Garage Sale for Lesotho

Me again! So, I have less than three months left in my Peace Corps service, and I’ve decided to call out all of you who promised to send me packages. Time to pay up.
The Semonkong Youth Center is barren. There’s a big room with a pool table, the felt of which looks like the surface of the moon (a dirty, oddly reddish-brown colored moon), and that’s it. No board games. No sports equipment. Not even a deck of cards. A few herdboys hang out in there during the winter, mostly to get out of the cold. There’s NOTHING TO DO there.
To be fair, the Semonkong Youth Center is currently closed, not that I could see any discernable difference between “closed” and “open.” The Center was officially closed by the Ministry of Youth and Recreation back in March, after an adjoining computer/business skills classroom was robbed by friends of the guy who had the only key to the room. Since meeting with the Director of Youth last month, I have been working with local principals and teachers to rebuild the Center’s leadership staff in anticipation of officially reopening in January 2011. In the meantime, we need to get stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. We can get the most dynamic youth leaders imaginable, but the kids still won’t come if there’s nothing to do.
Here’s where you come in. Instead of going out and buying snacks and books and whatnot to send to me (like you PROMISED), go through your basement, garage, attic, closets, roommates’ closets, and glove compartment and throw a bunch of stuff into a box. What kinds of stuff? All kinds of stuff. Want some examples? Here you go:
-Board games, especially the ones that little kids have outgrown, even if you have to cut the board into pieces and send the game in a ziplock bag.
-Playing cards and card games.
-DVDs and VHS tapes, for when one of the kids steals a TV from the neighboring village (kidding, kidding, we just borrow it).
-Any sports equipment, from balls (inflatable, please!) to jump-ropes to ping-pong paddles. And on that note, a ball pump or two would be useful.
-Sneakers, any condition, for boys or girls or men or women, anything smaller than a men’s 10 (Basotho generally have small feet).
-Sports bras! They don’t exist here. Ladies! Send a sports bra or two, and make some high school girls much, much more comfortable; it’s bad enough that during “Athletics” they have to run laps in skirts, sweaters, and dress shoes.
-Broken Crayons- Teachers! Parents! People who like to color! You know all of those little end stubs of crayons that you throw out when your fingers start cramping? Save them! Collect them from other teachers and parents! Put them all in a ziplock bag and put it in the box! We peel off the paper and melt all the little bits in metal ice cube trays, making these really nifty multi-colored “stained glass” crayon blocks. You should try it too, but send me a bag of them first. Oh, and any and all other art supplies will be greatly appreciated as well!
-Books! Books! Books! Anything! The Center has a small “library” in a locked storage room, but I plan on emptying it by the end of October. After nearly two years collecting dust, these books are going out into the schools and the communities, where they belong. Many of these books will never be returned to the Center, and that’s the idea; this way, the community becomes the library. Send books, any level, any subject. Please, please, please send books!
Those are just a few ideas and suggestions. And the best part of the whole deal is that you don’t have to buy a thing! In fact, I’d rather you didn’t buy anything. I’m not asking for charity- I’m asking for a morally and economically imperative reapportionment of existing and available material resources! You have stuff that you’re not using and don’t need, stuff that could and would be used and enjoyed by dozens, possibly hundreds of children and teenagers from the Semonkong area. Pack a bunch of it in a box, take it to the post office, and cough up the $50 postage to ship it off to poor kids in Africa.
Send the boxes to my address, below. Even if some of them don’t get here before I leave (packages generally take 3-5 weeks to get here from the States), they will be taken care of by another local volunteer. So get on it!
Khotso Foulo
PO Box 100
Semonkong, 120
LESOTHO
SOUTHERN AFRICA (for good measure)