Touching Tiny Lives in Lesotho

Goodbye to all that...

2009-08-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hi All -

This is Reid here, writing from the comfort of my parents house in Maryland. Our year in Lesotho has officially come to an end and Bridget and I are now adjusting to life stateside. We hope you enjoyed the blog for the last year. Thank you all for your support.

Having been home for a mere 24 hours, I have little perspective on our year in Lesotho. Perhaps that will come with time, but for now I will spare you any reflections on the year except to say that Bridget and I both feel extremely lucky to have had the experience we did, to make the friends we made, and to share this past year together.

Without further ado, however...........

I would like to introduce Kirsten d'Hemecourt. Kirsten is the new TTLF Fellow in Lesotho this year and will be capably filling-in for Bridget and me on the Mokhotlong campus. She will also be keeping this blog up-to-date with fresh stories about the children and work of TTL. So stay tuned and you can keep getting your fix of tales from rural Lesotho.

Best wishes and take care.

Reid

News, Escapades, Snowstorms

2009-06-29T07:54:00.000-07:00

Whew, time has started to fly. To sum up the last few weeks:

I got a job! I’ll be teaching at a charter school based on a Great Books curriculum in Colorado Springs. So excited to be moving back to Colorado. The downside is that I will be leaving TTL a month early, i.e. almost exactly one month from now. Suddenly the year seems to be racing towards an end, making me want to soak up every moment of these last days in Lesotho.
Reid and I celebrated our one-year anniversary. Speaking of the strange nature of time! As we told each other early on, after moving to Lesotho being married quickly became the least noteworthy thing about our lives, and the novelty of being newlyweds was thus much less intense than it would have probably been if we had been going about our American lives. So interesting to look back on this year and all the changes and developments that have occurred in our life and relationship. We spent a weekend in Clarens (which turned out to be a nice long weekend because we got snowed out of Mokhotlong) to celebrate, and had a lovely time. Very thankful that it has been such a great year for us and for our marriage. Plus—oh the glory—Clarens had a bookstore.

In my natural habitat

Reid, Will, Ellen, Neo (Nthabeleng’s 14-year old son), and I went to Bloemfontein for the Confederation Cup, a kind of warm up to the World Cup. We saw Spain play South Africa, and people were suitably amped up. Let me introduce you to the vuvusela:

Neo Tooting his Little Heart Out

This is a much-loved plastic horn rampant at African sporting events. Neo was our group’s vuvusela-ist, and did a bang up job. Apparently the American and European teams complained because the noise was distracting. I can see their point, but the constant trumpeting really lends itself to a festive atmosphere. Plans for World Cup 2010 travel are currently underway…

We picked up Lauren and Eric in Maseru and spent another unintentionally long (more snow) weekend away from TTL.

Reid Helping the Lesotho Defense Force Push Through the Snow

Usually our trips to Maseru are strictly business, so it was actually nice to have an extra day to walk around the market, eat good Indian food, and enjoy the heating in our hotel room. Also so excited to have Lauren and Eric here! They have already made friends with the babies, sung in a church choir, and generally endeared themselves to the citizens of Mokhotlong.

****

So now just settling in for the next four weeks in Mokhotlong, hopefully spent tying up any loose ends with work, holding some babies, and relishing the pace of life and the community that we have built here. I promise more frequent updates to follow—there are nine babies in the safehome right now, and they all deserve some love.

Update on Tsepang

2009-06-12T03:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, all you need is pictures....

Staff Profile: Nthabeleng Lephoto

2009-05-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

This post by Reid

This is the first entry in what we hope to make an occasional feature of this blog: the staff profile. For the most part, this blog chronicles our perspectives and experiences as Americans working and living in Lesotho. But we are just temporary fixtures here at TTL. The real work is carried out by the remarkable staff, a group of 30 Basotho men and women who are on the front lines of TTL’s mission. These are the folks who change the diapers, feed the kids, drive the cars, visit kid’s on outreach, and counsel pregnant women in villages. They are also our friends and colleagues – the people who welcomed us as temporary residents of Mokhotlong, wave at us when we conspicuously walk down the street, and provide us with explanations when we are clueless. They are leading TTL to confront the challenges in their own community, and doing one hell of a job.

It seems only appropriate that the first staff profile on this blog should be of Nthabeleng Lephoto, who is the managing director, lifeblood, and spirit of TTL. Her life-story would make for a compelling triple-decker novel, an African rags-to-riches story that Horatio Alger couldn’t have dreamt up. But until Bridget gets a book deal, a blog post will have to do. So here we go…

Vital Stats

Name: Nthabeleng Lephoto
Position: Managing Director
Nationality: Mosotho
Age: 38
Height: 4’9 (this is not a joke)
Vertical: 13 feet (this is)
Family: Nthabeleng is a single-mother of 2. Her son, Neo, is 14 and her daughter, Retselisetsoe, is 6.

Player Profile

Nthabeleng is the prime-mover behind TTL. As managing director, she oversees all aspects of the organization and is responsible for everything from interfacing with international donors in Maseru to making medical decisions for children under our care. She supervises the entire staff of 30, makes sure all the i's are dotted and the t’s are crossed in our accounting system, and is also a great dancer.

But Nthabeleng’s most impressive characteristic is her deep commitment to the children in TTL’s care. Managing an organization like TTL, she faces pain, tragedy, and life-or-death decisions nearly every day. And while she handles these situations with the steadiness and aplomb of a pro, you always know that she still feels deeply for each child. She manages to resist numbness in an environment that is numbing. All of TTL’s kids benefit because of this.

Nthabeleng’s compassion and commitment to each kid have especially benefited her daughter, Retselisitsoe. Retselisitsoe was one of the first kids that TTL ever cared for, arriving at TTL just a few months old after surviving a harrowing first few months of life. When it became clear that there was no one to take care of Retselisitsoe, Nthabeleng adopted her and has cared for her over the last 6 years as her own.

If her compassion and commitment are her most defining traits, her leadership skills are no less impressive. Nthabeleng manages people like she was born to do it. When she speaks, the staff listens. When she needs something done, it gets done. She doesn’t need a MBA, because she’s a NBA: natural bad @$$.

Bonus material: For a considerably funnier, but no less true account of Nthabeleng, check out what our friend Will wrote about Nthabeleng on his blog: http://williamtmcgrath.wordpress.com/2008/11/30/the-graduation-of-retselisitsoe-moeletsi/

The Beautiful Songs of Rural Lesotho

2009-05-05T07:46:00.000-07:00

This is ultimately a story about diarrhea and adult education, but no need to squirm if you are squeamish. It is a pleasant story about diarrhea if such a thing exists. To begin, however, we must turn to that other fundamental human activity: music.

Music in Lesotho is a vibrant part of the culture, embedded in the daily routine of life and omnipresent in the shops and public transportation throughout town. Some of this music takes the form of absurdly loud Famo, music built around shrill accordion melodies and pounding bass lines and inevitably played through expensive-looking and terrible-sounding public address systems. (Our neighbor is particularly fond of this type of music, especially between the hours of 9 pm and 5 am on any given night.) In addition to the ubiquitous Famo, however, Lesotho also abounds with lovely songs that make an appearance at any gathering of people. These songs sound like a combination of Gregorian chant and spiritual hymnals and induce feelings of tranquility and spirituality. I always imagine that these are the “Amazing Graces” and “We Shall Overcomes” of the Basotho, and I am impressed by the interwoven harmonies and seemingly complex patterns of call and response. They are known by men, women, and children, and everyone is expected to dance and sing along once they begin.

Each month, we conduct trainings for a group of Village Health workers on various health issues and I am treated to at least 3 or 4 of these songs. The Village Health workers are a lively bunch of women between the ages of 40 and 150 (no joking, one woman looks like she might have been alive when Lincoln was president) and the sense of camaraderie during the training sessions is always high. Any downtime during the training sessions - whether to wait for late arrivals or to excuse the moderator while she uses the restroom – is filled with songs. One woman will start singing and others will quickly join. Within minutes the whole room of 42 women is standing, singing, and dancing. I usually smile and clap along during the songs, oblivious to the meaning of the lyrics, but enjoying the tunes. Occasionally, I will make a small gesture towards dancing and am greeted by big smiles and laughter: “Look, the mekhooa is dancing!”

