June 29th, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hey all. Back again with a brand new addition! After a large snow storm earlier this week we are in town for the funeral of our village mother. It is a weird time for us as we have not really thought about what that would be like and what that would entail. Janeen was just saying that she had kind of dealt with it (as we found out about her passing on June 9th) but now that we are about to go and see our village again, that she is unsure how she will react.
I know that it will be a difficult time as this is the first real death that we have had to deal with. It is a strange feeling as we think of death in totally different perspective than than they do here. We have had friends lose some family members from home and the perspective that the people here have on it is, get over it. It is just death after all. I mean we see funerals every weekend as they are publicized with the huge rented tents that people get to honor the family members.
Anyway, this is on the heels of some other rather disappointing news. We found out this week that the Lesotho government has put an indefinite hold on all adoptions both in country and international. This comes as a surprise to us and it is a little disheartening as we had really gotten excited about the possibility. We have not given up hope yet but we are not really sure where this will put us in 18 months. So some prayers and petitions on our behalf would go a long way right now.
We do have a small (or rather large) bright spot in our future. We are headed to the islands of Mauritius in little less than 2 weeks. It will be a nice break from the inconsistent and some what bitter cold of Lesotho. We are going with some friends of ours here and are really excited. I think I am even going to finally get to try Kite Surfing (pending the wifes approval).
Anyway that is pretty much the scoop this week. Hope you are all well and happy.
All the Best
Jason
Friday, June 29, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
June 23rd, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hello all of you all around the globe! I am away from my wife for officially the longest period of time that I have ever spent away from her. We have been married for 3 years on June 27th, 2007 and have been together for about 4 years. In that time the longest that I have been away from her was a period of time that we have spent apart was 3 days. Coming to this week, I have now been away from my amazing, beautiful, sophisticated and intelligent wife. So needless to say that I miss her.
However, the reason that I spent the week away from my gorgeous spouse was that I went up to the mountain to visit a good friend of mine. He was an 8 hour bus ride up the hill. I was not doing very well as I had developed as they call it here, symptoms of the common cold. They would also say "I am suffering from the common cold." It kind of kills me. Anyway, after getting up there I found that I am extremely glad to be living where I am living. The mountains while being very nice and pretty, it is super isolated. We had a good time altogether reading and enjoying it not being cold.
So now I am in Maseru again. I am here for a nerdling convention, otherwise known as the Technology committee. We basically are going to meet to and discuss ways that we can make volunteers lives easier while in country. We also will discuss how to create better opportunities to communicate our experiences here with technology and media. So that is what is going on here.
As you may know we are wrapping up the school for the first term. Janeen is working hard grading her students mid-term papers and would love to hear from all of you. I am so glad to read e-mails from you all and look forward to them. I hope you can get a chance to write to us and send us a quick note. All our love
Jason
Hello all of you all around the globe! I am away from my wife for officially the longest period of time that I have ever spent away from her. We have been married for 3 years on June 27th, 2007 and have been together for about 4 years. In that time the longest that I have been away from her was a period of time that we have spent apart was 3 days. Coming to this week, I have now been away from my amazing, beautiful, sophisticated and intelligent wife. So needless to say that I miss her.
However, the reason that I spent the week away from my gorgeous spouse was that I went up to the mountain to visit a good friend of mine. He was an 8 hour bus ride up the hill. I was not doing very well as I had developed as they call it here, symptoms of the common cold. They would also say "I am suffering from the common cold." It kind of kills me. Anyway, after getting up there I found that I am extremely glad to be living where I am living. The mountains while being very nice and pretty, it is super isolated. We had a good time altogether reading and enjoying it not being cold.
So now I am in Maseru again. I am here for a nerdling convention, otherwise known as the Technology committee. We basically are going to meet to and discuss ways that we can make volunteers lives easier while in country. We also will discuss how to create better opportunities to communicate our experiences here with technology and media. So that is what is going on here.
