First Week of Second Term!

August 4, 2010

It’s only been a few days since I last wrote but SO much has happened. In fact, as my students would say, “Too much has happened, madam.” Let’s see, I last updated on Friday… I made it home from Mafeteng without any problems, went to bed early, and slept until almost noon. I guess that’s what a week of workshops will do (not so much the training as being around friends with electricity and plenty of fun things to do). Saturday was pretty uneventful. I contemplated going outside and watching the soccer tournament but didn’t really feel up to being a public spectacle, so I made myself start looking over textbooks and syllabi a bit in the afternoon since classes began on Monday. Sunday morning, I also slept in. I was writing a letter home, waiting for my stomach to settle so I could run and just hanging around my house, trying to neaten things up. Around noon, I saw the school’s librarian, dressed in soccer gear, come running past my house, over to another teacher’s home. I went outside to find several teachers talking with him about another student who, while playing soccer, had broken his leg. At first I was skeptical that the leg was broken (not that I’m any medical expert), but when Rethabile (the librarian, pronounced “Ray-tah-BEE-lay”) told me exactly what happened and the position of the leg – the way he described it, from the middle of the shin down was sticking out at maybe a 30 degree angle from where it should have been – I believed him, that it was broken. My first instinct was to take him to the clinic. They had already sent someone to the clinic; it’s closed on Sundays. I couldn’t think of any doctors or nurses around the village, so the next option was to get him to the hospital in town.
(Rethabile had already secured enough money for him and this student to get to town and come back, but not much more than that… When I asked if I should go with them, one of the other villagers who had been playing said he thought I should, but there wasn’t enough money for me to go too. I told him not to worry about it; I had enough money to get me to town and back)
Before I continue with the story, let’s do a quick mental exercise. I want you to think about what would happen if your son (or daughter) was playing soccer outside with the neighborhood gang, and someone came running to tell you he had broken his leg. How quickly could you get him to the hospital? How would you get there? Would you have the money to do so? How long would you wait to be seen by a doctor without becoming impatient? Would you expect an immediate x-ray? Got all that? It’s a lot to think about… ok, keep reading.
You may recall that my village is a solid 45 minute walk from the nearest tarred road. If you didn’t know, well, it is. Even in a car, this is a rough ride; it takes probably 15-20 minutes on average in most vehicles. I don’t have a car here. My principal wasn’t around, and we didn’t know anyone else who could bring us to town in a vehicle, so the guys hoisted Teboho (“Tay-BOO-hoh” … poor broken student) onto a donkey (they had put the bone back in place as best they could, and wrapped it). Anyone in my family can tell you I don’t like blood or gore and I’m probably not the best person to deal with pain… this kid was in serious pain. He was literally trembling. I was scared for him, and it hurt to see him hurting so much.
As soon as he was loaded up, the procession was off. I ran ahead to try to get a taxi from the road to come down our rocky road a ways to pick him up so he wouldn’t have to ride as far on a the donkey. We lucked out and I flagged one down, but it was going to Maseru, not Mafeteng… still, the guys lifted him into the front seat, and that taxi met the Mafeteng taxi at the tarred road. The driver and conductor transferred him as smoothly as they could into the second taxi, and we took off for town. Again, I’m no medical professional, but the first things I would have done (had I been at home) are elevate the leg and put ice on it. Funny thing about Lesotho is even in the winter, there’s no ice. Teboho rode the whole way to town with his leg hanging down, same as anyone would sit in the front seat. Every time we went over a bump or started or stopped abruptly, he would wince with pain. We finally arrived in town and after letting all the other passengers off, the driver was kind enough to take the three of us directly to the hospital. To keep time in perspective here: we left the soccer pitch maybe around 12:30. We boarded the taxi to Mafeteng around 1pm and arrived at the hospital shortly after 2.
Rethabile (champion at life) dashed out of the taxi, found a rolling cart, hoisted Teboho onto it, and started wheeling it into the emergency ward. I think I was partially still stunned at the whole situation, but I helped out when I thought of something possibly helpful, otherwise just stood around and got in the way. We found a nurse and explained the situation. She took her sweet time getting Teboho’s name and home village and eventually decided that we were indeed worth her time and called a doctor. As we’re waiting for the doctor to come check his leg out, we’re just sitting in the examination room, she is washing instruments in the sink and Teboho is holding his leg, trying to find a way to be comfortable. Finally, the doctor arrived. I couldn’t tell if it was all a show, but he and the nurse insisted on speaking to each other in English. He didn’t really speak to Teboho much, didn’t tell him what was going on, didn’t ask for his side of the story, he just poked and prodded and after not even 10 minutes, declared that yes, it was broken. Yikes. Now we’re at probably 2:45pm. The doctor and nurse began their awkward English conversation again, about how they were going to cast up his leg. This seemed to be the most painful for poor Teboho. They had to slide the wet cast stuff under his leg and then wrap it from ankle to knee. He. Was. In. Serious. Pain.
After that ordeal, the nurse told us he would be admitted to stay the night and in the morning, they would take an x-ray. This was a shock… stay the night? Why couldn’t they take care of it right then and there? Well, the x-ray machine, like many things in Lesotho, is not open for business on Sunday. So we plopped Teboho onto the wheely cart again, and rolled him into the area of the hospital where males stayed. These rooms had six beds with as many boys/men in them, and they smelled funky. Not good funky, awful, terrible, disgusting funky. We’d been waiting a while for the nurse to make up a bed for Teboho when I realized Rethabile had left. Teboho was not speaking to me much, just occasionally glancing over, as if to make sure I was actually still there… so I didn’t ask him where Rethabile had gone. Finally, he came back, and in his hands was a plastic bag containing a loaf of bread, small carton of milk and two apples. I was absolutely amazed. He had gone to a nearby shop to buy food for Teboho because hospital food is apparently notoriously awful everywhere in the world. Soon thereafter, Teboho’s bed was ready, so we wheeled him in and helped him into bed. As soon as he was in bed, the nurse was gone, nowhere to be found. He apparently told Rethabile that he wanted to use the bathroom, so I set off to find a wheelchair so we could wheel him in. That too was an ordeal… I looked all over before I found one. After business was taken care of, I went to talk to the nurse (after I found her) about what the next step was. She looked confused, but told me that someone should come back the next day and bring crutches (or be prepared to buy them), since he’ll need them to walk. She didn’t take our number; she didn’t give us the hospital number… just said that someone should come back the next day.

