Video of My House

The video here is kind of a walk through of my house and surroundings in Lesotho.  The housing is pretty similar to what most volunteers in the rural areas experience.  While it may seem crazy to live without water and electricity it really isn't that bad and I love where I live!

Big Building Projects!

 Everywhere I go people need help building things.  My school needs a new classroom building, a new water supply, the orphan garden needs a shelter and kitchen, the primary school a new everything!  At the end of April I helped my deputy principle to write a grant to the US Embassy asking for funds to build a new classroom building.  The grant is for R50,000 and the approximate cost of a new two classroom block is around R200,000 so if they will even consider us is up in the air.  My classrooms now are very crowded and my form D math class has 70 students.  Whether I want to put in the effort to raise all this money on my own for a new classroom I am not sure and I am not sure it would make a big impact on the functioning of my school.

Lynn is helping my school to build a new water system for the school because sometimes water runs out during the dry season and the school water use puts a lot of pressure on the surrounding communities water supply.  I am really excited to help because of my background and it is something I actually know something about unlike teaching haha!  The surveyor is looking at possibly connecting a source to the school with an organization close by that does plant preservation for herbal medicine.  Hopefully I will get a chance to talk to him the next time he comes out and help out by writing a project proposal.

The orphan garden is an amazing place.  I visited their last weekend with Liteboho (my closest Basotho friend) and Caitlin.  Liteboho organized some really fun small games for the kids.  One involving strings and stacking cups to try to teach team work and another goofy circle game where one kid went in the circle and said simple English phrases about having a ball, dancing with it, and passing it to another person in the circle.  The kids loved it and it was really fun to see their confidence grow as the game progressed and they went into the circle alone.  The orphan garden is an uplifting place and I feel such a positive energy when I am there and the bo-mme are incredible people.  All the kids old enough to carry a shovel help with planting and preparing new plots.  They are asking me to help them to build a new building to house the orphans when it is cold and a place to cook.  It is possible that I will be able to apply for grants through PEPFAR and hopefully will learn more about this in June at an in service training.  Lynn the picture of the baby cow is for you! 

African Library Project – Makhoakhoa Primary

During my first few months at site I visited the local schools other than mine to introduce myself and get familiar with the area.  The principle at the primary school asked me if I could help them to get a library and I said that is something I might be able to do!  Through the organization African Library Project donors in the states who do a book drive to raise 500-1000 books and $500 for shipping and match them with communities in Africa to build libraries.  In Lesotho their partner organization is Peace Corps and many volunteers work on setting up libraries.  The application for the library is almost finished and I have been visiting the primary school often to get them to write letters asking for the library and saying how they will support it and discussing the project with the lead teachers.  The primary kids are way cuter than the high schoolers!  I asked East Lansing Public Library to help support my project and while they don’t want to do the whole thing they are willing to supply 100 books.  So if you want to help me with my library let me know!

HIV Testing and the Qholaqhoe Mountain AIDS Ribbon

Since being back from break I have been working with the local hospital to organize two events at my school.  The testing event went really well and the painting of the AIDS ribbon is going to happen but being pushed back to next term.

The HIV testing event was coordinated at my school by a group called SolidarMED who do HIV and AIDS testing and counseling.  The organization is Swiss and a Swiss doctor and his family live at Seboche Hospital and run the organization.  A group of three counselors and two nurses came to my school for a week.  Each day they visited one grade, Form A – Monday, Form B – Tuesday, etc.  They spent the whole day giving HIV lifeskills lessons in Sesotho which allowed them to get across to many students that I was not connecting with in my lifeskills lessons because of language.  Then throughout the day the students could go to the library two at a time and get tested.  Many of my students where so scared to get tested but were eager to do it.  Rightfully so they should be scared, a positive test means the stress of knowing the disease is going to kill you, discrimination from your peers, and feeling like your lost.  However, about 180 of my students got tested about one third of the school. 

The students probably learned more in that one day of school than any other day all year.  However, many of the teachers did not welcome the visitors.  They complained it was taking away from class time, though they skip their classes regularly, and was doing nothing for the students but causing stress for the students who tested positive.  It was a good opportunity to talk to them and share perspectives on HIV and thoughts on testing.  Overall the event went really well and I am really excited about the work that the lead counselor Ntate Khotso is doing and working with him more; he is caring, fun and really believes in what he does. 

The second project that I tried to put together this term was to paint the Qholaqhoe Mountain AIDS Ribbon.  It was built in 2001 and is a landmark for the community and everyone knows its history.  Unfortunately time got cramped and I wasn’t able to organize the event details with the hospital fast enough.  The idea is that SolidarMED will do a community testing event on the day of the repainting and I will organize students and community members to take part.  Hopefully students will perform poetry and dramas to begin the event and the painting of the rock will commence during the open testing event.  The hospital is willing to fund purchasing the paint.  The ribbon is huge!  About 20m in diameter and sits about an hour hike up the mountain.  It fell through for now but will hopefully happen in the spring once it starts getting warmer and the days longer.

Work Out Club!!!

Since being back from vacation I started a work out club at my school.  We meet on Mondays and Wednesdays after school for about an hour after school.  Our normal routine is to do an activity called card work out.  I use a deck of cards and each suit is assigned a different exercise for example hearts is push ups, diamonds is burpies or down ups (we call it push up jumps the translation is easier!), spades is sit ups, etc.  It keeps everyone involved when a lot of guys are there and we don’t have much equipment.  I also bring a jump rope and a resistance band.  The resistance band is a favorite by the guys they make up all kinds of crazy exercises with multiple guys pulling on it at the same time.  We also do other activities like competitions of pushups, wall sits, or calisthenics running back and forth across the hall.  Usually at the end I have either a football or a Frisbee and we go outside and practice throwing.  I also got a volleyball sent by my parents which has been a huge hit!