Last month was the fifth training we have held for these women, so I was not surprised at all when I heard the familiar songs begin. But moved by an unusual curiosity this day, I asked Matello for a translation of what they were singing, expecting something along the lines of “God is great”. But here is what they were actually singing:

Let us build the toilets

And Wash the Hands

To prevent the diarrhea

On the word diarrhea, they held their hands behind their butts and wiggled their fingers. A clearly brilliant move destined to be used in charades some day if anyone is ever bold enough to include the word diarrhea in the title of their work of art. Witnessing the spectacle of 42 grown - even elderly - women singing a solemn hymn to the anti-diarrhea cause while making a borderline lewd gesture, I couldn’t stop laughing. Life in Lesotho can be too strange sometimes.

With my curiosity now piqued, I listened closely as they started in on another song. Maybe all of their songs are that absurd, I thought. I pictured the many hours I sat listening to these hymns and realized I had been missing out all along. So I asked what this new song was about. “It is not that funny,” Matello informed me. Still, I wanted a translation:

Adult Education is Interesting

We Have Been Telling You

Adult Education is Interesting

Yes, indeed. It is.

(This post by Reid)

Tsepang

2009-04-29T07:53:00.001-07:00

In our first month here, I wrote about our fool’s errand to Thaba-Tseka—the Thaba Tseka car had run out of gas and we had to make the 6-hour round-trip drive to deliver a container of petrol. A few weeks ago, we were sent on a similar mission. Lesotho, pre-industrial as it sometimes seems, necessitates trekking halfway across the country to deliver paperwork. So Reid and I set off on a Friday morning to bring Thabang, the outreach worker in Thaba Tseka, a spreadsheet. I joked to Reid that now, with my second trip to the Thaba Tseka district, I would have spent a total of 5 minutes there. Still, it was a nice day, and an excuse to leave the office. The police were conducting a case that required them to interview someone in Thaba Tseka, so we gave them a ride as well. People are cooperative like that here.

We drove the winding dirt roads out to St. Theresa clinic to meet Thabang. A group of women were waiting outside the clinic when we arrived, most holding babies or watching small children. I noticed one woman with a bundled child, her face smeared with the white zinc that the Basotho sometimes use to protect their skin from the sun. She must have walked a long way, I thought.

We handed the form to Thabang, and then decided that he would come with us to show the police the village where they needed to go. We were climbing back into the Land Cruiser when a woman, the one I had noticed, approached the car. She exchanged a few words with Thabang, and as she did the blanket slipped slightly from the bundle she was carrying. I froze, a cold feeling coming over me—the one that goes up and down your spine when a mundane situation suddenly becomes precarious and important. Thabang turned to us, “This m’e has been waiting for me, I need to go talk with her.” He jumped out of the car. I turned to Reid, “We need to go with them. That baby was not ok.” I had caught a glimpse of a wizened little face, eyes wide and cheeks taut—not the face of a baby at all.

We all trooped in to Thabang’s office, and the m’e unwrapped the bundle. We learned that his name was Tsepang. He was the most frightening thing I have ever seen. His eyes stayed wide open and observant as we gazed down at his skeletal body. I could not (still cannot) comprehend how a seven-month old child could survive such wasting. We didn’t bother taking off all his clothes in the cold room to weigh him. It was too apparent that this was an emergency situation. With all of his clothes, he was 6.4 lbs.

Tsepang on arrival at the TTL.

The m’e who brought Tsepang in was a neighbor—someone who had apparently taken pity on this desperate orphan, whose mother had died a month before and whose grandmother was gravely ill. Thabang told her that we would be taking the baby to TTL in Mokhotlong, and showed her a picture of our brochure—the one that has pictures of Palesa, the TTL poster-child who came in as a skeleton and left with the nickname “Tank.” The neighbor smiled, and handed over Tsepang with obvious relief.

I held Tsepang on the way back to Mokhotlong. The police with us were almost awed by his appearance. After a few miles one spoke up, in the first English he had uttered all day, “I have never seen a baby like that. I would not think that was possible.”

We had made up a bottle of formula at the clinic and I fed Tsepang as we drove. He ate well, thankfully. He had been sucking on his thumbs since we had seen him, sucking with desperation, and when we pulled them out of his mouth he would scream. The thumbs were pruned, like they had just come out of the bath, and the skin had peeled away so that they were nearly white. After his first feeding, his eyes closed and the thumbs finally slipped out of his mouth. I was grateful for his rest, but spent the rest of the drive in bursts of panic, placing my pinkie under his nose to make sure he was still breathing.

We emerged from the car back at TTL, and several outreach workers saw the baby. “Ache, Palesa,” they would say, comparing him with the baby everyone had previously thought of as the worst it could get. We heard this over and over, as the bo’m’e and staff discussed Tsepang in Sesotho—a mention of “Palesa.” I think in all of our minds we were reassuring ourselves that a child like this could survive. Palesa survived, and so could Tsepang. Living in Lesotho, you realize that things so often go the other way, and thus cling to examples of children surviving against the odds.

Thankfully, Tsepang is confirming our hopes. In his three weeks at TTL he has gained enough weight to be almost unrecognizable from the skeletal baby we first saw, and continues to eat well and show no other signs of ill-health. We are hoping that we can continue to update with good news of how this boy, fighter that he obviously is, progresses and grows.

After just two weeks at TTL, and with a pacifier in place of his thumbs.

Great! Success!

2009-04-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends and Family –

Thank you so much for your generous response to the letter we sent in December. Your outpouring of support was truly overwhelming and the “challenge” we set forth was dwarfed by your response.

We are pleased to announce that as a group we raised over $22,000.00 for Touching Tiny Lives. You may recall that the original goal was to raise $10,000, so we more than doubled our goal!

Of course, this thank-you has been a few months in the making. Just like my parents who don’t take down their Christmas tree until May, we are just now sending this follow-up. But please understand: we had to hire a choreographer, find time for rehearsals, and coordinate a lot of schedules. It was quite a production.

As promised, however, Bridget and I have finally recorded a video to celebrate beating the goal, featuring both traditional Basotho dance moves and ululating, as well as a small snippet of the butt-dance. The dance was performed in a large ampitheatre (Nthabeleng’s living room) with a troupe of professional dancers (Nthabeleng’s family) See for yourself:

Once again, thank you all so much for your support and generosity. Please know that the money is being put to good use here at TTL.

Love,

Reid and Bridget

Credits:

Director – Nthabeleng Lephoto
Director of Choreography – Reid Rector

Lead Ululating – Bridget Rector
Rhythm Ululating – All
Miscellaneous Talking – Nthabeleng Lephoto

Director of Blanket Folding (Female) – Kokonyana Lephoto
Director of Blanket Folding (Male) – Motsoane Lephoto
Assistant Director of Head Scarves – Nthabeleng Lephoto

First Grip (Lighting) – Neo Lephoto
Second Grip (Lighting) – Tseli Lephoto
Catering Services – MPs Kitchen

Dancers, in order of appearance:
Reid Rector
Bridget Rector
Motsoane Lephoto
Neo Lephoto
Tsili Lephoto
Kokonyana Lephoto
Kefoue Sekhiba
Mothusi Sebehela
Kabelo Sebehela
Seitebatso Sebehela

30 Babies

2009-04-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

A baby named Tseriletso arrived at the safe-home today and it just happens that I am neck-deep in statistics working on a grant proposal. Because of this, I noticed that Tseriletso is the 30^th child we have had in the safe-home during the six-months Bridget and I have been in Lesotho.

Looking back through the names I am hit with waves of nostalgia; intense happiness for some of the children, and deep sadness for others. The children that find their way to TTL are some of the most vulnerable children in a wholly vulnerable country, so their stories often follow dramatic arcs.

The names Thoriso and Retselisitsoe bring me back to when we first arrived. They are both back with their families now, and thriving in their homes. More than anything else, I miss them as playmates.

Lerato reminds me of our first months here as well, but his name also elicits a kernel of concern in my heart. Lerato continues to struggle despite returning to a doting mother, held hostage to the all-too-common combination of chronic malnutrition, TB, and HIV. He seems destined to struggle no matter how much help we give him and how much love we can shower on him.

Mokete and Relebohile occupy the largest portion of my memories. They both arrived in the first few weeks we were here and both left recently. We watched their journeys from start to finish: from death’s door to relative health. Thinking of them causes me to whelm up with pride for the work TTL is doing.

