10 Candles

My friend Madeline is in the Peace Corps in Lesotho. From time to time she emails a public letter, updating her loved ones about her life there. I was so moved by her most recent letter, which I received this morning, exactly when I needed it. I am sure she won't mind my publishing it here:

Candles on my Christmas Tree
Public Letter from Madeline U. in Lesotho, Africa (Dec 2007)

Those of you who've spent Christmas with me may remember I love lit candles on a live evergreen. Here in Lesotho , we're in the midst of summer, and I'm enjoying my second year of a no-commercials / no-pressures-to-buy-anything / no-Xmas-carols-in-shopping malls / no rush-around Christmas. Just the hot sun, farmers plowing with oxen, afternoon winds impregnating dust devils, and fields of aloe and wild flowers.

So my candles will be metaphorical ones – 10 candles on my Christmas tree of 2007:

Candle 1: Lit to celebrate my one year anniversary here. A decision to let go of the fast, rich life -- trading it for a slower, poorer one. Poverty is mean. Poverty wears me down, and it destroys the lives of my neighbors. But I am richer for living amidst struggling Basotho villagers, able to see how simple things mean a great deal, and how complex things intertwine to keep us in a mire of destitution. Most people in this world make the same amount of money per year as do the villagers in Mt. Moorosi . In one mere year, I've grown closer to the realities of people whose earth I share.

Candle 2: Lit for this sad and special year in my family. My brother Dave has been living with a fast growing brain tumor. From this great distance, as I see my sisters Susan and Kate, my brother Will, my mom Barbara, my cousins Donna and Annelle, and many friends and family gather around Dave to support him, I am awed at the strength and love that endures in my immediate family. Thanks to the Peace Corps, I was able to fly home in April 2007 to visit Dave, to say the hardest word in all the languages I've ever studied – good-bye, for now, dearest brother.

Candle 3: Lit for health. Who would have known that two years in the Peace Corps would be the best thing in 30 years for my own health? I climb mountains, eat simple meals, don't stress out with multi-tasking. I have time for everything – reading, visiting, travel. I'm rich in health, wealthy in time, prosperous with sunsets and moonrises, and a millionaire in children who love nothing better than coming into my rondavel to read books or draw with crayons.

Candle 4: Lit to salute the mountains of Lesotho . I traveled a few days ago to Lesotho 's southernmost national park, Sethlabathebe, to visit fellow Volunteer Lizbeth. When I saw the setting of her village, I recognized it from the fantasy I'd had before I got here – the dreams I'd had before I was assigned to dusty, dirty Mt. Moorosi. From her tiny rondavel, Lizbeth looks down upon valleys so deep that mountain peaks rise out of the pool of hovering clouds. I've walked miles and miles of mountain paths this year, visiting remote little schools and sites of other Volunteers. Lesotho 's beauty is awesome.

Candle 5: Lit in admiration for Lesotho 's care of its orphans. With just about the most orphans of any nation on earth, poor little Lesotho has somehow absorbed them – in the bosoms and modest huts of grandmas and aunts and neighbors. Lesotho has few orphanages. For these little people, some sleeping on city streets, all without secure futures, all without the love and identity of parents, please light a candle as well.

Candle 6: Lit for Dintle. This candle sputters a bit, and it's the reason I haven't written for awhile, trying to spare YOU from the horrors of Quthing Hospital. So despite it not being holiday material, let me be honest with you (you are strong enough) to tell you that in the last two months, 14 year old Dintle has been diagnosed as HIV-positive (raped when she was 10 years old), and has an acute case of meningitis. She has shriveled to a mere skeleton, hospitalized for over 45 days now. I fought my way into Maseru once when it turned out the hospital didn't have her blood type, and I traveled in again a month later when the hospital ran out of medicine and her survival hung by a thread.
Nurses in the hospital are so overworked they disappear entirely from wards. When I walk in, looking fresh (and white), neglected patients call to me to adjust their casts or empty bed pans. Dintle can't feed herself – so if I or one of her family members isn't there, she doesn't eat. She has bed sores on her butt and on her ear. She's lost muscle and any ability to move. Seeing the rapid deterioration of a normal, healthy, laughing teen is a knife to my heart.
Helping to keep this candle lit for me is a newly-arrived Peace Corps Volunteer named Jason (Sesotho name – Mokhaele, "son of a chief"). He's been my savior, helping me pay bus transport for Dintle's sister, cousin, and grandmother to make the long trip to the hospital, helping deliver medicines, sometimes just coming in on his own and feeding little Dintle in the twilight hours. You have to love someone like this!
And may the light of this sputtering candle also shine on the hospital's doctors from India – totally overworked – and the Clinton Foundation nurses, who make a real difference, wading into the sea of HIV/AIDS patients. I have new respect for anyone who works in health care – a field reserved for the strong of heart.

Candle 7: Lit for love and loss. When I filled in the Peace Corps application, I didn't factor in long-distance grief. It think it has mostly to do with my age. If we live to be older than 50, we have an increasing number of losses to bear, losses whose pain is as deep as the love was tall. The path of this year has been taken sharp turns as I've heard unexpectedly of the loss of dear friends ~ Mary B., who left a legacy of Dodgeville activism and laughter around her kitchen table. My cousin Doug U., a tower of strength and a deep canyon of reflection. Twinkling-eyed Sven, my fiddling, Swedish host father. No news of dearest Karen T., who shared my years in Japan with such flare. And others…. Grief is hard; grief alone is harder.

Candle 8: Lit for learning. As I look out through my open windows at the upside-down constellations in the starry sky, my mind reels with the mysteries of being a human on this planet. Can we solve problems that we create? Why not? As I fall asleep, I ponder global economics, world peace, village solutions. I wonder what sustains greed, rape, neglect of children. I wonder if I am truly strong enough to pursue a career in international development. Is hope naïve? Is optimism merited? How brilliant the Millennium Development Goals – modest solutions to staggering problems, if only each nation would do its small part. How often I've longed for a cup of good coffee and a conversation with you, dear friend.

Candle 9: Lit for you and those you love, for all your challenges, for all the great things that have happened to you this year. A great hug if you've written me a letter or e-mail, and total understanding if you've been too busy to. That "busyness" -- so American! A national treasure –many things to do. Enjoy the opportunities!

Candle 10: Lit for us, for all of us who share the planet. Who yearn for simple things like a fresh salad, a day of sunshine, a garden of flowers, a child's sweet hug. May we cherish these, support one another, and look with optimism toward a new year.

Madeline