December and January: South Africa coast to coast, Christmas and Camp

OK, long time since an update so I’ll try to catch everything I’ve been up to.

First I’d like to mention the trip I made to Port St. John’s… which is the beautiful small town on the Wild Coast of South Africa. Its actually where Blood Diamond was filmed so you can imagine it to be quite lush. We left on a Friday…. Winding through foggy mountains and finally made it to the coast in 10 hours, to this little backpackers called Amapondo, which to fellow princetonians is like Terrace F Club outside, although I think there were less drugs. Actually probably more. Anyway.... There were tons of people just lying around in hammocks, hippies aplenty. We arrived late that night so we decided to wake up and see some of the place. We went on a “short” hike to this waterfall up in the hills, which ended up being a four hour trek… it was so jungly, yes that’s a word, tons of spiders (jen if youre reading this... you know how freaked i must of been) but it was so beautiful. It really felt like you were in a rainforest. We traversed down a creek bed, which had crabs crawling everywhere, and everyone managed to slip in one way or another. The waterfall was tiny but amazing and they had cliff jumping from 10m…. but you had to jump through a tree over a rock in order to do it. I kept my diving skills to the lower levers, but was content to practice my front one and halfs and make the fellow travelers jealous. From there we made our way down to the ocean. It was the first time I made it to the Indian Ocean so I was quite excited… .I literally ran toward it and when I jumped it I was shocked to feel how cold it is. Is this Africa or what? But it was a beautiful beach, surrounded by jungle mountains.. pay day was the night before so there were massive parties on the beach, drunk south Africans running around and dancing in the water, so it was tough to make it a peaceful day. We woke up at 5am the next morning just to see if it was a bit less crowded, only to find out that it was a special party that went from 6pm Friday night to Sunday night… 72 hours of straight African shenanigans I guess. At 6am though it was quite the scene, they were having some sort of baptism ceremony, with about 25 people decked out in ceremonial clothing, then in the background was reggae music, people running around drunk from the night before and then me, the Canadian, sitting just watching the whole thing. Very strange site, but cool. Pictures on facebook.

After my trip to Port St. Johns, I finished off some work at Baylor, mostly writing some reports and helping with the camp.

For Christmas, I did a big tour of South Africa over a weeks time so it was quite jam-packed. I made the trip down with a few of the doctors from work, some of whom I've gotten to know quite well the last five months.
We first headed to Jeffery’s Bay, which is home to Supertubes, supposedly the best surfing in the world. We actually got to watch professional surfers tackle these waves as dolphins competed for the same spot. This actually happens! and we were all pretty excited. The town itself is very wealthy and beautiful and is flooded with people during Christmas time.
Christmas day was nice.. but very laid back and it only occurred to me once that it was actually Christmas day… I guess when youre not at home you can kind of forget about it.. We spent the next few days hanging around. The crew of doctors and I just mostly hung out at the beach, ate a lot and played cards. I think we just needed to rest from Lesotho.
Lindy, one of the Baylor PAC docs and I parted ways from there and drove the garden route along to Cape Town. Its this seaside highway along the coast… we heard it was supposed to be spectacular but in the end, it was mostly just inland and we didnt get to see much. South africa... is actually an extremely beautiful place.. for the brief minutes we did see the ocean.. it was awesome and then it would turn into these massive forests and mountains.

We split the driving trip and stopped at this place called Knysna.... it was a pretty neat place... an old English town built on this bay with these huge bluffs... It was actually extremely interesting to see because it really defined what race is still like here in south africa. Every black person you see is either poor or works as a janitor; the whites walk around like they own the place.. because they do... the entire place is still completely apartheid. The coast was beautiful anyway, looking out to the rugged Indian/Atlantic... and thinking... i can almost see Antarctica from here.

Cape town came upon us in a foggy san francisco kind of way... and i was like... shit this place sucks. We got lost for an hour, but when we settled into our ubber posh hotel we started thinking everything was going to be alright.. The rest of the Baylor crew arrived from Mozambique that night and we all settled in, excited for our day ahead of us: shark diving.

We had to wake up at some ungodly hour, but as the sun came out the next morning I could tell why everyone thinks Cape Town is the most beautiful city in the world. Its tropical but cold... poor but modern... dutch buildings everywhere, mountains coming out of no where. We drove 3 hours to this place on the coast and hopped on a boat with about 30 other people. The captain of the boat circled around, using his expertise to find the great whites and then threw in some fish guts that drove the sharks towards us. He proceeded to tell us to jump into the metal cage so we could see them up close. It was pretty neat. They would put the fish right in front of your face and have the great white ram at the damn cage. Cue the jaws theme.

The next day we did some touring around town, and then some paragliding. We climbed up a moutnain and sailed off...a great town to just sail over. New years eve followed and it was a complete blast. We went out to a really nice dinner (the rand has dropped from 7R to 1$ to 11R to 1$ so everything feels ridiculously cheap and its wonderful). I did feel very special being on the other side of the world… remembering everything that happened last year and picturing myself in the US on the same date and never thinking I would be where I was a year from now. It was nice to think because I’m sure it could be the same way next year.

The trip was cut short because I had to make my way back to Lestustu for Camp ‘Mamohato, so in all I got a lot of driving in and saw lots of stuff but was just too short. The drive back went quikcly. I actually picked up a hitch hiker who provided some entertainment. He explained South african boer culture to me as he preached the bible and downed a 2L bottle of fanta. My boss then yelled at me for picking up a hitch hiker and I guess that is the end of that.

So since the new year: I’ve spent the majority of it at Camp ‘Mamohato, a kids camp for patients with HIV. Its basically there so the kids can have a fun week and learn stuff about their disease along the way. It’s a trial version of a Hole in the Wall camp, which was founded by Paul Newman and works with kids with terminal illnesses. At the camp the goal is to improve their outlook on life, their adherence to their medication and to provide them with an HIV community where the stigma of the disease doesnt effect them. You can imagine living a lie you’re whole life, afraid to tell your friends you have HIV. The idea of the camp is actually wonderful. I was supposed to just observe and plan but they ended up asking me if I wanted to partake as a counselor. It was really fun but exhausting, up at 5am and in bed by 930… every hour with the kids, if they wanted to go to the bathroom, we had to go with them.. They had to be in your site at all times, which is weird because kids take taxis by themselves all the time in the city and you always see a four year old running around, half nake with no shoes in town.

It was hard because I don’t speak much Sesotho so everything had to be translated, but I got to see a lot and the kids became more than just a patient but a real person. And they opened up and became happier every day. It was great and it was a nice change from being in the office the past few months. And plus I was mr. popular simply cause i was white. A nice change as well.

This last week was exhausting.. mostly just trying to write some reports and start up some new projects. I’m waiting to see where my next HIV testing event will be held and trying to take the key hold garden project to outreach spots and make it bigger.

I’ve got my mid year retreat for Princeton in Africa this coming week. Normally its in somewhere cool like Kenya or Cape Town but they are having it in this small town in the north of south Africa that I just happened to have already been. But afterwards I’m bringing my little Lesotho car to Mozambique, which is supposed to be a bit more “african” then where I am now… less infrastructure, more dangerous, tropical, beaches, and seafood! I’m also currently applying for fellowships and waiting for some interviews, mostly public health stuff in New york and DC as well as some children’s foundations in India, Nepal and Vietnam. Will keep you posted!

-Stu

Butha Buthe Children's HIV Testing Event

This past week really sucked. Period. Three months of work had come down to a week of hectic planning in order to make my Children's HIV testing event a success. So here friends, is the story of the last couple of days and the agony it has caused me.

Let me start with the Wednesday before the event. I finally met with Standard Lesotho Bank and get a big check for 10000R for the event. It was two days before the event and I was still balancing large finances so it was quite frustrating. Talk about down to the wire. 10000R is only 1000$ but that goes a long way in Africa. But, anyway it worked out and was happy for that bit of good news. Little did I know that everything was about to get a lot worse.

