speaks about four “worlds of the mind” that we each have (identity, concrete, abstract, and future). He uses brain science to explain why it is important to develop each area of intelligence and how knowing about the intelligences can help students understand and take charge of their own learning. It was quite interesting, and he was funny.

Tomorrow I’m going to a workshop on student-led conferences, which is something we aim to implement at school this year, so I’m excited to have a good refresher/extender course to go on! Also, there are “dutch treat” dinners tomorrow evening where teachers from the International School of Kenya here in Nairobi are going to take us to some of their favorite places to eat in the city. I”m excited for that. I hope that it does not take as long as the dinner we had tonight at the Japanese restaurant here at Safari Park. I’ll spare you the details and summarize by saying that it took us four hours to complete the meal...and not by any choice of our own.

Okay, that’s all for now. More tomorrow!

All About Morija

Dumelang Bo-Me le Bo-Ntate! (Hello (plural) Ladies and Gentlemen!)

Sorry it’s been a bit since our last post. School became quite busy this week, and we were swamped. I (Sarah) will be writing from Nairobi, Kenya this week where I am attending a conference. For right now I’ll post this picture of these amazing storks that were in the trees right outside our hotel window this morning! More on Nairobi will come later.

What I wanted to write about today, is last weekend, which Jay and I spent at a Sesotho Language and Culture session in Morija, Lesotho, about 45 minutes Southwest of Maseru. Morija was the site of the first mission in Lesotho. Here is a picture of Jay standing on the porch of the Morija Guest House (a delightful stay, by the way!).

Morija was created in 1833 by French Protestant missionaries, who came at the bequest of the founder of Lesotho, Moshoeshoe (Moe-shway-shway) the first. Mosheoshoe realized that since he had fended off the Zulus AND the Xhosa AND the Boers AND the British to establish a nation, he now needed to establish ties with the outside world so that his nation would be strong. He was actually a very forward thinking kinda guy in that way -- willing to admit that he didn’t have all the knowledge and neither did his people, and anxious to gather knowledge from others. So anyway, he invited these missionaries, and they came and set up a mission right there in Morija. One of them, Cassalis, even came to be considered Moshoeshoe’s “foreign minister”.

While we did spend a lot of time learning Sesotho language during our weekend at Morija, we also had time to hike. Our first hike was up Thaba Bosiu, “the mountain that grows at night”. This is the mountain on top of which Moshoeshoe and his people established a village and staved off invasions. They basically rolled boulders down the hill to prevent the enemies from making it up. In this way, Moshoeshoe was actually defensive warrior and maybe even a passive resistor. He is famous for saying, “The only weapon is love.” The mountain itself was quite steep, and it was hard to imagine climbing it in warrior’s gear. At the top are the graves of Moshoeshoe 1, Moshoeshoe 2 (who died in 2006), and many other members of the royal family. Mosheoshoe the first had 150 wives, so you can imagine that there are a lot of graves up there!! There are also some wild horses who roam, which made for beautiful photographs. Here is a picture of the grave of Moshoeshoe the first as well as a picture of the mountain that inspired the Basotho hat (the mountain is viewable from atop Thaba Bosiu).




In addition to the hike up Thaba Bosiu, we also climbed right behind the Morijah guest house to see some dinosaur footprints. They were small, three pronged prints that didn’t look very impressive, but we’re told that they have actually been certified as coming from the Jurassic age and were preserved because the rocks in that area are sandstone, which keeps prints well. Apparently there are other prints elsewhere in the country, and paleontologists have even discovered a dinosaur that is called the Lesothosaurus! Who knew we were in such an active area for paleontology?

All-in-all, we had a lovely weekend full of learning, great people, good hiking, fresh air, and good food. We headed back to Maseru feeling rested, but rushed to prepare for the coming week. Then on Monday we got an extra day off when there was no water at school. An extra day to prep! It was just like a snowday, except we had no clue that it was coming at all! What a blessing!

Okay, that’s all for now. Next time: an update from Kenya. Stay tuned!!

