click on the link to see a video of my house in Lesotho!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrvCLq2pks4
Monday, June 14, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
HIV workshop and a day in ha sefako!
I had my “HIV Education through Literacy” workshop a few weeks ago! I’ve been pretty bad about keeping up with my blog, so I’ll try to recap the past few weeks!
The workshop went so well! Peace Corps staff and volunteers partnered up with the ministry to facilitate a workshop to train teachers to use roughly 70 children’s books that have an HIV, sexual health, self-esteem, decision-making, and gender equality focus. All 36 teachers from each of the 12 schools showed up, which is a huge deal for a workshop. The workshop ran from Thursday evening until Sunday morning with very few extra breaks, which is very different from typical workshops. We taught teachers how to read the books aloud to their students, teach reading comprehension, write a letter to a character in the books, role-play and debate using the books, how to connect many of the books to curriculum in each subject, and games and activities that students and teachers can use with the books. Because they were receiving a ton of books, we also taught them how to use and care for the books. And because the whole workshop was dedicated to teaching HIV and all other things surrounding life skills (simply skills needed to get through life – decision making, goal setting, sexual health…), we talked a lot about HIV. We had peer HIV education through a game of Jeopardy where teachers chose a dollar (or rand) amount from a category and answered a question as a group. If they did not know the answer then as a whole group we discussed the answer. It was a great way to teach about HIV without lecturing. We also had youth facilitators and Kick-4-Life, who I have used before at workshops. They teach about HIV through games that teachers can use in their schools.
Each teacher walked away with ideas for their regular classrooms, lesson plans that they created, educational games, and great new resources. I walked away feeling such a sense of accomplishment and relief after planning and thinking about this workshop since December. The workshop went better than I could have possibly imagined thanks to the help of Peace Corps staff, other volunteers, the Ministry of Education, and our many facilitators and other organizations that helped us to plan and carry out the workshop.
Now I am in the process of collecting and combining all of my scattered ideas and notes to create a manual so we can duplicate this workshop again. We made sure that after each session and day we sat down to evaluate the effectiveness of the sessions. There are a ton of changes that we are going to make to according to feedback we received and changes we made as we went.
I talked to a few of my friends this weekend that had friends and family come and visit decided I should tell you about a typical day for me in my village. This was more or less my day yesterday…
I began hitting snooze around 6:00 and eventually rolled out of bed at 6:30 to make sure I was dressed before one of the kids came over a little before 7. I lit some candles because the sun doesn’t peek over the mountains until 7:20. I planned ahead this week so I ate some yogurt and granola for breakfast while I changed and put on shoes. Right on time, Mpho, a 6th grade student came over to walk to school with him. He sat down and continued a puzzle that we have been working on for a few days while I brushed my teeth and got my things together. At 7:00 we left my house and walked for about 1 minute to the dirt road to wait for the taxi. It is winter now so we were bundled up, but it gets warm during the day so we are a little colder than we should be waiting for the bus. The bus finally arrives at 7:35 and we notice that there are 19 people in a 15-passenger bus, but the conductor tells us to get in quickly! I half sit next to a woman going to town and Mpho stands squeezed between the door and people sitting. These busses comfortably fit 3 people in each of the 3 rows and do not allow for standing room…still we fit 4 in each and have people standing.
We arrive at our stop, which is a shop/bar at 7:50 and begin our hour-long walk up and around a mountain. Although the sun rose where I live, there is a bigger mountain blocking it out where we are now walking. School starts at 8:30, so we are walking quickly and I quickly start sweating. It is way to early for this! Because we are walking so fast, we arrive at school only 8 minutes late! We arrive just in time for the morning prayer and then it’s off to class. I begin my day in standard (grade) 1 & 2, which has a total of 100 students in one classroom. The teacher wasn’t there yesterday so I asked another teacher to help me read a book to the class (his students were taking an exam!). I found a version of The Little Red Hen and began reading. I spoke painfully slow and had him translate for me. I asked the students what they thought the book would be about and got nothing back. I spoke slower and used some Sesotho. They all agreed that it was about a bird. I took it! I told them to pay attention to the pictures and to try and pick up some of the words I was saying. We pointed out the animals in the book and said their English and Sesotho names. The book was repetitive so they started saying the words with me. “Not I!” All of the kids in Lesotho are familiar with the process of picking wheat, taking it to the mill, eating it…so these kids knew exactly what was going on even know they only understood a few of the words I was saying. As I read I noticed the students slowly leaving their seats and crowding around me. By the end of the story kids were standing on the table in front of me and all around me to get a better look at the pictures. It was great!
After that I went with a teacher to class 7 to help teach about different types of bleeding in health. We had talked about teaching this lesson last week, but ran out of time. I am going to spend a few weeks working with him to teach CPR and a few other things that are in the health unit. For this class I had to speak slowly, but didn’t need to speak Sesotho. The understood most of what I was talking about! We went through the three types of bleeding and I showed them the veins in my arm to help them understand. When it came time for capillary bleeding, I had each student pair up and look at each other’s eyes. They could see the small veins that run through our bodies. They also looked at the bottom of each other’s tongues. I got a lot of laughs when I showed them the bottom of mine and then they quickly turned to see their friends! Through the whole lesson the teacher helped me clarify things and also wanted to see/show the veins in the eye and tongue.
The last lesson I taught before lunch was about puberty. This was an interesting one. We talked about the changes in boys and girls and why this happens. I explained as best as I could the menstrual cycle. This class was combined 5 & 6, so some students were pretty young and some were much older. This made for a slightly awkward conversation. We (3 other teachers and me) ended the lesson by talking about choices and what if’s. We talked a lot to the girls about saying no and how to say it. A lot of men truly believe in the “use it or lose it” idea and we talked a lot about that as well. The kids were given an opportunity to ask questions and I turned a lot over to the teachers helping with the lesson to make sure I didn’t say too much, which I’m pretty sure I couldn’t. This lesson was really important because just like in the US, it is difficult for kids to ask certain questions and it is uncomfortable for adults to talk to kids about certain topics. Team teaching this lesson really helped the teachers to feel more comfortable.
