Whew!

For the first time in my service, I can honestly say I've been busy. That's right, busy doing work! Getting things done! And it's a nice feeling. So here's an update, by project, of what I've been up to lately.

PSI HIV/AIDS Support Group Project
My counterpart, Keletso, returned from vacation last week and we finally spent some time creating a list and timetable of deadlines for all the things that need to get done before she begins facilitating weekly sessions with our selected support groups. Yup, passing my love of list-making on to the Basotho.

We also met with LENEPWA, an organization that tracks and provides support for all HIV/AIDS support groups in the district, to check their progress. They had already selected members for the two groups we'll be working with! We updated them on admin issues, our target start date and asked them to set a date and time, within the next two weeks, for Keletso and I to meet with each group and go over the project plan, goals and objectives. After those initial meetings, the next step will be to meet with each group once more to conduct voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) and have each member sign a contract committing to participating in the project. After that, the weekly sessions can begin, hopefully the week of February 16.

Keletso is also responsible for facilitating sessions (the first month's worth of information that will be presented to the support groups) with New Start Mafeteng's two field educators before the actual support group meetings begin. By practicing with the field educators, Keletso will be comfortable and well-prepared for the support groups and the field educators will understand the project and be able to step-in if Keletso ever has to miss a meeting. Getting them to schedule these sessions with each other has been a challenge but it seems like they are now on the calendar.

Mafeteng Hospital Library
Again, a HUGE thanks to everyone who helped collect and/or donated books and money for shipping. The response has been overwhelming. My mom and some friends and fellow teachers are undertaking the task of sorting all the donations and preparing them for shipping to New Orleans. From there, the books will go on a container, along with books for all the other African Library Project libraries being started in Lesotho this year (more than 20 – and all through PCVs) to be sent via ship to Durban, South Africa. We're looking forward to their arrival in May.
Just before the holidays my counterpart at the hospital, Vikhile, and I received confirmation we were awarded Sesotho-language books for the library from Biblionef. They arrived from Cape Town last Friday and are waiting for us at the Mafeteng Post Office. Once the hospital gets the purchase order processed to pay for the postal fees (that will likely take several weeks) we can begin the process of sorting and logging them.

My fellow PCV Becky, who heads up the African Library Project here in Lesotho, (and just extended for a 4th year of service!) called me Friday afternoon to let me know she was on her way back from Johannesburg with about 100 books, all on medical topics. I have no idea where she found these books or who donated them, but am quite excited and thankful to receive them. Tomorrow the hospital is sending Vikhile and me to Maseru to collect the books from the Peace Corps office and bring them back to Mafeteng. More sorting and logging!

Most impressively, Vikhile has continued to really step-up. When I returned from Istanbul, without any prompting from me, she had a list prepared of things she wants training or more information/direction on before the library opens. She is eager to begin writing the library action plan and continues to meet every deadline and complete every task I assign. I can't tell you how nice it is to work with someone who is self-motivated and committed.

Thaba Tsoeu HIV/AIDS and Health Day
Grant writing...what can I say. Many hours of research, writing and re-writing later, Ashley and I are almost finished with our President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) grant application. Receiving funding from PEPFAR is integral to making this event happen. I feel confident our application is strong and will be approved, though the timing is not what we'd hoped. Applications are due at the end of January and we will hear by the end of February if it's been accepted. Assuming ours is, we'll get the money some time in March. We were wanting to hold the event in April, but one month is simply not enough time to plan, purchase and organize everything. It's looking like this thing will finally happen in May, with our final reporting due to PEPFAR in June. No biggie, we've only been working on this since August! :)

I realize I've talked a lot about applying for the PEPFAR grant but haven't described much about the project itself. Here's a little snippet from our application which I think explains things well:

Village clinics are at the forefront of the battle against HIV/AIDS in Lesotho. The Thaba Tsoeu HIV/AIDS and Health Day, hosted by the Thaba Tsoeu Clinic, is a creative approach to providing HIV/AIDS education, prevention, testing and healthy living tactics in an interactive learning environment. A collaborative effort of community health workers, clinic staff, area non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local government organizations will contribute to improving the standard of living for both HIV positive and negative Basotho. A secondary result of this project will be increased collaboration and partnership between the Thaba Tsoeu Clinic, local government and area NGOs.

This event will be held in the village of Thaba Tsoeu located in Mafeteng district. The Thaba Tsoeu Clinic, primary school and community council have donated space to hold the event. These organizations, along with local government entities and area NGOs, will be donating their time and resources to provide event activities that focus on HIV/AIDS education, prevention and treatment.

Event activities will include HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and opportunistic infection education, question and answer sessions, voluntary counseling and testing (VCT), condom demonstrations, healthy living and HIV/AIDS activities geared towards youth and entertainment containing HIV/AIDS and healthy living messages.

Odds and Ends
I have several other little things going on here and there, keeping me busy. Today was the first day of the new school year in Lesotho, and I went to Kingsgate High School to follow-up with the principal, 'M'e Mina, about teaching life skills classes there. I will be starting around the first week of February (the Form E students – equivalent to grade 12 in the U.S. – just received their exam marks and won't begin class for another week) teaching three classes a week on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. We agreed that I'll stick to Forms C-E as their English is much better than Forms A and B. Besides, those three forms alone account for more than 250 students. They'll be divided up, but I'm already wondering how I'm going to control classes of 80+ students. I have a feeling it's going to get interesting.

As you may all remember, my former fellow Mafeteng PCV Nichol was getting ready to COS when she received funding through the Peace Corps Partnership program to build playgrounds at four area ECCD (preschools) schools. The money took so long getting sent from PC Washington to Lesotho that she didn't get to see the project completed. I offered to help out by supervising install and completing a last bit of reporting paperwork. I received word that the equipment will be picked up in Bloemfontein on January 28. I'll be spending the following week or so traveling with Nichol's counterpart, 'M'e Blossom, to the schools and making sure everything is received and set-up.

And then there were visitors!

The new group of PCVs, education Volunteers, were sworn in at the beginning of the month and headed to site about a week and a half ago. We have two new Volunteers in the Mafeteng district, Janice and Kelly (PC must know all Kelly's are awesome and, therefore, deserve to be in Mafeteng). I haven't yet had a chance to get to know Janice as her site is up in the mountains, but I look forward to talking with her at our Newbie Party on January 31. Kelly is teaching high school math and science in Tsakholo, a village about an hour from Mafeteng camptown. She came to town last Thursday for the grand tour (ice cream at the Total station, locations of toilets that can be used for free, the Chinese food shop, GoHo and Mafeteng Hotel). I definitely enjoyed hanging out with her and hope we get many more chances to meet up.

Anne Marie, a Mafeteng PCV who's just extended for a 3rd year, returned from her trip home last week and we met for a few hours to catch up. It's good to have her back!

Lena, a PhD student from Germany who's doing research here, invited Ashley and I to her house on Friday afternoon to enjoy some traditional German Christmas cake and spiced wine. German Christmas at 90 degrees – yet another thing I can add to the list of things I never expected to experience in Peace Corps! I also met four German medical students who are interning at the Mafeteng Government Hospital for a month...but they already knew me. Apparently they stumbled across my blog before they came to Lesotho.

Eric, a fellow PCV from my group, got evicted from his house up in Butha Buthe district and has been relegated to hanging out in Maseru until PC gets his new house ready. He used the opportunity to visit us here in Mafeteng this past weekend.

And I think that does it. Whew! I guess I'll wrap it up as I've been getting crap for writing long blog posts (sorry guys). Guess I should just up my posting frequency!

Until next time, salang hantle!