Kara Moskowitz's Reports

When I originally began to think about writing my first quarterly report, I immediately thought about focusing on the contradiction of life in Lesotho. Because, to my eyes, many aspect so life here seem at odds with on another. I am continually struck by the complete intertwining of the traditional and the modern; it is as if half of Lesotho has globalized and the other half is completely shut off from the rest of the world. The strangeness of this appears most evident to me when I am riding the bus between St. Rodrigue and Maseru, Lesotho's capital. I see men get on the bus dressed in traditional Basotho blankets, and women in the traditional Seshoeshoes. Right alongside them are men and women wearing leather jackets, jeans and sunglasses. I can't help but think it is totally bizarre. Here at St. Rodrigue, such differences are evident as well. On a daily basis, I see female teachers waling to school in heels, dress slacks and suit jackets. During their short walk to school, these teachers often pass herd boys without shoes, wearing rags, leading herds of cattle or sheep. It is just not a sight I think I can become accustomed to seeing.

The school itself, at times, seems full of these kinds of contradictions as well. The convent, the school and the Grinnell Corps house all have solar panels to generate electricity or heat water. Our hot water heater, as much as I appreciate it, seems a bit luxurious living in a village where many do not even have indoor running water. Yet, even luxuries such as these do not protect the living standards many Americans take for granted. We had no running water for two and half weeks, and just recently the electricity has gone out completely. Se these days I can't charge my iPod or camera battery and we light paraffin lamps at night, but at least I can take my bucket shower without heating the water on the stove first.

Even the minutia of life appears totally bizarre to me. People climb a nearby mountain to get cell phone reception and make phone calls. Some students have camera phones, while others barely have enough money for the bus fare to get home. Leslie told me that telephone lines were installed her in the 1970's, but the herd boys cut them down to use as fencing. My Sesotho name is Lerato Mathobo, literally translating to Love Mother of Happiness. The convent's shiny, white SUV drives along the bumpy dirt roads surrounding St. Rodrigue, causing the grazing animals to scurry out of the way. People wear blankets as coats and strange shaped hats (to my eyes) on their heads. When our volleyball team returned from playing in Pretoria, South Africa for an international tournament, the players spoke mostly about seeing elevators for the first time and how beautiful the hotel was. The majority of my friends here are nuns; Sister Amelia, the school secretary, said she wanted to write my parents to convince them to let me become a nun. I'm Jewish. This is my life in this rural village of Lesotho; here, this is all normal.

To me, this Lesotho life often seems to make absolutely no sense. Even at school when I am interacting with other teachers, I can't always seem to grasp why things work the way they do here. Teachers argue with one another about stealing each other's desk chairs, even though all the chairs are exactly the same. Apparently, each teacher must sit one the chair that has his or her teaching number written on it. And when administrator tell students to come to school early at 7 a.m. to prepare for the annual English Day celebration, they actually mean just not to show up too late. You will look silly if you come at 7 a.m., instead of 9:30 a.m. with the rest of the teachers who arrive just in time for the start of the event (which, may I add, begins at least 2 hours late).

But, my confusion does not stop with rural life or with teachers bickering about identical chairs; it extends all the way to Maseru, the non-bustling city of 110,000 people. A couple of weeks ago, we went to the Maseru Post Office during lunch hour to buy stamps and have a package weighed. Yes, it was lunch hour, but eh building was not abandoned and there were postal employees everywhere. Yet, not one of them would agree to see us a single sheet of stamps. We were informed that we would have to wait until the other employees returned from their lunch break. We Americans were outraged and frustrated. We could not wait until the end of the lunch break because we had to get back to the bus rank in time to catch our bus. We would not be in town again for another three weeks. Why wouldn't this guy just sell us some stamps?

Most of these examples are wholly inconsequential. It does not greatly affect my life that I cannot buy stamps from 1-2 p.m. Even so, it is stuff like herd boys cutting down phone lines from fencing and having solar panels but lacking paved roads that makes me ask myself "WHY?" It is stuff like this that makes me think no matter how long I stay here, there are some things I will just never understand.

None of this even to mention the bizarre contradictions between Lesotho and neighboring South Africa. Lesotho is fully surrounded by South Africa, and just 15 minutes across the Maseru border is the South African town of Ladybrand. Walking along the street in Ladybrand, no one gives me a second glance, and there are shops with designer shoes and clothing in the window. There are even a couple of cute little coffee shops we frequent when we are in town. However, the minute I cross back over the border onto the Lesotho side, I am greeting with countless street vendors selling fruits, vegetables, Basotho bread, maize, cheap jewelry, and almost anything else you can imagine. I am no longer just an ordinary pedestrian, but a white face in a crowd of black. When I enter the bus rank, ready to head back to St. Rodrigue, and a man shouts "Malealea" (Lesotho's biggest tourist attraction, know for its pony trekkeing) at me, I feel happy to be back, no matter how obnoxious his yelling. As the bus slowly, slowly climbs the innumerable mountains we must pass before reaching St. Rodrigue, I am always relieved to be heading back home.

So though I originally intended to write about how Lesotho baffles me, and seems to make little sense to my efficiency-trained brain or in comparison to the life I led in America, I have realized that many aspects of life here are beginning to make some sense. Just before I came up to the convent to work on this solar powered computer, I was doing one of my favorite things here-I was standing outside the classrooms before the beginning of school, talking to students. During those five minutes that I chatted and laughed with my pupils, it occurred to me that I could not just write my report about contradictions of Lesotho; there are some things in Lesotho that I think I understand completely. I am the class teacher for Form A2, a class of 40 girls, who are about the equivalent of American 8th graders. Leslie first described them to me as "naughty, but in a good way." That statement could not be truer. At times, they make me so frustrated. Yet, just a minute later I will forget my anger and only think of how endearing these girls are. In short, they are a class full of personalities, and I love them for that. These girls, along with the rest of my students, are a continual reminder that life here is not always so different. Sure, I teach students with names like Mojabeng, Makhobeng, and Makhotatso, and yes when students gossip and whisper during class, they do it in Sesotho as opposed to English. They are gossiping nonetheless, though, and they behave quite similarly to the American 8th graders I know. It is the same way when I go play soccer with the school team here against some of the local boys. That is, once the boys get over the fact that a white girl knows how to play soccer and once I get over the fact that I am playing on a dirt field with breathtaking scenery in the background. But then we just play, as I would anywhere else.

It is not only that I have finally realized that some aspects of life here are not so different from what I am used to, but my decision to write this report more than the contradictions of Lesotho also comes, in part, due to my growing realization of my appreciation for many aspects of life here, in spite of their differences. No longer do I dread the mile long walk to the local shops to get groceries. We still have to cross the foreboding donga while local children stare at us and we still have to carry our heavy groceries on the way back. But, it is a part of life here. And, when I leave my house on the way to school and I am greeted with a chorus of questions from the local primary school children, I realize that it, too, is a part of my life here. "Good morning, how are you? What is your name? Surname? Mother's name? Father's name? What is the time? What kind of a walk to school would it be I did it in silence by myself everyday?