In this interview, you’ll hear from Casey Eschenbach, a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Lesotho. Casey shares what daily life looks like, the work being done, and how service has shaped their personal and professional growth. You’ll learn about housing, cultural differences, project work, language learning, and what it’s like to live and work in a new country. This interview offers a real look into Peace Corps service and what future volunteers can expect.
Table of Contents
- Volunteer Experience and Motivation
- Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
- Surprises and Challenges
- Advice and Support
- Practical Tips and Language Learning
- Social Identity
- Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. What do you do as a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Lesotho?
My work typically varies day by day and has looked drastically different in my second year compared to my first.
First Year of Service
During my first year of service, my schedule had me in my clinic about three days a week, working mostly in the pharmacy on supply chain management. The main goal there was to create systems and find ways to keep them in place to prevent commodities from expiring, as well as dispose of those in stock that had already expired. Getting a pharmacy tech on staff was immensely helpful in this project. Training him in all of the systems I had put in place during my time here, combined with his own hard work, has the pharmacy running like a well-oiled machine now!
I also would often go on outreach trips with my clinic, which involved a district health vehicle taking a team of four to remote villages twice a month to provide health care services. I would often be included in this team of four as support for the nurse when our clinic was understaffed and needed the extra help.
The other two days of the week, I was doing school-based outreach programs. These were various clubs around my community that got the youth involved in Life Skills learning. One of these was a Grassroots Soccer club, one was a Life Skills club—which I and another volunteer co-wrote a curriculum for based on the needs of the learners as well as the requests of the teachers in the primary school in our community—and one is the quarterly adolescents living with HIV club run by my clinic.
Each of these experiences has been incredibly rewarding and amazing. Working with these kids is the most exciting aspect of being a health volunteer out here. I will say, though, that most often you have to work to start these clubs; they don’t just fall in your lap. But once you get them going, they are most definitely worth it!
Second Year Focus and Facility Work
During my second year, my time was focused much more on my grant project. My clinic staff identified the project that was most needed in our community to be the addition of an adolescent corner in our facility, so we worked most days on gathering everything we needed in small bits and pieces until everything finally came together. I was also affected by the new administration a great deal in my second year, so my community-based work was largely shut down, and I was unfortunately only able to work within the health care facility.
Within those parameters, I focused my efforts on optimizing efficiency within the pharmacy and the records room during my downtime. I help a lot with maintaining hard copies and soft copies of patient records, transferring each, and organizing end-of-month tallies.
2. Why did you decide to join the Peace Corps and serve in Lesotho?
I’ve always found joy in helping people. When I was in high school, I joined several Habitat for Humanity trips and had an absolute blast. Throughout college and after, I always knew about the Peace Corps, but it was never the right time.
Right before the pandemic hit, I was able to return to my passion for helping others when I found a catering company that was connected to Meals on Wheels. The proceeds from the catering events all went to support those who needed the meals provided by the organization. Once the pandemic hit, I was supporting Meals on Wheels directly, as the events themselves were shut down.
After the world started to open up again, I realized that I was itching to do something more. That’s when the Peace Corps returned to the forefront of my mind. I was finally in a place in my life where I could take the two years and commit to living abroad, so I applied for a broad application in hopes of being placed where I would be the most helpful. I was placed in Lesotho, and I truly believe that my community was the perfect fit for me. The friendships and connections I have made here over the past two years have been incredible, and I am so happy to have made this choice!
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. What is your housing like in Lesotho?
I live in a rural, remote village that runs on solar power, about two hours from the nearest town. I don’t go often because the road conditions are abysmal, but my community is great and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.
My home
I live in a rondoval, which is just a fancy word for a mud hut with a thatch roof. It’s about 275 square feet with actually really nice tile floor (which I am very grateful for) and an extension cord that runs from my host family’s house to mine that gives me enough electricity to charge my things and have a light overhead (a godsend).
Peace Corps provides a table with two chairs, a bed, a wardrobe, a stove, a heater for the winter (it gets REALLY cold up in these mountains at night in July), and a cabinet which I personally use to keep all my food in. Everything else you have to purchase, but you do get a readjustment stipend when you first get here, and they take you to the mall in Maseru (the capital) to buy everything you need.