And then there are Thato and Reitumetse, who didn’t make it. It is hard to utter their names without rehashing their last days, second-guessing, and cursing.

30 kids and 30 unique stories, and now there is Tseriletso, whose story waits to be told.

Mokete Going Home

2009-03-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

Mokete has been at Touching Tiny Lives almost as long as we have, which has recently begun to feel like a decent chunk of time. Enough time to get into the rhythms of the place, to know all the names, to identify some of the quirks, to get used to the food and the routine. So, as we prepared to have Mokete return home on Monday, I thought a lot about what that might mean for a three year old boy. Many kids have been reunified since we arrived here in September, and some of them had even been in the safehome for longer amounts of time than our buddy Mokete. But most of these kids were younger, less expressive. Mokete, on the other hand, must still remember his mother and his home from before he came to TTL, and he would certainly be aware of the magnitude of change going back.

Anyway. On Monday when we get down to the office preparations are already in effect. The bo’m’e and mekhooa cluster around, fawning over Mokete in a way wholly uncharacteristic of the normal Basotho treatment of children. Most of the kids I’ve seen end up rather skittish by the end of this, suspicious of the extra attention.

Each child gets to choose one toy to bring with them when they leave. Mokete, for whatever reason, emerges from the playroom with three. His favorite, a wooden puzzle, and two balls.
Unlike the babies we have seen leave the safehome, Mokete walks out on his own two feet. This seems all the more significant when I think back to how when he first arrived he was too weak to walk, or do much more than lay quietly on a blanket in the playroom.

In the car, Mokete sits on my lap and gazes raptly out the window at the passing countryside, his countryside. I wonder how much he remembered of this landscape, the mountains and maize fields that will now make up so much of his daily life, so far removed from the sterile brightness of TTL.

After a little while, though, Mokete falls asleep on my lap. He doesn’t even wake up when we go bumping off the road in Mapholoneng onto the narrow dirt track that leads to his mother’s home.

We arrive at the house, doors shut and windows shuttered. Clearly empty. Mantja clambers out of the car and starts calling to a neighbor in his field. I wake Mokete and stand him on the ground outside of the house. He seems tired, so I pick him back up after a minute. Soon I see a girl streaking across the field next door, her red skirt flashing. “Is that Mokete’s mother?” I ask Mantja. Mantja nods.

She arrives breathless and smiling. I hold Mokete out to her and she opens her arms. I wonder what she thinks being returned this healthy, chubby boy, having given up a skeletal, desperately ill child. If she is surprised, shocked, she doesn’t say.

We all enter the small house, which is neat and painted a cheerful green. As Mantja begins to explain Mokete’s ARV regimen and the supplies we have brought with us, Mokete grabs onto his puzzle. He focuses on it, bringing it over to me and leaning against my legs. Every now and then his mother interjects with, “’M’e u kae?”, which translates to, “Where is your mother?” Mokete continues to stare at his puzzle, though, and I think that it will be much easier for his mother to reach out to him once we are all gone.

The explanation finished, we say goodbye. Mokete stands by his mother’s legs and I ask to take a picture of them together. His mother smiles and waves, leaning down to make sure that Mokete is waving too.

(We are having some technical difficulties here in Mokhotlong, but I will post pictures as soon as I can!)

Reading in Mokhotlong

2009-03-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

This past month has been a mix between the mundane and the heartbreaking, which, as it turns out, doesn’t provide much blog fodder. The babies in the safehouse are doing well and we will be updating soon on Mokete’s reunification, slated for next week, but in the meantime I thought I would talk about my favorite pastime (some might say, perpetual obsession): reading. At its most boring, Mokhotlong is a bookworm’s paradise. When, in your entire life, does the average weekday afford an hour in the morning, several hours in the afternoon, and a bit of time before bed for reading? (School doesn’t count—something about the forced nature). And this without the weekends—hour upon hour stretching out with LITERALLY nothing else to do but plow through books. It’s fantastic.

Thankfully, between Will and Ellen, past volunteers, and the books we managed to cram in our suitcase, we have a pretty well-stocked shelf in the common rondavel. This is particularly fortunate since, so far as I can tell, there is not a book to be found in Lesotho, or even in some mid-size South African towns. (Slight exaggeration--there is a library here, with a strange assortment of discarded English language titles, but you aren’t allowed to actually remove them from the premises). The entertaining part of living with four people who have very limited access to reading materials is that when you want to talk about a book you can pretty much guarantee everyone you know has read the same one. The downside is that when you really want to tell someone about this fascinating story or idea you read about, they’ve already heard about it. This goes for People magazines as well as Dickensian three-deckers.

I’ve been keeping a record of my reading since I got here—especially since one of the Peace Corps guys told me that he read 100 books last year. I’m sure that those of you who know me are SHOCKED that I took that as a challenge. I’m not quite on pace for that yet, but I’m thinking with winter coming on our daytime activities will be restricted, giving me a fighting chance.

So, here is the list of books I’ve read so far in Mokhotlong—my favorites are in bold. Feel free to weigh in with suggestions!

September

True at First Light, Ernest Hemingway
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson
Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl
Comfort me with Apples, Ruth Reichl
The Little Book, Selden James
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

October

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, Michael Chabon
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens

November

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut
Can You Forgive Her?, Anthony Trollope
And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie
The Sea, John Banville

December

The Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie
A Fine Balance, Rohan Mistry
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, Jeffrey Eugenides, ed.
Islands in the Stream, Ernest Hemingway

January

People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
Twilight, Stefanie Meyers
The Given Day, Dennis Lehane
The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
The Final Solution, Michael Chabon

February

American Wife, Curtis Sittenfield
Rabbit, Run, John Updike
Unless, Carol Shields
Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett
Brighton Rock, Graham Greene
Moo, Jane Smiley
White Noise, Don DeLillo
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

March

Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen

Throwing a Party

2009-02-26T06:43:00.000-08:00

My parents throw a lot of parties. After 9 graduation parties, 2 Rectorpaloozas, and innumerable other any-excuse-for-a-party parties, they have devised a reliable and predictable model. First, they call Red Hot and Blue, a barbeque joint in Laurel, Maryland, and order a tray of pulled pork. Then they order a large bucket of pasta salad from Costco and a few trays of Chick-Fil-A chicken nuggets. A few neighbors bring a side dish, we put the deck furniture on the lawn, borrow a volleyball net and a picnic table from the Falks, put out some drinks, and the party is ready. It is a recipe for success.

Last week, Bridget and I learned the recipe for a successful party in Lesotho.

The occasion for a party was Nthabeleng’s birthday. Our fearless leader was turning 38 and we needed to celebrate. But in a world where Red Hot and Blue doesn’t exist, where you can’t get a 6 foot Subway sub (though I really wish I could right now…), where ground beef comes with a healthy dose of gristle, and where the closest thing to Costco is a store we call “Big China”, it turns out the most cost-effective way to feed a party of 50 is to buy a sheep, kill it, butcher it, and then cook it. So that’s what we did.

Luckily, finding a sheep is no problem in Lesotho. Sheep, cattle, goats, donkeys, and horses are all as commonplace as people. They are more commonplace than cars. So four days before the party, Nthabeleng came into the office and announced she was going to get the sheep. “Where?” we asked. “Up the street,” she replied. And so she did.

She was back in about 15 minutes, having literally just walked up the street to the post office where she found a shepherd with a small flock of sheep and made an offer. We had passed this shepherd innumerable times when picking up mail, without any idea that he was open for business. After securing the appropriate paperwork (stock theft is big here in Lesotho, so you need a certificate of legal ownership before buying an animal), we gave the shepherd R780 (about $80) and the shepherd and his friend brought the sheep down the street to TTL. In the span of an hour, we had found and purchased our sheep and we were off to a good start.

Although I assumed the sheep had a few more days to live – the party wasn’t until Saturday – it was not to be. A few of the male employees at TTL got back from an outreach visit, eyed the sheep, and started to get excited. The action began immediately.

We braced ourselves for a gruesome scene, but were surprised by the dignity and calmness of the whole process. Fusi dug a small hole in the ground. Thabang and Koenane led the sheep, kicking, but with a rather resigned air, over towards the hole and laid it down on its side. A few of us joined in to hold its legs. With our rather dull kitchen knives, they quickly slit the throat and then broke the neck, letting the arterial blood flow into the small hole and minimizing the pain.