Goldengate National Park -- a beautiful adevnture

This weekend is a long weekend in Lesotho (Monday is the 4th of October -- Lesotho independence day). We decided to stay local for the holiday since we wanted a few days to catch up on work and get to know the area nearby a little better. Several people recommended that we visit Clarens, a small South African town with many artists and specialty shoppes about 2.5 hours from Maseru. Here's a map for those of you who are geographically inclined (Maseru is just south of Ladybrand):Anyway, so we set out very bright and early Saturday morning in an attempt to beat the boarder rush and set ourselves up for a lot of time in Clarens. The boarder beating didn't go so well since it's a holiday weekend and a lot of people were headed out. What was worse was that the drive-through tent to check in to South Africa wasn't open yet, so everyone had to get out and go to the standing que. We aren't quite sure why it takes so much longer to get through the boarder here than other places we've been. Given: we only spent about 30 minutes at the boarder this time, which is comparable to times when we've crossed from the U.S. to Canada. However, when you go from the U.S. to Canada they actually ask you questions and investigate your car. Going into South Africa you are literally waiting for a stamp, which they give you after spending about 30 seconds with your passport. We aren't quite sure of the point. Also, one is required to check out of Lesotho and then check in to South Africa and vice versa every time. As if something spectacular is going to happen in the 50 feet between the two immigration stations...

Once we had finished at the boarder, we headed east toward Clarens and arrived around 10:00AM. We had breakfast at one of the multiple, quaint little cafes there and then wandered the town a bit to check out the art shops and specialty tourist shops. Here's a picture of the main drag:

We put it akin to Bigfork, MT; Santa Fe, NM; or Bar Harbor, ME. It was nice, but it also felt a little fake, especially since one drives through the local shanty town in order to arrive at this village full of well-to-do white people.

After wandering for several hours, we were feeling the itch, so we opted to head out to the national park that we heard was just 17 kilometers away. We had no idea what to expect, but we figured that we'd give it a try and turn around if there wasn't much to see. Were we ever delighted when this met us at the entrance to Goldengate National Park:

We spent time driving through the park on the main road (me taking tons of pictures, and Jay trying to help the car handle the steep uphill climbs) until we arrived at the Basotho village they have set up as a tourist attraction at the far end. We'd read that the village was staged (the Coke sign at the entrance was a dead give away!), and we're set to go to a real Basotho village next weekend, so we weren't disappointed when there was a wedding being held and tourist activities were basically suspended for the day.

On our way back we decided to stop and get out for a while, but then it started to rain, so we got back in the car and did the driving loops that are laid out for sight seers. The views were amazing! Plus we saw lots of exciting wildlife! Here are pics to prove it! We saw monkeys:

Zebras:

White-tailed wildebeests:

Springboks:

And cranes:

We also saw other types of birds, but they were far too fast for us to capture on film! Many of the birds have amazing coloring, and they really catch your eye when they flutter past. All-in-all, it was an impressive array of wildlife!

Having hung out in the park for several hours and not having any sense of what sorts of hiking was available or how long the trails were (the check-in station was not quite as tourist-friendly as it could have been, but we also didn't get charged to go in, so we weren't that upset!), we decided to head back home.

On our way back we noticed that there was a lot of smoke coming from an area close to the road not too far up ahead, and when we arrived at the area it turned out that there was a large fire burning right near a medium-sized town! While there seemed to be some people hanging around a house that was very, very close to the fire, the road was not blocked and there were pedestrians walking right past! We were shocked! Jay drove quickly while I thought of what we would do if our car caught fire as we drove...it was bonkers! Here's a picture:

The fence posts are about 5 feet from the road, and this was just one part of the fire, which stretched for a good 3-4 miles. The best we could tell, it must have been set by lightening (it was a stormy day), and this must happen every once in a while since people didn't seem very concerned. It reminded me why we need to keep bugging the woman who helps us with household needs to replace the fire extinguisher in our kitchen (which expired in 1989)...