I tend to take over whole chunks of the day when I really get into teaching. The puberty lesson ran 15 minutes into lunch and right through another teacher’s time. I like that a few teachers might sit in on the lesson to either learn something or to help out.
After lunch the students practiced for an upcoming soccer game so I decided to leave a little early. I walked back to the dirt road, which really took an hour this time and waited for a taxi (mini-bus). I arrived at 1:30 and sat down under a tree and started to read the book I brought with me. Around 2:15 a bus came by and I stood up expecting it to stop. It was full and went right by me. I waited another 15 minutes and decided to walk. The walk takes about 45 minutes and I have to cross a small stream. I almost always get my feet wet doing this, but didn’t slip this time! I stopped and talked to some friend and neighbors on the way home and arrived around 4. Knowing the sun was going to set around 5-5:30 I went to get water. I dumped the remaining water from my 2 buckets into my filter and set off. My old tap, which was a downhill walk back to my house, broke so I had to go to the other one. I would guess that it is about the length of a football field from my house to the tap…maybe a little longer. When I got to the tap I noticed that there was a rock on top of it because it was broken. I moved the rock and water immediately started gushing out. It took about 5 minutes to fill my bucket and another 5 to perfectly balance the rock on top of the tap again. Then I walked back taking only 3 rests, which is pretty good for me.
When I got back 2 boys from the high school were waiting for me. I put down the water, caught my breath and started talking to them. They needed help with their homework. I held my breath hoping that I could help them and they told me it was warm and cold-water currents. I told them that I needed a minute to review and then explained it to them. They stayed for a few minutes and then left.
I like to cook when the sun is still out so I can really see what’s going on. I had some veggies from town that were starting to go bad so I made pasta sauce with carrots, onion, and tomato. It should last about 3 days, which is great! I spent the rest of the night reading and cleaning up from dinner. I try my hardest to say up until 8 and then pass out for the night.
Only 3 more weeks of school until winter break! Hope everyone is doing well!! I’ll be back to town again in a few weeks.
workshop pictures. copy and paste the whole link!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3130211&id=9320551&l=e8fcc567ec.
The workshop went so well! Peace Corps staff and volunteers partnered up with the ministry to facilitate a workshop to train teachers to use roughly 70 children’s books that have an HIV, sexual health, self-esteem, decision-making, and gender equality focus. All 36 teachers from each of the 12 schools showed up, which is a huge deal for a workshop. The workshop ran from Thursday evening until Sunday morning with very few extra breaks, which is very different from typical workshops. We taught teachers how to read the books aloud to their students, teach reading comprehension, write a letter to a character in the books, role-play and debate using the books, how to connect many of the books to curriculum in each subject, and games and activities that students and teachers can use with the books. Because they were receiving a ton of books, we also taught them how to use and care for the books. And because the whole workshop was dedicated to teaching HIV and all other things surrounding life skills (simply skills needed to get through life – decision making, goal setting, sexual health…), we talked a lot about HIV. We had peer HIV education through a game of Jeopardy where teachers chose a dollar (or rand) amount from a category and answered a question as a group. If they did not know the answer then as a whole group we discussed the answer. It was a great way to teach about HIV without lecturing. We also had youth facilitators and Kick-4-Life, who I have used before at workshops. They teach about HIV through games that teachers can use in their schools.
Each teacher walked away with ideas for their regular classrooms, lesson plans that they created, educational games, and great new resources. I walked away feeling such a sense of accomplishment and relief after planning and thinking about this workshop since December. The workshop went better than I could have possibly imagined thanks to the help of Peace Corps staff, other volunteers, the Ministry of Education, and our many facilitators and other organizations that helped us to plan and carry out the workshop.
Now I am in the process of collecting and combining all of my scattered ideas and notes to create a manual so we can duplicate this workshop again. We made sure that after each session and day we sat down to evaluate the effectiveness of the sessions. There are a ton of changes that we are going to make to according to feedback we received and changes we made as we went.
I talked to a few of my friends this weekend that had friends and family come and visit decided I should tell you about a typical day for me in my village. This was more or less my day yesterday…
I began hitting snooze around 6:00 and eventually rolled out of bed at 6:30 to make sure I was dressed before one of the kids came over a little before 7. I lit some candles because the sun doesn’t peek over the mountains until 7:20. I planned ahead this week so I ate some yogurt and granola for breakfast while I changed and put on shoes. Right on time, Mpho, a 6th grade student came over to walk to school with him. He sat down and continued a puzzle that we have been working on for a few days while I brushed my teeth and got my things together. At 7:00 we left my house and walked for about 1 minute to the dirt road to wait for the taxi. It is winter now so we were bundled up, but it gets warm during the day so we are a little colder than we should be waiting for the bus. The bus finally arrives at 7:35 and we notice that there are 19 people in a 15-passenger bus, but the conductor tells us to get in quickly! I half sit next to a woman going to town and Mpho stands squeezed between the door and people sitting. These busses comfortably fit 3 people in each of the 3 rows and do not allow for standing room…still we fit 4 in each and have people standing.
We arrive at our stop, which is a shop/bar at 7:50 and begin our hour-long walk up and around a mountain. Although the sun rose where I live, there is a bigger mountain blocking it out where we are now walking. School starts at 8:30, so we are walking quickly and I quickly start sweating. It is way to early for this! Because we are walking so fast, we arrive at school only 8 minutes late! We arrive just in time for the morning prayer and then it’s off to class. I begin my day in standard (grade) 1 & 2, which has a total of 100 students in one classroom. The teacher wasn’t there yesterday so I asked another teacher to help me read a book to the class (his students were taking an exam!). I found a version of The Little Red Hen and began reading. I spoke painfully slow and had him translate for me. I asked the students what they thought the book would be about and got nothing back. I spoke slower and used some Sesotho. They all agreed that it was about a bird. I took it! I told them to pay attention to the pictures and to try and pick up some of the words I was saying. We pointed out the animals in the book and said their English and Sesotho names. The book was repetitive so they started saying the words with me. “Not I!” All of the kids in Lesotho are familiar with the process of picking wheat, taking it to the mill, eating it…so these kids knew exactly what was going on even know they only understood a few of the words I was saying. As I read I noticed the students slowly leaving their seats and crowding around me. By the end of the story kids were standing on the table in front of me and all around me to get a better look at the pictures. It was great!
