March 31, 2010 (ALMOST APRIL! WHOA!)
Today is the last day of our Phase 3 training, meaning I’ve been in Maseru for the past 10 or so days, going through lots of sessions and workshops about corporal punishment, classroom management, language, culture and everything else under the sun. It’s been pretty good, some have been really helpful, others, well, not so much.
Within the first couple days, friends helped me to remove all the braids from my head. It was SO itchy and naturally, after taking my entire hair out of braids, it was pretty frizzy. I took a couple pictures and jumped into the shower… pretty sure I scrubbed my head so hard it bled a little. It was absolutely stunning how much hair also came out when I combed out my hair, and how little hair I felt like I had.
It was great to see the rest of my training group, though difficult sometimes, with 29 of us in the smallish training center. The training staff is all so wonderful, especially the cooks – never a sad face, and they always make amazing food for us. In fact, I’ve probably gained about five pounds since training started, thanks to their delicious macaroni and cheese, chaka-laka, cheesy vegetables and lentils. Incredible.
I guess there’s not too much else to say about training. It’s given me a lot of really great ideas for projects and classroom techniques. I enjoyed seeing everyone quite a bit, though being in Maseru is a little scary sometimes. There have been several incidents of attempted mugging on volunteers and so we’re really really discouraged from going out, and basically forbidden from going out alone. It seems extreme, but it’s definitely a rule I am happy to play by. It makes running a challenge, since I usually end up with the faster group. We’ve gone on some pretty fast runs, and its been cool to notice how much better I’m able to keep up with them.
Training also made me realize how much I miss my students! Before I left, many asked if they could come with me (absolutely ADORABLE) and I said of course, but they would have no place to sleep. To this they responded that they would sleep in a bed with me… all 100+ of them. Yeah, right. They’re cute.
So now, we’re going to South Africa. I can’t wait.
I’ll work on writing more soon, but for now its time to run, shower, pack up and move out!
All my love from Africa,
-Katie
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
March 12, 2010
March 12, 2010
If I’ve done my math correctly, I believe it has been four months since we’ve been in country. This means, I’ve been here for a third of a year. Holy. Cow.
I got an email from my father recently that said something about how it just feels like I’m a semester away at college. I wonder if the reality of my distance and the length of this term will ever actually kick in, or if it will continue to feel like a few years at college…
Yesterday was a public holiday. I’m still not entirely sure the difference between public and private holidays, but every Mosotho I talked to informed me that it was indeed a public holiday. However, our school decided that instead of having Thursday off and teaching Friday, we would reverse those days to allow us the luxury of a long weekend. (Not gonna say I suggested it first, but I’m pretty sure I was at least second… to which my principal responded it was against the rules… the next day he brought it up in a staff meeting and was met with overwhelming enthusiasm… go figure.)
So now I’m sitting on my computer, sipping a cup of coffee and enjoying the peace and quiet of a Friday morning. Truthfully, it feels a lot like a weekend already, even one that I might spend at home. I have coffee and my computer. I’m still in my pajamas, and I have little motivation to do anything but keep this up. Unfortunately, if my computer battery dies, I’ll have to find an alternate plan.
With my internet connection, I learned of all our group’s plans for World Cup and other vacations, and I’m getting really excited. There’s going to be some quality beach time just south of Durban around Easter, and also some excellent soccer-viewing opportunities during school’s winter break. The only thing left to negotiate (I believe) is transportation. I might be driving some stick-shift and giving lessons to others so I’m not the only driver (I learned from the best, so hopefully my skills will be transferred equally as well).
It’s really crazy to think that I’ve been here for four months. Next weekend, my group (Education 2010) will return to the training center for another week and a half of more training sessions. This will probably include things like grant-writing, more ideas on how to deal with corporal punishment, and tons of things I haven’t even thought about. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this training. On one hand, it’s going to be fantastic to see everyone again. On the other hand, we’re going to be cram-packed into the training center again, and this time, we will have tasted complete freedom. Also, I’m going to be missing ten days of class. Hey! That’s great! I won’t have to deal with talkative chatter in a language I don’t understand, or have to eat school lunches… but I will have to lesson plan for three different classes for those days. That’s approximately 34 (actually it’s exactly 34) class hours that I have to plan for. No teacher is going to want to take over my classes and monitor/teach them for me. This means I have to come up with activities and or notes for students, and then assume that they’ll carry them out themselves. This is really going to be a test of their dedication, and how well they can learn on their own.
Sometimes in my math class, I’ll present a certain concept several times, and it may seem like most students understand well enough to do problems on their own. So I give them practice problems, but inevitably, there will be several students (who are paying attention to my teaching) who say quietly as I pass their desks, “Madam, I am not understanding.” All it takes is for me to explain the same concept the same way, just sitting at their desk next to them, and they catch on very quickly. These are the students I most enjoy helping – it is always so clear when they understand something. That is the single most rewarding moment in teaching. I live for it, to see the light click on for a student, and then see them proud as punch to demonstrate to me that they understand by completing a problem correctly. Even if they’re not the outspoken and or brilliant ones, they are, by far, the most appreciative of any of my students, and that means the world.
I still have not figured out what happened to that girl on Monday. I am still very curious… but I don’t know if anyone will be able to provide the answer I’m looking for…
My hair is still in braids, though they are considerably looser than they were a week and a half ago when they were started. Some of that might have to do with the fact that they’re incredibly itchy. OH MY GOSH, they itch! All the Basotho women I work with always come over to my head, admire them for a few seconds, ask me if I have dandruff problems (because I itch my head and can’t wash my hair as well as I would at home or if I didn’t have these braids!), and then tell me I need to buy “the spray”. What exactly is “the spray” you ask? Well, I’m not entirely sure either. I do know, however, that Basotho women use it to keep their fake hair shiny. Yes, shiny. Now, usually, if my hair is shiny, it means I haven’t washed it for a long time and its greasy and oily and dirty and smelly, and that’s why it’s shiny. But here, apparently they value that. So I guess I’ll fit right in in about… oh, three days.
I have a confession: I did wash it on Thursday. I got up, went for my run, and scrubbed my head like I have never scrubbed it before. I used probably five times the shampoo I normally use and I won’t even describe the water after I’d rinsed my head. (Actually, I think it had a reddish tint since my fake hair is reddish-brown.) The itching subsided, thankfully, but I’ll be honest: I’m ready for everyone else to see these braids so I can take them out. To my family: I will make sure to take pictures so you can see ☺ they are pretty cool, and the Basotho all love that I have them. It gets more comments than anything else, and I think the number of marriage proposals I received in town yesterday more than doubled in the short time I was there. SCORE! (Note to M, C & A: I say that as a complete joke. You know full well I have no intent to marry anyone, clicking, grunting or otherwise… but I am looking for husbands for you, so be nice and you’ll get a winner!)
In other non-Lesotho-related news, I have almost completed Season 2 of The Office and I must say, I have not gotten through a single episode without (literally) laughing out loud. It is too funny for words. I finished Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars… and enjoyed it for the most part… It did get a little dull in the middle, but the first few chapters had me laughing out loud. Actually, between reading Franken and watching The Office, I’m pretty sure some of my neighbors were wondering what was going on in my house when I just randomly burst out laughing for seemingly no reason (the walls allow a lot of sound to pass through them… I could hear them outside; I’m sure they heard me just fine).
Probably the most exciting part of my week was when a former student approached me on Sunday evening, asking about the librarian position. He completed his C.O.S.C. exams last year, but has decided to study and re-write the mathematics exam in June (or November? I don’t remember), so he’s working with one of the other teachers at my school on math, and looking for other things to do. All the other teachers are very much in support of having him work in the library; he achieved very high scores on his exams, and was library prefect for several years during his years at Sekameng. I’m pumped because it means I won’t have to be the one always in the library. Plus, he probably knows more about it than I do. When I asked the principal how many days he thought this student should be there with the library open, he said, “He should be there five days a week if he wants to be paid.” YES!
Ultimately, it means we’re going to have students there and reading, hopefully every day. I’ll probably have to meet with him a couple times to establish and agree on rules, and figure out how the check-out log works, but that’s the fun part. My ultimate hope is that he’ll be able to train other students this year so that when he’s gone, they can carry on… Selfishly, it means I’ll be able to check books out too; there are quite a few that I’ve been wanting to read since I first saw the library. My hope is that we’ll be able to open it sometime next week, so students can even use it during the weeks when I’m gone, but this is Lesotho and sometimes Basotho time gets the best of even me… Cross your fingers that I get my act together! My students are going to have books!
The poultry project has yet to be launched. I’m getting a little frustrated by this, but I realize I am in Lesotho. Here’s the story. In order to get birds (aka CHICKENS!), we have to withdraw money from the bank, deposit it into someone else’s account, and then wait for some number of weeks so they can get their act together and send us the birds. Rumor has it, we’re only able to afford half of the ultimate total number of birds (so only 100, not 200… yet). Then we’ll be selling eggs like there’s no tomorrow… I’m especially excited for this part because I’m hoping to launch some type of breakfast program at my school. Too many students arrive in the morning after having been awake for several hours (4 or 5am), walking an hour or so, and by the time they have to start learning at 8am, their stomachs are growling so loud I can’t even hear myself think. The idea (thanks also to Joey) for the breakfast program is to buy some of the fresh eggs from the chickens, hard-boil them, and then sell them in the mornings or until they’re gone for just a small profit (enough to pay for the gas used to boil them, I guess?). This would give students a little bit of protein in their tummies so they wouldn’t be beyond ravenously hungry when lunch rolls around (at 1pm). I have no idea what kind of demand there is for these eggs in the school or village otherwise, but hopefully this is a viable plan of action. Ultimately, the chicken/egg program is a great thing anyway, because all profits from the eggs go towards keeping school fees low. I’m told that our school fees are relatively low when compared to other schools of our caliber. I’m proud of that fact, and will do everything I can to keep it that way.
The sports and entertainment committee has met and decided that there will be an inter-school competition. Students will form teams by class to compete in soccer (both guys and ladies), net ball (girls only I think) and volleyball (maybe both guys and ladies, but I’m not sure). How awesome is that! The only downside I can see is that I’ll be at Phase Three, learning about grant-writing while my students are playing games and having a great time. At this point, we’ve opted to alternate afternoon study with practice for these games. Two days a week, everyone is released onto the big field to choose teams and practice. It’s fun to see the other side of students… sometimes those who aren’t the most involved in class are amazing athletes and clear leaders on the field.
We’ve also had several meetings for the Science and Math Club. The district schedule has been set, and there are numerous (monthly-ish) competitions coming up. I’m still not exactly sure how it all works, but the club has a pretty good turn-out, and I guess last year they were invited to the National Competition. Thinking back to my high school days, Math Team was something I always looked forward to, especially the friendly competition with my friend (who I consistently beat, hehe). I had a great time working through those problems with those people, even if SuperMath did meet at 6:30am.
Well, I think it’s probably time to do something (productive) with my life. I’m still working on a way to photo-share with everyone… I pay for internet by the amount of data transferred, and pictures take a fair amount of data. Plus, I only have a so-so internet connection, which presents a problem. It’s in the process though, I hate that nobody can see this place like I see it everyday. I think I’m starting to take some of the country’s beauty for granted… I need to share pictures.
As always, know that I miss and love everyone back at home, and am truly realizing just how important you all are to me, especially now that I’m far far away. I’m lucky to have you in my life, and your support is the only reason I’m still going. Thanks!
All my love from Africa,
Katie
If I’ve done my math correctly, I believe it has been four months since we’ve been in country. This means, I’ve been here for a third of a year. Holy. Cow.
I got an email from my father recently that said something about how it just feels like I’m a semester away at college. I wonder if the reality of my distance and the length of this term will ever actually kick in, or if it will continue to feel like a few years at college…
Yesterday was a public holiday. I’m still not entirely sure the difference between public and private holidays, but every Mosotho I talked to informed me that it was indeed a public holiday. However, our school decided that instead of having Thursday off and teaching Friday, we would reverse those days to allow us the luxury of a long weekend. (Not gonna say I suggested it first, but I’m pretty sure I was at least second… to which my principal responded it was against the rules… the next day he brought it up in a staff meeting and was met with overwhelming enthusiasm… go figure.)