Also on our way back, we got stopped by South African policemen who were upset that our license plates weren't attached. Funny that they should have time to stop people whose license plates aren't attached when there's a large fire burning not far away!! We explained that we have no way to drill holes in the plates to get them attached, but that we intended to ask the maintenance guys at school to help us. They asked Jay for his driver's license and laughed at the weight and height numbers (they think in metric here, so a number over 100 is a real shocker). They asked us several times where we were from (they were baffled when we said that we were living in Maseru), and then sent us on our way with a warning. We were surprised that we didn't have to pay them a bribe, since that is the norm in this area, but we were glad that the meeting was very uneventful. We're quite certain that our skin color, nationality, and job descriptions went a long way right in that moment...

So that's the story of yesterday! We're glad to have a few more days off (school's back on Tuesday), and we're excited to be going to Morija for Sesotho culture and language weekend on Friday. We'll let you know how it goes! Until then...

One more audience request -- Termite mounds!

Ted from Cape Elizabeth, Maine requested a picture of the termite mounds that I wrote about before, so I thought I would post that today. This is one picture of the hundreds I could have taken. The fields in South Africa are full of these things!

In the picture you'll notice that the ground looks charred. That's because it is -- they burn instead of mowing. You can imagine what that does for the air quality...

They also build everything out of cement or brick, and you can see why. It actually ends up making the architecture look a lot like the American Southwest or Mexico. We were surprised at that.

So there's the share for today. The trip to Bloem went wonderfully yesterday. We ended up getting a computer charger to replace the one we fried, all the supplies for the lizard, a bunch of kid-requested books (they're reading fiends!!), and yoga mats (we found a free class Monday-Thursday that we're really liking a lot!). We also saw two zebras as we were driving along! I couldn't get to the camera fast enough, but it was very cool.

'Til next time
~S

Introducing "Monkey" the Wonderlizard!

So we were given a bearded dragon for our classroom. It came with many accessories and a lot of good stories. It did not come with a user guide. We are learning as we go.

In terms of pets we wanted, this was not one of them. The family that owned it was moving to Kenya suddenly, though, and they were desperate. However, he is growing on us a bit. Bearded dragons are friendly like puppies (but not as soft), and he’s really cute when he runs (he sorta waddles) and when he eats (he has a slimy pink tongue).
Having a school pet is kinda cool, and we’re working on lots of activities for the kids such as having them learn about bearded dragons so that they can give informational talks to elementary classes.

There are some difficulties to this new acquisition. First of all, the dragon requires U.V. light to be able to digest, but the U.V. light in its tank is burnt out, and the closest place one can get one is Bloemfontain (1.5 hours away). It also requires play sand for its tank, which is another item that can only be acquired in Bloem. Until we get the U.V. light, we are stuck coming in every day to make sure it gets outside into the sun. Technically it’s supposed to be getting 12-14 hours of U.V. -- we are currently giving it about 1 on a good day, which makes us feel horrible, but it’s the best we can do. We are planning a trip to Bloem tomorrow to pick up the needed accessories. What will we do over vacations? Not sure yet. We’ll see. Maybe we can find a nice maintenance person who would be willing to help, or a family that is willing to take him home for a few weeks.

Anyway, so that’s the news here: we moved to Lesotho, Africa and got a Bearded Lizard *lol*. Here’s a picture of the little guy. We choose “Monkey” as his name because we think it’s funny to have a lizard named Monkey. His previous name was “Dragon”, so we felt like we had some leeway for a re-name.

An Action-packed life: A review of the past week

Apparently moving over seas has changed us into social people. Who saw that effect coming? Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like we never went out in Portland. It’s just that we’ve gone out A LOT more here. Since Friday the 10th, we’ve been out 5 out of 10 days. 50%. Clearly we’ve gone wild. :) Actually, we’ve decided that the going out has more to do with the fact that the community here is transient, so people don’t put off get togethers.

Here’s a summary of our social life along with some pictures for your enjoyment:

Last Friday we had a staff party at the director’s house. It was awesome. First of all, the food was prepared by the Basotho members of our staff. We contributed cookies as an “American desert”, but the feeble hour it took me to prepare them does not compare with the dozens of hours it took to simmer the lamb and cook the chicken and braiworst (sausage) on the braii (that’s a South African bbq, btw!). Here’s a picture of the pot they cooked the lamb in outside:

And here is a picture of a pot full of the ever-loved epapa, a pasty, gritz-like base that goes with most everything here in “Basotholand”.

