Letsatsi

Every once in awhile I visit a friend who has running water and electricity.  We cook a fabulous meal (because that's what she does), usually lose track of time and end up staying up until 11 o'clock catching up and complaining about students, teachers, and our lives.  For those of you who read my previous post you know that my usual bedtime is 9pm.  The thing is that when I can't see how dark it is outside, I have no idea of what time it is.  My internal clock is no longer dependent on what time the clock says but rather at what position the sun is in.  So when there's a bright, electric light above my head, I have no idea what time it is.
It's not that I don't have access to a clock; I have a cell phone and a watch.  It's just that, unlike America where there's some indication of time on every wall you see, Lesotho is less concerned with the exact minutes but the overall hour or time of day.  One of my teachers even told me that Basotho have three hours in their day: morning, afternoon, and evening.  Other than school, there are no exact times for things.  You ask a taxi driver if he will be leaving soon and that translates in to sometime in the next few hours.
For me this new earthly (or shall I say solar) clock wakes me up at 5 am on the dot in summer and that in winter 6:30 is still way too early to wake up.  It tells me that it's time to cook dinner or that I should take my clothes off the line about now or that I should head home from town.  I no longer depend on my phone for the exact minute of everyday but rather the general sense of the day.
That being said when you can't see the sun things come to a stand still.  The best way to put how Basotho view the night is that "it's not that it's not safe at night but that you just don't know what can happen."  For the most part people don't wander around at night. The camp towns are deserted, and the only people walking around the villages are the drunks (always male).  One of my friends had a school event that extended in to the night.  It was too dangerous for the students to walk home with out any light so the party extended until the wee hours of dawn.  This also meant that all the teachers were chaperoning the party the whole night (needless to say my friend was not too happy to lose a whole night's sleep).  In my case my school often takes class trips and by the time we hit the road it's getting dark.  So we drop of kids on the side of the road by their village so that (hopefully) they will reach home safely.
My favorite part of the day are sun sets.  Every single one in Lesotho is gorgeous and unique.  So to end this post I wanted to share a few of my favorite sunset photos (I'm usually too lazy/cold to wake up to the sun rises).

 The first sun set I took a picture of in Lesotho.  It's a January sunset.  The sen sets behind my house so this is what my backyard looks like.

 The two sun rises I was up for.  The first one is a March sunrise and the second one is an August sunrise.

This one's a March sunset.  The corn crops were growing and were this luch shade of green.

One of my favorite sunsets I have seen in Lesotho.  It was just as the sun was setting and sky had this beautiful golden color.

Peach blossems mark the beginning of Spring here.  But they're there for a week or two and then they're gone.  But while they're here Lesotho is this beautiful pink color.

