Peace Corps: Visiting my Permanent Site

This upcoming week I will be staying at my permanent site, before travelling back to my training site for one more month.

My permanent site is located in Maseru district, which also houses the capital of Lesotho: Maseru. But, my site is rural and 2 hours from Maseru (Maseru district is big and varies in population densisoon. Districts here are similar to states in America, and there are 10 districts in Lesotho.

If you're curious to know the specific location of my site, please reach out to me via Signal/Whatsapp or ask my family.

This week I will be exploring my permanent site and working in the nearby health clinic during the week; There, I will be shadowing employees and just generally learning about the clinic's operations and needs. This week will help me find my role in this community and help determine what I can do over my two years here.

Despite the rural nature of my site, it is quite luxurious. I have electricity in my ronduval, and a nearby water source, which are both huge conveniences. But I'll likely still be using a good chunk of solar power, since I came here expecting to live without consistent electricity access.

Getting to my site is quite interesting. From my training village I took public transit to Maseru, and then switched taxis and continued towards my site. From there, I get off at a well-known junction (which is just a fork in the road) and walk three miles to my village.

I arrived Saturday afternoon and it is now approaching noon on Sunday. So far today I ran, cooked breakfast, and met the local chief of my village. My run was particularly majestic, as the mountains tower around this place, and the lack of trees means you can see for miles all around. And it is very hilly; I ran on the "flattest" road today, and after only 3 miles I had accumulated 530 feet of elevation gain. And speaking of elevation, I am now living at 6600 feet above sea level.

The mountains are calling, but some of them are off limits from October through January. This is because of initiation schools that take place on certain mountains during the summertime. If I was to go up into those mountains, and was seen by the initiation school members, I could be forced to join and take part in the months-long process. But only certain mountains have these schools, and my local community will help guide me here.

I don't have much else to add right now, except some photos below. This will be a unique week in the course of my Peace Corps training, and I will write about how it went soon. And if you have any questions, don't hesitate!

All the best,
Connor