So now I’m sitting on my computer, sipping a cup of coffee and enjoying the peace and quiet of a Friday morning. Truthfully, it feels a lot like a weekend already, even one that I might spend at home. I have coffee and my computer. I’m still in my pajamas, and I have little motivation to do anything but keep this up. Unfortunately, if my computer battery dies, I’ll have to find an alternate plan.
With my internet connection, I learned of all our group’s plans for World Cup and other vacations, and I’m getting really excited. There’s going to be some quality beach time just south of Durban around Easter, and also some excellent soccer-viewing opportunities during school’s winter break. The only thing left to negotiate (I believe) is transportation. I might be driving some stick-shift and giving lessons to others so I’m not the only driver (I learned from the best, so hopefully my skills will be transferred equally as well).
It’s really crazy to think that I’ve been here for four months. Next weekend, my group (Education 2010) will return to the training center for another week and a half of more training sessions. This will probably include things like grant-writing, more ideas on how to deal with corporal punishment, and tons of things I haven’t even thought about. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this training. On one hand, it’s going to be fantastic to see everyone again. On the other hand, we’re going to be cram-packed into the training center again, and this time, we will have tasted complete freedom. Also, I’m going to be missing ten days of class. Hey! That’s great! I won’t have to deal with talkative chatter in a language I don’t understand, or have to eat school lunches… but I will have to lesson plan for three different classes for those days. That’s approximately 34 (actually it’s exactly 34) class hours that I have to plan for. No teacher is going to want to take over my classes and monitor/teach them for me. This means I have to come up with activities and or notes for students, and then assume that they’ll carry them out themselves. This is really going to be a test of their dedication, and how well they can learn on their own.
Sometimes in my math class, I’ll present a certain concept several times, and it may seem like most students understand well enough to do problems on their own. So I give them practice problems, but inevitably, there will be several students (who are paying attention to my teaching) who say quietly as I pass their desks, “Madam, I am not understanding.” All it takes is for me to explain the same concept the same way, just sitting at their desk next to them, and they catch on very quickly. These are the students I most enjoy helping – it is always so clear when they understand something. That is the single most rewarding moment in teaching. I live for it, to see the light click on for a student, and then see them proud as punch to demonstrate to me that they understand by completing a problem correctly. Even if they’re not the outspoken and or brilliant ones, they are, by far, the most appreciative of any of my students, and that means the world.
I still have not figured out what happened to that girl on Monday. I am still very curious… but I don’t know if anyone will be able to provide the answer I’m looking for…
My hair is still in braids, though they are considerably looser than they were a week and a half ago when they were started. Some of that might have to do with the fact that they’re incredibly itchy. OH MY GOSH, they itch! All the Basotho women I work with always come over to my head, admire them for a few seconds, ask me if I have dandruff problems (because I itch my head and can’t wash my hair as well as I would at home or if I didn’t have these braids!), and then tell me I need to buy “the spray”. What exactly is “the spray” you ask? Well, I’m not entirely sure either. I do know, however, that Basotho women use it to keep their fake hair shiny. Yes, shiny. Now, usually, if my hair is shiny, it means I haven’t washed it for a long time and its greasy and oily and dirty and smelly, and that’s why it’s shiny. But here, apparently they value that. So I guess I’ll fit right in in about… oh, three days.
I have a confession: I did wash it on Thursday. I got up, went for my run, and scrubbed my head like I have never scrubbed it before. I used probably five times the shampoo I normally use and I won’t even describe the water after I’d rinsed my head. (Actually, I think it had a reddish tint since my fake hair is reddish-brown.) The itching subsided, thankfully, but I’ll be honest: I’m ready for everyone else to see these braids so I can take them out. To my family: I will make sure to take pictures so you can see ☺ they are pretty cool, and the Basotho all love that I have them. It gets more comments than anything else, and I think the number of marriage proposals I received in town yesterday more than doubled in the short time I was there. SCORE! (Note to M, C & A: I say that as a complete joke. You know full well I have no intent to marry anyone, clicking, grunting or otherwise… but I am looking for husbands for you, so be nice and you’ll get a winner!)
In other non-Lesotho-related news, I have almost completed Season 2 of The Office and I must say, I have not gotten through a single episode without (literally) laughing out loud. It is too funny for words. I finished Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars… and enjoyed it for the most part… It did get a little dull in the middle, but the first few chapters had me laughing out loud. Actually, between reading Franken and watching The Office, I’m pretty sure some of my neighbors were wondering what was going on in my house when I just randomly burst out laughing for seemingly no reason (the walls allow a lot of sound to pass through them… I could hear them outside; I’m sure they heard me just fine).
Probably the most exciting part of my week was when a former student approached me on Sunday evening, asking about the librarian position. He completed his C.O.S.C. exams last year, but has decided to study and re-write the mathematics exam in June (or November? I don’t remember), so he’s working with one of the other teachers at my school on math, and looking for other things to do. All the other teachers are very much in support of having him work in the library; he achieved very high scores on his exams, and was library prefect for several years during his years at Sekameng. I’m pumped because it means I won’t have to be the one always in the library. Plus, he probably knows more about it than I do. When I asked the principal how many days he thought this student should be there with the library open, he said, “He should be there five days a week if he wants to be paid.” YES!
Ultimately, it means we’re going to have students there and reading, hopefully every day. I’ll probably have to meet with him a couple times to establish and agree on rules, and figure out how the check-out log works, but that’s the fun part. My ultimate hope is that he’ll be able to train other students this year so that when he’s gone, they can carry on… Selfishly, it means I’ll be able to check books out too; there are quite a few that I’ve been wanting to read since I first saw the library. My hope is that we’ll be able to open it sometime next week, so students can even use it during the weeks when I’m gone, but this is Lesotho and sometimes Basotho time gets the best of even me… Cross your fingers that I get my act together! My students are going to have books!
The poultry project has yet to be launched. I’m getting a little frustrated by this, but I realize I am in Lesotho. Here’s the story. In order to get birds (aka CHICKENS!), we have to withdraw money from the bank, deposit it into someone else’s account, and then wait for some number of weeks so they can get their act together and send us the birds. Rumor has it, we’re only able to afford half of the ultimate total number of birds (so only 100, not 200… yet). Then we’ll be selling eggs like there’s no tomorrow… I’m especially excited for this part because I’m hoping to launch some type of breakfast program at my school. Too many students arrive in the morning after having been awake for several hours (4 or 5am), walking an hour or so, and by the time they have to start learning at 8am, their stomachs are growling so loud I can’t even hear myself think. The idea (thanks also to Joey) for the breakfast program is to buy some of the fresh eggs from the chickens, hard-boil them, and then sell them in the mornings or until they’re gone for just a small profit (enough to pay for the gas used to boil them, I guess?). This would give students a little bit of protein in their tummies so they wouldn’t be beyond ravenously hungry when lunch rolls around (at 1pm). I have no idea what kind of demand there is for these eggs in the school or village otherwise, but hopefully this is a viable plan of action. Ultimately, the chicken/egg program is a great thing anyway, because all profits from the eggs go towards keeping school fees low. I’m told that our school fees are relatively low when compared to other schools of our caliber. I’m proud of that fact, and will do everything I can to keep it that way.
The sports and entertainment committee has met and decided that there will be an inter-school competition. Students will form teams by class to compete in soccer (both guys and ladies), net ball (girls only I think) and volleyball (maybe both guys and ladies, but I’m not sure). How awesome is that! The only downside I can see is that I’ll be at Phase Three, learning about grant-writing while my students are playing games and having a great time. At this point, we’ve opted to alternate afternoon study with practice for these games. Two days a week, everyone is released onto the big field to choose teams and practice. It’s fun to see the other side of students… sometimes those who aren’t the most involved in class are amazing athletes and clear leaders on the field.
We’ve also had several meetings for the Science and Math Club. The district schedule has been set, and there are numerous (monthly-ish) competitions coming up. I’m still not exactly sure how it all works, but the club has a pretty good turn-out, and I guess last year they were invited to the National Competition. Thinking back to my high school days, Math Team was something I always looked forward to, especially the friendly competition with my friend (who I consistently beat, hehe). I had a great time working through those problems with those people, even if SuperMath did meet at 6:30am.
Well, I think it’s probably time to do something (productive) with my life. I’m still working on a way to photo-share with everyone… I pay for internet by the amount of data transferred, and pictures take a fair amount of data. Plus, I only have a so-so internet connection, which presents a problem. It’s in the process though, I hate that nobody can see this place like I see it everyday. I think I’m starting to take some of the country’s beauty for granted… I need to share pictures.
As always, know that I miss and love everyone back at home, and am truly realizing just how important you all are to me, especially now that I’m far far away. I’m lucky to have you in my life, and your support is the only reason I’m still going. Thanks!
All my love from Africa,
Katie
March 8, 2010
March 8, 2010
I swear to you, the internet in this country hates me. How the previous volunteer at this site got any sort of decent service is completely beyond me. Most of the time its not a problem, but what I would really love right now is to just waste a few hours of my life on facebook and checking email. Instead, I get to type this as a word document (knowing that by the time it gets to anyone back home, it’ll probably be a week late), and re-reading old emails. Let me tell you, it’s not quite the same.
My students today were a royal pain. Well, one class was.
I started the day with what I hoped would be a really simple experiment, exploring the relation between mass on a spring and how much that spring stretches (its extension). Actually, I was worried the experiment would be too basic and they would think me crazy for trying to make them carry it out. The reality was quite contrary. I gave them the setup and procedure, and even the table to put their data in once they’d finished the experiment, and most were still completely clueless. Several students even told me they didn’t know how to use a measuring stick. Excuse me, but WHAT?! These kids are the equivalent of 9th graders and they don’t know the finer points of measuring with a meter stick?! I finally conceded the lesson, promising them we will walk through it the next class period. So that was two of my six periods today (the first was me realizing I needed to give them a lot more detail and the second was me with the other class, giving that detail… at least I try to learn from my mistakes).
I had one great class today, my single hour of math with A2’s. They really are fantastic. They’re understanding fractions and even though we only briefly skimmed one of the topics today in class, their work showed they definitely understood it. I was so proud; they make me so happy, even the kids in back who pretend to sleep the whole time. The A1’s, on the other hand, are Trouble with a capital “T”. They don’t listen; they move around during class; they talk constantly; they harass each other; they ask to use the toilet; they scream at me whenever they know the answer to a question, and they really haven’t been performing all that well. I finally cracked down in the afternoon and told them that if things weren’t different tomorrow, I would not teach them. It sounds drastic, but I don’t know what else to do. If it were only two or three students, I could easily pinpoint them and ask them to move seats or carry out some other punishment, but it is (I’m not even exaggerating here) at least one third of the class who is consistently messing around and consequently messing up. I do feel bad for the students who sit in the class, pay attention and have to deal with my frustrations; some are really great. And I told them that too. I hope tomorrow will be better.
(On a special side note, I just killed a mosquito and smeared blood all over the floor. My elbow is now very itchy… I hate mosquitoes.)
The upside of today is that my hair has been completed. Yes, folks, it’s all in braids. It took a cumulative total of probably around 5 hours and it’s definitely something I’ll have to get used to, but for now I think I really like it. The only downside that I can foresee is that I can’t wash my hair and I’m a runner. Meaning: I sweat when I run (it’s still at least 80 degrees during the day); I run everyday, and I can’t scrub my head. I think it’ll be alright for a while, but I’ll definitely take it out later in March when I’m back at the training center for more training sessions and workshops. Most of the Basotho that have seen it absolutely love it, especially my students. Some even told me that the next time, I should have them do my hair because they too would like to play with my silky white person’s hair. We’ll see if there is a next time…
Probably the scariest thing that has happened since I’ve been here (with the exception of stepping outside a friend’s rondavel to use the bathroom and hearing dogs’ barking approaching…) was also today. After school, I went home to fill my water bottle before returning to the Staff Room turned Salon. As I was walking back, there was a girl moaning and crying, completely held up by some of her fellow students. The secretary was there, seeming unphased, but I was absolutely terrified. I have never seen anyone in that state before. She was unresponsive, writhing around like she was in intense pain. She would make eye contact with various people, but it was evident that nothing really registered with her. To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t a seizure and it didn’t seem like an allergic reaction either. Basically, I have no idea what happened to her.