After dinner, which consisted of epapa, braiiworst, chicken, lamb, salad, beans, potato salad, mac and cheese (homemade), coleslaw, and samosas (we have a few Indian people on staff!), we all danced till late into the night. The dancing was assisted, of course, by the Bring Your Own Beverage clause in the invitation and by the awe-inspiring dancing abilities of multiple members of the staff. We’ve discovered a lovely drink they have here called Amarulla, which tastes a bit like Bailey’s Irish Creme, but which is, in fact, South African liqueur made form Marula fruit. It’s lovely.

For those of you wondering what kind of music Basotho enjoy, here are a few sample song titles for you. They enjoy hearing the same songs over and over again, apparently, so we listened to each of these at least four times!
Black Eyed Peas -- “Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night”
Waka Waka -- “This Time for Africa” (from the World Cup!)
Taio Cruz -- Dynamite

In addition, several members of our clan came dressed in their traditional or adopted national attire. Here’s a picture of our librarian, director, and two teaching assistance representing (respectively) India, Amero-Lesotho, Nigeria, and Lesotho. It added a fun element to the evening.

All-in-all, it was a lovely evening and we had a great time.

Then, on Saturday, we went to the second grade teacher’s house for dinner. She is Indian, and she was excited to teach some of us how to make chicken marsala and paratha bread. Her husband is with the Indian army, which has a The meal was delicious!


Tuesday took us to Ladybrand, South Africa, about a 20 minute drive over the border, to see the music teacher, John Albert, perform in a concert. The concert was actually the final concert of the term for the students at the Ladybird Music Academy with John Albert (bascially a professional counter-tenor) attached on the end, so we listened to many up-and-coming young people before John Albert made his appearance. The concert was lovely, and we saw a lot of people connected to the school, so it was a great chance for us to “see and be seen” as they say.


On Wednesday we went out to dinner with some counselors from the international school on Johannesburg who had come down for a visit. They were lovely, and we have a standing invitation to visit Jo-burg anytime we want (apparently Mama Mia is there for a bit and they have wild gameparks within an hours drive!). Again, it was nice to “see and be seen” and make some connections in the international school community.

Thursday brought us, exhausted but excited, to the Maseru Sun Hotel in downtown Maseru for a night of Cajun food, French music, and African dancers. The evening was sponsored by the Alliance Francaise here in Maseru, which is run by a parent of a student in our class. Our student, Gabii, actually sang in the concert as well. It was a delightful evening with world-class entertainment. Plus, the hotel is lovely and well taken care of. We were impressed. We were glad to be there too because we saw multiple parents of students in our classes, and it was good to show our support for the Alliance Francaise. Some of the musicians were from an island off of Madagascar called Reunion Island, and they were projecting pictures of the island as they sang. It looks amazing, and we’re already trying to figure out how we’ll get there sometime soon.

By Friday we were home early eating pizza from a nice pizza joint we found called Scooters, and watching “West Wing” episodes on i-tunes. That kind of evening is more our style. :)

Tune in next time for pictures of our bearded dragon (No, I'm not kidding.)

Your Questions Answered!

I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed about writing another entry here since there is so much to report! Jay suggested that we do a small entry each day for a while until we feel more caught up. So in this entry we will answer the question that we got asked from last time.

1) A question from our nephew, Brandon, in Montana: “Which way does the toilet water spin when you flush?”

Well, Brandon, the toilet water in most of the toilets here gushes rather than swirling, which makes it hard to tell. However, when we go to the restroom at a swirly toilet, the water goes down whichever way the toilet is designed to make it go. Yes, it’s true! Despite popular notions the so called “Coriolis Effect” is not strong enough in a small toilet bowl to change the direction of the swirl depending on the hemisphere. Instead, factors like how your bowl was designed, effect the direction of swirl much more directly! If you’re interested, here’s a link to a short, easy to read article from the Berkeley Science Review

2) A question from a blog reader nicknamed (we hope!) Molecular Evolution (BTW: We would love to know your real name, Molecular Evolution, so if you want to shoot us another comment, we’d love it!): “If you could transplant the school and the students to the US would it feel different?”

