Instead of treatin’, we get tricked

Currently out of Maseru on a field visit — my guesthouse has no running water at the moment, there’s techno music blaring from some van outside, a cow on the other side of my window sounds like it’s dying a slow torturous death, my TV gets three channels … and yet I have relatively high speed internet access and cell phone service.

Yep, sounds about right.

All this after a day at the district hospital where I saw a mom bring in an HIV-positive (stage 4), malnourished 11-month-old baby who could barely hold up his own head (let alone sit up by himself) and whose cough and crying could make the coldest heart crumble. And the attending nurse had never ever before used a stethoscope on a baby to listen to its chest.

Sigh.

With all these thoughts jumbling together in my head, I’m off to pour a bucket of water in the toilet to flush it …

 

Burning out his fuse up here alone

No one could explain why this spaceship-looking thing was sitting in a field by the Drakensbergs mountains. After the initial shock, I found it rather beautiful in a quirky and disturbing kind of way …

 

Still be my vision

A few months ago, I ordered a photography book written by a David duChemin, a guy whose amazing work I just happened to stumble upon randomly while online. Since my arrival in Lesotho, I’ve been yearning for some kind of creative outlet and, as a result, have resolved myself to read more and focus on photography over the next 12 months. duChemin’s book, naturally, is a perfect blend of these two endeavors – and he makes a point within the first 10 pages about vision and our ability to achieve that vision:

Our vision often grows to match our skill. As we gain new tools and skills with which to better express our vision – in deeper and more complete ways – so our vision is given the room to grow deeper and more complete. Furthermore, I think our vision always slightly outpaces our tools. For this reason, we’ll always be a little frustrated by the inability of our tools, or our technique, to match that vision. That’s the journey of the artist and it’s the reason why our craft sometimes feels so difficult to master. If you don’t love photography for the sheer act of trying to express yourself, and will only find joy in it when you finally get there, yours will be a disappointing journey. Not only will you likely never “get there,” but you’ll have missed how beautiful and exhilarating the journey itself is.

I can’t think of a better way to sum up the connection between vision and our ability to achieve it – and as I pondered this idea further, it occurred to me that I experience a similar frustration between my vision for the work I’m doing in Lesotho and the tools available to see it through. One of the most disheartening aspects about my job is that the system is small enough and I work so intimately with it, that I can actually point to a specific root cause for certain problems. For example, I know that if an HIV-positive baby is brought to a certain health clinic in a certain district, she won’t be seen by a doctor or even a nurse trained in HIV/AIDS care. And she won’t be seen by a doctor because there is a specific government individual who has forbidden a doctor from seeing these patients. And while I know all of this, there’s little I can do to change the situation (and believe me, I’ve tried). I’ve never been so connected to a problem and the cause of it – especially not when a life is on the line at the other end.

My vision might be for all health centers in Lesotho to be equipped to treat children with HIV/AIDS but my ability to make it reality is so very, very limited. What do you do with that?! At the end of last year, I would have told you that the best thing was probably for me to exit this line of work because I just don’t have the emotional fortitude for it; that other people are probably better able to solve public health problems than me. But duChemin’s words make me reconsider. I don’t know if this particular journey is (or ever could be) ‘beautiful and exhilarating’ in itself; however, there’s something to be said about continuing on and not losing the vision, despite the accompanying frustrations.

What about you? Do you have a vision for a reality you want to see? Are you frustrated with your “tools and skills” that you have to achieve it?

–

Listening to: For a Minor Reflection (via KEXP Live Performances)

 

These Streets Will Make You Feel Brand New

I have so much to share that I just don’t even know where to begin!

I’ve been in America for the past two weeks and I know I’ve left Lesotho and am in America because:

1. I’m never more than 100 feet away from a Starbucks store or someone holding a Starbucks disposable cup.
2. White people are everywhere!
3. Internet is fast, ubiquitous and isn’t paid for by the megabyte.
4. No one tries to greet me in Chinese.
5. Openly gay couples can roam the streets freely.

Being back in my home country has been amazing — I welcomed 2010 in a Brooklyn bar with 8 single women and 5 gay men, saw Avatar in 3D, ate my weight in pizza and sushi, spent a blissful hour in Barnes & Noble, went to Babies R Us with my sister at (gasp!) 9pm, and marveled at the wonder of CVS.

