Library Summit

Hello! I spent the week at an African Library Summit. We had librarians from Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, and Botswana attend. The other countries do not work with Peace Corps volunteers; instead they work with the Ministry of Education or NGO’s in the area. It was amazing to hear about how they get the schools excited and help them to organize their libraries. In Lesotho, we are working towards getting the Ministry of Education more involved to make the libraries less of a Peace Corps project. To do this, we are going to work with the Ministry to develop 26 libraries in the Botha-Bothe district (similar to a state). The books will be arriving in March and we will have one or two small workshops to teach the teachers how to organize their libraries and how to use them in their classrooms. Once the books arrive, some Peace Corps volunteers and Ministry workers will visit the schools and train the teachers so they know how to use the books as teaching aids, discuss how to use the library properly, and how to take care of the library. I have helped with several workshops and feel like the teachers really enjoy them.

When the books arrive for the 26 libraries in the pilot program in Botha-Bothe, books for 33 other libraries in the country will arrive. Books for three of my schools will be in that shipment! My teachers and students are so excited to have libraries in their schools. In January I will be bringing about 100 books to each school so the teachers can start using books in their classroom. I think that slowly introducing them to the books will help the 1,000 books that will soon be arriving feel less intimidating.

In other newwwwss….

The new volunteers arrived safely yesterday! Their training started today and I will be going on Tuesday to work with the resource teachers to discuss their job and responsibilities for the next two years!

I’m off to the grocery store and to the pool at a hotel down the road!! I’ll be in town for a while so write me an e-mail and I will probably get right back to you!!!

Ntate Matobacco's Funeral

Lumela! So last time I wrote on here, I told you that my friend had passed away. He passed away about a month ago and his funeral was this past weekend. This is the second funeral I’ve attended in Lesotho and am still trying to figure out exactly how they work. I’ll start with Friday.

The principal of Sefako Primary School, my closest school, lives in two places. Her husband’s house is my “families” house. No one lives there for most of the year, but it was pretty full this weekend. ‘M’e Mapamolo, the principal, told me that the corps, as the deceased are referred to here, would be arriving around 10AM. Most of the kids from the primary school sat outside of my house to wait as I read a book inside. A little past 10 I heard sirens and thought nothing of it…then I realized that I haven’t heard sirens in one year and ran outside. The Hurst had arrived and was letting everyone know that it was time to go to Ntate Matobacco’s house to welcome him home. I walked with the students to his house and found a male teacher to stand with (male because there are such different roles for men and women here). I told him that I had no clue what to do and asked him not to leave my side. We stood there and watched the older men in the community take the casket out of the Hurst and set it on a table. Then a man walked past me leading a goat by the horns to the casket. Matobacco passed away in a hospital, so a goat was killed to welcome him home. After that, the casket was carried into the house and a prayer was said. People started leaving and my teacher friend told me that it was time to wash our hands. We wash our hands so we don’t bring death back into our homes.

At that point, many of the students had left and I started the exhausting process of making friends with some of the friends and family that had travelled from all over the country to attend the funeral. I can get by in Sesotho, but it is really hard for me to understand some people speak. They speak very fast and run their words together, which is probably very similar to my English. When I am listening to them talk, it probably looks like I have a horrible headache. It takes every ounce of concentration to understand! As we were talking, the process of killing and taking apart 2 goats and a massive cow began. I have seen this before and have even helped, but for some reason this time really got to me. Without going into too much detail, I think it was because they used very dull knives. I started feeling like I was going to hit the floor hard, so I sat down and tried to wait out the cold sweats and dizzy feeling. Once I decided I could walk, I went home and relaxed for an hour. I came back with my Leatherman, which has a really sharp knife. Bringing the knife was one of the best moves I have made in the past year. Men were coming up to me telling me how great it was…and that was before I showed them the other 20 something tools hidden inside! They were amazed.

After getting a little light headed over the cow, I decided that I needed to be a little more adventurous. I decided that I would try some of the parts that I am not used to eating. I learned to take every piece of meat off of a chicken, so why not a cow?? Well. Later in the night a bowl full of the cow’s boiled head and feet came over to where I was sitting with a few of the men. They all got so excited for me to try, but I couldn’t do it. The head started out bigger than a soccer ball and ended up much smaller than my head after they boiled it. I sat there and watch the men eat the skin, cheeks, eyes, brain, and then the bones. There were only teeth and a few other strong bones left after they were finished.

Men and women spent the whole day divided. A few of the men worked on taking apart the cow, while the women cut and peeled and cooked everything. A lot of the men drank a homemade beer most of the day. I was amazed at how well everyone worked together. Because we live so far away, new people were constantly arriving. As soon as they got to the house, they would put down their bags and start working. I’ve never seen a community come together like that. Every person, especially the girls and women, knew exactly what they needed to do. As a guest and a man, I wasn’t expected to do much, so I made my rounds and talked to as many people as possible. It was a great way to get to know more people in the community.

Around 8 a lot of people left to take naps and freshen up. The funeral goes from Friday morning until Saturday evening. Close friends and family spend the whole night Friday singing and speaking about the deceased. I made it until about midnight until I decided to head home. Matobacco was my closest neighbor, so I could hear the singing all night. It made me feel like I was still there even if I was in a semi-coma in my bed.

The second day of the funeral was more formal and a lot more people came. Everyone wore their best outfits, which ranged from sweat pants mixed with lab coats to suits. In Lesotho, Saturdays are reserved for funerals and many people attend two or three funerals each month. The funeral was similar to a funeral in the states. The service was held outside under a tent and I was asked to sit in the only chair in the whole area. Everyone else sat on a backless bench or in the grass. The whole service lasted about 4 hours while friends, family, and colleagues spoke. That was followed by all of his students, friends, and family walking about 10 minutes to the cemetery to bury him. The priest said a few words and then he was lowered into the grave that was dug by some of the men earlier in the day. I’m not exactly sure how it worked, but male relatives threw a few shovels of dirt on the casket in a very specific order. There were a few verbal arguments about the order and I noticed a few people cut in line to throw dirt while others were arguing. After about 10-15 family members, all male, shoveled dirt into the grave, the rest of the men in the community were allowed to shovel dirt. Grown men and his 4-6 grade students literally pulled shovels out of each others hands after each person got their two scoops. It one of the saddest, most interesting thing I’ve seen in a long time. Once he was buried, everyone walked back to his house and ate an amazing meal.

Other interesting things that happened during the funeral…
At one point during the cow butchering, all of the insides were taken out, which were HUGE. I was amazed at how big all of the insides were! I knew that everything, and I mean everything, was eaten, so I wasn’t surprised to see the women carefully cleaning out the stomach and intestines. But then. The men started washing their hand and cleaning their rain boots with the cow poop and the contents of the stomach! At first I thought I was missing something and they were playing a joke, but more people started doing it. Eventually, I think my Leatherman was “cleaned” in cow poop. They were all psyched about it.

