Looks like what I saw was a satelite launch fuel dump.

From this description: “The spectacular sight which keen South African sky-watchers were privileged enough to witness during the evening of Sunday the 18th of October, from approximately 8:45 to 9:30pm, – a spectacle resembling something out of a big budget UFO movie – turned out to be a great visual demonstration of experimental rocket science in action. From Hermanus to Jo’burg and even Nambia, reports started to flood into the South African Astronomical Observatory’s field station in Sutherland, as two bright objects were seen to be passing overhead from South-East to North-West at rapid speed. What made the reports so sensational was the repeated description of the leading object emitting bright, spiralling pulses of light which ‘looked like the kind of ripples you get when you throw a stone into a pond’ radiating over the whole sky.” Emphasis mine.

Pictures can be found here.  It was quite a sight, and good to know what it was.

Hat tip: Mom, for finding the description.

So don’t take from this post that I’m a conspiracy buff, UFO tracker, or any of the above.  I’m probably just starting to see things.
Last night I walked outside and saw a very strange phenomenon in the sky.  It appeared to be a series of concentric, expanding rings, aproximently 20 degrees across (big).  The rings were emanating from a central point.  Every 15 seconds or so, a new ring would for in the center and expand, as the outer ring faded.  It brought to mind ripples in a pond after a pebble is thrown in.  In addition, the whole thing was moving very slowing from SSE to NNW.  It lasted about five minutes before the whole thing faded.
I’ve been an astronomy buff my whole life, but couldn’t make heads or tails of this.  I’d never seen or heard of anything like it.  So, homework for people reading this- any ideas?  Josh, Gaylen, I’m looking at you.

Background information- it was a clear night, several meteors were visible in the hour or so I was outside.  The night before lightning flashes could be seen to the south, probably one of the big storms that comes in on the coast near Durbin.

Just a few pictures from Mozambique, now that I’m able to post them.

September 14,

For the last week and a half I have been traveling around Lesotho, taking part in various Peace Corps run projects that, to an outsider, might make it appear that we are the evil corrupters of Lesotho. That’s right… Lifeskills. (cue dramatic music in minor key).

Tales of Masturbation, Rape, and (close your ears) Condoms after the break.

Tara (another PCV from my training group) invited me down to her site in Hlotse to teach her lifeskills class for a few days last week.  It’s a pretty common occurance that male PCVs are asked to help out, as there are some topics that culturally do not work well in a mixed gender setting.  For each of Tara’s classes, I took the Bo-Abuti aside to answer whatever questions they had, with a andate that I had to at some point cover consent and masturbation – two topics Tara felt the boys needed help with.

Masturbation is one of my favorite topics here.  Yeah, go ahead, laugh if you want, but my personal theory is that if the men and boys of Lesotho would simply help themselves more often, it would go a long way to helping with the spread of HIV.  Masturbating is a huge cultural taboo, with boy believing everything from ‘it makes you go blind’ to ‘you won’t be able to have babies later.’  In each of Tara’s classes, I spent a good half hour discrediting these myths and suggesting that, among other things, taking matters into your own hands was a good alternative to rape.

Which brings us to the other big topic of the classes- consent.  The boys had some interesting ideads, which needed to be changed before one of them… well, yes.  Among the situations I heard was ‘If she says yes, then no, it isn’t rape,’ ‘if I give her a drug and afterwards she doesn’t say no, it isn’t rape’ and, my favorite: ‘girls don’t enjoy sex anyway, so why is rape such a big deal?’  While to American years this all might sound a bit appaling, here these are all relatively common beliefs.  You can only hope that a one hour Q&A session gets through a little bit.

Fast forward to last weekend.  As most people reading this have heard, I’ve gotten involved in Peace Corps’ gender awareness programs.  On Saturday I organized a gender workshop for about twenty boys and girls from two local high schools.  I’ve been orgnizing this event for the last month and a hlaf, and was ready and excited to put it on.

The problems started midway through the first session.  I had invited two of my coworkers to facilitate the event, thinking that if the kids could do the event in Sesotho, there was a better chance for them to take something valuable away from it.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think to explaining to my coworkers that this was a Peace Corps event, and that Peace Corps and Catholic Relief Services have slightly different approachs to talking about Gender and Sexuality.

The first session of the day was designed to get the students thinking and talking about some of the issues involved in gender in Lesotho.  Four signs were placed around the room, ranging from ’strongly agree’ to strongly disagree.’  The facilitators read statements, nd the students stand under the sign that best matches their response.  The facilitators are to encourage discussion and, if neccesary, play devil’s advocate.

