Allison Groves' Reports

Dear Future Fellows and other avid readers of my daily trails and tribulations,

I'm writing this letter at 8:00 on a Saturday night; though I'm sipping on a rum and coke, the nightlife here is a tad bit quieter than those Harris parties. However, there is plenty of dancing, and frankly, most of the Basotho are much better than the drunken shuffle and bootyshakin' that takes place on campus. We spent this afternoon as spectators of a netball match that was taking place between the different classes of girls who live at the hostel. Their sense of spirit was amazing--half of the time it was more fascinating to watch the song and dance routines of each class than to watch the game itself. The girls' version of talking down the competitors included a song that translated into "your team is worse than cheap soup." Whenever on class would score a goal, multitudes of girls from that class would run onto the netball field and wiggle their skirt clad booties at the other team. What an interesting sport (and highly entertaining way to spend one's Saturday afternoon!)

We were also going to go horseback riding; however, somebody had borrowed the mission's lone horse, resulting in a change of plans. Lack of beast only further instigated Ian's mission to purchase a horse...now we just have to keep our eyes open during those 4 hour bus rides for the village sporting that "For Sale" sign. I'm thinking something slightly smaller might be a more realistic endeavor. Anyhow, it is hardly as if we need to increase the animal population! From howling dogs to cats, chickens, and even an occasional galloping cow, there's no lack of background noise. One thing that hasn't ceased to amaze me is that urban legend about how the rooster only crows at dawn. Lies! The fact of the matter is, roosters have little, if any concept of time, (similar to many people here), and can be heard beginning around 4:30 am up until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

Just as the rooster has been known to crow 7 hours late, there are still girls arriving for their first day of school, despite the fact that we have been in session for almost a full month. Though it definitely helped to hear from last year's fellows about the vast amounts of change which undoubtedly would occur at the beginning of the year, it still surprised me at the end of the 2nd week when I walked into the wrong class because I had failed to conduct a morning review (and subsequently MISSED the 4th edition of the timetable.) Oh well. The shuffling of girls from class to class is another factor, which has kept me on my toes. Throughout any given day, some innocent young girl might be plucked from the A1 class and tossed into the confines of A3 for any number of reasons. Such affairs have led to some girls missing the lesson completely while others have had to bear my high pitched American voice twice. While this is all fine and dandy when you are playing Simon says, how do you give a girl a test when she was missed most of the material (due to class-jumping and/or late arrivals)?

I'm teaching the Sesotho language. Ha. Actually this is what I told the throngs of curious schoolchildren the weeks preceding the start of the session...I mean, really, what's better than a bad joke when you haven't the vaguest notion about what you are doing? In reality, I was quite pleased to find: 1) I was NOT teaching Sesotho (or Physics, for that mater) and 2)There doth lie a schedule in the future! I am teaching 28 classes of English language and literature to the Form A and Form B girls (this is approximately 8th/9th grade). The teacher retention rate is a far cry from spectacular, which led to a rather large gap in the English department this year. Timetable #1 had me teaching 32 classes, and some days of the week 1 was scheduled to teach all 8 forty minute blocks. Seeing as I am a new, inexperienced teacher rather than a veteran with superhuman powers, this was not a feasible situation; it has since been adjusted accordingly. As it is, I have my hands full. My smallest class has a mere 39 girls while the biggest is bursting at 60 (though I can hardly complain. The primary school teacher for standard one has 146!). Needless to say, I'm still working on their names. All of the girls are sporting blue uniforms and short hair, and almost half of them have names beginning with M...(Mapaseka, Matseliso, Manlape, Makhotso, Matjale). Although many of them also have Christian names, I let them choose what they want to be called. I now have a much greater respect for teachers/profs who struggle with unfamiliar names those first few weeks of school. Try as I might, I constantly forget that "li" is a "d" here, only to be reminded by the titillating laughter from my girls in class.

Beyond the logistics (what's in a name?) the act of teaching itself has had its ups, and a few bumps, ruts, and potholes. Friday afternoon, we were chatting with Me Malerato, the head of the English department, about our classes. As I was expressing some of my challenges in Literature, she said "Allison, they're only in Form A. You can't really expect to understand much more than the plot of the story." Honestly, there are days where I feel like the blind man walking into a fire. Many of the girls do not speak enough English to understand the plot at all. And then, of course, there are a handful who score almost perfectly on the quizzes, leading to a sticky dichotomy. Where do I start? This is slightly easier with the A's, as it is their first year in high school; therefore one starts "at the beginning" (I'll leave you to mull over your thoughts as to what exactly the beginning of the English language is). The B's are slightly more baffling...while some are also definitely at the ever elusive beginning ground, there are many trotting happily toward the middle. Welcome to Vaguedom in the land of instruction (I should've stuck with Physics...). I'm sure many of these challenges creep up on teachers universally, though I feel they are compounded by multiple variables defined in this particular setting. (Phew. Last sentence nearly took me back to the land of 'writing Grinnell papers.' Translation: It's not easy.)