The sheep didn’t make a sound. It kicked a few times, convulsively, and in less than a minute the body went limp.

Now the men slit the skin down the middle of the belly and started pushing the skin and wool away from the body with their hands. Ellen and I joined in the process. The body was warm, but surprisingly bloodless, and the skin peeled away easily.

Skinned and headless, you could start to forget already that the animal had been living and breathing only minutes before. Methodically and efficiently, Fusi opened the abdomen and cut out the organs and entrails, tossing all the insides into one of our pots. Fusi and Moeletsi grabbed the now-clean carcass and lobbed it onto the barb-wired fence to dry out, while children passed by on their way home from school.

The intestinal track required a little extra work. The enormous stomach was opened to reveal what looked like a lawnmower-bag full of grass, which was emptied and rinsed We came around the side of the safehouse to see a funny pink tube lying on the grass—realizing only after a moment that Fusi and Koenane had cleverly attached the intestines to the garden hose in order to flush them of “debris.” Once completely cleaned, the intestinal track was cut into pieces and added to the pot with the heart, lungs, trachea, liver, and dozens of other unidentifiable parts, all chopped to bite size pieces. The pot was spiced liberally, then taken to the kitchen and put on the stove.

Meanwhile, Moeletsi removed the carcass from the fence and he and Fusi hacked it into large pieces: legs of lamb, racks of ribs, etc. The mekhooa took it upon ourselves to try to preserve the skin—stretching it and pinning it down with nails, washing and salting it, and leaving it to dry in the sun. Nothing was wasted. Two hours after the sheep was purchased from behind the post office, the whole process was complete. Depending on traffic on I-95, it can take longer to drive to Red Hot and Blue. I was impressed.

Bridget and I went back to the office to finish a grant proposal. We talked about what the Basotho thought of us as we gawked through the whole process, anxious to get involved but completely inexperienced. Every Basotho man on the premises had helped and seemed to know exactly what to do. Americans are not fit for survival in this environment, we concluded. The whole process was over, and we were back to our own natural habitat: office work.

Then Thabang came into the office and motioned for me to come outside. Willing but a little nervous, I followed him towards the side of the safe-house where I found all of the men standing over a steaming pot. “Grab a piece,” Ntate Moeletsi instructed me.

I was now part of a male ritual: the post-slaughter eating of the entrails. So I reached for the most meat-like piece I could find - what I believed to be either liver or heart. I chewed on the piece for a solid three minutes as the five Basotho men in the circle took turns diving into the pot for pieces. “Have another,” Ntate Moeletsi told me. Despite my slow-chewing tactics, I still had to eat 6 or 7 total pieces before the pot was exhausted. Liver isn’t bad. Neither is lung. I wouldn’t recommend the unidentified-chewy-fatty piece, though. After joining the other men in drinking the broth from the pot with a spoon, the whole process was complete. Plus, I had proved my manhood to a group of Basotho guys.

Three days later, we fired up the grill and had a great party. As I bit into my first piece of hand-prepared mutton, I felt a sense of satisfaction.

Bridget, we’re not in Maryland anymore.

Ordering a Hamburger at the Mokhotlong Hotel: A Play in Three Acts

2009-02-16T00:35:00.000-08:00

ACT 1

Eight mekhooa sit around a table in an empty dining room. Under florescent lights, they ponder a paper menu listing a plethora of fine-dining options. After thirty minutes, a waiter approaches.

Waiter: Hello. (points to menu). We have only fish and chips and peri-peri chicken.

Chorus: Nothing on the next three pages?

Bridget: No hamburgers at all?

Waiter: No, no hamburgers. (pause). There are no buns.

Bridget: Oh, ok. But you have the meat?

Waiter: Yes

Bridget: Well what if we order a hamburger on bread? Would that work?

Waiter: (pause). Yes, ok.

MJ: So seriously, though, you don’t have anything on the last three pages of the menu?

Waiter: No.

Taylor: Um, but if you have bread and cheese, could I just have the toasted cheese sandwich on page 2?

Waiter: Let me check.

Scene fades with seven hungry people drinking quarts of Castle Lager and looking rather despondently at their menus.

ACT 2

Same positions, ten minutes later.

Waiter: Yes, ok, toasted cheese. (returns to kitchen)

A man enters from outside wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

Man: Ok, ok, so seven burgers? But you know no buns?

Chorus: Yes, I think we can manage.

Man: Ok, but you want something else on the burger? Cheese? Mushrooms?

Ellen: Oh yeah, cheese would be great.

Bridget: Oh, and mushrooms on mine, please.

Man: We have no mushrooms.

Bridget: Huh?

Man departs through kitchen door

Jamie: Who was that?

Bridget: I think he was the chef.

Reid: Really? I just saw him drinking with some friends at the bar.

ACT 3

Forty-five minutes pass. The waiter returns bearing hamburgers, which he places in front of each person at the table. Everyone looks closely.

Chorus: Wha?

Reid: Um, are these buns?

Babies: Part 2

2009-02-10T01:04:00.000-08:00

Here is part two - the little guys:

Teboho

Teboho came to the safehouse from Thaba-Tseka after being referred because his mother was critically ill. She was HIV-positive, but had defaulted on her medication, and when Ellen and Will helped bring her back from the hospital (having been discharged after starting TB treatment) she was so sick and weak that they had to carry her to the car, and even hold a can of Coke to her lips because she was too enervated to lift her hand. Fortunately, Teboho tested negative for HIV, and has been a healthy and happy addition to TTL. Also, he never closes his mouth. Seriously, I have yet to see the boy with his mouth shut. Which is great, because it allows copious amounts of drool to drip out at all times:

Rethabile

A fierce competitor of Teboho’s for the title of “Most Drool Expelled in a 24-hour Period,” Rethabile is probably the cutest thing any of us have ever seen. He has bizarrely crinkled elf-ears, never stops smiling, and is perfectly content to sit for hours, scissor-kicking his legs. At least seven plots have been uncovered throughout the volunteers and staff to abscond with the little guy (i.e. I have villainously exposed said plots in a effort to keep him all for myself). Rethabile is healthy and thriving, but was taken from his 72-year old grandmother because it was difficult for her to care for a small infant.

Tholang

Tholang was one of the two babies that Reid and I brought in on our first day of outreach, back in September, and therefore holds a special place as we have been able to see the full scope of his progress from severely malnourished three-month old to normal, smiling 7-month old. We call him the “little old man” because of a certain combination of downturned eyebrows and double chin. Tholang’s mother was critically ill with TB when he came to TTL, but is doing much better now and a reunion is now imminent. (Note: The reunion took place yesterday, and he is now back with his mother and grandparents.)

Boithatelo

Boithatelo, 5-months, arrived at TTL in December, but was admitted to the hospital after her vomiting and diarrhea became severe. She is now back in the safehome, and doing very well. Her mother is 16-years old and HIV-positive. Though Boithatelo rapid-tested positive for HIV, for breastfeeding babies this test can be inaccurate, so we are still waiting on the results of her DNA/PCR test.

Puleng

Three-month old Puleng’s mother is also 16, and a double-orphan. Because she has no other support at home and is trying to finish high school, TTL agreed to take Puleng while she attends classes. Puleng is a healthy child, with some of the chubbiest cheeks this side of Plumpino.

Nako

Nako arrived only today, with no other information than his mother has been admitted to the hospital with HIV-related problems. Since she was not expecting to be admitted her sister-in-law asked us to the care for the baby while the mother is undergoing treatment. Nako appears to be doing well so far.

Babies!

2009-02-03T22:37:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since we did a thorough update on the babies in the safehome, and in the interim a whole new era has begun. Of the eight babies comprising the Fab Four and Wee Ones, only Tholang and Tsepo are still in the house. Relebohile, aka Plumpino, was reunified on Monday, thus sadly ending a string of the cutest pictures you may ever see, but we will try to fill the void with these new faces:

Mokete

Reid wrote about Mokete after the first day of seeing him on outreach, when he was little more than a skeleton wracked by HIV and TB. Now on plenty of medication and considerable bowlfuls of “papa le nama” (papa, the traditional corn meal porridge, and meat—some of Mokete’s first words at TTL), Mokete is turning into a funny and active three-year old little boy. Still preferring to cuddle on someone’s lap than run around, he has also proved to be a leader of the other older kids, often chiding them, “Uh unh Semethe, Uh unh” with a wag of his finger.