Thursday: arrived at Baylor and the guy who is to transport some of the larger equipment arrives early. I kind of use him as my chauffer, and we drive around the city to get a bounce castle, lumber, brochures from the ministry of health, a generator and a stop off at the hospital for some information. So he was pissed off at me for using him, so I told him to scram and come get me later that day. I realized that I didnt have enough toys for the event, so I drive to South Africa... thankfully the border was fine and go on a shopping spree there. Thankfully that didnt take too long (yes I'm complaining about buying toys here). I arrive back at the Baylor centre and me and my chauffer pack up all the equipment for the event... 500 HIV test kits, lumber, everything. Tsakatsi, one of the Mosotho guys I was working with and probably the only one that cares about helping people with HIV calls me up and tells me that we need to pick up the toilets from the DA's office, because shocking... they wont transport them despite the fact they said they would. Anyway, we unpack the entire car and they drive up to get the toilets. Meanwhile, I stay behind to finish off some stuff. We drive up and dump the toilets off at the doctors house (imagine a few large port-o-potties sitting in your front yard, not that nice of me but i was desperate). I decide that its a good idea to leave the toilets there because its raining and I head back to Maseru. I get a message that the shirts have been delayed until 11pm, so I think this is fine, I'll just pick them up when I get back. 2 hours later I'm at Baylor finishing off some things. I get a call and the shirts are again delayed. More work and packing up things. 3am rolls around and the shirts are still not done and I am tired so I take a nap.

So after 2o minutes of sleep I was awaken by the german t-shirt guy on the other line. "Zee shirts are done". Of course I had no idea who this was and had to quickly realize that I needed to drive back to Butha Buthe as soon as possible. I told him I would be there in 15 minutes and whisked off to the place. I got there to a grumpy German couple. They showed me to the garage they kept the shirts and I quickly pounced on them. They were still hot from the press and I stripped down and put one on before heading back to Baylor. I call Tsakatsi and told him I had the shirts. He needed me to wait for him so he directed me back to Baylor, where I sat there waiting as the sun came up, knowing that I should be using this time to be sleeping or driving, not waiting around. Tsakatsi pulled up on his motor bike and we sped off to Butha Buthe, two hours away. The drive was pretty painful, hoping that I wasnt going to fall asleep on the ride up, hoping that Tsakatsi wasnt going to sleep either and crash infront of me and wishing to the gods that the event would go smoothly . We arrived at the hospital not long after 7am and parted ways. I went to the District Administrators office, where a day earlier he had promised to rally up 30 offices worth of cars in order to transport the volunteers. Of course when I arrived, he wasnt there. The bitch. And when I enquired where the transporation was, I was pointed to a small truck. Thanks a lot. Anyway, there was too much to worry about so I jumped back to the hospital and explained that hopefully more cars would come and pick up volunteers but I had to do other stuff. I arrived at Megan's house and piled up the required equipment... a port-a-potty in her lawn, a bounce castle, testing equipment, etc. I couldnt store it anywhere else simply because the school had been locked the day before and they didnt want us disrupting beforehand. Anyway, we tied all this stuff to the car and prepared for the bumpy trip to the event site. Of course the port-a-potty slips in its position and starts to topple over. Megan starts honking her horn at me, her following behind in my sedan. I of course think she's telling me to step on it... so the thing just about falls off till I realize whats going on. John (he works at Baylor with me and is helping out) and I jump out and he fashions a tighter hold to it using an extension cord. All the while I'm thinking: "THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE", fearing a port-o-potty spilling across the highway, no transport available for the volunteers, and being unable to get the event going, all with having driven over 6 hours that day and having slept twenty minutes. John tried to comfort me, but I was still pessimistic. Anyway, we manage to secure the thing and we head off to the event. The day before, of course, it had rained, and the event is literally the most rural place I have ever been. The school is on top of a mountain and that road to that mountain is ridiculous. I spun out my tires and almost ended up in a creek and that was before we even tried the ascent. We go straight up this hill, rocks falling everywhere, and somehow we get up there. Of course when I pull into the grassy hill, I get stuck. The kids at the school notice that there's a white guy in a large van with a bouncy castle and a toilet and they all come running. The car does not move. For fifteen minutes I am spinning these wheels with 400 African children staring at me. I stopped. "This is going to be a bad day"... now I can't even make it to the event site! I ran off to find help and managed to gather up all the materials.... and by "managed to gather" I mean told the kids at the event to carry up as much as they could, so it was a stream of little worker dwarfs trying to do this. Meanwhile, the DA of course cuts his promise short and delivers three cars and the gas was inadequate for the generator used for the PA system (did I mention that this school had no electricity?), so I speed back and gather up some gas (they dont sell gas cans in lesotho, I had to empty out water bottles) and talk with the volunteers. We hire a combi to take all of them, but of course it takes forever to come. So I pile in as many volunteers I can from town and we come back. I arrive back at the event an hour and a half later (I'm trying to paint how rural this event is... imagine the smallest town in Northerne Lesotho and then drive another 30 minutes straight up a mountain and that would be it... I'm pretty sure I was the first white person to see this place). I had told Megan to basically run the show... make sure that things were being set up. And when I arrived. Things were going well. Tents were up, the DA and his office, all the sponsors, counsellors, testors, children, chiefts, etc. were there. Somehow this place exploded to 2000 people, all running around. It was a success!


I saw a glimpse of hope and things started getting underway. An officer from the National Aids Commission steps in and we start to organize the opening addresses. John sets up all the equipment and then the MC who didnt show up to the event was miraculously replaced by someone. I guess the positive thinking worked out because all of a sudden the speeches were made, people were listening, dancing and singing went underway and the kids were playing their games, and people were lining up in droves to test for HIV. I'm not sure how to describe how the crowds were, but it was crazy. I pull out a balloon to hand to a kid, and literally I was trampled by hundreds of little hands and feet to grab at it. Good thing I didnt have a doll or anything or I would have been killed. It was tough because there were so many kids who clearly never got toys and we were trying to give them out and entertain them and they were mostly interested in getting as much as they could. I mean... if i were eight, I'd be in the same boat.

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that basically it did feel like a bad ass to have an event, for a people you dont speak the language, on top of a mountain all organized by myself. I was very much pleased with the turn out and in fact, the idea of the event was quite original. Normally we do soccer events, but those often draw older kids... here we were able to get a few younger ones that I think will really be affected by the way in which we ran things. During the event I was running around trying to fix things and make sure things ran smoothly. Lets just say I've emotionally blacked out the event. There were so many people screaming at me, people demanding money, fixing problems that I'd rather not relive those hours.

Ok, and now for the rants:
So what happens at these events is that you give out t-shirts to people who test for HIV and who help out with the event. We had the shirts stored in a room so people couldnt get their grubby hands on them, but what happened was when I left any person who thought they deserved one, snuck in there and took one. The testers from the NGOs and hospitals took stacks of these things right from under my nose and gave them away to their friends. I found a woman passing out shirts from one of the testing tents. She gave two to a guy just sitting there. "What are you doing!?" I screamed at her. And I grabbed the shirts from the man. "What in god's name do you think gives you the right to take shirts away from people who are testing for HIV? Why do you have two?" ... "Well this one is for my driver." I felt like punching him. I felt like punching everyone. People would ask me literally every 5 minutes for a shirt, and we had run out. The event was several hours long so I apologized a hundred times. People hounded me all day, for a dumb shirt. I pulled the t-shirt off my back twice and was half naked during the event because people were being so demanding. And so here is my two cents: THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOUR COUNTRY, LESOTHO. YOU ALL CARE ABOUT A DUMB SHIRT RATHER THAN THE F****NG HIV/AIDS PROBLEM THAT IS KILLING YOU.

Sooooooooooooooooo.... the whole day was a success, but in between was a disaster. Even afterward, we couldnt get the kids to leave because they were having a great time, just dancing around and playing games. However, I did scream at literally everyone there.. little kids, old grandmothers. I hope to never see any of those people again, especially the government I worked with. Speaking of government: so because I was dealing with thousands of dollars and had no help in planning whatsoever from Baylor, I was juggling the budget to see what we could a lot. The day was supposed to be on Saturday the 22nd. We asked the District Administrator to attend. He told us that he would provide transport if we could switch the day to a Friday. Great we thought. We have a huge organizing committee that needs to get up there as well as over a hundred volunteers that need to get 30 minutes away from town on top of a mountain. So we changed the date and he promised us to release the vehicles from thirty departments that we could use. The day arrived. He provided 1 car that could fit 4 people. Two hours later, he provided 2 more cars.
So that's wonderful, you clearly can't add and are rude enough to be late about it. So I had to spend my own money to rent out some taxis to transport the volunteers, who by the way, since they were late, did nothing but complain. Then we asked him to provide transport back, which he didnt so I had to pay for that myself. At the event, he brought his entourage of like 50 people, all of whom took a shirt, and then ate all the food, and left the rural Basotho people who came to test for HIV with nothing. WOW. GREAT JOB. Way to steal all the food and t-shirts and do NOTHING for your community and have a 22 year old from Canada pay for your complete incompitence. ASS.