The answer to that one is “yes and no”. The student themselves are tweens and teens, and teenagers the world round have many similarities (you know: the hormones, the giggling, the teenage girl scream, the dramatics, the homework aversion, the disorganization, the soul searching, the desire to be "cool" and act "mature", etc.). The difference here is that the vast majority of these students have not experienced American middle school or high school, and they don’t know what that social situation is like. This means that their teenage tendencies are not magnified by the American middle school and high school experience. Add to this the fact that there are only 16 of them, and you come away with a lovely experience of teenagers who want to do well, respect their teachers and parents in a fundamental way, and who get giddy at the idea that they will be getting lockers this year (“Wow. That’s like at a real high school!”).

3) Another one from Molecular Evolution: “Is there a different feeling you have now, when you think about your more distant surroundings, your physical, political, and social context there in Lesotho than you would if it were all somehow magically present somewhere here in the US?”

I guess, overall, we’re a lot more humble here. First of all, we’re humble about what we have and don’t have. It’s a long way to get to a city that has things like good doctors and specialty items. It makes us feel like keeping simple and safe is a good thing. Also, we have so much more than most every Basotho person. It’s mind-boggling. Today our house keeper asked us to borrow 10 rand because she broke her oil lantern last night and it is the only light source at their house. 10 rand is peanuts to us, yet it is the difference between light and dark to her.

Certainly one could get away with having a “The American Way is Best” attitude here, but it wouldn’t do one much good since the attitude here in the “Kingdom in the Sky” is that if we have one kind of anything non-essential then we’re doing pretty well. We get excited when we find “luxury” items at all here -- things like q-tips, lawn chairs, printer cartridges -- we don’t have the option to say “well, we’ll keep looking around and see if we can find another price or a better quality”. For the most part, the one you find is the only option. You go with it.

Politically, most of the ex-pats here are pretty liberal, so that fits our mindset well. We haven’t had to the opportunity to talk Lesotho politics with anyone yet, but we’ll let you know if we do. What we do know is that Lesotho is weighing whether or not to become a province of South Africa and the country is split about what to do. We are unsure how that decision would affect us.

Socially, we have found a very open community here, but we are pretty sure that people are open because the population is to transient. We’ve literally gone out to someone’s house every weekend we’ve been here (unheard of in the life of Jay and Sarah Harrington!). It’s struck us as unusual until we realized that if we waiting 6 months before having dinner with our colleagues, they might be moving the next week! It’s an interesting mindset, and not altogether a bad thing, we don’t think. Maybe we should have been a little more open when we were in the states, where our colleagues were, more than likely, going to be around for years and years.

4) Last one from Molecular Evolution: “I am curious about the intangible stuff- the je-ne-sais-quoi that's been going on in the back of your heads these past few days as you have become more and more at home there.”

Let’s see...we’ve been thinking a lot about our jobs and students. When you’re a teacher you worry about kids and wonder about them almost constantly. Since we have each other around 24-7, we are able to process information about students thoroughly and constantly as we discover it.

We’ve also been thinking about our colleagues and how we will work with them best. Many of them are surprised by the higher degree of structure that is being put in place at the school this year. The school has been tiny, tiny for so long, and now, as the school grows, the director is really pushing the staff to be more organized about how we grade and plan. It’s hard for many people at the school. We are struck by how people from different ethic backgrounds react differently to the new requirements. Most of us don’t like change, but the American way is to work hard and try to comply with requirements as best as possible. From our perspective, the Basotho way is much more passive, and when action is taken, each step must be approved by a higher up. It’s an interesting comparison.

We also think a lot about the processes we have to go through to get fully settled here. The processes to get car insurance and join a medical scheme and the like are all very vague and unclear. We spend time thinking about who we need to contact, when we’ll need to go to the bank, and how we will work it out if there are issues. It’s time consuming.