After that I went with a teacher to class 7 to help teach about different types of bleeding in health. We had talked about teaching this lesson last week, but ran out of time. I am going to spend a few weeks working with him to teach CPR and a few other things that are in the health unit. For this class I had to speak slowly, but didn’t need to speak Sesotho. The understood most of what I was talking about! We went through the three types of bleeding and I showed them the veins in my arm to help them understand. When it came time for capillary bleeding, I had each student pair up and look at each other’s eyes. They could see the small veins that run through our bodies. They also looked at the bottom of each other’s tongues. I got a lot of laughs when I showed them the bottom of mine and then they quickly turned to see their friends! Through the whole lesson the teacher helped me clarify things and also wanted to see/show the veins in the eye and tongue.
The last lesson I taught before lunch was about puberty. This was an interesting one. We talked about the changes in boys and girls and why this happens. I explained as best as I could the menstrual cycle. This class was combined 5 & 6, so some students were pretty young and some were much older. This made for a slightly awkward conversation. We (3 other teachers and me) ended the lesson by talking about choices and what if’s. We talked a lot to the girls about saying no and how to say it. A lot of men truly believe in the “use it or lose it” idea and we talked a lot about that as well. The kids were given an opportunity to ask questions and I turned a lot over to the teachers helping with the lesson to make sure I didn’t say too much, which I’m pretty sure I couldn’t. This lesson was really important because just like in the US, it is difficult for kids to ask certain questions and it is uncomfortable for adults to talk to kids about certain topics. Team teaching this lesson really helped the teachers to feel more comfortable.
I tend to take over whole chunks of the day when I really get into teaching. The puberty lesson ran 15 minutes into lunch and right through another teacher’s time. I like that a few teachers might sit in on the lesson to either learn something or to help out.
After lunch the students practiced for an upcoming soccer game so I decided to leave a little early. I walked back to the dirt road, which really took an hour this time and waited for a taxi (mini-bus). I arrived at 1:30 and sat down under a tree and started to read the book I brought with me. Around 2:15 a bus came by and I stood up expecting it to stop. It was full and went right by me. I waited another 15 minutes and decided to walk. The walk takes about 45 minutes and I have to cross a small stream. I almost always get my feet wet doing this, but didn’t slip this time! I stopped and talked to some friend and neighbors on the way home and arrived around 4. Knowing the sun was going to set around 5-5:30 I went to get water. I dumped the remaining water from my 2 buckets into my filter and set off. My old tap, which was a downhill walk back to my house, broke so I had to go to the other one. I would guess that it is about the length of a football field from my house to the tap…maybe a little longer. When I got to the tap I noticed that there was a rock on top of it because it was broken. I moved the rock and water immediately started gushing out. It took about 5 minutes to fill my bucket and another 5 to perfectly balance the rock on top of the tap again. Then I walked back taking only 3 rests, which is pretty good for me.
When I got back 2 boys from the high school were waiting for me. I put down the water, caught my breath and started talking to them. They needed help with their homework. I held my breath hoping that I could help them and they told me it was warm and cold-water currents. I told them that I needed a minute to review and then explained it to them. They stayed for a few minutes and then left.
I like to cook when the sun is still out so I can really see what’s going on. I had some veggies from town that were starting to go bad so I made pasta sauce with carrots, onion, and tomato. It should last about 3 days, which is great! I spent the rest of the night reading and cleaning up from dinner. I try my hardest to say up until 8 and then pass out for the night.
Only 3 more weeks of school until winter break! Hope everyone is doing well!! I’ll be back to town again in a few weeks.
workshop pictures. copy and paste the whole link!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3130211&id=9320551&l=e8fcc567ec.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Libraries!!
The library books are here!!! Almost all of the boxes of books have made it to my schools!!! I found three boxes that were hiding under a table and sent them up today. The schools, teachers, students, and families are all so excited! I spent the week at schools helping to sort, organize, and shelve books. The teachers and students did all of the work deciding how they wanted to organize the books and how they wanted them to look on the shelves. I only gave a few suggestions along the way. At one of the schools, I discovered an extra storage room that was turned into a library in two hours! It was pretty exciting!!
When I arrived at the first school this week I was so excited to learn that they had already put the books on the shelves and put a padlock on the doors to keep the books safe. The teachers were excited to show me the books, but couldn’t find the key. We spent some time looking for the key ourselves and came up with nothing. Then I remembered that we had a great search party – the first graders! We brought them out, gave them instructions, and sent them to find the missing keys, which we suspected were in the grass somewhere. Before the key was found, one of the teachers went home and got the spare set of keys. It was a pretty amusing way to start the day.
After we opened the cupboards we decided we needed to organize the books. That is when I found the new library! It is a pretty small room, but we used some extra benches and tables and turned it into a beautiful library. That part of the school has the teachers resources and books for older students. Two classrooms have books that are appropriate, or close to, for the ages of the students in that classroom.
Since my visit, that school has been working hard to teach the students how to use the library properly!
I think I mentioned before that a few kids come to my house to borrow books. I love when they come over! They sit for as long as an hour just to explore the books and find ones they like. I let them borrow two at a time and tell them they can come back any time to trade them in for new ones. A few days ago four boys came together to look at books. As they were packing up the books and putting them under my table for me I remembered that I had another mouse in my house! The little mouse ate my butter and through a few bags of food I had out. My grandma sent me a mousetrap, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So as the boys were leaving I told them about the mouse and showed them the hole it made in my floor to get in. Imagine that, a little mouse eating through the floor!! They all just looked at me like they had no clue what I was talking about and then left. About 3 hours later they came back holding things in their hands. As I looked closer, I realized that they brought mousetraps! They set them up in a few places in my house and then left again. They returned early the next day, eager to see what they caught. Sure enough, when they checked the trap there was a little mouse stuck right in it! They could tell how happy I was and decided to stay a while to look at more books!