It has been a really enjoyable part of the week and the older students love it.  It gives them a chance to do something besides sit in the same seat and copy notes.  They need some other kind of activity in their day.  It has been more difficult to keep up as the semester has gotten near the end and things have gotten busy and the days are short and the students don’t have much time to get home before dark.  The space that we use for the club is the newly built hall which rarely gets used for any other activity even though we have 70 student classes and the space would be well served as a classroom or two.  It has been really fun and I need some new exercise activities to keep them engaged so if you have ideas let me know but hopefully I can keep it going next term!

Back from Vacation!

It has been some time since I posted on my blog!  I have been having technical difficulties, my computer and Africa are having a difficult time! 

Vacation

Over Easter holiday me and 12 other volunteers traveled first to a backpacker on the coast of the Indian Ocean and then up to the Durban, South Africa.  It was an awesome time filled with 1^st world luxuries like restaurants, showers, and bbq’s.  The first hostel we stayed at called the Mantis and Moon had an awesome vibe with boardwalk paths through a jungle environment with a lit up pool and treehouses.  I tried out surfing by just renting out a board from the hostel.  It was not much of a success, mostly spending 2 hours getting smashed by waves!  It was wonderful to hang out with my friends for 5 days and escape the loneliness of many weeks at site.  Durban has all the makings of a big city.  We spent most of the time on the beach with its huge boardwalk.  Caitlin, myself, and our newly found friend from the Netherlands Tomas went to UShaka marine world aquarium and water park which was a solid time! 

It was nice to finally get out of Lesotho and see South Africa.  My house in Lesotho is not far from the boarder and the majority of our taxi ride to Durban.  However, the landscape is so different than in Lesotho.  The spaces are wide open and it is not a never ending village as the low lands of Lesotho seems.   There is development and rest stops that are the same as a US interstate.  However there is always the reminder that poverty surrounds you whether it be street children as you leave the bar, the suburbs with every theft deterrent possible, or dilapidated metal shack settlements where poverty from the distance appears far worse than my rural Lesotho village.

Back to Teaching

Returning to school has been a challenge getting back into the swing of things.  A teacher at my school is out for maternity leave for an unknown length of time and I am covering her three math classes in her absence.  So coming back from break had all the anxiety of the first day of school because 3 out of my 4 classes were new.  It took me out of the flow and I have had to readjust.  However, it has allowed me to interact with a lot of students that I previously only saw infrequently for life skills lessons. 

Education in Lesotho is centered on end of the year exams, everything depends on it.  Students take external exams, meaning nationally or internationally standardized, at the end of form c (10^th grade) and form e (12^th grade).  Everything is built up for these two tests and they mean everything.  Unlike at home students often don’t pass to the next grade.  A student who makes it straight through high school without repeating or taking a year or multiple off because finances, babies, or home challenges is extremely rare.  Some of my students in my 11^th grade class are 23 years old, older than me.  Additionally passing a grade only depends on passing English and a set number of other subjects.  This means that a student never has to pass math and can still graduate, and this often happens.  A major struggle I have is teaching students who are way behind grade level and it often seems hopeless to catch them up.

Everyday teaching is filled with highs and lows, frustrations and smiles.  I am focusing on staying positive and doing the best I can and trying to build friendships.

Other Projects to Stay Busy

Beyond teaching I have taken on 3 small secondary projects since being back from vacation.  The first is a workout/training club at school.  A couple of guys asked me if I would help them exercise so on Monday, Wednesday, and occasionally Friday we turn the school hall into a makeshift gym.  It has taken off from the two guys we started with and this week there were 20 students jumping around completing push ups, burpies, and sit ups to the sounds of a Lupe Fiasco album.  It is quite a sight!  I will try to take pictures next time and post.  I have also tried to start teaching them the ways of American football and ultimate frisbee also a hilarious sight!

My lifeskills classes have been cut while I cover for teaching math but I am working on organizing an HIV testing event at my school all of next week and a community event on May 12^th.  The community event hopefully will be a combination of performances from students doing HIV/AIDS related poetry and dramas, a community testing event put on by the hospital, and the painting of a large concrete AIDS ribbon on the top of Qholaqhoe Mountain.  Hopefully the hospital will sponsor paint for the event and we will repaint the ribbon that is hardly visible now and was originally created in 2000.  A lot is still up in the air with coordinating with the hospital so it is still a work in progress.

My third out of school project right now is to apply for a library through African Library Project for one of the primary schools in my village.  The principle is really excited about the project and we are starting to work on the application.  The African Library Project organizes donors in the states to organize book drives and financial donations to ship books to start libraries in Africa.  More info as the project progresses!

I had pictures to upload but between my computer crashing, a computer virus, and the slow connection at the internet cafe no luck so next time!

Bopang Lerato ECCD Center

The Bopang Lerato ECCD is my village pre-school located about a 5 minute walk from my house.  The center is run by two bo-mme, Mme Malenyora and Mme Mantoleng, and currently attended by 58 preschool children.  The school is very bare and they lack many supplies.  The school building was built by a Peace Corps volunteer who served at Qholaqhoe High School in the 90’s.  Mme Malenyora was really excited to have me visit and I spent time playing with the students and watched them perform their songs.  Every time they stand from their chairs they recite “I am STANDING UP!”.  With the assistance of some of the parents they have started to design some play structures and really want help to build more.  It is really exciting to see that they have already had that initiative and I am excited for the possibility of helping.  Additionally, their inside space is really bare and could use visuals on the walls.  With the help of my students we hopefully will be able to paint drawings and teaching aids on the walls to make the environment better through a drawing contest or something next year.