I had tried eating the insides of a few animals and decided that it wasn’t for me. I was talking to a few people after dark on Friday night and someone walked by with a plate of food and asked me to take some. I was positive I was eating cow meat. It looked like a good piece, too. It was the heart. All I could do was smile and choke it down. Then I had to eat the other two bites…

So the boiled cow head ended up being a goat or sheep. I’m not sure if I just misunderstood the Sesotho or if they were joking with me. The real cow head made an appearance on Wednesday. I left school after lunch with two of the teachers to help soften the cowhide. When I got there a few men had already started scraping the rancid meat and fat from the hide. They used sticks with razors placed in the end to scrape off all of the nasty stuff. It smelled awful and more flies than you could possibly imagine covered the hide. Just when I thought I was comfortable with the situation, an old man came out with the real boiled cow head and other parts. THEN!! They dumped it right on the skin that had sitting out in the sun since Saturday. They smiled at me and I thought that maybe they wouldn’t eat it…I was wrong. Not only did they eat it, they put a pile of salt on the hide and rubbed each piece of meat on the hide and the salt…I didn’t eat it and they got a huge kick out of that.

In other news…
I cut my hand on a tin can the other day. Really not a big deal, but it was long and deep and started to bleed. For some reason I started to freak out. I started sweating and thought I was going to die. My “mom” was around that day and I ran in and showed her. I just stood there like it didn’t need an explanation and hoped that she would fix it. Like any mother, she looked at me and told me to go put a bandage on it. She looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing. It stopped bleeding in about 5 minutes and is almost healed now. Later that day I told her that I thought I was dying and she laughed even harder…I was a little embarrassed. If my family didn’t think I was a little crazy before, they definitely do now.

On Monday I visited a school and spent the entire day in the 6th grade classroom. I started by just hanging out with a teacher while the students were working on some math problems. We had been talking about different ways to manage his classroom that didn’t involve a stick, which is very popular in Lesotho. As we were talking, I tried to figure out how he was solving long division problems and realized that he wasn’t teaching it correctly. He’s an amazing teacher and is very open to suggestions, so I knew he wouldn’t be upset by me correcting him. I ended up teaching about long division for 2 hours, while modeling good classroom management. I taught it in a few different ways for the students to really understand and for him to learn a few new teaching methods. I checked the students work to see who understood, grouped a few students together and had them peer teach, and had students solve the problems on the chalkboard while explaining their work. It was nice to show him ways to teach that specific class. At the end of the lesson I asked one of his students for the stick that he used to discipline his students and threw it out the window. Without my prompting, he promised his students not to bring the stick back in the classroom for the remaining 3 weeks of the school year! All of his students smiled and a few of them clapped! Their enthusiasm proved that I wasn’t lying about the students not liking corporal punishment.

After that, he asked me if I could teach about HIV/AIDS for a little. We have talked about HIV before and he knew that I was comfortable talking about HIV, which many people are not. We discussed HIV, what it is, how it is transmitted, how students can protect themselves, and other diseases that are transmitted sexually. They were surprised to learn that Lesotho has the 3rd highest rate of HIV in the world. The kids were very knowledgeable, but believed in a lot of myths. When we were finished, I asked the students to write any questions that they were too embarrassed to ask in front of the class and I would answer them after lunch. The questions they had were great! Some of the students were not exactly sure how babies came into this world and why a woman’s stomach grew so much in 9 months, while others asked questions that made it clear that they were sexually active. It was a great mix of questions. Sex and puberty are not thoroughly covered in school and is not talked about at home, so I think it is really important to talk about it in school. I was so proud of the teacher I worked with for openly talking with the students and for being such a good role model for them. After the students left for the day, the teacher told me how excited he was. He told me that each student would go home and talk about what they learned. He had put a lot of thought into how far the information would go and was excited about it. All in all, it was a good day!

In one of the other schools, I am working with the grades 1-3 teachers to differentiate instruction. Some of the teachers are doing an amazing job and are not sure where to go next. Today we started giving students problems that varied in difficulty. I felt like the teacher wanted to give different problems to different groups of students, but wasn’t sure how. She is very excited to continue with this when school begins again in January. The teachers at this school also want help teaching kids how to read. I’m very excited about this!!

Sorry for writing a book! I spent a few minutes here and there typing this, so I hope it makes sense and isn’t too scattered! I won’t be at my schools again until the new school year starts in January. I will be attending a African Library Conference next week, which I’m pretty excited about. After that I will be in Maseru helping to train the new volunteers that are arriving soon!

Also, my mom will be shipping 2,000 books to Lesotho in the beginning of December. If you are interested in donating any books or helping with the cost of the shipping, which is $1,000, please e-mail her!! There is more info about the book drive on the right side of the blog. Thanks a lot!!

Shari Dissen - Dissen1@comcast.net

Healthy Living Camp

Hello everyone! We finally had our Healthy Living Camp!! I’m not sure how much I wrote about it, so I’ll tell you about the camp.

My friends Meg, Nicole, and I sent out applications to 10 High Schools in Botha-Bothe. 6 students from each of the schools filled out our applications and we chose one boy and one girl from each school. This past weekend was the first of three Healthy Living Camps for these students. We had the camp at Likileng Lodge, which is right outside of town. The lodge was amazing and had a great conference room that we spent a lot of time in. It also had a great field outside that we played games in. The lodge has a beautiful pool, but the filter wasn’t working so we couldn’t swim.
The kids came on Friday and were a little nervous about coming to a place they have never been before with people they have never met. Some came early and had a chance to explore the area or relax in their room. We were so excited to find out that the kids were all getting to know each other in one of the camper’s rooms! As more kids came, they were invited to come into the room as well.
Throughout the rest of the camp we got to know the kids by playing games and answering some of their many questions. We had discussions about HIV/AIDS, gender equality, and goal setting. The kids created and preformed dramas about gender equality, stigma regarding HIV, multiple sexual partners, and testing for HIV. We were so impressed with the quality of the skits. The ideas they came up with were incredible.
On Saturday afternoon a friend of ours facilitated an HIV transmission discussion. We started the session by showing how HIV is spread using the students and colored pipe cleaners to represent people having multiple partners and unsafe sex. The students were surprised to see exactly how one person can affect so many other people. Once we were finished with that Thabo, our amazing facilitator, asked the students to list activities that are considered high risk, low risk, and no risk. The students were able to discuss why some activities are more risky than others and were really surprised to learn that some activities are more risky than others. Once we finished with that, we broke the students into a boy group and girl group to see if they had any questions about that last session. Without going into too much detail, I was so proud of the boys for their questions. Sex is not talked about very often here and there are so many myths that boys learn about as they get older. I spent about an hour trying to answer some of the questions and talking about the importance of each of them protecting themselves. The conversation really helped me to connect with the boys.
Some other fun activities include showing TV shows that focused on HIV, Jurassic Park, and one episode of Planet Earth! The kids were so excited to watch all of the shows. They were all so new to them. We’re looking forward to showing more Planet Earth and another movie next time…maybe Men in Black??


I spent the week before camp with 9 other volunteers and a whole team of Basotho to plan and prepare for the new education group to arrive in Lesotho. We planned all of their sessions and talked about some of our favorite activities during our training. It was an exhausting week going from planning training to our camp, but it was worth it!

To go back a little further….I spent 2 days visiting 4 schools in Lesotho to help them prepare for their library books to arrive or to help them organize the libraries they have. We helped organize books and showed the teachers how to maintain their libraries. The workshop usually lasts about 2-3 hours and we talk about using the books as resources and model reading aloud to their students, how to read aloud to children, how to take care of books, checking out books, library rules, and how to use the HIV section that we set up as a resource. The teachers were all really excited, which made me even more excited to receive the books that my mom has been collecting! Thanks again to everyone who has been helping her!!!

