Heather's Adventures in Lesotho

So many exciting things going on

heatherawsumb — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 15:42:07 +0000

This week I am:

Dealing with the flurry of emails about the Maseru Players Company – an amateur theatre group I established with 3 other friends last month. We are holding auditions for our first production – “Little Shop of Horrors” – on Saturday. Do any of us have theatre experience? No, but that’s what consultants are for, right? The more we talk about it, the more people come out of the wood work. It’s so exciting. We’re aiming for possibly a June performance, but it depends on how auditions go on Saturday …
Also handling a flurry of emails about climbing Kilimanjaro in July. This is something on my 17 Before 2017 list that just randomly came up via a new colleague so I decided to take the opportunity. Currently debating which trail to take …
A bit overwhelmed at work handling my usual tasks plus putting together a presentation for our Executive Management Team meeting in May. The good news is that I’ll be in the US to give the presentation, and likely traveling to SLC as well. So my work on the presentation is sometimes overcome by my excitement at getting to see friends and family and – let’s be honest – shopping …
Also dealing with the fact that this is the last week for the rest of the PMTCT team at work. I can’t believe the end is here and at the same time so proud of what the team accomplished. I must write more about this later.
Excited for the mid-week chili night I’m hosting at my place tonight. In fact, the coals are currently warming up to cook the chili in my potjie. RSVPs are almost 25 people, I’m really looking forward to it

Two Oceans Trail Run or How I Learned to (Mostly) Enjoy Running

heatherawsumb — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:26:17 +0000

Dan, Jon and I before the run. The boys both ran the 22k trail run. Not pictured is Camilla who ran the half marathon on Saturday and was likely still asleep when this picture was taken.

Last Friday I completed my first ever 10k race – the Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon Trail Run in Cape Town. It is the first race I’ve entered since a very un-illustrious “career” of high school cross country consisting of going to a few races my sophomore year and quitting early in the season. Ever since then I have always said that I don’t like to run but over the last year I have learned to enjoy it (even if I don’t love it.)

As I mentioned before, my running adventures started in January last year with Anita and the Run 5k application on my iPhone. We started out jogging 45 seconds and walking 90 seconds for 20 minutes. It took me all of last year (with a huge gap in winter) to build up to running for 30 minutes straight. After going on an accidental 10k run in early December, I signed up for the trail run as motivation to keep pushing myself. Unfortunately I had about 3 weeks of injuries in February/March so I didn’t get to the level of training that I hoped I would, but really my goal all along was just to complete the race.

Me at the starting line in my Merrell Barefoot Pace Glove shoes with my race chip attached.

Honestly, a big step towards finally feeling like I was starting to enjoy running was when I started wearing minimalist shoes. I read “Born to Run” last year after a non-runner friend raved about it on Goodreads as interesting even for non-runners. The book piqued my interest in minimalist shoes and I planned to look into them when I was home over Christmas. Then the universe intervened when I (VERY) randomly came across the Merrell Barefoot Run Pace Glove at store in Lesotho where you least suspect to find them. I did some research on the particular model and after reading great reviews decided to give them a try. Now I can’t imagine going back because they feel so great. I get a lot of questions of how I like my shoes and I always rave about them (usually saying something along the lines of “I la la love them!”)

My medal for completing the trail run.

This is going to sound so cheesy but as I was running on Friday I couldn’t stop thinking about how cool it was that I could actually do it and how much fun I was having. I was so proud of myself for being able to run the majority of the distance and I’m pretty sure there were at least 3 people behind me when I crossed the finish line so I came in better than my 397th/400 prediction.

I don’t know that I will ever consider myself a “runner” because, honestly, I don’t LOVE it like I think real runners do. That I said, I do *like* it and – most importantly – consider it something that I want to be better at. I think that’s what it’s really all about, right? Having the race as something to work towards was extremely motivating so I will definitely be signing up for another one soon. I really like the pattern I developed of doing a longer run (8k+) one day a week with a couple of 5k mixed in. It suits my lifestyle perfectly.

Hash Campout

heatherawsumb — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:12:37 +0000

This is another of the pages I completed a couple of weekends ago in a rash of creativity. This one I designed in 8×8 instead of the usual 12×12. I do this occasionally when the pictures are small (these were downloaded from Facebook) and because I print in that size anyway it’s no big deal. Why don’t I design in 8×8 all the time if that’s the size I print in? Because it requires an extra step of resizing every element down by 67%. Just not worth it. It felt a little weird to scrapbook the autumn campout in pinks & purples, but I couldn’t keep myself from pulling inspiration from the picture of the cosmos in bloom. They were even more beautiful in real life. I also struggled with the title placement. In my first iteration I had it very large in the upper left hand corner. It kept bothering me so I eventually went back to it and came up with this, which I like much better because it feels more connected to everything else.

