May 29, 2007 (written by Jason)

So yet another exciting adventure in the story of Jason and Janeen. I am in Maseru for a medical appointment, which they did not have me down for and am taking care of some other business whilst I am here. We are now in the thick of winter and have offically survived our first frost filled week. The coldest day of the last week was Tuesday. Janeen in her blog said that "Jason thinks that if it were to rain today, that it would not be rain, but snow." Well shortly thereafter it surely did do just that.

After figuring out the coal stove we did eventually warm during the evenings, however by this time I had already got some sort of flu bug. It lead to many trips to the toilet on Friday and basically ruined the plans for us to head to a friend's place in the mountains. We did get to see our friend off though who is just finishing her service. It was a good weekend.

Now I am killing time waiting for the doctor as they did not make me an appointment. So I hope that you all are reading this and checking up on us from time to time. All our Love!

May 21, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Brrrrr! I am writing to you with my long underwear, a t-shirt, a fleece jacket, and my windbreaker on AND I am still cold! I also am wearing an earmuff type headband, a scarf, tights, pants, and gloves. I guess the only way to get warm is to put even more clothing on! Winter has arrived! I think it is worse today because it is so windy! Jason thinks that if it were to rain today, that it would not be rain, but snow. Poor me! I’ve only ever lived in Southern California and this cold thing is NOT my cup of tea. Not to mention that I have had several cups of tea and coffee already today!

I am proctoring an exam for students who missed the English exam last Monday. Many students were absent because they had to go home to collect school fees. In fact, I’ve had one student who is in my B1 class who has not returned since they have asked for the second quarter school fees. I hope that he can make it back, but he has been gone over a week now and of course is missing important information in all classes! I asked about him from other students and they were not able to tell me anything. Its sad to think that he has dropped out because his family is not able to pay. It of course makes me want to pay for his schooling and then I think about all the kids who can’t even afford to come to school at all. Of course orphans get their school fees paid for by the government, but that does not include the cost of renting books, uniforms, or any additional fees that schools have (i.e. my school has a building fee and a computer fee). So THAT makes me want to pay for everyone! Of course I can’t afford to do that, but I just wish that they could all get a good education.

That’s enough blabbery thoughts for today. We get our next stipend on June 1, and we are crunching pennies (we get paid once every 3 months because the bank charges even for deposits & Peace Corps wants to save $)! The joys of Peace Corps volunteers!  Miss you and love you all!

May 22, 2007 (written by Jason)

Ok so I will second the cold thing. Today on my way to school I wore a t-shirt, a wool sweater, a windproof vest and an outer shell jacket. Even with all of these things the wind bites through me like a knife. I can’t even begin to imagine the poor little boys and girls who have nothing but thin outer jackets, wholly shoes and thin pants or skirts with no stockings. It makes me want to hold all of them all day so that they stop shivering. The teachers at my school do what they can but it is so little and there are so many.

Things have been tough emotionally lately. I know that I am making an impact on my teachers but the progress is slow and the results are poor. Tomorrow, they want me to give a few model lessons. I am fine with this as the lessons that I have observed are very weak. I hope that I will be of some help to these teachers! Who knows though really?

One positive thing is that my school did finally finish their grant proposal for the U.S. Embassy grant. I think that our chances are pretty weak but who knows right?? Ok I am cold now to the core and am going to go home and start a fire. God bless the coal stove.
All the best
Jason

May 14, 2007 (written by Jason)

Ok So I just wanted to say a quick whats up to everyone. As Janeen said we had a nice wekend and it was fun to get on the internet and do somethings (inclding the update of this site. Hope you enjoy!). I also have been trying to stay much more motivated as I often run out of things to do at school. This means I have been writing out the projects that I am actively involved in and am trying to get them accomplished in a timely manner. It is a good way to stay organized and focused on what needs to get done now and in the future.

I finally got a crop in the ground so soon I could even call myself a farmer. That should be fun. We planted beans, peas, onions, carrots and of course rape. That is right their is a plant called rape. Apperently it is a lot like spinach so we will see.

Well I better go. Janeen already left for the market and I am meeting her. All our love to you, wherever this may find you!


May 14, 2007 (written by Janeen)

This weekend we have spent our time in Maseru lounging around at the transit house (a house owned by Peace Corps for volunteer use when in Maseru). We have watched several movies and taken a few hot showers. (NICE—especially since we didn’t have to heat the water on the stove before jumping into the shower) Yesterday we also had the opportunity to visit with the directors of Beautiful Gate, a center that cares for abandoned and HIV/AIDS affected children. They are just about to move into permanent facilities and they are amazing. Just talking with them got us excited. According to Lesotho law, we are unable to adopt directly through the center, but the kids there were absolutely adorable. The visit was very affirming and even though we were already convinced that we want to adopt here, we became even more assured! In fact, Jason even picked up a baby to hold ALL BY HIMSELF. Normally, I have to shove a baby at him and say, “You need practice.” At the center, there were 2 rooms of children. The first room we visited had the toddlers. One three-year-old child came up to us right away and grabbed my hand. He was so cute, and has quite a sad story. He is the oldest one there and has seen many other children come and go. We were told that each time new prospective parents come through, he is hoping that they will be his! Apparently his new parents have been in the process of adopting him for over a year now, and have had so much trouble, that they are starting back at square one again! Anyway, today we are headed back home. Jason is trying to download a later edition of Internet Explorer in hopes that we will be able to post blogs to this site. We’ll see!