I will be going back to my village on Wednesday for my friend’s funeral. I’ll be back down in about 10 days for a Library workshop…African Library Project is hosting librarians and project coordinators from a few different countries to discuss things that are working and things that aren’t. I’m really looking forward to it. Hopefully I’ll get some ideas to make the libraries that I’ll be creating at my schools better.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Pictures

Hey everyone! I put pictures on facebook. This link will let you look at the album. There are almost 150 pictures! The internet isn't very good, so I wasn't able to take out all of the doubles and they are not in any order.

Hope everyone is doing well!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2965394&id=9320551&l=5c32b9cfe6

African Library Project

Hey Everyone!!! I sent out this e-mail and thought I would paste it into my blog as well. The e-mail explains it, but I'm working with African Library Projects and am looking for a little help!
*Thank you so much for everyone who as already e-mailed me or contacted my mom. You are all amazing!

Annndddd I asked my mom to put some pictures up of two maps my friends and I painted in a high school in the south of the country. The pictures should be up in a day or two! I will try to write more in the next few days!!














Hello! I wanted to send an update as I approach the 1 year mark in my
Peace Corps Service! It feels like I left Penn State just a few weeks
ago. It is officially the rainy season in Lesotho, which means warm
weather and no more snow! I've been working for the past year as a
resource teacher for 4 primary schools in a very rural village in
Lesotho. I work with about 32 teachers to help them teach their
students in new and exciting ways. We also focus on their classroom
management, material development, and different teaching methods. The
students are taught mostly in English and all of their exams are
written in English. I have been helping the students as they learn to
read, write and speak English. Our biggest problem is there are no
books in my village!! I have applied to African Library Projects, a
non-profit based in New Orleans, to try and create a library in each
of the schools I work with.

I was very recently asked to join the African Library Project team,
which will be traveling around the country giving workshops on how to
set up and run the libraries that volunteers are working with schools
in their villages to develop. Through African Library Project
Lesotho, Peace Corps volunteers received 55,000 books for 54 new
libraries in this past year. We hope to exceed this accomplishment
next year. I currently have three library donation drives started at
home with the help of my mom, a family friend, and a group that
African Libraries has selected to help.

Most of the education volunteers in my group have also applied for
books through the program, however not everyone has a donor to work
with in the States yet; we still need to find 15 donors before
November! As a donor you would be collecting approximately 1,000
books and $500 for the cost(s) of shipping the books. If any of you
have some extra time and are interested in helping one of my friends
with their libraries, please email chris@africanlibraryproject.org
asap; she will give you more information and pair you up with a
volunteers school or community that you can help :) Here is the link
to the webpage if you want to learn more: www.africanlibraryproject.org

There are some really fun and creative ways to undergo this project
and we all would appreciate it so much-especially the children of
Lesotho, who in most cases have never even held a picture book before.
There is no pressure at all, and if you want to help, but are weary
of taking on so much responsibility you could give something as small
as a book or a dollar to my personal libraries (contact my Mom, Shari,
if you are interested 412-480-2191 or dissen1@comcast.net)!

I hope everything is going well! If you want to check out more about
my experience here or see some pictures, visit my blog! And please
feel free to e-mail this to anyone you thing might be interested in
helping!!

Thanks a lot!

Mike

The Dentist came to visit!

Hellooo! Big news! I learned how to flip my tongue over! I know, I know. It took me a long time to figure it out, but with lots of practice, I can do it. I’m pretty excited about it.

In other news…I have been talking to a Nigerian dentist that works at the hospital in Botha-Bothe. I asked him to come and visit one of my schools to teach about the importance of brushing. He came yesterday with a psychologist, another dentist, and a guy who spoke about mental health. They had those big teeth you see in dentist’s offices and a huge toothbrush and showed the kids how to brush. They also had a set of fake teeth that showed what theirs would look like if they didn’t brush. I didn’t know the other doctors were coming, but they talked about drug abuse, ways to keep mentally and physically healthy, and gave some career guidance. When they were finished talking to the kids, the dentists looked at each kids teeth and recommended that a few of them come to town for him to fix their teeth. He even offered to do it free of charge! It’s kind of expensive to get them to town and back, so I’m looking into ways to get the kids down to see him. I’m pretty excited about it. I went to visit him today and he told me that he would love to visit the other schools I work with, but he would have to find some time to do it. I also visited the local HIV testing center and asked if they would like to visit the schools to teach about sexual health. They said they would love to and we are looking into having them come in January and February! Big day!

Well I am on my way to a workshop with some teachers from town. Hope everyone is well!

Workshops...

Hey everyone! I got my computer fixed! There is a guy who fixes Mac’s in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He fixed it up for $25! I’m going to try my hardest to write a little at my house and upload it on my blog when I’m in town.

Like any job, things happen that make you feel amazing and like you love your job…on the other hand there are days where you want to eat an entire chocolate cake and sleep for a few days. I ate a whole chocolate cake last Saturday. With the help of a few other volunteers, I planned a workshop aimed to help the male teachers in my schools understand how to work with women and treat them better. A few other volunteers came up to help run the workshop and to see how they worked. I gave invitations to each of the five schools and talked with each teacher. A local shop owner cooked about $50 worth of food, which was amazing and a ton of food. We had everything planned, trained a facilitator, and began to wait at 8:45 for the teachers to arrive and the workshop to begin at 9. By 10:00 no teachers had arrived. 11:00 rolled around and Lerato came with the food, but still no teachers. We decided that they weren’t coming and asked 25 high school students to come instead so the local youth group could perform the skits they had come up with and so we could do something with the food. The workshop ended up going really well and the kids learned a ton and really enjoyed it. I actually think it went better with the high school students and not the teachers.
I spent the first two hours of waiting going back and forth between being mad, embarrassed, and defeated. I really didn’t know what to think. I thought I would be really upset with the teachers and would show that when I visited the schools. Instead, I used the opportunity to talk to some of my neighbors and teachers to figure out how to fix the problem that ultimately goes back to my work at the schools. The Monday after the workshop, for example, I showed up still angry only to find 2 teachers at school. I purposely came late because I knew teachers often arrived to school late. I thought about it for a little and realized that attendance is something that I can work on that might have an impact on the school. I talked to a few teachers, principals, and neighbors about the problem and they all told me to have a meeting with the principals. I have on scheduled for Thursday and hopefully we can talk together about encouraging the teachers to work harder.

In other news…the next few months are pretty full for me. I’ll be working with other volunteers to prepare for an amazing camp for high school kids, more workshops (hopefully teachers will come), a fajita night at my friend John’s house, meetings for a few committee’s I’m on, and a welcome party for some of the new volunteers in country.

Soooo things are going pretty well here. I’ll be back in town Saturday and will try to write more! Hope everyone is doing well at home! Miss yaaaaa

Oh! The pictures…The one with the trailers – my friend and Nicole and I ate there in Ficksburg, which is right across the border in SA. We got a huge plate of food for $2! We were a little nervous to eat there, but it ended up being amazing. Some of them are of Lesotho in the spring. It’s starting to look beautiful again! The peach trees all turned purple and the willow trees look so green against the brown hills. And one of them is of kids playing with Lego’s at Nicole’s house. Her aunt sent her Lego’s and she lets the kids play with them when they come over. I had just as much fun with them as the kids did!