Oh and now for my rant about Baylor. If you're reading from work, stop.
Each event gets 10000R for a testing event. For some reason Baylor puts it on itself to spend 6000R to "help Stuart", which means paying all that money to drive up half of the Baylor staff to see the event. Of course, I didnt get to use this transport for the volunteers and had to dish out 1000R for them. Then at the event all anyone did was eat the food and scream at me for not getting a dumb t-shirt. And then they left early, before the event ended so I couldnt use the transport back for the volunteers as well. Then the financial director tells me I'm 4000R over budget. Well, no. You spent 6000R on something that was completely useless, frustrating and disheartening to all the hard work I did. So not even my work is helping me out. Sometimes this place just sucks.

Okay, i warned you that this would be a rant. What I have been up to since finishing:

Well because I completely neglected the rest of my life, I spent the weekend resting and cleaning and generally enjoying the days off. This week has started the intense camper recruitment for the patients from Mafetang, in Southern Lesotho. I had been doing this the last two months, but the problem is that these kids are hard to find, lots have defaulted from their HIV treatment, have no phone numbers or addresses and just dont come to the hospital. So me, a counselor, a nurse and an expert patient have been driving out to find these kids. Yesterday we were able to get four extra... its actually kind of hard. We arrive at one place and the kid is at school (which is good I guess) but the mother is not there... she's at a funeral for a week. Or we arrive at another home, and the mother isnt there either. She lives in South Africa and only comes home for holidays to see her kids. We ask the older sister to sign for the kid. Its been actually kind of fun driving around and getting to know the nurses... theyre really fun and they appreciate when I sing along to the radio, give high fives when we find the kids, or when I tell them about America. Today the car broke down due to an overheating engine and the whole bottom of the car fell out from underneath from driving on the rough roads so they were all trying to be supportive in my cursing ways. Lets just say they learned some new words. We're a real team and it'll be over soon. But as I was saying its really interesting to find these kids. We find out where they live. Then drive up some road. Then we scream out the window to see if the people walking around know them. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. When they don't, they direct us to the local chief. The local chief either knows, directs us to a house that can direct us, or directs us to another chief. Its all kind of inefficient, but the system actually works. One that I did want to mention was when we went to the chief to seek out this one girl. The chief called me lazy, so we decided all trek to the house together and see if we could find this girl. We found the aunt at the house and started talking to her. What had happened is that the girl stopped taking her medication because her mother told her to, even though she wanted to keep on it. She couldnt come to camp because a requirement is that you have to be on medication to go, but we wanted to stick around and see what was up. The chief starts screaming outside and finally the mom arrives. Turns out the mom had to decide about taking care of her sickly mother or her kid, and the grandma. The kid then comes walking in, and we all sit there, as Sesotho is thrown back and forth, telling this woman that the kid will die unless she makes time to get her medication. Its so sad to think that a mother would do this, but honestly its so hard to put myself in her shoes. She just sat there and let four grown women yell at her about her kid and she knew she couldnt do much to help... this is how poor these people are... they cant afford to walk to the clinic because they dont have the resources to take away from working their houses and transport costs too much... and people just dont know how bad HIV can get because the kid looks healthy when they are on medication. Anyway, the story had a happy ending because this morning we found the women in the line-up to reinitiate her daugther on treatment. Sometimes yelling works. Another few: We arrived at one house and the boy said he didnt want to go: he was going to initiation school. This is a six month long retreat in the mountains in preparation for his circumcision. He will not being taking his medication. He will get pretty sick during this time but hopefully he'll be sick enough to realize that he needs to take his medication for the rest of his life. Another one: her uncle kidnapped her from her aunt and is in Jo'burg. She has Stage Four HIV (full-blown AIDS) and the family is almost certain she is dead. Although I think I'm helping, camp may be the least of these kids worries.

ok, enough of an update. hope everyone is well, sorry for sounding jaded.
love,
stu

November thus far...

So in order to maximize my time in the most Princeton of ways, I'm typing away as we drive up in our four wheel drive, laptop in hand, heading back to Semonkong in an attempt to escape the certainty of a banal Maseru weekend. There’s four of us in the car, all wearing our sunglasses, basting American music, me with a lap-top and as we look out the window we see the sights of a poor African country. Funny how easily one can encapsulate yourself from the world.

Anyway, as I said we’re on our way back to Semonkong. I’m not sure I’ll partake in all the activities but it’s a nice escape from Maseru and a nice break from all the work that I have. Hopefully I can take a mental break. Speaking of work, the weeks and weeks that I have been spending here in Africa are finally accumulating in a massive HIV testing event this Friday. In actual fact, I’m extremely nervous how this thing is going to go. I’m juggling government requests, sponsorship funds and testing protocols all while trying to make this event attractive to young Basotho so that they will test for HIV. I’m still waiting to hear back for some donations and we’ll lets just say I cant wait till this thing is over. For example, yesterday at 4:30 I learned that the event t-shirts would be an extra 10000R which clearly wasn’t in the budget… so after some praying (Help me Je-bus), begging and speeding through the town, I cancelled my order, found a new place and things are back on track. All within 2 hours on a Friday evening, in a place where you are lucky if you can get anything done on a day so close to the weekend.

Last weekend was quite exciting. Let me start with Friday.. Friday was the date of my Key Hole Garden project at the Baylor Centre. Long story short, I had met with the WFP a couple of months ago and they lamented there wasn’t much I could do for the patients at Baylor who would be soon removed from WFP aid. WFP aid is a bit strange, in an attempt to get people off the programme, they start to wean them off at nine months. The requirement for food aid itself is that you have to be poor, unable to feed yourself, AND have a kid that has HIV. Only those people will get food packages, and after nine months, youre off the porrogramme even though you STILL are poor, hungry and have a kid that is sick. So the project was intended to choose some of the patient families at Baylor and teach them how to garden. A big project that World Vision and CRS (Catholic Relief Services) is trying to push here is this key hole garden thing. Basically the soil in Lesotho is crap. Its very hard to grow stuff here so you make these above ground things and put anything you can in them to make them more nutritiuous and fertile. Chicken bones, aloe leaves, fertilizer, ash, the list goes on in this gardening concoction. But basically its really cool and pretty. We had been meeting for a couple of weeks in order to organize the thing, get proper training, equipment, etc. Eventually we decided to just “pay someone on the street” to go out into the bush and find us all the stuff. So that’s what I did. Handed off like ten bucks here and there and got people from the community to gather up all the required ingredients. Thats what I call delegating.

The even itself was actually amazing. It was so cool to finally be apart of something here in Africa. I got down and dirty with about fiftteen Basotho in an attempt to learning how to make themselves more self sustainable. The thing that shocked me the most is that these Basotho were no spring chickens. We had 60 year old women lifting heavy rocks and shoveling manure. And everyone really came together, there was kind of an unspoken code between everyone to chip in and learn how to do this thing. We even handed out some forms at the end so I can assess the project and do some monitoring and evaluation on the project to see if it worked out. Like I said World vision and CRS are trying to push these things. They later told me that they were going to basically do the same sort of events that I as doing that day. Kind of cool to think: me implementing a project before these two big shots and doing it successfully. Let say I was very happy with myself. The proeject itself really didn’t run all that smoothly... It involved people running all over the town gathering emergency equipment but in the end we produced this beaufiful garden that one day will grow some delicious vegetables. The funny thing about the whole project is that the workers at Baylor all came together to put this thing together. At the end they were all like, well what are you going to give me for all my work? Surprized because I thought they were just doing this because it was in their job description, I bought them a couple of gifts and and took them out to lunch. So I guess you have to play the game in order to get stuff done here in lseotho

The day after, relieved that I had been finished this project, I had to head up north in order to host a quasi emergency volunteer meeting for my testing event. The whole drive up I was so nervous, having to work my fourth weekend in a row and just genereally being exhausted. But my worries were not all that founded. The meeting actually went really well.

