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My new life: What it’s like to live in Lesotho?

October 17, 2015 by Sonia Marsh 12 Comments

Sonia,Patricia,Heather water filters
With my new PCV friends getting our water filters

My new life: What it’s like to live in Lesotho?

My life is so different here in Lesotho as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I have so much to share with you; I don’t know where to start.

Instead of writing a super-long blog post, I’ve decided to share the basics about my new life as a Peace Corps volunteer in training. I’m sure you want to see photos of where I live, my new host family, and my rural surroundings. I’m now living with donkeys, dogs (a ton of them,) roosters, chickens, sheep, and numerous cats, especially kittens.

Whenever I have access to an Internet connection, and electricity, I shall post my daily life in more detail. (Not sure exactly when, but I hope you’re interested.)

I can’t believe that this time two weekends ago, I sat in a fancy restaurant in San Clemente, California, enjoying Cioppino, with shrimp, fish, muscles and scallops in a delicious tomato broth, with warm sourdough bread and butter and a glass of Chardonnay.

Now I’m eating papa, (a maize powder cooked in boiling water) with morojo (chopped greens cooked in oil) with stewed pumpkin and carrot slaw. I eat a ton of carbs, and very little protein, compared to what I ate in California.

I’ve been adopted by my host mother or (‘m’e) Mathuso, and she is very caring and sweet. She shows me how to hand wash my clothes outside in a bucket of cold water which was transported up the hill by donkey.

PCV, Michelle, showing us how to take a bath
PCV, Michelle, showing us how to take a bath

Bath and buckets

view of countryside
view of countryside

Doing laundry

‘M’e gets upset when I don’t arrange my multipurpose bedroom/kitchen/bathroom (basically my pee bucket, and plastic bath tub,) the way women do it in Lesotho. I find it strange that my host “mother” is four years younger than me, and she makes me feel like a child who has no clue what she’s doing, despite having been a mother/cook/cleaning lady myself for 37 years.

My new house

I now have a nine-year old sister, Ausi (sister) Boitumelo, a brother, Abuti (brother) Tebeho. They help me pronounce new vocabulary words in Sesotho; another challenge as I have three months to learn this foreign African language, before I get shipped off to my future village, where I shall teach English in a primary school for two years.

My new brother and sister. Ausi Boitumelo,Abuti Teboho
My new brother and sister.

 

I’m learning to adapt as fast as I can, but it is stressful to have Sesotho language classes every day, and to be bombarded with friendly Basotho people from the village stopping you on the dirt road to ask you questions about your Sesotho name, (mine is ‘m’e Palusa which means flower) where you’re you’re from etc. They speak so fast, and I’m finding the pressure is on to learn the language quickly.

We also have Peace Corps classes from 7:30 a.m., until 5p.m., daily, and then homework and studying in the dark room with no electricity. Taking a bucket bath, and daily chores take forever, so I feel more stressed now than I did in Orange County.

I have a paraffin lamp to study when it gets dark around 6:30 p.m., and thankfully my headlamp so I can find my pee bucket at night. We are not allowed outside to use the latrine, due to the guard dogs who get into vicious fights almost every night.

dancing 'mes

More to come later.

By the way, if you’d like to connect with me, apart from e-mails, please sign up for what’s app. This is a FREE APP, and we can chat and send messages. I shall e-mail you my Lesotho phone # if you’d like to communicate with me on What’s app. E-mail me at:

Sonia@soniamarsh.com

Sala hantle, (stay well.)

 

 

“Wait. Don’t shoot!” How My Family Came Close to Extinction

October 6, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 3 Comments

 

sondarkes1

The Killer Prawns

“My Gutsy Story®” Don Darkes

 

Every June 6th, often commemorated as D-Day elsewhere, we celebrate Pisces Day; our family’s survival day. On that day, we were shipwrecked, lost everything we owned and were left stranded and bleeding on a lonely quicksand beach. My wife, two young children and I named this “Pisces Day,” the name of our doomed yacht.

Since then, we have celebrated Pisces Day around a meal of prawns and rice.  Why prawns and rice? To remind us how we ate prawns and rice for weeks after our shipwreck. Prawns and rice were cheap and plentiful, and we were destitute. On Pisces Day 2010, my wife Dianne chose the venue carefully; “Jimmy’s Killer Prawns.” She booked a U-shaped bench near the window overlooking the old railway station.