I pasted a link to my facebook pictures. The last handful of pictures are of a teacher using a Thomas the Tank Engine book to teach her kids the ABC’s, a 6th grade teacher using a dinosaur book to teach about carnivores and herbivores, and a group of 7th grade kids huddled around an Eye Spy book!
During lunch at one of the schools I couldn’t figure out where all of the kids were. They are usually outside playing games or running around. When I looked in a few of the classrooms, I found a ton of kids sitting at their desks with friends looking through books!! And it isn’t just the kids, the teachers are just as excited!! They love looking at the books with pictures of animals. I love seeing a teacher just as excited to look through the books as students. The teacher who read the book about dinosaurs would stop and reread a sentence or look at the kids with a surprised face as he learned with them.
I hope all is well at home! It is starting to get pretty cold here as it warms up in Pittsburgh. My hut was 54 degrees the other night!
Facebook pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3119755&id=9320551&l=5aa04787fb
(I don't know how to make this work. Copy and paste both lines together to get to the pictures)
When I arrived at the first school this week I was so excited to learn that they had already put the books on the shelves and put a padlock on the doors to keep the books safe. The teachers were excited to show me the books, but couldn’t find the key. We spent some time looking for the key ourselves and came up with nothing. Then I remembered that we had a great search party – the first graders! We brought them out, gave them instructions, and sent them to find the missing keys, which we suspected were in the grass somewhere. Before the key was found, one of the teachers went home and got the spare set of keys. It was a pretty amusing way to start the day.
After we opened the cupboards we decided we needed to organize the books. That is when I found the new library! It is a pretty small room, but we used some extra benches and tables and turned it into a beautiful library. That part of the school has the teachers resources and books for older students. Two classrooms have books that are appropriate, or close to, for the ages of the students in that classroom.
Since my visit, that school has been working hard to teach the students how to use the library properly!
I think I mentioned before that a few kids come to my house to borrow books. I love when they come over! They sit for as long as an hour just to explore the books and find ones they like. I let them borrow two at a time and tell them they can come back any time to trade them in for new ones. A few days ago four boys came together to look at books. As they were packing up the books and putting them under my table for me I remembered that I had another mouse in my house! The little mouse ate my butter and through a few bags of food I had out. My grandma sent me a mousetrap, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So as the boys were leaving I told them about the mouse and showed them the hole it made in my floor to get in. Imagine that, a little mouse eating through the floor!! They all just looked at me like they had no clue what I was talking about and then left. About 3 hours later they came back holding things in their hands. As I looked closer, I realized that they brought mousetraps! They set them up in a few places in my house and then left again. They returned early the next day, eager to see what they caught. Sure enough, when they checked the trap there was a little mouse stuck right in it! They could tell how happy I was and decided to stay a while to look at more books!
I pasted a link to my facebook pictures. The last handful of pictures are of a teacher using a Thomas the Tank Engine book to teach her kids the ABC’s, a 6th grade teacher using a dinosaur book to teach about carnivores and herbivores, and a group of 7th grade kids huddled around an Eye Spy book!
During lunch at one of the schools I couldn’t figure out where all of the kids were. They are usually outside playing games or running around. When I looked in a few of the classrooms, I found a ton of kids sitting at their desks with friends looking through books!! And it isn’t just the kids, the teachers are just as excited!! They love looking at the books with pictures of animals. I love seeing a teacher just as excited to look through the books as students. The teacher who read the book about dinosaurs would stop and reread a sentence or look at the kids with a surprised face as he learned with them.
I hope all is well at home! It is starting to get pretty cold here as it warms up in Pittsburgh. My hut was 54 degrees the other night!
Facebook pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3119755&id=9320551&l=5aa04787fb
(I don't know how to make this work. Copy and paste both lines together to get to the pictures)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
It is fall in Lesotho!
Anywhere in the world we have good days and bad days. Today is another good day following a few weeks of things going really, really well! Right now I am listing to local music I got from a friend while pretending I know the words and trying to organize myself for the next few weeks. Here’s what has been going on the past few weeks!
I have written a little about a project I have been working on, but because it has changed so, so, so much since December, I have kept pretty quiet about it. Now, however, I feel like I am at a place with it that I can write about it! I am working with Peace Corps staff, the Ministry of Education and Training, and about 6 other organizations in Lesotho to plan and facilitate a workshop to train teachers in 12 primary schools how to teach about HIV/AIDS through literacy. People from these other organizations work in Lesotho to teach students skills necessary to succeed in life, as librarians and teachers, as publishers and authors, and as teacher trainers. I, along with a team of these professionals, have selected between 50-70 children’s books that all have messages and stories about HIV, sexual health, self-esteem, living healthy, gender equity, sexual abuse, and everything a child or young adult might need to know about HIV. They are amazing books meant to be either read by children or to children with the help of a teacher. The books were reviewed by a team of people from groups I mentioned to make sure they were appropriate for primary aged students and would be helpful in the schools. They are meant to supplement curriculum that is currently being created by a few educational organizations in Lesotho. The books have been ordered and some of them have finally arrived in Lesotho!!
After we reviewed and ordered the books we met as a group of 13 to create a workshop for the teachers. We spent an entire day planning for the workshop. We made sure to spend a lot of time discussing what the Basotho professionals have found work well and things to avoid based on their experiences working with similar projects in Lesotho. We also looked at what has already been done in Lesotho to borrow ideas and strategies from those projects. Once we were all on the same page with the project and where we wanted it to go, we brainstormed ideas about what we felt teachers needed to know to effectively use the books in their schools. We came up with ideas like how to read to students, how to read for context, how to care for and organize books, games and activities to do with books, how to teach about sensitive subjects, how to tie the books into the curriculum, how to write lesson plans using the books, and what exactly is HIV/AIDS?? From there we took those ideas and about 20 more and combined them into 6 categories to create sessions ranging from 60 minutes to 3 hours to share the information with the teachers. We have a few organizations coming in to teach about HIV and to teach fun games that teach about HIV.