Katie Pertiet:

Classic Cardstock: Cleansing
Watery Chevrons No 1
Little Layette Paper Pack (striped paper recolored)
Journaling Strip Masks
Dog Park Elements (journaling block recolored)
Messy Stamped Alpha Brushes & Stamps
Photo Clusters No 14
Pinned Notes
Digital Date Stamp No 15
Vintage Milk Caps No 1
Gator Crossing Elements (white bow)
Bead Scatterings No 1

Paislee Press & Leora Sanford

Sweet * Tart Papers + Elements

Lynn Grieveson

Ripped and Stitched DIY No 2

Libby Pritchett

I Am a C alpha

Morocco Trip April 2011

heatherawsumb — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:26:40 +0000

This week is the one-year anniversary of the beginning of my Morocco trip with my sister Allison. I realized that I never shared much about my trip on the blog because I wasn’t in a pattern of writing here at the time. Better late than never, right?

In general Fes was my most favorite city. It’s where we had the best food, stayed in the best hotel/dar and had the best experiences.

Casablanca was my least favorite city. The only thing worth seeing there is the Hassan II Mosque, then you should book it right back to Rabat.

Restaurant Dar Hatim in Fes was the best food we had on the trip, plus it was an amazing experience. The restaurant is inside the proprietor’s (Fouad) home and after they make amazing homemade food they show you around the house and the kitchen. Plus they picked us up at our hotel and took us back at the end of the evening.

Also in Fes Allison and I tried out a very traditional hammam. It was sooo cool. We were nervous beforehand, and did a bunch of research online about what to expect. My best advice? Just do it. The place was recommended by the owner of where we were staying as the place where his wife goes.

We also loved the little pizza place that was directly across the street from where we stayed in Fes. We spent several evenings on their rooftop, eating margarita pizza and reading while we waited for the sunset and evening call the prayer.

In Rabat we got to have lunch with my Country Director from Peace Corps. What a small world, right?

Fes was far less touristy than Marrakech, although Marrakech itself was not as hectic was it had been described. By the end of our trip we were sick and tired of negotiating prices for everything. It made me grateful that I live somewhere I can just shop at a grocery store and everything has a set price.

We had delicious street food in Marrakech. I loved how when the sun went down the whole square lit up with stalls selling food.

I did try out “snake charming” in Marrakech, totally worth the price for priceless pictures.

Favorite Facebook status update from our trip: “Why is it that only 20 yr old Moroccan shop keepers grab my ass and call me beautiful? (Although he did offer 40 camels…)”

I took enough pictures of stray cats to fill a photo album on Facebook

Freshlyground Concert

heatherawsumb — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:47:18 +0000

I haven’t shared a scrapbook page here in awhile, but I was on a roll this weekend and finished three pages. (Yay for rainy Saturdays.) Back in October I went to a Freshlyground concert in Thaba Nchu (pronounced as all one word tah-bahn-choo) with friends. Even only 6 months later I had a hard time remembering who was at the concert with me, just another reminder of why I scrapbook and the importance of captioning my pictures in the metadata. The concert was quite small so we were able to get up really close to the stage and I had a lot of good pics.

Supplies:

Katie Pertiet:

Krafty Woods Paper Pack (gray woodgrain paper)
Gator Crossing Solids Paper Pack (white paper)
Spot Dots: Olympics Paper Pack (blue strip)
Vintage Charm Paper Pack (turquoise print paper)
Messy Stitched Rounded Corners White No 1
Flagged Sentiments No 1
Digital Date Stamps No 15

Libby Pritchett:

I Am a C Alpha (I used this alpha TWICE this weekend.)

Paislee Press & Audacious Designs

A New Leaf Kit (pink paper)

Debbie Hodge:

Template from Scrapbooking Travel & Vacation class

Musing on Monday

heatherawsumb — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:15:54 +0000

Right now I am:

Freaking out a bit about our end of program symposium on Wednesday. In typical fashion everything is shaping up to “fall together” at the last minute. That is just not the way I flow. I also have to finish my presentation by tomorrow morning (thus, why I’m procrastinating and writing a blog post) and feeling nervous about presenting in front of so many people.

Obsessed with Solitaire Blitz from the makers of Bejewled Blitz. Speaking of procrastination … As my youngest sister puts it PopCap “practices hypnotic mind control.” So true. It’s the first game I’ve played on Facebook since grad school when my friends and I were all obsessed with one of the farm games. I stopped playing the day finals was over. My current high score is 411,870

Feeling ready for the 10k run that is just 11 days away. Sure I would like to have 3 more weeks of training under my belt, but I’m feeling confident that I will finish it (which has been my only goal) and won’t be limping for days afterwards (which is what I was afraid because I probably would have still run it even if I was injured.)

Excited for the Cape Town trip that revolves around my 10k run. I’m traveling with 4 other friends, all of whom are running one race or another that weekend. (Mine’s the shortest.) We made reservations at La Colombe – the 12th best restaurant in the world – for Saturday night with other current and former Maseru-ites. It’s going to be a blast.

Drinking from my Baltimore Orioles freezer mug. Best.christmas.present.EVER. It takes room temperature drinks and turns them into freezing cold goodness and cold drinks into slushy perfection. You can get any professional team you want, I chose the Orioles because they’re the only sports team I have any connection to.

