Leslie Boyadjian's Reports

Sometimes I almost forget where I am. I sit on the couch in the middle room of our house, modest by American standards, but quite comfortable. I read with an enthusiasm I haven't seen in myself in years. I write letters to family and friends living their own lives and having their own adventures in far away lands. Outside birds chirp. Children play, running up and down the road. For a moment, it sounds just life anywhere else I've ever been. Then someone shouts something in Sesotho, a small herd of cattle ambles down the road, a rooster crows, and I'm reminded of where I am. If I think about it I'm stuck also by the sounds I don't hear-cars rushing by, neighbors mowing their lawns, televisions playing over the drone of air conditioners or furnaces, airplanes passing overhead. It's quieter here, calmer, slower. We never miss the sound of someone opening the gate to our yard, the metal chain bouncing against the frame as they enter to visit, collect water from the tank on the side of our house, or retrieve sheep who somehow made their way past the fence to snack on our overgrown grass. How they got in with the gate closed is beyond me. Bi-pedal sheep with opposable thumbs?

According to Lonely Planet Lesotho is home to roughly 280 bird species. At any given time of day we can hear many a species cawing, chirping, cooing and crowing across our valley, like a dozen choirs warming up for a music festival. In the evening the chirping of the bird is replaced by that of crickets. Up the hill the overly vigilant convent dogs bark at anything that moves. We hear the generator about a minute before the lights flicker on moments before the light of day expires, relieving our eyes from the strain of trying to read or prepare dinner by dusk. When the generator goes off 2-3 hours later it makes a sound like a deep sigh that never fails to give me a momentary sinking feeling in my chest.

These are the sounds that remind me where I am. Roosters have replaced alarm clocks, though actually their work is not done at dawn; they are relentless. The buzz of flies and a resident bumble bee, called Mowgli by our predecessors Lauren and Ali, replace AC's and furnaces. Birds calling out across the valley to one another, or in the case of two particularly obnoxious crows running across our tin roof, replace television and stereos. Men on galloping horses replace the sounds of city traffic. Small herds of sheep and cattle meandering down the road, the bells around their necks jangling, replace the trains through Grinnell. I joked to Molly, 'In Grinnell we had the train. Now we have cows. It's not so different here, really…..'

There is music everywhere. A group of young Basotho men have taken to dancing up the road mid-afternoon armed with a boom box blaring Sesotho music, on their way to someplace. People sing without embarrassment or reservation as they go about their daily business. In class a few weeks ago my Form C's asked if they could sing me a song. I barely had time to utter, "Now?" before they sprang to their feet and delivered a rousing performance of "Basotho Mama" complete with harmony and choreography. On our way to and from a recent athletics competition the students sang with unbridled enthusiasm, repeating songs as necessary to fill the entire 2 Ѕ hour ride with song. In my high school days such behavior on bus trips was tolerated only briefly before the bus driver insisted that we amuse ourselves in a less disruptive manner. Here the driver said nothing; he just kept right on driving as the girls sang out their hearts and souls. A young boy down the road took to serenading me and Molly on a homemade instrument called a 'mamokhorong' as we fetched water from the tap.

Of course life in Lesotho is not all one big song and dance. I arrived just before school began, technically on the first day. Teaching duties were put off for several days, fortunately, until enough students had arrived and received their books and something vaguely resembling a timetable had been produced to tell teachers where to go and when. All in all, I think we got off to a pretty fast start. I was glad for some responsibility, but overwhelmed nonetheless by the wealth of information I was taking in during those early days. Names, schedules, greetings in Sesotho, the curiosity of students who didn't yet know who I was, their delight at seeing 'M'e Molly again, hiking 20 minutes for groceries and an hour for transportation, the altitude, being some 10,000 miles away from home and feeling 10,000 miles away from any means with which to contact the outside world.

It rained. It rained a lot. After classes that first Thursday Molly and I made the trip to Maseru to take care of necessary business-Visas, email, money, etc. The trip started out well enough. The weather was beautiful-warm and sunny. I was a little taken aback by the 4 mile hike to the mini-bus taxi stop in Setleketseng. I knew it was a good hike, but it was surprising nonetheless to walk 4 miles just to catch a ride. In London, where I spent a semester abroad, I was amazed at the 20 minutes walk to the tube station, declaring that I'd never again complain about having to walk across campus from Cowles to Burling again. This hike make that walk look like a leisurely stroll-and in London I had the added perk or paved streets! Here we summit a mountain just to go to town. We also 'ford a river' and 'cross a marsh' for our weekly groceries. And we are big fans of hyperbole. But I digress. Back to Setleketseng. For awhile everything looked good. There was no bus in sight so we sat to eat a sandwich and wait. Then we waited some more. Then it started to rain so we moved into a small shop and waited there. A woman was having extensions put in her hair. A 3 year old boy with a round face was sucking on a hole bitten into a plastic bag full of a local Cheeto-like snack called Simbas. He wandered around the 10x10 space dropping Simbas out the top of the bag while the bottom end turned into a soggy mess. Molly and I sat, writing letters, while Kanye West and J.Lo played on the radio. I was in Africa.

