My junior year of college, I found the Peace Corps recruiter on University of Arizona's
campus and made an appointment to meet with him. During that meeting I picked up an application
packet. That packet floated around my house for a year, until it was too beaten up to use
as an application packet. I made another appointment, told the recruiter that I was serious and
got another application packet. It took about 4 months for me to fill everything out, write the essay,
and get letters of reference together. That is concurrent to my finishing college.
It took another couple of months to finish the background check and the medical clearance.
Some people I've spoken to are mistaken when they think that it actually costs money to complete
the application process. It never cost me anything. They send waivers for the medical check and
most of the extraneous check up items were covered by insurance as yearly preventative measures.
When I was 15, I attended the annual meeting of my church (Unitarian Universalist). My youth group spent several days there attending lots of meetings and workshops, but I only remember one clearly. In a dim room, I watched several slide shows courtesy of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. It struck me how differently these people had lived and for how long they had done it. It also struck me that it embodied many of the ideals of my religion. Some of these ideals were to to work in the service of others and to realize the interconnectedness of all people in a web of life. These are not ideals that are special to my religion, but my religion does not have a history of "spreading the gospel." I did not want to spread the "good word," I just wanted to help out the world as best I could try. As four of us exited the presentation, everyone else said that they wanted to join Peace Corps. I did not. I only spoke about it several years later, just before graduating College and even then, I was only telling people that I was going.
I finished my application process sometime in January 1997, roughly
six months after starting the process. I was called mid February of that year and told that I
had been selected to join a group going to Lesotho in May. I had a week to think about it and then
return the call to accept or decline.
I accepted and was shipped a packet of information on the
program I had been nominated for.
I spent a lot of time at the library looking up as much information as I could. The internet
was still in its infancy then, so there weren't the wonderful resources I've found since. It took
me a while to learn how to spell Lesotho, let alone remember how it's pronounced. I also spent some
time looking for information on the topics I'd be required to learn for the project assignment.
Once I decided to accept the invitation, I was frantically ticking off books I needed to read (on
subsistence agriculture, dryland farming) and tapes I needed to listen to (Sotho tapes I thought would
help, but never did and led to a lot of fun eventually in my village). I created lists upon lists
of all weather wear that I needed to take. My mother is a very good seamstress and visionary when
it comes to dressing appropriately. She took on making several dresses that were multipurpose. (I
didn't own a single dress and the information I had read told me that I could only wear dresses.)
I spent some money here. I was a regular price checker at the local camping stores for pretty much
everything. The guidelines for what I took boiled down to it's potential uses (more than 3) and
whether it fit into the bag.
This is an excellent question because you'll be sent a list of things to take, courtesy of Peace
Corps, but you never know just how accurate it is, or realistic. My "essentials" boiled down to
those things that I used the most and would have spent more money one, if I had money to spend.
1) I took a sleeping bag that was very small and lightweight, called a bike bag, it
went down to 25 degrees Fahrenheit. Great for summer travel, but not for winter, keep this in mind. I
would have kept it light (less than 2 lbs.), but had it go to a lower
temperature. I slept in this bag for 5
months every year, with three blankets on top of me. To say I used it a lot is an understatement.
I might add that several years later, it is still my camping bag.
2) Socks. I just plumb ran out of these or they got so soiled that I could use them anymore.
It took me a while to find shops to shop in - I don't do this normally.
Other women might be better at shopping than I was. Instead, I had my mom
ship some half way through.
3) Small radio and rechargeable batteries. Sure, other people had fancy shortwave, longwave,
aerial projection radios, but a little walkman gave me everything I needed (BBC, VOA) and more.
It even got reception up in the mountains. Look for a small, efficient, light weight solar battery
charger. Take 8 or so rechargeable batteries. That set up will last more than 2 years.
4) Thermarest or some other brand of sleeping pad. They are expensive, but you'll use the heck out
of it over two years. I only had one for the last 6 months of my stay and believe you me, best
thing I ever stole from my father.
