Colleen’s visit
A few
weeks ago, Colleen had to move out of her village because there had been too
many murders. She fought to stay because she was getting really involved at her
school, including doing all the things required to help a Form E girl apply to
college in the US with a special scholarship. But then an old nkhono
[grandmother] was killed as she was alone in her house, and our PC security
staff said that this was the last straw. Colleen was told to leave her village
as soon as she could and stay with another PCV for a few days, so she came to
my village. As she was getting off the taxi after the long ride to my village,
in a clustermess of communication, the security guy called to say that he would
be in her village the next day to move her and all her stuff to her new site,
and that was the only day he could do it because he had other places to be for
the next few days. Good job, PC. Nonetheless, I met her as she got off the taxi
at my school. I had just finished teaching for the day, so we scooped up my dog
and walked to my house. We attempted to make a cake in celebration of 1) one
year in Lesotho, and 2) her survival in the wake of these murders and the hope
for a good new start in her new site. The cake sort of failed because I only
had brown bread flour, so it was more like dense, chocolatey bread with an
improvised icing on top. Whatever- we still ate it. The next morning, I walked
her down to the road to catch the taxi out of my village. Oh well, at least she
got to visit me once before she got shoved out of the district. Now that she’s
gone, I’m the only one from my training group in Quthing. There are 3 Ed14s who
are leaving at the end of the year. Two of them might be replaced, but it’s not looking too good. So if that
doesn’t happen, I’ll be the only one here. I wouldn’t be too upset in a
practical sense if that happened, because we Quthingers don’t get together all
that often, and I usually go to the camp town to the north of mine anyway.
However, in principle it’s kind of upsetting. Quthing: The Lost District.
HVV
[Host Volunteer Visit]
If you
have been following my blog for a while, reader, you probably read my post
wayyyy back about me going on my own HVV trip to see a current volunteer while
I was still a trainee. Well now the tables have turned. Now that I’m a big,
bad, experienced volunteer, I got to bring two trainees to my site. It’s the
circle of life. On Tuesday, I had been hanging out in Mohale’s Hoek (the
aforementioned north-er camp town) as per usual, and the ducklings arrived with
mother duck Justin (a fellow Quthing PCV) all the way from TY, the camp town north
of Maseru. They left at about 8am and trekked all the way down here. Good thing
PC assigned current volunteers to travel with them, because they’d only arrived
not even two weeks ago, and they’d be totally clueless without someone. I
picked up my little pumpkins Heather and Susan. Justin and his people, along
with me and mine, waited in the rank for a Quthing taxi to fill up. The boys
got off a bit before Quthing town, and we went all the way to the rank there,
then got another taxi to Mount Moorosi. It was already 5pm when we arrived
there. I had never gotten a taxi from there back to my village past like 1pm,
so I was kind of wondering if there would be one when we got there, but one of
the other teachers at my school had assured me that the last one leaves at
about 5 or 6. There was indeed a taxi for us, and we waited for it to fill so
we could go to my village. The whole trip from when I picked them up to then, I
had been kind of nervous that we might not make it to my village, but with my
newly-adopted “It can’t not work out” attitude, I wasn’t too worried. We were
all super tired, my ducklings especially after their 12 hour day of riding in,
or waiting for, taxis, when we arrived in the dark to Ha Makoae. I pointed to a
lighted window wayyy up the hill that I guessed was my host family’s house and
said we were headed up up up to that point. We thus headlamped it up the
mountain to my house.
The
next day, I took them to school where they watched me teach a few classes, then
we went to the vet to get Bo a rabies shot, then to the shop/bar where they
were so excited to find that they sold maquenyas (little fried bread balls).
Then we headed down to see the orphanage, then back to my house. They were
showing me on whatsapp what others in their group were posting. While other
hosts were making their ducklings bacon, pancakes, tacos, and pizza, I gave
them a taste of real life PCV food. I live in the sticks, so I don’t have
access to all that schmancy stuff. My fancy attempt at food was baking a loaf
of bread and making lentil/vegetable soup. Not too shabby, actually. To pass
the time, we played cards and they obsessed over my dog.
The
following day was the day I put them to the test. I made them teach a double B
and a single A math class. They wanted to see one of my lesson plans to see how
I did them. I dug one out from January, as I had promptly stopped making them
after a few weeks of teaching. Especially if you make them like the ministry
wants them, it’s such a waste of time. You can come up with examples without
planning them out exactly? Madness. In class, they tag teamed the classes-
pretty good! I think this definitely boosted their teaching confidence. In the
afternoon, for the form A class, they really didn’t feel like teaching; it was
after lunch and they were tired. I welcomed this sentiment with a, “welcome to
my life,” and made them press on.
I set
off with them out of my village the next morning, a Friday. When we got to
Quthing town, I plopped them on the Maseru sprinter with Justin’s HVVs. I got
on a different taxi with Lauren (the one who lives in a neighboring village to mine), as we were both
headed to Mafeteng for the…
VAC [volunteer advocacy
committee] meeting
The VAC is a committee for PCVs
to tell the staff what they think should be changed or improved about PC. Each
district has a representative. Lauren is the current rep, and since she is
leaving and I’m gonna be (maybe) the only one here next year, I am replacing
her. The people replacing leaving volunteers were invited to participate in
this meeting just to see how it’s run.
I got off the taxi in Mafeteng
and headed right for Shoprite, the big grocery store. The lines were insane,
I’m guessing since everyone in Lesotho just got paid. Why they all get paid at
the same time is a huge mystery to me. They even had Christmas decorations up.
Someone said that since they don’t have Halloween or Thanksgiving beforehand,
it’s not so weird to have xmas stuff up this early. I promptly turned around
and got out of there, and I headed to the Catholic Training Center, a hotel
where we would be staying before we had the meeting in one of their conference
rooms the next day. Cassie brought her teeny 1 month old puppy, and it was
chilling in the grass, tied up to a nearby tree. I could not handle its little
face- cute overload.
In the morning, we had the
volunteer-only portion of the meeting. Each district had to report on what the
people there said. Wow, people complain about some stupid stuff. But each
comment has to be included as per the rules. Then came the volunteer + staff
portion. We relayed the comments to Wendy and Debra numbers 1 and 2 of PC
Lesotho. Meeting conclusion: medical is awful and staff communication is almost
nonexistent. Yay. In the end, the meeting ate up almost the whole day, and
someone was like, “Wow, this is the fastest we’ve ever had the meeting! Good
job, guys.” Are you serious. Can you tell I’m not too enthusiastic to be the
VAC rep next year? Oh well.
This sentiment kind of adds to
my sour mood of just being so done with school. The form Cs are taking their
exams, so they’re not having classes. I’m jealous. I was always like this when
I was a student, being over it when the school year end was on the horizon. Now
I know teachers feel the same way. So I don’t just leave you stewing in my
done-ness, I’ll tell you what I’m looking forward to: going to training in a
few weeks for the new trainees, Halloween (I’m not doing anything, but it’s a
thing I can look forward to anyway), and VACATIONS! I have 2 planned-
Madagascar (woo!) in December and Durban over New Years. Now THAT’S what I’m
talking about!
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