Interestingly, a lot of the Basotho want to know from the Americans whether they should join the health scheme that is being offered by the school for the first time this year. The deal is that the school will pay 1/2 of the cost and take the other half from our paychecks. The cost to us will be about 385 Rand per person per month (that's about $55 per month). The Basotho are overwhelmed by the idea that they might pay in to the scheme for the year and then not get back the money that they don’t use during the year. They think of it as a waste rather than payment for peace-of-mind in-case something big happens. We keep telling them, “Everyone in America does this. In America you wouldn’t think of not having insurance if it was offered to you. It’s the norm.” They think we’re crazy, but I think many of them will take the offer. The scheme is a good one that pays for general check-ups as well as major incidents and covers one anywhere in Africa with Primary Care Physician options in both Lesotho and South Africa.

We’ve also spent a good amount of time thinking about entertainment. We didn’t realize that Netflix and Hulu don’t work overseas, so we’ve been looking up ways to bypass the blocks. We aren’t there yet, but we’re hoping we’ll figure it out soon! Let us know if you have tips. :)

Okay, that’s all for now. As mentioned, we’ll try the post-a-day trick to try to catch up with news from the past few weeks and see how it goes. We’d love to hear from you about what you think of the blog and what you’re wondering! Thanks to those of you who have written already!

Things are Gettin' Better All the Time

Dumela friends!

Good things are happening for us here in Maseru.

First off, we have wonderful students who love to read and write and learn! We’ll definitely keep them. They LOVE the books we sent over, and there are more on the way thanks to the USPS who, in trying to be helpful, bundled all of our small boxes together into one big box that the embassy would not ship. Our director is headed to the states soon and will get them while he is there. Meanwhile, the students wrote things in their start-of-year letters such as, “One of my goals is to read all of Ms. Sarah’s classroom library books.” Does it get any better than that?

Besides lovely students, we also have lovely breaks (20 minutes in the morning and 40 at lunch), and the campus is beautiful and sunny. We have time to eat lunch with colleagues outside under a thatched-roofed picnic table and enjoy it thoroughly. It’s wonderful.

We are also happy to be independently mobile! The father of one of our students owns a car dealership in town, and he told his staff to let us try out whatever car we wanted for the weekend and not to worry about payment until later. Let me tell you how much we appreciate Mr. Abdullah!! Anyway, so Jay went to the lot on Friday (without a penny in his pocket, no ID and no idea what our cell phone number is!) and chose out a Silver, 4wd Toyota Spacio. Although we have no idea what year it is (the majority of the writing is in Japanese), we like how it drives and appreciate its ruggedness and small size.

Other good news about the car is that most probably the school will give us an interest-free loan to cover the cost (a little over $5000). We’re feeling really good about not having to figure out how to get 38,000 rand into the right bank account! In addition, the dealership takes care of all the registration issues, which means we don’t have to fuss with the bureaucracy (which, as you can tell from previous posts, can be a mess!).

Driving-wise, Jay has been driving it on the left side of the road without much trouble except for a phantom right handed shift here and there! He also turns on the windshield wipers frequently when he means to hit the signal light. It’s actually kind of funny. Mostly we both pay a lot of attention and remind each other to “Think Left!!”

In other good news, we’ve acquired a housekeeper. Her name is Mamohau (Mah-Mah-How). She is the wife of our day guard. Incidentally, in finding out her name I also learned that Basotho women traditionally change their first names when they get married. Interesting, huh? Today was her first day. She did a great job even though the water was not working for the majority of the day. She’s in a probationary period for a few weeks, but we’re confident that she’ll work out. She’s young and has a young son who lives with her father-in-law...I think she’s just happy to have a job. We are certainly happy to be helping the economy, bolstering this young family, AND not doing dishes at the same time!

One other piece of good news is that we went on the “hash” this weekend. The Hash House Harriers is an international hiking/running club with chapters all over the world. The Maseru chapter is a particularly kid-friendly, non-macho one. The hike was about two hours long, and we are told that it was a particularly difficult one, although it was moderate for us. Jay did get overheated at one point and had to sit down and rest for a sec (the altitude doesn’t help!), but mostly we just had a wonderful time. We’ve got our Hash t-shirts, and we’ll definitely go again. We also met some lovely ex-pat friends. It’s nice to know people!

