Oh man I have so much stuff to
talk about since I haven’t written in a lil while. Well, here goes. I guess
I’ll start with school stuff. It was the final stretch, just a few weeks until
the school year was over, so it was time to start prepping final exams. I
planned to write two tests each for form A and B. This follows the format of
the JC (Junior Certificate- exit exams that students take at form C). Paper 1
is more short-answer questions, and Paper 2 is more application, with fewer
long-answer questions. My plan (and the same thing I did for June mid-terms)
was to make one multiple choice test for Paper 1 and do some longer questions
for Paper 2. I was all finished writing both Paper 1s and outlining Paper 2s
when the other math teacher came up to me one day and asked me what topics I
had and hadn’t covered from the syllabus, because the Lesotho Math and Science
Teacher’s Association in Quthing district was going to make a common exam for
the Form Bs. This is not uncommon, for teachers to use common exams for a
cluster of schools or for a whole district even. I think it’s mostly because
teachers are lazy to write their own exams. But I was immediately against the
idea; I had skipped several of the more pointless topics of the syllabus and
had gone farther into the syllabus for other topics, as well as doing important
real-life teaching like trying to work with them on checking to see if their
answers made sense, not to mention working hard on dissecting word problems,
helping them understand the English before they could even start on the math. A
common exam with many topics I didn’t cover would spell certain failure for
most of them. So the other teacher was like ok, you don’t have to use it I
guess. Especially since I was already in the middle of making and printing the
exams I wrote.
In the midst of all this, having
probably eaten one of those rotten eggs I flung all over the village fields, my
dog fell horribly sick and wouldn’t eat. I took it to the vet here in the
village, and he fed it three tablespoons of cooking oil in the hopes of
breaking up whatever crud was in the stomach and forcing it out, either
direction. I bought some lesheleshele (soft porridge) mix and peanut butter in
the hopes that Bo might want to eat that, but it was a no go. I had to leave
for about a week to go to help PC staff as a resource volunteer in the new
training group’s workshop, so I gave the food to my ausi and asked her to try
to get the dog to eat anything, hoping it would still be alive by the time I
returned.
Being fed up with school and
tests and students who are as restless as me for school to be over, I was so
happy to leave to go to the workshop. Normally, during training, resource
volunteers go to the training village where the new group is doing their thang.
I lucked out in that I got to help out at a workshop that was held at the
Mohale’s Hoek hotel, a place I regularly hang out anyway. I would not be forced
to take bucket baths and eat Basotho food for a week like a normal resource
volunteer. Instead, I had access to a pool, showers, a (crappy) gym, internet,
pizza, and my usual group of friends in that town. I was about to experience
Posh Corps life, if only for a week. This was the Supervisor/Introductory
Liaison (a sort of counterpart who is supposed to show the new PCV around the
village and help get them integrated) workshop where the trainees would meet their
principals and counterparts for the first time, having been informed of their
new sites just a few days earlier.
During their sessions, I was
able to chip in about my experiences, like my role as a volunteer (math/life
skills/computer teacher, writing a grant for my school, helping out at the
orphanage, hanging out with village people), highlighting cross-cultural points
(Basotho communicate indirectly/passive aggressively), pointing out good
expectations the volunteers and principals made for each other (make sure you
communicate with your volunteer very clearly and make sure that they know
what’s going on in advance, not one minute beforehand or not at all), what I
did during the first three months at site (tried not to go crazy with people
constantly coming to my door, explored the natural features of the village,
determined what organizations and businesses were in the village or nearby, set
my boundaries, and established somewhat of a schedule with my school), during
the security session talked about any situations I’ve experienced (being put on
“standfast” status during the election and about how the group before me had to
be evacuated during the attempted coup), and talking about the corporal
punishment situation at my school (I’ll make this a post in itself later).
Other than the sessions, I was
able to hang out with my peeps by the pool, actually jump in the pool (it
looked like a green lake, but we swam anyway), work out every morning with
actual weights, get to talk to the baby trainees and give them essential life
advice, eating soooo much meat from the hotel meals, work on my grant, and ruin
a board game (Ticket to Ride) by getting way too excited and slamming my fist
on the table, sending all the pieces flying…oops.
Alas, it was time to get back to
school after the workshop was over. Sad day. But the good thing was that my dog
was alive and kicking! On top of that, my family had helped get the dog used to
hanging around the house and not running all over the village, so now it
doesn’t have to be chained up anymore. Woo! Anyway, my school was in the middle
of final exams, and I was scheduled to give my exams the day after I got back.