Matseliso

Matseliso, also three-years old, came to us in December because her mother was in the hospital and she was receiving insufficient care from her father. When she arrived she was acutely malnourished, and with a huge abscess on her stomach. She also tested positive for HIV. Over the past month and a half she has fattened up considerably, her abscess has healed, and she has become the chattiest member of the playroom. She loves playing games, especially one which involves “pepa-ing”—strapping a doll to her back in imitation of how the bo’m’e traditionally carry babies.

Semethe

Semethe arrived within days of Matseliso, an acutely malnourished two-year old. Though he is HIV-negative, his situation was critical because he had fallen ill with vomiting and diarrhea just after his mom gave birth to a second baby, and was not receiving proper care. By the time we returned from our Christmas break, Semethe had transformed from a silent and withdrawn child into a little boy who tears around the room, laughing and getting into everything. He is also very affectionate with the other children.

Tsepo

We refer to Tsepo as “grumpy Tsepo” because, though he has been here as long as any of the babies, he absolutely howls any time a white person so much as looks at him. Reid has tried to remedy the situation by holding him (a kind a Ferberized-method of affection), but with disappointingly little gains. On the upside, Tsepo’s health continues to flourish, and he will be reunified soon with his grandfather (a septuagenarian caring for several other grandchildren). Perhaps we can get him to crack a smile at us before he goes….

Or, maybe not.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the little guys!

Over the Hills and Far Away

2009-01-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

Tuesday, January 20^th

We drive two hours to reach the San Martin clinic, take a hard right, and head straight upwards to pass over an intimidating mountain range. As we drive up and over the mountain, I can’t help but feel that we are doing something cool. The rough driving appeals to my inner truck commercial. An enterprising tour company could convince tourists that this is a 4x4 excursion worth paying for. It is not, really, but I am enjoying the drive more than usual.

The commercial.

We arrive at the village. Though our visit has been planned for over 2 weeks, not a single child has been gathered for assessment by the time we arrive. The village health worker heads out to round up the kids, shouting at the top of her lungs to overcome the muffling mountain winds.

Eventually, the children begin streaming into the small room where we have set up shop. Today, we are assessing every child for malnutrition and looking for kids that need our help. The Village Health Workers are demonstrating their new skills by weighing each child, measuring his or her height, and using those measurements to assess nutritional statuses. Matello and I peruse each child’s health booklet, looking for trouble between the lines.

Child being weighed.

The room is loud. Mothers are talking with one another. Babies are crying. One young girl begins to wail as her mother puts her in the harness so she can be weighed on the hanging scale. Hanging four feet from the ground, her wails grow louder. Matello, who recently had a child of her own, grabs the child, pulls out her breast, and offers it to the wailer. Lacking Sesotho skills, I didn’t realize that the baby was calling for a letsoele, a breast, amidst her cries. She settles down momentarily, but when we start measuring her height she wails again.

A four year-old girl appears in the doorway with a two year-old on her back and a three-year-old in tow. In her hand she has three health booklets. She waits in line with the mothers. Her own mother is at home with a newborn, so she is responsible for her two younger siblings. The VHW cannot answer our questions about her home situation, so Matello calls the four-year-old over. She answers a few questions in a mousy voice and then gets her siblings to pose for a picture for me.

The one on the right is in charge.

To me, this whole scene seems empowering. Local women are taking the lead in working with other local women and helping local children. Maybe the next time a child needs help, they will turn to the VHW. I hope being the white guy in the corner adds some legitimacy to the process, and some legitimacy to the VHW.

The children are staring at me, and I wave to each of them as I catch their eyes. Matello whispers, “You are the first white person they have ever seen.”

The main event is over and Matello talks to a few of the women who are HIV positive while I load gear back into the car. We have seen 32 children and about 12 of them are now following me towards the car. They chatter at me, I speak my broken Sesotho, they laugh, and then chatter at me some more. I am at a loss, so I start taking pictures and showing them. They are impressed. Then they start trying on my sunglasses. They are impressed. Then I take pictures of them while they wear my sunglasses. They are really impressed.

Very cool.

Playtime is over, and I head back to join Matello. She finishes her discussion and women bring food from another rondaval. I am nervous. I have been in this situation before and I fear the sour milk I am about to be served.

My fears are realized as milk appears in an old plastic paint pail, where it has presumably been sitting for at least two days. Matello can hardly suppress her laughter as I try to keep a straight face. “Hanyane feela,” just a little, I suggest. But I eat a whole bowl full, glancing at Matello after every bite to make sure she is watching. We head back to TTL happy with the day’s work, though I can’t help thinking that the truck-commercial would be a lot less glamorous with a belly full of sour milk.

Posted by Reid

Back to Lesotho

2009-01-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

We are back in Mokhotlong after a great couple of weeks in the United States and are quickly readjusting to life in Mokhotlong, happy to see all those familiar sights that make you feel home in rural Lesotho. A man chasing his sheep from the road. Houses constructed of mud. A three-year old boy pulling a 800 pound donkey. And yes, worms in our thatch roof.

Bridget and me snowshoeing with the Harringtons in Colorado.

Most exciting, of course, the safehouse is jumping with energy and all of the babies are smiling and playful. Two babies arrived while we were away, and there are currently ten kids in the house. Teboho, one of our 4 month old friends, just took a nap on my shoulder. It is nice to be back.

It is also amazing what three weeks can do for a child. A few of the kids who were really sick when we left have turned the corner and are now playful little toddlers. Of particular note is Semete, a little boy who three weeks ago was painfully shy, and probably even more painfully malnourished. Now you can’t slow him down. We brought a soccer ball back for the kids, and he has quickly appropriated it as his own. Now if we can just get him to kick it instead of sitting on it…

Semete lounging in the playroom.

We are going to be writing as much as possible for the remainder of our year here. Thanks so much for following along, and for all of your kind words and support. It was great to see many of you. Happy New Year!

Home for Christmas

2008-12-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

Reid and I are home in America for the holidays! So the blog will be back up and running in January!

Merry Christmas!!

Two Front Teeth

2008-12-16T00:42:00.000-08:00

Hello blog readers--we sent out this letter via e-mail earlier this week, but we thought we would post it here as well. Merry Christmas!

All We Want for Christmas….

Dear Friends and Family,

Merry Christmas from Africa! As most of you know, we are spending this year volunteering with Touching Tiny Lives in Mokhotlong, Lesotho. It has been a pretty interesting first couple months of marriage: living in a hut, working with sick babies, and adjusting to a different pace of life (much slower). Though there are challenges, we feel very lucky to be here together, working for an organization that does such great work.

We have been writing a blog about our experiences, and many of you have read it and asked how you can help. Being perpetual procrastinators, we haven’t replied to any of you. But as the Christmas giving season approaches, we thought we would offer some ideas for how you can help. And since we are a little bit competitive – mostly Bridget, really – we thought we would make a challenge out of it. Before we get to the challenge, however (settle down, Susie), a little on what TTL does, and how you can help.

In the Mokhotlong district of Lesotho where we are working, HIV and AIDS are ravaging the community. With HIV rates estimated at near 30%, Lesotho is at the epicenter of the global HIV epidemic. Life expectancy has dropped from 45 to 38, and rates of associated infections, such as TB, are soaring. Largely as a result of this epidemic, some estimates suggest that there are as many as 100,000 orphans in Lesotho, out of a population of only 1.8 million. Many other children have contracted HIV from their mothers. In too many tragic cases, children in Mokhotlong district are both orphaned and HIV positive.

Touching Tiny Lives (TTL) is dedicated to helping children under five years of age affected by this epidemic. Managed and staffed by women and men from the community, the organization has served over four-hundred kids since beginning work in 2004, and currently provides life-saving support to over 130 children and pregnant mothers.

The motto here is….one child at a time. We are not trying to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but we are trying to make a difference in individual lives.

To do this, TTL employs a unique model consisting of three integrated programs. At the core of the Touching Tiny Lives model is an outreach program that supports children in their homes by providing nutritional, medical, and educational support. A complementary PMTCT (prevention of mother to child transmission) program works with pregnant mothers to prevent transmissions to newborns. Finally, TTL operates a safe-home – a type of temporary orphanage - in Mokhotlong where severely malnourished and sick children are rehabilitated. The safe-home is a final safety-net for the most vulnerable kids, and a temporary home to some of the cutest babies around.