5) Women should take at least 3 dresses that you can layer with other items of clothing.
Keep in mind that this is culturally specific for Lesotho and not everywhere in
the world. These
dresses should be past the knee, but can bare your shoulders. I took some polyester numbers that
lasted me until I left. You will learn to wear things for weeks at a time without noticing unless
it is really dirty. No one cares, or if they do, they won't mention it and pass
it off as cultural ineptitude. Three dresses will last forever. If you go to another country
not Lesotho, the same applies - you will wear clothing for weeks at a time without
noticing, this is a good thing, really.
6) All in all though, my latest recommendation for someone was if you can push it, pull it, tow it, or in some other way, maneuver your bag of stuff, take the weight limit Peace Corps gives you. Undoubtedly, you will have forgotten something and remembered to pack an idiot item. It happens. It's better to err on the side of too much weight, but make sure you can move it on your own; no one carries your bag for you when you're a Peace Corps Volunteer.
7) Take some form of back up payment option, i.e. a credit card. You never know when you might need to buy some cool backpack, some new dresses, tour package, or ticket home. It would be best if you could link up a phone card option with it as well.
1) Don't take books. Okay, your favorite book, sure. Anything else? Nope. Significant others
and parents can send items book rate and if you need it, it will come eventually.
2) Extra shoes. Be practical and bring those shoes for the occasion. I used my Teva/Alp
sandals and my tennis shoes only. I took hiking boots, but those were really too heavy for
the hiking I ended up doing.
I went to Lesotho. Lesotho (pronounced Leh-sue-two') is a country completely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. The people of Lesotho are called Basotho and the language is Sesotho. My group trained in Washington, D.C. for 5 days, then left from there to Amsterdam (6 hour flight), changed planes and left for Johannesburg (11 hour flight). In Johannesburg we deplaned and discovered that the luggage plus the people was too heavy for a flight to Lesotho. Either that, or we did not have a plane to board, I forget. Two or three of the group members took action and after several hours in the airport, we all boarded a bus for Lesotho (8 hours). From the border post of Lesotho to Roma, where we trained for three months, it was another hour.
Training was great. Between eating lots of really starchy food, resenting the weather, being cold,
being homesick, and learning to deal with 28 other people you had no reason to know except that they
were going to be your support group for the next two years, training was a blast!
I'm kidding.
Training is a difficult three months. There is no other way to describe it. You wake up early
and leave late. You're adjusting to a different way of life, a different culture and a different
you. It is language intensive, which means that you spend hours and hours trying to learn a language
that has no order to it that you can see with your English eyes. You have a cultural portion that
teaches you the appropriate way to act, greet, ask questions. There is the job training that occurs, we
dug gardens and raised chickens for slaughter. We spent some time in an actual village, living with
a family to show us what rural life in Lesotho was like. At the end of training, you take a language
test and re-interview with the country director to see if you are still committed to doing this. The
entire process is stressful and taps your emotional reserves.
Then one day you wake up and realize where you're at.
You realize that the people
you have spent the past three months with are beautiful people, looking around you see that this country
is fabulous, that the people there have pampered you and bonded with you, you begin to dream in
this funky language that actually does have rules to it and the rules do make sense.
Everything gets a little better and easier to deal with each day.
My program was called "Food Security
Initiative." Food Security is British for "having enough to eat for
an extended period of time." It was a program in conjunction with the international
non-governmental organization (NGO) CARE and regional government in the Ministry
of Agriculture (MOA). The objectives of the program were to increase food
security. This was achieved through several objectives. These objectives
were to increase small income generation potential for each home, increase
diversity in garden crops, improve technology input in gardening and farming,
and small animal husbandry.
I didn't work that much with the MOA and didn't have a
counterpart from CARE for almost a year. When I did get a counterpart, we
spent a lot of time traveling to the area villages and assessing needs.
