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

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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!