On the downside, I’ve nearly died three times attempting to cross the road because I keep looking right for oncoming cars. I’ve also never felt so displaced and dislocated in my entire life. With my sister and her family moving to Europe soon and my parents moving back to Texas from Europe, I don’t so much have a U.S.-based home anymore. But Lesotho doesn’t feel like home either; I’m not exactly jumping with joy at the thought of returning there this weekend.

So imagine my surprise and mild delight when a friend sent me a link to Anthropologie, who is now selling Basotho blankets! Check it out.

As stunning as this piece of news is, did you see the price?! If these items are in such high demand, I am going to start arbitraging in Basotho blankets.

Hat tip: EL for the Anthropologie link

 

Have Yourself a Nairobi Christmas

In Nairobi with sketchy internet so this will be a quickie.

Have spent the last 10 days in Kenya, one of my most favorite countries ever. Visited the 34 Kenyan girls that so many of you have supported and they send their love to each of you — truly and honestly, they know and appreciate the help you’ve provided and consider you to be a part of their family. I know I’ve said it before on this blog, but the love and joy that covers that place is something that everyone should experience firsthand. There’s nothing quite like being greeted with a long, loud chorus of “Auntie V! Auntie V!” upon arrival.

Spent my 30th birthday in Nairobi with my parents, old friends, and new friends — what a wonderful, humbling and exciting way to celebrate my 3rd decade Special shoutout to T and B who came out and made my trip to Mudzini Kwetu and my 30th even more special. Love you guys and miss you already.

Then embarked on a 7-day Kenyan safari with just my parents … much to my initial dismay, we were booked in triple rooms for the whole trip, not the double room and the single room that I had expected. But the trip was AMAZING! We visited Mt Kenya, Lake Nakuru and the Maasai Mara — managed to see the Big Five (lion, elephant, leopard, black rhino, buffalo), which our guide says he’s only seen on 20% of his safaris. Equally as impressive and special, my parents and I did not actually want to throw each other out of the safari vehicle by the end of the trip. I’m not sure how many of you out there can spent 7 straight days, 24 hours/day with your parents, but I’m guessing you’re few. I love my family and love that we have such a great relationship that a trip like this could be possible. Don’t get me wrong, though — I’m very much looking forward to being back in the US and seeing all my friends

Pictures of the safari are coming soon! We were so freakin’ close to the lions – you won’t believe it until you see the photos and videos.

Now off to the US! Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m excited to be in the East Coast winter cold. I’m not totally convinced that I packed enough layers and winter clothing, but oh well. At least I’ll be on American soil. NYC then DC so let me know if you want to meet up!

Merry Christmas!

 

Time is on My Side

After a year of fighting against the tide of time mis-management in Lesotho, I am beginning to piece together a theory as to why the American/Western style of business is so very different from the African (or at least Basotho) style of business. It all boils down to perceptions of time and efficiency.

So many people here do not seem to recognize the equation time=money. In fact, time is seemingly treated like a boundless resource that has no financial implication attached it whatsoever. And this small understanding gets to the heart of so many frustrations that Westerners have in Africa. If time here has no limit and no cost, then efficiency is only measured in terms of money. Therefore, to be efficient means only to spend the least amount of money. The concept of “value” (as Westerners define it) has no real meaning.

Allow me to present a small but illustrative example. It’s summertime in the southern hemisphere. And the office I share with two other people and three computers does not have a window that can be opened. As you might imagine, the sweltering and stagnant heat suspended in the air more than distracts us from our full levels of productivity. So, we asked the office to purchase a floor fan to at least move the air about and provide a meager sense of relief. Easy solution, right? We even offered to run down to the store and pick one up immediately.

Instead, we were told that the proper process was to visit three stores and gather three different estimates, which would allow the office to purchase the cheapest option.

Floor fans cost about $30-40 each.

But taking the 30 minutes to go out and buy one isn’t considered efficient because we might not purchase the cheapest one out there. Instead, we need to send a driver in an office car to three different stores in town, use up fuel needlessly, and meanwhile, allow three program managers to spend half the day thinking about how GD hot it is rather than doing their work. Nevermind the fact that the cheapest fan is also likely to be the one to need replacing in about 3 months.

