Makoenas for everyone!

On Fridays everyone at TTL gets off of work at 3:30…just in time for happy hour at the bar in Mokhotlong Hotel (picture one of the one-story motels you see at home).  No better way to kick off the weekend!  We headed to the “private” bar at Mokhotlong Hotel Friday afternoon and got to spend some time with TTL safehome staff and outreach workers in a more relaxed setting.  It was really fun to talk to them about life in Lesotho outside of work and learn what their family life was like.  I found it quite bizarre that the hotel had two bars.  We were in the Private Bar towards the back of the hotel because we are apparently of a certain higher class, but mostly because we had women in our group.  The public bar is located near the front of the hotel and it’s highly frowned upon for women to be seen in there.  I really wanted to go in just to see what it was like, but I didn’t want to upset the cultural norm.

Ellen, Will, and some of TTL's Outreach Crew!

Mokhotlong Hotel is also the only place in town where you can get pizza.  I was pretty skeptical about the idea of pizza in Lesotho, but it actually turned out to be pretty good!  We had pizza with green peppers, onions, and either chicken or beef.  It’s no NY slice, but I was definitely satisfied after the meal.  The only down side is it takes about 45 minutes just to get one pizza (lesson learned: order well in advance here!).

Pizza and Lesotho Beer

We also met a bunch of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs as we like to call them) at the Mokhotlong Hotel Friday night.  I was alarmed when a group of white kids not much older than myself walked into the bar…we don’t see many other light skinned people hanging out in Mokhotlong!  The PCVs were really cool people and I enjoyed hearing what their life was like in Lesotho.  Most of them live out in the small villages that we visit on outreach.  They inhabit the little rondavels just like the locals, with no running water or electricity.  For light they have to use candles and for water they must go to the communal village tap.  Almost all of them are here to teach Math or Science in the local schools.

School here is similar to home, with elementary (or primary) and high school.  Lesotho even has its own University in Maseru.  Interestingly, school is taught almost entirely in English  here.  It’s no wonder I can converse with so many people!  The scary part of school in Lesotho is that a large percentage of each class fails and must repeat the entire year.  One PCV told me that you need to average a 50% in all of your classes combined to pass, but that’s apparently very difficult, especially out in the remote villages.  She said that it took her a long time to realize kids getting a 40% on her tests were doing a good job, which is odd considering in the U.S. there’s almost nobody who completely fails an entire year of school.  It makes me wonder how many Basotho actually receive an education through high school…

Saturday and Sunday are pretty relaxing days around TTL and in Mokhotlong.  Saturday the weather was amazing.  I spent most of the day outside because I wanted to soak in the warm weather before the dead of winter really hits!  In the afternoon we walked into the main part of town where the streets are lined with small tin huts that sell food, clothes, and other miscellaneous items.  Brad, one of the TTL fellows, found what we now call the best makoena (sounds like moh-que-nia) shop in town.  Makoena’s are basically a ball of dough that is fried on the outside and tastes like heaven, especially when you put brown cinnamon sugar on it!  In English they are called “fat cakes” and you can get them homemade almost anywhere in Lesotho.  After 6 adults and 1 child shared about 16 of them outside the shop, we began to give them out to TTL staff we found walking along the road.  These little fat cakes provided us with a very entertaining afternoon!

Makoenas!

Dipping the makoena in brown cinnamon sugar...yumm!

About to eat my first makoena!

Just before sunset Brad, Colleen (the other MSGH student here), Ellen (my advisor), Will (Ellen’s husband), and I headed up the mountain behind TTL for a hike.  Hiking on that mountain is a lot of fun because there is no trail so you just make your own path.  I was very sore after my first hike here!  When we got to a ridge that overlooks all of Mokhotlong we took the opportunity to do what every good hiker should…jumping pics!  We had such a blast timing our cameras up to take silly pictures of us jumping as high as we could without breaking our ankles on the rocks below us.  It was definitely the perfect excuse for advisor/advisee bonding.

Sunset over Mokhotlong from the mountain behind TTL

Colleen, Ellen, and I jumping!

MSGH Students Rock!

The hiking crew! (Me, Ellen, Brad, Colleen, Will)

My advisor and her husband are both ND grads and played on the Ultimate Frisbee team while at school.  Ellen then went to Michigan to get a PhD in Anthropology and Sociology where she wrote her long and awesome dissertation on health in Lesotho.  While she lived here doing PhD research for one year, her husband taught at Mokhotlong High School.  They now have two adorable children who came along with them on this past trip (they left to head back home on Sunday).  Ellen is now doing a Post Doc year at Brown and she came back to Lesotho to continue research for future publications.

The beginning of this week has been quite the ride so far, so stay tuned for some new posts…especially the next one about the TTL’s safehome babies!!