May 12, 2007 (written by Janeen)

Yeah! We are finally able to post on our site!! In town the internet has been sketchy and we have been unable to post here. However, I am in Maseru right now and it now works at the Peace Corps office! yippee! They just installed new computers here and we can now publish blogs here, where the internet is much faster than elsewhere.
ALSO, we have internet at our site now. We spent the big bucks and bought a bluetooth phone, so that we could have access using the computers at my school. We have had that for about a month, but it is still terribly slow and a tad expensive for a Peace Corps salary (roughly 20-30 licente a minute). HOWEVER, we just found out that we can purchase data bundles instead of using air time for the internet. We can purchase 10 mega-bites for 10 rand. Now, that turns out to be 2-3 licente per minute-- very affordable, even on a Peace Corps budget! The internet is still slow, but it is not the amount of minutes that matter, it is the amount of information being sent/received so we can be on for longer and have it cost less. Yeah! So, all of you that complain about your hand cramping when writing letters, can now just email! :) Though the snail mail letters really do make us feel good, so those can still keep coming & I will still be writing responses!

By the way, we have been posting on Jason's blog www.lifeofanominee.blogspot.com since this site has been finicky. If there are no posts here, be sure to check that one out.

Well, I have several papers to grade this weekend, so I better get going.

Lots of love-- Janeen

May 2, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Well it has been a while since I have written a blog! Our computers at school are finally virus free and all the software works. Yippee! Jason had to download something off the internet in order to fix the problem. He finished fixing everything just after we got back from vacation. I just realized that the last blog I wrote was a bit of a sad one. I was having a hard time getting back into the swing of things. I have good news to report that I am doing much better. I taught some good lessons and am enjoying my students again. We have already given the first exam for the second quarter. For my form A students it was a reading comprehension exam and for form B it was a composition. I am finished grading the form A students’ exams and am going to start the form B students’ exams today. I also gave them 3 choices for topics so at least I won’t have to read 100 of the same paper!

It is starting to get pretty cold here. In fact the other day it was snowing. It wasn’t cold enough for it to stay on the ground, but it was definitely snowing! I’ve heard the winter here is harder to bear because there is no escape from the cold. You go from a cold building to another cold building. At home you only have to brave the cold when you leave a building! Jason and I have a coal stove that we are going to test out. Our other option is our standing gas heater (I’m told that only heats a small radius). The days are not unbearable. I’ve been wearing layers, and shedding some throughout the day. The evenings are the challenge, which is why we will probably start going to bed at like 7!

Before I blab on too much, I need to share an experience that really touched me this week. Yesterday we were traveling on a bus back home from town and this frail man got on just before the bus left the rank. He had sores on his face and his entire face was sunken in so much that I could see all the facial bones. Jason noticed him right away and pointed him out to me. I realize we were speculating, but he had the signs of a person with AIDS. It really hit me hard to see a person in this condition because it made the disease real. Because there are no signs when a person is HIV positive, the reality of the disease has not really affected me. As of now, we have not been to any funerals and most of the funerals we have heard about have been from car accidents. Seeing him made me realize that about 25% (or more) of people in this country will die in that way. The only thing they can do is go on ARVs which only allows them to live longer. The HIV will eventually progress into AIDS and they will die. I guess there is some hope though. Magic Johnson is still living a healthy life. Though he is not living in a country where opportunistic diseases are rampant (TB, etc). Grandpa Durkee just sent me an article with an interesting statistic- There is an 85% fatality rate of people with both HIV and TB. Anyway, it hit me this week. I am going to continue to have conversations with my students about it. I also had an idea of creating a lesson plan book with ready made lessons that integrate HIV/AIDS education into English. The thought is that the students need to talk about it enough that they feel comfortable talking about it. The language needs to become regular so that there is not so much shock factor and if or when the disease affects them (I don’t think there is anyone not affected by the disease), they will be prepared.

Once again, it has been almost 6 month since we have been here and we still miss you all like crazy! All these births and weddings are making us miss you even more! We send our love and wish we could be there with you sharing your memories!

May 2, 2007 (written by Jason)

Hello to all my huge fans out there. I know we have not been blogging as much as I said we would but you have to understand that life here moves at a totally different pace than back home. Our lives are really a number of boring routines that you would have a hard time reading if we were to just write the same things over and over again. It is like when we get together with PCV’s, we know that certain things will dominate conversation; e.g. Politics, Corporal Punishment in the classroom, and who is “hooking up” with whom around the Peace Corps circles. But I digress, as some memorable stuff is going on.

So it took me about 6 months but for the first time I actually was thronged by a group of kids at school. Many of you back home know that kids and I just get each other but for some reason or another I was keeping my distance from kids and what not. Today though after reading an entire Newsweek magazine waiting for class to start, I asked myself a simple question; “How badly do these kids need an adult to just recognize them?”

This was spurred on by one little boy Neo, who is in standard 1. He is this cute little independent man but whenever I am outside, he is right there beside me grabbing my hand and leaning against me. This led me to my experiment. So today at lunch, I took the kids out to the play area (a big grass lot) and played helicopter and airplane. I had to quit after about 30 kids though because by then, I had the entire 1, 2, and 3 classes mobbing me wanting me to swing them around. The truly sad part was after we quit, the students just wanted to be near me. Students were holding my hands, touching my clothes, just wanting to be near an adult who took interest in them. It was exhausting but fun and exhilarating as well.

Otherwise, things are going along as normal. School is fine. We would love to hear from anyone out there. We miss you all. Take care!
Jason