First Week at Site

 Written on 12/26/14 at 5:05 PM

Now I know why the Peace Corps Lesotho packing list stressed bringing sweatpants and lots of comfortable clothes. We have a lot of down time, and my first week at site was very indicative of this reality.

I moved in last Thursday, and since unpacking all my stuff, putting up pictures on the wall and doing things to make my house feel like a home I have….

taken one or two walks around my beautiful village with my intercultural liason (IL), the person in the community who was assigned to be my go-to person during my first few months at site for any issues, for support or just to spend time with. She is a very jubilant middle-aged woman named ‘M’e Thekane, and I like her a lot.

…read. A lot. I just finished the book I started when I moved in. It’s called “Twenty Chickens for a Saddle”, about a white woman’s childhood in Botswana throughout the 80’s and 90’s. Quite a good read. By the time my service is over I’ll have finished SO MANY books.

….built my garden! Or rather, I wheeled a wheelbarrow full of dried manure from my neighbor’s house to my house and watched as my IL and one of the school boys who she called over dug up the earth. I helped mix the manure and planted the seeds and watered them. I was planning on doing it all, but I’m not as strong as a (12 year old) boy, as ‘M’e informed me. Annoying, but its just how it is.

…hung out with my host sister. Her name is Polo and she is 14 years old. I also have a teenage brother, but he was away visiting family for the week before I left for Liphofung, the lodge I’m at right now, celebrating Christmas with other volunteers. I also have an older ‘M’e, who I don’t see very often because she often works in the neighboring village.

…studied Sesotho. Kind of. I’m trying to study at least an hour a day. Sometimes I do and sometimes I just feel too restless to do anything. Then I take a nap.

…Talked to a carpenter in my village about making shelves for my spices and books and stuff. So that will probably happen, realistically, in a few weeks. Ho lokile! (It’s okay!).

…Run. A few times.

Here's my nice big hut. 

thanks for the leaves Susan!

…Gone to Liphofung! The hot Christmas weather is tripping me out, so it felt more like spring break than Christmas. But it was great to relax and spend some quality time and cause some ruckus with the other volunteers in the north. 

chicken slaughtering number one

Rob and the headless chicken. 

second chicken death

Severed head. Green grass. 

Sesotho banana grams. Terrible idea. So hard. 

 So yeah. School starts January 26^th, and right now a lot of people in my village are away at their home villages visiting family for the holidays. So I have a month to do pretty much whatever I want. Maybe I’ll take up pushups.

Khotso.

(I wanted to post more photos of christmas fun and my hut, but blogger is being silly right now, so I will eventually). 

Also, if you want to look at photos of the swearing in ceremony, check out the PCV's lesotho facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/lesothopcvs

Swearing in/Last Week of Training

Written on 12/26/14 at 5:55 PM

My last week at site was kind of nuts. We finished practice teaching, said our goodbyes to our host families and swore in as official volunteers at a ceremony that was filmed for TV. I actually just met a man who said “I saw you guys on TV, but I never thought I’d actually meet one of you.” One of the many times that being a Peace Corps volunteer in a country as small and well-connected as Lesotho has made me feel like a celebrity.

So yeah. I miss my host family in Ha Ramonyaloe a lot, but I’ll see them again in March when we all reconvene for a week to check in. Here’s some photos from the going away braii (barbeque) that my fam had for me:

Once I put the seshoeshoe on, everyone wanted a picture. Here I am with my 'M'e, some host sibs (Mantsale wth the locks, Mphonyane on the far right and Litakom on my other side) and some neighbors. 

Ausi Suzan and Kabello join the fun

Tlu tle san and Monyane chillin' in the back of the truck. As we do. 

Kb and Kabello. There was famu (the traditional music here) blasting out of the truck all afternoon and night. 

And here's some photos from swearing in, which proved to be a more emotional ceremony than I expected, but just as beautiful. 

Neel, our resident American Masotho, and Brittany, whose Seshoeshoe came with a cape. 

Our beautiful LCF's (Language and Cultural facilitators) and teaching observers. 

Hillary and I and our wonderful observers!

'M'e Malineo, the Peace Corps OG. 

I'm getting this one printed and framed stat. Brittany, me and Thabo. 

The fam.

Khotso, ya'll. 

Tsehlenyane/the end of training

Last weekend, instead of coming to TY and using the internet, we went to Tsehlenyane and hiked and swam and ate so much meat and relaxed. It was wonderful. 

Waterfall. 

Made it to the top! 5 km hike up a mountain to the waterfall viewpoint. 

Favs.  

Baithaopi. 

And yeah. Time is moving fast. On monday we have our final language exam. On Tuesday we sware in as official Peace Corps volunteers. On wednesday we go to Maseru to buy all the things we'll need at site (which luckily isn't much for me because I'm replacing a volunteer at his hut). And at thursday we move to site. It's crazy, but I'm ready to start my actual not-in-training life. 