Routines

When moving to a new place people often talk about getting in to a routine.  These routines help you start feeling at home and to integrate in to your new situation.  That being said my weekly routine is mostly defined by school.
Mondays through Fridays tend to be almost exactly the same.  I wake up between 6 to 6:30 am every morning.  In the summer time this is pretty easy for right now the sun is up before 5:30 am and, because of the sheer curtains that are widely available here, it is hard to sleep in past a certain time.  In the winter this proves to be very difficult.  The sun rises around 6:30am and it is still very cold in the morning.
The first thing I do when I wake up is open my front door and get a good idea what to expect, weather wise, that day.  Lesotho is a very windy country which translates in to the weather is extremely unpredictable. Often times mornings are still and clear.  The wind usually starts to pick up in a few hours and there is always a chance of afternoon showers.  And when it rains it pours and, because this is Lesotho, when it pours it also hails.
The next item in my morning routine is using the outhouse and dumping my pee bucket.  I don't think I've mentioned this before but Basotho use a pee bucket when it's too cold/dark to go to the outhouse.  In the summer, the nights are warm and I take my headlamp (keeps you from using your hands in the outhouse) to lead the way.  But in winter, and when it rains, a pee bucket is a very convenient alternative.  I also use it as my make-shift sink when brushing my teeth, and as a drainage system when dumping the water from my bath.  I dump this water in to a hole filled with rocks that is far away from our water source.
After brushing my teeth I start making breakfast.  Oatmeal has always been my breakfast of choice even in the U.S.  Here it's nice because it's healthy, easily available, and it can cook while I'm getting other things done.  While it's cooking I can make my bed, feed my cat, pick out my outfit, get dressed, and assemble everything I need for the upcoming school day.  By that time my oatmeal is ready to be eaten.  And I can listen to the radio and figure out what is going on in the world.  By this I usually mean South Africa since I usually listen to an Africaner station based in the Free State ( the area bordering Lesotho).
My school is a 5 minute walk from my place.  I usually leave my place between 7:15 and 7:30.  I'm usually one of the first teachers there so I open the staff room and start prepping for my upcoming day.  My coworkers usually arrive closer to 7:45.  Most of them live in the camptown and commute to town on a taxi.
At 7:45 assembly starts.  Assembly is how we start and end the school day here.  Students sing a hymn, say the Lord's prayer, and teachers give any announcements such as inspirational speeches from the Principal, club meetings, or what students will be punished that day for speaking Sesotho.  Yes, all students are expected to speak English all day unless they are in Sesotho class.
I teach 18 40 minute periods a week.  Most teachers are expected to teach between 25-30 periods a week.  But I am a volunteer and I am not expected to take a full load.  That being said there are teachers in my school who teach less periods a week than I do.  The amount I teach each day varies.  On Tuesdays I teach only 1 period while on Thursdays I teach 3 double periods for each of my classes.
Our school is set up with 4 periods in the morning, a 20 minute break, 3 periods, a 1 hour lunch break, and 3 periods until the end of school.  This takes us to 4:00pm.  We have a cook at my school who cooks lunch for the students if they pay a 100 rand fee.  Before lunch was part of the school's fees but schools have had to cut fees because of a government mandate and we can no longer afford to feed the students.  We usually eat papa (the equivalent of rice in the Basotho diet made from maize) and moroho (green vegetable that can consist of cabbage, spinach, and/or, rape) or beans or samp (like papa but bigger pieces) with beans.
At 4:00 the students line up for assembly, sing, and leave school.  I then head back home.
When I head back home I take a minute to eat something and then I clean my dishes from the morning.  I pump water that I will use for a bath and to wash my dinner dishes.  I then spend my evening watching TV shows on my computer, cooking, bathing, and at 9:00pm it's candles out.  When I eat dinner depends on the season.  I hate cooking in the dark because no matter how many candles I have lit I cannot see what I am cooking or eating.  So I cook when there is still plenty of light outside.  I also have to boil water to take a bath.  I boil a large pot's worth of water and I cool it down with the rest of the water in my bucket.  The leftover water is then used for washing my dishes.
On Fridays we have a half day and end at 1:00 (right before lunch).  No food in served and students and teachers go home early.  I usually use this day to do some grocery shopping in town since I have plenty of time to get back home before dark.
On Saturdays I usually head to town again to hang out with fellow PCVs or just chill in the camptown.  Villages are quite boring and the events of the weeks tend to be funerals.  Every Saturday there is a funeral or two in the village.  So going in to town is a preferred alternative.
Sundays are dead days for me.  Basotho are very religious people so Sunday is church day for them.  This means that almost nothing is open and transportation is unreliable.  I use this as a cleaning day.  I wash my clothes, clean my house, and spend the rest of the day reading and watching stuff on my computer.
Every once in a while my weekly routine changes if I spend the weekend at another volunteer's place one weekend or I leave for the week to do things for Peace Corps but for the most part this is what my life consists of.  I can't say it's very interesting but I am enjoying it.

Aparna

The Spaceship Problem

A few weeks back I was teaching my Form B class about forces, friction in particular. Like any good teacher I gave them classwork from their textbooks to test their understanding of the subject and within a few minutes a group of students had raised their hands to inquire about the same question.

The questions went like this:

As the American space shuttle enters the Earth’s atmosphere it gets very hot. What causes the heat? (Excel in Science, Form B)

The answer to this question goes along the lines that friction force is experienced between solids and gases and friction also releases heat. The shuttle is experiencing friction force between itself and the atmosphere and heat is therefore being released. But their questions had nothing to do with the answer. Their question was, “What is a space shuttle, madam?” It’s moments like this that I want to run to Maseru (Lesotho’s capital) find the person who wrote this book, shake them by the shoulders, and ask them “What the hell were you thinking?” Am I supposed to explain to them that humans have built these fancy ships that can leave the earth? Am I supposed to tell them that humans have landed on the moon, put flags and other mementos commemorating their achievement on it? My students are stunned that it takes 15 hours in a plane to get to Lesotho. Most of them have little to no idea what lies beyond South Africa. And here I am trying to explain a space ship to them.

