Pre Service Training

From October 15^th to December 11^th, 2011 was the first phase of Peace Corps service. During this time the 23 trainees in my group including myself lived with host families in semi-rural villages approximately a half hour outside of the capital city of Maseru.

First Day in Village

Immediately upon arriving in Makola, my host village, a mob of children chased the bus screaming and waving at us! We stepped out of our bus immediately into a welcoming ceremony with children performing traditional dances and each of the trainees getting introduced to their respective host mothers. It was an emotionally overwhelming experience after having traveled and sat in airports in anticipation of arriving for nearly two days.

Host moms through luggage on their heads and children teamed up to carry trainees luggage and tromped it across the village to our new homes. My host sister spoke nervous broken English and tried to introduce me to the family, her English is much better than she let on the first night. My family gave me a Sesotho name ‘Thabo’ meaning joy and happiness and we hugged and stared at each other for some time none of us knowing really what we were supposed to do next. My Sesotho name has stuck and rarely am I called Kevin even by other volunteers it is usually Thabo or T-Boss, a nickname I am quite fond of. After all of the buildup I was finally in Africa, alone in a tin roof shack after traveling half way across the world wondering how in the world I ended up here.

Life with a Host Family

Having a host family in Makola was an incredible experience. Having a Basotho woman take you into her home and treat you like a son was wonderful. My host mom MmeMatisetsoMapiloko would often say to me “Thabo my boy, Thabo my child!” Families in Lesotho are different in terms of the connectedness between immediate and extended families. Because of the Aids epidemic (23% of the population in Lesotho is positive) orphaned children are often taken in by relatives. Pictured below is the majority of my host family. From left to right back row Ntate (Father) Papano, Mme (Mother) Matisetso, Abuti (Brother) Rena, Aussi (Sister) Mamoletsane and front row Abuti Tlotlitso and myself. Not pictured Abuti Koenane.

The tradition in Basotho culture is that a woman’s first born child is given at birth to be raised by her mother, the child’s grandmother. The mother also takes the name of that child and are literally called mother of so and so. Using my Sesotho name if I was the first born I would be named Thabo and my mother would take the name Mme Mathabo.

For the first four weeks of training I ate with my host family. Mme Matisetso and Mamoletsane would prepare food for me and I would sit in the living rooms in the evening studying Sesotho and helping Koenane and Mamoletsane study English and Science. The traditional meal in Lesotho is papa and moroho. Papa is a tasteless corn meal that is usually cooked over an open fire in a big three legged pot. Moroho is mashed up greens with much salt, Basotho love to cook with too much salt. Other staples were bread (bahobe), eggs, chicken, carrot salad, beat root, rice, sorghum porridge (lesheleshele), and beans.

Pictured below is my host family house. I lived in an attached room around to the left. Basotho woman are very clean, overly so. Mamoletsane would sweep the dirt in front of her house and I would complement her on how tidy the dirt looked. The building to the left is a water storage and cooking room and the main entrance to the house is on the right and enters into the kitchen/living room.

I brought a soccer ball with me from the states and it was in use every second that the boys were not in school or doing chores. I often would kick it around with them at night on the road in front of the house and occasionally started massive soccer games at the nearby field.

My host family taught me how to do all of the household essentials for living without electricity and water. This included baking/steaming bread, doing laundry by hand, preparing bath water, sweeping the house, and the very specific way for making the bed. Living without water and electricity is really not bad at all and I got used to it really quick.

Exercise Africa Style

Running and working out in village was a crazy experience because you would immediately be hoarded by children. While running down the road I loved it, having a child scream your name, come tearing down the hillside, and run barefoot next to you through the village road was an incredible lift! Me and other trainees would occasionally do cross fit like workouts on the soccer field and the kids would race us and imitate our down-ups and push-ups.

The Training Aspect of Training

Everyday I would walk 25 minutes up the road to the church which we were using as the training center. The beginning of training was mostly presentation sessions on health, safety, education system, and Basotho Culture as well as daily Sesotho sessions. We had three language facilitators that lived in the village with us also with host families and led the language and cultural trainings. The second half of training was mostly classroom practice teaching at the high school in Makola. We would prepare lesson plans and teach class while being observed and get feedback on our teaching performance. At the end of training was a language assessment which you had to score at a certain level in order to be sworn in as a volunteer. Other aspects of training included gardening, trips to Maseru and TY, and site visits with current volunteers and our future sites.