When I asked what had happened (and I asked several people, students and teachers alike), the answers always involved something about witchcraft, or the student being possessed by some evil spirits. I also found out that this same thing had happened to the same girl on Ash Wednesday, but during the middle of the Church service. Thankfully, the principal was informed and able to drive the girl back to her home. I’ve not heard anything else, but I’m fairly certain most people here are convinced she was bewitched and possessed by some evil spirits. I’m really really curious about any other explanation anyone can offer; we’ll see what the week brings.
After school, I came home, cooked a nice dinner and flipped on the computer… I’m currently watching Episode 2 of The Office and wishing I had more regular access to electricity because it is pretty darn funny.
I miss you all terribly and wish I could have a whole day of free phone access to call all my family and friends back home… but that doesn’t seem likely. So, I’ll keep on keeping on, and hope to hear from you soon!
All my love from Africa,
Katie
I swear to you, the internet in this country hates me. How the previous volunteer at this site got any sort of decent service is completely beyond me. Most of the time its not a problem, but what I would really love right now is to just waste a few hours of my life on facebook and checking email. Instead, I get to type this as a word document (knowing that by the time it gets to anyone back home, it’ll probably be a week late), and re-reading old emails. Let me tell you, it’s not quite the same.
My students today were a royal pain. Well, one class was.
I started the day with what I hoped would be a really simple experiment, exploring the relation between mass on a spring and how much that spring stretches (its extension). Actually, I was worried the experiment would be too basic and they would think me crazy for trying to make them carry it out. The reality was quite contrary. I gave them the setup and procedure, and even the table to put their data in once they’d finished the experiment, and most were still completely clueless. Several students even told me they didn’t know how to use a measuring stick. Excuse me, but WHAT?! These kids are the equivalent of 9th graders and they don’t know the finer points of measuring with a meter stick?! I finally conceded the lesson, promising them we will walk through it the next class period. So that was two of my six periods today (the first was me realizing I needed to give them a lot more detail and the second was me with the other class, giving that detail… at least I try to learn from my mistakes).
I had one great class today, my single hour of math with A2’s. They really are fantastic. They’re understanding fractions and even though we only briefly skimmed one of the topics today in class, their work showed they definitely understood it. I was so proud; they make me so happy, even the kids in back who pretend to sleep the whole time. The A1’s, on the other hand, are Trouble with a capital “T”. They don’t listen; they move around during class; they talk constantly; they harass each other; they ask to use the toilet; they scream at me whenever they know the answer to a question, and they really haven’t been performing all that well. I finally cracked down in the afternoon and told them that if things weren’t different tomorrow, I would not teach them. It sounds drastic, but I don’t know what else to do. If it were only two or three students, I could easily pinpoint them and ask them to move seats or carry out some other punishment, but it is (I’m not even exaggerating here) at least one third of the class who is consistently messing around and consequently messing up. I do feel bad for the students who sit in the class, pay attention and have to deal with my frustrations; some are really great. And I told them that too. I hope tomorrow will be better.
(On a special side note, I just killed a mosquito and smeared blood all over the floor. My elbow is now very itchy… I hate mosquitoes.)
The upside of today is that my hair has been completed. Yes, folks, it’s all in braids. It took a cumulative total of probably around 5 hours and it’s definitely something I’ll have to get used to, but for now I think I really like it. The only downside that I can foresee is that I can’t wash my hair and I’m a runner. Meaning: I sweat when I run (it’s still at least 80 degrees during the day); I run everyday, and I can’t scrub my head. I think it’ll be alright for a while, but I’ll definitely take it out later in March when I’m back at the training center for more training sessions and workshops. Most of the Basotho that have seen it absolutely love it, especially my students. Some even told me that the next time, I should have them do my hair because they too would like to play with my silky white person’s hair. We’ll see if there is a next time…
Probably the scariest thing that has happened since I’ve been here (with the exception of stepping outside a friend’s rondavel to use the bathroom and hearing dogs’ barking approaching…) was also today. After school, I went home to fill my water bottle before returning to the Staff Room turned Salon. As I was walking back, there was a girl moaning and crying, completely held up by some of her fellow students. The secretary was there, seeming unphased, but I was absolutely terrified. I have never seen anyone in that state before. She was unresponsive, writhing around like she was in intense pain. She would make eye contact with various people, but it was evident that nothing really registered with her. To the best of my knowledge, it wasn’t a seizure and it didn’t seem like an allergic reaction either. Basically, I have no idea what happened to her.
When I asked what had happened (and I asked several people, students and teachers alike), the answers always involved something about witchcraft, or the student being possessed by some evil spirits. I also found out that this same thing had happened to the same girl on Ash Wednesday, but during the middle of the Church service. Thankfully, the principal was informed and able to drive the girl back to her home. I’ve not heard anything else, but I’m fairly certain most people here are convinced she was bewitched and possessed by some evil spirits. I’m really really curious about any other explanation anyone can offer; we’ll see what the week brings.
After school, I came home, cooked a nice dinner and flipped on the computer… I’m currently watching Episode 2 of The Office and wishing I had more regular access to electricity because it is pretty darn funny.
I miss you all terribly and wish I could have a whole day of free phone access to call all my family and friends back home… but that doesn’t seem likely. So, I’ll keep on keeping on, and hope to hear from you soon!
All my love from Africa,
Katie
March 4, 2010
4 March
Wow, it’s March already!
Last weekend was the first since I’ve been at site that I just stayed home. No overnights with friends, just a quick shopping trip to Mafeteng to load up. And boy did I load up… to make up for last weeks popcorn-less meals, I bought 2kg of kernels. I needed Weetbix (not heavy but they take space), cake flour, cocoa and butter for the cakes I was going to bake, a fresh 1.5kg of apples (Gala again! Even though they were a little soft!), and several other items. I’m pretty sure the 45-min hike could have killed me, or at least seriously done damage to my left shoulder (I have some crazy bruises from carrying the bag on my shoulder), but thankfully my principal was coming back to school around the same time, so I was able to hop in the truck.
Saturday morning here was unbelievably peaceful (and by morning, I mean after I woke up at 9:30). Some students were around, studying, watering their crops for agriculture class or picking up books to take home. Several stopped by to ask math questions, but mostly I had the house (and schoolyard) to myself. After my bowl of oatmeal and cup of coffee, I attacked the huge pile of pictures, cards and notes from home and went to work with my ticky-tac (they call it bostick, pronounced bah-stick, here). With the radio cranked to my iPod’s music, I decorated my house while generally rocking out. It was pretty great, singing and dancing around, surrounded by photos of my favorite people. Needless to say, my house is now beautifully decorated, and there are considerably fewer piles of things to hang up.
Saturday after lunch, I ventured down to the next village (about an hour away), where another volunteer stays. Emily had come to my home several weeks before, so it was my turn to visit her. She met me halfway and showed me around the village, introducing me to some of her host mother’s friends (who wouldn’t let us leave without a very generous bag of delicious peaches). Emily has one of the most beautiful gardens and was gracious enough to give me a huge, fresh cucumber.
One of the best parts of meeting up with other volunteers is the inevitable exchange of goods. Maybe my house has fresh peaches, and your garden has a huge tomato crop. Naturally, we’ll exchange some; it just seems to go without saying. Books are also frequently exchanged, thanks to the Peace Corps Training Center’s nice library of donated books from past volunteers. You never have to worry about getting the book back to Maseru, just to another home where it will also be loved. Currently, I’m working on Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Only after I returned home later Saturday did I realize how appropriate this book was for me. Al Franken is, after all, my senator. The book is quite a hoot. Maybe its just how long I’ve been removed from the crazy American political stuff, but some of the statements he makes are pretty bold (even if there is truth in them)… In any case, its an enjoyable read, and has definitely added variety to my life as of late.
I arrived home after hanging out in Ha Thoahlane to find the cat sitting on my stoop, waiting for me to unlock my door. At this point, I suppose I should mention that on Thursday of last week (February the 25th), one of the teachers from school took the cat, in a big flour sack, to her village, about a 50 minute walk from school… how the cat made its way back to school is beyond me, but the song “The Cat Came Back” has been in my head ever since. Who knows if/when she’ll take him away again, but I want to believe he’s learning that I don’t want him in my house.
Sunday was also pretty relaxed. Try as I might, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed until 9:30 again. Oh well. Sunday was spent marking all the exams from the previous week, and there were a lot. It seems the physics exam I wrote for my Form A students was much too difficult and the math exam was too long, but I think the physics for Form B’s was actually pretty reasonable. This doesn’t mean they did well by any stretch of the imagination (I’m pretty sure the majority still failed with flying colors), but at least I got one about right. The tricky part was making sure my questions are at about the same level as their English reading comprehension.
After marking though, I felt like I could have hosted an episode of “Kids Write the Darnedest Things” … On my Form A physics exam, I asked questions pertaining to energy: different sources, renewable and non-renewable, etc. I asked them to explain the difference between renewable and non-renewable, and the best answer was “Renewable are made by God.” I guess this sort of makes sense? Wind, water, solar, geothermal… they’re all very elemental. But if they want to think about it that way, technically, shouldn’t they believe that everything is made by God? (I won’t get into a religious discussion now…) I also asked them to identify certain kinds of energy. Energy of motion? Rather than calling it kinetic, the student wrote, “is important.” How could I fault him when he’s absolutely correct, it is important! My favorite though, had to be the question “What kind of energy is it when: a woman collects wood and cow dung to burn, in order to cook her papa” The next two words were “and cabbage.” Man, that student knows how things work in this country! If a woman is going to collect wood to burn to cook papa, she might as well be cooking cabbage too!
Some students also wrote very nice notes, thanking me for teaching them, or saying how much better they understand when I teach them. I’m really not sure how much of it is true, but it’s all very flattering, and I hope I am indeed explaining things clearly.
This school week has been a bit of a struggle. First of all, I’m “on duty” this week, which means I have to be up (and outside) by 7am in order to close the gate. This distinguishes the students who were on time from those who were late. Any student who arrives after the gate has been closed is punished. I’m “on duty” with another teacher, a younger woman who lives in the village, not too far from school. ‘M’e Puleng is kind of like a cross between a crazy aunt and a best friend who can’t keep quiet because she always has something witty to say. I wasn’t dreading being “on duty” too much since she had expressed to me earlier last week that she also didn’t like beating students.
Well, on Monday, there were so many students who were late that she couldn’t think of any alternative punishment, so she hit them all. Needless to say, it was a really tough way to start out my week, especially knowing that there were four more days of this. All I could do was make my breakfast and try to convince myself that the next day there would not be as many latecomers. Thankfully, there were not as many on Tuesday. In fact, ‘M’e Puleng was also late. As students came running in before the gate closed, I saw her coming too, jogging in her skirt and heels (passed by quite a few students on the way). Tuesday’s punishment was to clean up the school grounds, picking up trash the students have scattered throughout the day. I was much happier with this punishment. Wednesday, there were even fewer latecomers, and this time, they got to run laps around the soccer field. There were some boys who pretended to limp so they wouldn’t have to… only their “limps” were so comically fake that I couldn’t even look at them with a straight face. I told them that if I ran a lap faster than they did, they would get to run five more. That shut them up, and they took off. It’s now Thursday. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any more beating. In fact, in one of my classes, the students were joking around with one of the sticks used by a teacher. I asked what it was, what they were doing with it, and if I could see it. They quieted down and handed it over. I took it and snapped it into two pieces over my knee. Believe me, it was the most satisfying part of my day, seeing the looks on their faces as I hurled the pieces out the window and over the fence.
