Old McSchmale Had A Farm...

First and foremost I have to do a little promotion. If you care not to read it skip this first paragraph, you won’t hurt my feelings, heck I’m just happy your still reading my blog. Anyways, I’ll apologize in advance for soliciting you, but hey, I’m in Africa it was bound to happen sometime. What I am talking about is I have a school here at my village that I have obtained a library for. And one major thing that a library needs is, books. So if you have any books lying around that fit the criteria (baby board books, paperback easy readers, paperback children’s picture books, paperback juvenile literature, books with universal themes (like friendship or animals), National Geographic Magazines less than five years old, K-8 text books, encyclopedias and atlases post 1990, paperback dictionaries, educational puzzles (I.e. soduko, word search, etc.) and flash cards) it would be a huge help if you could donate them. You can ship them to my mom or The Village Bank in St. Libory. If you do want to donate some books, shoot me an email and I will give you further information on what to do. Thanks, and that’s it for my schpeel.
Moving on. So I’m not sure if I have mentioned this before but the clinic is so much more than just a clinic, it also has a farm that grows stuff and has animals and provides their various products to the surrounding villages. So it is spring/summer here (it changes from day to day, sometimes a monsoon, sometimes a dry desert) and the farm is in full force. I know this because of the stench. I don’t really go to the farm unless it is to get veggies or eggs, but the stench is all encompassing right now. When I was in high school we always kind of made fun of the fact that you always know you are close to St. Libory because of the smell from the farms surrounding our little town. I think it would be fair to apply this to Paballong at Ha-Senekane. You know for sure you are here when I believe a solid mile out of town you can still smell the stench of the manure drying. I don’t know what it is about the manure here but the smell is just putrid. At home you know the manure has it’s general smell, which stinks yes but not compared to the stench I’m experiencing here, and I think it is safe to assume that I have smelled my share of manure. Here it smells like the general manure plus wet dog and bad breath and I’m just throwing in baby diapers and garbage too just to impress upon you the severity of the stench. As a result of all this, I now smell like farm. You know in school you always knew which kids were from a farm because they too smelled a little like farm (I’m sorry if you grew up on a farm but you more than anyone know what I’m talking about). I now permanently smell like this wet dog manure. I would kill for a hot shower or sunset heat by escada perfume. But alas this is Lesotho.
Other updates from the farm, the pregnant cow has had her babies as well, she had two calves. But I still feel terribly sorry for her because she has an utter the size of a full 20 gallon trash bag and looks like she is in constant pain. Along with birthing animals, the pigs all have piglets now. They are needless to say very cute, however their cuteness is a mere allusion because the grown up pigs are fugly. I, in my ignorance of all things farm related, didn’t even know the pigs were pregnant. I guess that whole spring is the time when animals mate thing is true. Now that it is summer animal babies are popping out of everywhere and every animal. One day there were just like 60 piglets running around the pig pin. I took pictures and will post them hopefully sometime soon. And this last bit isn’t really an update but a pig related story. So today I was tracking down my supervisor who was in the farm part of the center. So I walk on over and find him trying to explain to one of the farm assistants how to give one of the pigs a shot. Initially I wasn’t too worried but when they started asking me what “intravenous” and “intramuscular” meant, I became a little worried for those pigs. I’m guessing they don’t have veterinarians in Lesotho.
This last paragraph is not about the farm but a general observation about the Basotho. They have a much different work ethic that what we do in America. I’m not saying which is better, but I will say in America we are a little (aka a lot) more efficient. I will run you through a day of work for some of the professionals that work here. They get here around 8:30-9:00, depending on public transport. They then chat for around an hour and start doing their job around 10. They listlessly work until 1:00, which is lunch time. They then start up work again at 2:00. Well and by work I mean they just kind of sit around and do nothing. In America if their was nothing else to do we would find something to do. Like organize something or work on another project that is separate from the service delivery that is necessary to keep the workplace runnign, or finish up essential paperwork that got pushed aside. Not so much here, they do have a very legitimate excuse that there really aren’t patients in the afternoon, but I’m assuming that in the afternoon is when they are supposed to work on other projects to further the beneficial impact that the center has on the community and things to keep the records and paperwork accurate. Not anymore, since the counselor started bringing his laptop to work they have been watching movies. Today they discovered that I have a stash of DVD’s and begged for one. I gave them Anchorman with the threat that if they don’t bring it back I’m cutting them off from all of the other cool things I’ve brought or received from America. Like my cappuccino mixes and trashy books I get sent to me. I know I shouldn’t provide them with the movies, but I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I watch them too, which is bad, but I figure they know best for themselves.
Well that’s about it for the week, this weekend I am going to Cherry Fest in Ficksburg, which is a big Boer (no I did not misspell beer) festival and they apparently have all these competitions and we can get free cherry flavored liqueur samples. And it is also in South Africa, which you all know from my last posting, I’m kind of fond of (they apparently have a Spar there!!). And with that I will leave you with your official Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the holiday, you have full permission to eat as much as you want for me and you can eat that second, third, or fourth (but if you hit number five, seriously reconsider why you are eating that pie, if it is your fifth there’s no way you are still hungry) piece of pumpkin pie with the knowledge you are eating it in honor of me. So go ahead eat up and enjoy, have a great holiday and I’ll be thinking of you all as I cower over my tuna salad sandwich. I’m just lying I’m having a Thanksgiving dinner at my house, I’m not having a turkey slaughtered but I think I might spring for some chicken breast. Well I’m sorry, I’m just rambling now. Have a great week/weekend! Salang Hantle!