Hey everyone! I typed a long blog a few days ago and it didn’t save to my USB!! OOhhh noooo. So here’s an attempt to recap the last month!

I decided to try to stay in my village for a month to get to know everyone better and to save some money. I ended up coming down a few days early, but was still there for a pretty long time!

Ok so some of these pictures might be on there a few times...the internet is crazy.

The kids/farmers have been burning the grass and mountains in my village for a few weeks. I have no idea why, but it seems sad to me. You can kind of see the fire line in the picture.





The other ones are of the snow day we had! I spent all day inside reading and drinking hot chocolate. It was amazinnggg!

I'm aliveeeee

Sorry for being the worlds worst blogger! It’s been over a month and I have a ton of stories. I’ll try to go in order and keep things short…

I went with four of my friends to South Africa, Mozambique, and Swaziland. It was incredible! We started our trip by renting a car in South Africa. We heard mixed reviews about the roads and driving in Africa. We decided to take our chances and drive ourselves. I took the second shift driving, which started right before the Mozambique border. It took us forever to get across the maze of customs and visas. When they asked me to write down the engine number, I started sweating and had a guy come and find the number for me. After two hours of that, we drove through the country into the night. Around 1 am I nailed one of the hundreds of potholes on the road and bent the rim of one of our tires. As we were changing the tire, our friend Kristin froze and told us that there was a lion across the dirt road. We all stared at the “lion” with the help of the world’s smallest flashlight. We all stood there and waited for a car to drive by so we could really see it. It ended up being a large dog that had no interest in what we were doing. A few hours later, we safely arrived at our backpackers in Tofo, Mozambique!
Surprisingly, we woke up at 8 the next day and were ready to go to the beach. My friend John and I wanted to explore the area, so we decided to take a quick trip to pick up water and some snacks. We told the girls that we would be back in a few minutes. During our attempt to get water, we met a few guys that lived in the area. They ended up taking us to their homes where we had fresh coconut and met a ton of other people. After that, they took us to a local soccer game, which was amazing. Some guys played barefoot, while others played with cleats. Half of the field was covered in hills and sand, and the other side had patches of grass. It looked impossible to play on. After all of that, John and I returned back to our backpackers with no food and water.
We spent the rest of the week playing soccer with kids on the beach, exploring the area, hanging out with people at our backpackers, and relaxing. Towards the end of the week, we discovered the fish market. We ended up buying a not so fresh fish and 2kg of prawns. Our backpackers cooked it for us and it was pretty good. We tried it again the next day with a group of people we met from Zimbabwe and bought a much more fresh fish. I loved buying fish that were just caught that day…or week. We ate them on top of a sand dune overlooking the ocean. It was incredible!
At the end of the week the girls traveled onto Cape Town and had an amazing time. John and I decided to head back to Lesotho. Swaziland was right on the way, so we decided to spend a night in Swaziland. The country was beautiful, but we decided to move on the next day and tried to get to Pretoria, South Africa in time to get tickets to the Confederation Cup game later that night. We ended up getting in town too late, so we watched it on TV with a bunch of guys we met at our ex-mafia mansion turned backpackers we stayed in.
All in all, our vacation was amazing. We met people from all over the world and got to escape the cold weather in Lesotho for a while. When we got back, we layered up to keep warm and even played in the snow one night!
Since then, I’ve been visiting other volunteers that live in slightly warmer areas than I do. I also had the chance to teach 2 workshops last week for college students working towards becoming teachers. My workshop focused on literacy and reading to students in the classroom. It went really well and I’ll be doing it again this week.
I’ll probably be in town for another week or two for a funeral, two more workshops, and to see a few more friends before I head north.
Well I think that’s all I have for now. I’ll try and post some more later this week. Hope everyone is doing well at home!

Maps and Libraries!

Pictures: us painting maps at my friends school (more details below). In the top picture, I was working on the map and my friends puppy came and slept on my leg! He's just a little white spot in the picture, but I love it!

Hello everyone!! I’m in town for the next two weeks planning a camp that will focus on HIV/AIDS education, career planning, goal setting, and sports/teambuilding games. I’m pretty excited about it. I’m also planning a Men as Partners workshop, which will help men and women work together and look at each other as equals, focusing on the men in Lesotho. Big week! I’m also working on some more literacy workshops and will be teaching at the Lesotho College of Education for a few weeks of July. I am a little overwhelmed, but I would rather be really busy than bored!

Library Updates!
I got an e-mail from Biblionef, an organization based in Cape Town, saying that they sent four boxes of children’s books written in Sesotho!!! They are going to be a great start to all four libraries. I can’t wait to get them. All of the teachers and students are getting really excited, too. I am hoping they get here around the same time our winter break is over, which is August 1. The teachers have been working hard to learn how to incorporate literature into their lessons. The kids get so excited to have me or their teacher read to them. I forget that they do not have constant access to books and are not read at home. It would be great to see kids reading on their own by the end of my two years here.
I also got an e-mail from Darien Book Aid, based in Connecticut, and they are collecting books and will be shipping them as soon as possible!

My mom is going to be organizing a book drive through African Library Project in Pittsburgh when school starts again. This is from their website…The African Library Project partners with volunteers in African communities to create small libraries for African schools and villages. The African Library Project makes it easy for U.S. children to recycle their books in order to share the gift of reading with children in Africa. The donated books are collected in the U.S. through book drives organized by volunteer schools and non-profit organizations. The books are shipped directly to the communities who request them. Check out the African Library video…it’s really amazing and has some footage of Lesotho, as well!

http://www.mywebserve.com/webprojects/Test/ALPppt/

A few of my friends surprised me and sent me e-mails saying they collected some books and are sending them to my mom! So my mom will be working on collecting about 3,000 books, but I wanted to try to lighten the load and raise some of the $1,500 needed to ship the books to Africa. I’m hoping that by starting now, I will be able to collect the money in time to ship the boxes in September. I’ve been getting some amazing care packages and people have been asking what they could send to help the schools. If anyone is interested in helping with the cost of shipping instead of sending care packages or school supplies, that would be really helpful. Each box will cost from $20-$40 to send to Lesotho. My mom will be collecting the money along with the books and will be depositing the shipping funds into my fundraising bank account. If you are interested in helping with the cost of shipping, please e-mail me or send money to my home address. I really appreciate all of the help and support I have received in Lesotho.

In other news, several of my friends and I painted a world map at Tsakholo High School where Kelly, a volunteer in my group, teaches. The map looks amazing. Hopefully a few pictures of the map will be in this blog post. It depends how fast the Internet is today! We are hoping to paint maps at schools all over the country. We have scheduled to visit other volunteers when school starts up again in August to paint more maps. Exciting stuff!! The kids really love looking at the maps. The schools here are pretty bland, so a huge, colorful map really helps to brighten up the school. As we painted, the kids asked us where countries were and asked us where we lived on the map. Hopefully it will encourage them to learn more about the world and want to see more of it.

I hope everyone is doing well! E-mail me with some updates about your summers!!

Mike
1006 Deerbrook Lane
Oakdale, PA 15071
michaeldissen@gmail.com

Pictures and Video!

Hey everyone!! I sent all of my pictures and video home to my mom and she put them online! The internet isn't fast enough for me to upload video, so she put it on utube for me. The links are on the left side of my blog. Check them out! There is a tour of my house and tons of pictures. Hope this helps you to picture where I'm living and what I'm doing here!!

Miss everyone!

The First 6 Months!

Hello everyone! After living in Lesotho for 6 months, I thought it was time to explain what I do everyday. I just submitted 11 grants requesting over 4,000 books for 4 schools. Woaah! The next few paragraphs are copied from my grants and changed a little to expand on some of what I do!

I work as a resource teacher for the four most northern schools in the country, which include Ha Sefako Primary School, Liqobong Primary School, Monontsa Primary School, and Mifika-Lisiu Primary School. I have been working very closely with the teachers at each school to improve the way the students are being taught with a focus on literacy. To do this, my friend Meg and I designed a literacy workshop to provide teachers with creative ways to introduce reading, writing, and public speaking into the classroom. Each teacher walked away with several books written in both English and Sesotho, a complete list of Dolch words for their classrooms, educational games, and much more. The following two weeks were spent working with the teachers as they tried new teaching techniques and read to their students for the first time. It was incredible to see the teachers get excited to try very simple ideas when they taught. I walked into one class as a teacher was explaining that students had to put a finger between words so they weren’t 5 inches apart and words weren’t running together. A few teachers were really excited to play Bingo with their students. They were even more excited when I told them that they could change they game in any way they wanted.

During the six weeks between Easter and our winter break, I will be working with teachers from grades 1-3 to create a phonics program that another volunteer has been working on in her school. Students are learning that each letter has a name, sound, and can create a word with the help of other letters. The teachers think I’m crazy and that I’m having their students make nonsense sounds, but I showed them where I was headed and they like the idea. Since the workshop, they have started to trust me a lot more and believe me when I have new ideas.
Students in grade 3 and 4 replied to pen pals from Costa Mesa, California. I set up pen pals with a friend of mine that I interned with in State College. The kids here were so excited to learn about California and write back to their new friends. The letters they wrote were unbelievable. Their teachers spent days reading letters to their students and helping them write back. For the students, it was their first time having someone helping them read and helping them create a letter. In response to their remarkable writing, I am working with teachers in grades 4-7 to schedule a time for creative writing in their week.
The same students are also learning about community service and how to plan, implement, and analyze projects. They will be working in their villages in June and July and reporting back once school begins again in August. None of the teachers understand why the project is important or why I want to do it, but the agreed to let me teach about community service and give an assignment. I told them that I would grade it and everything as long as they watched me teach the lesson.
I’ve also been working with teachers teaching math, science, and health. Each school has a pretty well stocked math and science kit, so I’ve been encouraging teachers to use them. I’ve done a lot of explaining and modeling so the teachers understand how each object is used. I made sure all of the teachers understood how dangerous some of the chemicals in the science kits could be and asked them to use them for the first time when I was visiting their classroom. For some reason, the chemicals have been one of the more interesting items for the teachers and they have used them as zit cream, to unclog whiteout, and to demonstrate soluble and insoluble liquids. Nothing has blown up yet and everyone’s skin seems to be ok, so I guess things worked out!
As for health…I think it will be an ongoing battle over the next two years. I am trying to teach teachers about HIV/AIDS and try to talk about it often so they are more comfortable talking about it with their students. Teachers are slowly starting to ask questions and we are clearing up some of the many myths that they have heard over the years.

I haven’t been good about answering the many questions that I’ve received, so I’ll try to answer some of them here! This might end up being a jumble of ideas!
Students walk anywhere from 5 minutes to 2 hours to school. The youngest ones wait for older students to walk by their homes and they walk with them to school everyday. Grades 1-3 get out of school 2 hours earlier than the older students and they also wait until the older students get out of school to walk with them. I asked a teacher how students know when to go to school, and he told me that they use the sun. They also have radios, which announce the time pretty often. If they don’t use either of those methods, they wait for the high school students to walk by and then leave. All of the students are pretty loud when they walk to school, so I imagine they just wait for a group of kids in a uniform to walk past. The teacher also said that on cloudy days most kids are late for school. He said that the clouds made it harder for them to figure out the time, so they just leave when they are ready!
Students in all four of my schools wear uniforms. As far as I can tell, they each have one sweater and pair of pants. They wear them all week and wash them on Friday after school. I brought a sewing kit to school a few times to sew torn clothing, but it’s been too cold lately to hold a needle. A friend of mine donated an awesome sewing kit and the teachers are all amazed that I can sew. As soon as it warms up again, I am going to dedicate a week or two to fixing clothes. Now that the kids know me a little better, it isn’t as weird.
To heat my house, I have a heater that runs off of my gas tank. It has a little flame that is always lit and I’m not exactly sure how to work it. I thought I had it figured out and was sitting smugly waiting for it to heat up and then a big ball of fire exploded out of it…nothing too big, similar to waiting just a second too long to light the grill. Then I noticed that the bottom of it was on fire. I’m still not sure if it is supposed to be on fire or if I messed up. I blew it out and haven’t tried to light it since. Plenty of layers are keeping me pretty warm at night! I’m typing on Phil’s computer and I’m in shorts and a t-shirt. I don’t mind the cold…well I do, but it’s almost 65 degrees today and was a few degrees below 50 in my house a few nights ago.
A few questions have come through about the teachers. Most of my schools have about 8 teachers. Usually about half of them are actually paid and others are volunteers. I’m not entirely sure how that works. They have a syllabus that they follow that has been supplied by the Ministry of Education (reminds me of Harry Potter!). They do follow the syllabus, but are not always sure how to teach some things, so they skip them. Usually it is just a topic or two, but I noticed that art has been skipped completely. One of my other self given jobs has been to figure out what is being skipped, why they aren’t teaching it, and working with them to present it to their students. On those days, I go home and sleep for a while! It’s exhausting.

I spent 2 hours of yesterday talking with standard 7 students in my farthest school about HIV/AIDS and sex. It was amazing how much they didn’t know and how much more they had wrong. We talked about HIV prevention, how to get it, and what it is. We also talked about other STD’s, sex, where to get condoms, how to say no to aggressive men, and tons of other stuff. I let some of the teachers sit in on our discussion for the first half hour. They were really interested and would occasionally ask each other questions and ask me to explain more. One example is boys and girls “practicing” with each other. This is done with children of the same sex. Most people I have talked to, including most of the teachers and students, thought that HIV and other STD’s could only be transmitted through male/female sex. Boys also practice with farm animals. We talked about that a little, too, but I had a hard time convincing them that it was dirty.

When I felt like I said all that I wanted, I asked the teachers to leave and gave the kids time to ask questions. It took about 10 seconds of awkward silence for students to start mumbling questions. After that, it was nonstop questions for the next 90 minutes! I left glowing. The kids stayed in their classrooms talking about everything we had discussed. I put a box in the room for students to write any question they had and I would answer it next time I visited the school. I am also going to take any student wanting to test for HIV/AIDS to the local clinic in the next few weeks! I’m pretty excited 

After that, I left with the principal of the school for the hour walk to the dirt road to catch a taxi. Along the way, we visited the local chief and a few other homes. A few men asked me to come back next week to help slaughter a pig. I might go...Our last visit was to a friend’s house. He invited us into his home and told us that he would be back. A few minutes later, he returned with a bowl of meet and told us that he killed a pig earlier in the day. I didn’t want to be rude, so I took a piece of meat and put it in my mouth. I was sure it was meat. It had the right texture, shape, smell, everything. A few seconds later, I realized that I was chewing on the liver. Then I realized that I was out of water. I gagged for a second and then forced it down. He smiled and was pretty pleased, I think offering me the liver was a huge compliment. I waited for my friend to eat more and then felt like I should take another piece. Again, I was sure it was meat. I double checked. As I began to chew, I realized it was the heart. I stopped eating the meat after that! When I was finished, he showed me the rest of the pig. It was about 4:00 and he had killed the pig early in the morning. By the time I left, he had only taken out the insides and the rest of the pig was lying on the ground covered in flies. Blah.


Well I am off to Maseru to meet with several people in the Peace Corps office. I'll be able to check my e-mail tomorrow morning. Miss everyone!

More Durban Pics (and 2 blogs below)

Durban Pictures!

Durban story! So we discovered the night life pretty quickly and had a great time meeting new people and visiting new bars. When we asked people where to go, they assumed we wanted to go to upper class, white bars. We didn't mind checking out a few, but the locals were a ton of fun to hangout with. We asked a taxi driver to take us to a fun bar. It was late in the night and we weren't too choosy, we just wanted to have a good time. We all had nice beach clothes on, but as Peace Corps volunteers, we weren't dressed too well. When we got to the bar, we stood in line for about 10 minutes and started talking to the bouncer. After a minute or two, he looked at my shoes, which were sandals, and told us we couldn't come in. He said that I wasn't dressed well and that slops weren't allowed in this bar. It was toward the end of the night, so I told him what I thought and we left. As it turns out, we couldn't get into several bars because of my "slops." It is a pretty funny story now, but I was not happy at the time.

I'm back from Durban!

I’m back from Durban! 9 of my friends and I spent the last week in Durban, South Africa. We had an amazing time exploring that part of the country!!! So we started last Thursday and took a 6 hour bus ride to Durban. 5 of us traveled together to make traveling easer. We had intended on getting to Durban early to get to our hostel, check things out, and get a bite to eat. Instead, we got there just as the sun was setting and ended up in one of the three “don’t go there” areas on the map. We wanted to go to a small town called Umzumbe for the first night and then head back up to Durban for the rest of our vacation. We missed the last bus to Umzumbe and our amazing bus driver drove us around for a while until we found 2 taxis to take us to a different hostel. Things ended up working out, so it wasn’t too bad.

The next day, the five of us went to the beach, which was amazing. I felt like I was back in America. There was a board walk with a ton of little shops and places to eat, a small amusement park, and a great beach. We figured out the hard way that the beach was about an hour walk from where we were staying, but it gave us a chance to meet some people and figure out where things were.

It was either rainy or cold for two or three days, so we went to “the biggest mall in the southern hemisphere.” It was big, but I’m not sure if it was the biggest. I ate about 4 meals at the mall, including chicken pot pie and sushi. They were both amazing! They also had beer on tap! Having cold beer on tap was definitely a change from living in Lesotho.

The mall was pretty big, so I ended up buying a long sleeved t-shirt, a hookah, and an Obama t-shirt. The people in my village always tell me not to fear the black man and ask me if I like black people. They are also convinced that only white people live in America. I figure the t-shirt will spark some conversation!

To all of my first graders, now second graders! I have not seen a lion yet, but I have seen baboons, ostriches, and impalas. It was really cool! I wasn’t able to take a picture, but I will have my camera ready next time!!

So now I’m back in Lesotho and am getting ready to go back to my village. I’m staying in the camp town until Saturday or Sunday to get some work done. I have 6 weeks of school until winter break. My goals from now until then are to get all of the paperwork for my upcoming projects done. Some of the projects include…creating libraries in 3 schools (my mom will be in charge of that on the American side), adding 3 classrooms onto one of the schools that I work with (I’m going to need some help with that, but will post more in a month or two), and I want to have a camp in October for high school students to learn about HIV/AIDS, career counseling, and to play a ton of games for kids. I’m pretty excited about all of these and hope they end up working out.

I’ve gotten a few e-mails asking what kind of things I need and what kind of help the schools need. I’ll start with the schools.
I’ve been working with preschools that are next to each of the primary schools that I work with. Unlike the primary schools, the preschools are not given much, or any, financial help or school supplies. I would love to bring in Lego’s, art supplies (a lot), and educational games. I’m working with them on creating educational games out of things that can be found in many homes here. I’m hoping to have a workshop for each school between now and June, but we’ll see!
For the primary schools, I am working on creating 3 libraries. I have to fill out the paperwork and might not have it done until schools are out, but I definitely want to import roughly 3,000 books. My mom is going to be in charge of collecting the books and shipping them to New Orleans through the African Libraries Project. The whole thing will cost around $1,800, which we will also be raising. If you are interested in helping financially or donating any books, e-mail me! I’m really looking for books for K-3. The kids aren’t strong readers and are working on basic reading skills, so easy readers, leveled readers, and books with a lot of repetition would be great. Picture books and simple educational books would be great, too. So e-mail me if you want to talk more about this!! I could always use more books, but 1,000 per school is the minimum and it costs roughly $600 per school.

Another project that I’m working on is to add onto one of my schools. I still have a ton of work to do for this one, but the total cost should be around $4,000. We’ll talk more about this in a few months!!!

A few people have been asking what kind of things I need, so I made a list!! I would love things to make an easy dinner, pasta in a bag or soup in a bag. The just add water kind of stuff! I’ve gotten a few packages of chicken, which are great and easy. M&M’s and Hershey kisses would be amazing, too!! I tend to wake up a little late for school and have been running out the door with a cereal bar in my hand. I haven’t been able to find them here, so they would be helpful. All of the packages that I’ve received so far are great. Really anything that you think I would like would be perfect.

Well that was a jumble of information! I hope everyone is doing well. I will be able to check my e-mail on and off for the next 6 weeks and then should have more regular access over winter break! I might write more about Durban tomorrow or Sunday before I go back to my village!

Hello from Durban, South Africa

Hi! I'm taking a short vacation at the beach in Durban, South Africa. We are staying at a lodge called the Hippo Hide.

Here is the link to the lodge:

www.hippohide.co.za/English/aboutus.asp.

If you would like to call me while I'm here, my South Africa Number is:

011.278.34831098.

You should be able to reach me at this number through Wednesday and remember the time difference is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.

I'll try to update my blog again when I return to Lesotho.

Until then Happy Easter!

More Pictures (Blog further down the page!)

These pictures are of a hike that I took to see cave paintings and the family that I hung out with all day. The other pictures are of some of the students I work with. The pictures appear as a ton of jumbled up letters before I hit submit, so I don't know what order they are in. Sorry!!!!!!

Long update!

These pictures are of a preschool that I have been working with. They really don't have any supplies, so I am trying to get some art supplies to them. In the one picture, they are eating out of one bowl with their hands. Another picture is people seperating the wheat from the chaf. They used the wind to seperate them. It was pretty cool!

Hey everyone! It’s been a while since I have typed a decent blog. I haven’t been in town lately and have not had much time to get online. Sorry if I haven’t replied to any e-mails for a while!! I’ve been in my village for 3 weeks and have really been enjoying it. My laptop isn’t working so well, so some of this is handwritten and I typed it when I had a chance.

3-9-09
I’ll start with a story…I just finished brushing my teeth and still laugh because I stand on my “front porch” and spit to the right of my house. It is really convenient, really! After I rinsed my toothbrush, I flicked the water off like a priest in church. It made me laugh for a few minutes because I felt like I was blessing the grass. As I’m typing this, it’s about 2 weeks later and I still laugh every time I brush!

As I wrote this part of the blog, I was sitting in my long underwear, hoodie, and thick wool socks writing by candle light. The temperature keeps getting very cold and then getting hot again the next day. I can’t keep up! It is starting to get darker much earlier than when I first arrived in Lesotho. I start lighting candles around 5:30 so I can see while I make dinner and read before I go to bed. I am starting to enjoy living in a hut with a grass roof, lighting candles to see, and even walking to school sometimes. Little things, like blessing my grass, make me laugh. My hut is a mess, but most of the rooms that I have lived in have had clothes, papers, books, and everything else scattered around. The only difference is that my dirty and clean clothes, dirty dishes, all of my food, and everything else I have are scattered throughout one tiny room. I decided that I had to clean up a little bit the other day and found a spider that I swore was a scorpion for a few minutes. I chased it around, keeping a pretty good distance between us, and decided that it was just one of those spiders that is better off squished about 100 feet from my house.

**

This past week has been incredible! I went to town on Thursday (March 5) after school to prepare for the literacy workshop that I think I talked about in another blog post. I made some really cool handouts so the teachers had something to help them remember all of the information we covered. My friends and I also celebrated Meg’s 23rd birthday! It was a great time and great to see some of the people I haven’t seen in a while. We had an 80’s themed party…if pictures surface, Tom Cruise was not there in his Risky Business outfit  On Sunday, Meg came back to Ha Sefako with Phil and me to visit some of the college students she works with and to do the workshop with me.

The workshop went really well! 11/12 teachers showed up and we only started about 30 minutes late, which are both AMAZING! Because of the terrible roads and the inconsistent transportation, teachers usually start arriving late. I think they knew that I meant business when I told then that we were starting promptly at 10. The workshop ended around 1, which was longer that I had expected, but could have lasted much, much longer. We talked about reading aloud to students, students reading and learning to read, speaking out loud, and writing. We taught them some games to help the students learn because most of the time, they are just asked to copy words from the board. We taught them sight word bingo, which is bingo with very common and simple words in each box. When the first teacher got bingo, we gave her candy and the teachers went crazy! They love candy and playing little games like this. I’m hoping they play bingo with their kids! The teachers seemed excited about the workshop and even checked books out of the one library in the area.

The workshop was on a Friday, so I told teachers that I expected to see them trying some of the ideas the following week in their classes. I made sure to spend a significant amount of time in each of the teachers classes to observe and help where I could. I was really excited to see that teachers were trying to incorporate some of the new ideas into their teaching. One teacher even asked me to observe her “Right now!” I went in to find that she was reading with her students and having them read. She experimented with some new ideas and was very proud of herself. Her students spent about 40 minutes reading 3 small sentences, but it was definitely a start. Once she finished, she looked up at me and said, “See Thabang, my students can read.” I just smiled.

Earlier this week, I woke up with a headache and stomach ache, so I decided to go to the school next to my house instead of my farthest, which is 20 minute bus ride and 1 hour hike up a mountain. On my way to the school, I stopped at the preschool to introduce myself and give them some books. I had such a great time there! The teacher spoke almost no English, so I tried my best to talk to her in Sesotho. I ended up getting pretty far, but I know it was very broken Sesotho. There were about 23 kids and they all just stood in the room looking at me with huge eyes. The teacher asked them to sing and dance for me, which I loved! Once they realized that I was enjoying it, the kids started singing louder and getting into the dancing. On my way out, I realized that it was lunch time, so I waited around to see what their eating situation was. Each of the students brought a small container of either papa (ground up corn meal that makes a very stiff mashed potato looking thing), a small amount of meat, potatoes, or some other type of vegetable. The teacher took 4 medium sized containers and put a ton of papa and a mixture of other stuff inside. Then 6 kids crowded around each bowl and dug in with their hands. The kids were between 2-6 and had more boogers and funky stuff going on than I’ll write about, but none of them washed their hands. So to see them dig in, lick their hands clean, and go for more was a lot. I took pictures…hopefully they will load! I thought the worst was over, but when they finished, it was time to get a drink and clean up. The teacher had a basin full of water. The kids each washed their hands, face, even their hair in some cases, and then took scoops of water with their hands to drink! I might buy spoons and cups next time I’m in town!!

Today, March 20, is my free day. I decided to visit the preschool and the primary school closest to my house in the morning. I brought a book that a volunteer had translated into Sesotho and asked the teacher to read it to her class. She didn’t really want to, but I showed her what to do and the kids loved it! I’m going to try to stop by once or twice a week. After I left, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful day and sat outside and finished my 13th book. I ran out of books in my village (will get more next weekend in town) so I’m reading the whole Chronicles of Narnia. I feel like I’m 12, but it’s a good read. I had my shirt off and was getting some sun when I realized that this was just like the beach and that I had 2 avocados in my hut. I threw on my Hilton Head shirt (then took it off), made guacamole, turned on my iPod and pretended I was at the beach. It was sooo nice! Much needed getaway!

Well I hope everyone is doing well. I’m in town today and will be until around April 8 (I think) when I go to South Africa! So give me a call! I’ll post my South African phone number closer to when I leave.

I should be able to check e-mail pretty often in the next few weeks and can get texts, too!

Hey everyone! I'm in town for the weekend! Give me a call...I would love to hear from you!

I'll try to write a better post tomorrow, but for now...

I'm in town working on the Literacy Workshop that I will be having next Friday. I wrote down a list of things that I could help with in the schools, and most of the areas that could use help would be fixed if the students spoke or understood English better. I have a handout started, but I am hoping to find some information on line for people trying to improve literacy in developing countries. I found some great resources in a local library, but the ideas will be hard to implement without some of the supplies needed.

So I'm pretty excited for the workshop. If things go the way I hope, we can have kids learning to read in the next few weeks!!

My mouse. I put rocks over the holes and haven't found any mouse poop in about a week!! Sometimes I hear them under my floor, but I can handle that!

I am down to my last 2 or 3 pairs of underwear, so I decided to do laundry yesterday. It was a beautiful day, so I thought my clothes would dry on the line in no time. I spent an hour washing my clothes by hand...I'm still not sure if they are clean! The water that I use is rain water, so there is some mosquito larvae, dead bees, and other funk in the water. My clothes aren't too dirty, but I'm hoping I got the sweat out of them!! Anyway, I thought the day would stay nice and my clothes would dry...an hour later it started to storm! I brought all of my clothes inside and layed them over anything I could find in my house. When I got up this morning, my clothes were still pretty wet. I'm hoping they will be dry and not mildewy on Sunday!

Well that's all I have for now! Hope to hear from some of you soon!!!

P.S. I haven't been able to get on facebook. I'm reading the messages through g-mail, but can't respond or look at them on facebook! I'll try again tomorrow!!