Everything went well for the first few statements with the students starting to really get into arguing their points and agreeing to disagree.  Then came the statement ‘A woman who carries a condom in her purse is ‘easy.” After some confusion over the English idiom ‘easy’ the group split up, with about three quarters of the students disagreeing and a quarter agreeing.  Not thinking muc of it, and finding the Sesotho hard to follow, I went back to looking over the pre-workshop questionarres I had the students fill out.  Five minutes later I looked up to see all of the students under the ’strongly agree’ sign, with the facilitator telling them that abstinance was the only way, and the woman in the statement was wrong to carry a condom.

This, as I have two boxes of condoms in the other room to distribute after the workshop.

Another PCV and I jumped up to present the other side of the argument, but it was the source of ongoing confusion through the day.  Towards the end of the workshop, going through the ABC method of HIV prevention, one of the facilitators told me that she felt C stood for ‘compassion.’

** A word of explanation:  ABC was developed in Uganda, and has been credited with contributing to that country’s dramatic drop in HIV infections, from the mid 20s to about 5%.  It stands for (in order of importance) Abstain, Be faithfull, Condomize (Correct, consistent condom use).  Almost every secular NGO, including Peace Corps, uses it. Many religious groups such as CRS and Worldvision teach ‘Behavior Change’ or ‘AB’ **

The issue at the workshop then was not a new argument, but one that has been part of the HIV debate for the last 20 years.  Personally, I have no problems with A & B – They are moral choices that, in a culture as religious as this one, can be very effective.  This issue of condoms though seems to be not so much about morality as safety.  Statistically, the average age of sexual debut in this country is fourteen, and the HIV rate between 18 and 40 years old is pushing 50%.  Given these numbers, it seems clear that not everyone is abstaining.  To not teach teenagers how to use a condom correctly seems negligent at best.  I tell every kid I work with that I couldn’t be happier if they abstain until marriage, but if they don’t, they must, must, protect themselves.

Sorry for the preachy end to the post guys.  This disagreement has always been in the background of my relationship with CRS, but I think it may come more to the fore now.  If nothing else, I feel like making it more of a priority for what I am doing.

Back up in Bobete after time traveling, on leave, helping with training, and a seemingly unending series of events keeping me in the lowlands.  It seems like too much has happened since last time I wrote a post, so I’ll try to compress it a bit:

• Went on leave, for the first significant amount of time since last December.  I was able to go home to New York to see one of my best friends get married.  To everyone I didn’t see- sorry guys.  I really needed a low stress visit to home to get back on my feet and get some measure of equilibrium.  For better or worse, I thought it would be easier if I kept the visit on the down low until after I got back.
• Continuing the leave theme, I spent ten days on the beach in Mozambique.  Tofo is a surfers paradise, full of palm trees, long sandy beaches, and lots of people who come there for a short vacation and end up never leaving.  Next update I’ll have pictures up.
• I spent a good bit of time helping the new Volunteers wrap up their training.  They have all now sworn in and are out at their sites.  Personally, I have three new “neighbors,” two in the Thaba-Tseka district and one working with MOVE on the same job I am.  Very exciting.
• Throughout all of this, I have been looking into graduate schools, and what to do after Peace Corps.  I am taking the GREs the third week of October, and will hopefully have good news sometime next April.  It’s a coin flip who will have the first nervous breakdown- myself, or my 17 year old sister, who is applying to undergrad programs on the exact same schedule.  Here’s to you, Gayle.  May the most fragile ego win.

Other than that, my return to Bobete has been a reminder that things don’t change very fast up here.  There is now a minibus taxi running from my village to the main road at least some of the time.  That doesn’t sound like much, but if it turns out to be a regular taxi at all, it’s a bit like getting a parole hearing approved.  Imagine-being able to leave your village whenever you want!

On another happy note, my cat is back!  I left it with a coworker while I was away, and during my time in Mozambique, said coworker was transferred to another site.  After a good bit of searching, I was able to track Ema down, and she has resumed her rat killing rampage.  If anything, she’s a better hunter now than she ever was.  In the last three days I’ve found her with three mice/rats in her mouth, and heard another two successfull hunts at night. She’s a marvel.

Regarding the title of the post:  A few days ago, several police officers went to Ha Manela, the next village over from Bobete, to investigate a reported stock theft.  Somehow, a dissagreement between the villagers and the police escalated, and the police ended up getting beat, and leaving with their proverbial tails between their legs.  The next day, fifty police officers from all over the Thaba-Tseka district descended on Ha Manela and beat the living shit out of most of the men in the village.  Since then, it’s been termed by the people here as the “war in Ha Manela.”  Just a happy reminder that community-police relations are a bit different in the third world.