Most of my lesson planning early in the week was pretty easy; I was just handing back exams and either assigning corrections or explaining the questions and what I had wanted for responses. Most of my students have not been very quiet during class. As much as I hate to threaten or punish, I did threaten to make one student run laps around the soccer field if he kept talking. That shut him up for a while, but ultimately I had to pull out the big guns. “Do you all know that the single subject that your fellow students fail the most on their J.C. and C.O.S.C. exams is mathematics? Why do you think that is? I bet it’s because they didn’t listen in class when they should have been paying attention! Do you want to fail like them? Or do you want to pass and succeed?” (Insert dramatic pauses wherever necessary, I assure you, the room was silent) The next lesson went much better with that class, but again today, they were frustrating.
In other news, I changed my hairstyle: I shaved my head! It’s pretty great, though it took a lot of convincing. It’s unbelievably cool, and when I go running, I just use a bandana or hat so my head doesn’t burn to a crisp, and washing it has never been so easy. No, I’m totally kidding, there’s no way I could shave my head… I did get braids put in though, and I think they look pretty sweet (I promise I’ll put pictures up sometime, I’m just not sure when!). I bought one package of fake hair (because I guess otherwise it doesn’t look like you have any hair?) and the Woodworking teacher (of all people!) happily agreed to give it a try (even though white people hair is so “silky” or “slippery”), saying she braids her daughter’s hair all the time. I guess one package of fake hair wasn’t enough though, so I have a solid two braids going around my head, with sort of a patch in the middle of the back that is still unbraided. When the principal went to town yesterday (Wednesday), he agreed to buy another package of hair so she could finish up the braids, but picked up the wrong kind (surprisingly enough, there are quite a few types of fake hair to braid in), so we’ll continue next week. I think the time total so far is around 3 hours, and I expect it will take at least 2 more to finish up… the color is not my natural color, it’s reddish-brown, but the “brown,” as the package called it, was basically dull black, and I figured I’d look sort of funny with black hair. I opted red-brown.
Last night (Wednesday) was my official welcoming party. Technically, it was also for another teacher who moved to campus and is now staying in one of the teachers’ houses here, but I’ll take credit too. Ever since I baked a pan of brownies, all the teachers had been pestering me to make another cake, so I pulled out the recipe book and found the easiest looking chocolate cake recipe, knowing that ingredients can be hard to find (and carry back from Mafeteng, see earlier in this post for details!). Well, I got plenty of ingredients and decided to double the recipe. One of the other teachers had begged me earlier to let her help me with the cake so she could then make one for her family whenever she goes home next. I was happy to have help, and before long we had all the delicious chocolate batter ready for baking. I am proud to say that the bigger of the two cakes we made in my Dutch oven (look Ma, no oven!), and it turned out amazing. The smaller one went into a real gas oven (luxury item!) that one of the other teachers has (but doesn’t use, I assure you), and turned out just as well. The cake was a hit.
The main draw to this party though, was the cow that was slaughtered. No, I’m joking again, but there was so much meat. And yes, I am still a vegetarian. There were nine of us total: (including myself) eight teachers, plus Emily (my next closest volunteer, and a fellow health-nut vegetarian… we get along well). I kid you not, for seven people, there were eight (8, yes 8!) kilograms of meat. Let me say that again, so you can think about the quarter-pounder burger that probably fills you up. There was more than a kilogram of meat for every meat-eating person. Wow. I mean, I’m sure the whole novelty thing factors in, but good gracious, a kilo of meat?!
The women worked on the chakalaka, a delicious blend of shredded and cooked (with lots of oil!) onion, carrot, cabbage, mixed with some other veggies and almost a mango chutney type thing, plus some beans, plus lots of spices and chili sauce. Really greasy, really good. Even better the next morning with scrambled eggs and toast. My mouth is watering even now, and I just ate some.
The men worked on the meat. It took a long time. The fire-pit was probably about 3 feet by 3 feet, and even if we built up a good fire to actually cook the meat, the meat-master would dump water on the fire so the chicken and sausages wouldn’t burn. I can understand not wanting them to burn, but the smoke was pretty terrible, and it took forever to cook 4kg chicken and 4kg sausages on nothing but smoldering ash. It didn’t matter though, we were all pretty content just hanging out around the fire. I bopped back and forth between the women inside and the men outside; I guess I just break the social norms like that.
The whole party was pretty great. We didn’t eat until almost 9pm and stayed up until midnight (you need to understand that this is really late here, especially for me), just chatting about anything: politics in South Africa, Peace Corps, teaching, dancing, food…all sorts of things. It really made me realize how lucky I am to be at this school. Some of my friends are at schools where they’re a little less than comfortable hanging out with the other teachers, but I wouldn’t trade mine for the world. Sure there are one or two who I’m less comfortable around, or who I don’t know as well, but in general, they’re pretty great.
One of the great discoveries this week (on the part of my colleagues) was my ability to type copious amounts of words in ridiculously little time. This meant that anytime there was anything to be typed, guess who got the call. I typed assignments for some workshops they’re attending, several application letters to various employers, as well as parts of a Sesotho exam. They were astonished that I could even type a foreign language quickly. Naturally, I’m happy to help out, and truly, I like typing, but today it started getting a little old. “’M’e Katie, couldn’t you help me type this? I just want to give Ntate Kolobe the schedule for my workshops…” “’M’e Katie, I just realized there are some few mistakes in this paper, can we fix them?” Now, fixing mistakes in a paper is something I completely support, but I don’t have any sort of control over the generator or when it is used. This means I either have to use my precious laptop battery, or tell them that I’ll help when the generator is on. This presents a problem. For example, several times this week, they’ve turned the generator on when I’ve been away on a run. Naturally, I can’t type if I’m running in the next village, and chances are good I won’t want to rush into that warm, crowded, noisy room and type immediately after I get back from a run. I probably should learn to say no, but it’s so much fun impressing them with my typing skills! It’s been draining though, trying to balance being “on duty” with regular teaching, and on top of that all this typing business. I wonder what would happen if I started charging them a per page fee…
This weekend is the “Newbie Party” in Mafeteng, which means all the volunteers who serve in the Mafeteng district will head into town to cook and hang out together. I think Italian food is on the menu, which means a big pasta dish, fresh garden salad, sangria (which is technically Spanish, I think, isn’t it?) and gelato. Ha! Gelato, yeah right. The ice cream here is a pretty sorry excuse for ice cream; gelato would likely be a huge letdown. Dessert is TBA, though the remaining chocolate cake (of the two I made yesterday) is definitely one part. In any case, it’ll be fun. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing everyone and having an excuse to cook an elaborate dinner. It’s also a really nice way to decompress and share experiences. Somehow things don’t seem so crazy if I know someone else is going through the same thing.
Well, my battery is at 25% which means I should probably shut ‘er down till the next time the generator is run…
All my love from Africa,
-Katie
Wow, it’s March already!
Last weekend was the first since I’ve been at site that I just stayed home. No overnights with friends, just a quick shopping trip to Mafeteng to load up. And boy did I load up… to make up for last weeks popcorn-less meals, I bought 2kg of kernels. I needed Weetbix (not heavy but they take space), cake flour, cocoa and butter for the cakes I was going to bake, a fresh 1.5kg of apples (Gala again! Even though they were a little soft!), and several other items. I’m pretty sure the 45-min hike could have killed me, or at least seriously done damage to my left shoulder (I have some crazy bruises from carrying the bag on my shoulder), but thankfully my principal was coming back to school around the same time, so I was able to hop in the truck.
Saturday morning here was unbelievably peaceful (and by morning, I mean after I woke up at 9:30). Some students were around, studying, watering their crops for agriculture class or picking up books to take home. Several stopped by to ask math questions, but mostly I had the house (and schoolyard) to myself. After my bowl of oatmeal and cup of coffee, I attacked the huge pile of pictures, cards and notes from home and went to work with my ticky-tac (they call it bostick, pronounced bah-stick, here). With the radio cranked to my iPod’s music, I decorated my house while generally rocking out. It was pretty great, singing and dancing around, surrounded by photos of my favorite people. Needless to say, my house is now beautifully decorated, and there are considerably fewer piles of things to hang up.
Saturday after lunch, I ventured down to the next village (about an hour away), where another volunteer stays. Emily had come to my home several weeks before, so it was my turn to visit her. She met me halfway and showed me around the village, introducing me to some of her host mother’s friends (who wouldn’t let us leave without a very generous bag of delicious peaches). Emily has one of the most beautiful gardens and was gracious enough to give me a huge, fresh cucumber.
One of the best parts of meeting up with other volunteers is the inevitable exchange of goods. Maybe my house has fresh peaches, and your garden has a huge tomato crop. Naturally, we’ll exchange some; it just seems to go without saying. Books are also frequently exchanged, thanks to the Peace Corps Training Center’s nice library of donated books from past volunteers. You never have to worry about getting the book back to Maseru, just to another home where it will also be loved. Currently, I’m working on Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Only after I returned home later Saturday did I realize how appropriate this book was for me. Al Franken is, after all, my senator. The book is quite a hoot. Maybe its just how long I’ve been removed from the crazy American political stuff, but some of the statements he makes are pretty bold (even if there is truth in them)… In any case, its an enjoyable read, and has definitely added variety to my life as of late.
I arrived home after hanging out in Ha Thoahlane to find the cat sitting on my stoop, waiting for me to unlock my door. At this point, I suppose I should mention that on Thursday of last week (February the 25th), one of the teachers from school took the cat, in a big flour sack, to her village, about a 50 minute walk from school… how the cat made its way back to school is beyond me, but the song “The Cat Came Back” has been in my head ever since. Who knows if/when she’ll take him away again, but I want to believe he’s learning that I don’t want him in my house.
Sunday was also pretty relaxed. Try as I might, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed until 9:30 again. Oh well. Sunday was spent marking all the exams from the previous week, and there were a lot. It seems the physics exam I wrote for my Form A students was much too difficult and the math exam was too long, but I think the physics for Form B’s was actually pretty reasonable. This doesn’t mean they did well by any stretch of the imagination (I’m pretty sure the majority still failed with flying colors), but at least I got one about right. The tricky part was making sure my questions are at about the same level as their English reading comprehension.
After marking though, I felt like I could have hosted an episode of “Kids Write the Darnedest Things” … On my Form A physics exam, I asked questions pertaining to energy: different sources, renewable and non-renewable, etc. I asked them to explain the difference between renewable and non-renewable, and the best answer was “Renewable are made by God.” I guess this sort of makes sense? Wind, water, solar, geothermal… they’re all very elemental. But if they want to think about it that way, technically, shouldn’t they believe that everything is made by God? (I won’t get into a religious discussion now…) I also asked them to identify certain kinds of energy. Energy of motion? Rather than calling it kinetic, the student wrote, “is important.” How could I fault him when he’s absolutely correct, it is important! My favorite though, had to be the question “What kind of energy is it when: a woman collects wood and cow dung to burn, in order to cook her papa” The next two words were “and cabbage.” Man, that student knows how things work in this country! If a woman is going to collect wood to burn to cook papa, she might as well be cooking cabbage too!
Some students also wrote very nice notes, thanking me for teaching them, or saying how much better they understand when I teach them. I’m really not sure how much of it is true, but it’s all very flattering, and I hope I am indeed explaining things clearly.
This school week has been a bit of a struggle. First of all, I’m “on duty” this week, which means I have to be up (and outside) by 7am in order to close the gate. This distinguishes the students who were on time from those who were late. Any student who arrives after the gate has been closed is punished. I’m “on duty” with another teacher, a younger woman who lives in the village, not too far from school. ‘M’e Puleng is kind of like a cross between a crazy aunt and a best friend who can’t keep quiet because she always has something witty to say. I wasn’t dreading being “on duty” too much since she had expressed to me earlier last week that she also didn’t like beating students.
