If I had words to make a day for you, I’d sing you a morning, golden and true

                Every morning in Lesotho, I would wake up with two significant mindsets that would fill my soul for the day.  I would wake up with a feeling of purpose, and I would be filled with hope.  The mornings would be a promise of the work that would be accomplished, as well as the time and opportunity we had to get our hands dirty into making the future better for the Basotho we loved so dearly.  Throughout the day, every experience I encountered would pull on these mindsets.  I would plant a tree and wonder, “What if it doesn’t grow?”  I would hug a child and think “Will they be able to go to school?”  While the sense of purpose would remain strong, my hope would start to dwindle as I witnessed the complicated oppression they lived in every day.  I knew I was making a small difference, but the problems seemed too big to heal completely.  In the evenings, everyone on our Lesotho trip would come together to talk about what we experienced and how it was weighing on our minds.  We struggled as we talked about the poverty, hunger, and sickness that plagued those we loved, but we also talked about the greater change that was becoming from our small simple acts.  We had the evenings to grapple with this concept; how simple acts, when multiplied by millions, could change the world.  We might have gone to bed feeling confused and overwhelmed, but in the mornings, there was always the beautiful restoration of purpose and hope. 

          

                 I think it was important for everyone on our trip to find that sense of purpose when coming back to America.  In our own way, we each had to find avenues to keep giving out our Lesotho love.  As I struggled to feel at home again, I remembered a conversation I had with a Basotho friend about his country.  He said that in Lesotho, everyone had the opportunity to just be themselves.  There was so much land that they had the time and quietness to actually hear their own voice and really be free.  He left me with the words that in America, we were just a statistic.  Lesotho was a place to become more than just a number.  My mornings under the African sun were a reinstallation that I was called to make a difference.  Returning back to America, I missed the mornings of those beautiful, raw emotions, but was fueled with the desire to never become an invisible number that my friend warned me of.        

No matter our experiences, having been to Lesotho or not, I think every human deserves to wake up with the hope and purpose of a bright day.  We have the power to live out our life as examples of human goodness, spreading this purposeful hope to others who need it most.  Right now, I have the hope of believing I can make a difference as an intern with Bloom, I have the purpose of finishing school so I can use my education to make a difference for others, and I will always have the love of Lesotho in my heart.

-Katharine

Katharine Ritzi traveled to Lesotho in 2011, and is currently a senior at Wittenberg University. She is also serving as an intern with Bloom Africa.

Realized Opportunities

Hello! My name is Corie Cappelucci and I am one of the newly appointed members of the Bloom team. I will be working for Bloom as an intern this semester while I finish up my senior year at Wittenberg University. I am extremely excited to be working for this organization and this opportunity could not have come at a better time. I say this for two reasons, the first has to do with my personal connection to Lesotho and the second has to do with some major life changing decisions that I recently worked through.

My personal experience with Lesotho comes from a trip I took to the country in the summer of 2011. I am not sure there are words that can accurately describe the twenty-eight days that I spent in Lesotho, but one that frequently comes to mind is “amazing”—my experience, the resilient and positive character of the Basotho, the country itself, and the friendships I made were nothing short of amazing. Although that word may seem ambiguous, its positive connotation seems appropriate.

I loved every moment of my trip to Lesotho and I was excited about the projects we had carried out throughout the country. I really felt like we had done our part to help make a difference and improve the future of the people we encountered, and I had ideas about how I could continue to do so once I was back at home. However, I was not prepared for the transition back to America. Upon arriving home, there were many things I realized I would not be able to do, this started with the somewhat menial failure of not being able to make it through the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie on the night I returned (I know, it seems kind of silly but it was a big personal disappointment), but soon I started to realize that there were other, more important things that I would not be able to do for Lesotho. Spreading awareness about the country is not easy when all people want to do is look at my pictures and listen to how great my experience was, very few actually take the time to listen and understand the more upsetting issues the people of Lesotho face.

It was not long after this realization that I started to feel very distanced from the country. I felt like I was losing touch with this very important part of my life and I needed a way to reestablish that connection, and that is when Bloom popped up on my radar J This internship is my way to reconnect and I could not think of a better way to do it than through this organization that was founded as a result of the very same type of experience that I had.

While this opportunity with Bloom will help strengthen my connection to Lesotho it will also help me pave the new path I have recently created for myself. As an Art History major my goal was to graduate from Wittenberg and attend graduate school for Art History and Museum Studies and ultimately work as a curator in an art museum. However, about a month ago I realized that I wanted to pursue a career in the nonprofit sector that was a little more service oriented and more geared towards working with and helping others. As a result of this I have completely altered my post graduation plans and am in the process of applying for a year of service through AmeriCorps. I am so excited about this new path and am even more excited about starting it off by working with Bloom!

-Corie

Corie is a senior at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.