SOOOO....I finally got my blog to work. Here are all my posts I've put up on Facebook in one giant mass. Enjoy!


Rama = devilish butter
Share
Friday, July 10, 2009 at 1:48am Edit Note Delete
So, I hope all you lovely people are doing well back home. I'm really enjoying reading your comments, letters and messages. It really makes my day. Some interesting things are; site visit was amazing, It looks like the high desert, lots of cactiLesotho is a giant piece of sandstone = really cool rocks which i keep picking up, which adds to the soil erosion problemMy roof infuriates me every morning when it warms up and rains on me and my shitCoffee out of a nylon tastes really goodWe get our site placement next thursday!!Language is becoming more difficult, and I'm really impatient to learn itThis sunday we are putting on a concert for our village to raise money. Everyone has to sing, together and probably alone. We are going to sing ; the theme song from WEEDS, Wonderwall, Redemption song, IN the jungle, The Doe re ME song from the Sound of music, Row Row Row your boat and some really pretty Sesotho songs. I'm going to sing two Polish songs, "Hey Sokoly" and "lulaj Ze Jesuniu". Go ahead and laugh now. The trick is that anyone can pay to hear you sing and you can pay not to. Thats how we are raising the money. It sould be fun, we practiced last night with a guitar and fried doughnut-things called "Mequenia". Sooo good.I still wake up all the time and am disoriented for a few seconds thinking I'm back in B'Ham. Also if i'm really into the book I'm reading at night and I stope and look around I get really confused as well. I've had lots of moments when I wake up thinking I havent left for the PC yet and dont know where I am. It's getting kinda old being freaked out and disoriented. We had a fantastic 4th of July, with BBQ, and Baseball. It was more fun than I've had in a while. I've learned how to cook lots of yummy things like: tortillas, mexican, soups, breads and sauces. Africa is going to make me fat. RAMA; the most amazing buttery spread in the world. I think most of us are developing a lasting addiction to that off-yellow, buttery, probably MSG filled goodness. I'll let you all know where my placement is soon. I hope it's the mountains.loves!

Its F'in cold in Africa!

I was warned. I was told many times "bring your warm clothes, bring your zero degree sleeping bag, blah blah blah...". Holy shit, it's cold. This is how i sleep, in my pj's, with a thermal top on and a hoodie, plus a knit hat. Inside a cotton liner thats in my sleeping bag under a giant blanket. I pull the sleepiong bag over my head ond leave only a crack for air to get through. IN such a fashion I am very warm and happy...then comes the 6:30 am alam wake up call. My tin roof is FROZEN and sparkles in the morning light, i can see my breath and it feels like i just woke up inside a refrigerator. Mind you all i'm currently in the "lowlands". Then when i get enough courage to get out of my warm nest (usually takes 10-15 min.) I sprint over twords my propane stove, barefoot on colf linoleum, to turn boil water for my refreshingly chilly morning "bath". Then i run back into my sleeping bag for another 10 min. while the water boils. I do not turn on the heat. Why? Is it because I'm a sadist and like the painfully cold morning? No. Is it because deep down inside I know I should be conserving energy and still want to do my part? ha ha NO. It's because my tin roof will warm up and all that pretty frozen condensation will rain down on me and everything i have in my room. So i wait until my bath is ready, my clothes are out my bucket is set, and then turn it on full blast inches from me whie i frantically wash my hair bent over a bucket and then wash myself. It takes only about one gallon (maybe a gallon and a half) to wash my hair and myself, without re-using any of the water. Thats some serious water conservation. Then i turn the heater off as soon as i'm dressed and hopefully it will only rain on me a minimal amount. Then I make breakfast, empty and clean the pee bucket and go to school. Today i will be traveling to Quthing, in the very south of the Country for my first PCV site visit. It's into the foothills/semi-mountainous region so I'm super excited to see it. I'm thinking that my final site placement will be in the mountains because a lot of people have to be placed in the lowlands, but not me. It's because of The Polish in me, we can handle the rough terrain. And our vodka, not that there has been any of that, yet. I am really happy still with the training, and it's nice to have a bit of a routine down. I'm slowly starting to really understand and accept this place as my home for the next two years. There was a lot of denial in those first three weeks here (and no doubt there will be more difficult times) but for now I'm in a really good mood. I have a phone now, I can text for pretty cheap and it doesnt cost me anything to recieve texts or calls. If you are bored and for some reason want to call me getting a calling card is the cheapest way to do it and if you text me about it, we can set up a time. I dont always have reception so I have to set up these things. My address is here again

Karolina Lobrow, PCT
c/o Peace Corps/LESOTHO
PO Box 554Maseru 100, LESOTHO

Let me know how you are doing and what is going on in your lives please, even on Facebook, I'll have internet access every weekend or so for a few more weeks.love you all, thanks for the wonderful comments!