“Ugh! There is something slippery under the table” exclaimed Bill as he lost his footing and fell heavily against the red vinyl bench seat that protested with a sibilant hiss of escaping air.

“Judging by the smell of rancid butter and garlic it must be the prawn sauce” laughed blonde and vivacious Luna, his youngest sister, as we slithered our bottoms along the maroon seats. Dianne, her blue eyes sparkling with pleasure at having the family together again, took up her station at the base of the U, flanked by both our daughters and with Bill and me facing each other at either end.

“Although it’s just past six-thirty the place is already busy” remarked Dianne.

“What shall we order?” Morgan asked.

“Prawns and rice!” we chorused.

“I’m dying of thirst. I hope the waiter comes to take our drinks order soon.” groaned Bill grasping his throat theatrically and gagging to the amusement of his adoring sisters.

“I wonder why there are no waiters around?” Dianne said.

“Wait a minute. Speak of the devils!” Luna pointed to a thickset man approaching our table and to another four men who were spreading out simultaneously towards the other tables.

“It’s not that cold tonight. I’m surprised management lets them wear their hoods on duty.” I commented as our hooded waiter approached.

“Do you have granadilla juice…?” I stopped mid-sentence as the muzzle of a large pistol was placed squarely against the tip of my nose.

“Cell phones and money” interrupted the hooded man gruffly.

“I don’t have any cash with me. I pay by credit card and I am not carrying my cell phone” I stuttered, numb with shock.

“And you?” The robber swung around and placed the barrel of his gun against Bills forehead.

“I have a phone.” Bill said reaching into his shirt pocket with trembling fingers and dropped it to the floor. Unthinking he ducked below the table to retrieve it and scrabbled around on the greasy floor whilst it evaded him like a slippery fish. The gunman’s pin-prick irises flashed and I imagined the roar of his gun and the impact of the bullet mushrooming my sons head redly onto the walls and floor.

“Wait. Don’t shoot! My son is trying to pick up his phone.” The gunman hesitated and Bill emerged again unaware of how close he had come to extinction.

“What about you?” the gunman waved his pistol at the girls where they sat ashen faced and rooted to the bench. Luna spoke first.

“My daddy won’t buy me one.” She lied.  The gunman shot me a disgusted glance. neither of us noticed Luna surreptitiously secreting her precious phone behind her.

“What about you?” the robber hissed at Morgan who had stealthily emulated her younger sisters example. Both girls stared down the killer’s harsh gaze. I caught their eyes with my own and gestured to them not to maintain eye contact whilst my heart thrashed within my chest from an overload of pride, terror and anger.

“Stand Up!” He commanded. We complied, albeit bent double within the narrow space.  The thug moved forward, wedging his gun beneath his chin, whilst he frisked Bill and me and even feeling our groins as he did so.

He looked towards my wife and daughters. I baulked at the prospect of him running his hands over their innocent young bodies and began to boil with rage. Bill caught my eye and shook his head imperceptibly.

“The girls don’t carry money. My father is too stingy.” Blurted Bill. The crook glanced disdainfully at me before turning his drug-dulled eyes toward his other prey.

He swaggered to a table occupied by a solitary man so busily engaged in devouring his meal while speaking with unfocused eyes on his mobile phone that he had not noticed the commotion. The gunman stuck the barrel of his pistol against the distracted man’s nose.

“Cell phone and money” he demanded.

“Huh”

“Cell phone and money!” the robber hit the table with his fist upsetting the glass of red wine over the diners lap.

“I don’t have any money, I pay by credit card” said the diner as he handed over his mobile.

“May I continue eating? This is my first meal of the day and I am starving.” He returned to his meal without waiting for a reply. The crook grunted and moved to the next table.

The terror did not end there. In the weeks and months that followed, we saw our assailants in the shopping malls.  They would leer at us and taunt the girls, pointing to me: the stingy father.  When we complained to the police about the progress of the investigation, we were told they had no record of any such incident, despite the fact that it had been reported in a local newspaper and they had taken statements.  Our family became so traumatised we refused to leave the house for fear of meeting our tormenters.  I asked a good friend, a well-connected man and a long standing member of Interpol, to make discreet enquiries. He told me the police were connected with the gang and that we were in mortal danger. “Get out of town. Disappear,” he said.