Looking forward to winter

heatherawsumb — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 16:39:58 +0000

Winter is definitely on its way in the southern hemisphere. The days are getting noticeably shorter and the mornings/evenings just a bit cool. As I walked into work the other morning I thought, “Oooh, I can’t wait to start having oatmeal for breakfast again.” Here are some other things I am looking forward to about winter:

Fires in the fireplace
Warm baths
Tights
Sweaters
Snuggling with Molly
Reading on my porch in the warm sun
Blankets on my lap while sitting in the warm sun eating brunch at Living Life
Soup
Chili made in my potjie
Having a legitimate excuse to be in bed at 8pm
Scarves
The annual Christmas in July party

And this year especially focusing on having more get togethers like game and movie nights at people’s houses where we can all try to get warm together.

Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory Story Retracted

heatherawsumb — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:14:23 +0000

I was shocked to hear the news that This American Life is retracting their January 6th episode “Mr Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory” that I was raving about just last weekend. I have not had a chance yet to listen to t his weeks episode (called Retraction) where they detail the errors and fabrications in the original story (it’s downloading as I type this) but given how much respect I have for the show I am also taking down my original post. “Mr Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory” was an excerpt from Mike Daisey’s one-man play The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. In his response to this weeks episode of This American Life he stands by his work as a piece of theatre and not of journalism and that he regrets allowing This American Life to air an excerpt of his show.

Celebrating another Peace Corps anniversary

heatherawsumb — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 18:44:45 +0000

Earlier this week I shared on Facebook that I used the word Savingram for the first time since I left Botswana. A Savingram is basically a memo that is sent to someone outside the organization. Maybe it’s an inter-government thing? I’m not entirely clear. In this case I was writing a “memo” effectively from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Local Government. As a PCV who worked in an office I wrote more Savingrams than I care to remember, but I still don’t completely understand the terminology. The term is so obscure that it’s not even included on Wikipedia. Can you believe that? And when I tried Googling it the 8th hit was of a document from a Government of Botswana website (gov.bw) So appropriate if you ask me.

Thinking about how long its been since I left Botswana reminded me that this weekend will mark the seventh anniversary of my arrival in Botswana. (BTW – if you’re paying close attention I went from 5 years last year to 7 years this year. Who knows that I was thinking last year. I arrived in 2005.) I can’t believe that that was seven years ago. It’s so cliche to say that it feels like yesterday and it doesn’t, but it does feel like only 2 or 3 years ago. Later this year I will probably exceed the time I lived in Botswana with living in Lesotho. That is also hard to believe. As I have gotten to know PCVs and RPCVs I realize how lucky I am that I feel a connection with Botswana. That I had a really good Peace Corps experience. Sure there were challenges. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns but overall I have always been very positive about my experience in Botswana and I feel the same way about my life in Lesotho.

Went through my pictures to find a new goodie to share. This was a drawing that fellow PCV Jane Lay did during training and that we had printed on the back of our t-shirts for COS. She was so talented. I still have a set of fridge magnets that she made me for my birthday. I wonder where in the world she is these days.

P.S. Earlier this week I added another About page with 25 (More) Things to Know About Me. It’s been over two years since I wrote the original list so I figured it was time for an update.

My specialties

heatherawsumb — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:15:12 +0000

I do not have dreams of being on Iron Chef or even just a serious foodie. In fact most days my culinary skills max out at boiling water or popping popcorn. However, I like to think that if I put my mind to it that I can pull off almost anything and follow a recipe. Last week my sister shared thoughts on having “house specialties” – go to recipes that you know how to do very well – on her blog. Of course this got me thinking about what my items might be. This is what I came up with:

Beer can chicken: The first time I had beer can chicken was as a PCV when my friends Dave & Wendy made it on their Webber grill. Eventually another PCV figured out that you could make it in a potjie (a round, cast-iron, 3-legged pot similar to a dutch oven in the US) and this is the technique that I continue to use today. Mine is big enough to cook two chickens. The base for my rub is usually paprika or chili powder but then it is different every time depending on what other spices I have around to throw in. What I love about beer can chicken is that it’s pretty hard to screw up – just let it cook super long so that it’s done all the way through but you really can’t over cook it.
Chili: Again, my key is making it in the potjie. Clearly I have something for cooking with coals.
Beer bread: Another Peace Corps recipe (I swear that it’s only as I started writing this that I realized my go-to recipes come from Peace Corps …) We one time had a celebration that we called “Beer-giving” where we made beer can chicken, beer bread, beer battered onion rings and, of course, drank beer. Recently I added a beer dip that goes with pretzels to my repetoire of beer recipes.
Lemon cake: My go-to dessert recipe that is super easy given to me by a friend. Even when it doesn’t turn out lemony enough (like when I made it last weekend) it is still yummy.
Cheesecake: I haven’t made this recipe in ages as I don’t have a hand mixer, spring form pan or the right ingredients for the crust (a mix of chocolate and regular graham crackers.) When I do have the right ingredients my (read: my friend Bunnie’s) cheesecake cannot be beat.