This meant holding two day workshops that involved mainly women and older men
(the young men were working in South African mines) and asking them what type of
health care, water works, farming, environmental projects, and small income
opportunities, they were interested in following up on. The idea being
that through this method, specific aspects of development could be identified
with priority for each region in Lesotho and those aspects would be different by
region.
There's a piece of me who felt like this program gave people
some hope that other people cared. But actions in developing countries are
about as fast as molasses in the freezer. So, the skeptical side of me
thought that we were giving these people false hope. I also felt like the
needs assessment boiled down to just a few things and these things didn't vary
by region, in point of fact, they held true for most of the world. Parents
want to see their kids grow up healthier and wealthier than they did. The
means of doing this varied a little, but focused on lessening the impact of
disease, delivering clean water, and creating jobs.
On the one hand, my program had spectacular goals and every
little bit helps. On the other hand, the goals were so gigantic that my
piddly little two years there had very small impact.
This is the hardest question to answer usually. I
spent a lot of the first year physically sick and homesick. By the second
year I'd developed a stronger immune system and managed to integrate a little
more into the community, lessening my loneliness. Daily life depended on
the project, the weather and my spirit. Some days were wet, so I read a
lot, wrote a lot, and slept a lot. Some days were shiny and new, so I
spent time at one of the two schools in the region or with my counterpart,
working. Some days were days to focus on language, so I hung out at the
store a few hundred feet from my house, just talking with people. Some
days were days of travel. Some days were kid days. Some days were
full of cuss words. It all depended.
My region was fairly large, so it would take a couple of
hours to walk to one side of it or another. If you look at a smaller map
of Lesotho, my "range" was from the village of Dalewe to the village
of Tosing. I think that this might be about 20 kilometers or so, but
haven't checked it. I spent a lot of time traveling the main road between
those villages, sometimes hitching, sometimes taking a taxi, and other times
walking. I had a side project of providing photographs at cost for anyone
who wanted them. I would often be invited out to a preschool graduation to
take photos. It was an excellent networking opportunity for me and it gave
people a little piece of personal identity. I really do take pride in the
fact that I exposed about 80 rolls of film while I was there and 95% of those
photos were of village people. I only have negatives now....bags of them.
Bags filled with photos of everyday people who were
stunningly beautiful.
An average day would have been to wake up at dawn, boil a
kettle of water to wash in, use the grey water to wash my socks/undies, eat
breakfast, have some coffee, read a little, answer a letter or two, dress, go
outside and start my day by hanging up my socks/undies. I'd do work until
lunch time around 12 or 1 (Lesotho is a former British protectorate, which made
breaking for tea twice a day a-okay as well.) Go home or eat on the
road. Take a few photos if I had my camera. Go back to work or
visiting until sunset. Go home and cook some dinner and light all the
candles. I'd read for several hours a night and listen to VOA before
actually going to bed. Often times, I'd be the only one up at 9pm.
You start living a very "natural" lifestyle, very circadian rhythm.
After training, I think I'd gained 40 pounds just from stress and eating three meals a day. This
ended up being a good thing though. When I moved into my village, I realized how much I'd depended
on prepared food while in college. I kept thinking to myself, "Gee, I seem to remember my mother
attempting to teach me how to cook something. Now, what was it??"
I lost all of that weight I'd gained in training. Then,
I discovered powdered cheese and that I could actually drink full milk. I
ate a lot of tuna out of cans, egg dishes, and noodles with everything.
Most of the canned items had to be carted back to my village from the camp town
and even, sometimes, the capital city. This was my compromise.
I never fell in love with Basotho cooking, so I wasn't big on
local items. My village knew this and respected it. We'd share
interesting items of food between us and not just "papa and meroho."
I remember showing a couple of the women how to make chili and brownies and I
learned how to stew peas. Simple stuff, but it brought us closer together.
