As many of you know, and I think many news outlets reported, one of our volunteers, Tom Maresco was shot and killed on the night of September 3 in the capital. I never met Tom, but knew him a bit through reputation. He was a gold standard for volunteers as far as integrating into the community and embracing his time here. This is a huge loss for Peace Corps Lesotho, and my heart goes out to his family and the entire Peace Corps community.
As of September 12, I have reached my one month anniversary as a Peace Corps volunteer (this does not include training time). And as the title of this post might indicate, this month did not fly by. That is not to say that I'm having a bad time. But this has been without doubt the weirdest month of my life. I live in a really, really dark rondavel, affectionately nicknamed by another volunteer as the "arctic circle." Because it's so dark and depressing in there almost all day long, I spend the vast majority of my time hanging out with the clinic staff, teaching the kids baseball (using a popped tennis ball and a chunk of wood that I broke off of a door), or kickin it with the bo-ntate at the bar. At the height of the weirdness that Sebetia had to offer, I found myself talking about safe sex with a group of grannies in a shack while we were all drinking joala (Lesotho home brew) out of a Coke can that looked like it was about as old as me. I consider this my favorite moment in Peace Corps thus far. So it may be a long 654 days ahead, but hopefully they'll stay as good and weird as my first month here.
Lazarus Thorac Watch: As a new addition to the blog, I want to keep you all apprised on my chances of ever finding, and naming a horse the most majestic and fearsome name that I could dream up, Lazarus Thorac. As of now, nothing is on the horizon, but I'm already shaping my argument as to why I deserve one. "My job requires that I cover an extremely large area in my outreach, and walking 8 hours in one day on outreach is unrealistic. Give me Lazarus." Cross your fingers for me.
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