We created a workshop that will begin in the evening May 6 and will finish May 9. I am really looking forward to spending the weekend with these teachers and helping them to make their own connections to these books. I’ll be sure to keep you updated!!
If we find that this workshop and project are successful we will create a manual that will allow Peace Corps volunteers to duplicate this project in their villages across the country. I should also mention that I focus on HIV a lot because 30% of the people in this country are living with HIV/AIDS. I met an HIV counselor in my village and she said that she has been finding that in more remote villages like mine, the percentage is closer to 50%.
I have also been very busy with the 60,000 library books that arrived in Lesotho!!! Of those books, over 5,000 are in my village!! My schools are working hard to unpack and organize their books. The students are so excited. It has taken a while to get all of the books to their respective school, but the Ministry of Education and Training, who is are partner in the project, have been working so hard to help these schools. Tomorrow we are meeting with each of the schools to check in and see what kind of progress they are making. From there we will visit the schools who let us know that they need a little help.
Other fun stories…
My life lately seems to revolve around books. I have read over 50 books since being in Lesotho! I have also started a really small library in my house and have a few kids who have been coming over to borrow books! Sometimes they stick around and we read together and other times they go home and read them there. A few times the kids have borrowed books at night and are at my house the next day to get more! The kids are getting more and more comfortable speaking to me and I can hear that their English is getting better by the day!
One of my closest friends in my village is the grandmother to a few kids who like to borrow books. Her son and I were great friends before he passed away in October. After her passed away, I kept visiting and probably go over 2 or 3 times a week. On my most recent visit she asked me if I knew how to play cards. I smiled and asked her to teach me a game. After she thought about it she slowly told me, because she was thinking, that she wanted to play A-K-4-7. I couldn’t figure out why those letters and numbers were familiar and then I remembered that an AK47 is a gun! I looked at her and asked if the kids in the village taught her the game and she smiled and said yes. It turns out that all you have to do is take turns drawing cards and the first that gets an Ace, King, 4 and 7 wins. I loved it! We had a lot of fun just sitting and playing cards. She loved it because she one nearly every time. She actually started feeling bad because I wasn’t winning!
So I prefer playing sports with kids under the age of 10 because I can try my hardest and am still not as good as them…especially in Africa! The other day a teacher asked me to join the teachers soccer team. I immediately started sweating and tried to think of a way to say no, but accidently said yes! It combined a lot of things that fall under the “not my favorite” category, but I said yes anyway! So we met at 1 that day to walk to the field that was 2-3 hours away. As it goes in Africa, the game that was supposed to start at 2 started closer to 3 and even know I told them that it would be best if I watched for a little, I started. The game was against the soldiers that have a base near our village. I played for the first 45 minutes of the game and didn’t do that bad of a job. More guys arrive later in the game and most of us subbed out after halftime. Even know I was sore for the following week, it was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in my village. My teachers were so excited to have me play with them that they even invited me back to play this Friday! I’m really looking forward to hanging out with them again and even to play. I’ve been trying to move around a little more each day so it doesn’t feel like I got hit by a truck for the next week again!
Well I got a little restless towards the end of writing this. I'll write again soon. Hope all is well!
Updates:
Maria is going to be a teacher next year!
So is Kristin!
And Caitlin is getting married!!!
I have written a little about a project I have been working on, but because it has changed so, so, so much since December, I have kept pretty quiet about it. Now, however, I feel like I am at a place with it that I can write about it! I am working with Peace Corps staff, the Ministry of Education and Training, and about 6 other organizations in Lesotho to plan and facilitate a workshop to train teachers in 12 primary schools how to teach about HIV/AIDS through literacy. People from these other organizations work in Lesotho to teach students skills necessary to succeed in life, as librarians and teachers, as publishers and authors, and as teacher trainers. I, along with a team of these professionals, have selected between 50-70 children’s books that all have messages and stories about HIV, sexual health, self-esteem, living healthy, gender equity, sexual abuse, and everything a child or young adult might need to know about HIV. They are amazing books meant to be either read by children or to children with the help of a teacher. The books were reviewed by a team of people from groups I mentioned to make sure they were appropriate for primary aged students and would be helpful in the schools. They are meant to supplement curriculum that is currently being created by a few educational organizations in Lesotho. The books have been ordered and some of them have finally arrived in Lesotho!!
After we reviewed and ordered the books we met as a group of 13 to create a workshop for the teachers. We spent an entire day planning for the workshop. We made sure to spend a lot of time discussing what the Basotho professionals have found work well and things to avoid based on their experiences working with similar projects in Lesotho. We also looked at what has already been done in Lesotho to borrow ideas and strategies from those projects. Once we were all on the same page with the project and where we wanted it to go, we brainstormed ideas about what we felt teachers needed to know to effectively use the books in their schools. We came up with ideas like how to read to students, how to read for context, how to care for and organize books, games and activities to do with books, how to teach about sensitive subjects, how to tie the books into the curriculum, how to write lesson plans using the books, and what exactly is HIV/AIDS?? From there we took those ideas and about 20 more and combined them into 6 categories to create sessions ranging from 60 minutes to 3 hours to share the information with the teachers. We have a few organizations coming in to teach about HIV and to teach fun games that teach about HIV.
We created a workshop that will begin in the evening May 6 and will finish May 9. I am really looking forward to spending the weekend with these teachers and helping them to make their own connections to these books. I’ll be sure to keep you updated!!
If we find that this workshop and project are successful we will create a manual that will allow Peace Corps volunteers to duplicate this project in their villages across the country. I should also mention that I focus on HIV a lot because 30% of the people in this country are living with HIV/AIDS. I met an HIV counselor in my village and she said that she has been finding that in more remote villages like mine, the percentage is closer to 50%.
