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The end of the second quarter means one very exciting thing for Education Peace Corps volunteers in Lesotho… A two-month winter vacation where we’re free to travel! I decided to spend part of mine solo traveling through the beautiful country of Namibia, and I had an absolute blast. Truly a hidden gem. Now, my solo travel strategy was simple: Talk to everyone. My completely unscientific theory is that people are less likely to hurt someone they’ve just spent twenty minutes ch

One thing about being a Peace Corps volunteer is that people have questions. So here are a few of the questions I get asked most often. ⸻ ”Are you allowed to travel?” Yes! As volunteers, we accrue two days of leave every month starting in our third month of service. In total, we receive 48 days of leave to use during our service. The only downside is that, as teachers, we aren’t allowed to take leave during the school year. That means most of our travel and family visits have

Hey ladies, I have now been a teacher for 5 months, and let me tell you… I have taken for granted the true sanctity of teachers. This job is such a strange mix of frustration, pride, success, failure, disappointment, overexertion, and happiness. You are a doctor, educator, therapist, and parent all wrapped into one person. What an exhausting job. Foundational skills, those primarily learned in grades K–4, are far more essential than I ever realized. Now that I teach, I can cl

One thing about being a Peace Corps volunteer is that people have questions. So here are a few of the questions I get asked most often. ⸻ “What do you eat?” I have written about this separately on a couple of occasions, but briefly here, you have access to absolutely everything you have the ENERGY to make. I am lazy. Ke botsoa. So I eat a lot of things that give me energy to live but don’t necessarily nourish my foodie soul. Beans and rice, canned chicken and rice, tuna and c

The WhatsApp Shakespeare: Raye A wonderful song for this edition. Considering that the main form of communication in Lesotho is through WhatsApp. “Keneuoe, you need to have 3 OR 5 boyfriends! How else will you correctly choose who will be your husband…” -My Sesotho Mom Society has always seemed to favor monogamy, or, the alternative, is it may say unsavory things about your character. A stink that would follow you long after you have left that environment. At least that’s how

One thing about being a Peace Corps volunteer is that people have questions. So here are a few of the questions I get asked most often. ⸻ “What’s the toilet situation?” As a volunteer, you’ll have your own private pit latrine + a designated pee bucket. And before you panic, it becomes normal faster than you’d think. Each volunteer is provided a latrine with a lock and key, which sounds comforting until you realize the local spiders, flies, bees, and mystery insects do not res

As you’ve probably gathered from my previous posts, Peace Corps plants us into a host family where we are meant to be watered and grow strong. An idea that has incredible merit because connection does starve off malicious intent from outsiders. For example, one day I was being harassed in a taxi by a couple of men. They were telling me to go back where I came from because I couldn’t speak Sesotho. The funny thing is… I can. Peace Corps trains us in Sesotho, so I understood ev

When I was a prospective volunteer, all I kept asking was: “What does a day in the life actually look like?” No one ever gave me a straight answer. So here you go. A little on the boring side, but very real and very informative. 6:15 AM – Wake Up☀️ I grab my toothpaste, cup, toothbrush, towel, and soap, then head outside to the water tank. I wash my face and brush my teeth before heading back inside. 6:30 AM – Morning Prep🫖 I fill my kettle, light my stove, and set it on the

Peace Corps volunteers have three main goals that guide our service and often act as a measure of our success as volunteers. The first two goals are quite technical, with clearer ways to measure success and, therefore, failure, in my opinion. The third goal, however, is the most free-spirited in its application. The third goal is cultural exchange. It emphasizes that as much as we learn about the culture here in Lesotho and assimilate, we also share who we are and teach what

Disclaimer: Please read in its entirety. I am in no way bashing Peace Corps or my fellow volunteers. Theme song of the post: “Life Boat” by Raye Life Boat. Let’s just say life got a little out of control. From my last post until now, I have been all over the place. So let’s start with when everything came to a head, no need for buildup here haha. In March, we attended Reconnect Workshop, a space designed to “reconnect” not just with other volunteers and staff, but with you

