In this interview, we hear from Marcella Mason. Marcella is a Peace Corps volunteer working as a Health volunteer in Lesotho. What Marcella shares gives us a better understanding of the work volunteers do. We learn about the challenges, rewards, and personal growth that happens from volunteering in a new place. Marcella talks about living in a different country, working with local people, and dealing with surprise situations. Join us as we learn about Marcella’s journey and see how volunteering with Peace Corps can change lives.
Table of Contents
- Volunteer Experience and Motivation
- Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
- Surprises and Challenges
- Advice and Support
- Practical Tips and Language Learning
- Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. Can you tell us more about serving as a Health volunteer in Lesotho?
Well, out of the gates, I think it’s important to say, like many PC positions, that the health program is really built on your own experience to fit your site. So my normal day may look different from someone else serving here. My site is a small rural village in one of the southern districts and my host organization is the low-volume government clinic. For now, most health volunteers are connected to health clinics but in the past volunteers have been placed with NGOs or orphanages. Depending on the day of the week I either work at the clinic or in the community.
Mornings: Quiet Moments and Early Starts
Most mornings start the same. I usually wake up with the sun, so 5:00 am in the summer and 7:00 am in the winter. I spend the morning making coffee, feeding myself and my cat, and doing other random things like reading, practicing yoga or tarot, or chatting with friends back home. On days that I work at the clinic, I have to be at work at 8:30 am, thankfully I live close by so I only leave about ten minutes before work.
Clinic Days and Community Work
At the clinic, I assist with supply chain management and reporting so I mostly stay in the pharmacy. Some weeks are busier than others but in general, since my clinic is low volume we are rarely busy. This means I take a long lunch break during which I walk home make lunch and occasionally take a power nap. Then it’s back to work at 2:00 pm for a few hours to finish any work that didn’t get done in the morning.
The days I work in the community are pretty similar except that I go to the different places I implement as needed. For example, I do school health talks at the local high school and normally leave my house at 9:30 am for those, and come into the clinic after lunch if we’re busy or spend the afternoon out and about. Another project is the Adolescents Living with HIV Club which meets on the third Saturday of every month. I usually co-teach a life skills session while the participants wait to see the nurses for their monthly check-in.
Building Relationships for Future Volunteers
My experience here has been very restful and I’ve done a variety of projects. However, since I’m the first volunteer at my site I feel like my experiences getting to know the community have been most valuable. If another PCV comes to my site after me I think people will have a better understanding of why they are here and come to them with projects and ideas.
2. What motivated you to join the Peace Corps and choose Lesotho?
I’d been interested in the Peace Corps for quite a few years before I applied. When I was a freshman in college I interned at PC HQ in Washington D.C. in the Office of Overseas Programming and Training Support. Most of the people in the office were RPCVs and took the time to talk to me about their service. I studied International Relations as an undergrad. And I knew I wanted to spend time living abroad in a new way and learn more about careers in the international sphere. I was also really drawn to learning a new language and culture.
Hearing from so many RPCVs really inspired me but I never knew how I was going to choose where to go since every post sounded amazing. Thankfully there is the option to apply wherever I’m needed most. So when the time came that’s what I did with the one request being, please don’t send me somewhere where I would have to eat fish every day, since I’m not a fish person. They matched me to the AIDS/HIV and Youth Health Advocate post in Lesotho and from that first email I got so excited. I don’t know if I would have chosen Lesotho on my own but it is genuinely the perfect place for me.
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. Tell us more about your home situation:
In Lesotho, all volunteers are attached to a host family but have their own house on the compound. For me, I have a two-room house with a tin roof that’s right next to my host family’s house. This situation works great for me since I can have alone time when I need it but I can also socialize with my host family and community very easily.
My Host Family: A Lifelong Bond
The host family part of my experiences has been by far the most rewarding. I really do feel like part of their family and I know I will be coming back to visit them for the rest of my life. I have a host mother, father, three host brothers, and one host sister. My eldest brother lives just a few houses away with his wife and kids. His wife is my best friend and also a counterpart for the ALWHIV club.
Getting by Without Electricity or Plumbing
My home is very nice, except for the tin roof that gets super hot in the summer. There is no electricity or plumbing in my village of about 300 people. However, the clinic has solar power so I can charge my phone and laptop at work. It sounds like most volunteers in Lesotho have electricity which is great! I have a two-burner gas stove where I cook all my meals since there are no restaurants or cafes in my village. Most shops sell basic necessities but I have to head into my camptown every few weeks for groceries and other needs.
Free Time Favorites: Tarot, Crocheting, Yoga, and Reading
I have a lot of free time since I live in a small community so I have started a few hobbies. I learned how to read tarot cards here and do monthly remote readings with a volunteer in Zambia. I also learned to crochet here and have made hats, dolls, a sweater, and pot holders, and I am currently making a blanket! I found a yoga mat in my camptown and do that for exercise. However, most of my free time is spent reading; in 2023 I read 65 books! My Kindle is my lifeline!
4. Any memorable experiences or interactions you’ve had with community members?
My host mother is the preschool teacher and I also have a preschool-aged niece and nephew who are my best friends and language teachers. Throughout the year there are events held for all the local preschools or even distinct ones. My favorite event by far is the Moshoeshoe’s Day celebration.