Well, on Monday, there were so many students who were late that she couldn’t think of any alternative punishment, so she hit them all. Needless to say, it was a really tough way to start out my week, especially knowing that there were four more days of this. All I could do was make my breakfast and try to convince myself that the next day there would not be as many latecomers. Thankfully, there were not as many on Tuesday. In fact, ‘M’e Puleng was also late. As students came running in before the gate closed, I saw her coming too, jogging in her skirt and heels (passed by quite a few students on the way). Tuesday’s punishment was to clean up the school grounds, picking up trash the students have scattered throughout the day. I was much happier with this punishment. Wednesday, there were even fewer latecomers, and this time, they got to run laps around the soccer field. There were some boys who pretended to limp so they wouldn’t have to… only their “limps” were so comically fake that I couldn’t even look at them with a straight face. I told them that if I ran a lap faster than they did, they would get to run five more. That shut them up, and they took off. It’s now Thursday. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any more beating. In fact, in one of my classes, the students were joking around with one of the sticks used by a teacher. I asked what it was, what they were doing with it, and if I could see it. They quieted down and handed it over. I took it and snapped it into two pieces over my knee. Believe me, it was the most satisfying part of my day, seeing the looks on their faces as I hurled the pieces out the window and over the fence.
Most of my lesson planning early in the week was pretty easy; I was just handing back exams and either assigning corrections or explaining the questions and what I had wanted for responses. Most of my students have not been very quiet during class. As much as I hate to threaten or punish, I did threaten to make one student run laps around the soccer field if he kept talking. That shut him up for a while, but ultimately I had to pull out the big guns. “Do you all know that the single subject that your fellow students fail the most on their J.C. and C.O.S.C. exams is mathematics? Why do you think that is? I bet it’s because they didn’t listen in class when they should have been paying attention! Do you want to fail like them? Or do you want to pass and succeed?” (Insert dramatic pauses wherever necessary, I assure you, the room was silent) The next lesson went much better with that class, but again today, they were frustrating.
In other news, I changed my hairstyle: I shaved my head! It’s pretty great, though it took a lot of convincing. It’s unbelievably cool, and when I go running, I just use a bandana or hat so my head doesn’t burn to a crisp, and washing it has never been so easy. No, I’m totally kidding, there’s no way I could shave my head… I did get braids put in though, and I think they look pretty sweet (I promise I’ll put pictures up sometime, I’m just not sure when!). I bought one package of fake hair (because I guess otherwise it doesn’t look like you have any hair?) and the Woodworking teacher (of all people!) happily agreed to give it a try (even though white people hair is so “silky” or “slippery”), saying she braids her daughter’s hair all the time. I guess one package of fake hair wasn’t enough though, so I have a solid two braids going around my head, with sort of a patch in the middle of the back that is still unbraided. When the principal went to town yesterday (Wednesday), he agreed to buy another package of hair so she could finish up the braids, but picked up the wrong kind (surprisingly enough, there are quite a few types of fake hair to braid in), so we’ll continue next week. I think the time total so far is around 3 hours, and I expect it will take at least 2 more to finish up… the color is not my natural color, it’s reddish-brown, but the “brown,” as the package called it, was basically dull black, and I figured I’d look sort of funny with black hair. I opted red-brown.
Last night (Wednesday) was my official welcoming party. Technically, it was also for another teacher who moved to campus and is now staying in one of the teachers’ houses here, but I’ll take credit too. Ever since I baked a pan of brownies, all the teachers had been pestering me to make another cake, so I pulled out the recipe book and found the easiest looking chocolate cake recipe, knowing that ingredients can be hard to find (and carry back from Mafeteng, see earlier in this post for details!). Well, I got plenty of ingredients and decided to double the recipe. One of the other teachers had begged me earlier to let her help me with the cake so she could then make one for her family whenever she goes home next. I was happy to have help, and before long we had all the delicious chocolate batter ready for baking. I am proud to say that the bigger of the two cakes we made in my Dutch oven (look Ma, no oven!), and it turned out amazing. The smaller one went into a real gas oven (luxury item!) that one of the other teachers has (but doesn’t use, I assure you), and turned out just as well. The cake was a hit.
The main draw to this party though, was the cow that was slaughtered. No, I’m joking again, but there was so much meat. And yes, I am still a vegetarian. There were nine of us total: (including myself) eight teachers, plus Emily (my next closest volunteer, and a fellow health-nut vegetarian… we get along well). I kid you not, for seven people, there were eight (8, yes 8!) kilograms of meat. Let me say that again, so you can think about the quarter-pounder burger that probably fills you up. There was more than a kilogram of meat for every meat-eating person. Wow. I mean, I’m sure the whole novelty thing factors in, but good gracious, a kilo of meat?!
The women worked on the chakalaka, a delicious blend of shredded and cooked (with lots of oil!) onion, carrot, cabbage, mixed with some other veggies and almost a mango chutney type thing, plus some beans, plus lots of spices and chili sauce. Really greasy, really good. Even better the next morning with scrambled eggs and toast. My mouth is watering even now, and I just ate some.
The men worked on the meat. It took a long time. The fire-pit was probably about 3 feet by 3 feet, and even if we built up a good fire to actually cook the meat, the meat-master would dump water on the fire so the chicken and sausages wouldn’t burn. I can understand not wanting them to burn, but the smoke was pretty terrible, and it took forever to cook 4kg chicken and 4kg sausages on nothing but smoldering ash. It didn’t matter though, we were all pretty content just hanging out around the fire. I bopped back and forth between the women inside and the men outside; I guess I just break the social norms like that.
The whole party was pretty great. We didn’t eat until almost 9pm and stayed up until midnight (you need to understand that this is really late here, especially for me), just chatting about anything: politics in South Africa, Peace Corps, teaching, dancing, food…all sorts of things. It really made me realize how lucky I am to be at this school. Some of my friends are at schools where they’re a little less than comfortable hanging out with the other teachers, but I wouldn’t trade mine for the world. Sure there are one or two who I’m less comfortable around, or who I don’t know as well, but in general, they’re pretty great.
One of the great discoveries this week (on the part of my colleagues) was my ability to type copious amounts of words in ridiculously little time. This meant that anytime there was anything to be typed, guess who got the call. I typed assignments for some workshops they’re attending, several application letters to various employers, as well as parts of a Sesotho exam. They were astonished that I could even type a foreign language quickly. Naturally, I’m happy to help out, and truly, I like typing, but today it started getting a little old. “’M’e Katie, couldn’t you help me type this? I just want to give Ntate Kolobe the schedule for my workshops…” “’M’e Katie, I just realized there are some few mistakes in this paper, can we fix them?” Now, fixing mistakes in a paper is something I completely support, but I don’t have any sort of control over the generator or when it is used. This means I either have to use my precious laptop battery, or tell them that I’ll help when the generator is on. This presents a problem. For example, several times this week, they’ve turned the generator on when I’ve been away on a run. Naturally, I can’t type if I’m running in the next village, and chances are good I won’t want to rush into that warm, crowded, noisy room and type immediately after I get back from a run. I probably should learn to say no, but it’s so much fun impressing them with my typing skills! It’s been draining though, trying to balance being “on duty” with regular teaching, and on top of that all this typing business. I wonder what would happen if I started charging them a per page fee…
This weekend is the “Newbie Party” in Mafeteng, which means all the volunteers who serve in the Mafeteng district will head into town to cook and hang out together. I think Italian food is on the menu, which means a big pasta dish, fresh garden salad, sangria (which is technically Spanish, I think, isn’t it?) and gelato. Ha! Gelato, yeah right. The ice cream here is a pretty sorry excuse for ice cream; gelato would likely be a huge letdown. Dessert is TBA, though the remaining chocolate cake (of the two I made yesterday) is definitely one part. In any case, it’ll be fun. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing everyone and having an excuse to cook an elaborate dinner. It’s also a really nice way to decompress and share experiences. Somehow things don’t seem so crazy if I know someone else is going through the same thing.
Well, my battery is at 25% which means I should probably shut ‘er down till the next time the generator is run…
All my love from Africa,
-Katie
March 4, 2010
4 March
Wow, it’s March already!
Last weekend was the first since I’ve been at site that I just stayed home. No overnights with friends, just a quick shopping trip to Mafeteng to load up. And boy did I load up… to make up for last weeks popcorn-less meals, I bought 2kg of kernels. I needed Weetbix (not heavy but they take space), cake flour, cocoa and butter for the cakes I was going to bake, a fresh 1.5kg of apples (Gala again! Even though they were a little soft!), and several other items. I’m pretty sure the 45-min hike could have killed me, or at least seriously done damage to my left shoulder (I have some crazy bruises from carrying the bag on my shoulder), but thankfully my principal was coming back to school around the same time, so I was able to hop in the truck.
Saturday morning here was unbelievably peaceful (and by morning, I mean after I woke up at 9:30). Some students were around, studying, watering their crops for agriculture class or picking up books to take home. Several stopped by to ask math questions, but mostly I had the house (and schoolyard) to myself. After my bowl of oatmeal and cup of coffee, I attacked the huge pile of pictures, cards and notes from home and went to work with my ticky-tac (they call it bostick, pronounced bah-stick, here). With the radio cranked to my iPod’s music, I decorated my house while generally rocking out. It was pretty great, singing and dancing around, surrounded by photos of my favorite people. Needless to say, my house is now beautifully decorated, and there are considerably fewer piles of things to hang up.
Saturday after lunch, I ventured down to the next village (about an hour away), where another volunteer stays. Emily had come to my home several weeks before, so it was my turn to visit her. She met me halfway and showed me around the village, introducing me to some of her host mother’s friends (who wouldn’t let us leave without a very generous bag of delicious peaches). Emily has one of the most beautiful gardens and was gracious enough to give me a huge, fresh cucumber.
One of the best parts of meeting up with other volunteers is the inevitable exchange of goods. Maybe my house has fresh peaches, and your garden has a huge tomato crop. Naturally, we’ll exchange some; it just seems to go without saying. Books are also frequently exchanged, thanks to the Peace Corps Training Center’s nice library of donated books from past volunteers. You never have to worry about getting the book back to Maseru, just to another home where it will also be loved. Currently, I’m working on Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Only after I returned home later Saturday did I realize how appropriate this book was for me. Al Franken is, after all, my senator. The book is quite a hoot. Maybe its just how long I’ve been removed from the crazy American political stuff, but some of the statements he makes are pretty bold (even if there is truth in them)… In any case, its an enjoyable read, and has definitely added variety to my life as of late.
I arrived home after hanging out in Ha Thoahlane to find the cat sitting on my stoop, waiting for me to unlock my door. At this point, I suppose I should mention that on Thursday of last week (February the 25th), one of the teachers from school took the cat, in a big flour sack, to her village, about a 50 minute walk from school… how the cat made its way back to school is beyond me, but the song “The Cat Came Back” has been in my head ever since. Who knows if/when she’ll take him away again, but I want to believe he’s learning that I don’t want him in my house.
Sunday was also pretty relaxed. Try as I might, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed until 9:30 again. Oh well. Sunday was spent marking all the exams from the previous week, and there were a lot. It seems the physics exam I wrote for my Form A students was much too difficult and the math exam was too long, but I think the physics for Form B’s was actually pretty reasonable. This doesn’t mean they did well by any stretch of the imagination (I’m pretty sure the majority still failed with flying colors), but at least I got one about right. The tricky part was making sure my questions are at about the same level as their English reading comprehension.
After marking though, I felt like I could have hosted an episode of “Kids Write the Darnedest Things” … On my Form A physics exam, I asked questions pertaining to energy: different sources, renewable and non-renewable, etc. I asked them to explain the difference between renewable and non-renewable, and the best answer was “Renewable are made by God.” I guess this sort of makes sense? Wind, water, solar, geothermal… they’re all very elemental. But if they want to think about it that way, technically, shouldn’t they believe that everything is made by God? (I won’t get into a religious discussion now…) I also asked them to identify certain kinds of energy. Energy of motion? Rather than calling it kinetic, the student wrote, “is important.” How could I fault him when he’s absolutely correct, it is important! My favorite though, had to be the question “What kind of energy is it when: a woman collects wood and cow dung to burn, in order to cook her papa” The next two words were “and cabbage.” Man, that student knows how things work in this country! If a woman is going to collect wood to burn to cook papa, she might as well be cooking cabbage too!