This was our family’s pivotal decision to sell everything and go sailing again.

fam4
Don Darkes and his family

DON DARKES BIO: During the seventies I studied Psychology prior to serving mandatory Military Service in a secret unit, for which I received a medal. Following a number of exciting and successful careers in Construction, Manufacturing and Information Technology, I am now a full time Author.

During the nineties I was shipwrecked together with my wife and children in Madagascar. After returning destitute to South Africa I formed and sold a sucessful Internet company in order to write  my first two books and to  research and write a novel exploring an intriguing link between the Jewish Holocaust and Madagascar. Currently, together with my wife and daughter we are building another yacht and living aboard it whilst I work on several books with the common denominators being my love of history and my belief that fact is more interesting than fiction.

BookCoverPreview.do
Click on Cover to go to Don Darke’s Amazon Page

You can join Don Darkes on:

Facebook

Amazon Page


 

Sign up NOW on Eventbrite to reserve your seat for a FUN and ENTERTAINING EVENT

to launch our 2nd “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology.

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My Gutsy Story® Anthology: Taking Chances and Changing Your Life

 

What:  Author Sonia Marsh launches the second publication in her My Gutsy Story® Anthology book series by hosting an evening of inspirational stories moderated by former PBS SoCal anchor Ann Pulice.  Marsh, the award winning author and founder of My Gutsy Story®  series, will also announce her next gutsy adventure, signing up for the Peace Corps. The event is open to the public and all attendees will receive a copy of the newest My Gutsy Story® Anthology.

 

When:  Saturday, November 1

4:00 to 6:30 p.m.

 

Where:  Zovs Restaurant in Tustin

17440 E. 17th St., Tustin, CA 92780, (MAP)

ph (714) 838.8855

 

Who:  Moderator Ann Pulice is an award-winning journalists and was co-host on PBS SoCal’s Real Orange for 17 years.

Ann Pulice Emcee for the Book Launch Event

 

Panelists include:

  • Sonia Marsh: Award-winning author of Freeways to Flip-flops and founder of the My Gutsy Story®
  • Julia Capizzi: Orange County Peace Corps representative and Bilingual Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who has lived abroad in El Salvador & Bolivia.
  • Colleen Hannegan: Author and professional speaker, certified business advisor, personal life coach for women in transition.
  • Mariana Williams: Author and founder of the “Long Beach Searches for Greatest Storyteller,” married to Oscar-winning singer/songwriter Paul Williams.
  • Jonathan Yanez: Went from renting cars, to following his dream of becoming an author. His three-book series publishing contract has now been optioned for film.

 

Cost:   $40 (includes book, wine and appetizers) before October 20th and $45 after that date.

More: Marsh hopes the My Gutsy Story® Anthology series and events will create a global community to help one another take risks in life. Her first publication,Freeways to Flip Flops, a chronology of her family’s one-year adventure in Belize, recently won the Reader’s Favorite, 2014 Gold Medal book award.

 

RSVP: For more information call (949) 309-0030 or e-mail: Sonia@soniamarsh.com

EventBrite: To sign up for the event

Volunteer in Africa: Tanzania, Moshi, Zanzibar, Mt. Kilimanjaro

July 10, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 3 Comments

Photo credit Peace corps website
Photo credit Peace corps website

As some of you know from my recent posts, I’m in a period of transition, re-evaluating my next move. I’ve recently trademarked:

GUTSY LIVING™

and I’m looking for other adventures, including the Peace Corps. On July 11th, I have an appointment with a Peace Corps recruiter to ask many questions, including my desire to blog for the Peace Corps, and more. Here is my list of questions for my recruiter appointment.

Peace Corps Questions

  • I am fluent in French. How likely is it they will send me to a French speaking country?
  • As a published author and blogger, can I blog for PC site?
  • Do we get to bring our laptops?
  • How likely is it that we have Internet in our country? Senegal, Madagascar, Benin, Vanuatu?
  • Any Caribbean countries that need a French speaker?
  • What about personal supplies like face cream, sunblock, toothpaste we like, etc? Can we receive care packages? How often?
  • When do we need to start the doctor/dentist visits?
  • I have a degree in Environmental Science but prefer to work with helping women and children. Is that possible?
  • Can you connect me with other women 56+ who are PC volunteers?
  • Can I work as a trainer for PC?
  • How easy is it to get a job as a recruiter for baby boomers when I return? Is it a full-time paying job?
  • Do recruiters get to travel around the US?
  • Are there other jobs available for older PC volunteers when they return?
  • An ex-PC volunteer sent me this. Is it true that I could perhaps apply for an assignment for 6 months ? “Peace Corps Response is now open to non RPCVs.  It’s a shorter term assignment, usually about 6 months, and they take volunteers with specific skills.  In your case, I’d imagine organizing and marketing.  And the fact that you are already fluent in French can be a real asset.”