I have also been very busy with the 60,000 library books that arrived in Lesotho!!! Of those books, over 5,000 are in my village!! My schools are working hard to unpack and organize their books. The students are so excited. It has taken a while to get all of the books to their respective school, but the Ministry of Education and Training, who is are partner in the project, have been working so hard to help these schools. Tomorrow we are meeting with each of the schools to check in and see what kind of progress they are making. From there we will visit the schools who let us know that they need a little help.
Other fun stories…
My life lately seems to revolve around books. I have read over 50 books since being in Lesotho! I have also started a really small library in my house and have a few kids who have been coming over to borrow books! Sometimes they stick around and we read together and other times they go home and read them there. A few times the kids have borrowed books at night and are at my house the next day to get more! The kids are getting more and more comfortable speaking to me and I can hear that their English is getting better by the day!
One of my closest friends in my village is the grandmother to a few kids who like to borrow books. Her son and I were great friends before he passed away in October. After her passed away, I kept visiting and probably go over 2 or 3 times a week. On my most recent visit she asked me if I knew how to play cards. I smiled and asked her to teach me a game. After she thought about it she slowly told me, because she was thinking, that she wanted to play A-K-4-7. I couldn’t figure out why those letters and numbers were familiar and then I remembered that an AK47 is a gun! I looked at her and asked if the kids in the village taught her the game and she smiled and said yes. It turns out that all you have to do is take turns drawing cards and the first that gets an Ace, King, 4 and 7 wins. I loved it! We had a lot of fun just sitting and playing cards. She loved it because she one nearly every time. She actually started feeling bad because I wasn’t winning!
So I prefer playing sports with kids under the age of 10 because I can try my hardest and am still not as good as them…especially in Africa! The other day a teacher asked me to join the teachers soccer team. I immediately started sweating and tried to think of a way to say no, but accidently said yes! It combined a lot of things that fall under the “not my favorite” category, but I said yes anyway! So we met at 1 that day to walk to the field that was 2-3 hours away. As it goes in Africa, the game that was supposed to start at 2 started closer to 3 and even know I told them that it would be best if I watched for a little, I started. The game was against the soldiers that have a base near our village. I played for the first 45 minutes of the game and didn’t do that bad of a job. More guys arrive later in the game and most of us subbed out after halftime. Even know I was sore for the following week, it was one of the most fun nights I’ve had in my village. My teachers were so excited to have me play with them that they even invited me back to play this Friday! I’m really looking forward to hanging out with them again and even to play. I’ve been trying to move around a little more each day so it doesn’t feel like I got hit by a truck for the next week again!
Well I got a little restless towards the end of writing this. I'll write again soon. Hope all is well!
Updates:
Maria is going to be a teacher next year!
So is Kristin!
And Caitlin is getting married!!!
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Sometimes I ramble!
It is 4PM on Monday and I walked into my house just as it started raining! Behind the mountain that I can see from my door, there is a small village. The government is building a road that snakes up the mountain and will eventually reach the village so public transportation can service them twice a day. They brought all of these huge machines and trucks to get the job done and about twice a week “explode” the mountain. I didn’t expect this the first time and was in a classroom observing a teacher when a bomb went off. I grabbed his arm and checked for damages. He, being fairly old, belly laughed because I was clearly not letting go of his arm for a few seconds. The point of telling you that long story is I got a hitchhike in one of the rock transporting trucks!! One of my principals and I put our fingers out, signaling that we wanted a free ride, and he stopped. I gave it a sideways look, rolled my eyes, and though “this is Africa.” Then I realized the door handle was over my head. When we opened the door I noticed that my seat was a good 6 feet above me! So I climbed in after Ntate Paul, the principal, and closed the door. I definitely smiled the whole ride home. Kids kept running to the road to see the truck, which drives up and down the road about 10 times a day, and I felt like a rock star! I know their gawking had nothing to do with me, but I waved as if I was Obama! In all of my excitement, I forgot how high up we were. When I went to get out, I backed down the first step and jumped. I hit the ground pretty hard a second or two later. Ntate Paul just looked down at me not really knowing if that was an accident. I took some IB Profen for the headache, but am still pretty psyched about it.
In other news…We had our camp a few week ago. It was part 2 of the Healthy Living Camp my friends Meg, Nicole, and I organized for 20 high school students. The camp was great! It was awesome to see the students again and catch up on the past few months. Some of the highlights of the camp were…Kick-4-Life, they teach about HIV through games, came and played games with the kids from 6AM-10. The guy who facilitated the session was amazing. He had way more energy than I had as the sun was coming up and the kids loved it. We had a guest speaker who is HIV positive come and speak about her life. She started by playing a game with the kids to help them understand how it might feel to learn your status. Then she talked to them about her life, how she found out that she was positive, and how she stays healthy. She also talked about her family, friends, job, things she does for fun, all of which the students thought wasn’t possible if someone had HIV. It was probably the best session of the day. We had our friend Alison come the first night to do a cooking demo. I loved it. I felt like I was watching the food network! She taught the kids how to cook a healthy or fortified version of the staple foods they eat. Everything she did was within a typical families budget and in some cases even cost less. Even the boys, who do not cook in Lesotho, asked questions! During lunch the receptionist told me that I had a guest. I gave it the usual “What could this possibly be” and walked to the lobby of the hotel we were at. It ended up being the parents of one of the campers who were in town; they live and work in South Africa while their children live in their home village. They gave me hugs and the mother told me that she had a picture of me with her son in her house! We had extra breakfast so they joined us for breakfast before leaving for South Africa. Our next camp is in August! We’re all looking forward to it!
