A Peace Corps Story

By ssaltman

In February of 1989 I landed in Lesobeng, Lesotho. At the time, it was considered one of the most remote sites in the country. To reach it, one needed to fly. There was no road as the Maluti Mountains are cut by deep canyons. Many of the creeks and tributaries are seasonal, but the Lesobeng River generally flowed year round. These rivers eventually join the great Orange River, washing soil and runoff eastward, through Lesotho, through the Orange Free State, through the Namib Desert and finally into the Indian Ocean.

The remoteness to me was not an issue. A phrase I learned later in my career in tech was "That's not a bug, that's a feature." I wanted to be remote. I wanted new experiences. I grew up in coddled American suburbia. Not remote. Not exotic. So, I threw myself into language training to qualify to be posted in the most distant site. I took to the language and the culture as if I had nothing else. Lesobeng was for me the achievement of a dream. I was very excited that Kim Ward, the Director of Peace Corps Lesotho had assigned me there.

Before boarding the small airplane that would take me to my home for the next two years, the airport staff weighed me and my luggage. which included two large metal trunks purchased at a wholesaler in the capital containing nearly ten kilos of dried fruit and another 10 kilos of oatmeal.

The airplane, a DeHaviland Twin Otter, is designed for short take-offs and landings. We circled the airstrip, to scare away any herdboys who saw fit to graze their herds on the grass that tended to grow on the cleared and flat area.

A drought had affected the highlands. At 7000 feet, the climate was high desert, so droughts were not uncommon. But this one, which portended the beginning of climate change, was extreme. The harvest had failed and food would be scare in the winter, six months hence.

I settled into my Peace Corps teaching role, taking over the math classes at Lesobeng Secondary School. All was good.

But then winter came. And with it, food scarcity. Students who lived at the mission sometimes came to my door, asking for dried fruit. They were not allowed to do this, and I was tight-fisted with my sweets. Something I regret to this day. But the issues of white people giving things to Africans loomed large. Apartheid would end exactly one year later in May 1990, while I was still in Lesobeng.

What also bothered me was that the United States gave development aid money to Southern Africa. Even now, decades later, these arguments continue. Aid did reach Lesobeng in the form of myself and the other volunteer, Shelly. But were weren't food. And, to be honest, many people in the valley probably would have traded me for food.

At the time I was 23 years old. A baby. I knew nothing. And I was kind of a dick. Basotho are fastidious dressers. They are neat. Their clothes are clean. Their shirts creased and sharp. I, on the other hand, dressed like an American college student. Ripped jeans. Ratty t-shirts. I shaved only occasionally. This reflected my attitude that they should accept me as I am as I accept them. But I allowed no context. I allowed no nuance in that high and mighty attitude.

I was frustrated by the slow pace of change. Materials were stolen from our garden project. Latrines were designed poorly. Windows in the school were broken and not fixed. Best practices for erosion control, gardening, teaching, animal care, and health care were not being adopted with the speed an economics major expected. I was, despite my protestations, the very stereotype of an impatient, arrogant Peace Corps volunteer.

Food aid, the food donated by the United States government, by the taxpaying citizens of the United States, millions and millions of dollars of food, was not reaching the citizens of Lesotho who needed it most.

I asked the headmaster about it and he shrugged his shoulders. It was out of his control. I asked other volunteers and they also said they had no idea.

So I did something about it. I wrote a letter to the US Ambassador expressing my ire and frustration that US food aid, which was being sent to Lesotho, as you could buy tins of oil marked "donated by the People of United States" in the market in Maseru, was not reaching Lesobeng.

The next time I went to the capital Kim Ward asked me into his office. He suggested that I could have worded that letter more diplomatically. And, of course, he was completely correct. And even now I feel very bad for putting him on the hot seat with the Ambassador who probably didn't appreciate letters from recalcitrant Volunteers complaining about how American foreign aid policies were executed.

He also gave me a letter of recommendation for graduate school. To this day nobody has written me a more glowing letter of recommendation. It was unnecessary and far beyond what was required of him. In addition, since I'd just gotten him in trouble, it was above the call of duty, so to speak. He did me a solid.

Back at my site I was again standing outside the school chatting with Ntate Thinyane. I commented that an extraordinary number of planes had been landing all day at the airstrip, which was visible from the school yard, as we were on a nearby bluff.

"That's you," he said. I looked at him in confusion. He explained that food aid was being delivered to Lesobeng. He said it was because of my letter, which I had told him had gotten me in hot water.

But it wasn't me. It was Kim Ward, who somehow convinced the Ambassador that I was not the dickhead portrayed in my letter and that I was probably right that some food aid needed to reach Lesobeng.