I arrived at this centre where we decided to host the gathering and the centre actually was for mentally disabled kids. I parked my car at the camp grounds and as soon as I walked out, I heard screams of “Lekhooa!” “White person!”. And twenty kids run towards me like a swarm of bees. One kid takes a running leap and lands in my arms. He starts giggling and then everyone erupts in laughter, with me the white guy in the centre and a ring formed around me. I start lifting the kids up, all of them just excited by my presence. High fives were exchanged, with everyone wanting an exchange with me. And then hugs were determined to be the next cool thing to do. So after laughing with and hugging these kids I managed to escape for the meeting. I walked in, and about 60 sets of eyes set on me. I’m shaggily dressed, I’m introduced as Dr. Malcolm and I walk up and start dictating what I want from these people. I have no idea what I’m doing, I grab a boy and have him translate for me, but all in all, everyone starts to slowly get excited about the HIV testing event. I gathered the names and contact information and I pull aside everyone to explain each and everyone’s role for the event. I left feeling pretty proud to have gotten what I wanted actually. I snuck outside of the meeting, to have the kids from the centre sawrm me again and circle my car as I tried to leave. I guess sometimes there is a benefit to being different here in Africa. I was pretty relieved to be done with work that week and rushed down to Maseru in order to enjoy the rest of my weekend.

I went to an expat party that night. Nothing much to report on that one. I’ve become quite bored with this scene, seeing all the same people night in and night out, so instead I sneaked myself into the African half of the party (the parties seem to separate themselves in two, the expats and then the Basotho on the other side). I managed to meet a couple of really neat guys, trying to teach me how speak Sesotho and telling me more about there culture. I met with a guy who had been living with HIV for seven years. Its hard to think about “living” with the disease sometimes when you work at Baylor. We have the drugs, you take them. Its that simple sometimes to think, but there's so much more than that. I sat and listened to his story about the depression and daily tasks he had to complete just to make sure that he was both physically and mentally fit to live with the disease.


So apart from that last weekend I have been working furiously. With moments of complete frustration, to times where things seem to come together and just work out. For example, for this testing event I have ordered 500 testing kits. There is a massive shortage in the country. I need five hundred of these things. Not sure how that’s going to work a testing event with no testing taking place, but I’m hoping the country gets its act together and we can have some of the resources together. By the next three days.

The other big news of course from last week is the American election and what I will congratulate my princetonian friends with a job well done in electing the right man. So how was the election perceived here in Africa?

First lets just say everyone here is excited. The night before the election, the US Ambassador had a party at his house to “celebrate democracy”. I felt a bit of a guilt sneaking myself into the thing, being Canadian and all, but I do feel like I am owed some sort of participation in this election, one being a citizen of this global world and two having spent so much of my time with Americans and living in the US for so long. The party was interesting, with a clear siding of Obama at the place. There were literally a thousand people at this event, with all the big shots involved. The director of the hospital introduced me to the ambassador, who “thanked me for my service here in Lesotho”, which felt a bit strange, especially working amoung side the Baylor doctors here who “make BIPAI the best NGO here in Lesotho” according to the ambassador. Anyway, next she introduced me to the Minister of health. The woman, who was small in stature and quite happy to meet me noticed the pen in my ear, which I have been accustomed to sporting... always needing it on the road. “Look at thjis boy! A pen in his ear, always ready to help Lesotho!” And then she grabbed my wrist and took me into a big hug. So it was nice to have met some of these poele who seem to be generally happy to have so many Americans here to help out, although at times it feels like nothing much can be done. Anyway, back to the electrion. The party really didn’t have any results from back in the US, which is why I think a lot of people showed up , se we decided to leave early and get back home so we could connect to the internet and see some of the action live. Since we are about seven hours ahead of new york here in maseru, we couldn't really hear all that much so we decided to get to bed early and try to wake up early the next moring to hear the results. We woke up at six and had a big breakfast together, just in time to catch the end of obama’s acceptance speech. We arrived late to work that day, to a buzz at the clinic. Kathy the clinic director and my boss, was wearing her Obama 08 shirt. The administrators conducted the morning prayer and then translated the results to the waiting pateints. They all roared with excitetment. Kathy then jumps up and cries, “Yes we can!” and the whole of the hospital starts clapping and roaring. So even in Lesotho, doctors, patients, everyone, is exited for this change.

That day at work while emailing and finishing up some documents, I was online, talking to everyone back in America. Ted had been up since that moring in Thailand and had been celebrating with his boss. Princeton was jumping with excitement. And back home in Canada everyone was relieved. And now they have paved a road to Obama’s grandmother's house in Kenya and the day has been declared a national holday there. Although I really wished I could have been in the US for this day, it truly was an worldwide event.

So this has the been the last week so let me fill everyone in quickly on what I’ve been doing before hand. Last Sunday, in a feeling that I had not been seeing much of Lesotho, I headed up to Qilane falls, which is about an hour and a half drive from Maseru. The drive was absolutely ridiculous. Straight up a mountain, hairpin turns, it was definitely exciting and we were lucky for the car to have made it up there. But the trip was awesome, I went with three brits who were quite entertaining. The hike was long, four hours in lenght, with a dark grey cloud following us the entire time but we managed to evade it. On the way back we trailed though a river bed, so it was all very different in landscape. That day started the six days in a row of thunder and rainstorms here. I’ve never seen so much lightening before in my life. And just a word to the reader: J. R. R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein , RSA so Lesotho, with its mountains and storms and lightning is often accredited with the inspiration of Mordor. I’m living in Mordor!

Anyway, the Sunday before that I was able to partake in the Maseru hash house harriers. Which prior to going to the event had no idea what it was about. Turns out that its like a huge igternational movement. It involves mostly running aournd, finding the correct path and then drinking beer at the half way point. The crew was a huge mix of people, sixty year old expats to 12 year old Basotho. So it was really neat actually. The trail wasn’t too interesting but it was nice to get out and see a bit more of the hills of Lesotho. Plus I learned about this whole international HHH thingy… supposedly theyre all over the world. The hashers, as they are called, in Maseru were wearing shirts from Laos, Cambodia, Bahamas, Zambia, Sudan.. its crazy and fun and I'll definitely try to get back to it.

Teen club is going really well although Its been taking so much of my time. Two weekends ago we had a whole bunch of heatlh educators come in. I felt bad for the kids having to sit there for so many hours just listening to people talk about how to brush your teeth, but its definitely information that needs to be spread. We hope to do a Sexual and Reproductive Health day as well, because despite the fact that some of these kids are stunted fifteen year olds, they are already having sex. Mike at the Malawi Coe said hes going to try to push this as well, so hopeflully we can get some headway on that.

