Haly Barker had intended to put in two full years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho, but her assignment was unexpectedly cut short by several months when she was riding her horse and had an accident that severed her right Achilles tendon
Barker has adventure of a lifetime in Peace Corps
by Theresa Seabloom
Haly Barker had intended to put in two full years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, but her assignment was unexpectedly cut short by several months.
On October 27, Barker was riding her horse and had an accident that severed her right Achilles tendon. The injury resulted in her returning home on a medical separation nine months sooner than planned.
After surgery was done in Africa, she arrived home with cast and crutches and will need a few months of therapy when the cast comes off after eight weeks.
Phil and Becky Barker were very excited for their daughter when she decided to enter the Peace Corps in June 2003.
The young woman wanted some cultural experience and to expand her horizons before she got too firmly planted in life.
The Peace Corps Masters International offered her that opportunity in conjunction with her previous two semesters of college in Colorado to attain her Masters degree in agriculture.
Barker was eager to talk about her assignment in a village in Lesotho, a small country landlocked within the country of South Africa.
"I chose to be in a most rural, most poverty stricken area, away from other volunteers, so I would have to rely on villagers as much as the Peace Corps for my support system," said Barker. "I ended up in a small village with a population of 350 to 400."
After two-and-a-half months of training, Barker passed the technical, cultural and language tests and was "sworn in" as a volunteer. She began her actual service time on August 15, 2003. "I was assigned to work with a non-governmental organization called Lesotho Save the Children," she said.
CHILDREN/ From Page 1
"Through Lesotho Save the Children I was able to set up a children's community garden for my village and the surrounding area to provide food for orphans of the many HIV/Aids victims."
The children worked in the garden after school and Saturdays and harvested the crops, giving them food to eat and thus, better nutrition.
The "children" range from three- and four-years-old through 25 years of age. "I supervised the gardens and guided the youth group of five to eight persons who were in charge of it," said Barker, whose organic and sustainable gardening techniques used raised beds, greenhouses, natural fertilizer, irrigation, etc. She had her own area where she created "demo gardens" and saved seeds.
"The youth group had a system to keep track of reaping from the garden. The children learned the concept of 'food for work.' If they worked in the garden, they could get food. The more time they put into the garden, the more vegetables they could pick. If they didn't work, they got nothing from the garden," Barker said.
The people of Lesotho are called Basotho and speak the Sesotho language which Barker learned. "The Basotho people learn the English language in school but my villagers are so remote they don't use it, so if you know their Sesotho language, it is a definite advantage," said Barker.
She lived with an affluent (by their standards) host family on their compound. The host mother was the president of the local Lesotho Save the Children program.
Barker had her own house called a rondavel, which is round and made of cinder blocks or rocks, mud, dung, poles and thatch grass.
She used a gas heater to keep warm during the winter when the mountains of the surrounding area received a little snow. "But the rolling mountains surrounding us were covered with snow from time to time," she said. "I used paraffin lamps and candles for lighting as I had no electricity."
The villagers' main staple is a stiff white cornmeal porridge called papa, which is eaten at every meal. There is also moroho, which is any cooked leafy vegetable resembling collard greens, and a lot of mashed pumpkin or squash. They eat mostly beans in the winter. Meat is seldom served in the meal.
The village has a gravity-fed water system from a mountain spring that was installed a year before.
"Transportation took some doing," she said. "I had a horse to ride on the job but after a month or so in the village I would want to go across the border to spend a weekend with friends or buy supplies," said Barker. She would arrange a ride with her host family who had cars. But their concept of time was so "flexible that you weren't sure if that meant that day, that night, or a day or so in the future.
"I would get tired of waiting and walk the couple of hours to the main road, crossing a river on foot or by boat depending on the rainfall, where I could catch a mini-bus," she said, emphasizing that the dirt roads were always in such bad shape that she could walk as fast as the cars could move.
The Peace Corps has a three-fold purpose for its volunteers: to provide technical knowledge, to better understand their culture, and help them better understand American culture.
"After my time in the Peace Corps, I have become more grateful for our country with our freedoms and what we have here," she said. "I have gained technical skills and learning by trial and error on my own. I have definitely learned people management skills, whether I wanted to or not. I have learned how to discipline - in two languages now, in fact," said Barker.
Whether or not she will return to Africa to complete her two years has not been determined yet (she has up to a year to decide).
She was very disappointed to have to return home early. So were her parents. They had already made reservations to spend two weeks with her in Africa over Christmas and were looking forward to it.