The biggest question I get often is, "I'm a
vegetarian. Will I starve to death?" The answer is no. In
fact, I think vegetarians are so good at being creative eaters and cookers that
they do much better than most. I curtailed my eating of meat while in
country just as a safety precaution. A cow was slaughtered in my compound
and stored for a few days under a tarp in the "garage" as people
purchased pieces of it. Enough said. The rest of the time, I ate enough eggs to see me
through.
Don't do anything stupid and you won't get hurt was my motto.
It still is. And random acts of violence are really that; random,
unstoppable, and nonsensical. You do the best you can with what you have
and hope for the best.
I was very lucky to never have anything happen to me. I
did mess up often enough and put myself in dangerous situations, but was blessed
enough to escape unharmed. There were others who were not as lucky.
Peace Corps accepts responsibility for your safety as much as they can.
Through training and being briefed on security situations when
appropriate. However, there are times when volunteers are hurt or even
killed.
I was asked once what the safety situation was like in
Lesotho, while being told of several incidences of violence against
volunteers. I remain confident that bad things sometimes happen for no
reason to very good people. And sometimes stupid actions don't cause
harm. It shouldn't be that way, but sometimes it is. The volunteers
I served with took precautions and were aware of situations and for the most
part were safe.
There is an article that was published by a man named Russell
Carrollo in the Dayton Daily News. It was an expose' on Peace Corps safety
and training. You can "google" it, but you have to log on to read it.
Apparently, it's free. It was published in October of 2003, and caused a
wildfire of action across the Peace Corps affiliated and non-affiliated sites.
Lesotho figured prominently in the first and second day out of five days.
After we were evacuated from Lesotho in September 1998, the safety in Maseru was
not guaranteed. I stayed until April of 1999, and was unaware of the
extreme turn of events (frequent muggings) that plagued PCV's for the rest of
the year. I was in country when several other PCVs were attacked and they
are featured in the article. More than a few of my friends were
interviewed for the article. I didn't agree with the overall
sensationalism of the article, but felt that it provided a venue for RPCVs who
were not heard by Peace Corps after their attacks. The most heartbreaking
part of the whole story was to read the quote by my country director, Harvey
Ramseur, stating that he didn't remember a vicious attack on a fellow PCV.
I believe that the majority of people I've spoken to and served with feel that
security is an issue in Peace Corps, regardless of where you go and that Peace
Corps can do more to achieve better control, but the cost will be PCV freedoms,
which might narrow the impact of their jobs.
You do make some money, but it is a volunteer position. Does that make sense?
No? Good. You're on
your way to figuring out the complexity that is Peace Corps.
Peace Corps gives you an allotment based on a
"calculated" figure. I made $200/month. I read recently
that they might move this to $300/month. This figure does not change
across the globe. If you are serving in the Gambia, a terribly poverty
stricken country, you make that figure and you're the richest person in the
village. If you are serving in Poland, you make that figure and you're
probably struggling a little. Peace Corps also gives you an amount of
money for each month that you are in Peace Corps.
Let's break that down.
I received $200/month while in country that went into my own
pocket. Meanwhile, in some accounting book somewhere, I received
$200/month for each month I served. That means, I made $400/month during
Peace Corps, officially. I only saw $200 of it though.
You can choose to deduct up to a certain amount of the
"invisible" money to be directed towards bills, credit card or
non-deferred school loans for example. In my case, I deducted $100/month
(the maximum allowed at the time) for credit card bills. I had a
non-subsidized school loan, which means that I could defer payments on it, but
the loan still accrued interest. I could have diverted my deduction to the
payment of that, but thought credit card interest rates were more worthy of
it.
The way I've outlined it, I made $200/month that I spent
mostly on myself and received $100/month that I got at the end of service.
This means that I arrived back home with a check from Peace Corps for about
$2300. If you know anything, you know that this isn't a great deal of
money in the States and is eaten up fairly fast. If I were to calculate it
differently, I'd have ended up with about $4800. Still, not much. I
got a job within a month of moving back home.
