A dark, rainy, surreal delivery...

Some events here have a tendency to seem surreal...

One such event occurred Tuesday at about 7:30 p.m., when a large delivery truck showed up in the cold, rainy darkness with a surprise delivery of food provisions.

The truck was from the country's Disaster Management Authority, and had come unexpectedly to TTL to solicit our help in distributing "Famine Relief" provisions of milk, brown sugar, tomato sauce, rice, maize meal, flour, beans and cooking oil throughout the districts we work in.

The flatbed truck was massive, with a dark green tarp laying over it and tied down with a mesh of rope. As the man in charge of the delivery unlatched every last side panel of the flatbed, allowing them to fall to the side of the truck one by one, exposing the boxes of food packed under the tarp, I shivered in the rain -- less from the cold than the surreal sense of the meaning behind it all.

The job seemed a bit overwhelming at first, but the heaviness of the phrase "famine relief" far outweighed the bags of food, and the promise of being able to provide our clients with an extra boost of sustenance smothered any hesitation. We just got to work.

The next hour saw Kirsten and me, our security guard Motsi, a couple of the overnight safe home bo'me and the delivery guys unloading 435 bags or boxes of food and carrying them through the rain and the mud into TTL's main building, stacking them along hallways, in the staff room and in our accountant office.

The next morning, we surveyed again what we had received, and our outreach teams started planning deliveries and restocking the food in one of the open offices in our new building.

Already, we have started distributing the food, partly during an outreach trip yesterday to see former safe-home baby Mpolokeng and her family. Mpolokeng just graduated from the TTL program, and we drove out to her extremely remote village to take her and her family a nice supply of the provisions as a parting bit of support.

The trip, down and then back up the worst, rockiest, steepest road I've been on since my arrival here, showed me that TTL was the perfect organization for the government to turn to for help in the Mokhotlong and Thaba Tseka districts. Simply put, we go where this food needs to go, which is saying a lot.

In part, I suppose the entire experience was a bit surreal because I never thought I would participate first hand in an elaborate system of delivering famine relief. But, then again, so it goes...

S.P.@.T. -- V2

By popular demand: Sticking Points @ TTL -- Volume 2:

1. The human neck is capable of balancing a very large tub of water atop the head, with no help from the hands. This has only been observed in the female of the species.

2. Steamed bread is delicious, especially toasted.

3. Butchering a sheep carcass can be simultaneously gross, educational and amusing.

4. Purchasing office furniture from a coffin maker is a melancholy experience.

5. When it comes to potholes, it's not size, but quantity, that really matters.

6. The phrase, "It's reallllly early in the morning," can be understood to be a funny joke.

7. Pronouncing a letter that is, at once, a recognizable syllable and a click of the tongue is a tricky task.

8. Hiking up a mountain is often easier than hiking back down it.

9. Live television is not a necessity in life; television series on DVD are awesome.

10. Dancing toddlers crack me up.

11. You can bribe small children to dance by offering them small pieces of chocolate. In the future, they will remember this business transaction and attempt to negotiate. This is hilarious.

12. A cooked chicken foot is a suitable afternoon snack. It is also very salty. It is also mostly cartilage and skin.

13. Five minutes with a laughing toddler can brighten even the most tedious work day.

14. A small, hand-held mirror in the bathroom provides a sufficient amount of self-viewing in life.

15. Spending the "winter in the mountains" is much more hardcore with no central heating.

16. Every partnership starts with a proposal.

17. Losing a few pounds can go unnoticed. Losing 10 pounds, not so much.

18. Altitude is for real.

19. You can always build a new fire pit. That's the great thing about fire pits.

20. "Ntate Kevin" can sound like a lot of things coming from a 3-year-old, all of which are funny.

Running with Letsema

After spending a long period of time in Mokhotlong, it's easy to forget the physicality of the greater world around you. In your head, everything outside of Mokhotlong is condensed into a series of remote contact points, which you reach out to and get feedback from but forget to consider in a physical sense.

The isolation breeds a certain level of self-sustainability, which is a good thing, but it can also make you forget from time to time that, especially here in Lesotho, there are hundreds of other people actively working toward goals similar to your own.

It was partially in light of this reality that I took great pleasure in attending an event in Maseru on Tuesday night hosted by Sentebale, UNICEF and the Department of International Development to officially launch the newest product of what must have been a long, labor-intensive collaboration: the Letsema Directory of Service Providers for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Lesotho.

The Letsema initiative was first developed in response to the ever-growing number of OVC in the country, of which there are now an estimated 270,000, and "seeks to bring together all service providers and donors to enable cooperation and a collective response to this enormous problem."

The directory is a large binder with profiles and contact information of more than 300 OVC service providers in Lesotho, one of which is TTL.

At the event, which I attended as TTL's representative, there were speeches from Sentebale's Acting Country Director Bahlakoana Manyanye, UNICEF Deputy Country Representative Dr. Naqib Safi, and Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare Dr. Karabo Mokobocho-Mohlakoana.

