Dear prospective fellows and other who have happened upon this web page,
Moments ago I watched our next door neighbor casually relieve a chicken of its head with a serrated knife, so I figured this was an appropriate time to begin my first report about this unique experiment. (It must be noted, however, that the chicken's legs had been tied, so unfortunately, I did not get the chance to see it run around "like a chicken with its head cut off.") If this had happened a month and a half ago, I might have though it a little bizarre, but after living here a while, it's just another interesting journal entry. Since arriving in Lesotho I've seen a teacher remove two live pigeons from her desk drawer, witnessed a nun jump roping through a library, watched a 5-year old boy herd cattle with ease, and shaken hands with a prince, so a chicken without a head gets marks for grossness, but nothing more. And that's why it is impossible to do this experience justice on paper, but I hope to give you an idea of what life is like here.
On Accommodations, Environment, and Weather:
Much to my surprise the sisters agreed to allow Ali and I to live in the same house, though it has been the source of much confusion among the students. Half of them think we are siblings and the other half are convinced we are married-there seem to be no other logical conclusions.
Our house is lavish by local standards and definitely more extensive then we anticipated-two bedrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, a sitting room, a bathroom, hot water on sunny days, a full array of cooking utensils due to the efforts of our predecessors, and as of today one fantastic green ovenmit thanks to my loving mother. In fact, our flat is a step up from most apartments in Grinnell. Other than a minor debacle with the toilet, which I will allow my roommate to expound upon, we are living in the lap of relative luxury.
One look out most any window and it's easy to forget about the toilet, too. Beyond the peach trees growing in our front yard are the beautiful foothills of Lesotho which offer spectacular views of the surrounding villages and great hiking when there are not circumcision rites going on at the top.
As for the weather, it has been very warm with periods of oppressively hot and brief episodes of exceedingly wet. The altitude cools things down quite a bit at night and everyone keeps premising bitter cold temperatures come July. No one here has been through an Iowa winter, so I am skeptical about the meaning of 'bitter.'
The altitude has also had its effects from a red blood cell standpoint. Having lived on Main fourth my senior year I though I'd be conditioned for the verified, though less fragrant air of Lesotho. I thought I was right until I went for my first jog, which incidentally drew quite a crowd. It was then that I realized the full inadequacies of my hemoglobin. What should have been an easy jog was up to the bus stop was nearly the demise of at least one Southern African Fellow.
On food:
The lack of refrigeration certainly lands a twist to the culinary potential at St. Rodrigue, but far from the papa and moroho (lumpy grits and fried cabbage) that I envisioned being staples of my diet, the food choice here has been bounded only by the fruits of our creativity. Maseru and Ladybrand sport grocery stores with a wide variety of "whitey food," and while they are no McNally's, if you're willing to use your imagination, you can even find yourself sitting down to surprisingly good imitations of PadThai or rice and bean burritos. Spices haven't been too hard to come by, either. Stores carry the ambiguous Italian seasoning and garlic salt along with most basic spices, but I was glad to have packed some garam masala and cumin.
For the bare essentials-eggs, longlife milk, flour, onions, potatoes, cooking oil and Fanta orange soda-the shops in and around St. Rodrigue have been more than adequate. And a trip to one often doubles as an impromptu Sesotho lesson.
On time:
African Standard Time, as it is sometimes referred to in jest, is an oddity that must be experienced to be truly appreciated. When you wait, as we did a couple weeks ago, at a taxi rank for 4 Ð hours while the mini-bus fills in order to catch a ride that takes two hours, you begin to gain an understanding of African Time. Coming from an American perception of time, things here can seem a little absurd. Lesotho is a place where "I'll meet you at noon today" means "I'll likely show up sometime today," and where walking at local speed is so slow it is literally difficult to accomplish. It's been a bit disconcerting, and even frustrating at times, to live without the certainties and order that accompany schedule driven society, but also rather refreshing to leave the stress of schedules. And the longer I'm here the more I realize that there are certainties. They are just different certainties than I am used to. It is certain that you will not be late for anything because no one expects anybody to be punctual anyhow, and it is certain you will get where you are going; it might just take awhile.
On the reasl reason we are here:
After receiving a variety of hazy estimates, school began on January 23rd...sort of. We had a staff meeting on the 22nd, but failed to finish discussing everything, so we met again the next day while those students who had already arrived just sat patiently at their desks all day-the mythical five minute rule is apparently unknown in Lesotho.
The first week of school, to be quite honest, saw very little teaching. Not only had barely over half the students arrived (some were still arriving last week-African time), but the timetable spent the first 10 days of school in relative limbo. Since the students remain in the same classroom all day and the teachers move about, scheduling is merely a matter of allocating an appropriate number of classes per week to each teacher. Unfortunately, "an appropriate number" is subject to considerable interpretation. The timetable, it seems, is declared finished when the last teacher stops complaining. Until then, the schedule goes through innumerable permutation. A few days into school, for instance, I was 15 minutes into a prep period between classes and glanced at the master timetable only to find that I was supposed to be in the class I had just come from. Apparently, the timetable had been altered once again during my previous class. Needless to say, my students spent yet another 40 minutes sitting patiently at their desks.
The teaching itself has been quite an interesting experience. Ali and I are splitting almost all of the English and literature classes for the form A's and form B's (first and second year students). (Of course, that could change at any moment since you never know when some teacher might up and leave.)
As a math major, it's been a learning experience teaching English. Though I doubt it has improved my command of the English language, I now know the difference between subject and object pronouns, (and how to use "them"), and I am currently wrestling with, and hopefully conquering, the present progressive tense. I wish I could say the same for my students, some of who have virtually no English under their belts at all. And while my Sesotho is slowly improving, I'm teaching them a foreign language entirely in that language. Let's hope current research into language acquisition is on the mark, because we've got the epitome of full immersion here at St. Rodrigue.
Despite the occasional language barrier incident, teaching has been enjoyable and the students want to learn. The first few days, however, were nothing short of intimidating. It was a little overwhelming to step into a class on the first day of school and have anywhere from 45 to 60 girls stand and recite, in unison, "Good morning Teacher. How are you today?" and then launch into a prayer. It's nice, though, to have an unmistakable beginning to class.
In addition to having upwards of 50 or 60 students in each class, the school is under resourced. Students are often three to a desk built for two, some cannot afford textbooks, chalkboards are masonite painted black, and giving a worksheet means filling the chalkboard with questions to be copied into a student's exercise book. I must digress here, though, because St. Rodrigue recently received a shipment of school supplies and athletic equipment from the Lion's Club thanks to the efforts of Betsy McCallon's family and others. I wish I had had a camera when the teachers opened those boxes. There were grown men and women dancing and playing soccer in the library, nuns jumping rope, and everyone beaming at the prospect of teaching with intact globes and brand new flash cards. So St. Rodrigue has many more resources that previously, but even with the biggest globe and the shiniest flash cards, the fact remains that teaching 60 students is never easy and that many of these students walk over a mountain to and from school everyday. Academic success is hard to come by in an environment like this, but regardless of how ineffective I feel some days, I know that Ali and I are filling positions where there would otherwise be gaps. In the words of Brandie Christie, "I know I can teach better than no teacher at all."