However, as I alluded to briefly, there have been good moments as well. The girls are very sweet and well behaved, and there are certainly not and any shortages in the department of enthusiasm. Some girls nearly fall out of their seat in earnest desperation to be called on. Similarly, during one period, I was not planning to collect one assignment because we had corrected it as a class. One smaller girls in the back of the room raised her hand: "Madam, please. You need to collect our homework so you can mark it." If any brown-nosed student ever did that at my high school, it was a death wish. Here, she was just a voice representing the unspoken concern among her classmates-'Would Miss Allison check our work?' And so we learn together.

Of course, our adventures have hardly contained themselves within the concrete walls of the classroom. Let us first begin with a discussion of our plumbing system. It is not necessarily a paragraph to be read by those who are easily repulsed. First, I'll preface the tale by saying that our house is really quite nice; it is arguably cleaner and more inviting than some of the off-campus slums at Grinnell. The basic structure consists of 5 rooms, complete with solar heated water and a porcelain tub. Granted, we are lacking some of the material goods and amenities found in most American lives, but our spectacular mountainous view and our apple and peach trees supplement the living situation quite nicely. But I digress-back to the toilet. We first noticed something was amiss when Ian was tossing some egg shells onto our compost pile out back. There were specks of toilet paper clotting the pipes outside and a much-needed cap was missing on the pipeline. Much to our dismay, toilet paper was NOT the only thing relieving itself through this hole. First train of rational thought: cover the hole so the unwanted goods go down like they're supposed to. We tried this and were on the verge of an indoor disaster until I ran outside and forcefully kicked the brick off just in the nick of time (so noble, I know). The following Monday, (one of the hottest days we have had so far) Sister Florina sent 2 jack-of-all-trades men down to solve the dilemma. I felt terrible for the two men as they dug through years of waste; cold Fanta is an awfully small consolation when you are trudging through human feces. Thankfully, they were miracle workers and finished the deed that afternoon. Chalk it up as House Adventure #1.

House adventure #2 occurred before Valentine's Day. Among the games we've invented for entertainment there is one known as "pick recipes out of our Better Homes & Garden cookbook and challenge our culinary imagination." The more times the recipe mentions anything impossible, (i.e. chill for 1 hour, or use 1 package of pre-bought pizza dough), the better. Our task for V-day-frosted sugar cookies for the teachers. The cookies themselves were easy (Ian self constructed cookie sheets from extra pieces of corrugated tin that was in our backyard). The frosting was a bit more challenging. We ended up building a double broiler out of a candleholder, an empty can, and we substituted cream of tartar with a splash of maple syrup. Then in an effort to simulate an electric mixer, we took turns stirring vigorously for a painfully long 12 minutes (thank god for my brute strength). After what felt like hours of suffering and self-doubt, wala-frosting! You'd be amazed at how much you can do in the kitchen without refrigeration. All you need is time, fresh cow's milk, and a little imagination. I've actually been eating healthier here than I did throughout a majority of my Grinnell experience.

Speaking of healthy, jogging has been another unpredictable experience. We felt like death the first time we ventured out due to the high altitude and the fact that there are no flat roads at all (too bad the dongas are not deep enough for swimming!). We've since navigated a few routes that are not uphill both ways. The first week, we had quite an audience. In fact, we have a lurking audience throughout many of our activities. We're quite entertaining-people seem to think I'm much funnier here than I've ever been before (I'm not convinced this is a good thing but hell, a sense of humor is always important.) People are becoming slightly more used to us, though most girls are still convinced we are married or related. Why else would an adult man and woman live together? Anyhow, back to running. Throughout the first week, we circled mainly around the slightly sloped soccer field, and at least 15 schoolchildren and 3 adult men sat down to watch us sweat. We must be quite a sight...why would anyone want to run in circles when people here are already so physically active? This is truly one of the only places I know where many schoolgirls actually have to walk uphill to school both ways-many of them cross over a mountain before walking up the hill of St. Rodrigue. One Sunday afternoon we made the mistake of running through a donga (river due to erosion) after 10 hours of rain. Our leisurely afternoon job suddenly emulated that fantastic scene from Romancing the Stone where the 2 characters go sliding down the mudhill in the rainforest. Fantastic primarily because Ian was the poor innocent guy who happened to be in front; it was highly entertaining to watch him slide rapidly down the virtual cliff ankle deep in soft mud and arms flailing for something to hold on to. Running has never been so fun.

Well I hate to be abrupt, but my drink is long gone and a cribbage game awaits. And yes, we are keeping score. I'm winning.

Nothing but love from the motherland