My host family has been incredible and has lent me so many of the things I have needed to live, like bedding, pots and pans, dishware, a gas tank, things like that, but I know many other volunteers who have had to buy all of those things, so it just depends on where you get placed. When you do your week of site visits, you can feel it out and see what you need to buy before you fully move in!
My water pump is about a two-minute walk from my family’s property, which isn’t too bad at all, and I always fill up two buckets every time, so I only have to go every two to three days. My host family lives on a compound behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, which they lock every night, and it makes me feel incredibly safe in my home. They are the nicest people, and I have game nights, movie nights, and cooking nights with my host sister.
Diet and Downtime
Most of my diet is carb-based since I am pretty remote and it takes me about two hours on a dirt road to get to town. I need shelf-stable foods, and canned products were a bit pricey and not my thing. I usually have produce for about a week after going to town, then rely on my shelf-stable goodies. I can get eggs in my village, so I eat those for breakfast every day. I do a lot of noodles, rice, or grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch—that’s always my heaviest meal of the day—then I’ll do an apple with peanut butter for dinner (thankfully apples last much longer than bell peppers).
My biggest focus is hydration out here. I’m very lucky that the drought in Lesotho has not affected my district as badly as other areas, and I take advantage of that, drinking plenty of water every day. I will say that my remote location has caused me to drop a bit of weight, but I think that’s also my own lack of desire to ride in the taxi.
My main comfort is reading. I’ve run out of books and now have reread everything I have, I think four times at this point, but they keep me sane. Between that and the movies and television shows I have on my hard drive, that’s how I spend my downtime. I cannot recommend a hard drive enough. You can easily add more to it while you’re out here and there, and there is plenty of downtime to be filled!
4. What moments stand out during your service?
With my host sister
I think the most memorable moments are the organic ones. The times I’ve spent with my host sister cooking, watching movies, and playing games. We’ve taught each other our languages to the best of our abilities and had a blast, laughing and getting to know each other.
With my counterpart outside of work
The times I’ve spent with my counterpart outside of work—cooking, doing laundry, walking around town. She’s my most genuine friend here and the one person who invites me to things because she wants to spend time with me. Those are the moments I will miss the most, the people I will miss the most. The times you aren’t expecting. The connections you aren’t expecting.
With my host mother
My host mother doesn’t speak any English, so often we have trouble with deeper conversations. There was a time when she was trying to explain that a hawk had swooped down to steal one of the baby chicks in the yard, but I didn’t know the Sesotho word for hawk. She started doing charades to explain what had happened, and I have never laughed harder in this country. The sounds she made were so accurate. Those moments of finding ways to communicate and connect are what will stick with me.
In the classroom
The moments in the classroom with my learners who were always genuinely just happy to see me. When they sang me Happy Birthday. When they wrote me a song and performed it for me. When we had a party to celebrate that every single one of them passed their standard Life Skills exams after the club we had for the previous year. They were so excited. When I saw one of my learners in town the following year, in his new high school uniform and he gave me a hug. When one of my students saw me getting out of the taxi with too many things and came to help me carry them back to my house, no questions asked.
Those moments, all of them, will stick with me forever because they are what show the impact I’ve had here. The connections I’ve made. This community is an amazing group of people, and I will be forever grateful that they have allowed me into their lives for the past two years. It’s not the big moments; it’s the small ones.
Surprises and Challenges
5. What has surprised you most about living or working in Lesotho?
The isolation has been incredibly tough. My village is pretty remote, and it keeps me away from all the other volunteers. Sometimes you really just want to be around another American during service. Someone who understands what you’re going through. It’s tough to get that here with how far I am from everyone.
My network can be very spotty as well, so at times, especially in the evenings, phone calls drop regularly, and with the time difference, evenings are often the only times anyone back home can talk.
In Lesotho, the unwanted attention is quite frustrating. Constant staring is the regular treatment. You get used to it after a while, but constantly being asked for sweets, money, to be someone’s wife, to take someone back to America with you, ‘give me your things’—it all gets old real quick.