I made more than enough to live wonderfully well in my rural
home in Lesotho, with extras and saving for vacations. I did not live in
an urban setting and would think that that would have been a little different. I
did not have much of anything monetarily when I got home. But, I had some
great pictures! (Which I had to wait to develop over a period of time
because I didn't have any money.)
This is a difficult question for me. I think it was the best experience I could have had at
23 years of age. I haven't been back and don't think I will go back. Peace
Corps taught me a lot,
but also made me aware of just how difficult it is to live in some places. I do know of several
people from my group who hated the experience they had with the administration and they have since
rejoined Peace Corps. I also know people who had a great and productive time in Lesotho and rejoined
only a few months after their close of service. I know of people who were positive about the experience
they had, but would not join again.
Usually, I recommend it to people who are just leaving school, without
hesitation. If you are older, I suggest that careful thought be put into the decision. If you are
looking for international organization experience and you're qualified, look for other program
possibilities.
I did less traveling than some and more than others. I met my mother is Europe after I had been
in Lesotho for a year. My brother and father visited me six months after that. The three of us
drove 8,000 kilometers in 3 weeks! We saw 11 National Parks in South Africa and Zimbabwe. After Peace
Corps, I traveled with two of my friends to Kenya and Zanzibar, then I traveled to Egypt on my own.
This doesn't include the traveling within Lesotho I did for pleasure, workshops and other site visits.
I saw a lot of the south of Lesotho, from Quthing to Qacha's Nek and the major
attractions like Semonkong Falls (the tallest falls in Southern Africa.)
The degree of freedom of movement varies from country to
country. I know of another guy who cleared his vacation through everyone
but his PC office. When he got back from vacation, he was booted.
Sometimes the country office can hold onto your passport as well and you have to
check it out. Personally, doesn't make a lot of sense to me to give up the
one really official document that proves you are who you are, but hey, that's
me. We were restricted to staying in our village for 3 months before we
could vacation. A good policy and followed by me, but not enforced by
Peace Corps. That first vacation was a weekend in Durban and geesh, was
that awesome after 6 months!
Yes. All Peace Corps volunteers were evacuated the day after SADC troops entered Lesotho, September 23, 1998. Some of us returned and some of us didn't. Those who returned to country, arrived back October 13, 1998.
There's probably an official version. Actually, there are probably many official versions.
I take complete responsibility for my version of events.
Lesotho has a shaky history of democratic elections. There are several socio-economic and political reasons for
this, but the fact remains that Lesotho isn't very good at elections. The third major election in the country
took place in May of 1998, after several weeks of registering voters. The outcome was that a man who
had broken away from his party (the popular ruling party) had won the election with his new party affiliation.
That party then assumed almost all of the parliamentary seats and he became prime minister.
There were scattered protests throughout that winter, from June until August. These protests centered around
the king's palace in central Maseru. The main road in Maseru runs from the border post to the main highway,
that then divides into a north or south direction taking you to the rural areas of Lesotho. The palace
protests prevented travel on that main road out to the main highway. Thus, several protests left volunteers
stranded in Maseru, unable to get up country to their site. On average, that took place once a month.
Several times, Peace Corps advised those people they could to stay at their sites. But it was
obvious to everyone that things were escalating.
I had been listening to BBC and VOA in my house for the previous couple of nights and understood that
the activities of the protesters had stepped up in degree at the end of September. The father on
my compound called me over to see the violence on the television, only the second time I had entered his
house to watch TV in the year I had lived there. I saw protesters and fires. He told me that South Africa
had come into Lesotho. (He was partly correct.)
I remember going back to my room and thinking, it's not that bad. It cannot be
that bad...
The next day, I returned from visiting a school a hours walk away, had eaten lunch and a Peace Corps
truck arrived right in front of my house. Having only had one site visit prior to this, not seeing
the country director in the truck, I was piecing things together as if in slow motion.
I was taken to Mohale's Hoek, 3 hours drive away, with four other volunteers. It was night when we
arrived and you could see the orange from the fires in the camp town. We met up with other volunteers
and slept uneasily at the Farmer's Training Center, just outside of Mohale's Hoek. The next morning, the
driver shuttled three times between Zastron in the Republic and Mohale's Hoek, removing volunteers at
great personal risk.