I’m going to leave this blog with my thoughts in working for an NGO, really having no experience and trying to land on my feet in dealing with such sensitive issues. A couple of weeks ago, I was starting to get worried about sponsorship for my testing event… So I called up a local NGO to see if they could help out. I rushed over there at 3pm a couple of Fridays ago and met with one of the directors. He was kind of a jerk, yelling on the phone with some local partners that I had been working with, not really giving me the time of day. So I took a big breath and tried to put on my most sophisticated, hot shot talk on. I don’t know what happened but I started listing out all this HIV information and all these demands came to mind and I actually didn’t sound like a twenty year old but a real NGO projessional. Next, I thought maybe he knew a friend of mine so I dropped her name somewhere in the conversation and then, I noticed he had a French accent and we conducted the rest of the meeting in Frecnh. So the meeting turned from him not being all the interested in my testing event, to being as cunning and maniupluative as I could with connections and skills and basically, bs, to get what I wanted. It felt pretty good at the end when I got a large dollar donation for my event and I drove off quite happy. The other examples of this definitely have to be the respect I get from being white in this country. When people see me walk in with nice shoes and a nice shirt and the fact that I’m representing BIPAI every one addresses me as Dr. Malcolm. I met this terrible person from Idaho at this meeting last week as well. Explanation below:

Letsema is an organization that is trying to link up large and small ngos with eachother so we can all collaborate information and basically serve Lesotho better, the target is orphans and vulnerable children, so HIV plays a big part there. Anyway the group is awesome because it connects information and allows us not to do double work. Anyway, at this meeting it was pretty cool because I got to represent Baylor, and we pretty much rule here. I got to field questions and actually give input to the whole thing. Anyway, back to the terrible person. He being white is totally taking advantage of it. He lives about an hour outside of the city and is helping deliver babies, despite only having a “business degree” and 21 years of age. He wants to go into medical school, so I have no idea why its so necessary that he deliver babies now, especially because he’ll get that chance in the future. Anyway, at the meeting I got mad at him basically because these Basotho women are only allowing him to help deliver their babies because he’s white and of course he’s not saying anything about not being a doctor. So I guess I just wanted to finish up with saying that coming to Lesotho I have gotten a lot of responsibility where it is not owed. I’m slowly learning how the aid world works in this country and doing my best to help out, but at the same time trying to remain as ethical as possible.

The future will see my testing event so please wish me luck, I need it. Power of positive thinking people. After that will be a big focus on the HIV camp and then some traveling. Hope all is weel with everyone, will try to update this as much as possible.

Sala Hantle (stay well)

STU

Kruger, Work, Guns, and More

Again, swamped by work, adventures and lack of internet, I've been unable to be as eager as wanted but here's another post.

These past few weeks have been consumed with the testing event that I'm organizing. The first meeting was a disaster: I asked just about everyone in the district involved with HIV to help me with the event, and these professionals seemed like they had no desire in helping and had no idea what was going on. There were literally points during the meeting when there was 10 minutes of silence. Thankfully, awkwardness can be blamed on being foreign and I was able to find a couple of interested people with the Ministry of Health and we're slowly getting together and helping to get this thing going. Its hard because I've really come to encounter the African work ethic. Things take a long time here, I understand that. But the problem is that everyone shows up late. I hosted a meeting this last week at 10am... 1 person arrived on time, but 20 others came in by 11. I understand work ethic culture, but showing up late is rude, especially with a culture obsessed with politeness, where entire conversations can be made in Sesotho just saying "Mr" and "Hello", in a competition between the politest tones. Anyway, I'm running the event and its a lot of work but I'll keep the updates coming. The other work this is that the final list for the kids coming to Camp Mamohato (the HIV camp this january) has been made (finally). I've been driving all around the capital and then out to Mafetang to get the list finalized. The problem is that the infrastructure is so bad. Normally, if you had a patient you'd just call them up but half the kids have no contact information to give and lots of them miss appointments. The patients in Mafetang have been really difficult. There are no books or systems recording the kids there, and when I visited on Monday to ask, a fourteen year old girl had died in the last few days. I guess that's not something that regular camp has to worry about, the campers dying before they get a chance to go. The brightside is that at least this camp will make a difference. Accounts from last year tell of kids who would never take their medicine, to kids completely transformed, happy and ready to beat HIV.

Now for the fun stuff:
Two weekends ago the Baylor docs and I went to the Morija Arts and Cultural Festival, which is 45 minutes outside of Maseru. This is the big event... basically in all of Lesotho. Its lots of shops and singers from Lesotho but really it felt pretty shady and haphazardly thrown together. We drove past the hustle and bustle of Maseru through the dry roads to Morija and we arrived to find plenty of people staring us down. I think they didnt expect to see many Americans at this thing but it ended up being pretty fun. As we entered the event, hundreds of vendors shouted to come to their stalls, which all sold meat on a stick, so we weren't entirely too excited about it. We got to the centre grounds and we stopped off at a art stall, which actually only sold things from Swaziland, but everything was dirt cheap and beautiful. The festival was at this old camp grounds area and it was the weirdest experience, the feeling was definitely a bit southern American with an African twist. Unfortunately most of the Basotho there were pretty drunk but they provided entertainment as they rocked out to the music, with using their billowing Basotho blankets to further express their enjoyment of the event. We had a great time just walking around, getting in the sites and being yelled at constantly to come eat some meat on a stick from about fifty people. God, I don't want some damn meat on a stick!

We left the festival early. I learned from several expats that the party gets going at 12 midnight and goes on till six am, but I had fun before the real action started. Oh crazy Africa. The weekend after that I was able to get up to Kruger National Park. I went up with Baylor's visiting scholars, who were pushing to get there because they're on a rotating schedule and only get to be in Lesotho for a month each. So it was Dan (4th year med school student), Nina (fourth year resident in med peds) and Sachin (also a fourth year resident, and also Princeton '01). The drive up went relatively smoothly, nine hours north, and we decided to go to Crocidle bridge, which is the southern and eastern most part of the park, literally 10 minutes from the Mozambique border. The border getting out of Lesotho was ridiculous, which postponed our trip for an hour and 45 minutes. They had one person serving a line-up of 200 people. And each person took 5 minutes to interrogate. Even 10 year olds were taking forever to get the visa stamp, I have no idea why, I think 10 year olds in Africa have better things to do than to smuggle drugs. It seems like the most frustrating part of Lesotho is the bureaucratic standstill that always seems to happen with everything: health, building construction.. the border. After waiting for an hour in one line we were moved to another and waited again. We were happy to say goodbye to Lesotho.

The drive up was beautiful and one thing that I really do love about South Africa is that the countryside changes a lot. North of Johannesburg it becomes much more tropical and lush and a nice change from the Iowa looking south.

We arrived in Kruger around 6pm and got to the house we rented. It was absolutely beautiful. Less than 200$ total for the weekend, and for a massive beautiful house (read: the bar was in the bedroom. wow). Since arriving the South African rand has fallen a lot... from 7R for a buck american to 10 R. So I'm actually really enjoying that aspect of Africa. Anyway, we arrived too late to enjoy the park on the Friday, so we booked a safari guide to bring us around the park. It was really nice because we were in this big open vehicle and the guide would tell us all about the animals and their social behaviors. So we woke up at 415 in order to see them during their prime eating time... It was freezing cold but literally we drove into a pack of zebras and giraffes, just in the first five minutes. The tour was long... 10 hours during the day but we saw lots...rhinos, packs of elephants, even a pair of lions (which arent all that exciting because they sleep 20 hours a day) but it was amazing and we definitely got to see a lot of the park. We were actually pretty exhausted from the day, so we did a quick night tour as our final farewell to Kruger. The tour was actually hilarious.... with the guide this time saying: "This is a zebra. It has stripes". We slept in the next morning after a long day and drove back to Maseru.

On the way we decided to take a different route back home and got to go through Swaziland. Swaziland is basically the opposite of Lesotho... its lush and well... beautiful in a tropical sort of way. We got to weave through the high mountains as we made the quick detour but on the way, we read about the history of the place. Basically its the last absolute monarchy in the world. The King has officially banned political parties and well... 40% of the population has HIV. So despite it being a beautiful place.. .I'm not too sure if I'd want to live there. Woot woot Lesotho!

So the trip back wasnt all too exciting but after an intense safari and 18 hours of driving during the weekend, i was ready to unwind. Unfortunately that wasnt in the cards. I was driving back home after dropping off one of the travellers and was continuing down a winding road... I heard a strange whistle from someone behind me. I attributed it to nothing and countinued on to a pack of men and a couple of cars, warning lights flashing. I decided perhaps this was a sticky situation so I stopped and tried to reverse but someone runs up beside the car with a gun in hand. I'm in Africa, its dark, I'm a prissy white ivy leaguer and a man is running up to my car with a gun... Wasnt too happy about that combination. I'm pretty sure I said: "he's got a f***ing gun" about twenty times... the passengers told me to shut up and remain calm. The man came up and acted coy and didnt say much. I thought he was just stalling, waiting till I gave him money. I was about to reach for my walet (again... probably not a good idea) but then another gun weilding man ran up. He yelled at us: "You, take your car and park over there". Of course he had a gun so he was boss and I did what he said. A third gun man ran up and told us: "We are the police. There has been a carjacking recently. Get out of here". Of course he didnt have to repeat that for me to get out of that situation so I stepped on it and wheeled off. The whole situation really frightened me because it was just so confusing. Either they were lying and I was lucky, or they were the police.. perhaps undercover because they werent wearing any uniforms and had no police cars. But the fact that someone had just been carjacked 15 minutes earlier wasnt a nice thought either. Either way, after being yelled at by a gun man and thinking I was about to get robbed, I got a reality check that I was in Africa. I've been informed of all the bad areas of the city and have been directed to plow down anyone in my way. With pleasure. Windows up and doors locked at all times, despite the fact that Lesotho is now becoming a hot african country. Hopefully I'll continue to be lucky.. woot woot not so much Lesotho.