That was Sunday. Today is Wednesday. I made sure someone told Teboho’s parents about the break and where he was, and I know someone went to go see him on Monday, though I heard today that he is still there. When I went to the clinic to visit my Kenyan friends yesterday, I asked the nurse about what should be done with a break like that. She said, in her opinion, the leg would have to be opened up to make sure the bones set correctly. I’m not sure if/when he’ll be back at school, but I’m hoping he’ll recover soon.

There are a few upsides of this story. First, Rethabile is a champ. I’m still so thrilled he is our school’s librarian. Second, after leaving the hospital, we went to visit some teachers who live in town. It was nice to see them and chat for a while about vacation and World Cup. Third, as we were walking to catch a taxi, a man approached us and asked if I was a PCV. I said yes, and we got to talking… he had just been in a meeting of some sort and the conclusion was that they wanted to bring a community library to Mafeteng! What luck! We exchanged numbers, and I told him I would be happy to help in any way I could… I’ve not heard anything from him yet, but there’s still time.
Needless to say, I had a very eventful Sunday, which was good because it took my mind off the impending doom of Monday morning, when I would have to get up and TEACH AGAIN.

Actually, Monday (the first day of second term) wasn’t so bad. It was pretty laid back; many students were absent or very late, so I took it easy with my classes. We chatted about winter break, World Cup and what was coming up second semester. Over the break, I decided to start a Life Skills club. This is something that is supposed to be in the schedule for forms A, B and C, but our timetable is apparently too full. In my opinion, it’s something that should be there (to some extent) in all forms, so I figured an optional, after school club would be a good way to gauge interest and hopefully prove that it is worthwhile. I talked with my classes about joining the club, what all it would entail and that it would not be for a grade. Another teacher (who will be helping me with the club) made an announcement about the sign-up sheet yesterday (Tuesday) at assembly in the morning, and as of 4:30 this afternoon (at the end of the schoolday), there were 65 people signed up. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot, but by my calculations, that’s over 20% of the school! Success! I think I’ll have to split them up to make the size of the group more manageable, but still, I’m thrilled so many students want Life Skills!

Now for some more uplifting stories, and maybe even some funny stuff…
In one class, as I was talking about second term projects, I mentioned that I wanted to have an art contest. The students looked at me like I had sprouted a second head, so I tried to clarify. “You know, drawing, coloring, painting…” The whole room exploded in laughter. “What’s so funny about painting?” They laughed even harder. I was absolutely perplexed. Finally, amid peals of giggles, one girl said, “Madam, PANTIES?! Like, underwear?! You want to have a contest about the underwear?!” HA! Oh yeah, my native English accent. I hate it when that gets in the way.