Manyanye encouraged everyone in the room to work hand-in-hand as a collective body toward combating the problems facing the country. Safi urged the group to look at the new directory as the first step in an on-going movement toward progress. Mokobocho-Mohlakoana praised the spirit behind the initiative and echoed the sentiments of Manyanye and Safi.

I spoke with both Manyanye and Safi during the event and both spoke highly of TTL. Both Sentebale and UNICEF are existing and important supporters of TTL and its mission, and both men are good friends to have. It was nice to have a few minutes to chat freely with them.

With the large Letsema directory in hand, I came away from the event encouraged by the show of care by those in attendance, and with a new resource in expanding TTL's partnerships within Lesotho. The event was one of promise.

As I drove away, through the streets of Maseru, I was buoyant.

It was then that I saw a young boy, alone and probably not more than 10 years old, sitting huddled in a corner of sidewalk, holding his hands out to a small fire he had built with twigs and spare trash.

The sight yanked me back down to reality. Despite all the groups doing good in the country, there are still so many orphaned and vulnerable children in need of help, living on the street or wasting away in a village where no one is providing for them.

Still, as I continued driving, the discouragement of seeing the small, orphaned boy on the street was replaced with a new resolve to make sure TTL does something positive with the new directory -- that it takes this new resource and runs with it.

And that's just what we plan to do.

A lost battle...

Sad news: Ithateng passed away Wednesday night.

Kirsten was feeding her when it happened. It was quick.

Her death was not for a lack of fight. Ithateng had been battling, holding on, swimming as best she could against the swelling tide of her illness and dehydration, day after day after day. The bo'me did their best, providing her 24-hour attention and care. Along with medical students Katie and Sean, who just left, Kirsten worked diligently to figure out the best course of action for Ithateng's treatment, working with various partners at the hospital and elsewhere.

On Monday, Dr. Amy, who works for the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative and is a close friend and partner of TTL, put a nasogastric tube into Ithateng's little stomach because Ithateng just wasn't swallowing anymore. While I was out of town in Maseru this week, Kirsten and the bo'me continued their constant efforts to get Ithateng to hold something down. She kept vomiting.

Wednesday night, it all -- the vomiting, the diarrhea, the subsequent dehydration, the malnutrition, the HIV, the unknown factors of illness -- became too much, and Ithateng lost her brave fight.

I find I can't help but to curse the system, the lack of resources, and we all mourn the life that could have been lived. But I also look at TTL and understand again how important it is, how many little lives out there are vulnerable or on the verge, and how much work still needs to be done.

I won't soon forget Ithateng's big eyes looking back at me, her gaunt face, her visible discomfort. Neither will I forget the moments when she was comforted and calm, warm in a blanket and held tight by one of the bo'me, drifting off to a quiet sleep.

Now I hope she rests in peace, free of discomfort, finished with fighting...

Empathy in a Sea of Sympathy

Making comparisons is never a pure endeavor. It's always a matter of impression, and often a matter of judgement that depends more on your own self-imposed view of the world than on concrete similarities. Its a process one is less and less comfortable with when the balance of privilege is skewed...

Sometimes its difficult to find similarities between Mokhotlong and back home. And sometimes it's hard to relate to situations people go through here, to have a source of true empathy, rather than sympathy.

But when such similarities pop up, I like them. My middle name is McKeown -- a great-grandmother's maiden name -- and there just so happens to be a Sesotho name, Makione, that is pronounced the exact same way. Nthabeleng now calls me Makione sometimes -- my Sesotho name by default.

And when the still rarer opportunities for real empathy arise, I find I am transfixed for just a moment, absorbed...

For instance, last week, when I spoke of Ithateng's vomiting and diarrhea -- she is still fighting well, but is not out of the woods -- it was with a ton of sympathy and regret. But I couldn't really remember the last time I'd gone through something similar, physically. Thinking back, it may have been a dozen years ago. I am not sick often, and almost never have stomach issues. You forget, when you aren't sick yourself for a long time, what vomiting and diarrhea can be like when their forces are combined.

This week, however, my sympathy was joined with empathy, as some vile bug invaded my stomach and left me, for a night and day, with Ithateng's exact symptoms. Walking from my rondaval to the bathroom through the starlit darkness every hour of that long night of queasy, internal betrayal was a starkly odious experience. I do not exaggerate. You should never need a bucket when you are already in the bathroom. I became dehydrated, seemed to have lost weight rapidly, was lethargic and tossed and turned in bed between jolts to the bathroom.

I am better now, half a CIPRO prescription later. And even though it was horrendous while it lasted, I am now, in a way, glad my quick illness happened. Three months into my stay here, I am still constantly reminded of differences between myself and the people around me. I am reminded of my privilege, my health, my resources, my supportive family. I wish I could share more of what I have been blessed with. I wish in whatever hand they were dealt, they'd been given just one of my aces...

So it may be selfish, or represent some ugly form of solipsism, but it feels good, in a way, to be able to relate...to be able to share in the pain that has otherwise missed me, to have a legitimate dose of empathy for once, as opposed to the ever-constant sympathy.