Some students also wrote very nice notes, thanking me for teaching them, or saying how much better they understand when I teach them. I’m really not sure how much of it is true, but it’s all very flattering, and I hope I am indeed explaining things clearly.
This school week has been a bit of a struggle. First of all, I’m “on duty” this week, which means I have to be up (and outside) by 7am in order to close the gate. This distinguishes the students who were on time from those who were late. Any student who arrives after the gate has been closed is punished. I’m “on duty” with another teacher, a younger woman who lives in the village, not too far from school. ‘M’e Puleng is kind of like a cross between a crazy aunt and a best friend who can’t keep quiet because she always has something witty to say. I wasn’t dreading being “on duty” too much since she had expressed to me earlier last week that she also didn’t like beating students.
Well, on Monday, there were so many students who were late that she couldn’t think of any alternative punishment, so she hit them all. Needless to say, it was a really tough way to start out my week, especially knowing that there were four more days of this. All I could do was make my breakfast and try to convince myself that the next day there would not be as many latecomers. Thankfully, there were not as many on Tuesday. In fact, ‘M’e Puleng was also late. As students came running in before the gate closed, I saw her coming too, jogging in her skirt and heels (passed by quite a few students on the way). Tuesday’s punishment was to clean up the school grounds, picking up trash the students have scattered throughout the day. I was much happier with this punishment. Wednesday, there were even fewer latecomers, and this time, they got to run laps around the soccer field. There were some boys who pretended to limp so they wouldn’t have to… only their “limps” were so comically fake that I couldn’t even look at them with a straight face. I told them that if I ran a lap faster than they did, they would get to run five more. That shut them up, and they took off. It’s now Thursday. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any more beating. In fact, in one of my classes, the students were joking around with one of the sticks used by a teacher. I asked what it was, what they were doing with it, and if I could see it. They quieted down and handed it over. I took it and snapped it into two pieces over my knee. Believe me, it was the most satisfying part of my day, seeing the looks on their faces as I hurled the pieces out the window and over the fence.
Most of my lesson planning early in the week was pretty easy; I was just handing back exams and either assigning corrections or explaining the questions and what I had wanted for responses. Most of my students have not been very quiet during class. As much as I hate to threaten or punish, I did threaten to make one student run laps around the soccer field if he kept talking. That shut him up for a while, but ultimately I had to pull out the big guns. “Do you all know that the single subject that your fellow students fail the most on their J.C. and C.O.S.C. exams is mathematics? Why do you think that is? I bet it’s because they didn’t listen in class when they should have been paying attention! Do you want to fail like them? Or do you want to pass and succeed?” (Insert dramatic pauses wherever necessary, I assure you, the room was silent) The next lesson went much better with that class, but again today, they were frustrating.
In other news, I changed my hairstyle: I shaved my head! It’s pretty great, though it took a lot of convincing. It’s unbelievably cool, and when I go running, I just use a bandana or hat so my head doesn’t burn to a crisp, and washing it has never been so easy. No, I’m totally kidding, there’s no way I could shave my head… I did get braids put in though, and I think they look pretty sweet (I promise I’ll put pictures up sometime, I’m just not sure when!). I bought one package of fake hair (because I guess otherwise it doesn’t look like you have any hair?) and the Woodworking teacher (of all people!) happily agreed to give it a try (even though white people hair is so “silky” or “slippery”), saying she braids her daughter’s hair all the time. I guess one package of fake hair wasn’t enough though, so I have a solid two braids going around my head, with sort of a patch in the middle of the back that is still unbraided. When the principal went to town yesterday (Wednesday), he agreed to buy another package of hair so she could finish up the braids, but picked up the wrong kind (surprisingly enough, there are quite a few types of fake hair to braid in), so we’ll continue next week. I think the time total so far is around 3 hours, and I expect it will take at least 2 more to finish up… the color is not my natural color, it’s reddish-brown, but the “brown,” as the package called it, was basically dull black, and I figured I’d look sort of funny with black hair. I opted red-brown.
Last night (Wednesday) was my official welcoming party. Technically, it was also for another teacher who moved to campus and is now staying in one of the teachers’ houses here, but I’ll take credit too. Ever since I baked a pan of brownies, all the teachers had been pestering me to make another cake, so I pulled out the recipe book and found the easiest looking chocolate cake recipe, knowing that ingredients can be hard to find (and carry back from Mafeteng, see earlier in this post for details!). Well, I got plenty of ingredients and decided to double the recipe. One of the other teachers had begged me earlier to let her help me with the cake so she could then make one for her family whenever she goes home next. I was happy to have help, and before long we had all the delicious chocolate batter ready for baking. I am proud to say that the bigger of the two cakes we made in my Dutch oven (look Ma, no oven!), and it turned out amazing. The smaller one went into a real gas oven (luxury item!) that one of the other teachers has (but doesn’t use, I assure you), and turned out just as well. The cake was a hit.
The main draw to this party though, was the cow that was slaughtered. No, I’m joking again, but there was so much meat. And yes, I am still a vegetarian. There were nine of us total: (including myself) eight teachers, plus Emily (my next closest volunteer, and a fellow health-nut vegetarian… we get along well). I kid you not, for seven people, there were eight (8, yes 8!) kilograms of meat. Let me say that again, so you can think about the quarter-pounder burger that probably fills you up. There was more than a kilogram of meat for every meat-eating person. Wow. I mean, I’m sure the whole novelty thing factors in, but good gracious, a kilo of meat?!
The women worked on the chakalaka, a delicious blend of shredded and cooked (with lots of oil!) onion, carrot, cabbage, mixed with some other veggies and almost a mango chutney type thing, plus some beans, plus lots of spices and chili sauce. Really greasy, really good. Even better the next morning with scrambled eggs and toast. My mouth is watering even now, and I just ate some.
The men worked on the meat. It took a long time. The fire-pit was probably about 3 feet by 3 feet, and even if we built up a good fire to actually cook the meat, the meat-master would dump water on the fire so the chicken and sausages wouldn’t burn. I can understand not wanting them to burn, but the smoke was pretty terrible, and it took forever to cook 4kg chicken and 4kg sausages on nothing but smoldering ash. It didn’t matter though, we were all pretty content just hanging out around the fire. I bopped back and forth between the women inside and the men outside; I guess I just break the social norms like that.
The whole party was pretty great. We didn’t eat until almost 9pm and stayed up until midnight (you need to understand that this is really late here, especially for me), just chatting about anything: politics in South Africa, Peace Corps, teaching, dancing, food…all sorts of things. It really made me realize how lucky I am to be at this school. Some of my friends are at schools where they’re a little less than comfortable hanging out with the other teachers, but I wouldn’t trade mine for the world. Sure there are one or two who I’m less comfortable around, or who I don’t know as well, but in general, they’re pretty great.
One of the great discoveries this week (on the part of my colleagues) was my ability to type copious amounts of words in ridiculously little time. This meant that anytime there was anything to be typed, guess who got the call. I typed assignments for some workshops they’re attending, several application letters to various employers, as well as parts of a Sesotho exam. They were astonished that I could even type a foreign language quickly. Naturally, I’m happy to help out, and truly, I like typing, but today it started getting a little old. “’M’e Katie, couldn’t you help me type this? I just want to give Ntate Kolobe the schedule for my workshops…” “’M’e Katie, I just realized there are some few mistakes in this paper, can we fix them?” Now, fixing mistakes in a paper is something I completely support, but I don’t have any sort of control over the generator or when it is used. This means I either have to use my precious laptop battery, or tell them that I’ll help when the generator is on. This presents a problem. For example, several times this week, they’ve turned the generator on when I’ve been away on a run. Naturally, I can’t type if I’m running in the next village, and chances are good I won’t want to rush into that warm, crowded, noisy room and type immediately after I get back from a run. I probably should learn to say no, but it’s so much fun impressing them with my typing skills! It’s been draining though, trying to balance being “on duty” with regular teaching, and on top of that all this typing business. I wonder what would happen if I started charging them a per page fee…
This weekend is the “Newbie Party” in Mafeteng, which means all the volunteers who serve in the Mafeteng district will head into town to cook and hang out together. I think Italian food is on the menu, which means a big pasta dish, fresh garden salad, sangria (which is technically Spanish, I think, isn’t it?) and gelato. Ha! Gelato, yeah right. The ice cream here is a pretty sorry excuse for ice cream; gelato would likely be a huge letdown. Dessert is TBA, though the remaining chocolate cake (of the two I made yesterday) is definitely one part. In any case, it’ll be fun. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing everyone and having an excuse to cook an elaborate dinner. It’s also a really nice way to decompress and share experiences. Somehow things don’t seem so crazy if I know someone else is going through the same thing.
Well, my battery is at 25% which means I should probably shut ‘er down till the next time the generator is run…
All my love from Africa,
-Katie
Wow, it’s March already!
Last weekend was the first since I’ve been at site that I just stayed home. No overnights with friends, just a quick shopping trip to Mafeteng to load up. And boy did I load up… to make up for last weeks popcorn-less meals, I bought 2kg of kernels. I needed Weetbix (not heavy but they take space), cake flour, cocoa and butter for the cakes I was going to bake, a fresh 1.5kg of apples (Gala again! Even though they were a little soft!), and several other items. I’m pretty sure the 45-min hike could have killed me, or at least seriously done damage to my left shoulder (I have some crazy bruises from carrying the bag on my shoulder), but thankfully my principal was coming back to school around the same time, so I was able to hop in the truck.
Saturday morning here was unbelievably peaceful (and by morning, I mean after I woke up at 9:30). Some students were around, studying, watering their crops for agriculture class or picking up books to take home. Several stopped by to ask math questions, but mostly I had the house (and schoolyard) to myself. After my bowl of oatmeal and cup of coffee, I attacked the huge pile of pictures, cards and notes from home and went to work with my ticky-tac (they call it bostick, pronounced bah-stick, here). With the radio cranked to my iPod’s music, I decorated my house while generally rocking out. It was pretty great, singing and dancing around, surrounded by photos of my favorite people. Needless to say, my house is now beautifully decorated, and there are considerably fewer piles of things to hang up.
Saturday after lunch, I ventured down to the next village (about an hour away), where another volunteer stays. Emily had come to my home several weeks before, so it was my turn to visit her. She met me halfway and showed me around the village, introducing me to some of her host mother’s friends (who wouldn’t let us leave without a very generous bag of delicious peaches). Emily has one of the most beautiful gardens and was gracious enough to give me a huge, fresh cucumber.
One of the best parts of meeting up with other volunteers is the inevitable exchange of goods. Maybe my house has fresh peaches, and your garden has a huge tomato crop. Naturally, we’ll exchange some; it just seems to go without saying. Books are also frequently exchanged, thanks to the Peace Corps Training Center’s nice library of donated books from past volunteers. You never have to worry about getting the book back to Maseru, just to another home where it will also be loved. Currently, I’m working on Al Franken’s Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them. Only after I returned home later Saturday did I realize how appropriate this book was for me. Al Franken is, after all, my senator. The book is quite a hoot. Maybe its just how long I’ve been removed from the crazy American political stuff, but some of the statements he makes are pretty bold (even if there is truth in them)… In any case, its an enjoyable read, and has definitely added variety to my life as of late.
I arrived home after hanging out in Ha Thoahlane to find the cat sitting on my stoop, waiting for me to unlock my door. At this point, I suppose I should mention that on Thursday of last week (February the 25th), one of the teachers from school took the cat, in a big flour sack, to her village, about a 50 minute walk from school… how the cat made its way back to school is beyond me, but the song “The Cat Came Back” has been in my head ever since. Who knows if/when she’ll take him away again, but I want to believe he’s learning that I don’t want him in my house.