Moshoeshoe was the founder of Lesotho and every March 11th the country celebrates him. The preschoolers dress up in traditional clothing and perform special dances or speeches. It is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my life and also a great way to learn about the history and culture of Lesotho. This year we hosted the event at the preschool and I got to dress up with the other community women and cheer for all the kiddos I’ve gotten to know and love.
Surprises and Challenges
5. What has surprised you most about Health challenges in Lesotho?
Lesotho has done an amazing job of achieving the PEPFAR 90-90-90 goals and is working to reach 95-95-95. This means they are trying to make sure 95% of the population knows their current status, 95% of those who are HIV positive are on ART (Antiretroviral Therapy), and 95% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. I think when I was coming here I expected HIV to be a bigger challenge than it is. Most people are very well informed and take their medication well meaning they can live long happy lives.
The biggest challenge I see is with gender-based violence. Many young people and women experience violence and it’s challenging to know how best to support them. Many wonderful Basotho and NGOs are working here to assist them and I’m hoping to see the Peace Corps form stronger partnerships on this front.
6. What challenges do you face while working on Health projects?
My biggest challenge has been consistency. Since I work in an out-of-school setting most of the time it’s hard to get young people to show up week after week for club meetings. I’ve started a few clubs with counterparts and attendance will be great for a few weeks or months and then it starts to pitter out until no one shows up. I think the best way to overcome this is to buttress the club to something formal such as school times.
Another challenge has been that my catchment area is very spread out. This means there are many youths that my counterparts and I are unable to reach since they live far away from me. I was able to petition the CD to let me get a bike. Since I live in the lowlands it was approved and I can now visit places further from me.
7. Could you share some of the secondary projects you have been involved?
The health project is quite broad so all my work has fallen under it and I haven’t done any formal secondary project work.
Advice and Support
8. What advice would you give to someone considering serving as a Health volunteer in Lesotho?
Give your heart to the work and your community as best as you can. Basotho are so kind and welcoming and it has been a blessing to be part of my community’s lives during my service. I think something that helped me massively was to understand that I was going to learn far more from my community than they were going to learn from me. We’ve grown to care for each other in a truly special way that will stick with me for the rest of my life.
I also trusted the process. This meant accepting the site assigned to me and loving it even when its single taxi breaks down again. This meant trusting that staff were trying to help me even when I was frustrated. This meant having my door open whenever I was hoping to show my family that I wanted to get to know them. All this trust has rewarded me and my community with mutual love and kindness.
9. What skills or qualities do you think are most important for a Health volunteer?
I think you have to be a self-starter and be able to make peace with not having structure. Some positions like teachers have set schedules and clear goals, but for health volunteers, it depends on what your community needs of you. It also depends on what you want to do. Doing school health talks didn’t fall into my lap, I had to reach out to the principal and teachers to ask if they wanted any assistance or information. I got tired of being in the clinic every day so I found ways to get out into the community. Your service is yours and you can set it up however you want (as long as you actually do something).
10. How has the Peace Corps training helped you during your service?
When I arrived I knew very little about what I would actually be doing. Since I was part of the first cohort after the COVID evacuation we didn’t have other volunteers to help guide our expectations and share their knowledge. However, I felt like PST set me up very well for my service. I was given so much technical information and practice facilitating that helped me. ISTs were also valuable and fun! However, the single most helpful part of training was language training. Speaking Sesotho well has helped me not only professionally but socially and made me many friends. Take the language training seriously!
Practical Tips and Language Learning
11. Anything that you packed or didn’t pack that you’d like to tell future Lesotho volunteers?
I think I did a pretty good job packing. I had a good mix of professional and casual wear. There is a packing list available on the website that I helped edit after six months in the country.
12. How has learning the language been?
In Lesotho, every volunteer learns Sesotho and then some learn another language if they are placed somewhere with a minority language. Before coming I didn’t do any language prep but the quality of the teaching was so good that I was able to pick it up fairly quickly. While I don’t practice very much in a formal study way I speak Sesotho every day, and only Sesotho at home and work. I am now the best Sesotho speaker in my cohort, if not the whole country, which yes I do brag about all the time.
I feel so connected to people when I speak Sesotho and thrive on the positive reinforcement of everyone saying I’m great. Since I’m white I stand out a lot and many people assume that I don’t speak Sesotho, however, once we start chatting they are always happy to hear me speak their language. Something that has helped me learn is to always try to speak Sesotho first and then default to English if I can’t express myself, and also to respond to people in Sesotho even if they speak English to me.
Final Thoughts
13. Any last comments you’d like to pass on to future Lesotho volunteers?
Lesotho is an incredible country and I will love it forever. I hope anyone else who comes here as a PCV feels the same as I do by the end of their service.
What are you waiting for? Opportunities like this don’t come often. If you have a passion for service and an adventurous spirit like Marcella’s, apply to the Peace Corps today. Expand your horizons, push your limits, and create positive impact as a volunteer. You never know how serving as a Peace Corps volunteer could change your life.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or the Lesotho Government.
