This week, I’ve been a resource volunteer for the trainees. I had to trek it all the way up to TY (combined, maybe 7 hours of taxis, not including waiting), the town just north of Maseru, nearby which is the training village. I’m staying with a super nice family with a baby who is just ecstatic about life all the time. In the mornings, I go to one of the high schools they’re borrowing for practice teaching. The kids are all out of school, but they convince the kids to stay for about 2 more weeks (convince, meaning give them lunch) so that the trainees can practice and experiment on these kids in preparation for teaching at their permanent sites. I have to basically sit through someone’s lesson and evaluate them on this and that criteria. Some of them are experienced teachers and I’m actually learning a lot watching them. Others need help steering through the rough sea that is teaching Basotho teenagers. Overall, they were not too shabby, and I’m confident that they’ll turn out to be at least adequate teachers with practice. One of the trainees has a bunch of friendship string, so during a few of the lessons I watched, when I wasn’t doodling all over the evaluation sheet, I was tying endless knots making a bracelet. This same trainee got into an argument with one of the ministry of education women who was also there observing. They were arguing over the format of the lesson plan. The woman was saying that the exact format is super important and that you need to plan out exactly which problems you’ll use and how to explain them and how much time each thing is going to take. The trainee was saying that he can come up with stuff on the fly (he can. I watched him.) and that you have to be a little flexible in the classroom because things aren’t going to go exactly as you plan, and that having the exact ministry criteria in your lesson plan isn’t so important. I’m with the trainee. My group had the same argument with the same lady. I “checked” their lesson plans, but in my opinion, the lesson plan’s format (or even if you make one…I haven’t made a full lesson plan since maybe February) doesn’t matter, as long as you can conduct a coherent and engaging lesson.
In the afternoons, the trainees had Sesotho classes, a few of which I sat in on and learned a bunch of stuff I had either not learned in the first place or just forgot. Then there was a bunch of free time. One afternoon, I cut one of the trainees Heather’s hair. I was just gonna straight up buzz it, but whoever’s clippers she borrowed were absolute crap and didn’t cut anything, so I just had at it with scissors and made a nicely styled short haircut. PC Barber status is holding strong.
Another volunteer stayed with me in the same house for part of the time, and after several days of being insanely itchy and spotty, we wondered, did we have mosquitoes? Bed bugs? Chicken pox? Nope, we did some googling and determined that the beds were crawling with fleas. I had little red bites all over me that were crazily itchy. So annoying. Good thing the trainees had their med kits and I was able to borrow some anti-itch cream.
The best part of the week was when the resource volunteers and trainees and a bunch of staff members went to Tsehlanyane national park in the district of Butha Buthe in the north. They thought the resource volunteers might not be able to go due to space issues (there are 36 trainees, a huge group) in the vehicles, but we all exactly fit. After a few hours driving north, we arrived in the beautiful park. This being my third time there, I was all too familiar with the hike up to the waterfalls/swimming holes, so I led the charge with a gaggle of trainees behind me. We had only three hours to get there and back, so we speed hiked up the trail. After a few steep-ish climbs at our speedy pace, we were all sucking wind by the end of it, but it was worth it because we arrived at the “3 cascades,” as they call it. It’s a series of 3 waterfalls on top of each other. Due to the drought, they were not more than a trickle. Not so impressive. I led the group to the slip and slide, aka a rock slide ending in one of the deeper swimming holes. We slipped, we slid, we splashed, and we swam. So refreshing. After a little sun-drying, we got dressed again and speed hiked back to where the staff had set up the braai. It was significantly faster going back, as it was all downhill. We were all so hungry by this point that we were practically running down the slopes. We got to the braai and stuffed ourselves with so much meat. I don’t know what it is about meat, but when you get it only rarely, it just feels so much more substantial than other foods when you do get it.
As the sun was setting, the PC crew rolled out and drove back south to TY. I got dropped off in Hlotse, the camp town of Leribe district, to stay with one of the Norwegian girls working at the Hlotse Red Cross. My plan was to leave out of that border gate in the morning to make it to Johannesburg. It would be a huge waste of time for me to try to go home, so I do what PCVs do best and crashed with a friend. Leonard was also staying there that night, so he and Ida (the Norwegian) picked me up next to the big mosque just outside of town. I had no idea there were a significant number of Muslims in Lesotho, but apparently there are. The Norwegian volunteers really live the posh life. Their house is huge, with a modern kitchen, electricity, running water (not now- there’s a drought). They have many rules, as do PCVs, but they’re different. For example, they’re not allowed to take public transportation for safety reasons, so they have their own car. And when they stay at a hotel, they’re not allowed to stay on the ground floor or above the 4th floor. Anyway, Leonard, Ida, and I made a super legit lasagna for dinner with lots of cheese and a side of garlic toast. That day was filled with so much good food.
Stay tuned in the next entry for what happens next in my quest to escape the country for vacation.
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