It’s been a year since we arrived in Lesotho.  Half the volunteers that were here when we arrived have moved on, and others have come to take their place.  At the midpoint of Peace Corps (somehow etending just doesn’t seem that likely), it’s worth a little party, and a little looking back on the year.  I’ve been trying to spend the last few days thinking about the lessons leared and (in good NGO speak) the way forward.  After a year, mostly I’m just tired. Between frustrations with culture, difficulties with the politics of NGOs, and tired of the cold (I found out this week someone stole my heater from my house some time over the summer).

I’m going on an extended vacation, the first since Christmas, and the first time I’ve taken more than a week off since I got here.  I’ll be ending up on the beach in Mozambique, enjoying the sand, surf, and seafood with a few other volunteers.  The one year slump seems to be pretty general, so I’m hoping by the time I get back I’ll have pushed past it.

Most of you have heard this in one way or another, but for those that haven’t, CRS is in the process of leaving Bobete.  The project here was slated for three years, which they have now exceeded.  The staff has been cut down, and the project is now mostly concerned with the question of sustainability after it phases out entirely.  The results so far have been mixed.

This puts me in an interestin position.  The most optimistic scenarios have CRS leaving Bobete entirely by December at the latest.  Even if it doesn’t happen earlier, that leaves me with another six months to go, and no more project to work with.  I’ve been talking with the staff at the clinic to see if I can start working with them, and I am hopeful that after vacation I’ll be able to start transitioning to them.  Working directly with Partners in Health would make an exciting year, so cross your fingers for me.

On a lighter not, I’m nursing a bruised nose today after an impressive cooking accident last night.  While watching a movie on my iPod, I decided to make some popcorn.  As I was carrying it back to where I was sitting, the pot exploded.  Literally exploded.  There was a huge bang, as the lid shot into my face and popcorn flew across my house, somehow catching and destroying a catnip mouse.  I still have no idea what could have caused it- steam pressure building up from the popcorn?  After making sure I was alright, aside from a bit of a bloody nose, I checked the pan.  The whole bottom appears to be bowed outward, almost in a bowl shape.  The lid is similarly dented outwards.

My best guess is that the lid, due to a previous, smaller dent, had gotten stuck to the pan, as steam from the popcorn built up the pressure.  Somehow my picking up and moving the pan jolted it just enough to cause the disaster.  This morning when I woke up I was still picking up shards of popcorn, lid, and shredded cat toy out of my hair and beard.  And people say nights in Lesotho are boring.

Hey All, I seem to have left this blog sit and moulder for the last few months.  My bad on that- the truth is there just hasn’t been anything I felt was interesting enough to justify its own blog post.  But, after having everybody from my grandfather to my college roomate ask where I disappeared to, I realized that maybe I should get back to this.  Sorry guys- I’ll try not to let it happen again.

So, updates…  what has been happening here?  There’s been a few things that have been happening, which I’ll try to write with some semblance of order.  First, the not so good news:

Staff Turnover

In the last month CRS has lost a lot of its senior staff.  The Country Rep (Director), and the Programming Manager have taken positions in India and Israel, respectively, while the head of Monitoring and Evalution and the tech support guy have both taken other positions in Lesotho.  In Peace Corps, one of our medical staff left, as well as our APCD, Maria Finch.

Maria, as well as the CR and PM for CRS, has been a huge reason why this has been as good of an experience as it has been.  Losing them is rough, but definately a part of life in this field.  I get the feeling that turnover in general within Lesotho is high.  Maria, you are going to be missed by all of us.

Cat:

At long last, I have a cat! No more rats, no more carrying on long conversations with inanimate objects, no more wondering what to do with leftovers.  It’s a wonderful thing.  Back home I would never have called myself a ‘cat person’, but here it’s a little frightening.  Nyx and I have long, involved conversations about everything from the latest economist article to frustrations at work.  She’s very perceptive.

I ended up getting Nyx almost by accident, after her previous owner declared her “creepy”, and asked if I wanted her.  She’s a  small,  all black cat in somewhat superstitious part of the world.  This, combined with her habit of demanding attention from people, could make her come across as a little off.  But hey, I’m happy to have her.

____

One last thing:  I’m starting up a “help Oscar get a new pair of boots” drive.  My hiking boots, after a long and glorious career ranging from Greece to the shores of Lake Superior, now find themselves used up entirely by Lesotho.  Should you like to donate to this worthy cause, I would ask that you contact my parents, as they can get money to me easiest.  I will provide contact information for them on request.

Ok, I’ll try not to disappear again any time soon. Until next time!

Oh, and congratulations to the St. Mary’s class of ‘09.  Now comes the hard part.