What has surprised me is that even after having been here for two years, I still get these comments on a daily basis, even in my own community, not just in town. Integration seems to be tougher on a community-wide basis, considering that it doesn’t matter how many times you say no, the same people will continue to ask. That is why finding those genuine relationships is so vital. Those people will look out for you and step in if you ever really need it, although in these situations it’s easy to laugh off whoever is talking to you and move on.
6. What challenges have you faced in your Health work, and how did you respond?
One of the biggest challenges we came across was during the administration change. Our project framework was completely rewritten spontaneously, grant work was paused for several months, and there was a while where we all thought we were going to be sent home early. We learned to adapt as we went, changing how we worked. Rather than doing community-based work, we focused on facility-based work. I did a lot of organization within the clinic.
Shifting Focus to Facility Work
I focused my efforts on the semi-annual district assessment results, which determine the funding received by the clinic each semester. With that shift in focus, we were able to improve organization in both the pharmacy and the records room, as well as improve assessment scores, which ultimately raised clinic funding. Eventually, grants opened back up again, and we were able to continue moving forward on our project.
7. What secondary projects have you worked on during your service?
The main project I focused on was my grant to construct an adolescent corner as an addition to our facility. This will provide a safe space for the youth in our catchment area to come for health care services away from judgment and prying eyes. They will not have to wait in the queue with the rest of the population, running the risk of losing anonymity in the services they are requesting. This ideally will lower gender-based violence and teenage pregnancy rates, while increasing anti-retroviral medication adherence amongst the adolescents living with HIV population.
I have also done a lot of school-based community work with the youth clubs I mentioned earlier. Our learners have made amazing progress in the time we were able to spend with them, and I am so proud of what we were able to accomplish.
Advice and Support
8. What advice would you give to future Health volunteers in Lesotho?
Everyone is doing something different, so don’t fall into the trap of comparing yourself to other volunteers. The beauty of being a health volunteer is the dynamic nature of it. Keep asking others what they’re up to to give yourself ideas, but don’t feel obligated to do them. What’s right for one community isn’t always right for another.
Keep asking your own community what it is they actually want before you come in with a million different ideas that may not even fit in your community. Also, keep in mind that it is very common for the health facilities to talk to each other. Supervisors talk, counterparts talk. They all know each other from workshops or previous jobs. Often, they talk about their volunteers. Assume there are no secrets. They like to compare their volunteers on varying criteria, so don’t forget, you’re allowed to be different!
If they ask why you’re not doing something another volunteer is doing, come at it with a positive attitude. ‘Is that something we want to try here?’ ‘Maybe we can make that happen too once we finish with x, y, and z!’ Or even, ‘I hadn’t thought about that as a good fit for our community because of x, y, and z reasons.’
Hold on to your connections with other volunteers. Lesotho is a TOUGH country. You really need the bonds with the other PCVs to help you stay afloat. It doesn’t need to be everybody. It doesn’t even need to be a big group. I would recommend maybe 2-3 people in case someone goes home early. But make the attempt to stay in contact. Reach out. Don’t wait for people to reach out to you. Be proactive.
9. How did Peace Corps training prepare you for service?
Our training focused a lot on community-based work. I felt very prepared to run sessions and workshops, working with the youth in my community. I felt prepared to work in the pharmacy. That was the majority of what we learned.
I wish we had more focus on culture training. There’s a lot I think we could have been told beforehand, rather than learning as we went. I do wish that once we had received our sites, we had been given a district-specific travel training. It would have been very helpful. The framework has entirely changed now, of course, so I am not sure what any of those trainings would look like at this point.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
10. What would you tell future volunteers to pack—or leave behind?
Clothing Basics
Honestly, staging was the only time we were really required to fully wear business casual. Lesotho is pretty lenient on that as long as you look presentable. Plenty of volunteers wore jeans to trainings every day and were fine. Just keep your shoulders covered.
Bring staples. The clinic does not care about business casual. You only need that for PST. Bring a few neutral tops, jeans that you can use at trainings, and a sturdy pair of boots that feel good. That will cover almost everything.
There are many things you can find here, so you do not need to pack too much. Handwashing clothes puts a lot of strain on them, so avoid items that are too nice or have sentimental value. White clothes are hard to keep clean, so keep those to a minimum.