It's been a busy 10 weeks, but when I get to site, I'll be chillin' because the new school year doesn't start until January 24th. So I'll just be meeting people in the village, building my garden, decorating my hut, practicing Sesotho and getting to know my host family. 

Alright, time to get off the internet and go out into the sunshine. 

Much love ya'll. 

Teaching

written on 12/3/14

Teaching is tedious and hard and wonderful. Specifically, teaching is wonderful and lesson planning and constantly thinking up ways to teach English creatively are hard and tedious. It’s such a ridiculous language.

I know that I won’t hate my job for the next two years because no matter how tired I am or how much I’ll crash after class, I always become energized in front of a classroom. I can always get excited when the students correctly turn a present tense sentence into the past tense or say that their grandmother is the mother of their mother or father, for example.

Until next Thursday, I’m teaching five classes a day (4 of English, and one of life skills), including one double period to those poor standard 4 students, all before 12. And then in the afternoon I eat lunch, lesson plan for the next day and have Sesotho class. At the beginning of the week I was crashing, but now I feel good at the end of every day. I think I actually feel more energized than exhausted by them now, which is definitely a good sign. The students are also getting more comfortable with me-comfortable enough to say when they don’t understand something, to joke around with me and to tell me when I’m speaking too fast.  I actually high-fived and emphatically thanked a student in Standard 6 yesterday for telling me to slow down.

That is one of the biggest adjustments that I’m having to make in the classroom. Along with learning how to write on a chalkboard, I ALWAYS need to speak slower and enunciate or else the students won’t understand a damn thing I say unless I speak Sesotho, which is helpful for a few words but is definitely not something I want to rely on in an English class. Basotho teachers already do too much of that and it’s definitely one of the reasons why students don’t usually speak good English. Why speak English if you don’t have an incentive to speak it? (except that it’s a very exam based educational system, and all the exams are in English, and if they don’t pass the Standard 7 exam they don’t go to high school). But those are stupid, big picture, long-term consequences. In the moment, there isn’t much incentive to speak English and so they don’t. Enter the makhoa (white person), holder of English fluency, white skin and magical hair (apparently I can make bank if I sell my hair-something to keep in mind in tight times). All of this is to say that while I think it’s a shame that there is such an intense emphasis placed on English fluency and that there are so few options for people who don’t speak English, that’s the reality. And the simple fact of my existence at St. Dennis primary will be as much of an impetus for the students to speak English as my actual English classes.

In regards to my current teaching schedule, it’s only temporary, and as of tomorrow we are finished teaching new topics. On Monday we review for the test, on Tuesday I invigilate (fancy word for sitting there while students take a test) and on Wednesday we go over the tests. And on Thursday, they “graduate” from summer school and go onto their regular summer things before school starts at the end of January. So while it’s true that I will be teaching English and life skills to 4, 5 and 6 at my permanent site this year, my classes will be more spaced apart and it won’t be the same thing every single day. Thank Molimo (God).

Funny moments this week/why I love working with kids:

-After life skills with the 5^th and 6^th graders yesterday, a 5^th grade girl said she liked my sunglasses so much and could she have them? “Uh, no!”, I said, “but you can try them on”, after which every fifth grade girl proceeded to try on my glasses and strut across the room like a supermodel. Then she comes over and hugs me and Hillary and says “ I like you so much”. Melt.

-Today in life skills when talking about trust, I ask the students if anyone knows what trust is. The same 6^th grade boy who told me to speak slower raises his hand and says, “trust is condoms”. Damn right.

-While teaching the concept of giving and receiving instructions, I ask for the students to tell me things they know how to do. One student says “milk a cow”, after which I proceed to mime milking a cow while they tell me what to do. We also spent a lot of time on the correct pronunciation of “udder”, which was hilarious.

So yeah, there are a lot of terrible things about the Lesotho school system that I’ll probably go into later, but today I just love these children and am excited by all the things that my first year of teaching in Lesotho will bring.

The sky was doing amazing things this week.

Khotso. (Peace). 

Site Placement!

Alright, so, it's real and surreal. I now know exactly where I'll be living for the next two years, what I'll be doing and who I'll be working with. I visited last week, and I'm thrilled.

Baithaopi (volunteers) heading out for the week!

