Sights on a Run through Qholaqhoe

       

Running here is a very different experience then at home.  You can’t just put your ipod in and cruise.  Everyone wants to say hello and stop you for a greeting.  My normal route takes me out of my village and onto the main road which runs adjacent to the mountain and has amazing scenery.  The following pictures are some sights when I took my camera on a run.

 Form B student named T'sepo hauling water

Form D student Ntona, head Prefect at school.

Basotho transport!

 Herd boy with his cows

 Following the taxi

 Superman!  Neighbor boy who is always hanging around with me

 Qholaqhoe Mountain

Return at sunset

Likoting Orphan Garden

Located a village to the north of where I live is an orphan garden project that is run by woman in the village there.  The project is supported by Lynn a Peace Corps volunteer here from 2007 to 2009 who stays in touch with the community here and provides the orphan garden with financial support.  Her along with her sister inlaw Pic have been visiting for the last 2 weeks.  They brought me a care package of oreos and snacks which was amazing. 

The orphan garden is operational on Saturday when many orphans and double orphans from surrounding villages come to the garden to eat a meal and play together.  I visited the garden for the first time on Saturday.  It is an inspirational place to see the care that these few Bo-Me are able to provide to the children.  Everyone pitches in to tend to the garden and help out. 

My best Basotho friend named Liteboho pronounced (DE-TE-BOO-HO) has the idea of starting a group to go to the orphanage and organize activities to teach the orphans about life skills and play games and dramas with them.  I think this is awesome and we are trying to organize some youth and school kids to be involved.

On left Liteboho and center Mme Lynn

Orphans lining up for Saturday meal.

A Normal Day

So what is a normal day like teaching math and life skills in rural Lesotho? 

Pretty much no day is ever the same!  Everything is always getting interrupted, changed, or postponed I have learned to go with the flow. 

My mornings I wake up around 6 and have breakfast, coffee and oatmeal or cereal with long shelf life milk.  I listen to music or BBC broadcast and check sports scores on my phone.  I wash up a little bit before school but I don’t fully bathe that often usually once a week.  It takes me about 15 minutes to walk to school   from my roundavel

Assembly at School

School lasts from 7 am to 4 pm with an hour lunch from 1 pm to 2 pm.  The students have study the first and last period (each period is 40 min) of the day.  The class schedule is a big convoluted matrix and the schedule of classes is different every day.  Students sit in the same class all day and the teachers rotate.  I teach usually about 5 periods a day but some days are really busy (Thursday) and others slow (Monday).  When I am not in class I sit in the staff room and plan my lessons for the next day or mark student’s assignments.  You have to mark fast because you have to return students notebooks with assignments from the previous night to them before class that day. 

Lunch is provided to students at school.  It consists of a Basotho staple papa (maize meal) with either beans, peas, or cooked cabbage depending on the day.  I eat lunch at school, it is not bad.  Lunch is also the time clubs meet.  I have been helping with English Club doing poetry and debate. 

 Life Skills Class - Who is your role model?

Form B3 Math Class

Entrance to staff building with other teachers.

School Grounds

Form D math students at afternoon assembly

After school I usually stay around school until about 5 pm either helping students with math, finishing planning lessons, or chatting with teachers.  I have started to do math study hall and once a week we have movie club and watch a tv show (Glee and Chuck) on my laptop with older students.

When I get home I am greeted by this crazy child named Sortle or better known as Superman.  He comes flying from his house and runs up to me wanting me to swing him around.  My evenings are pretty relaxed I watch tv shows, read, and make dinner.  I often will go for an evening run which is especially wonderful around sunset.  My dinner staples are soup, rice or noodles with vegetables and cheese or sauce, and omelets.   I usually fall asleep reading sometime before 10 pm and then wake up and do it again!  

Students Stories about HIV

This week in my life skills class I asked my students to respond to the question: How has HIV been a part of your life and/or changed your community?
The following are three of the more heart wrenching responses. This first poem is from a smart hard working student in my B3 class. The class is all students who have failed last year and it is really difficult to motivate them but this student is a bright spot.

HIV as a part of my life
It changed me, and
Turn me like a Skeleton,
I’m now looking older than
My age, all trousers and
Shirts I have are now
Not fitting me, I’m no
Longer good at all.


This virus seems like it’s
Sucking all my blood,
I can now compare myself
With a thin
Small finger.
It totally changed me and
This virus it’s sucking
Me.


Oh! Yea I have changed
The color and now I
Look black like grandfathers.
All I know is that it
Changed me so much.


All about me is that I’m HIV
Positive, and I seemed like a mad
Person, who needs help and care!

I shivered when I finished reading this poem. Not only this student but the boy who sits next to him also wrote me a story saying he was HIV positive. Both are the two brightest in my math class and took me very much by surprise.

Story #2:

When I was young
HIV became a part
Of my life, because
I was listening to the
People who are saying
Sex is nature.


I didn’t listen to my
Parents when they told
Me don’t do sex before
Marriage, and use condoms
When you do sex.


I think my parents don’t
Want me when I hear this
Nice sex


Today I am HIV positive
Because of refusing to listen
To my parents


Oh HIV go away
We don’t want you
You are a killer, how many
Peoples you have kill?
You are our enemies go away
We don’t want you.
Go away HIV go away HIV go HIV.

Story #3:

Four years ago my uncle was HIV positive he go to the testing council at Newstart, Botha-Bothe where he got that information that he is HIV positive. The members of Newstart told him to go and take ARVs but he refused. By that time my parents were working outside the country at Kimberly. So I advise him to go and fetch those tablets and he told me that those people are lying because he didn’t have unprotected sex with someone in the world. One day he became sick and I was supposed to give him help because I was only one staying with him. I tried to help him by all means, when I decided to touch him with plastic gloves when he was bleeding but he told me that I hate him and I just touch him by hands and his HIV affect me also.

Wow, Nthabiseng I am really sorry about your uncle. I want to know more.
Is your uncle still alive?
Who do you stay with now?
Tell me more about what you mean in the last sentence, are you positive?

No, now he is not alive he died last year at December by that time he was terribly infected by that virus, he was suffering from several things such as diarrhea, TB, and he was spitting blood coughing. My father died during the middle of the year of 2008 and I have just left with my mother and she is still working. I am just staying alone at my place now because even my grandparents are also died during the Lifaqane Wars. Yes I am also positive because by that time no one was taking care whether I can be prevented to that disease or not I was not going even at testing council, but when I tell my mother about this she take me to the clinic and I test and they said I am HIV POSITIVE and my mother was ashamed of me but there was nothing to do by that time, so I take the tablets from the clinic every month to treat this because it has no cure and it is dangerous. I was thinking that I am going to die but I realized that I can’t die because of that. I try to avoid it by all means and I don’t want to pass it to others. I don’t want even to be married because I will pass it to my husband and I don’t want to have babies because they are going to be born with it and die young.


These stories from my students has somewhat changed my perspective of my service. No matter how frustrated I get trying to get students to correctly add fractions I can only sympathize with the difficulty of their situation and can only view from the surface what it is truly like.