Rachel Schousboe's Reports

It is strange to be writing my quarterly report already. Part of me feels like I have been here for a year and part of me feels like I have really only just arrived. I think that I have probably spent the majority of these past two months wondering "WHAT IS GOING ON!?!" I have a feeling that maybe by the end of the year, when I am getting ready to leave, I will have finally figured most things out.

But that is exactly how any adventure is supposed to be. I knew when I decided to move to Lesotho to teach for a year that I could expect to have an adventure, but I didn't really know what to expect. The past two months have been exciting, overwhelming, exhausting, beautiful, fun, tiring… (I think there are an infinite number of adjectives that I could use to describe my time here).

The most accurate adjective to describe the very beginning would have to be overwhelming. I would like to say that it was as if my life had completely changed overnight, but as I left my house in Chicago on a Monday and didn't reach Lesotho until a Thursday, it was really over four days. Suddenly, I had to get used to thinking and acting as a high school teacher, living in a different culture, and having almost completely no contact with anyone from my usual support system. But I would still wake up every morning to hear the neighbors' chickens and the bells of herded cows on and in the surrounding mountains and valleys, and I could sit up in bed to look out the window at the beautiful scenery. And I would excitedly remind myself, "I'm in Lesotho!"

Hey, living in Lesotho is different than living in Grinnell, Iowa or Evanston, Illinois. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what is expected here of me, a foreign American. And I am still trying to learn all that I can about the Basotho. When the Basotho speak, they use a soft tone of voice, almost as if they are speaking to themselves. They greet everyone they see, people on the road, people in their yards, even people in the windows of their homes. And they seem to love to greet Liz and me. I can be walking somewhere and think that I am all alone when out of nowhere I hear "GOOD MORNING, MADAM! HOW ARE YOU, MADAM!" (The question is shouted as more of an exclamation.) The primary school aged students only know a few phrases in English. And they shout them, apparently under the impression that English speaking people speak very loudly. It is quite hilarious.

There are other things that the Basotho believe and do that are quite different. In Lesotho, you just go to visit someone at their house without letting them know ahead of time. People will stop by our house and will just have to stop what we are doing. The other teachers are always telling us that we need to start visiting others more.

The Basotho also believe that if you sit on the floor you will become ill. About a week ago, we had our first sports field trip for a track meet at a school in Makhakhe (for those of you who like to look at maps). Since we had arrived early, the students and teachers were all lounging about in a classroom where we were told we could leave our things. Because all of the available seats were taken, Liz and I decided to sit on the ground. Just as our bums were hitting the floor and the students realized what we were doing, they all screamed in horror. It was so funny that I started laughing so hard that I would not have been able to get up again even if I had wanted to. (I wonder if I should feel badly about being an English teacher and still ending my sentences in prepositions.) This has also worded to my advantage because I am able to use sitting on the floor as a punishment in class when students cannot stop distracting their neighbors. I know that I'm not hurting them, but they think that it is the worst punishment ever.

Unfortunately, I am also never completely sure when I am doing something that might be considered offensive. The Basotho appear to be outspoken about some things and not about others. I do not even know if some one will tell me when I am doing something considered offensive. Are the other teachers offended that we do not visit very often? Are we being offensive when we are not paying enough attention and we accidentally do not greet someone? How scandalous is it really when we wear shorts? I just don't know. And so I worry all the time that I am being offensive without knowing it.

So, teaching. (Yes, it is okay if you use a sentence fragment as a form of style. No, my students are not ready to learn that.) It is strange to get used to thinking of yourself as a high school teacher. Because I have worked with children almost my entire life, it is not a completely foreign concept. However, there are some major differences between my pre-Lesotho experiences and my experiences here. I have never really worked with high school aged students except when I was in high school. Many of these students are taller than me and some of them, considering the AIDS rate in Lesotho is so high, have lost both parents and can be just as independent as I am. The classes are HUGE. I'm not used to being in charge of more than 30 children (at the most!) at a time. Here, I have to make sure that 50 girls understand how to add fractions. Before I came here, I knew that the classes would be large, but there is a big difference between hearing the number 50 and actually seeing 50 girls in front of you. There are so many of them!

I am also accustomed to working with students who speak English and can understand me. There are days when I'm not entirely sure if the students have understood anything that I have said except for "Good Morning." This makes discipline a little trickier because I have usually given American children "a good talking to" when they are misbehaving. This does not work as well when the students are struggling to understand you.

However, there are some universal things that make working with students totally awesome. Anytime I am working with a child and she suddenly understands something or realizes that she is capable of something she thought impossible, I become ecstatically happy! There is nothing better in the whole world than witnessing a child find a new thing to make them proud of themselves. Feeling as if I could have possibly helped to being about that pride, adds even more to my happiness.

So, I think that I have already written quite a bit about some of the challenges that I have found living here in Lesotho, but there is another important one that I feel I should mention. The sudden and almost complete disappearance of my usual support system. After four years of college, years of summer camp, and living without my family in Britain for six months, you would think that I would have no trouble living here in Lesotho. My only communication with the outside world is through letters, which may or may not ever make it to their final destinations. In fact, I haven't received any mail for the past 3 weeks. I try to tell myself that it is probably something wrong with the mail and not that my family and friends have all completely forgotten me. There are some days when I really wish that I could phone a friend to whine, or call my mother for advice. The best that I can do is write a letter and hope that in about three weeks my mother or friend will received it. And if I'm lucky, I might receive a response in another three weeks. I feel surprised with how difficult it is for me. I knew that I would miss people a lot, but perhaps I did not realize exactly how much.

Besides the major challenges, I am really enjoying Lesotho. I cannot think of a place that I would rather be.