All volunteers were out of country and in South Africa by the next day. We were driven to Pretoria
to wait out the situation. Pretoria is at least 7 hours drive from Maseru and it never fails to amaze me that
our advisors (host country nationals/Basotho) spent some time with us, worried about us, and spoke to
us, as their country was seizing in paroxysms of violence.
The action slowed down after a while, but there was still talk of massive destruction in the camptowns, occupation
by SADC soldiers, the oppression and beating of Basotho people, the eventual hunger and economic losses.
Meanwhile, Peace Corps was analyzing site safety, our mental health, and whether the program was to
be saved or not. After two weeks of workshops and counseling, we were given the option to stay, leave,
or be reassigned in country or outside of it.
Those of us who were returning to country, either to our original village assignment or to a "safer"
village, boarded a bus for Maseru. We were almost half the size of when we were evacuated.
As we crossed the border post into Lesotho, as we had that May night a year prior, the first thing I remember
witnessing was the Basotho Hat. It was just a burnt shell. I later saw someone's photo of it
in flames, two or three stories tall, which I believed. We all gasped at the symbol of this nation
being destroyed. That was just the beginning.
When we got the chance, a friend and I walked down Kingsway (the central road through Maseru) all the
way to the taxi rank. Every second shop we passed was simply a black hull.
I was driven by Peace Corps back to my village a few days later and passed through Mafeteng, where there
was a heavy presence of SADC troops that would remain until February of the next year, and Mohale's Hoek,
then Quthing. The more south we traveled, the less destruction I saw. I felt that much better and thankful
for the incredible remoteness of my village. (When I first visited my
village, I cried when we returned to training because of just that fact.)
My mother tells me that the experience made me aware of the existence of the world. I think I act more purposefully now than ever before. I don't take the "type A lifestyle" so seriously. I work rather hard because it's so easy to work here as opposed to developing countries. I utter random Sotho words and yell "Hey uena!" at my cat so often that my significant other has begun saying it too. Living anywhere or experiencing anything of magnitude changes imperceptible aspects of your personal core. I still laugh obnoxiously and am sometimes arrogant or flighty, but my spirit has changed because of my time in Lesotho. That is what I think my mom is talking about.
In most Southern African countries you will be bombarded by children who are asking for candy. This
seems to be what generations of people (we blamed missionaries)
have traditionally brought to share. It eventually wears
so much on your nerves that you resent the cry from children who have no idea what baggage it represents
for you. Don't blame them!
Take small, cheap, fun, and colorful items over. Have your friends send
silly little things to you that you can then share with kids at your school or the children of your
host family. Be constructive with gifts. I preferred crayons and Peace Corps memos to empty calories.
Take a few items over for that village live in or some special trainer you adore, but as time goes on, you'll
be able to find the appropriate gifts for people.
I was very lucky and was never very sick during my service. I was also very lucky to be in a country that
was mostly pathogen free. In addition, Lesotho is right next to South
Africa, which serves as the regional medical care and evacuation point for Peace
Corps in the southern countries. All these things considered, my personal opinion of the medical
care provided by the Peace Corps doctor (there is one in each country of
service) was excellent. I probably wouldn't have trusted Lesotho's
hospitals for much of anything, but my impression of care in the South African
system was positive. We had people with multiple injuries and surgeries
and they were well taken care of in the closest South African town, Bloemfontein.
We didn't have to worry about regular check ups, as Peace
Corps wants you to be healthy. In fact, I didn't know until the final
check up I had that I had amoebas. It wouldn't have occurred to me that
something was wrong at all, but thanks to the doctor I was put on medication
that treated it and I felt grand afterwards. Peace Corps provides all the
vaccination boosters you need during your service. Peace Corps provides
regular medication for any ailments or for contraception. I felt well
taken care of while in country.