In order to run these programs, TTL has a basic set of needs: food, medicine, clothes, staff, transportation, and a warm place for babies to sleep. That’s really it – there are no frills here at TTL. We just need to reach the kids in their remote villages, provide them with food and medicine, and, if they are really sick, bring them to the safe-home and give them around the clock care, a warm bed, and all the food they can eat (as our boss, Nthabeleng, says, “Food is the best medicine.”)

You saw it coming, of course, but the common denominator for all of this is money. While TTL receives some funding from foundations and international organizations, over 60% of TTL’s budget comes from individuals. So, this Christmas we are hoping that each of you will consider making a donation to TTL. Here are some ideas of what your donation can help TTL achieve:

$5 = 1 Bag of Powdered Milk

As most mothers surely know, but Bridget and I are just learning, babies drink a lot of milk! Especially in a country where a well-balanced diet is not an option, and where many mothers have passed away, milk is the critical food-stuff for young children. TTL gives out powdered milk to outreach clients and the kids in the safe-home each drink a few bottles of the stuff each day. A gift of $5 buys one bag of powdered milk for a kid who truly needs it.

$10 = One-Night at the Hospital

When clients require hospitalization, TTL arranges their transport and pays their hospital bill. Without these services, most clients would not be able to visit the hospital. Make a gift of $10, and we can make sure babies and pregnant mothers are able to spend a night in the hospital when they need urgent care.

$15 = 1 Tin of Formula

When children lose their mothers at an early age, formula is the best option to make sure the kids don’t become malnourished. Formula is also a key tool in fighting the transmission of HIV from mother to child through breastfeeding. A tin of formula lasts about a month. Donate 1, 2, 5, or 10 tins of formula and help keep a kid fat and HIV free for that many months.

$50 = Electricity for a Month

Unlike most of Africa, Lesotho is a pretty cold country. Mokhotlong itself sits at about 8,000 feet above sea level and mountain chills come and go throughout the year (we can show you pictures of our snowed-in first week in Mokhotlong to prove it!). If you consider yourself a pragmatist, consider a $50 gift to cover electricity for a month. Sure, electricity isn’t warm and fuzzy, but it sure is warm!

$100 = 1 Month Salary for a Care-giver

Not only does one-month’s salary provide love and care for a TTL baby, it also provides a much needed job for a local woman (and though it seems so minimal, this is a good salary by Mokhotlong standards). These women are the heart and soul of TTL’s operations, and giving them a salary helps them care for TTL’s babies and their own babies at home.

$150 = 2 Tanks of Gas = 1 Week of Outreach

We know, no one really wants to donate gas. But a tank of gas at TTL goes a long way, and two tanks of gas usually last a whole week. During that time, one TTL outreach car will visit about 20 homes otherwise cut-off from help and deliver food, medicine, or a life-saving ride to the hospital.

$1,000 - $1,200 = One-Year Salary for a Caregiver or Outreach Worker

In a one-year period, about 25-30 kids will come through the safe-home, and over 250 kids will be served through outreach. A gift of $1,000 can pay the salary for one care-giver for a whole year. Or, if outreach is more your thing, the same amount can cover the salary of an outreach worker.

So, these are some ideas of where your gift would go. Again, this is a no-frills sort of place - every dollar donated directly helps vulnerable babies.

Now, if you’re not competitive or you are already sold, you can stop reading here. For those competitive types (read: Fitzpatricks), here is the challenge. We are hoping that, as a group, we can together raise $10,000. If we hit this goal, Bridget and I will ululate and dance around in a traditional Basotho celebration, film it, and send the evidence to all of you.

But how can we reach this goal? We are sending this letter to 100 people: friends from high-school and college, family, family friends, etc. If everyone donated $100, we would reach the goal. But we understand from the very few news-clips that make it to Lesotho that these are hard-times, and we know that’s not possible for everyone. So we are asking two things:

Donate if you can, and however much you can. The list above provides some ideas about what your gift can do. Every gift counts, whether it is $5, $50, or $500.
Become a bundler! Pass this along to friends, neighbors, and family who might be interested in helping out a good cause. Get your church or school involved - there are some great ideas on the TTL website for how to get others involved. Just like you sort-of-know Kevin Bacon, TTL stays afloat through 6-degrees of love. Pass this on, and share the love.

Thanks so much for all your support.

Love,

Reid and Bridget

PS: When you donate, mention “R&B’s Christmas Appeal” and we will let you know if we reach the goal!

TTL is a 501c3 non-profit.

Here’s how to make a tax-deductible donation:

Donate by Credit Card or Debit Card (to the TTL General Fund):

www.Touchingtinylives.org

Donate by Cash or Check:

Touching Tiny Lives Foundation

11415 Manor

Leawood, KS 66211-2930

The Slow Life

2008-12-09T06:49:00.001-08:00

Though a lot of our writing here has to do with hardships, with pain, and with frustration, I think it is important to balance that with a sense of daily life in Lesotho. Days are spent in outreach, driving over humorously bad roads and seeing very unfunny sights. But these are matched by days when we sit in the office, entering receipts, writing grants, brainstorming, killing flies. These days, trust me, are much less interesting to write about.

Our life outside of work (and I say “outside” very loosely, as we live a five second walk from the safehome and the lines between work and play are very blurred), though also fairly uneventful, might be interesting at least in comparison to an average day in the US.

So here they are, some of the heretofore unpenned details of life in Mokhotlong:

6:00 am—Wake up. Fully intend to get up and exercise. Especially since we have already had a full 8 hours of sleep.

6:10 am—Fall back asleep

7:00 am—Wake up for real. Guess we needed 9 hours. Currently residing in one of the empty rooms in the row house because our rondavel is having a worm infestation. Dash into said rondavel to retrieve some clothing. Spend at least 5 minutes inspecting the walls and floor for evidence of more worms. Find evidence. Get grossed out.

7:30 am—Stumble into the kitchen to make coffee. Cut off a few slices of homemade bread, toast these in the oven and spread with jam bought in South Africa and carefully rationed to avoid the strange canned jam found in Mokhotlong.

7:59 am—Leave for work.

8:00 am—Arrive at work. Love the commute.

8-8:30 am—Check e-mail. Normal enough, except must be done on a dial-up connection. Remember those? Yeah, takes you straight back to 1998. In a bad way.

8:30-1:00 pm—General office work, not really worth writing about.

1:00 pm—Lunch time. Go up to the kitchen and scoop out some leftover beans and slow-roasted tomatoes from the night before. Delicious. Analyze the sky to assess the likelihood of imminent downpour, decide getting off the compound is worth the risk.

1:20 pm—Walk to the “fruit and veg.” About a fifteen minute walk from TTL, a warehouse that receives a shipment every Wednesday of fruits and vegetables that are otherwise unseen in Mokhotlong. Interestingly, half the warehouse contains boxes of fruits and vegetables, and the other half - blankets. We usually stick to the produce side.

Every week is an adventure entailing many plans of what to cook that night based on the last week’s haul, which are then dashed when we actually get there and realize there are entirely different options available. We went with an open mind this time, and emerged triumphant with cauliflower, squash, pears, avocados and cucumbers. Very exciting.

2:00-5:00 pm—Back to work. A few outreach clients come in to receive money for transport. One woman comes in to ask us for supplies like soap and Vaseline, because her niece came for a doctor’s visit the day before and was unexpectedly admitted to the hospital. Children are not allowed to stay at the hospital alone, so when a child is admitted it causes a general upheaval. Worse, since this was unexpected, neither the child nor the aunt brought clothes, cleaning supplies, etc. Still, I am thankful that the child was admitted—she was referred to TTL earlier in the week because, though she is thirteen and therefore outside of our normal mission, she looks about 8 years old, and terribly wasted. The aunt thankfully takes the supplies and returns to the hospital through the now pouring rain.

5:01 pm—End of the work day. Dash up to the kitchen through the downpour with schemes to make jam with the lucky pear find. Let me tell you—all those things that you have always wanted to do but have never had time for? You have time in Lesotho. I spend an hour or so slicing, macerating, and boiling the pears with some cardamom left by Dan. Reid and I then sit down to read for a while in the kitchen.

6:00 pm—Decide to make a simple dinner—tuna melts with a tomato, onion, and avocado salad. Of course, this “simple” dinner includes making our own mayonnaise, salad dressing, and using up the remains of the bread I baked the night before. So simple is a relative term here.