At 5:30 or so the 1:00 mini bus taxi arrived. We boarded in the pouring rain and we were on our way. It was still pouring when we reached the city. A woman we'd spoken to earlier that day offered us a place to stay. She was the mother of a prospective St. Rodrigue student. Feeling up for a little adventure, we accepted. She led us through muddy streets, past houses surrounded by barbed wire fences into which I feared we'd slipped and fall. We were drenched when we reached her home. She took us immediately to her daughter's bedroom, where the girl was napping through the afternoon storm. I can only imagine what went through her head when she realized her mother had brought home two (white) teachers from the very school at which she was interviewing the next day! They gave us dry clothes to wear and a hot cup of Rooibos tea with cream and South African brown sugar. Molly and I sat in their living room, half exhausted (or at least I was) and not quite sure what we should do next. The ceiling leaked everywhere; buckets were strategically placed around the room to catch as much of the dripping water as possible. Despite the leaks I had to assume the family was at least somewhat comfortable, given the television and stereo which ran simultaneously from the driest corner of the living room. We helped the girl, Mantsatsi, with maths as an African Cup soccer match played in the background, and I had my first taste of papa and moroho, the national dish of Lesotho. Later the woman tucked us into Mantsatsi's bed, while Mantsatsi slept on the mat on the floor. Truthfully it was the most unbelievably uncomfortable bed I've ever encountered; soft to the point that I had to sleep flat on my back so as not to slip in between the rows of springs and even then they dug into my spine painfully. But I was warm and dry and safe, and not about to cast aspersions at their wonderful hospitality. In the morning they gave us more hot tea before we set out again into the rain.

It continued to pour for most of the day. We escaped to Ladybrand, South Africa for a few hours but when we returned to Maseru that afternoon the road was flooded---a veritable river raging through the city. We traipsed about in our soggy clothes before boarding a bus with about 140 equally drenched Basotho, all of us crammed into a space that a sign on the bus claims can hold 65 seated passengers and 25 standing. A man spoke to me in English and then insisted that I speak Sesotho. About 2 hours into our damp journey two men started a fight, forcing the bus driver to, as Molly said "pull right over and come back there." He hoisted himself through a window just ahead of where Molly and I sat. All the while I wondered what I'd gotten myself into, exactly.

The rains continued for weeks; only now are they starting to let up a bit. They were a mixed-blessing. Being trapped in our house so much gave us both a touch of cabin fever. However, we could not complain too much, for in those same weeks we were without indoor running water. A week before my arrival the generator broke and had been taken to South Africa for repairs. The rain ensured that, most of the time, we'd have some source of water. This became vitally important one week when the village up the hill turned off the water supply to St. Rodrigue. For a brief time we resigned ourselves to collect rain water in buckets and literally boil the life out of it. We started to wonder whether the water would ever come back on, and I fancied myself telling people a year from now about how "I lived a whole year without indoor running water. Pretty hard core, eh?" (Hauling one's own water for a year allows for some pretty serious bragging rights, I'd say.) I was momentarily disappointed by an announcement in my 7th week that the water was going to come back on the following day, but my disappointment was replace by a new appreciation for being able to wash both of my hands at the same time, splash running water over my face, do dishes with ease, and not have to resort to conserving used bath water to flush toilet….I'll spare the reader further detail on that matter.

The rainy season is over. Much less frequently do we hear the violent crashing of thunder, the pounding of rain on our roofs, streams of rain water gushing down the road. The summer heat is giving way to autumn, and the teachers and students insist it is winter already. Even so, they assure me that it will get much colder. I tell them how much I hate the cold and they tell me that I will freeze here. They're probably right.

Molly and I move through our days and weeks more or less routinely. We plan lessons, we teach, we exercise, we read books and write letters, sometimes we practice Sesotho together. Everyday over lunch I listen to the BBC on our small radio, trying to keep current. The evenings are quiet save the occasional shout from one teacher's house to another's. We make dinner each night with some assistance from More with Less-pretty much the greatest cookbook ever. We've discovered dozens of ways to make soup. We make some great soup. (We are, we've decided, domestic goddesses in training---highly marketable housewives in under a year's time, especially given that we also hand-wash our laundry, manage a household budget and we can catch mice.)

Often I sing to myself. For weeks after I arrived I was humming tunes for "The Sound of Music." I was slightly puzzled by my sudden affinity for Rogers and Hammerstein until Molly pointed out that 'we do live at a convent in the mountains.' It makes sense…….Sometimes just before I drift off to sleep I can hear my students' voices in my head. "M'e Leslie!" "M'e Leslie?" "M'e Leslieeeeee!" The same thing happened last semester during my student teaching. (Ms. Boyadjian! Ms. Boyadjian! Ms Boyadjian!). It's good I suppose. I must be getting attached. My students here challenge me in many ways, some very different from the challenges I faced with my American students and some very much the same, but I'll save that discussion for another report.

For now, Lesotho is a land of music, of pula (rain), of patchy BBC World News, or soup simmering on the stove; a land where each day is a challenge and a gift. I'm thrilled by my chance to live this life, but sometimes terribly lonely and homesick. Occasionally I get bored, or maybe just a bit claustrophobic, and wish I could jump in a car and take a drive, see a movie, go out with friends. But often I'm overwhelmed by all there is to do---plans lessons, read books from our house and school libraries, 'catch-up' on my history, travel. Sometimes I love my job---the students are amazing, the teachers are terrific---and sometimes I kind of hate it--- the students won't learn, the teachers don't care. I'm learning to watch and listen more. Nearly 2 1/1 months have passed and I've already seen and heard so much, yet I feel that I know nothing. I can only imagine what I'll see and hear in the next 8 months, how I'll interpret it and what this all will mean to my life and my understanding of this culture. Time will tell.