Yelena Parker is a global citizen who has worked in over twenty countries, and who just completed 4 months in Moshi, Tanzania, followed by Zanzibar. I first interviewed her with Monika Fox who founded “Give a Heart to Africa” where Yelena volunteered for two months.

 

 

Follow-up Interview with Yelena Parker after her 4 months volunteering in Moshi and Zanzibar, Tanzania. She also talks about her 6-day climb up

Mt. Kilimanjaro.

 

Yelena Parker is an expert on expatriate life and has published a guidebook-meets-memoir called Moving Without Shaking, available now in Kindle format, and very soon in print format.

Yelena Parker Book Moving_Without_Shaking_Book-Cover-200x300
Click on cover to order on Amazon

 

Winner of the April 2014 “My Gutsy Story®” Contest

May 15, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 2 Comments

My Gutsy Story 1st place

This April we had FOUR OUTSTANDING  “My Gutsy Story®” authors. Their stories will be included in our 2nd “My Gutsy Story®” Anthology, published in the Fall of 2014.  Thank you to all four authors. Your stories are all WINNERS.

Our first place goes to Ginger Simpson won 1st Place for her “My Gutsy Story®” about whether she caused her husband to turn to drink. The phrase that struck me in Ginger’s inspiring story is:

“Wanting someone to change isn’t enough. They have to WANT the change.”

Ginger
Ginger Simpson

 

2nd Place goes to Kathy Gamble, about finding her way as an expat living in different countries around the world.

 

Kathy Gamble

 

3rd Place goes to Benny Wasserman, about the impact that one teenage friend had on Benny to change his life.

My Gutsy Story 3rd place

BennyWasserman
BennyWasserman

 

4th Place goes to Alana Woods for her inspiring story about her 200-mile trek across the U.K.

 

Alana Woods
Alana Woods
  Thank you to all four authors. Your stories are all WINNERS.

 

MGS FINAL COVER Small
Click on cover to go to Amazon

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

What I Did To Make My Life Happy

May 5, 2014 by Sonia Marsh 8 Comments

4 (1)

Not My Dream, But My Life

“My Gutsy Story®” Jennifer Barclay

I spent my fortieth birthday not being whisked away to a Spanish city for a romantic weekend, as had been hinted in what now seemed the distant past, but weeping and shaky with my parents. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be.

My life had seemed to be coming together, at last settling into year two with a nice man. We were talking about moving somewhere beautiful together. Then he changed his mind.

For a while, the only option was falling apart at the seams.

All I’d wanted was a simple, comfortable happiness at the centre of everything: helping me to be the person who sang tunelessly as she cycled to work in the morning, had good friends and a fulfilling job and got out into the countryside on the weekends. I’d lost not only the potential love of my life, but my love of life. I hated being a miserable me who cried herself to sleep on friends’ couches.

How did other people manage to stay in stable relationships? What was I doing wrong? Gradually, I started to think of a better question: how could I take action to make myself happier?

I was suffering from more than heartbreak, clearly. It hadn’t felt like I was in a rut, but now when I asked myself what I would really like to do with my life, I realised I’d been putting up with things because I thought they were temporary. I had to replace the plans I’d made with my ex, and come up with new ones; the age of forty seemed a good time to take a good, hard look at what I wanted.

Why wait for someone else to change my life? In fact, I was lucky: now, there was only myself to consider. I’d so often compromised for a partner.

Two years earlier, I’d been invited for a weekend in the country where I was surrounded by happy couples with beautiful children. I’d felt inadequate for two days, and the dinner on the Sunday evening was offering much of the same. Then one of the father-husbands asked me if I’d been on holiday that summer.

‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘My job’s always busy during the summer. But next week I’m off for a week on my own in Ibiza.’

His jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a dreamy look. ‘I would kill for a week on my own in Ibiza.’