Community Based Training = Bucket baths, pee bucket + chickens

So we just finished our first week in CBT. We got our host families after our PC van dropped us off in our villages and there were some speeches from the Chief and our trainers and then each trainee was paired off with a Host Mother. That night I met my Me (Mother) and my little Ausi (sister) and Abuti (brother). They are so adorable and fantastic. My home is inside a family compound and is a one room square hut with a tin roof. It has a good big bed, desk and a "kitchen" area that consits of a propane stove top. It's really nice, much nicer than you might expect. No dirt floor, sorry to dissapoint. The stars out here are the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Ever. The milky way looks like it's fake, because it's so bright. The colors in the sunsets and sunrises are unbelievable, it's basically worth the money and 15 hour flight to get here just to see this stuff. Training has been exhausting, we wake up at 6:30, take a bucket bath, eat breakfast with the family and go to school from 8:30-4:30 with time for a lunch break. Then we do chores ( i mostly ignore chores and play with my Ausi and Abuti), then we eat dinner and I pass out around 8:30 p.m. I think what is the most tireing is trying to speak the language all day and not being able to understand what anyone is saying. It's mentally exhausting having somone repeat something at you 5 times with varying volume and speed and thinking you can understand them better. So i say yes a lot and nod my head pretending to understand. The villages are very pretty, there sre a lot of gigantic aloe plants and lots of hills and a fair amount of vegetation. The food here has been ridiculously salty and I'm happy to start cooking for myself this week. No more MSG for me! Sometimes I couldnt eat the food my Me prepared because of the salt, but the homemade bread here is sooo good. I learned how to make some the other day and plan to live off off bread, rice, vegies and peanut butter. My favorite part during training sessions is watching the chickens chase each other around us. Its pretty funny to be totally focused on learning a serious topic like nutrition and health or business development and then have a skwaking chicken ru past you chasing other chickens, followed by a braying donkey. I dislike pit latrines. I prefer my pee bucket, which we use at night. We arent suppose to go outside at night because of dogs and potential "drunk" people. So I went out to visit my fellow trainee last night who lives literally two houses down. Everything was beautiful and calm, the stars were out the village was silent....and then a bunch of dogs started barking and leaping against their fences at me as i walked twords my friends house. THAT scared the shit out of me and i ran home and locked myself into my hut with my kerosen lantern to read. Then my friend showed up at my hut instead and we went to visit my other friend who basically lives in my compound (much safer) and had a good time. Thats all i have for now, sooo much has happened that I'll probably write more once I'm not in training. Love you all!- Karo

Lesotho looks like...Poland?
Ok, so my blog is stupid and slow, so I'll try and post stuff here.I think we’ve had three more days of training since I last wrote. It’s hard to keep track of the days since they are all very long (10-12 hours) and tiresome. I am really happy with the language classes so far, I feel like something is really accomplished at the end of those long sessions. We’ve begun to go into technical training classes as well and those are great. This Sunday we depart for our Community Based Training village, where we get to stay with a host family. The other PCT’s are pretty cool, except for this one kid we’ve nicknamed Aaron Sweater Laufman –Stupid-Walker. He is a jerk. Within a matter of days, he has managed to insult my height, hippie-ness and heritage (that’s right, the homeland). I would like to say that him and Katie Fester should duke it out for my new BFF position. Or you could join forces and then I probably would cry every night. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time, so it’s been great being able to behave like a 5-yr old with my fellow PCT’s and not worry about it cause they’re just the same. Some random fun things that have happened:-We shared photos of friends/family the other night-I almost won a poker game! It came down to myself and another girl PCT, so I was pretty happy we won over all the guys. The pot was $18, so that’s pretty big money here in Lesotho. -LONG discussion about our diarrhea, the way it will look and smell. When asked for adjectives to describe shit, I offered “explosive”. The doc was momentarily stumped but then decided it was a good one.-Rabies vaccines are pretty cool-Learning how to send poop samples in the mail to the Doc-“That’s what she said” ALL the timeNew nicknames:Mayor of Munchkin Land (this one is accompanied by song)Midget(So far not very creative).Mostly I just get made fun of. I just have to remember that they’re laughing with me not at me, right? Right Aaron “Double A” –“No One Cares About Your Pants And Yes You Do Cry At Night”-Laufman-Sweater-Walker?!Exercising has been tough, since we can’t really go anywhere. We’ve played some volleyball and kicked around a soccer ball for a bit. We’re going to try and organize a small game sometime this week. Basically, everyone has exceeded my expectations, the PCT’s, PCV’s and the trainers. It has been really great. I hope everyone at home is doing well, know that I miss you and many, many times wish you could somehow be here to share this with me (in some fashion). At the least, I REALLY wish I could call you all and talk about everything. So I miss that, but I’m taking notes to share with you later when I get a phone and can spill all the real dirt that I can’t on this blog.OK Today we got to go to the city taxi ranks and market and it was ABSOLUTLY f'in crazy. So much stuff going on. Also got to meet the ambassador of the USA but thats another story.