I gave the paper 1s that next day. Then my principal and the math teacher
called me into the office and basically went back on what they said about me
being able to write my own exams. They made me basically modify the common exam
to replace non-covered questions with other topics I had taught. It was so much
work to (literally) cut and paste questions on top of each other, photocopy the
pages, and print them in like half a day. Agh. If they only told me that it was
not ok to write my own exams a few weeks ago when they originally agreed to it,
this would not be an issue. Whatever. I’m over it. I just feel really bad for
the students because I had told them exactly what the exam would cover and the
format of the questions, and here I was betraying my word and giving them a
suuuuper long and much different test. I want my students to succeed, but
sometimes I feel like the other teachers just want to go by what’s been done
for zillions of years, even if it makes the students’ grades, not to mention
confidence, plummet to the ground. During the exams, the form As and Bs were
mixed up in two different classrooms in the hopes that they wouldn’t be close
enough to another one in their grade to cheat. I sat in one of the classrooms
invigilating (proctoring) the exam while Bo followed my every move, walking
around with me while I passed out the exams, and lying at my feet as I sat
there and made sure the students didn’t cheat. He got so lazy, though, and he
was just lying sprawled out in the doorway in a patch of sunlight. The students
carefully stepped over him as they exited the classroom.
After giving my last exam, it
was time for me to leave my village for the third weekend in a row to celebrate
early Thanksgiving with my friends in Mohale’s Hoek, my camptown away from
camptown. We called it Friendsgiving. There were about 10 of us that got
together at Aline’s house. Aline just moved smack in the middle of town, so her
location is super convenient. The food was awesome: carrots, cabbage, mashed
potatoes with LOTS of (real!) butter, pan-fried chicken, homemade bread with
garlic spread, guacamole with Doritos, and butternut squash cake. Nommmmm. The
next day, the ones who didn’t go home yet hung out at the hotel to swim and I
led an impromptu Sandal Camp workout session in the grass. Afterward, we got
some meat at the braai place, then we attempted another round of Ticket to Ride
when suddenly the game just stopped dead in its tracks. Nameless PVC #1 realized that she didn’t have her passport. She could see it in her mind right
there on the table in her house. She and Nameless PCV #2 (she requested that her alias be Princess Consuela Banana Hammock) were planning to go to
Bloemfontein the next day to go shopping and see the new Hunger Games movie. No
passport = no Bloem. She sat there, eyes wide, thinking of what to do. It was
Sunday, and on Sundays no taxis run to her village for some reason. She decided
the only thing to do was to walk the three hours back to her village to get it.
Lee decided to go with her so she wouldn’t be alone walking in the dark. It was
6pm at this point, so if they didn’t catch a hitch, they wouldn’t make it back
to town until midnight. Not ideal, but there was no other choice. I stayed the
night at Aline’s house that night, and in the morning I was informed that they
made it back ok, but that Nameless #1 had been throwing up all night, so she wouldn’t
make it to Bloemfontein after all. What a sucky situation.
After last week having to wait 3
(count em 3) hours for a taxi to leave from the Mohale’s Hoek taxi rank to Quthing, I decided that the rank
is for suckers. I caught a small taxi to the edge of town with the intention of
getting a passing taxi or a hitch. I easily got a very new and comfy taxi
within five minutes. Score. On the taxi, I graded the rest of my tests that I
hadn’t finished. In town, I bought 2 more big buckets to store water in.
Apparently, there is a big drought coming up, so I thought I should get some
more buckets to prepare for when there is no water. The week earlier, I had put
my bathtub under my host family’s roof during a long rain storm, so I had
collected a good amount of water. I got home, gave my ‘me the sewing machine
part I ran all over town to find, dumped the water in my new buckets, and just
crashed. I hadn’t really slept the night before, so I was exhausted.
Right now, it’s actual
Thanksgiving. I’m not doing anything in particular for it. I’m just celebrating
the fact that school closed yesterday and that I actually survived! Wow, I
can’t believe I actually taught for an entire year. One down, one to go. This
morning, out of boredom, I decided to climb the mountain behind my house with
my newly-turned-16-year-old ausi, which was super fun. The lower part of the
hill is a pine forest, and we absolutely flew down that hill on the way back.
The piles pine needles on the steep slope made running down the only option,
and we were both laughing the entire way down. Woo!
Some photos as of late:
School choir singing and dancing at the Form C farewell party
Traditional dancing
One of the parents holding a teacher's baby nugget
Litolobonya- traditional dance
Form Cs about to eat
The coolest boys in school
Kids lining up outside the kitchen for lunch
Little neighbor girls "cooking"
Haha that one with the whistle always cracks me up
Playing with dolls
Around the doll box
Barbie with match box purse
Homemade doll
My 'me getting her hair did
View from mid-way up the mountain behind my house
Hike!
My ausi and me on the hike
Spiral aloes on the mountain