6:35 pm—Dinner is served.

7:00 pm—Mix up the dough for more bread to be eaten with the jam tomorrow morning.

7:15 pm—Go back to reading.

8:00 pm—Jam finished boiling. Attempt to can it. Hopefully avoid botulism.

8:30 pm—Get ready for bed.

8:35 pm—In bed (yep, seriously). Read for a while longer.

9:30 pm—Sleep.

(Note: Our lives are not always QUITE this slow, even here. But with Ellen, Will, and Nthabeleng gone for the week, things are exceptionally low key. Though quite lovely).

A Good Day

2008-12-04T00:22:00.000-08:00

Half-way through the day I jotted in my notebook: “A good day?” It was a hopeful thought encouraged by the way the day was unfolding and the 20 healthy kids I had just seen. A week later, I am tempted to scratch it from my notebook.

I was on outreach in a remote village helping to train a village-health worker as part of a new TTL initiative to train “first-responders” in the community. We left the TTL compound extra-early for a 2 ½ hour drive followed by an hour-long hike over two mountain ridges and finally reached the village around 11 am, tucked away in the almost-green valleys of the San Martin area.

After the first two hours in the village, we were indeed having a good day. One by one, children arrived at the small home of an elderly woman named Mateboho, anointed as the Village Health Worker by the government sometime in the 1980s, but since then mostly ignored. TTL’s new program aims to turn this woman and others like her into functioning tools in the war against malnutrition and HIV/AIDS.

With our help, Mateboho weighed and measured each of the kids and we discussed what the measurements meant with her. One kid looked healthy, but was actually a bit underweight for her age. TTL will provide her family with food. Another little boy looked a little underweight, but actually weighed-in at a healthy 9 kg.

Twenty kids down, and only one or two were underweight. None had tested HIV positive, and all seemed in good overall health. A good day.

As we started to pack our bags to depart, Mateboho said we needed to see one more child. “Very close,” she assured us, and we walked to a neighbor’s house where we found our last child of the day.

The mother, covered in heavy blankets, lay on a thin pad against the wall while the grandmother filled in the details. Her daughter has TB, is HIV positive, and delivered a baby boy two days earlier. The child was 2 months premature. We crept gently across the room to take the child from the mother’s arms.

With the child swaddled in blankets, we did not yet understand what 2 months pre-mature really meant. But as the blankets were removed, the grim reality of a preemie in rural Africa stared us in the face. The child looked hardly alive. Eyes shut. Yellowed skin. Wrinkled, unformed features.

After little discussion and with little fanfare, the grandmother packed a few belongings for her daughter and grandson, and we headed back towards Mokhotlong and the hospital. The mother, 2 days postpartum and wheezing with TB, made the trek with us back over the two mountain ridges. A 2 ½ hour drive later, I held the child in my arms as we admitted the family to the hospital and said we would be back the next day to check on them.

Two days later, we heard from the hospital that the child, Bokang, had died. TTL drove the mother back to her village, child in arms, and she hiked back to her village to continue recovering from TB.

Maybe I was naive, but I thought that if we got the child to the hospital then it had a fighting chance. Unfortunately, for some children, it seems that it really is too late. Our involvement with the Village Health Workers started in hopes of avoiding this kind of crisis—when women and children in remote villages are not reached in time. Hopefully, with the help of the VHW we can find the next pregnant woman before she delivers. But until such partial redemption occurs, it seems certain that it was not a good day.

This post by Reid.

Mortuary

2008-11-25T02:51:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to the mortuary with Nthabeleng to pay the fee for an 8-year-old TTL client who had passed away. The girl’s grandfather asked TTL to pay the fee and to transport her body from Mokhotlong to Molikaliko, a nearby town. The mortuary is on the hospital grounds, just across the road from TTL. We entered the building tentatively. A man wearing a surgical mask sat at a table taking notes, and to our left an open door exposed a naked male body lying on a table. Taken aback, I looked away.

The man gave us a slip stating how long the girl’s body had been at the mortuary, which we then had to take to another building where the bill could be calculated. We were also handed the girl’s bukana—the book that contains all medical records throughout an individual’s life. Flipping to the last entry, we saw an urgent note from the Mapholeneng clinic stating that the girl had presented as comatose after a period of vomiting, and that she had apparently been taking two prescriptions of ARVs for four days. The note ended with a command to stop all medications at once and refer to the hospital. Unfortunately, the girl died upon arrival.

Very hard to know what to make of all this. Against all odds, this girl had survived with HIV until she was 7 years old, when she was finally diagnosed and prescribed ARVs. After she started her medication her health improved, and the account in the bukana shows that on her last clinic visit she presented with no complaints. It is not entirely clear whether the overdose of ARVs caused her death, but the timing seems suspect. We spoke with an American doctor who saw her at the clinic, and she suggested that it could have also been meningitis, but that there appeared to have been some horrible miscommunication regarding the drugs as well.

Ellen rode in the outreach car the following day to bring the girl’s body home to her remaining family. They had to pick the body up at the mortuary, wrap it in a blanket, and place it in the trunk of the car. If TTL didn’t perform this service, apparently a family member would have to take a taxi to town, and then return with the body in a crowded combi. Though it seems like such a bare, bare minimum, at least TTL could do this small act.

Ellen said that the mourners were gathered at the rondavel when they arrived, and when they carried out the body the girl’s older sister began wailing hoarsely, like she had been doing nothing but that for days. She, who had buried her mother three years ago, then had to bury her sister, a victim, though perhaps in a different form, of the same terrible disease. Yes, very hard to know what to make of it all.

Relebohile is Smiling!

2008-11-16T06:34:00.000-08:00

For regular readers of this blog, you may remember Relebohile. She is the little girl we brought back to the safe-home on our very first day. When she arrived here - listless, floppy, and emaciated – she was diagnosed with moderate acute malnutrition. (Don’t let the word “moderate” confuse you. The operative words here are “acute” and “malnutrition”; on a scale of 0-4, four being the worst, she was a 3). At that time, it was hard to see the little child within the skeletal frame. But eight weeks later, her transformation to a happy and adorable little girl is nearly complete.

The Bo’m’e affectionately refer to her as “Plumpino”, after the therapeutic food, Plumpy Nut, she was prescribed when she arrived but refused to eat. Her arms and legs, formerly skin and bones, just last week became strong enough for her to crawl. Her smile and playful baby-babble are contagious.

For Bridget and me, Relebohile is the first baby we have watched go full circle, leading us to have a special affection for her. It probably helps that she is this cute:

Durban

2008-11-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

This weekend we went on a little adventure to Durban, South Africa. Jamie served as our intrepid guide, having made the trip from Mokhotlong several times before. From our estimation, Durban is about 150 miles away (keep this in mind as lengths of trips are discussed below...). To keep things interesting (and out of sheer necessity), we decided to travel the 150 miles on “combis,” public transportation vans that make up most of the long distance transport in Lesotho and South Africa. These combis, about the size of a US minivan, are supposed to carry 15 passengers—three in the front row, three in the three middle rows, and four in the back. In the interest of cramming in passengers, they have no trunk or storage space. This, you might imagine, makes for pretty crowded conditions. To start out the first leg of our trip, from Mokhotlong to the South African border, 16 people piled in the combi. We squeezed in the back row, sure that we were at the absolute maximum capacity. But no…about an hour into the trip two shepherds dashed at our combi as we crossed over the mountain passes, climbed in on top of everyone, and we went merrily on our way. To give you a little taste of the experience (turn up computer to full volume to fully appreciate the Basotho music! Got to love the inspired mix of accordions and thumping bass):

Overall, though, the combi rides went smoothly, and three transfers and nine hours later we arrived in Durban. We hopped out in the middle of the bustling city center and caught a cab to our hostel in a more residential area of town. After a quick freshening up, we headed out, only to find ourselves in an empty Indian restaurant at 6:00pm. Not very cool of us, but the experience of eating delicious food at a real restaurant (albeit an empty one) was completely worth it. From there we headed to a club—also very far from the Mokhotlong scene. I think we even lasted several hours past our normal bedtime.