I see a similar thing happening in the checkout lines at local stores like Woolworths. Let me tell you, the Woolworths cashiers chew up the clock better than the Chicago Bears offense leading 20-18 with 8 minutes left to go in the second half. With a remarkable ability to defy the laws of time and space, these cashiers make time stand still as they take your kitchenware, place it on the counter, search for the price tag, reach for the scanner, scan the price tag, look at the monitor, look at you, tell you the price, accept your money, count your change, hand you the change, reach down for a plastic bag, open the bag, place your items into the bag, shake the bag free of the counter, remove your receipt from the printer, place the receipt in the bag, then slowly hand the bag over to you as though they’re still not quite sure you should be the rightful owner of this kitchenware. Meanwhile, the line is piling up behind you and you’re pretty sure that some shoppers have given up in despair. Every disappearing shopper is money lost and could have been kept in line with faster cashiers, but noooo, time has no value.

If my theory holds, I wonder what could be the cause? Why such a different understanding of time? And is it what also makes people walk so damn slowly here?

 

You Better Shop Around

Sing the Hallelujah Chorus with me, people!

And gimme a big A-MEN!

Why?

Because the consumerism gods of the cosmos have looked down upon the people of Maseru and blessed them with the ultimate gift of indulgence and excess – a shopping mall! Yes, that’s right, Lesotho has its first and only “world class shopping mall.” It comes with a six-theatre cinema, endless boutiques and baby stores, and the crème de la crème – a Pick ‘n’ Pay grocery store! This is almost like spending a year buying your groceries from the Chevron gas station and suddenly a Whole Foods opens up next door! (Okay, no Maseru’s ShopRite isn’t that bad … but still, this is terribly exciting for us little people). Oh – and the best part?? The grocery store is open until 8pm every day except Sunday, when it closes at an astonishing and never-seen-before 6pm! You learn to wildly celebrate these sorts of things when you’ve been living in Africa for nearly a year.

Now, my first experience at the Pick ‘n’ Pay was both overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time. Overwhelming because walking around in it almost made me feel like I was in an American store. (“They have French rolls!”) Underwhelming because the shelves were pretty empty (“Aw, out of stock of Diet Coke”). I can only hope that they’ll get better at forecasting and stocking.

My second experience was much like the first – with the added bonus of a confrontation with the plastic bag lady at the checkout aisle. I was purchasing only a handful of items with which to make myself a small lunch sandwich. The bag lady started to place my 5 items in a plastic bag and I said, “oh it’s okay, I don’t need a bag.” Both the cashier and the bag lady immediately halted in what they were doing and stared at me. The cashier sweetly and patronizingly explained “It’s okay. We don’t charge for plastic.” And I replied, “No, really. I don’t need a bag; you can save it for something else. It’s better for the environment.” The bag lady, holding my perfectly ripe avocado in mid-air, said in a rather harsh tone, “What?” Feeling totally judged and on the spot but determined to model environmentally conscious behavior, I tried again, “Well, plastic is bad for the environment and it takes up space in landfills. If I don’t use one, then you can save it for someone else. It’s only five items, I can carry them.” The cashier gave up, shook her head, and finished ringing up my co-worker behind me. The bag lady continued to stare me down in an epic contest of wills between Carefree-Consumerist -Enjoy-a-Luxury-Cuz-You-Can in one corner and I-Should-Do-the-Right-Thing-Cuz-We’re-Raping-the-Earth in the other corner. I made one last attempt to persuade her of the wisdom of my actions with an economic argument, “I’m saving Pick ‘n’ Pay money by not using a bag.” To which she replied, “It doesn’t cost much.”

*sigh*

Needless to say, I was unsuccessful in convincing her. But, I did walk out of there, plastic bag-free, with my five items clutched tightly to my chest. 

 

Hit Me Baby, One More Time?

“That’s how you grow up in Africa,” explains Mr Mwape. “To be a man, you need to discipline a woman, give her a slap or two. You know, in our culture, it’s OK because that’s how we feel we love our women.”

Yes, that’s a real quote from a real Zambian man – a popular actor, as a matter of fact. And it breaks my heart. Not just for the women who suffer at the hands of these men, but for the young men whose perceptions of women and love and violence are perverted and twisted together into such a grotesque shape by the men they admire and emulate. Now, let’s be clear — it’s not true that every African man believes that a “slap or two” is how you demonstrate love to a woman. But a good many do. In Lesotho, a woman can be beaten for cooking a bad meal or for telling her husband that she is HIV-positive. Civil and political rights were granted to women here in 1993 but those constitutional amendments still recognize some traditional/customary laws that are discriminatory.

