Ha Sefako, Butha Buthe, Lesotho
I graduated from Penn State and currently live in Lesotho, Southern Africa as I serve in the Peace Corps!

My Lesotho Videos

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

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!

Thursday, October 8, 2009

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

Saturday, October 3, 2009

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