In no-so-good news, our water was out most of the day and when it came back on this evening one of our faucets was on with the drain plugged (the housekeeper had been hauling water all day and trying to fill sinks to clean), so we had a small flood in our hallway. Luckily we had lots of towels! We spent the evening soaking and wringing. Our wrists are in a bit of pain, but it looks like it’s going to be okay. Luckily it’s the dry season here in good old Lesotho. Nothing stays wet for long!

Alright, that’s all the time I have to write! We have parent night tomorrow, and I have a few handouts that need to be ready for the morning. For our next post, we’d love to answer some questions from you all! Please send them our way by commenting on this post!

~Sarah and Jay

MPBN playing on i-Tunes

My cells soak up home-news
like the red cracks in the Lesotho dirt
eagerly absorb the gardener's water.
Refreshing.

Oddities of Lesotho

So I’ve been keeping a list of things that seem odd to us in this fine country, and I have quite a collection at this point. I’m sure this topic will warrant many more posts in the future, but here are a few things we’ve come across so far!

1) Cattle herding in the capital. Here is a picture of the herd of cows that come own our street on a regular basis. As you can see, the cars have to wait for the cows. The herd boy tries to whip them to go faster, but the cows go at their own pace no matter what. It’s a sight. :) We’re told that Lesotho has open grazing and that one of the biggest reasons that the Basotho (that’s the name for people of Lesotho) want to stay separate from South Africa is to preserve this policy of open grazing.

2) Lots of workers, lots of supervisors, lots of sitting and chatting. Things in Lesotho get built on African time. The guard stand out front of our house has taken more than two weeks to take shape. The guards finally got their own bathroom finished yesterday and we’re told their going to have power on Monday. We won’t be holding our breath. We also have been trying to get a shower installed in our bathroom and Jay has been to the house on no less than three occasions with plumbers to discuss the process. Meanwhile, we haven’t seen any progress nor do we know what the timeframe might be. It’s a guessing game.

If we were in America, Jay would just go get the parts and do it himself, but in a country where something like 45% of the people are unemployed, hiring out is important. Not only that, but we have no idea where to find a hardware store, and no car to get there! Our director, Dwight’s, favorite phrase is, “When in Maseru, be patient!” We understand now.

3) Pre-paid in cash is the norm. Everything here is prepaid and it is the norm to pay in cash. The cell phones, the internet, even the electricity is pre-paid! Also, when you go to a store and want to pay with a credit card, they have one line that will accept your card, and it holds up the whole store to have to run the card! People simply get their paychecks cashed and take the cash for the month. Almost all of them get paid on the last Friday of the month, and there’s a huge line for the bank on that day.

While some of our salary will be direct deposited to our American account via electronic deposit, we will also be paid a majority of our salary in Maluti and will have to cash our checks and take the cash since you can’t open a bank account here without residency and residency takes a LONG time (read: about a year). Having been to the bank once already (on a day that was NOT the last Friday of the month), we are not looking forward to this task.

Also, the biggest bill they have here is a 100, and our checks are going to be for numerous thousands (we also get monthly and remember, $1 US = roughly 7 Maluti), so we will end up with a lot of bills to find hiding spots for! Oh yeah! AND you can ONLY go to the branch of the bank to which your institution belongs. So, while there is a branch of the Standard Bank of Lesotho in the mall that is right near to school, we have to go downtown to cash our checks! It’s quite a process!

5) You need a light bulb? What kind of lightbulb? There are several types of lightbulbs that are commonly used in Lesotho. There’s a “regular” screw-in kind (not very popular), a “pin” kind (very popular), and a long florescent (also popular), so before you go to the store to buy lightbulbs you have to investigate which kind of bulb you need. If you don’t get the right kind, you’re out of luck!

6) Termite mounds galore! While driving along in Lesotho and South Africa, one commonly sees whole fields full of termite mounds. There are so many, in such patterns, that it looks as if someone planted them. It’s quite odd, and it explains why they build everything in cement here! Sorry we don’t have any pictures. We usually see them when we’re speeding down the “wrong” way of the highway, and I’m far too pre-occupied to get out the camera!

