Settling in at Paballong

Okay so first of all my actual course of events might be a little confusing since I have technically moved into my sight a more than a week ago, so let me explain. Last week was my “actual site visit” where we get to go and check out our actual site (hence the name) and then after a few days we went back to the training center in Maseru for a week to finish up our training, have our language assessment, then get sworn in, after which I made a poor attempt at a blog posting, so hopefully this one will make up for it, because, as you can expect I have much to say, as usual when it comes to my site, but I promise this time it all isn’t just bitching, only part of it. So to start off I have been indulging myself these past couple of days at site, as we were instructed to do and have been somewhat hiding in my house decorating and settling in. So the big triumphs here are that I have made myself some bathroom curtains, they are nothing to brag about, but at least they will shield my bathroom from the on lookers from the Jakaranda, I’ll explain what that is in a few minutes, but now back to settling in. I have also found a neat piece of cloth at the Indian store in Maseru that I hung up in order to take up some space as well. Nothing in my house matches, as of now it is a hodge-podge of tacky prints and bare walls which I hope to fill with pictures and magazine clippings soon. Another triumph is that I have successfully made bagels, and in Africa no less. I had a warm one with dinner and it was pure carbohydrate Heaven, they are even whole wheat, woot woot!!
Okay next point on the long list of things to explain, the Jakaranda. What the hell is it? Well it is the bar that is across the dirt path on the other side of my security fence. And no I am not making the name up, it is painted big and bold across the cement brick building. I have to find out what it means, I’m sure it is something either religious or crude, knowing the Basotho, however it will have a hard time beating the random bar in Ha-Makebe named “Las Vegas.” Which is just as odd because I didn’t meet a villager there who correctly knew where America was let alone Las Vegas. Okay back on task, interesting story about the Jakaranda, outside of the drunken antics I hear from there everyday beginning around 6 pm (which oddly enough I am used to after living in St. Libory and not far from Fraser’s bar). So today I decided “ah, I have no flour and would like to attempt making bagels,” so I walk the half mile to the store to get some flour. On my way home (and mom and dad earmuffs because this might be a little unsettling) a, what I’m hoping was a drunken Basotho to save himself some dignity, man approaches me and starts talking very fast in Sesotho (this is like at 11:30 am by the way) even though I tell him that I don’t understand a word coming out of his mouth, and I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable because he is getting that peculiar grin on his face and my gut is telling me to get back on the other side of my security fence. As we are approaching the clinic I begin to understand the words that would indicate him asking me to meet him at the Jakaranda for dinner at 5. I obviously say no because as a woman I can’t really go into the bars here because of this whole social stigma and female oppressive jive they have going on here, which I will save for another blog post. Well after I refuse he fishes in his pocket for something and thank God it is pure daylight so he can’t pull anything too crazy out of his pocket, however he does top my assumption there and pulls out what I am thinking is a female condom (which if you want to know how that works look it up, because I would instantly get an inappropriate rating if I would explain it, which I can now because the trainers here have given us more male and female condom demonstrations than I could ever wish to see). My eyes are now the size of saucers, and I hear the women shouting at him in the back and I run back into the clinic grounds. So yeah, my count for sexual offers/dates by the Basotho men is now 4, which really is very modest compared to the numbers other girls are racking up.
On to the next point, yes there is more, you should be so lucky. Stories from the actual clinic, which are rather somber after the onslaught of sexual advances. So yesterday I was helping out with the medical records because they just think I’m their new medical secretary here, which I a going to clear up on Monday and if things don’t change, and they, let’s say introduce me to the village and chief and help me begin my projects, they will feel the wrath of me and my bosses. As I was working I hear about this one woman’s case here. While she has HIV and is advanced to Stage 2 (out of 5, 5 being death) she has been initiated on ARV’s in the past couple of months, however has stopped taking them because her husband won’t let her take them!!! WTF?!? So not only did this woman have to summon the courage to come here to get tested in the first place, then go through the counseling to get on ARV’s only to have them taken from her by her husband? That really sucks, and there is like nothing you can really do about it. You are probably wondering why won’t he let her take them? I guess probably because some people here refuse to accept western medicine and think that they may do more harm than good, or maybe it is the woman’s open declaration that she has HIV. Lots of factors, but the anger and disappointment that bubbled inside of me was pretty intense and I must say, this would be a good time for the women’s oppression blog that I promised will come but I will hold off since this is already a pretty long posting. So after hearing about this, I must say I was down and the fact that no one was really orienting me to my job yet and just kept treating me like a secretary, I was rather far from well “happy about life.” So in my refusal to be a secretary I was just chilling out by the nurse’s office hoping maybe I would get to talk to her sometime yesterday, I began chatting with a Basotho woman and her child, which I conducted about 50% in Sesotho, which was pretty exciting. And we were doing the general stuff, like what is your name, why are you here, how long will you be here, so on and so forth. So I started to try my luck and approached the reason why she was here (obviously because she has HIV, but I wanted to see what she would say) and so I asked how long she had been coming, why she was here and how she is feeling. I’m really glad I did that because she was very nice and open about her reasons, she said she had been sick (which is “code” in Basotho culture for having HIV), that before March she was really sick but then she came to the clinic and got ARV’s and now she is much better and she feels so much better and always comes back to get them. This was quite the unexpected response, but it made me more hopeful which is great after the sob story I heard one hour prior. Well I’m going to leave you on that positive note after having rambled on forever. So I’m going to add more pictures of swearing in and more of training and of my site semi decorated, so be sure to check those out and soo I guess this is adios for now, miss you and love you all!!