In my last class of the day on Monday, I arrived to find only a handful of the boys. The girls, they told me, were washing the lunch dishes. I wasn’t thrilled about this, but whatever, I wasn’t planning on doing anything formal anyway. The guys had been reading any and all newspaper clippings they could find from the World Cup. We talked about how awesome Spain was and I taught them how to pronounce the “LL” in Spanish. With names like Villa and Casillas, it’s kind of important. We then named all the Spanish players and talked about some other stars of the tournament, and as we were flipping through the newspaper clippings, we came to a page with Shrek and Donkey. One of the kids (sometimes a troublemaker) points to the page and says, “Madam, do you know these two?” I told him yes, of course, I knew Shrek and Donkey, but before I could finish, he said, “See! Here are (two of my students whose names I’m going to omit)!” The other guys cracked up and I couldn’t help it but laugh. I don’t think the two were offended; I’m pretty sure they were laughing right along with the rest of us. I was surprised at his quick wit – it’s funny because those two students are good buddies and one talks… a lot.
After we’d exhausted the newspapers, I remembered that my dad had sent me some awesome magazines with articles about the World Cup. I ran back to my house and grabbed the copy of “Four-Four-Two” he’d sent. Those kids practically started throwing elbows, trying to get a glimpse of the magazine. I don’t think they read many of the articles, but they were mesmerized by the photos. Anytime they turned to a picture, they would all (almost in unison) name each and every player in the shot. It was adorable.

Once upon a time, last semester, when I was supposed to give an exam, I couldn’t because all the students who had not paid their school fees were told to go home and not come back until they had paid. This particular day, I had two students in one class, so I took them to the library. I encouraged them to check out all the beautiful books. They each chose a picture book and sat down to flip through the pictures. Finally, I grabbed my coloring books and a handful of crayons, and they jumped at the chance to color pictures. One of these students chose to color a picture of Santa and one of Mrs. Claus (it’s a Christmas coloring book). He did a fine job, though I don’t think it registered as Santa in his mind, so the beard is brown instead of white. No big deal; that’s called creative license.
The next day, I saw them taped to the back wall of the classroom, near his desk, and I smiled. The next week, they were gone, but as I went around checking math assignments, I saw that he had Santa on the front of his notebook and Mrs. Claus on the back. Again, I smiled. Today in class, I saw that he had written “Hope Dube” by Santa. I was confused, so I asked what was hope dube? He looked at me and said, “Madam! Ke Hope Dube!” … as if anyone in their right mind should know what Hope Dube is (ke, in Sesotho, means “it is”). I asked again until finally one of the other students told me that Hope Dube is actually the author of a story they had to read for English, called The Rainy Season. The student then began quoting the story; “Mama want a fish!” I couldn’t help but laugh. “But the stream was dry.” He then flipped his notebook over to Mrs. Claus, pointed to her and said “Mama!” flipped it back over to Santa (aka Hope Dube) and said (again, in his funny little accent), “Ke Hope Du-be!” By this point, my tummy hurt I was laughing so hard. Apparently Santa Claus is the author of a popular story in the English curriculum in Lesotho, and Mrs. Claus is one of the main characters. Who knew?!

Sometime over the break, we received letters from our partner class in America (World Wise Schools – check it out!), so I passed them out to my students yesterday and today. Naturally, American students make American references, some of which my students didn’t understand. My favorite was today when one of my brightest students asked, “Madam! Madam! What is a … hot… dog?” The look on his face was priceless. I tried to explain a hotdog, but his conclusion was that I should make them for the class sometime. Ha. In all seriousness though, it was really heartwarming to see my students so excited about receiving letters from American pen-pals. I told them to ask me with any questions they might have about anything confusing, and so far, some have. What is a pet? What is hanging out? My favorite so far has to be the hotdog.

Well, I’m now spilling onto the 5th page in my word document and unfortunately running out of battery on my computer. It’s probably time to call it a night and tuck in and read for a while. Teaching continues to be hot or cold, but everything else is grand. It’s great to have teachers back on the campus and I have many things to look forward to this semester. I’ll keep updating as I have the stories and electricity to do so… though the stories will probably come much before the electricity. Ah well, such is life in Africa!
Love from Lesotho,
-Katie