Hello Letters to Lesotho Family, I have been up to so much at the site that I haven’t had much time to write. As of now, I am over the Girls Empowerment Club, the Computer Club, Co-Coaching Sports, and teaching grades 4 and 5. I go home very tired! I’m not complaining, though, because I like having things to do. Us, volunteers, also had a small crisis and were thrust into about a week of stress. More on that soon! So here are some photos from the last few weeks! I’ll be posti

One month down. It’s hard to believe I’ve already been officially teaching at my permanent school for a full month. Time here moves in strange ways, some days feel incredibly long, and somehow the weeks still disappear. So relax, friends and family. Let’s talk about it. Currently, I teach English for Grade 5 and both English and Numeracy for Grade 4. Peace Corps volunteers have counterparts who are to be with them at all times. This is meant to bridge any gaps caused by langu

It’s been almost two full months on my own at site… so let’s talk about food. Short answer? It’s repetitive. I must admit — during training we constantly complained about the bland, “seasonless” meals. Only to later find out that Basotho were told we only like salt as seasoning, love peanut butter, and apparently need eggs to survive. That, paired with Peace Corps intentionally feeding us repetitive meals to prepare us for limited food access at site…we were very much tired o

Content Note: This piece discusses harassment, manipulation, and unwanted romantic attention. Reader discretion advised. When I was a little girl, if boys liked you, they chased you on the playground. If you didn’t return their affection, they were mean to you. That was 2006. It’s now 2026, and as an adult, I’ve learned that the rules of the game haven’t changed as much as we pretend they have. My experiences with men in Lesotho are not fundamentally different from my experie

My mom coined the phrase “break all familial ties to America,” and when she first said it, it sounded harsh. Punitive, even. As if the Peace Corps system wanted to strip us of comfort and familiarity just to see what remained — a weeding out of the weak, survival-of-the-fittest style. I didn’t yet understand that the breaking wasn’t meant to be permanent or cruel, but strengthening. What I learned quickly is that distance reveals dependency. If that dependency isn’t addressed

Myself and another volunteer I’m close with have been pretty glum these past few days. The realization that we are stuck in a foreign country during the holiday season has finally caught up to us. To make matters worse, it’s summer here. So I’m hot and alone on Christmas. Yikes. Jokes aside, we’re in a country where roughly half the population has electricity and half does not, which means there is virtually no familiarity with Christmas as we know it in America. I call this

As PST has come to an end and I am officially a Peace Corps Volunteer, I want to tell you about the family that raised me — Lesotho style. Over the last couple of months, my host family taught me, in every way imaginable, how to be a Mosotho woman and how to take care of myself. Peace Corps host families in Lesotho are tasked with helping us learn to fend for ourselves: how to cook, clean, wash clothes and dishes, what to wear, how to wear it — all tasks done sans electricity

So many things have happened lately that don’t quite warrant full articles on their own… BUT mini excerpts all in one place are perfectly justified! Our Family Dog Was Poisoned Last week, someone poisoned our dog because they felt she roamed too much. The strange part is that animals here in Lesotho aren’t viewed as pets, and they roam freely. Pet culture basically doesn’t exist. I remembered when Maru (our late pup) was sick and I asked when she’d be taken to the vet — ever

Have you ever found yourself asking, “Why am I here?” Why did this happen? What am I supposed to learn from this stage of my life? I’ve always believed that everything in my life prepares me for something I don’t yet know or see—every tear, laugh, heartbreak, smile, and victory. Now, I can finally see that the last few years have been preparing me for this journey. In the summer of 2019, I stepped onto Southern Arkansas University’s campus—a small school in a small town. I wa

My very first question as a volunteer wasn’t about teaching or safety, it was, “What am I supposed to do with my hair?” I flipped between the following options when preparing to come to Lesotho. I thought about shaving my head, locking my hair like my parents or getting braids and shaving my head when they started to look ratty. Instead I went for the unnamed option 4. The “unwillingly getting my hair redone” route. and now you’re probably like, “Kamrin, what does unwillingl