Anyway the trip was great despite the little incident and speaking of Swaziland, this week Smita, Sachin and I had a dinner party with some of Smita's Swazi friends. It was actually a really interesting and hilarious experience. The topic of conversation? American politics. It was actually really interesting to hear their thoughts about what was going on and they seemed much more informed than me actually.... joking about the possibilty of Sarah Palin becoming president. And them "knowing Obama" because "he was one of them". So even though theyre from a country that doesnt allow voting for a leader, they were interested in everything that was going on thousands of miles away in the US.

These last weeks have seen the continuation of our Sesotho lessons. The lessons are actually lots of fun and the three teachers that we have are ridiculous. They break down the lessons quite well. The first was just making sure that we were saying the words correctly. To say "Lumela" (hello) she would grab our throats and make sure that we had the proper raspyness... and for hantle (good) she would pinch our mouths to make sure we had the click at the end of the word. The teachers are also hilarious and put on little skits for us to describe Basotho culture. Because the language lessons are centred around the PAC doctors, we use a lot of vocabulary from medical situations. On Wednesday they described how Basotho people feel about doctors. Basically a doctor can away with murder as long as they are wearing a white coat and a stethoscope, and someone who isnt wearing that is just a "student" or can't get a job in the US. So despite feeling professional for shaving or ironing my shirt when I go to work, I'm thinking the Basotho think I'm just some wash-up from the US. Anyway, the teachers were explaining the respect that they give doctors and that in the doctors offices the translators or janitors that happen to be there are referred to as "nurse pinks". Nurse pinks, are "the worst people in Basotho culture". Supposedly they are easedroppers and they are overly assertive and dont mind their own business, something I guess that is not appreciated in Lesotho. The teachers did a skit where the doctor and the patient were talking and the nurse pink in the background is trying to listen in. Very funny plays we've got going and I guess I'm learning something about Basotho culture.

So at the moment I'm just enjoying a lazy sunday, writing a bit and watching movies. Yesterday was pretty jam packed. We had teen club with the younger kids and we painted masks to reflect how people can stigmatize kids because of their HIV status. The experience was a bit trying, try to get these kids to talk about how people stigmatize them, all using paint. But we were able to touch a few kids, with one of the kids painting his mask blue (respresenting his HIV status) and black (his strength). So it was kind of cool. What a little poet. Next we had some professionals to come in and talk about their jobs. We had a doctor, social worker, teacher, etc. The first guy was a singer and he broke out with the best song. In Sesotho, q is a click sound (something like from the jungles of Papua New Guinea) and he wrote an entire song full of clicks... so even for a foreigner it was a good time and the kids absolutely loved it. The whole point was to remind the kids that despite their HIV status, they have futures and they can dream to grow up and work and become something.

Last night we went out to the Maseru Club for a going away party for one of the directors of the UN. It was kind of frustrating because as a white person, I wasnt being served at this place, which was considered to be a classy upscale Basotho bar. I guess I now know what it feels like to be discriminated against. Oh and have a gun in my face. Woot woot. The night was fun anyway... I met the director of the top honors film in the Lesotho Film Festival (from Vienna) and the head of the French society in Lesotho (who I got to practice my rusty French with). So despite being in the middle of Lesotho, I am meeting lots of different people. The following weeks will involve lots more work and hopefully a trip to Durban.

Until then,

Sala Hantle (Stay Well),

Stuart

And someone leave a comment. come on.

travels and work...

Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote, mainly because of laziness, over work and lack of internet, I have let this blog fall short of my initial expectations, but I’ve moved into a new place with fantastic internet so I hope to be a bit better in the future.

Anyway, here we go.

Work has gone from me trying to figure out what I’m doing, feeling under-prepared and actually slightly bored because nothing was working out. And then at the beginning of this last week, I felt completely overwhelmed and still not certain what I’m doing. My boss Kathy came back last week and rescued me from what seemed like piles of work so I can focus in my attention. Right now I’m organizing a Children’s HIV testing event in Butha Buthe, which is the northernmost district of Lesotho. I’m planning a family day with prizes and games and entertainment. Again, not sure how to do that but we’ll see in a month. In addition to that we’re in the middle of choosing campers for Camp ‘Mamohato, and setting up a gardening project for patients on WFP aid. For your information, basically the UNWFP gives out food packages to people who don’t even have enough to feed themselves. People become dependant and the cycle is vicious in that no one ever graduates off the program, so I guess teaching gardening will help that. The goal is self sufficiency, but we’ll see if it works out.

Weekends have been mostly full of relaxing here in Maseru and tasting the local expat life. Things in Maseru are strange. There are only five restaurants and really not that much to do on weekends. However, every NGO known to man-kind is here, and with that a slue of American or British aid workers to hang out with and get to know. Everyone from EGPAF, PIH, ICAP, BIPAI, K4L, MAF, m2m… I’m just listing these because you’ll walk into a room and here hundreds of acronyms being tossed around. The parties are quite fun and everyone is actually really interesting (it does take a certain type of person to fly off to Africa for several years), so I’m not complaining, although essentially 1am rolls around and it starts to look like the basement of TI. Every weekend there is a Braii (barbeque), a brunch (which are always phenomenal, with everyone making their own brand of brownie) or one of the Baylor doctors is leaving back for the United States and is throwing some sort of farewell party. So you can get kind of stuck just hanging around white people and staying in Maseru. These parties can get quite elaborate though.

Two weeks ago one of the PAC doctors was heading back to Hawaii to start up a new medical practice, after spending a year in Botswana and one in Lesotho. For her send off, they had arranged a fireworks show. These fireworks had been bought illegally from some “Chinese store in South Africa” and these things were definitely illegal looking. They were so big that I think you probably needed a permit to light the things off and at least some sort of expertise in pyrotechnics (one of the things sailed from the downstairs garden past the deck, just feet away from our faces). Anyway, it was fun and no one got hurt. Yay!

Okay, back to what I’ve been up to. After this farewell party, I made a trip out of the country (the first time I left Lesotho since I got here) to Bloemfontein and it was a nice change of scenery. The drive was interesting, mostly looking like something out of Alberta or Iowa, and not all that African looking. Although, as I would come to see, I was not entering a real African town anyway. Bloemfontein, is described as the last Afrikaner stronghold in South Africa and is the judicial capital of South Africa. It’s about 120km away, and at 140km/h I was there in no time. South African highways are amazing, and like the infrastructure of the country itself, they are far far more advanced compared to its northern neighbours. Bloem is a nice town, but with not much to do expect to go to the two local malls. They had all the amenities of an American mall, and hey! White people too! Although I do admit it was nice to feel less like a minority for a change. It kind of sucked that I drove all that way to see Bloemfontein and the only thing we did was go to a mall, but that seems like that’s pretty much all to do. I had some ice cream (a true rarity in Lesotho), watched a movie (Lesotho has no movie theatre) and had some pesto pizza (again, can’t find pesto (pre-made or basil leaves, pine nuts or parmesan cheese, none of these three delicious treats, in my new adoptive country). After a gourmet South African day, we headed back to a gorgeous African sunset (they really are awesome in Africa). Anyway, this brings me to another point. The border system is quite strange in Lesotho. You’d think because Lesotho is an island nation inside of South Africa that things would be a bit easier to go in and out, however it’s still complicated and irritating and always busy. I waited in an hour long line up to have my passport stamped. They had one person working the border on a Saturday evening with 200+ people waiting. The boarder patrol also decided to take a break right as I was about to hand in my passport. After getting through the South African part, you have to go to the Lesotho one, which requires another line up. They also allow peddlers in, who at every step want to help you fill out forms for a tip. One Mosotho man grabbed my passport, and again, I was feeling sassy so he received no tip and a harsh look for grabbing the precious document.

