Lesotho Infinity And Beyond: 5 August 2016: Come on, school. Get it together.

This week confirmed, once again, that my school is completely laughable. Monday there was no school, which made lots of kids think that school starts next week. Tuesday, some kids and most teachers were there, but no actual classes went on. Lunch only. Then Wednesday and Thursday, there were fewer than 30 students total out of about 120, and maybe 4 out of 7 teachers. Determined to still have my classes even if other teacher weren’t having theirs, in Form B, I reviewed the June exam that the kids had taken right before the school break. In Form C, I had a life skills class about HIV transmission and prevention basics. While the Form Bs were just sitting in their classroom when they were supposed to have some other class that wasn’t going to happen, I gave them some Sudoku puzzles on the board to keep their brains doing something, at least. There are always so many empty time slots just wasted! I figured I’d take advantage of one to get them thinking about numbers in a different way. I was even surprised that the Form As, who legitimately had no classes all week because there were just 5 of them (out of about 60), still stuck around. If I were them, I’d be out of there so fast, but lunch is definitely a big draw for doming to school. And I guess sitting around with your friends at school is preferable to sitting around at home, having to herd or do chores. I passed three boy who chose the second option that week. “You are coming from school?” they asked. “Yes,” I said, “where were y’all?” “Rea lisa,” they replied. “We’re herding,” as they showed me their gum boots, the official footwear for all herdboys, and continued down the rock path whistling those herdboy whistles.

Yesterday, the principal was concerned about the low attendance and the pointlessness of being at school with so few students. She said that she called the senior education officer for Quthing district to ask what to do. Should they close school on Friday for a long weekend? The officer said that she should make her own decisions. Here’s where that made me mad. Who else but the Ministry of Education is going to advocate that you actually hold school? And even they are listless and seemingly disinterested. God forbid that you actually advocate for kids going to school instead of letting the staff decide, who will obviously opt for the long weekend. There’s the broken system right there. Even the Ministry of Education is wrapped up in this seemingly corrupt scheme that is education, in which the teachers get away with laziness and continue to get paid the big bucks even when they’re absent (or present and not going to class) or straight up cancel school for no good reason. Then, as if some miracle would happen, the heavens opening up and a ray of sunlight striking the cheek of one of the teachers and giving them the inspiration to hold classes on Friday, as if someone would actually pipe up and say “No, don’t cancel school. I want to come to work tomorrow,” the principal held a meeting at lunch. In between looooong silent pauses, the only sounds being the scraping of spoons against ceramic plates, maybe they were trying to pretend that they were actually debating the pros and cons of cancelling school on Friday. Don’t kid yourselves. Of course you’re gonna cancel school so you can get out of, god forbid, doing any actual work. Not that half of them would actually come to school anyway had they decided to keep school open. All this pretend sincerity makes me sick.

Another thing that continues to make me sick is the way that some of the teachers (especially one gargoyle-esque teacher) treat the students who are very nicely and obediently doing things for them. One of the students who helps in the kitchen brought pots of papa and moroho to the staff room. Then one teacher made her stay and make scrambled eggs in a pot on top of the paraffin heater. While the rest of the school was having the premade hard boiled eggs, this would not do for the Royal Teachers. Hard boiled eggs were only for the puny peasant students. And no word of thanks. No words at all, actually, as the student squatted there cracking 8 eggs (she had brought 4 eggs for 4 teachers, as normally each person gets one egg, but then she got scolded and went back to double up the serving) into a bowl, nervously spooning out the little egg boogers and miniscule shell pieces (lest she be scolded again) as the other teachers just silently watched her. The gargoyle teacher flatly said, “U ngoatele. Ke lapile.” “Please serve me. I’m hungry.” Wow. I just wanted to punch her in the throat. As she was plating up the eggs and handed them to each teacher, I made sure to thank her with a big smile. These teachers just treat kids like slaves sometimes, with no thanks, because kids are just expected to do things like this or else they get beaten.

Other happenings in my life-

Just to let you know that life isn’t all storm clouds and dragons, allow me to raise your spirits by saying that later that day at the orphanage, where I continue to tutor English. I’ve been working on writing letters with the 7^th graders, and they wrote some stellar letters, and as I finished up with them and waited for the younger kids to get back from the other primary school, I went outside and played a little soccer with some of my Form B boys who live at the orphanage. So yeah, there are highlights to any bad day.

My principal just informed me that my replacement PCV (each site tends to get 3 PCVs back to back, for a total of 6 years) will not live in my same house, but in a different rondaval across the little valley closer to school. The reasoning is that my ‘me wants the school to fully wire the house to the grid (which costs several thousand rand) and also build her a “shack,” according to my principal, whatever that means. I guess with all my older siblings going to town for school next year (thank god), it’ll be a lot more boring over here. I think there are other kids with the new family and lots of secondary school students living nearby, so that’ll be good because, honestly, my host siblings and the students are one of the biggest factors of my sanity here. This means that in the next few months, I need to figure out how to move my furniture and household items over there so the new volunteer can have all of it.

Back to kind of depressing news, I just learned that my second-oldest ausi, when she went away to school last year to start Form A, promptly became pregnant. She either had a miscarriage or the baby died right after it was born. Lord. Sure, losing a baby is sad (but somewhat normal here), but I was most concerned with her actually getting pregnant in form A. It would have been seen as a blessing, actually, for her to have a baby, and not necessarily the end of the world, but jeez. This is real life.

` In food news (the best kind of news), I have been experimenting with butternut squash. I have several that are about to go bad, so I decided to have some fun cooking them. My latest creation is battered and fried butternut strips: thin pieces of butternut covered in flour/garlic salt/mint/cinnamon/egg batter (sounds weird, I know), and fried in a skillet. Omg. So, so good. Butternuts can go sweet or savory, and I love it.