I have many frustrations with being a teacher here but one of my biggest complaints is trying to teach a curriculum that wasn’t written for my students. The Lesotho primary and secondary curriculum is testing based. Every few years you take a test and only if you pass can you go on to the next level. The students I teach take a 3-year cumulative test at the end of their Form C. This means that my job is to get them to pass the test. This proves to be difficult when they are supposed to know what the beach and the ocean are without ever seeing one in their life, or knowing the difference between a graduated pipette and a burette when their lab has zero equipment, or asking to solve a problem with a spaceship when they are still taught that Pluto is a planet. And have I mentioned that their textbook has almost no pictures?

Don’t get me wrong; Lesotho has some very talented people in it. I have friends who have studied in Cuba, China, Zimbabwe, England, and the U.S. Just this weekend I went to the funeral of one of the few professors in Lesotho who was also the Minister of Development. If I just look at the Peace Corps. Lesotho staff there are staff members with Master’s degrees, Ph. D’s, with various experience working with NGOs and working or studying abroad. But this is not my Lesotho. My Lesotho consists of a school where most of the students have probably never left the district, let alone the country. My Lesotho is filled with students who come to school because that’s what the government says and that’s where their friends are (and being served food is a major motivation). My Lesotho is filled with parents that have zero involvement in their student’s educations until they get their grades and start blaming the teachers for their child’s failure. My Lesotho is one where my students have limited access to TV and the little they do see consists of violent movies and music videos from South Africa and the U.S. That’s my Lesotho. It’s a Lesotho where their textbook takes zero consideration to what they have access to and what they know. Many would jump to say “Well, that’s Africa” but it’s not. That’s the world. You can find little third world countries in the U.S. where they’re learning science with out chemicals, learning math with out calculators. This isn’t just a Lesotho or Africa problem, it’s a problem that teacher’s feel across the globe. But it’s only now that I see it.

As many of you know I celebrated my one-year anniversary in Lesotho a few weeks back. With this anniversary came a batch of new volunteers and I was with them, helping with training their very first week here. One of the staff members asked them to brainstorm what they hoped to accomplish here in Lesotho. Many of them talked about improving their school’s science scores, improving the quality of education at their school, etc, etc. And as I listened to this discussion I realized how jaded I’ve become about my time here. I even told one of the volunteers from my training group “I don’t even know why I do what I do here expect that it’s what I do,” and she agreed with me. I came in to this country, in to Peace Corps, determined to be better. I would be the better science teacher; I would be hands on and all of my students would pass science with flying colors. I was going to be better than all my fellow Basotho teachers; and perhaps that’s where my folly began.

I definitely bring something to my school but it is not my superiority. Most of my teachers are graduates from the Lesotho College of Education and after talking to a teacher there I learned that they get very little background education and more teaching education. Meaning that when it comes to knowing Science I have an upper hand. But when it comes to knowing how to teach they beat me hands down. They also know the students considerably better than me. Whenever I have problems with students I ask them about it and they can usually give me some insight in to my problem. And when it comes to getting results, mine are no better than my co-workers.

With my one year anniversary came a depression consisting of questions like “What am I doing here?” or “Am I really making a difference?” and “What’s the point?” When I left the U.S. people told me that I was going to Africa to do “God’s work” and that I was “really going to make a difference” and while numerous RPCVs (returned Peace Corps Volunteers) told me just the opposite, in my head I thought “Maybe I will.” Peace Corps Lesotho has even started trying to quantify the affect education volunteers have in their schools. But can the Peace Corps experience really be quantified? The trainees asked me the same question when I was at training. My answer was that while some of it can, by comparing test scores, most of it can’t. I can’t tell you the number of Basotho who, as soon as I mention that I’m a “moitaopi oa Peace Corps,” faces light up and start telling me about their Peace Corps teacher who taught them English, or Science, or Maths. You can’t quantify that.

And so I’ve learned to grab the little golds when I can. A few weeks back one of my Form A students dropped by my house to spend a little time with me. She’s first in her class and works very hard in all her subjects. She told me, “Madam, because of you I am now good at Science. In Standard 7 (the grade before Form A) I was failing Science; I had 7%. But now I am top in my class.” And that’s what keeps me going.