Sunday was also pretty relaxed. Try as I might, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed until 9:30 again. Oh well. Sunday was spent marking all the exams from the previous week, and there were a lot. It seems the physics exam I wrote for my Form A students was much too difficult and the math exam was too long, but I think the physics for Form B’s was actually pretty reasonable. This doesn’t mean they did well by any stretch of the imagination (I’m pretty sure the majority still failed with flying colors), but at least I got one about right. The tricky part was making sure my questions are at about the same level as their English reading comprehension.
After marking though, I felt like I could have hosted an episode of “Kids Write the Darnedest Things” … On my Form A physics exam, I asked questions pertaining to energy: different sources, renewable and non-renewable, etc. I asked them to explain the difference between renewable and non-renewable, and the best answer was “Renewable are made by God.” I guess this sort of makes sense? Wind, water, solar, geothermal… they’re all very elemental. But if they want to think about it that way, technically, shouldn’t they believe that everything is made by God? (I won’t get into a religious discussion now…) I also asked them to identify certain kinds of energy. Energy of motion? Rather than calling it kinetic, the student wrote, “is important.” How could I fault him when he’s absolutely correct, it is important! My favorite though, had to be the question “What kind of energy is it when: a woman collects wood and cow dung to burn, in order to cook her papa” The next two words were “and cabbage.” Man, that student knows how things work in this country! If a woman is going to collect wood to burn to cook papa, she might as well be cooking cabbage too!
Some students also wrote very nice notes, thanking me for teaching them, or saying how much better they understand when I teach them. I’m really not sure how much of it is true, but it’s all very flattering, and I hope I am indeed explaining things clearly.
This school week has been a bit of a struggle. First of all, I’m “on duty” this week, which means I have to be up (and outside) by 7am in order to close the gate. This distinguishes the students who were on time from those who were late. Any student who arrives after the gate has been closed is punished. I’m “on duty” with another teacher, a younger woman who lives in the village, not too far from school. ‘M’e Puleng is kind of like a cross between a crazy aunt and a best friend who can’t keep quiet because she always has something witty to say. I wasn’t dreading being “on duty” too much since she had expressed to me earlier last week that she also didn’t like beating students.
Well, on Monday, there were so many students who were late that she couldn’t think of any alternative punishment, so she hit them all. Needless to say, it was a really tough way to start out my week, especially knowing that there were four more days of this. All I could do was make my breakfast and try to convince myself that the next day there would not be as many latecomers. Thankfully, there were not as many on Tuesday. In fact, ‘M’e Puleng was also late. As students came running in before the gate closed, I saw her coming too, jogging in her skirt and heels (passed by quite a few students on the way). Tuesday’s punishment was to clean up the school grounds, picking up trash the students have scattered throughout the day. I was much happier with this punishment. Wednesday, there were even fewer latecomers, and this time, they got to run laps around the soccer field. There were some boys who pretended to limp so they wouldn’t have to… only their “limps” were so comically fake that I couldn’t even look at them with a straight face. I told them that if I ran a lap faster than they did, they would get to run five more. That shut them up, and they took off. It’s now Thursday. To the best of my knowledge, there hasn’t been any more beating. In fact, in one of my classes, the students were joking around with one of the sticks used by a teacher. I asked what it was, what they were doing with it, and if I could see it. They quieted down and handed it over. I took it and snapped it into two pieces over my knee. Believe me, it was the most satisfying part of my day, seeing the looks on their faces as I hurled the pieces out the window and over the fence.
Most of my lesson planning early in the week was pretty easy; I was just handing back exams and either assigning corrections or explaining the questions and what I had wanted for responses. Most of my students have not been very quiet during class. As much as I hate to threaten or punish, I did threaten to make one student run laps around the soccer field if he kept talking. That shut him up for a while, but ultimately I had to pull out the big guns. “Do you all know that the single subject that your fellow students fail the most on their J.C. and C.O.S.C. exams is mathematics? Why do you think that is? I bet it’s because they didn’t listen in class when they should have been paying attention! Do you want to fail like them? Or do you want to pass and succeed?” (Insert dramatic pauses wherever necessary, I assure you, the room was silent) The next lesson went much better with that class, but again today, they were frustrating.
In other news, I changed my hairstyle: I shaved my head! It’s pretty great, though it took a lot of convincing. It’s unbelievably cool, and when I go running, I just use a bandana or hat so my head doesn’t burn to a crisp, and washing it has never been so easy. No, I’m totally kidding, there’s no way I could shave my head… I did get braids put in though, and I think they look pretty sweet (I promise I’ll put pictures up sometime, I’m just not sure when!). I bought one package of fake hair (because I guess otherwise it doesn’t look like you have any hair?) and the Woodworking teacher (of all people!) happily agreed to give it a try (even though white people hair is so “silky” or “slippery”), saying she braids her daughter’s hair all the time. I guess one package of fake hair wasn’t enough though, so I have a solid two braids going around my head, with sort of a patch in the middle of the back that is still unbraided. When the principal went to town yesterday (Wednesday), he agreed to buy another package of hair so she could finish up the braids, but picked up the wrong kind (surprisingly enough, there are quite a few types of fake hair to braid in), so we’ll continue next week. I think the time total so far is around 3 hours, and I expect it will take at least 2 more to finish up… the color is not my natural color, it’s reddish-brown, but the “brown,” as the package called it, was basically dull black, and I figured I’d look sort of funny with black hair. I opted red-brown.
Last night (Wednesday) was my official welcoming party. Technically, it was also for another teacher who moved to campus and is now staying in one of the teachers’ houses here, but I’ll take credit too. Ever since I baked a pan of brownies, all the teachers had been pestering me to make another cake, so I pulled out the recipe book and found the easiest looking chocolate cake recipe, knowing that ingredients can be hard to find (and carry back from Mafeteng, see earlier in this post for details!). Well, I got plenty of ingredients and decided to double the recipe. One of the other teachers had begged me earlier to let her help me with the cake so she could then make one for her family whenever she goes home next. I was happy to have help, and before long we had all the delicious chocolate batter ready for baking. I am proud to say that the bigger of the two cakes we made in my Dutch oven (look Ma, no oven!), and it turned out amazing. The smaller one went into a real gas oven (luxury item!) that one of the other teachers has (but doesn’t use, I assure you), and turned out just as well. The cake was a hit.
The main draw to this party though, was the cow that was slaughtered. No, I’m joking again, but there was so much meat. And yes, I am still a vegetarian. There were nine of us total: (including myself) eight teachers, plus Emily (my next closest volunteer, and a fellow health-nut vegetarian… we get along well). I kid you not, for seven people, there were eight (8, yes 8!) kilograms of meat. Let me say that again, so you can think about the quarter-pounder burger that probably fills you up. There was more than a kilogram of meat for every meat-eating person. Wow. I mean, I’m sure the whole novelty thing factors in, but good gracious, a kilo of meat?!
The women worked on the chakalaka, a delicious blend of shredded and cooked (with lots of oil!) onion, carrot, cabbage, mixed with some other veggies and almost a mango chutney type thing, plus some beans, plus lots of spices and chili sauce. Really greasy, really good. Even better the next morning with scrambled eggs and toast. My mouth is watering even now, and I just ate some.
The men worked on the meat. It took a long time. The fire-pit was probably about 3 feet by 3 feet, and even if we built up a good fire to actually cook the meat, the meat-master would dump water on the fire so the chicken and sausages wouldn’t burn. I can understand not wanting them to burn, but the smoke was pretty terrible, and it took forever to cook 4kg chicken and 4kg sausages on nothing but smoldering ash. It didn’t matter though, we were all pretty content just hanging out around the fire. I bopped back and forth between the women inside and the men outside; I guess I just break the social norms like that.
The whole party was pretty great. We didn’t eat until almost 9pm and stayed up until midnight (you need to understand that this is really late here, especially for me), just chatting about anything: politics in South Africa, Peace Corps, teaching, dancing, food…all sorts of things. It really made me realize how lucky I am to be at this school. Some of my friends are at schools where they’re a little less than comfortable hanging out with the other teachers, but I wouldn’t trade mine for the world. Sure there are one or two who I’m less comfortable around, or who I don’t know as well, but in general, they’re pretty great.
One of the great discoveries this week (on the part of my colleagues) was my ability to type copious amounts of words in ridiculously little time. This meant that anytime there was anything to be typed, guess who got the call. I typed assignments for some workshops they’re attending, several application letters to various employers, as well as parts of a Sesotho exam. They were astonished that I could even type a foreign language quickly. Naturally, I’m happy to help out, and truly, I like typing, but today it started getting a little old. “’M’e Katie, couldn’t you help me type this? I just want to give Ntate Kolobe the schedule for my workshops…” “’M’e Katie, I just realized there are some few mistakes in this paper, can we fix them?” Now, fixing mistakes in a paper is something I completely support, but I don’t have any sort of control over the generator or when it is used. This means I either have to use my precious laptop battery, or tell them that I’ll help when the generator is on. This presents a problem. For example, several times this week, they’ve turned the generator on when I’ve been away on a run. Naturally, I can’t type if I’m running in the next village, and chances are good I won’t want to rush into that warm, crowded, noisy room and type immediately after I get back from a run. I probably should learn to say no, but it’s so much fun impressing them with my typing skills! It’s been draining though, trying to balance being “on duty” with regular teaching, and on top of that all this typing business. I wonder what would happen if I started charging them a per page fee…
This weekend is the “Newbie Party” in Mafeteng, which means all the volunteers who serve in the Mafeteng district will head into town to cook and hang out together. I think Italian food is on the menu, which means a big pasta dish, fresh garden salad, sangria (which is technically Spanish, I think, isn’t it?) and gelato. Ha! Gelato, yeah right. The ice cream here is a pretty sorry excuse for ice cream; gelato would likely be a huge letdown. Dessert is TBA, though the remaining chocolate cake (of the two I made yesterday) is definitely one part. In any case, it’ll be fun. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing everyone and having an excuse to cook an elaborate dinner. It’s also a really nice way to decompress and share experiences. Somehow things don’t seem so crazy if I know someone else is going through the same thing.
Well, my battery is at 25% which means I should probably shut ‘er down till the next time the generator is run…
All my love from Africa,
-Katie
February 24, 2010
24 February 2010
It’s always hard going back to work after an enjoyable weekend, and this week was no exception. Somehow I missed the fact that Shoprite closes at 1pm on Sundays, so when I got there at 1:30, I had to find another place to shop. Unfortunately, this meant that I would not have my precious kilogram of popcorn kernels for the week… Big time bad news. It also meant I had to compromise on the raisins I bought, and that I wouldn’t get the Gala apples that I recently found (and like so much more than the other kinds). I make it seem like a big deal, but I managed just fine.
On Sunday evening, I remembered that this week is when we give the first set of monthly exams, which means I had three different exams to write, two physics and one math. It also meant that if I wanted to discourage cheating (and I do), I would have to write multiple versions of each, and be sneaky about how I give them to students. I’ve already given the Form B physics exam (and am not looking forward to marking them for fear of what I may find), and will give one of the Form A math and one physics tomorrow, the other two on Friday. Lucky me! My weekend will be grading, grading and more grading.
Grading will definitely be interesting though, because when the Form B students finished their exams, many were writing me stories or letters, or drawing pictures. Some looked pretty interesting, so I have that to look forward to. I will definitely post some of what they write me if it’s noteworthy!
It is nice though, because whenever a teacher needs an exam typed or printed or copied, the generator goes on. I’ve been bringing my laptop with me to the staffroom each day and as soon as I hear the engine start up, I dash over to plug it in. I managed to type (both variations of) two of my three exams, as well as add and sort music, photos and movies to my computer… and here I am now!
