Faces of Qhalasi

One of my goals for this year is to update my blog more often. The past few posts have been writing only and I have received a few suggestions to include some pictures for this next post. So what better way to talk about my experience here than to show you some of the faces that surrounds me here in Qhalasi.

I want to start by formally introducing my co-workers. We spend the whole day together, 7:45am to 4:15pm Monday through Friday, almost every week of the year. We are a small staff for a school almost 200 strong. When I came to Qhalasi for the 2012 school year our school was growing. It’s hard to get a full staff picture. The one on the right was taken during the Form C prize giving ceremony and 2 teachers are missing: a science/maths teacher who was away on medical leave and an English/geography teacher who was away on maternity leave. One of the teachers in that picture is also no longer working at this school. The picture on the left was taken at the Morija Cultural Festival where our students competed with other students around the country in traditional dances and games.

The first teacher I want to introduce is my principal, ‘M’e Marelebohile. I’m the third volunteer she’s worked with at the secondary school, and I’m sure she’s worked with many others who have worked in the community. She’s well educated, a mother of 2 boys (both who are doing extremely well in school but not students at Qhalasi), and extremely motivated to get this school to perform better. She teaches English language and Sesotho.





The next teacher is the deputy principal (or vice principal), ‘M’e Mathabo. One thing I really admire about her is that she adopted a girl more the local orphanage who was completely unrelated to her (this is very rare in Lesotho). She’s been at the school for a very long time and teaches religious knowledge/bible.

This is ‘M’e Hape. She’s an English literature and Sesotho teacher. She’s a single mother of two small children (absolutely adorable) and she’s the complete opposite of the stereotypical developing woman. She provides for her small family, she’s independent, and when ever I’m looking for an intellectual, ethical conversation she’s the one I go to.



‘M’e Mamosito is another one of the older teachers and teaches development studies and geography. She had a PCV teacher when she was younger and while she can’t remember what he taught she always has great things to say about him.


‘M’e Mathetha is married to a Xhosa man (the first syllable is clicked and pronounced ko-sa) and is wearing her wedding dress in this picture. Mathetha is actually her last name and she goes by it for the school felt her first name was too difficult to pronounce. There is a small but prominent Xhosa culture in Southern Lesotho but it is more prominent in South Africa. She teaches Agriculture and Biology.



Our business education teacher is ‘M’e Relebohile (or Ma’nyane since she had her daughter). She’s been to America and I love her sense of fashion (though I’m sure I’d never fit in her clothes). She owns an internet café in the camptown.

 
Ntate Majoro is a fellow Science and Maths teacher specializing in Chemistry. He was in an accident about a year back and is still recovering. Fortunately he is no longer wearing his cast but he is still using crutches to move around.



‘M’e Maseisa is a mother of two little girls. Her husband used to be a manager for a local clothing shop but has moved to Maseru to be a manager of a store there. She’s my facebook buddy (only 3 of the teachers have facebook) since we’re always chatting when during staff meetings. She’s also one of the new teachers who came right after me. She teaches English Language and geography.
Ntate Bureng attended Qhalasi Secondary School back in the day and is the only teacher who comes from the community. He joined our school in June last year to replace the other Science/Maths teacher and became a full time teacher with us this year. He has just graduated from LEC (Lesotho College of Education) and had a graduation party at his house to celebrate (that is where the picture is from). He teaches Science (specialized in physics) and Maths.



 

Now to my students. I’m not sure how it started but somehow students started asking me to take their picture. As long as they paid me to have it printed (6 rand in town, about $0.60) I would give them a picture of themselves. I love doing it not only because I love taking pictures but because their picture say so much about them. Sometimes the media paints students from rural areas as demure, with little personality as if their teachers had beat it out of them. But each one of my students have strong opinions and attitudes to match them. Whenever I give them their pictures they always take a deep breath in and show their friend (they always travel in groups) saying, “look how beautiful I am.”

The first few pictures are of my students in uniform. Our school is mostly girls and very few of the boys have asked me to take their pictures (I’m not sure why). Girls are expected to wear a white buttoned shirt, a black sweater with the school emblem, and either a grey dress or grey flannel pants. The boys are expected to wear a similar uniform with a tie that has the school emblem. Both boys and girls wear black socks with red rings and black shoes. The school’s colors are red and black.



I had to include this picture in this post. It’s a picture of the primary school kids who, when the secondary school is having some sort of event, decide not to go to school and sit down and watch us. On this day we were celebrating our graduating students with music and presentations and these students came over to watch. (Don’t get me started on the difference in discipline between primary and secondary schools).

The next few pictures are of students in their private clothes. Sometimes the school has free dress days to raise money (each student pays a rand that day) and other times the students come to my place on holidays or weekends to take a picture. Either way I love seeing what is considered fashionable with Basotho youth. One piece of advice: sunglasses are cool internationally.

These pictures were taken during the Morija Cultural Festival. These students were going to perform a cultural dance. The girls in the front are the dancers and the girls in the back are the singers.

I can’t talk about Qhalasi with out talking about members of the community. To be honest I don’t interact with a lot of people in my village. But sometimes they come to visit my host family or ask me to take a picture (many times they don’t pay for me to print them). This picture is of a young girl in the village with her son in the background. If I remember correctly she told me she was 21.

This is my neighbor Ausi Motseleng (not sure exactly how she spells is). She works in the orphanage in the village and when she’s not working there she lives in the room next to mine.

I absolutely love this picture of my host mother’s brother. He visits every once in a while and once when he visited he asked me to take a photo. It took him months to come back and pick it up!

One of my closest friends in the village, Malebitso. We are exactly the same age (in Lesotho they call us age mates) but sometimes she seems like a little sister. But she was my first friend in my village and was great in integrating me in to my community. She works as the school’s book keeper, secretary, and accountant and she is going to school to become a charted accountant.

Now to family. This first one is a picture of my host parent’s granddaughter and a little boy who lives in the village. She goes to an English medium school and can blabber for hours in English. She comes to Qhalasi during school holidays because her mother works as a nurse in a hospital in Morija and her father has past away.

My host sister, Mathamae. Extremely mature and always with a smile on her face she’s in 11th grade (Form D) in Morija High School (she stays with the daughter mentioned above). Therefore she only comes home during school holidays. She’s not actually my host mother’s daughter. She’s a double orphan (when both parents have passed) and her father was my host mother’s brother (and even then not by birth). After her father passed away she stayed with my host mother’s mother and after she passed away she came to live with my host mother. She’s had a tough life but she’s motivated to get an education and stand on her own two feet.

My other host sister, Kefuoe, is not quite as well rounded, and a bit naughtier than Mathamae but I love her all the same. She took the Form C test last year and failed so she’s repeating Form C in another part of Lesotho while living with her siblings. She’s a distant relative of my host family (still have no idea how) and came to stay with them since Qhalasi has better schools than where she’s from.

My host mother and father with their fifth and final daughter, heading to church. My host family have five well educated and successful daughters, plus others whom they have raised in their family. Their first daughter is a civil engineer in Botswana, the second is the nurse, the third is an accountant working for an NGO, the fourth a mechanical engineer working at a hospital, and the last is getting her masters in human resources. My host parents have a lot to be proud of.

The third daughter

The fourth daughter