Thabo

I'll be living in the north, in the Butha-Buthe region, in a village called Tau liarora/St. Dennis, which is also the name of the primary school I'll be working at. It's a medium sized school, about 250 students (or learners, as they're often called here), but only four real teachers. One student who graduated last year has been volunteer teaching there, and then I'll start for the new year at the end of January. I'll be teaching English and life skills (which is sort of an expansive sex-ed) to grades 4, 5, and 6. So, there's definitely a lack of teachers at the school, and it'll be nuts when I get there as I start to learn what teaching in Lesotho actually looks and feels like. And figuring out how to co-teach will be interesting-it's not a common practice in Lesotho at all, but the Peace Corps really dissuades primary school teachers from teaching on their own because that's not very sustainable. The reality is that many people don't co-teach, but some people do. So I'm hoping my co-workers are receptive at least, though it probably won't end up looking like what I imagine as co-teaching (lesson planning together, sharing all responsibilities etc). I really like them. They're all women and all friendly at least thus far. And I also had a long conversation with one of the teachers at the high school who went with some of her students to a glow camp (Girls empowerment and HIV education stuff) and is starting a girls youth group at the high school, so I'll be working with her on that too. It's cool because it's not my project or anything, I'm just getting involved because I'm interested. So yeah. good things. The only 40 minutes-an hour by taxi from the Butha Buthe camp town, but its definitely still rural.

So yeah. good things. Super excited to be done training and move there on December 18th!
Check it out!

Seen on the walk to school

Children

Written on 11.13.14 at 7:41 PM.

Having an adorable, ridiculous, loving two year old to come home to really makes my day. Today my m’e’ told me that she saw other Baithaopi (volunteers) walking on the road and Kabello ran up yelling “MPHO!!”, even though I wasn’t with them. White people? Must be Mpho. I get it.

            She’s also a testament that developmentally, two year olds everywhere are largely the same, independent of culture. She stubbornly refuses to sit on a blanket or pillow when sitting at the kitchen table, and so is eye-level with the table, which makes eating kind of difficult. But I think she likes getting papa or yogurt or whatever all over her, because afterward she licks food off her hands with a big smile, clearly basking in the experience. I stayed home from training on Monday to recover from having diarreah all weekend, and my M’e brought her in my room to visit. She hopped up on my bed, sat on my stomach and looked me right in the eye, her grin showing bits of the Russian (hot dog) she held in her left hand, her eyes gleaming. A few weeks ago, we were all eating dinner while Kabello cruised around the kitchen floor on her belly, almost like she was swimming, giggling her so-cute-its-almost-cartoonish laugh. Who knows what kind of swimmer she’d be if there was easy access to any body of water here. The word in Sesotho for funny is Qabola (click at the beginning), and I tell her she’s Qabola every single day.

            But like all children here, she’s way independent. Not just in her skill set-feeding herself, carrying her little chair around, speaking (we’re at about the same level of Sesotho, which is great), but in her freedom. Last Saturday morning we were all eating breakfast on the little wall in front of the kitchen, and Kabello spills or pours out her coffee (yes. She drinks coffee) on my M’e. And of course there are many different parenting styles and family situations in the U.S., but no West Mt. Airy parent that I know would react by saying “Oh Kabello, enough. Just go to Ntabisang (the neighbor girl) Bye bye.” And she and Tlu Ke Sang, the 8 year old, went happily.

            Last Sunday, Thabo and Brittany and Jordan took a little walk through the pine forest next to the school where we do our training. It leads to this amazing donga (super deep ravine), with rocks and grassy, sheep covered hills on either side, and it was so nice just to walk in the pines. At some point we were sitting on some rocks, chatting, when this small figure in the distance starts yelling to us “lumela, lebitso le hau o mang”. It takes us awhile to even hear her (though I assumed before she got closer that it was a boy, since they are most often the ones out herding/chillin with the animals while they graze). We start to answer her questions, still yelling, barely able to see her or hear what she’s saying, because she refuses to get closer. Then she just yells “ARE YOU HAPPY???!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!” It was really the best, sitting on these rocks overlooking grassy hills, having a child screaming to inquire about our happiness. We were laughing about the whole situation for a while after that.

And today, as usual, kids were peering in through the windows at our language class. And while we were standing outside, getting ready to walk to the hub for training, they stand and stare. I’d say thirty or more kids just standing in a big group, staring at us, not saying a word.  I get it-we’re new and different. Five weeks may seem like a long time to us, long enough to get used to seeing the Americans. But I guess not. Sometimes I wonder what they are thinking: “Better watch and see what weird thing they do next! They’ve already sat on the stoop in skirts and spoken Sesotho and drunken coffee and eaten so many cookies! What do they look like when they stand up? What do they have in those backpacks? What are they saying? Why do they speak so fast? Why is their skin so white?” (Not every volunteer is white, but everyone in my village is.) I don’t know enough Sesotho yet to carry on a conversation, so the only thing to do is laugh and change locations. One thing is for sure, I’m going to learn as much from these kids as they’ll learn from me, both in and out of the classroom.

Kabello le bohobe