Keep in mind that the more socks and underwear you bring, the easier it is to ignore them for a while and end up with a giant pile to wash later. A quick-dry towel helps a lot. Quick-dry clothes help too. If you like to hike, or live in a place with hills, hiking boots and workout clothes will serve you well.
Footwear and Daily Gear
I like to have flip-flops for travel, since I can slip them on fast when I need to step outside. My daily shoes are a pair of Nikes, though I wish they were boots because the rainy season can be rough.
Bags That Make Life Easier
I love my duffel bag that doubles as a backpack. I use it every time I travel overnight. It also makes it easier to carry groceries back to my site. It works well as a carry-on when you fly, and it makes travel inside the country simple.
Electronics and Essentials
It’s smart to bring two adapters. I only brought one, but another volunteer had a power surge and lost hers. She had a second one, and that made me realize that bringing only one is risky.
Packing Light and Staying Flexible
You’ll notice fast that anything extra starts to feel heavy. My home is small, and space fills up fast. You also have limited room in your bags. You can buy toiletries here. You can buy clothes here. Arrive ready for the rainy season, and take care of the rest later. You can have things shipped to you or buy them after PST.
Any toiletries you want from home—bring enough for about three months. Depending on where your PST village is, it can be tough to reach a shop before your first mall day. Do not stress too much about the rest. Your cohort will likely set up a group chat, and you can ask questions there. People are happy to help.
Comfort Items That Matter
Bring what makes you feel good. If movies or books help, bring a hard drive with both. If you sleep better with a stuffed animal, pack it. If writing helps you, bring a journal. If music calms you, download your favorite playlists before you leave. Spotify is about $3 a month once you get your Lesotho bank card, which is great.
11. How has language learning been for you in Lesotho?
I did not do any prep before coming to PST for language. Sesotho is a remote language and tough to find. If you look for Southern Sotho on Google Translate, that’s incredibly close and does the trick when you’re in a pinch. I still use that when I need it. I focused my study during PST by trying to learn one new word a day outside of language classes.
It was tough. I don’t have a “language brain”. I don’t pick up on languages easily, and everyone around me was clearly doing much better than I was. That sucked for me, to be honest. But as time went on, I kept trying to learn one new word a day. When my host sister and I played Spot It, we would play in Sesotho. She taught me new words that way. When we watched movies, we would comment in Sesotho. One of our LCFs had a cooking lesson in Sesotho.
I did my best to have more practical, real-world lessons outside of the classroom to help me learn. It worked a lot better for me. I also focused a lot on travel-based vocabulary since the majority of my language skills would be used while I was traveling around the country.
Whenever I am in a taxi or hitchhiking, I try to only use Sesotho. I get the most compliments on my language at those times. Especially at the Maseru airport, actually. Talking with my host family has helped a lot as well, since they do not speak English. It forces me to get creative with my limited vocabulary.
Social Identity
12. How has your personal identity shaped your service experience?
I think my gender and age have impacted my work the most. As a 29-year-old female, I’ve been able to work with the young girls and women in my community, giving them a safe space to talk to and providing an example of a young woman who is unmarried without children, yet still happy. That is not common here, and I believe having that as an example has been something for these young ladies to look at and aspire to, as not necessarily what they need, but as something that is possible if they choose it for themselves.
Some of the lessons we’ve taught in our clubs are about goal setting, self-esteem, human rights, personal rights, and healthy relationships. Watching the growth in these learners, hearing their answers change from ‘I want to be a wife and mother’ to ‘I want to be a teacher/nurse’ to ‘I have the right to my own body and no one can force me to do anything’ has been incredible.
My race and gender have impacted my daily life the most and resulted in a lot of unwanted attention, which has been tough. I get a lot of marriage and sexual proposals in town, which I just ignore. I get people asking me to take them back to America with me. I get people trying to marry me off to their male relatives. I get people asking me for money and sweets daily. Complete strangers asking me to take pictures with them to show someone their “friend”. In most of these situations, I just ignore and move forward. I tell people I don’t like pictures. I try to brush off these interactions and keep moving forward. It can be tough to deal with these moments.