So back to work, I’m organizing this testing event in Butha Buthe (boo-ta boo-tay). Its about a two hour drive north of Maseru, and the drive is absolutely beautiful. Again, Lesotho is a bit hard describe in what it looks like, the first leg looked like something from the prairies, and then it had tall birch trees like something from France, and then I’d take a corner and find a huge table top mountain. Kids spotted the highway every turn, and of course were eager for a ride, but if you stop, all of a sudden you become a taxi service for about a dozen people, so I had to keep driving. I wasn’t entirely sure how to go about arranging my testing event, so the district invited me to an HIV “stakeholders” meeting, where essentially every NGO and hospital involved with HIV in the area was invited. I pulled in, slightly sweaty from the hot two hour drive, and got up as the first speaker to explain what I wanted to do. I’m pretty sure half of the people there didn’t understand what I said, but I’m sure things will work out next week when I ask them to start helping out.

I met with the doctor out there, who toted me around the district in her four wheel drive. The road up to the district was great, but basically unconquerable in my small Toyota. “This is a rental”, she described, so we kind of just let loose and plowed down rocky terrain to get to the local HIV clinics. I just about fell out of my seat but we got there in record time and I was able to meet all the doctors and nurses in the area so I can get their help. I had scheduled a meeting back in Maseru later that day, but in attempt to whisk off quickly, I got a flat tire. I managed to roll into the gas station, where in a true prissy West Van/Princeton form I paid the people there to fix it so I didn’t have to worry about it. Unfortunately, the flat tire made me late to arrive in the capital and along the way back I learned about the many wind storms that hit the country… so I was almost thrown off the road, but it was neat, as blankets of beige and red sand storms engulfed the highway. So I’m learning all the ins and outs of the Lesotho roads, seeing the country and getting work done at the same time.

So aside from work and visitng the few restaurants in town, I was able to make it out to South Africa again this past weekend. I went to Clarens, which is another Afrikaans town about two hours outside of Lesotho. Clarens is best described as a nice gourmet jaunt from Lesotho: wine stores, a small brewery, and lots of art places. Kind of a neat town, described as the Santa Fe of South Africa and it was quite beautiful, a small valley cradled by table top mountains. The Baylor crew had a nice lunch there and just hung around for the day. Its really hard to describe what the food selection is like in Lesotho, because its fine, but its missing some of those things that you just start to miss. So we all had a plate of asparagus and mussels and were quite satisfied.

Next weekend I’m going to try and take a trip to Kruger National Park, but it’s quite the drive… eight hours, just east of Mozambique. But there are lions, cheetahs and giraffes. Hell yah.

The last couple of weeks I have been lulled into a sense of security and self-containment in the expat life. A couple of weeks ago I was driving back to my place when I pulled up to the neighbour’s place… the kid in the front yard was playing with a gun. I’m not sure if it was a real one or not, but he was showing all of his friends and I stepped on it and furiously sped away from the place. This week, the same neighbour had a dog that died, and instead of burying it or something, they just left it on a pile of trash in the front yard and it stunk up the neighbourhood for a week. On my back from work and from hanging out with the other doctors, I pass by the local prostitutes almost everynight. A couple of nights ago one of the jumped after my car and grabbed the handle and chased after me. Of course I sped off again, but these couple of incidences remind me that despite my attempt to escape the realities of Africa, that despite how very American things appear here, there are other parts of the country that are just plain different. Even at the clinic, I run the fun things and some of the testing, but I don’t get to see the real problems with the HIV patients. Last week Raj, one of the doctors at Baylor was working at the local hospital and had two patients die on him. I’ve heard that the numbers get even worse, with one of the docs with 20 deaths in two weeks! Things like this just don’t happen in Canada and the US. I guess the point that I’m trying to make is that things in Africa can be self contained and that you can turn a blind eye to the bad things, but they are definitely there. There are so many wonderful things about the country, but ignoring all the bad things will not help to change its problems.

Until the next time,

Stu

Thus far...

So I will try my best to fill in what has happened so far in the past four weeks since I have been here. Yes four weeks! The time has flown by.

I arrived in Lesotho after a long voyage. Vancouver to Newark, New York to Johannesburg via Senegal and then Johannesburg to Maseru. I was glad to land and the brief night that I spent in Johannesburg I think is enough for the year. The airport was the sketchiest place I’ve been. The administration was supposed to pick me up at the airport but because my flight was a day later than all the new doctors arriving from Houston, I was forced to stay a night and fly to Lesotho the next morning. I had just stepped off from the airplane and I could tell that I stuck out, 22, blond and clearly lost. The thing that Princeton in Africa tells you not to do, is to take unregistered taxis from the airport, especially in Johannesburg. So with this in mind, I lugged all my stuff back and forth looking for something that was legitimate. All the while, there were literally hundreds of guys sensing how lost I was and wanting my business. So after trying for about an hour… I thought what the hell, and I spoke to a guy that came up and approached me. He grabbed my bags and headed off… and I quickly followed, imagining the worst, perhaps he stealing all my stuff and being left in RSA penniless. Anyway, he carted my things for about 2 minutes and then demanded money. I gave him 20R (which is around 3$) which was a lot for doing nothing. He freaked out and demanded more. He started flashing 20 US dollar bills, claiming that was what most people gave him. And I was like… there is no way anyone in their right mind would give you 20 dollars for what you did. So I basically told him off and ran inside, hiding beside a man that I thought was a police officer.

Of course, this man was another peddler and started demanding money too. I told him I’d give him some if he let me use his phone, so I quickly called up the hotel to come whisk me away. Even as the shuttle arrived, 3 guys jumped on my bags to pick them up and try to get some sort of a tip. And I guess I was in a particularly sassy mood because I slammed the door in their faces and told the driver to step on it.

I arrived at the hotel and the first thing I wanted to do was to email my mommy and let her know that I was okay and that I managed to survive the airport. But the moment that I turned on my computer, it picked up a virus. And to this day, one month later, the computer still won’t work and I am trying to recover all my files from school, pictures and music (trust me there’s a lot of stuff that one accumulates over 4 years). So after the virus and the people demanding money, I was kind of scared. I barricaded the door to my hotel room with towels (I don’t know how that is supposed to work) and my bags and promptly tried to sleep. This was my first introduction to Africa and I was scared.

To make a long story short, I arrived in Maseru without any major problems. I was greeted by the clinic’s driver, Limpho*

*Sesotho lesson one: When L is followed by an I or a U it is pronounced like a D. I have no idea why this is the case, because supposedly the Basotho people adopted the alphabet from the French missionaries who came to convert them all in the 19^th century, so something must have been lost in translation. Sesotho lesson two: Lesotho is the country, Sesotho is their language. Basotho is the people, Masotho is the singular (in case you wanted to know).

who was happy to find me in once piece. From the moment I landed in Lesotho I loved it. The landscape is something of a puzzle, partly rugged but also very dry and windy. It looks like Arizona, with slightly more jungle trees and more mountainous as you head in. Anyway, I arrived at Moshoeshoe International Airport and was happy to see such a beautiful place that I would be spending the next year. Moshoeshoe International is some what of a joke. Its tiny and is about the size of 5 houses stacked beside each other. The common joke is that if you miss someone at the airport, you claim: “You must have been at the other gate”. There is only one gate. You cant miss anyone there. If you were on one end, you could spot a mouse on the other side.

Anyway, the airport wasn’t too impressive but Lesotho definitely has been thus far. On the first day I got to the Baylor College of Medicine – Bristol Myers-Squibb Pediatric Aids Clinic Centre of Excellence (that’s the title… which I will just call the clinic for now) and was swept up in this thing called “Teen Club” which is something that I work with now and help organize. Basically, Teen Club is this program that brings in kids for a day once a month and discusses issues surrounding HIV. All the members of teen club are HIV positive and in a sense, the club is meant for a place where kids can be kids, where they can learn to deal with HIV and where they can get some sort of support. That day the clinic was graced by the King and the Queen of Lesotho, so there was much excitement. I arrived after that, just in time for food and the closing exercises. After a brief meeting with the director of the clinic and meeting a few of the staff, I jumped in and got to see some of the action.