7) Beware the Tokoloshe! Basotho are a bit superstitious, especially the under-educated. The thing they fear most is a mythical creature called the Tokoloshe (Toe-kah-low-she), which is sort of like a gremlin that supposedly lives in this area. Tokoloshe can bring destruction, and you don’t want them to jump out and attack you, so the best thing to do, according to the Southern Africans, is to put your bed on risers so they can’t get you and cover any gaps under your doors. Our favorite thing to do is to blame small disruptions in our day (of which there seem to be many!) on the Tokoloshe. We’ll try not to bring any back with us when we come, but you might want to invest in some risers just in case!

8) Iceskating in Africa?! The little mall that we have here, which is quite impressive for a middle-of-nowhere type place like this, has brought in an “ice rink” as a special feature for a few weeks. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, it is the start of spring here and it gets quite chilly (read: 30's and 40's Fahrenheit), so people are in the winter mood. Here is a picture of said “ice rink”. The kids who were skating were having a lot of fun, but we were in hysterics at the sorry impression of an ice rink with which they will be left! To us, the rink looked like a linoleum floor with a thin layer of ice on top. :) We can’t wait to see the “ski resort” that is open in the winter (that’s right, Afriski!)

9) On African time, using the Basotho process, which varies depending on who you ask! The effort to acquire a work permit in Lesotho is quite involved. Luckily, our friends, colleagues, and neighbors, the Powells from South Carolina, arrived in Lesotho about a week before we did and got started on the process, so now the school has a better idea of what the exact steps are! To start, we had to get chest x-rays at the private hospital (just to confirm that we did not enter the country carrying TB), a loooong process that involved a lot of waiting and a lot of forms with signatures and stamps.

The next step was to get copies of our passports, certificates, and marriage license certified at the police station. They were closed the first time we went (the hours aren’t posted, but apparently they only certify from 8-11 and 2-3 or something), and when we returned we had to stand in line for quite a while! Once we made it inside, they barely glanced at the actual documents before signing and stamping the copies. One guy did the signing part, while another did the stamping. It’s all very official.

Next we’ll go to the certification office. We were meant to go on Friday, but they apparently were closed and said that we would need an appointment, so we’ll have to look into that next week. Apparently, they don’t like American teaching certificates because they have expiration dates, which Lesotho ones do not, so Dwight (our director) wrote a long letter explaining the expiration dates and he attached descriptors from the Maine Department of Ed. He’s hoping the amount of text alone will intimidate them into just stamping our Lesotho certifications. The thing is that there is a shortage of teachers here, so it really shouldn’t be this hard. It’s all part of the Basotho line of thinking -- things must be done “properly”, but that means something different to each person. You could go one day and get one answer, and go the next day and get a different answer!

Luckily, we have a wonderful “fixer”, the school’s secretary, Vivian, who is assertive and speaks with confidence in Sesotho to all of these officials. That’s her in the picture! She also knows a lot of people in various positions of importance. We are very appreciative of her!!


10) Living a Guarded life. Although Maseru is certainly not a hub for major crime, petty crimes are quite common and ex-pats are, of course, a prime target. Thus we have a guard at our house 24-7, our house is gated, and we were advised to keep all doors locked at all times. The school is also gated and guarded. We were advised that if we were out and got uncomfortable about where we were or what to do, we should go back to school and ask the guards.

While the guards are more for show than for might (they are not armed), it is strange to be guarded. One is never really alone here. It would take effort for someone to not know where you are. We also have to learn all of the customs that go with having a guard. Our ex-pat informant, Donnette, who is from Maine (*HOOT!*) and has lived overseas for years and years, has been our main source for information about this matter. Just so you know, guards are expected to bring their own food, but it is appropriate to provide them with a kettle, coffee, tea, and sugar since it is in your best interest that they stay awake! When the guard stand out front of our house is done (maybe Monday?!), it will have power, and we have purchased the above items for our guards. The primary day guard is our favorite (we can’t pronounce his name yet, but we’ll keep working on it!), and he is quite excited to have that stand done and get his kettle!

Okay, that’s all the odd that will fit in one post! Tune in next time for an update on how school is starting off and pictures of our classrooms. Jay’s first day as an official teacher is Monday, so send him good wishes via e-mail if you would! We have internet at home now, so we’re able to keep up with our on-line communicate a bit better and we would love to hear from you all!!