A lot of people assume when they see me that I don’t understand when they’re talking about me, and they start to say some pretty vulgar things. I’ve been told I’m a spy and I need to go home. I’ve been asked what I’m doing here when I don’t speak the language or know the culture. I am then given a test to see if I do speak the language, which I then pass and move on. It can be very tough and discouraging in these moments.
13. Did your identity lead to specific challenges or situations?
I am often asked why I am unmarried without children. People try to hand me off to the closest single man around because they feel I need to be married. They do not understand my choice to be single and put myself first. The best way I have found to handle it has been to laugh it off and say I am happy alone. I am not ready yet. I am busy. Etc. Additionally, the unwanted attention in town that comes from being a white woman leads to a lot of marriage proposals, sexual proposals, and things of that nature. Those I either just blatantly ignore, or if the person is too close to me to be easily ignored, I say ‘Tsamea Ntate’ and keep walking with a stern expression, which essentially means goodbye, sir.
I have had issues where people try to take photos or videos of me while I’m sleeping in a taxi, which I found very uncomfortable. I had sunglasses on, so they couldn’t tell that I had woken up. I did not feel comfortable confronting in that moment, so I turned away to ruin the shot instead.
I am asked about our president at times as well and how I feel about him, particularly after the comments made about Lesotho earlier this year. I never answer any political questions and simply state that the Peace Corps does not allow volunteers to talk about politics. It’s not true, but it’s the safest answer.
14. What advice do you have for volunteers who share your identity?
You just have to have a thick skin. Something I hear often is ‘Oh, they’re just talking, they’re just joking, they don’t mean it.’ That comment frustrates me more than the comments themselves, to be honest. They do mean it. If I said yes, a lot of them would take me up on it in a heartbeat. A big thing I’m getting now that I’m leaving is that almost everyone I interact with is asking me to take them with me. All you can do is laugh it off until they walk away.
Brush it off and move on with your day. When you’re in town and getting the unwanted attention, I would highly recommend ignoring it as much as possible. Any time I interact with anyone who’s just saying hi, they end up wanting something. I don’t ever take pictures with anyone either, as they want photos with the American passing through, but that is my preference. Just kindly say ‘I’m sorry, I don’t like the pics’ and most everyone will move on. Every so often, you will get someone who is a bit more persistent. Sometimes confrontation may not feel like the most effective method. It depends on what you’re comfortable with in the moment and what situation you’re being presented with.
Talk to the people in your community about how best to handle various situations, since they know the people around you best. Talk to your LCFs about unwanted attention. I would text my favorite LCF at times when I had situations where I didn’t know what to do, and she would give me advice on how to handle them moving forward. I found that very helpful.
Final Thoughts
15. What final advice would you share with future volunteers?
The Peace Corps is an incredibly tough, but incredibly rewarding experience. Lesotho, in my limited opinion, is one of the hardest countries out there. Hold on to your Peace Corps friendships; they are what will get you through. That being said, those friendships will ebb and flow, and that’s ok! Just make sure you don’t isolate yourself. Reach out. Use them as support.
Personally, I find the other volunteers to be a lot more beneficial than the staff. 95\% of the time, when I have questions relating to my work, I ask other volunteers rather than staff. There’s also a very good chance at this point that there is a precedent for your question/situation now that we are several cohorts past Covid, whether it be work or non-work related. There are volunteer-made databases for previous volunteers’ projects to sift through to give you some ideas. There are group chats with previous volunteers who are more than happy to help you with whatever you may need. Everything is out there. All you have to do is ask!
Lesotho is a tough place to be. But if you find your place in it, you can have some very rewarding experiences here. If you’re uncomfortable in a situation, ask someone about it. Don’t sit with it. Talk to other volunteers, counterparts, host families, whoever it is you trust and are comfortable talking with. I can guarantee you are not the only person feeling what you’re feeling.
Are you thinking about joining the Peace Corps? If you’re curious about service and ready for something new, apply today. Like Casey, you can live abroad, work with communities, and grow in ways you didn’t expect. Apply to the Peace Corps and take the next step.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or Lesotho Government.