If you’re in the states, you’ll see the shooting on the news tonight.

There have already been too many deaths this month.  I’ll try to post more coherently later.

Saturdays are for funerals. This was one of the first things we were told after arriving in Lesotho last June.  In a culture in which funerals are such a common occurance, this is indeed an important thing to be aware of.  Imagine, for a moment, living in a place where, over the last fifteen years, the average life expectancy has dropped from nearly seventy to under forty.  How would we deal with it?  When a single disease is responsible for what feels at times like a war of attrition, a war whose effect is funeral tents each weekend, and hardly a single family who hasn’t lost someone to it.  How would you react?

A few weeks ago, one of the men who worked at the clinic passed away.  He was one of the night watchmen, and had been sick for awhile.  While it has happened before, this was the first time since I’ve been here that a member of the NGO staff in Bobete has died.  I was invited to the funeral as the guest of the clinic staff, and spent the weekend immersed in memorializing and burying Ntate Thabo (name changed).

Friday night was an all night vigil, that I can only describe as a marathon wake.  Singing and dancing in concentric circles went on from 10:00 PM until dawn.  Every few songs, someone would raise a hand and tell a story about Ntate Thabo or a short speech.  Thabo’s wife was laying on the ground on the other side of the room.  There she remained until the funeral the next day.  She had, I was told, been in that position for ‘only’ a week, since returning from Maseru.  Tradition dictates that the wife lay on the ground from the day of her husband’s death until the funeral, but allowances must be made for modern life.  We sang and danced upbeat, joyous hymns until the sun rose, and then retired home for a few hours sleep before the funeral itself.

The funeral saturday was much what you would expect in a Christian family.  The church’s choir sang many of the same songs we had sung the night before, and several male family members spoke, followed by the minister.  After that, the men carried the coffin to the gravesite, followed by the women.  A hole had already been dug, and the male family members took turns throwing a shovelful of dirt into the grave.  The women went later, taking a handful of dirt each.  Both the wife and mother collapsed at this point, and had to be carried away.

Up to this point the language barrier had been a blessing, forcing me to concentrate on what was being said, rather than the feeling behind it.  A mother’s cry, though, is universal.

And that was that.  The men finished filling in the grave, and a meal was served before we all went home.  I was invited to an all night prayer meeting saturday night, but declined.  As I see it, it would have been more impolite to go, but begin snoring halfway through.

While it was certainly a hard weekend, it was a major milestone in my time here.  Trying to become part of a community is difficult and there isn’t one moment you can put your finger on to say ‘yes, that’s it, now I am no longer a stranger here.’ To be invited to participate in their funeral, to keep vigil with the family and friends, was more than just an honor, it was a sign that this is my home now.

Before I finish this entry, I would ask that you keep the family of Catherine “Kate” Puzey in your thoughts, and, if appropriate, your prayers.  Kate was a volunteer in Benin, and was killed near her home last week.

Every few years there is a death in the Peace Corps.  Lesotho has seen several and it seems hard to even begin to understand.  Still, it’s comforting that it’s a worthy cause to work towards Peace and Compassion. Ms. Puzey, like all of us, would have been proud to serve it.

A new month, a new way of looking at work here.  I’m starting to branch out as much as I can from what I’ve been working on, which I hope will help to give me more to do at my site.

I volunteered to work with a group at the end of the month, looking into tracking and reporting at the three MOVE sites.  There have been some problems getting the right numbers from the field offices to Maseru, which we believe is leading to underreporting of the project’s results.  It will be a good opportunity to have a concrete impact on the project.  I’ve started sorting through the hard copies of reports we have here at the Bobete office, and while it will take some time, I think once we are done going through them we’ll be able to track down where the problem has occurred.

Additionally, I am trying to get more involved in the Peace Corps committee system.  I volunteered for the Gender and Development committee, which is responsible for many of the gender related programs Peace Corps runs around the country.  I would like to compare them to the Male Initiative the clinic and MOVE have developed in Bobete and Lebaking.  There are certainly similarities, and I would like to see what the two programs could learn from each other.

Finally, the microfinance program I have been working on is slated to run out of funding at the end of the month.  I am putting together a proposal for an extension, and am confident that we will be able to make the case that while we have made very good progress in the last six months, we will be able to significantly increase the chance that the program will eventually continue without our support if we keep working directly with the community groups and volunteers for the next few months.

I’ve been getting emails from some of the new CHED volunteers who have received their invitations.  If any of you guys are reading this, we are all looking forward to you getting here.  Quite a few of us with blogs also have semi-regular internet access, and would be happy to answer any questions you have.