We are at Mount Maluti Hotel [fun fact: the Maluti mountains are a mountain range in the northwest of the country and they are also what Lesotho’s currency is named after] in Mohale’s Hoek for a workshop with our counterparts and principals from our schools. The sessions are useful, but somewhat tedious as always. The food here is amazing; I’m stuffing myself to the max every meal because for the next few days during my site visit, I will subsist off of the peanut butter, bread, and carrots that I bought here and will take with me. There is a super rude and strict Afrikaner lady who runs the dining room here. They say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, so perhaps the reason she outlines her eyes so profoundly with eyeliner is that you need extra help finding them, since her soul has been lost many years ago. She tells us as we’re kind of hanging out after we finish eating, “can’t you people socialize somewhere else?” Come on, we weren’t even being loud.
At the table, fellow trainee Neel and I were using toothpick shards to read people’s futures. Like tea leaves or something like that, but with toothpicks you toss out onto the table. It’s a skill I found I have a natural talent with. Other boredom entertainment tactics during sessions include playing MASH (remember MASH? Middle school…good times…) writing angsty poems about the mean food lady not letting us get seconds and about King Moshoeshoe at Thaba Bosiu, and playing this mega tic-tac-toe kind of game that the herd boys play.
When we weren’t trying to keep ourselves awake, some of the sessions were quite eye-opening. I met my counterpart and supervisor and sat next to them the first day, and hearing the comments that my principal whispered to me during some of the sessions along with hearing that my counterpart asked if I was married made me think that perhaps this working relationship is going to take some time. I wasn’t sure if my counterpart was asking because he was interested or if he was just curious, but in order to nip that potential mess in the bud, I made sure to make some comments during the cross-cultural session about needing to feel that I am being respected as a professional and not seen as a romantic object just because I am a female. Someone else’s principal said that men and women specialized in different tasks at home, and this translates over to the school. He said that men are the “authority by nature,” and I wanted to kick him in the teeth right then and there. I made sure to stand up and speak loudly and clearly for any potential language barriers that in America, women expect to be given the same level of respect and authority as men regardless of the task. It was just necessary for me to lay down the limits of what I will tolerate.
Some other cross-cultural topics included the protocol for going into someone’s office: just “koko” or knock knock until they answer. It’s normal to stop everything you’re doing to talk to someone at the door. Eye contact while talking to supervisors: direct and prolonged eye contact to a superior is seen as disrespectful, especially for women. Timeliness: teachers should come “in time,” not “on time” for work, but a lot won’t [remind me to make a blog post about the nature of time here]. Phone calls during teaching: a teacher might answer their phone during class, say that they’re busy, and hang up instead of just ignoring the call. Calls are not ignored here (I have since discovered the non-existence of voicemail, so that may be why), just like interruptions during anything are entertained. Meetings: no, they probably won’t start on time. Duh. Appointments: they are rarely made (see the first point of this paragraph), or kept because time management is obviously not a thing here. Initiative: subordinates normally wait for or ask for instruction instead of taking the initiative to do things further on their own. Conflicts/disagreements: they are handled very passively, and following the chain of command is important. Communication styles: indirect. Getting to the task vs. human interaction: people greet and socialize first (and will get offended if you don’t), then they get started on the task. Working together vs. independently: it’s such a collectivistic society that working together is kind of built into everything, but it also depends on what the individual person prefers and how they work best. If men and women are treated equally: de jure, sort of; de facto, nope.
Other things that the Basotho were concerned about us doing that they brought up were getting into relationships with students, losing control of our emotions and crying in front of the students, and that we would travel too much and forget about our school assignments. Where are they coming up with these things? American media? I don’t know. Some comments that were made that we had to straight up shoot down were comments like, “they should go to church with us in the village. We are all Christians!” and almost every comment about corporal punishment being good for the children. (“A child is born like that [needing to be beaten because they are spoiled unless you beat them]” and “nobody has ever been killed by punishment” were direct quotes from some of the Basotho.) Phew. From these interactions in the sessions, it sounds like it’ll take a lot of getting used to and being assertive on my part
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