Monday was the day we had no water. The taps in my home were not running, which is (unfortunately) fairly common, but we also had none at any of the school taps. In the evening on Monday, the teachers turned the generator on several times to try to draw water from the borehole, and finally around 8pm there was a little. It’s really a scary feeling to not have any water in the house. I had some in my water filter that I could drink, but to think that after that was gone, I would have none? It’s really a feeling of complete helplessness that we don’t know in America. In the States, with the flush of one toilet, we use more than most of these Basotho see in the course of an entire day, let alone what they drink in a week. In a nice long shower, we use probably more than they’ll see in a week. It’s amazing. (On the bright side, it’s a great excuse not to bathe or wash my dishes!)
Some of my students have been rather difficult lately; I’m teaching things they’ve already seen, so, in their minds, there’s no reason for them to pay attention. So they don’t. Monday was frustrating. After a dinner that did not involve popcorn, Mercy and Henry (the Kenyans from the clinic) stopped by to walk ‘M’e Mamosala home from a visit, and greeted me warmly with hugs and fresh peaches! Mercy’s tree, untouched by students’ hungry paws, has been producing fruit like there is no tomorrow, so she brought me a shopping bag full to the brim of peaches and apricots. As we were talking, she invited Mamosala and me to come over the following day (Tuesday) to help her and Henry try to preserve some of these peaches.
It’s amazing how much more I enjoy life when I know I have something to look forward to. All of Tuesday was so much easier knowing that I would go for a visit in the afternoon, drink tea (with lots of cream and sugar), and talk about life with them. The fact that we would also be up to our elbows in fruit made it all the sweeter. I was reminded of all the times I’ve picked berries and made strawberry jam with my wonderful grandmother, or the times my mom, sisters and I have braved raspberry jam using our own crop. I was having a blast getting all the little bits off the peach pit with nicely geometric shapes. Unfortunately, appearance seems to matter when you are canning sliced peaches, so my artistic cutting methods weren’t appreciated.
Tuesday definitely made up for what Monday lacked. Not only did I get to help jar peaches, some of the older students (Form C) approached me for help with their math homework. I was happy to help, especially since their teacher had been at home for lunch. To my relief, it didn’t require much reading on my part; I could just help them right away. After I explained several concepts to them, they were so happy, they asked if I would come to their class. I said I couldn’t, that they already had a teacher, but that I’m always happy to help if I’m around. One of the other teachers in the staff room later told me that those students had been saying (in Sesotho) that I should be their teacher. What an honor! After school, they came to my desk to ask if I would meet them in the library and explain these concepts once again, this time to a bigger group. I agreed and this time there was a group of maybe ten girls, working on the same problems. They seemed incredibly appreciative and like they really did understand what I was showing them.
I went for a run feeling very pleased with myself, and as I was taking a bath (finally!) afterwards, there were several knocks on my door… once I had clothes on, I found several more students outside who had also come to ask for help. Hopefully it won’t become an every day sort of thing (I’m going to be busy with all sorts of activities as they start up), but I’m happy to help explain concepts to them whenever I can. It made me feel productive as a teacher, and was really nice to be explaining things other than adding and subtracting decimals, or multiplying by ten. They were also very thankful, which is always nice to hear as a teacher; not that my students aren’t, they just have a different way of showing it.
During one of my classes this week, I mentioned that I had a friend who teaches in Quting. In Sesotho, the “Q” is a click, and is pretty challenging to say (you try it!). I guess I pronounced it incorrectly, or at least differently from the way they would say it. Most of my class busted up laughing. I was a little confused, since I had pronounced it pretty well, in my opinion. Maybe it was the way I raised my eyebrows, bugged my eyes out, or stuck my head forward like a chicken when I pronounced it, but whenever I said it, trying to convince them I knew how to click, they just laughed harder. One girl who is usually pretty quiet said, “Madam, say qomoqomo!” I still have no idea what qomoqomo is, but she said I pronounced that correctly. The best part of all this was that every student was laughing, not just those who were in on the joke. This meant that even the quiet guys in the back who always appear to not give a flying hoot about my teaching were in hysterics, practically crying because I couldn’t say a word correctly. It was heart-warming to see, and really lifted my spirits that day.
The rest of the week looks pretty tame, but I need a relaxing weekend to catch up on my life and maybe start planning for our Spring Break (even though technically, I guess Easter happens here in the fall season?) … Tomorrow (Thursday), one of the other teachers at school has agreed to start braiding my hair. I’m not sure what this will entail, or how long it will take, but I do have some dark reddish tinted fake hair for her to braid in, otherwise I guess the braids aren’t very thick (even though I have a ton of hair). She’ll finish hopefully on Friday morning so I can have the weekend with a completed head of braided hair instead of only half-done.
On Thursday, I’ll also go again to the clinic to visit Mercy and Henry. ‘M’e Mamosala and I will each contribute a dish to a sort of international potluck… I’m especially looking forward to the Kenyan food. I’ve agreed to make a sort of peach crisp with some of the other peaches from their trees. If it turns out anything like my apple crisps, it’ll be delicious, and I know they’ll appreciate it, no matter what.
Well, my time to run today is dwindling. School is almost out and the weather looks pretty threatening; hopefully the rain will wait until I’ve returned. Know that I am content here, and feeling good mentally, emotionally and physically. Knock on wood, I haven’t gotten sick since I’ve been here. I miss the States terribly, but really feel that I am in the right place for now…
All my love from Africa
-Katie
It’s always hard going back to work after an enjoyable weekend, and this week was no exception. Somehow I missed the fact that Shoprite closes at 1pm on Sundays, so when I got there at 1:30, I had to find another place to shop. Unfortunately, this meant that I would not have my precious kilogram of popcorn kernels for the week… Big time bad news. It also meant I had to compromise on the raisins I bought, and that I wouldn’t get the Gala apples that I recently found (and like so much more than the other kinds). I make it seem like a big deal, but I managed just fine.
On Sunday evening, I remembered that this week is when we give the first set of monthly exams, which means I had three different exams to write, two physics and one math. It also meant that if I wanted to discourage cheating (and I do), I would have to write multiple versions of each, and be sneaky about how I give them to students. I’ve already given the Form B physics exam (and am not looking forward to marking them for fear of what I may find), and will give one of the Form A math and one physics tomorrow, the other two on Friday. Lucky me! My weekend will be grading, grading and more grading.
Grading will definitely be interesting though, because when the Form B students finished their exams, many were writing me stories or letters, or drawing pictures. Some looked pretty interesting, so I have that to look forward to. I will definitely post some of what they write me if it’s noteworthy!
It is nice though, because whenever a teacher needs an exam typed or printed or copied, the generator goes on. I’ve been bringing my laptop with me to the staffroom each day and as soon as I hear the engine start up, I dash over to plug it in. I managed to type (both variations of) two of my three exams, as well as add and sort music, photos and movies to my computer… and here I am now!
Monday was the day we had no water. The taps in my home were not running, which is (unfortunately) fairly common, but we also had none at any of the school taps. In the evening on Monday, the teachers turned the generator on several times to try to draw water from the borehole, and finally around 8pm there was a little. It’s really a scary feeling to not have any water in the house. I had some in my water filter that I could drink, but to think that after that was gone, I would have none? It’s really a feeling of complete helplessness that we don’t know in America. In the States, with the flush of one toilet, we use more than most of these Basotho see in the course of an entire day, let alone what they drink in a week. In a nice long shower, we use probably more than they’ll see in a week. It’s amazing. (On the bright side, it’s a great excuse not to bathe or wash my dishes!)
Some of my students have been rather difficult lately; I’m teaching things they’ve already seen, so, in their minds, there’s no reason for them to pay attention. So they don’t. Monday was frustrating. After a dinner that did not involve popcorn, Mercy and Henry (the Kenyans from the clinic) stopped by to walk ‘M’e Mamosala home from a visit, and greeted me warmly with hugs and fresh peaches! Mercy’s tree, untouched by students’ hungry paws, has been producing fruit like there is no tomorrow, so she brought me a shopping bag full to the brim of peaches and apricots. As we were talking, she invited Mamosala and me to come over the following day (Tuesday) to help her and Henry try to preserve some of these peaches.
It’s amazing how much more I enjoy life when I know I have something to look forward to. All of Tuesday was so much easier knowing that I would go for a visit in the afternoon, drink tea (with lots of cream and sugar), and talk about life with them. The fact that we would also be up to our elbows in fruit made it all the sweeter. I was reminded of all the times I’ve picked berries and made strawberry jam with my wonderful grandmother, or the times my mom, sisters and I have braved raspberry jam using our own crop. I was having a blast getting all the little bits off the peach pit with nicely geometric shapes. Unfortunately, appearance seems to matter when you are canning sliced peaches, so my artistic cutting methods weren’t appreciated.
Tuesday definitely made up for what Monday lacked. Not only did I get to help jar peaches, some of the older students (Form C) approached me for help with their math homework. I was happy to help, especially since their teacher had been at home for lunch. To my relief, it didn’t require much reading on my part; I could just help them right away. After I explained several concepts to them, they were so happy, they asked if I would come to their class. I said I couldn’t, that they already had a teacher, but that I’m always happy to help if I’m around. One of the other teachers in the staff room later told me that those students had been saying (in Sesotho) that I should be their teacher. What an honor! After school, they came to my desk to ask if I would meet them in the library and explain these concepts once again, this time to a bigger group. I agreed and this time there was a group of maybe ten girls, working on the same problems. They seemed incredibly appreciative and like they really did understand what I was showing them.
I went for a run feeling very pleased with myself, and as I was taking a bath (finally!) afterwards, there were several knocks on my door… once I had clothes on, I found several more students outside who had also come to ask for help. Hopefully it won’t become an every day sort of thing (I’m going to be busy with all sorts of activities as they start up), but I’m happy to help explain concepts to them whenever I can. It made me feel productive as a teacher, and was really nice to be explaining things other than adding and subtracting decimals, or multiplying by ten. They were also very thankful, which is always nice to hear as a teacher; not that my students aren’t, they just have a different way of showing it.
During one of my classes this week, I mentioned that I had a friend who teaches in Quting. In Sesotho, the “Q” is a click, and is pretty challenging to say (you try it!). I guess I pronounced it incorrectly, or at least differently from the way they would say it. Most of my class busted up laughing. I was a little confused, since I had pronounced it pretty well, in my opinion. Maybe it was the way I raised my eyebrows, bugged my eyes out, or stuck my head forward like a chicken when I pronounced it, but whenever I said it, trying to convince them I knew how to click, they just laughed harder. One girl who is usually pretty quiet said, “Madam, say qomoqomo!” I still have no idea what qomoqomo is, but she said I pronounced that correctly. The best part of all this was that every student was laughing, not just those who were in on the joke. This meant that even the quiet guys in the back who always appear to not give a flying hoot about my teaching were in hysterics, practically crying because I couldn’t say a word correctly. It was heart-warming to see, and really lifted my spirits that day.
The rest of the week looks pretty tame, but I need a relaxing weekend to catch up on my life and maybe start planning for our Spring Break (even though technically, I guess Easter happens here in the fall season?) … Tomorrow (Thursday), one of the other teachers at school has agreed to start braiding my hair. I’m not sure what this will entail, or how long it will take, but I do have some dark reddish tinted fake hair for her to braid in, otherwise I guess the braids aren’t very thick (even though I have a ton of hair). She’ll finish hopefully on Friday morning so I can have the weekend with a completed head of braided hair instead of only half-done.
On Thursday, I’ll also go again to the clinic to visit Mercy and Henry. ‘M’e Mamosala and I will each contribute a dish to a sort of international potluck… I’m especially looking forward to the Kenyan food. I’ve agreed to make a sort of peach crisp with some of the other peaches from their trees. If it turns out anything like my apple crisps, it’ll be delicious, and I know they’ll appreciate it, no matter what.
Well, my time to run today is dwindling. School is almost out and the weather looks pretty threatening; hopefully the rain will wait until I’ve returned. Know that I am content here, and feeling good mentally, emotionally and physically. Knock on wood, I haven’t gotten sick since I’ve been here. I miss the States terribly, but really feel that I am in the right place for now…
All my love from Africa
-Katie
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