So this next story is more of a high five for me than anything. I had this very specific idea of Peace Corps before arriving in Lesotho and a lot of it is exactly the same as I thought, but much of it is different. One thing that is different is that I thought I would be doing a lot of work with my hands. Digging and building things. Not exactly my style, but I thought I would give it a try. I finally, probably for the first time in Lesotho, picked up a shovel! I noticed that the water tap at one of my schools was not draining properly and, as a result, created a small swampy wetland all around it. One boy went to wash a peach and came back with wet shoes and ankles! So I went and checked it out, thought about what my dad would do and grabbed a shovel from the teacher’s room. After about 10 minutes of stomping on the shovel, pulling it back to make a loud suction noise, and throwing mud, I had a drainage pit! The kids were pretty confused for a few minutes, but when the water all started running away from the tap, they new exactly what was going on. I put in a good 3 hour nap after that hard work and was pretty pleased with myself.
My friend Meg celebrated her birthday about 2 weeks ago. Last year she scheduled school visits in my village during her birthday, so she did the same thing this year. A few other people were in the area helping with a Life Skills workshop (teaching about HIV, goal setting, decision-making, self-esteem…) at the high school in my village. I decided the best gift I could get Meg would be 2 chickens to slaughter for the big day. I went around with my Ausie (host sister) and asked people to buy a chicken from them. It took us a while to find chickens fat enough, but we finally had 2 neighbors agree to sell us chickens. I told them that I would pay for them and pick them up in a few days. So the big day comes and we go to neighbor 1 to collect the chicken. He’s an older man who lives with his two primary age sons. He smiled when I walked through his gate with a few other white people. He told his sons to go get the chicken and we waited. We smiled as we hear these two boys running through a cornfield and chickens attempting to fly and run at the same time. The boys come out and tell us that it isn’t around today. So we told them to bring it to my house when it came home. You should know that this was all in Sesotho and we speak it, but not well enough for this conversation. So we go to house 2. I told a guy about my age why we were there and a woman goes to get the man I talked to earlier in the week. She stood at the edge of their property yelling for him and he comes out of the primary school with a huge smile on his face. We rediscuss that I wasn’t to buy a chicken and he takes off after one. He and his son had it cornered, but when they went for it, it ran the other way. After about 5-10 minutes of chasing, he comes over and holds the chicken out for me to take. Now I had thought most of this through, but not the transportation to my house. So he teaches me how to hold the chicken without getting pecked or clawed and we start the several minute journey to my house. When we arrive the two boys from house 1 were standing in my yard waiting with another chicken. So when I said I thought it through, I really meant I knew I wanted to put salt and pepper on it and roast it. So we all stood there with chickens making noises without a clue. I told someone to get rope from my house and my knife, but then we didn’t know how to tie them in a nice way that let them know that they weren’t going anywhere. So the youngest of the boys steps up and ties them up. He has to be about 6. He tied them and laid them on the ground for us. Fast-forward about 3 hours while we wait for everyone to arrive. It’s definitely getting dark and we have one headlamp and one flashlight for a pretty dark night. We had 2 experienced chicken slaughterers in the group who taught Meg and another friend how to cut the head off. Meg went at it and got the head off of chicken #1 in about 40 seconds. Without really knowing what to do next we used the rope that already had its legs tied and hung it from my clothesline. I’m sure my Ntate (host father) was not pleased. For chicken #2 I insisted that we untie it to see if a chicken can really run with its head cut off. Our friend went at it, cut it off, and then we all stepped back. The instant he let go of the chicken, it flew straight at Nicole, went off to the left and continued running about 40 feet into my families corn field, all while our friend had the chicken’s head in his hand!! It was crazy. The next hour was spent plucking, gutting, and cooking the chickens, which cost about $4 each!
Finally, I have been working on a project to order children’s books with and HIV message or lesson in them for primary schools in Lesotho. The books are being ordered and dates have been set. So the project is this… I am working with Peace Corps and the Ministry of Education to order about 75 HIV/Life Skill themed children’s books and teacher resources for 20 primary schools in the district that I live in. To make the books useful and the project sustainable, we are developing a workshop to teach 2 teachers from each school how to use these books in their schools. We are going to create lesson plans, try some games and activities in the books, and talk about how to have difficult discussions about sex, death, HIV, and everything else with students. From there, we are going to try to visit the schools to help the teachers to use the books well in their schools. I am also going to create a manual for other volunteers to use if they want to do this workshop in their villages. Hopefully other volunteers will be able to order books and recreate this workshop all over the country!
Well by the time I post this the African Library Project books will be in Lesotho! I will be heading down to organize the books by school and make sure my 3 libraries are well organized before the Easter break! My next blog will have lots of updates about that!
Hope everyone is doing well!
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Great weekend in Semongkong!
Hellooo! I’ve been meaning to post this for a while, but haven’t had a chance!
My friends and I took a trip to Semongkong in Lesotho and had a great time. We got in a little late on Friday night and played pool, ate a good dinner and relaxed. We got up Friday morning to learn how to abseil on a 100 foot cliff. Abseiling is repelling down something on a rope. So we went down this cliff three times and learned different ways to get down each time. It should have been pretty scary lowering yourself down a 100 foot drop on a rope, but it wasn’t too bad. One of my favorite parts of that morning was when my friend Kelly went down. She started a little late and was still trying to learn some of the things we were taught earlier in the morning. When she neared the bottom, we told her that she had to lie flat on her back. Without thinking about it she spread out her arms and lied as flat as she could. We all started laughing as the guy helping us tried to untie her ropes as she lay on the ground like a starfish.
After that, we went on a donkey pub crawl! We each got a donkey to ride around on as we went to about 5 different bars. It was a ton of fun. My donkey was named Maria! The people living in the village have seen people do these bar tours before, but they still shook their heads as a group of Americans rode by on their donkeys. Some of the donkeys had their own plans and would go left instead of right and were pretty stubborn. It made for a lot of laughs.