The kids I must say were absolutely amazing. They were so much fun and supportive each other and everyone was laughing so much. At the end of the day, Kathy, one of the directors of the clinic, got up and stood in the middle of the exercise, which was a large circle of children. She had organized an essay contest for the kids and gave out prizes. The essay was “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up”. You see, for these kids, HIV is not a death sentence by any means. As long as children take their medication, everyday of their lives, they will continue to survive and grow old just like everyone else. Kathy claimed: “You are the future of Lesotho” and reminded the kids, that despite their positive status, that life was not over.

The first week of work flew by, as it was mostly introductions to the staff and learning about the HIV pandemic in Lesotho. One thing I definitely remember from the week was my driving adventures. I bought a car from the past fellow and have had hours worth of trouble. The very first day I had it I got lost three times… the first was a wrong turn into a herd of children going to school… I definitely felt like that white guy as the Basotho children stared me down. The second time I ended up on a dirt road and then in a ditch. I jumped out of the car in an attempt to push it out, but cars are a lot heavier than I expected. A group of Basotho men came to my rescue, I was a bit scared, not knowing what they wanted… but they heaved the car out and I was on my way. I can definitely say I had nothing to fear. The Basotho people are actually wonderful. Overly friendly, always saying hello, striking up conversations, and always laughing. Its been really nice being in such a friendly place. Anyway, back to the car. I got lost again but I made it to work okay and I have slowly started to learn my way around Maseru. The car is a manual, and I have had my series of problems but all seems well. The traffic is a bit insane, with people only signaling with horns and taxi drivers trying to grab as many passengers as possible. A week ago there was a traffic jam just outside the clinic, and it was pure madness. People ride on the backs of trucks here and they were all screaming at each other, like the cars were merely podiums for them to scream from and the cars just playing minor parts in the traffic. A cow had supposedly been hit and it took some careful Indiana Jones driving to get out of there. And a few days ago, there was a stalled car. So if you can imagine, a highway of four lanes. Two going north and two going south. But instead the drivers didn’t like that one of the lanes were being taken up, so all of a sudden, two lanes north became four lanes north and the south ones were pushed off the road into one dirt one. Crazy but I guess it worked. So, I am slowly learning the ways of the road in Lesotho, lets just hope for no accidents.

Another thing that I remember during the first week was how unsettled I felt. It is not that Lesotho is all that dangerous, although as an expat, you must have a guard at your house. And the house that I am currently staying at has a gate and a series of barb-wired fences to keep people out. Its that I am used to being so safe. For people reading from Princeton or from West Van, I can tell you, that Maseru feels nothing like that. Coming from places where no crime ever happens and you can walk down the street at 2am with no worry at all, it’s a bit of change when everything must be locked, and you cannot have your windows down in the car most of the time.

To explain a bit about the clinic: it’s a wonderful place and the doctors there do amazing things. The docs are a mixed bag of personalities, all American, and are all so set on helping out the terrible HIV problem. Its so uplifting to be able to work with them. The clinic itself is brand new and beautiful and is something of a change of scenery compared to the small shacks that surround it. I have had the opportunity to travel a bit outside of the capital, to the south in Mafetang. And I can tell you that this clinic is a palace compared to the other ones, which are just old, dirty and unusable by North American standards.

The final thing that I remember from my first impressions was the disparity of wealth in Lesotho. I live in this massive home with guards, a housekeeper and a gardener, but my neighbour's house is a single room made with a tin roof and garbage everywhere. The country is definitely very pooor, with a clear definition between the middle (with the expats making up most of the upper class) and poor classes. Basically everyone lives in these tiny rooms and its cold here. Its winter right now and Lesotho is very high up in the mountains, so the image you have of a hot Africa is not at all what I'm experiencing and the people here are freezing.

After the first week I made a trip up to Semonkong, which is up in the high mountains of central Lesotho. It was so beautiful, a high plateau with beautiful trees and really rugged. And there were these cherry trees spotted along the way.. very idyllic. I have pictures to put up once my computer is back in action. The journey there was ridiculous.. the roads are non-existent and we had to get a pro driver to navigate the sharp turns. We passed nomadic Basotho men covered only in wool blankets. We visited an orphanage headed by the nicest people in the world. This family had moved all the way from the Netherlands with their three kids to help out. There are definitely people out here doing good things and working really hard.

Anyway, the point of the trip was to do this thing called abseiling, which is a fancy word for rappelling. We went to this huge canyon with this beautiful waterfall and we scaled down it for 200m. It is the largest abseil in the world and so pretty… probably the most obscure and foreign place I have been but well worth the drive.

So that was the first week. The last ones have been pretty tough. The third week was headed off by a fire at my house. Its dry here and windy so when a man walked by my house and flicked a cigarette onto the lawn, it burst into flames. It swept up the hill and caught the trees in my yard on fire, the fence and the lawn. I had just arrived from the grocery store and I noticed a bit of smoke. When I peered over the fence, it erupted and I ran away panicking. I had never been in a fire before! It was a fire ball two stories high when it hit the fence. Because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing I started calling everyone I knew, and by the time I knew it, half of the people at work, the neighbors, security guards and little boys in the neighborhood were helping me put it out. We used hoses, buckets, dirt... just about everything. It was quite the scene and the fire department didn’t do anything. But all is fine now.

So after dealing with that, I was trying to relax and then the dog escaped (through the non-existent fence). I had five search parties looking for this thing, finally found it, only to escape 4 more times through the many repairs we did on the fence. On the fifth time it bit my friend who was helping me so I said, that’s enough and now the dog is in a kennel. And during the week of the dog escaping, I was deathly ill. So after the fire, the dog, the sickness and missing home, it was quite the rough time. But now everything is fine and I think I have caught you up to speed.

This past week was spent with the second Teen Club (we made masks to reflect how people view HIV) and then played games (this is the fun stuff!) and meeting with people for the testing events that I am organizing for November.

Anyway, I leave this first blog (I know, very long) with a few thoughts about what I’m doing here in Africa and what the situation is. Basically my job is divided amongst community awareness, testing events and what I will call fun stuff. I am organizing camper recruitment for a camp for HIV positive kids as well as the activities for Teen Club; that’s the fun stuff. The second part is the testing events, where I basically work with partner organizations and community members such as schools to organize testing events to get kids tested for HIV. This can range anything from “carnivals” which I’m trying at the moment, to soccer tournaments. The final section is linking the hospital to other NGOs. I am meeting with the UN WFP to implement a program that will make the transition from receiving aid to receiving nothing easier. I am working with the Peace Corps to link their volunteers up to our doctors and working with a group called ALAFA, which is related to the textile unions of Lesotho, so as to help test and refer the children of union members to the hospital. I am not entirely sure how that is done. But I’m trying.

On a side note... HIV in Lesotho is absolutely terrible. HIV is a treatable disease...in fact on Anti retroviral drugs someone with HIV can live a normal life with a normal life span. Yet hundreds of children and people die every day and people just don’t take their medication because of the stigma around it. Often people just don’t want to know if they are positive, even though we can treat them and allow them to live their lives. On the first day, the director was driving me back to my home from work and she points out the window. "See that house over there?". And it was literally 50 times bigger than anything in Lesotho and would rival anything in the US. "The owner of the place is the owner of the largest funeral home in the country. The last couple of years have been very profitable". So literally, people are dying from HIV all the time all the while there is this clinic that can help all of them.

That is all for now. I'll be better in the future!

A start...

A late start: aided by poor internet in Lesotho and a crashed hard drive in Johannesburg, my blog has taken quite a while to set up but hopefully this will be the only delay and I can dive into the world of internet blogging. Better late than never they say. First a thank you to Brett Amelkin, who's suggestion at a Cloister dinner gave the name of this blog. Please everyone comment away and leave your love, because I miss you all dearly. Hope I can give you some sort of window into my world of what I'm sure will be a mix of highs and lows, as I learn as much as I can about Africa, HIV and life.

-Stuart