Where does time go. Seriously.
I've not blogged in over a month, yet it feels like maybe a week. I guess that's a good thing? That time passes so quickly sometimes? And yet, sometimes the days can drag on and on and on...
Much has happened; let's see if I can do any of it justice. I'll try for some highlights.
1. THE CHICKENS HAVE ARRIVED! AND THEY'RE LAYING EGGS! This means the school is now making up for some of the money it spent on purchasing the 150 birds. It also means I've got another job each day. If anyone wants eggs, they have to come to me to buy them. The eggs are still small, so the trays (of 30 eggs) aren't selling for full price yet, which means I usually end up haggling a little with the interested buyer. In case you don't know this about me, I absolutely HATE any sort of haggling. I understand it is part of some cultures (though not Basotho culture, really... hmm...) but I hate it. That said, haggling for eggs is painful. I told a teacher a tray of 30 was going to be 15 maloti (the eggs are small, as I said... this is right around, maybe a bit more than half of what a tray should cost). She looked at me like I was crazy, trying to rip her off... and then she told me that she would pay me next week when she has money. Currently, there's about a tray a day coming in and the eggs are getting bigger. I have at LEAST three different teachers who owe me money for eggs. This is going to be a lot more difficult than I'd initially anticipated.
2. My library is still open. I cannot even convey how happy that makes me. Furthermore, students are using it. I peeked at the checkout log the other day and literally did a dance of joy (the very same one that my counterpart makes fun of me for) ... there are several pages FULL of students who have been taking books out. Some of the books are a bit on the difficult side, but I also received some from Peace Corps (with good messages about things relevant to life here) and those seem to be a huge hit. Hooray! I would also like to say that my school has the best librarian in all of Lesotho. Hands down. He is the best.
3. As much as I was planning to resist all things Twilight, I read the first book over the course of maybe four days. I finished the second one within a day and a half... and have just gotten my hands on books three and four. Excellent. I won't be doing much of anything until I've finished those books; thankfully they're easy reads.
4. I got pretty sick last week. I'm betting it was a sinus infection (coincidentally, I had one about this time last year -- when I graduated college! Whoa!) but by the time I could actually see the doctor to try to get antibiotics, I was better enough and was told to keep eating oranges, drinking lots of fluids, taking decongestant, gargling with salt water... the usual. The worst part of it all was that on Monday and Tuesday I had to call in sick to work... which is all of 20 yards from my house. I could see all my students as I was sitting on my couch, bundled up, dozing and reading and miserable... and yet the guilt was unbelievable. Why should I just sit in the comfort of my house when many of them are "suffering from the common cold, madam" and freezing in class, not learning or studying for exams. Definitely an interesting guilt complex associated with being sick here.
5. Exams are coming up! This means that this is the last week of teaching (and Tuesday is a holiday... why the country chooses not to rearrange the holidays to allow for a long weekend is still beyond me, baffling, really) and then we'll have two weeks of exams. I'll be giving three of my own (two physics, one math) and then helping to proctor (invigilate - how's that for a word) several others. The first two of mine are the first week, so I'll be able to mark (aka grade) them before/over the weekend. Then I give my last exam on Monday of the second week... which means I'm going to be done early! Hooray! I really hope my students take these seriously. I also really hope that the exams I've set (written for them) are not too difficult and actually accurately test things I want them to, rather than their ability to comprehend my choice of English words. Needless to say, I've struggled a bit with writing exams, especially for physics. My students always tell me that the questions are phrased in very confusing ways (and they make circles with their hands: roundabout).
6. It is almost legitimately cold. I still haven't used my heater and truthfully, don't plan to. I was thinking that since the weather is getting cooler, I wouldn't sweat myself dehydrated in a taxi, and I was excited about it. False. Absolutely false. They turn the heat up so high it's almost worse than sitting in a taxi on a hot summer day. All other things considered though, I kind of like it. It's like a beautiful fall day every day. The sun still carries a lot of warmth and running outside is really pleasant (though I've fallen a bit from that routine with the recent sickness). Evenings get a bit chilly, but I've always preferred sleeping with a lot of blankets to sweating on top of a sheet. It also means that I bathe much less frequently (don't judge me!) because it is cold in my spare room, where I bathe. Even if I heat the water, the air is still cold, and the hot water isn't continually running down my back. It's sitting at my feet, keeping them nice and toasty while the rest of me is cold. Enough said about bathing.
7. My students wrote letters to our World Wise Schools partner in Wisconsin. They received them and have written back... I cannot express to you how thrilled I am that things are panning out. I think it's a really cool thing that my students will be able to write back and forth with students in America. Cheers, school buddies!
8. IT'S ALMOST WORLD CUP 2010! As the ads on the radio (and ALL of my students) say, "Feel it... It is HEAAAHHH!" All of South Africa and Lesotho is just abuzz with preparations and excitement... it is really exhilarating.
On that note, I'm going to start reading the third Twilight book.
All my love from Africa,
-Katie
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