All those people in their seemingly perfect relationships had others to think about. I only had myself. In fact, I almost had a duty to think about myself, and how to be happy on my own.

Holidays on Greek islands always gave me huge amounts of joy. My love of Greece started when I was a child on family holidays, and continued into my university years when I travelled around with a friend. I’d spent a year there after university, when I’d been feeling a little lost career-wise and didn’t know what to do. Then, Greece had been the answer – could it be the answer again? In recent years, holidays on Greek islands for a week or two snatched from my busy working year always left me feeling rejuvenated and wanting more. I wondered about going for longer, perhaps a month: two weeks of holiday and two weeks working remotely from there.

My boss took some convincing, but finally I had a month on a Greek island to look forward to; a month to swim in the sea, walk in empty hills, sit in the brilliant, warm sunshine; a month to think – but not too hard – about who I was and what I wanted to do next with my life. In the meantime, I’d put relationships on hold, and I’d start escaping from the never-ending cycle of work, beginning with a freelance day per week, taking a pay cut to invest in my future.

On my first morning waking up on the island of Tilos, with a view of deep blue sky and mountain from my bedroom window, and the glittering sapphire sea through my bathroom window as I brushed my teeth, I knew I’d done the right thing. In fact, it felt like the cleverest thing I’d ever done. Happiness is easy sometimes, as a Greek friend had once said.

I’d work in the peace of the morning, with sweet smells from the next-door bakery wafting up onto the terrace. At lunchtime I’d plunge into the sea, maybe doze a little in the sun as I dried off. After an afternoon of work, I’d walk around the bay, admiring the light and inhaling the fragrance of herbs on the hillside – herbs I’d pick to sprinkle over a simple dinner. In the evening I’d sit out in the balmy air and look up at the stars.

Halfway through my month there, I was snorkelling in a pretty pink-sand bay with my new friend Dimitris, when he found a fat red starfish and put it in my hand. I felt its feelers on my skin, then let it float gently down to the sea bed. Swimming back to the same spot ten minutes later, I saw it had fallen upside down and was slowly, slowly turning itself the right way up. Perhaps that’s what I was doing.

It was hard to leave Tilos at the end of that month. But I’d got my mojo back. And I thought of it not as an ending, but a beginning. Strong again, I decided what to do: not what was sensible or expected, but what felt right for me. The taste of freedom, working from home on a sunny Greek island, showed me the way forward. I could do it.

I used to have recurring dreams of Greek islands, especially in winter when things looked bleak: I’d see myself walking in sunshine on a wild hillside with clear blue water below, into the whitewashed alleyways of an old village. Now that’s not my dream, but my life.

 

JENNIFER BARCLAY is the author of Falling in Honey: How a Tiny Greek Island Stole My Heart, and blogs about Greek island life at www.octopus-in-my-ouzo.blogspot.com. Her first book was Meeting Mr Kim: How I Went to Korea and Learned to Love Kimchi, and she is the editor of many travel-related memoirs. Having worked as a literary agent and then an editorial director at a publishing company, she now works freelance from her home office as a writer, editor, writing coach and agent (www.jennifer-barclay.blogspot.com).

Join Jennifer on Twitter: @JenBarclayBooks
Facebook
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Click on cover to go to Amazon US
UK: KIndle
UK: Paperback
US Kindle:
US: Paperback

SONIA MARSH SAYS: What a beautiful, uplifting story to start a new week,, and a new chapter life,  Jennifer. Your phrase,

“I decided what to do: not what was sensible or expected, but what felt right for me.”

is so uplifting and motivating. I truly believe that travel allows us to “re-connect” with ourselves and find out what’s important to us.

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS FOR JENNIFER BELOW AND SHARE USING THE LINKS. THANK YOU.

 

MGS FINAL COVER Small
Click on cover to go to Amazon

Would you like to submit your “My Gutsy Story®” and get published in our 2nd anthology?

Please see guidelines below and contact Sonia Marsh at: sonia@soniamarsh.com for details.

You can find all the information, and our new sponsors on the “My Gutsy Story®” contest page. (VIDEO) Submission guidelines here

VOTING for your favorite April 2014 “My Gutsy Story®,” starts on  May 1st, and ends on May 14th. The WINNER will be announced on May 15th.

 

PLEASE VOTE AND SHARE THESE STORIES USING THE LINKS BELOW.

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I divorced at 58, and now belong to myself.
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