Upon close of service, you're given several waivers to follow
up on items of interest from Peace Corps. These waivers get sticky when
you attempt to use them. Peace Corps is a large organization and paper
work state-side takes a long time to process. I have also heard this from
other volunteers who had difficulty processing their workers compensation forms
for injuries incurred while serving. I have never heard anything good
about dealing with Peace Corps over time for medical services provided state
side. I wish it were different.
Does it make sense that I'm still adjusting? I go over
this portion of the website rather regularly....I visit a class to give a talk
on HIV/AIDS in southern Africa....I give talks at church about it....I am a
member of Friends of Lesotho....I am a member of several listserves...I keep in
regular touch with people I served with....I read all I can get my hands on
regarding southern African development, AIDS drugs, writers and artists....My
cat is from Lesotho and is a constant reminder of how long I've been home.
It don't think it ever leaves you. Maybe I need a constant reminder that I
was there, that I did participate in this notion of something bigger than
myself. But that's the esoteric metaphysical response you weren't looking
for.
I think it took me 6 months to get my digestion right, not to
sleep 10 hours a night, and not to get headaches from looking at everything
going so fast. I would eat and it would all just come back out the other
end. I had myself checked for a recurrence of amoebas, I was so worried.
I now think that it had a lot to do with the richness of our diet here.
The sleeping was a reaction to stress. I worked at a bookstore and after
an 8 hour shift, I couldn't function. All I did was sleep it seems.
The headaches were just tiring. Too much TV, noise, paying attention to
everything. Then it passed and I got better at being middle American again
(see above).
I give a talk every semester to between 30 and 100 students who have enrolled
in a course called "HIV/AIDS in America." I am their only international
guest speaker. For a couple of semesters, I thought I should pass the
torch to someone who had more recently returned. I attempted to recruit,
but to no avail. I think I need to do it to give back to Lesotho an
incredibly small part of what Lesotho gave me. The students spend the
first half of the semester talking about how HIV enters the system and attacks
the body. They spend time with virologists, medical doctors, hospice
workers, a few Americans with infections or AIDS. I bring the cultural
aspect of the epidemic to them. I start with the idea that everyone wants
to know why the infection is spreading so fast in Southern Africa. I begin
by telling them a little about what I did in Lesotho and then start comparing
life here with life there. We have a billion dollar deficit, but have a
trillion dollar revenue stream. Lesotho owes other countries 10 times it's
national revenue. The cost of HIV drugs here are about a month's salary,
but a year's salary in Lesotho, if you're lucky enough to be employed at 50% unemployment, and you're lucky
enough to get drugs at all.
I told a story about one woman for several years. She
was a rural child bride who married a man several years her senior, who worked
at a mine in South Africa. She contracts HIV from him and is ostracized
from her family. Her child is born with HIV as well. I recently read
a story that made a profound impact on me and so I started telling it this year.
It is a story about a young woman who moves from the rural area of Lesotho and
finds work at a textile mill (sweatshop.) She has a child with a boyfriend
who is married and denies responsibility. She is left with no choice but
to take on more boyfriends to support herself because her job does not pay her
enough. She tells the other boyfriends when she is occupied by placing a box of
OMO cleaning detergent in the small window of her shanty shack. This was so depressing
and rang so true that I needed to start telling her story.
Lesotho is estimated to have an infection rate between
30-40%. People I served with are afraid to return to their village for
fear of not seeing their friends of family. People I know who have just
returned mention that you must prioritize funeral attendance each weekend.
The picture is stark. And it squishes your heart until you can't breathe
anymore. And that's why I give the lecture. We have to do what we
can to stop this from killing our brothers and sisters in Africa (next year it
will be Southeast Asia). I keep imagining that there is a student in one
of my lectures who will continue on in a research lab and will be the one to
discover a vaccine or cure. I will have steered that person in the right
direction as a result of my lecture.
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Copyright © 2003 Faye Farmer. All rights reserved.