Here’s the real kicker when it comes to the confounding nature of gender relations in places like Lesotho. Many of the older men work in South Africa, in the mines or wherever they can find work. Many of the young men don’t finish secondary school because they are needed as herd boys or workers in the the family fields. So when I work with various officials in the government of Lesotho, I almost always work with women. And these are not low-level positions — these are women who write  national policy and influence how such policies will be implemented. It just boggles my mind that many of these women – strong and intelligent women – are quite likely to be victims of domestic violence, as well. But there are strong, wealthy and intelligent women in America who are victims too. I guess violence against women knows no ethnicity, education level, or economic status …

Read the rest of the story at BBC News – Zambia’s celebrity couple reveal wife-beating past.

 

Troubles Melt Like Lemon Drops

I have a policy. It’s called the No Drama in Lesotho policy, or NDL policy. It mostly applies to dating and hooking up in a small town and the drama that often accompanies such behavior. After all, we basically live and hang out with a community of about 50 people who all know each other and each other’s bidness. But lately, I’m discovering that I need to concentrate more on applying the policy to cars. Brief weekend recap:

Oct 30-Nov1: Went to Jozi with friends who were running the Soweto 10K and marathon. (No, of course, I didn’t run. Don’t you know me?) Had drinks with an Angolan and his Mozambican wife. Our group had two cars broken into, another car stolen, and wallets, ipods and money taken too. And I want you to know that because I don’t run and was sleeping when all crime occurred, I was completely unaffected. Except for feeling deep sympathy for my friends. Then rode back to Lesotho with a French woman, an Englishman, a Maltese,  and a Kiwi. Also, learned that a friend was nearly carjacked in downtown Maseru.

Nov 6-8: Baked 3 dozen bagels, 2 dozen peanut butter cookies, and 4 dozen chocolate Amarula truffles. Sold them all at a benefit bake sale to raise money for a home in Kenya for orphaned street girls and raised over $900. Clearly, we need a high-quality bakery in Maseru. Okay, no car drama here but it seemed silly to leave out a weekend.

Nov 13-15: Drove 1.5 hours to Ficksburg, South Africa, for a jazz festival. It was advertised to start at 12pm, we showed up at 3pm, and the music finally started at 5pm. Around 7pm, we heard that the parking area was getting full and that people normally stay at this festival until about 7am the next morning. Sure enough, our cars were almost blocked in, so we strategically moved them to prevent a full blockage. Three hours later, we discovered that the crazy Basotho drivers foiled us still. We had to convince a drunk man in a Jeep Cherokee to move out of the way so we could squeeze our cars thru the narrowest space possible. Then one of the cars broke down in the middle of the parking area’s dirt road, so we had to push the car out of the way using 45-point turn (push it forward, push it backwards, repeat, repeat again, and again). All while two South African policemen watched us from their truck. Two hours later, we abandoned the broken car and drove back to Maseru.

But next weekend!?! Next weekend, I will be visited by my old college roommate and two weekends from now, we’ll be in the lovely, beautiful and stylish Cape Town. What drama could possibly befall us there??

 

Let Me Entertain You

Reasons Why Life in Maseru Can Be So Entertaining:

1. We have a dive bar that’s been dubbed “Club Awesome.” It’s the kind of place where you don’t wear open toed shoes and girls are often groped by strange men (a few stern words and an evil look is more than enough to make them stop). But they play great hip hop music from back in the day, sprinkle in a few modern hits, and there’s a braai (bbq grill) that’s always on fire outside to keep people warm.

2. You can be 3 hours late and still be 2 hours early. Okay, this happened just over the border in SA (but close enough): We went to a jazz festival that was supposed to start at 12pm. We showed up at 3pm and the music didn’t actually start until 5pm.

3. Every once in awhile, the frozen food section at the grocery store is just empty. And while food shopping, I regularly exclaim things like “Oh! They have asparagus today!” It’s a good reminder that food doesn’t magically grow in the aisles.

4. Nothing in town is ever more than a 15 minute drive. Really. If I experience any reverse culture shock upon returning to the States, it will likely happen when it takes me more than 15 minutes to get anywhere. And you all thought I was chronically late before …

5. A wave and a smile generally gets you through the border between SA and Lesotho, even if you don’t bother waiting in line at immigration to get your passport stamped. Not that I would do such a thing, of course …

6. The local newspapers print headlines like these: