The Start of the 2nd Year

We are now two weeks into the school year in Lesotho with new classes, new students, and a new outlook.  I’m teaching the grade 12 (Form E) and the grade 10 (Form C) math classes.  Both of these are the classes that take huge external exams at the end of the year that determines for Form C’s if they will pass from secondary school to high school and for the Form E’s if they will graduate from high school with high enough marks to go to university.  The tests are crazy long and cover every topic learned in every subject for the last 2 to 3 years.  At Qholaqhoe our pass rate on external exams for math was around 15% and very few of those that passed got higher than a near pass in the 50 and 60%’s.  So hopefully we have nowhere to go but up!

Qholaqhoe High School afternoon assembly.

A year ago when I first started teaching it was so difficult and I didn't think I could do it.  This year my mindset is totally different and I actually enjoy going to school!  It’s crazy to think about how things were last year versus now and it gives credit to the necessity of being here for two years and also how much I have grown individually as a teacher.  I’ve been successful so far at getting to school at 7 am everyday (first period isn’t until 8) to spend extra time with my Form E’s working on math or just encouraging them to work on anything.  We follow an I’m here you’re here policy because I don’t like getting up early and they are required to get there at 7 or face potential beating.  So far teaching the externals has been great there interest in learning is better and generally less disruptive in class.  There are still many things that frustrate me with laziness and maintenance of my school but I want to focus on the things I love about this place because I know a year from now I’m going to miss many things about Qholaqhoe. 

Right now I’m only teaching 2 classes and have extra time to work on other things including the library, math and science club, and a few other small projects in the community and with the district math and science teachers association. 

Library project:

In addition to teaching I am focusing in the short term on working on the school library.  Every day I work with the school leaning lady to reorganize and catalog the books and train her to be the school librarian.  This is a challenge as her English isn't very good and neither is my Sesotho, but we are doing our best!  We also just last week submitted a grant application to Peace Corps to construct a library building at my school.  Just getting to the point of submitting the project application and plan was a small victory!  If approved I will have to raise $5800 from sources at home to compliment the $3300 the school has raised.   A lot more on this to come if we are approved!

Form C students posing for a picture in the library.  The space is small and there is no furniture but we are working to make the organization of the books simpler and easier to follow.

Reorganizing the books by reading level instead of fiction types hopefully will help students to find books and training a librarian will help to keep them in an orderly fashion. 

After school I have been starting to focus on training for a half marathon in Cape Town at the end of March.  How can you not enjoy running when you finish to views like this!

Holidays and a Visit from My Sister

This blog post is long overdue!  Over Christmas I was visited by my sister which was one of the best experiences of Peace Corps.  We kicked off her visit by meeting her at the airport and driving the next day to Kruger National Park.  Driving!  Wow what an experience after not driving for so long and on the left side!  But it was so freeing to have a car after our normal lives of packed four to the backseat in overfull taxis. 

 

Our car we were very sad to return after putting it through the paces driving through parks and into waterfalls.

The day we visited Kruger was agreed to be one of the most incredible days any of us had experienced!  We saw the Big 5 (Lion, Elephant, Buffalo, Rhino, and Leopard) in less than 5 hours!  Everywhere we looked there was wildlife.  Caitlin recorded the times and locations of the animals we saw and could hardly keep up with what we were seeing. 

 

Rhino directly outside of our window

 

Elephants and also a hippo in the same pool

 

Lion!

 

Giraffes!

The most incredible sitting came late in the day when we were driving away from other cars on a less traveled road.  We spotted a bull elephant right by the side of the road.  We watched it for a couple of minutes and it started to walk out in front of the car and we backed up, it then stopped right in the middle of the road and stared straight at us and I reversed fast!  We all screamed before the elephant continued on across the road, all of this on video on Caitlin’s camera.

 

Emily and I at Kruger Park

The rest of trip was also not without highlights including: White water tubing, Jumping off a 18 story gorge, driving on crazy roads, craft shopping in Swaziland, trying to sneak up on Zebras, and returning to Lesotho and straight to a Christmas party.