Reid sitting with the remains of our
"bunny chows"
--Durban's famous streetfood

Saturday we headed first thing in the morning to Victoria St. Market—a bustling covered market that sells both Indian and Zulu spices and crafts (Durban has a huge Indian population). Ellen and I had a great time buying fancy curry powders and cool crafts, while the guys drifted around. Being surrounded by the bustle and noise of a big city felt good—until we witnessed a violent beating of two boys who apparently tried to steal something from one of the vendors. We stood there stunned, while a man kicked one of the boys to the ground. Without understanding anything that was being said, or the reactions of the crowd, the experience felt even more disturbing and threatening. It was a stark reminder that the city’s bustle also contains an undercurrent of violence and instability.

For the rest of the afternoon we continued to wander around the city—still appreciating its vibrancy. I led the whole group on a fruitless search for a bookshop, but on the way we stumbled upon a variety of interesting markets where Jamie and Will could search for the perfect soccer jersey.

We had another leisurely dinner—Italian this time - and then headed to a bar at which we were quite possibly the oldest patrons, but which provided excellent people watching of college aged Durbanites and study abroad kids.

Durban was really lively...I swear.

The next day we finally found a bookstore (relief!), then walked down to the beach. The weekend’s weather was disappointingly drizzly and windy, but just the experience of the ocean and beach was wonderful and so far off our mountainous existence.

At around 5 we ended up at uShaka Marine World, one of the largest aquariums in the world, and, as we could get in half price because of the late hour, decided to go for it. The aquarium has apparently rejuvenated a whole portion of the Durban city centre and beach front—and it is HUGE! Beyond the actual tanks, a whole water park, shopping mall, and several bars and restaurants make you feel much closer to Disneyland than Southern Africa. Still, on a Sunday night the place was almost deserted, and we milled around the underground aquarium without seeing another soul. When we had seen enough sharks to satisfy, we had a few drinks at one of the swanky bars on the beach. The rain was blowing sideways against the windows, but when you are lying on cushions sipping a mojito it is very hard to mind such things.

But comforts are only exceedingly enjoyable in contrast with discomforts, right? Which made the return trip back to Mokhotlong the next morning so very meaningful. We left our hostel around 5:30, and had an easy start to the day as the first combi filled up (they don’t leave until they collect a full 15 passengers) and hurtled on down the road. The second transition—also as smooth as one could hope. As was the third. We started patting each other on the backs—“this is great, we’ll be in Mokhotlong by 1:00pm!” we exulted as we were dropped off in the field that lies between the Lesotho and South African borders.

The all-too-familiar field

We grabbed some sodas from the roadside stand and settled in to wait until the next combi filled. The woman at the stand said something like, “you want to sign your name?” but I said no, unsure of what she could mean.

An hour later, the field had grown crowded with Basotho toting apparently entire living room sets, and the combi driver started to gather people up. We lined up confidently by the van. Then, the driver started calling out names of people who had clearly already registered for a spot in the combi. Ach! (as the Basotho would say). Still, we were optimistic. And we pretty much continued to be so as we sat for the next three hours in the field. It was only the next two and a half hours when we started to get a little worried.

Chilling in a field: Hour Five

But finally around 5:00 pm – a mere seven hours after arriving in said field and after a small car repair and several false starts - seventeen of us squeezed into the car. Unluckily, it seems that people bring more out of South Africa than into it, so beyond the enormous volume of humanity was added hundreds of pounds of suitcases, bags, and apparently 300 blankets. Oh well, we sighed in relief as we finally got underway around 5:30 pm. About 100 yards later we opened the doors to two more men, who had given up on the combi some time earlier and started to walk back to Lesotho. They climbed in gratefully. We tried to compress our bodies even more efficiently to make room. About an hour and a half later they climbed back out, and we exhaled briefly, until a women with two small children took their place, handing one of the babies immediately into Will’s lap.

The rest of the ride, minus the sections where I was utterly certain that all 22 of us were about to plummet toward our deaths as the combi veered crazily down precariously perched winding dirt roads, was fairly uneventful. We arrived safely back at TTL and fell very, very gratefully into our beds.

Overseas Election Watch

2008-11-12T07:25:00.000-08:00

One of the strangest things about living abroad is missing holidays and events that would be momentous in the United States, but fade to blips by the time they are transmitted 10,000 miles. Having already missed most of the build-up to the election, it still made me feel very far from home yesterday missing out on all of the excitement.

Reid, who is much more interested in and informed on such matters, had been in Thaba-Tseka with Jamie the week before the election and was a little devastated at the prospect of spending election day without phone or electricity. Will, Ellen, and I, however, were determined to participate as well as we could, so spent the night at Nthabeleng’s in order to have access to a TV. We set our alarm to wake us at intervals through the night to check the news—we saw at 2:30 that Obama was ahead and had taken Pennsylvania. After a few more hours on the couches we woke up at 5:30 to watch the final results.

Watching the South African coverage was frustrating in terms of getting the full picture, but pretty entertaining in other ways. The reporters, with a shockingly open bias, often threw in comments like, “Ok, Jim, now back to you in Atlanta, where we will hear more about what some of the right wing loonies think about the election." Not a lot of pretense of objectivity. We caught flashes of MSNBC live in DC, monitoring minute by minute results and interviewing top politicians, but the South African television story bounced between Chicago, where they interviewed people like Obama's barber, and Johannesburg, where the reporter hobnobbed with diplomats at a mansion, every now and then offering nuggets of political insight standing between cardboard cutouts of the two candidates placed on a lawn. Fascinating to see an American election from another angle!

2008-11-06T07:26:00.000-08:00

Prince of Thieves

This is a guest post by Jamie Martin, a Georgetown Medical student and a friend of TTL since it began in 2004.

A weird and wonderful thing happened this past July. Mr. Kearney—a retired principal from Ireland—presented me with a crisp, green envelope filled with nothing but money. Quite incredible, this Irishman entrusted me to use my judgment and his money for good works throughout Africa—effectively donning me a modern-day “Robin Hood” (though, sparing me the conflict of stealing from the rich!). Months later, I find myself in rural Lesotho, and I could think of no better place to begin my task…

This past week, Reid and I traveled to the neighboring district of Thaba Tseka, where TTL offers outreach services in collaboration with a local clinic. On the first morning we loaded the vehicle with the essential supplies – formula, multivitamins, a scale and length board, and food for the clients. We had a busy day ahead of us, aiming to see 11 clients.

Often, the setting of our visits is a dimly lit hut. The smell of burning dung lingers in the air, and shadows of curious children dance in the light of the doorway. During our fifth visit of the day, we were approached by a self-referred woman seeking the assistance of TTL. She seated herself across from us; her child bundled in her lap.

As the conversation briefly paused, Thabang translated that the child had been “coughing very much.” Three years of classrooms, hospitals and tuition behind me, I confidently reached only one conclusion—this child is very sick. Gazing at the child across the room, I began to count out the speed of his breathing. The rise and fall of his chest was alarmingly fast—nearly keeping pace with the secondhand of my watch. Laying the child flat to obtain his height, our fingertips were met by numerous, bulky lymph nodes along his neck and at the back of his head. These same bumps were found under his arms and at his waist, which cemented our decision to test the child for HIV.

Our fears were realized—this child was infected with HIV. The woman later revealed that the father was receiving treatment for TB, increasing the chance that this child also shared the same disease. This combination—HIV and tuberculosis—will mercilessly consume a body, and in children it does so with sinister speed. When asked why she had not taken her son to the doctor, the mother replied: “I cannot afford transport.” We remained expressionless in an effort to conceal our sinking hearts.

At moments like this, it is difficult not to throw up your arms and surrender. A child on death’s doorstep and the only barrier is a lack of a ride? This boy will soon succumb without the necessary – but effective – treatments. Hearing the mother’s response about transport, I reflexively reached into my pocket for money. Whatever is needed for transport, medicine and food, I thought. Heck, I even wanted to buy her new clothes.

Alternatively, the outreach staff reasoned for a more pragmatic approach—we would offer transport fare to the hospital. If the woman did seek medical attention for her son, we would meet her at the hospital to give her the return fare, as well as pay for any hospital fees.

The next morning we found the mother and child in the hospital waiting room. Because they were able to get to the hospital, the boy was admitted and able to begin treatment for TB and HIV. Though Reid and I were satisfied with the result, we cannot take credit…It was Mr. Kearney who paid for the fare. With each day spent at TTL, the necessity of the “direct intervention” that TTL provides becomes more and more apparent. And, it is only possible because of the hundreds of people like Mr. Kearney, who have also chosen to don the character of Robin Hood themselves.