I debated long about the form this second report should take. I feel I have been here long enough now to give an accurate account of life as a Grinnell grad in rural Lesotho, with a lengthy list of practical information for future fellows; but to write such a report would be to deny space for what has been the most defining experience of my time here thus far-the death of our beloved Sister Florina. So I write this report mostly for me as a celebration of a woman I was fortunate to know and as a testament to the impact her death made on this community.
I recall, in my first report, having mentioned that it was overwhelming to walk into class on the first day of school, but I must revise my choice of words. That was a far cry from overwhelming. Overwhelming is being present when 500 school girls are informed that their principal had died on an island halfway around the world; overwhelming is plugging my ears and still hearing the collective moan of those 500 sobbing in every corner of the school; overwhelming is having to check a student for a pulse and breathing because she's completely unresponsive after collapsing in a bout of hysteria; overwhelming is then carrying dozens of such students down to the hostel and doling out everything from hugs to valium. That is how we, the St. Rodrigue staff, spent the Monday morning following Sister Florina's death.
I learned a lot about Sister Florina and St. Rodrigue that day, and I learned a lot about being a teacher. It reminded me of something my cooperating teacher in Newton said to me once last fall. He said that teachers don't teach subjects, they teach children. That morning, my students were definitely children, children who had lost a mother, and no amount of algebra or geography or literature was going to lessen the pain they felt.
The students hadn't lost a principal, they had lost a woman to whom they looked for strength and guidance. The teachers hadn't lost a colleague, they had lost a friend. And Grinnell College hadn't lost a contact, they lost a woman whose kindness and acute perception of human need made fellows feel at ease the moment they stepped off the plane onto Lesotho soil.
Sister Florina took on the role of surrogate mother to Ali and me the instant we arrived, visiting us daily for the first three weeks of our adventure to ensure that we were comfortable in our new surroundings. If we ever needed anything at all, and on the slim chance that she had failed to intuit beforehand that we did, she was the first person that we would talk to. And all of this she did, not out of obligation to Grinnell, but seemingly out of an innate concern for others. She typified what I consider the ideals of sisterhood.
What I did not understand until her death was the scope of this sentiment. Sister Florina was a pillar, not only of the school, but of the greater St. Rodrigue community, and with her absence came a grief that was almost tangible. Its hard to do justice in words to the scale of the fanfare that accompanied her departure for America with Sister Claudia. Every high schooler and many of the primary schoolers descended upon the convent to bid them farewell. They left in a caravan of nuns and teachers that was escorted halfway to teh next village by the school's marching and drum corps. Twenty-three well-wishers crowded the balcony at Mosheshoe I airport in Mesure to wave as she and Sister Claudia began a journey that would take them only as far as an emergency landing in Bermuda.
The day of her return, the same girls who marched and waved and cried at her departure, cried once more as they stood for several rain-soaked hours in rank and file waiting to escort her casket up the winding road to the church. The next day, two weeks after her death, she was finally laid to rest.
But in the midst of such sorrow and confustion was a most remarkable element of support and regeneration. The veil of school and convent was lifted and saw for the first time the family of St. Rodrigue that lay beneath. It was a family of nuns and teachers who had lost a member, but would heal together. And far from viewing this family from the periphery, Ali and I were welcomed with open arms into what is now our home, if only for a year.
Now it is the night before the last week of the first session and though the emotional scars are still evident, life has long since resumed its normal routine. The session continued after the funeral and new challenges replaced the old in a cycle that often leaves me shaking my head, but usually laughing at the same time. As I have grown more attached to, and consequently invested in, St. Rodrigue, the less endearing qualities of the place have elicited greater frustration on my part.
Perhaps the most irritating aspect of teaching here is the sight of tremendous untapped potential in the face of student academic failure. Not a single student among my Form A's and B's (first and second year students) had heard of an encyclopedia, yet know less than five full sets of encyclopedias sit collecting dust in a library that students beg to gain access to. Countless brand new scientific instruments rest untouched in boxes in the new government funded science lab, while students continue to fail the maths and sciences portion of the Cambridge Exams. And few teachers know about, and none utilize, the solar powered school computer that boasts word processing, spreadsheet, and interactive math skills applications, but which lies hidden in a dark room at the convent. All of this has saddened me as I watch students who are eager to learn collide with a system which fails to utilize resources effectively.
In spite of these frustrations, however, I grow more fond of teaching here with each passing week. What the students may lack in academic prowess, they make up for in an incredible zeal for life that makes teaching them a tremendously fulfilling experience. In addition, students no longer look on us as the novel "whities" and have begun to regard us as teachers and mentors despite our goofy complexion. The girls are quite an endearing bunch, which makes it harder to see them struggle and fail as they do.
It seems though that things are on the upswing at St. Rodrigue. Sister Armelina Tsiki, who to no one's surprise was recently named Sister Florina's successor, has been doing a good job of making the school's resources more accessible to teachers and students, and is committed to reviving academic excellence at St. Rodrigue. For the sake of the students and teachers I've grown to love here, I hope this fellowship may serve to further that vision.