 

Caitlin, myself, and Emily after the Big Swing jump!

For how amazing the trip was the highlight for me was returning to village with my sister.   She got to experience all the aspects of Peace Corps life including:

•           Traveling on public transport and waiting on the side of the road for a lift with big bags
•           Movie nights by candle light
•           Climbing Qholaqhoe Mountain
•           Seeing my school and meeting my Basotho friends
•           Washing clothes by hand
•           Bathing in a bucket
•           Hiking and visiting the orphan support group
•           Making tortilla chips from scratch
•           Greeting people in Sesotho
•           And, taking pictures with all of my Ntate’s most prized possessions; goats, donkeys, and corn!

 

Emily with Ntate Tankiso and his donkeys!

 

At the Likoting support group.

 Homemade chips and salsa!

It was incredible having my sister visit and a time I will forever cherish.  She did everything with ease and I think I complained more about bad transport and annoyances than she did.  It couldn’t have been better and I still miss not having her here.  More visitors are welcome!!!

One Year as a Teacher – Successes, Struggles, and Prospects

One Year as a Teacher – Successes, Struggles, and Prospects

I have finished one year of teaching, giving and marking final exams last week!  This blog post highlights my school experience over the last year.

Successes

•           I know the names of 200 some Basotho students, with names like Retsilisitsoe that is pretty good! 
•           I have gone from being an uncomfortable teacher to a pretty good math teacher.
•           We started a IM sports league and workout club that added some excitement to sitting in a classroom from 7 am to 4 pm every day for my students. 
•           My students know how to use a condom, at least on a carrot! 
•           I can write clearly on a chalk board, I mean a wall painted black. 
•           I took three bright students to the national science fair and one of them won second prize!
•           We organized an HIV testing event with the local hospital which tested 180 of my students.
•           Some of my students are improving in maths! And have gotten used to the very low scores for the rest and still have love for them.

Lebeta and Lineo studying maths on a Saturday.

Most of the successes at my school are small and the challenges are maybe bigger.  I think the biggest thing this year is that I have become a part of Qholaqhoe High School and it is the place I know.

 Form D Math Challenge winners eating brownies and mac n cheese for being the most improved in maths!

Struggles

-          Can you pass a trigonometry test without a calculator!?  Many Many of my students don’t have supplies and one of the reasons students fail maths so much here is because they don’t have a calculator, a protractor set, a text book, or often even a pencil. 

-          Can you pass 11^th grade math if you haven’t passed mass since 6^th grade?!  Students only have to pass English and so many other subjects to move on to the next grade and maths is the most failed subject and builds on the previous year.  If you don’t know to work with negative numbers solving equations is impossible.

-          Motivation is a constant struggle with teachers and students.  My students often view school as a place to go to keep them out of trouble not necessarily a place to learn that leads to a future.  Education can get them somewhere but they have to get far, finish high school with high marks and go on to university and very few of them accomplish that.  Even worse is their motivation for maths they know they probably will not pass so why bother!?

With my teachers their motivation is also often very low.  Skipping class, not preparing, and sleeping are common and there aren’t any repercussions for them, they never will be fired.  Things at school are disorganized and we spend enormous amounts of time trying to figure out how to do something that we did the same last year. 

-          I’ve struggled being the only one who wants something to happen, sitting while everyone is yelling around me in Sesotho, watching kids get smacked on the hands and butt for singing in class, and having 5 of 70 students turn in an assignment.

Even so, it is worth it to be here and I am happy to be able to say that I am a teacher!

 Form D Class

 Thaabe finishing board maths problem

Prospects

With one year down and one year two go there are a lot of things yet to work on at Qholaqhoe.

A Library for Qholaqhoe High School

My biggest project is to prepare a PCPP grant for a library building at Qholaqhoe High School.  We have done much of the planning and budgeting thus far and hopefully will finish the grant soon.  The building will be 9 m by 6 m and allow the current small library to be converted to a staff room.  After the grant is finished the objective of raising probably around $7500 from family and friends in the states will start.  There are many places this project could fail and I’m often leery of how much I want this for them compared to how much they want to do it for themselves.  But, we will keep trying and see how it works out!

Along with the library is trying to create a better system for maintaining the books.  I haven’t helped at all this year and just saw how things operated and the books and room are trashed.  Over break we are going to reorganize the books to levels that make more sense to the students and train the school cleaning mme to be the librarian.

Teaching Externals

Next year I will be teaching Form E maths and possibly Form C maths.  These years they take huuuggee end of the year standardized exams to determine if they pass.  The test is worth a lot for their prospects and I will be putting in a lot of effort to try to prepare my students who I had this year in Form D.

With one year down and one year to go it feels like I have been here for 5 minutes and also 5 years.  I am excited for the next year to spend in the place that took a while but now really is my home!

 TAP scholarship students!

Mapaseka ninja jumping over the rope after writing exams!

National Science Fair!

Recently I got back from a trip to Mokhotlong, the mountain district, from taking three students to the National Science Fair.  The event was one of my favorite and most dreaded times in Peace Corps.  I was the chaperone for three of my students who were competing in electronics, working models, and maths projects.

The Transport:

Getting to Mokhotlong is difficult.  Getting to Mokhotlong with 100 students and their stuff is a miracle.  Our journey started at 6 am when we met at my house to make our way to the taxi rank.  My students were afraid of the cold and brought matresses, blankets, and jackets along with their project boxes to the bus stop.  We managed to pack ourselves on the taxi, unfortunately heading the wrong way – we would transfer to a taxi heading the correct way several kilometers down the line, with boxes and mattresses piled to our heads and bo-mme providing cushioning on every side. 

When we made it to town we met up with the rest of the students traveling from the Butha Buthe District each with food, mattresses, blankets, and projects.  The bus was the extendo type with an accordion in the middle.   Designed for urban streets not the mountains of Lesotho, our average speed was around 15 mph.

The bus ride was incredible.  Of the 100 students on the bus 75 of them stood up the entire way.  Tsepo having never been outside of Butha Buthe stood the first 2 hours with his head out the window captivated by the mountains.

Our trip past the only ski resort in Africa AfriSki which was an incredible oddity for the rural students.

The Night to Remember:

The bus ride took us 7 hours and we arrived at night to our accommodation of empty classrooms.  I spent the night in a room full of male teachers.  They didn’t sleep.  Half of them laid down around 8 pm on mattresses surrounding the outside of the room while the other 15 danced, sang and stomped in the middle of the room until 4 am.  At 5 am everyone awoke to start bathing.  Around 1 am I sat up from my sleeping bag cocoon amazed at the scene and how I had managed to find myself there.  I had never felt so out of place in my life.  The next night I stayed in the town at the Peace Corps VRC wheeew!

The Science Fair:

Through the course of the weekend my job was to take care of my three students, Tsepo, Selepe, and Neo.  Each of which I had helped over the past weeks to edit their reports and finalize their projects. 

Selepe built a microscope with a backlight that was powered from a wall socket.  He didn’t place but his project was great and has natural brilliance.  In an intellectually un-stimulating environment that our village is, Selepe has a drive and a natural ability to work with electronics with limited guidance that amazes me!  His project would have fared much better if submitted in working models instead.

Neo competed in the maths project competition with a project for multiplying tricks for 9’s and 11’s.

Tsepo built a sieve that shook to separate maize meal and won second place in the working models division.  A great achievement for a student from a rural school like Qholaqhoe!  Most of the award winners were from large schools in Maseru and camp towns.

My students demeanors were so different, Neo was along for the ride, Tsepo was enjoying himself and kind of cared about his project, and Selepe was focused, nervous and sizing up the competition while making last second modifications.  I felt like a dad to my kids in a culture where parents pay very little involvement in their students education it was fun to look after them , be proud of them, and keep them in line. 

The transport was awful, the pace was slow and things that should have been planned were not, and bo-ntate drank beer for two days and nights straight and didn’t look after their students.  This is Lesotho. 

At the same time I connected with my students, I met kids from the best schools in the country, and I experienced a science fair Lesotho style.  I marveled at the differences that such an event would be like in the US.

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!