Sunday morning we got up early to abseil the worlds longest single drop (or something like that). It was 204 meters AND made the Guinness Book of World Records! It was probably one of the most amazing and scary things I’ve ever done. There were 9 people in our group and I went around 7. It took us on average 15 minutes to get down, so we had a lot of waiting time at the top. I started sweating even more when it was my turn. I got all strapped in by one of the guys organizing the abseil and then he hooked me to my rope. I was amazed by how heavy the rope was! It took a lot of effort to back myself to the ledge. I had to pull the rope through the little metal thing attached to me. The next thing I know I’m over the edge and made the mistake of looking down. Something about the look on my face made the guys start laughing. After about 5 feet of “walking” down the wall, the wall disappeared! I was just floating 200 meters above rocks. I did something to my rope and started slowly spinning, which forced me to look down and all around me. I’m pretty pleased with myself for not achieving the world’s highest projectile vomit. I got instantly light headed as I dangled in the air and looked to my right at a huge waterfall and then just openness. It was beautiful. Once I got my act together, I started to lower myself down. I got a little more comfortable as I got closer to the bottom. It was definitely one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.
Once we got to the bottom we had to wait for everyone else. It was really cool to see my other friends repel down the fall. After the last person got to the bottom we had to walk back. This was definitely more nerve wrecking than going down the fall. We had to keep our helmets on and walk along a path made by goats. Because we were so close to the falls, the path was soaked and slippery. Just to our left was a decent drop, which would not have felt good. We continued along the terrifying path for about 20 minutes and then had a 45 minute hike in front of us. Half way up my arm and legs started burning. I had brushed against some crazy plant and got itchy, burning hives on exposed skin. It went away after about 10 minutes, but it was intense!
Then we skip ahead a little…So on our way home we get on a pretty big bus…probably seats about 75? Then we crammed as many people as we could in the isle. They stood for the whole 5 hour drive up and down mountains on a dirt road. I should mention that my friends and I were stuck in the isle on the way up. It’s awful. We stood chest to back with the person in front of us on a rollercoaster ride for 5 hours!! On the way home, we got lucky and got seats. I was pretty excited about my window seat. We waited for the bus to leave for a good 1-2 hours. Right before we left, some men loaded 10 sheep on the top of the bus with people’s luggage. They tied their legs together and got them on the roof. One must have been right above my window because every time it went to the bathroom it ran right down my window and onto my right shoulder. The bus was so full that there was nothing I could do about it. Right when I started to really get miserable, it started raining, which meant the pee mixed with rain water and just flooded the right side of my body! Definitely an experience I won’t forget!
Hope everyone is doing well!! I’ll post again soon!
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Projects I'm working on!
Hello everyone! I haven't written in a very long time!!!
The pictures are of me doing my laundry. I waited too long to do it and it took a few hours! Some kids reading books from a small library in my house. Some houses in my village.
I put some pictures on facebook...there are many duplicates and they are in no order, but you should check them out! (If the link is in 2 lines, copy and paste all of it into the www part up top!)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2965394&id=9320551&l=5c32b9cfe6
Things here are going really well. School started a few weeks ago and I've been so busy! I spent a few weeks in my village working with the schools and relaxing. I think I just finished my 40th book in Lesotho! My friend Nicole came up and we taught kids in a local preschool and 1st grade how to brush their teeth. A good friend of mine from home sent me toothbrushes and toothpaste for little kids. They loved learning how to brush and promised to brush twice a day! I'll post pictures of that later this week!!
I also met with each of my schools and gave them a box of 80 books, half in Sesotho and half in English. They are going to try using these books before the rest of their library arrives in March! The teachers are so excited to have books to use!! And the kids are excited, too! The teachers have been trying to use the books as often as possible and are teaching their students how to treat the books. It is a great way to prepare them for about 1000 more books to arrive in a month!!
I have been working with the African Library Team here in Lesotho, which is made up of about 6 volunteers. We are working with the Ministry of Education in Botha-Bothe, my district, to develop 25 new libraries in schools that Peace Corps Volunteers do not work. Things are going really well with that! When the books arrive, we will visit each school and provide the teachers and students with a workshop to help them develop their library. We talk about the rules, organization, how to read to the students, and everything else that makes a library successful. I really enjoy working with this project!
I have a meeting with Peace Corps tomorrow to review about 100 children's books that have an HIV focus. I am working with peace corps to buy these books for schools across the country using PEPFAR money. PEPFAR is the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. I may have that wrong...but it's the right idea! I am really excited about this project. Teachers feel uncomfortable teaching about HIV, so I will be creating a workshop for the schools that have applied for the books to teach the teachers how to discuss HIV in their classrooms. Lesotho has the 3rd highest prevalence of HIV in the world.
Finally, my friends Meg, Nicole, and I have the 2nd of three Healthy Living Camps for our 20 high school students. We have tons of activities, guest speakers, and games planned for them. The kids had such a great time last time and we are hoping to make this camp even better. We have Kick-4-Life coming. They teach kids about HIV through fun games and activities. They are an amazing organization. Lesotho Planned Parenthood Association - will be preforming skits for the kids and helping the kids develop their own skits to take back to their schools. Four great dentists and doctors from the local hospital are coming to discuss oral hygiene, mental health, goal setting, career planning, drug abuse, and a few other things. Another PCV, Alison, is coming to cook dinner with the kids one night. She is a nutrition expert and will be teaching the kids how to make healthy papa (the staple food here. It is ground then boiled maize meal... similar to mashed potatoes i guess!). She is also going to teach them how to make healthy veggies. We will be making a stir fry! Everything she cooks with will be items the kids can get in their village. The final part of the camp will be our other partner, Thabo, will be teaching the students how to do workshops in their village. He attended a One Love conference and learned great activities to promote one sexual partner. He will also be teaching them gender equality and HIV activities for the students to take back to their schools.
Well I'm off to another meeting! Hope things are going well at home and everyone had a nice holiday! I have full weekends from now until October so I will try to keep you updated!
Friday, November 13, 2009
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!!!
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!!!
Friday, November 6, 2009
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
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
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!!
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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
*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!!
.jpg)
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.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
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
Friday, September 11, 2009
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!
Sunday, September 6, 2009
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!
Monday, August 24, 2009
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 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!
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