Pictures!

The pictures I added are of my house and town. When I say I come to town, I leave my small village and come to the place in the picture. I'll try to take more pictures, but didn't want people to notice the camera!!

HIIi

Hey everyone! I’m sitting in a double story rondoval, a grass roofed hut, typing to everyone. I have to keep my computer connected to the power because my battery won’t charge! I’m not really sure what’s going on. Anyway, about 8 volunteers are here with around 20 high school students for Diversity Camp. This weekend, the students learned about people who are different than most people living in their village. We had gay and lesbian speakers, a person who is HIV positive, a Taiwanese woman, and people to test and teach about HIV/AIDS. The kids seemed really engaged and interested in what was going on. I think it would be great to do something very similar in my village!
It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog, so I’ll catch everyone up on the past few weeks! Last Wednesday one of my schools hosted Cultural Day. The day was a chance for people to sing and dance to traditional music and get together as a community. Women sold some of the arts and crafts they made, which was a great way to bring some money into the community. Some of the profits benefited the orphans in the community! It was really cool to see some of the traditional dancing. I’m going to try to put pictures up and even video on youtube! We also got to see girls coming back from initiation school. I’m not sure how much I can really talk about it…it’s very secretive, but the school is where they learn how to be a man or woman. When the girls came back, they wore beaded masks and were topless. They had painted their chests white and were parading through villages to show the men that they had become women. Some of the girls will go back to school, but many will not.
On Friday, my schools had a welcome party for me! All of the teachers came and we had a great time! It was a really nice thing for the teachers to do. We ate, danced, and had a great time!
Well I have to go! I'll be back in town in 2 weeks!!

Hey everyone! Sorry for the quick and choppy update! I haven't been able to charge my laptop and it is expensive to be online long enough to type a decent blog! So I'm in town for a camp for some high school students. I will have service until sunday.
Things are going pretty well. It turns out, I have 2 mice. I took out my carpet and discovered that there was a ton of dirt/dust under it. No wonder my allergies are terrible! I also found 2 small holes that the mice get in. I filled them with dirt and put a rock on top. I can hear them trying to get in at night, but they haven't been able to! Yay!
Well I have to run! I am going to try to post a real blog entry and maybe a video of my house in 2 weeks!

Miss everyone!

Bathing (or not), Mice problms, and travel plans!!!

First! Thanks for the birthday messages! I got a ton on facebook, some e-mails, and some here. It made my day!

Kelly - things are great! I am having a wonderful time. I have not seen a lion, but I will keep an eye out! if you e-mail me at michaeldissen@gmail.com i will be able to write you more often!

I just spent the past two hours washing my t-shirts and underwear. I am exhausted. Last time I hand washed my clothes, which was about 3 weeks ago, I realized that I should probably wear things for a few days before throwing them in the basket. I am not so proud of this, but I when I got dressed Sunday morning…well let’s just say I’m still wearing the entire outfit and it is Wednesday. Bathing is also a hassle because it takes about half of one of my 2 water buckets to bathe. I also get water everywhere and don’t usually get all of the soap off. So I’m down to bathing once a week. Right now it is summer, so I am really pushing it with my not bathing or changing, but once it starts to get cold, things will be great!

Earlier this week, a teacher at one of my schools (I am a resource for 4 schools) asked me to help him teach science. He was not sure how to teach without the necessary materials. After a little searching, I found the school’s math and science kits. The kits, which are really just a metal cabinet, there are all kinds of great materials to help teach math and science. When I found it, I felt like a kid on Christmas, or Hanukkah Sally! With the help of another teacher, I unwrapped everything in the cabinet. Everything was in a box and wrapped in brown paper. I got so excited to unwrap everything and explain to the teacher how to use it. He was so excited to learn how to use most of the objects that I ran to get other teachers to spread the joy!! Most of the teachers were completely overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do when I handed them a teaching clock, a bag of unifix cubes, or some other random teaching aid. I had just finished observing each of the teachers, so I knew what they were teaching, especially in math and science. Each teacher left the room knowing how to use or teach with at least 2 objects and all promised to teach with them before I came back the following Tuesday. I am so excited to see how it went! The teachers have been drawing abacuses on the board and the kids just didn’t understand what an abacus was. I really think they will start to get it with the help of all of the new supplies!

Also. I have a mouse. It is now official that I have a small, golf ball sized, brown mouse living in my grass roofed hut. He kept me up all night Monday, rummaging through anything that made noise. Every time I shined my light on him, he would disappear! Last night I found the little thing. We had a staring contest and I haven’t seen him since. I’m not embarrassed to say that I told the mouse that if he peed or pooped on my counter or anything else in my house, I would get a mousetrap. I think he knew I meant business! The spiders…they are another story. No matter how many times I tell them to stay out of my bed, I wake up with one staring at me.

Last piece of business. I know sooo many people want to come and visit me, so you should probably make some travel arrangements now! I would LOVE anyone to come visit! I can’t find the school schedule right now, but I have a rough idea. You can come any time, but there are definitely more convenient times to come and also times that might be more fun. Our school year runs from January to roughly November. Our winter break is June and July. So November and December would be a great time to come and June or July would be amazing. If you want to come as soon as July, my friends and I are planning a trip to Swaziland and Mozambique around the last 2 weeks of July. It would be AMAZING if you flew into Mozambique, hit the beach for a little, and then drove back to Lesotho with me and stayed for a week or so!! If you wanted to come when we were in school, it wouldn’t be as exciting, but we could work things out!! Plan now and let me know! I would be sooooo excited!

As always, hope everyone is well at home! E-mail me some updates!! I don’t think I’ll be back in town until the 21st. We’ll see though.

hiiii

It rained a lot this week, which dropped the temperature to about 58 degrees. My hut has a grass roof, so it didn’t keep the cold out very well. The only plus side is that the cabinet that holds all of my food – dried, canned, and fresh – acted as a refrigerator. For the first time ever, I didn’t gag and force down warm yogurt! I am still getting used to warm cheese, eggs, yogurt, and everything else that really should be refrigerated.

ADDRESS UPDATE! I am going to start using my friends PO box because it is closer to my village and takes much less time to receive a package or letter. Anything that has been sent to my old address will automatically be forwarded to me! So that is fine! Either one will work!!

Mike Dissen
Ed Office
P.O. Box 230
Botha, Bothe 400
LESOTHO, Southern Africa


Also, I am in town today! I HAVE SERVICE!! So if anyone is interested in calling, my phone should work until about 2AM, your time. I will not have service after that though! Hope to hear from you soon.

ANNNNDD HIIII to everyone at Gray’s Woods! Miss you all!


Ok. so there are pictures below. In a very random order, they are...first grade sudents practing writing "dog," "cat," and "cow" on the floor in chalk. I was so excited to see the teacher create ways to teach without pencils and paper! Others are of my farthest school. It is about 2 hours away, up a mountain. The kids are standing in line getting lunch. That day was papa (ground up corn that makes a kind of dough?) and beans. Uhhhh other pictures are of when Phil and I hiked the mountain behind our house. The goats go up there every day to eat grass. I'm not sure why they don't eat grass about 2,000 Feet below??? I took a serious nap after that hike! Oh! The group picture is when we swore in as volunteers! We are with the director of Peace Corps Lesotho!

More Pictures!