As you may know we are wrapping up the school for the first term. Janeen is working hard grading her students mid-term papers and would love to hear from all of you. I am so glad to read e-mails from you all and look forward to them. I hope you can get a chance to write to us and send us a quick note. All our love
Jason
Monday, June 11, 2007
June 11th, 2007 (Written by Jason and Janeen)
Today brings some sad news. On Saturday we were helping our friends with their 3 v. 3 soccer tourney which went really well. After the event we went to a local hotel for pizza and drinks to unwind and relax. Janeen and I were sitting waiting for our food when Janeen received a phone call. On the other end was a friend of ours who called to tell us that our Me’ (Mother) from our village stay had passed away. She was the one that I had written about many times how I was worried that she was not receiving the medical attention that she needed. It is a very sad loss for the both of us but we are going on as we knew that this would be a reality in our lives when we moved here. This is definitely the closest person to us that has passed away and has brought the reality of HIV/AIDS home for both of us.
On other news, I finally got our tickets for Mauritius after spending an entire day waiting and then having to return today to retrieve them. I left this morning with some friends who stayed the night, to go to the border and cross into South Africa to meet a courier. It was not until I got to the border that I realized that my passport was sitting in the closet back home. So I then had to go back home, collect my passport and go back over the border. I went to a little place that knows us well and they had the package that the courier left ready and waiting for me. It was great.
The weather has continued to be cold and rainy (off and on). We do love the sun so much now though as it is the warmest heater around and it is free. We are looking forward to some time off in a few weeks. Jason is going to go up to Thaba-Tseka to visit with a volunteer in the mountains. He will be packing all his warm clothes for that one and it will still probably be just enough. Janeen however will be holding down the fort here as she has school until the 29th of June.
After that we are going to be hosting some volunteers for a curriculum writing workshop in which we will try and add some detailed lessons for English teachers about HIV/AIDS. The goal is to make them something that can integrate in with a day’s lesson planning instead of having to think about how the volunteer can add HIV/AIDS into a lesson. This will hopefully reduce the workload of the teacher and get them to be more proactive about having HIV/AIDS stuff in their classroom.
Then we are off to Mauritius for a well deserved break from the cold. We will be staying there for a week before we return back home for a few weeks before the beginning of the 3rd quarter.
Adoption update: We are in the initial stages of communication with the Ministry of Social Welfare. They have told us that we have to work with an Adoption agency from home and so far they are only working with 2 agencies in the US; neither of which is in California. So we are excited but we still have a long way to go before the end of this process.
We would love to hear from any of you and hope that you are doing well. All the Best
Jason and Janeen
Today brings some sad news. On Saturday we were helping our friends with their 3 v. 3 soccer tourney which went really well. After the event we went to a local hotel for pizza and drinks to unwind and relax. Janeen and I were sitting waiting for our food when Janeen received a phone call. On the other end was a friend of ours who called to tell us that our Me’ (Mother) from our village stay had passed away. She was the one that I had written about many times how I was worried that she was not receiving the medical attention that she needed. It is a very sad loss for the both of us but we are going on as we knew that this would be a reality in our lives when we moved here. This is definitely the closest person to us that has passed away and has brought the reality of HIV/AIDS home for both of us.
On other news, I finally got our tickets for Mauritius after spending an entire day waiting and then having to return today to retrieve them. I left this morning with some friends who stayed the night, to go to the border and cross into South Africa to meet a courier. It was not until I got to the border that I realized that my passport was sitting in the closet back home. So I then had to go back home, collect my passport and go back over the border. I went to a little place that knows us well and they had the package that the courier left ready and waiting for me. It was great.
The weather has continued to be cold and rainy (off and on). We do love the sun so much now though as it is the warmest heater around and it is free. We are looking forward to some time off in a few weeks. Jason is going to go up to Thaba-Tseka to visit with a volunteer in the mountains. He will be packing all his warm clothes for that one and it will still probably be just enough. Janeen however will be holding down the fort here as she has school until the 29th of June.
After that we are going to be hosting some volunteers for a curriculum writing workshop in which we will try and add some detailed lessons for English teachers about HIV/AIDS. The goal is to make them something that can integrate in with a day’s lesson planning instead of having to think about how the volunteer can add HIV/AIDS into a lesson. This will hopefully reduce the workload of the teacher and get them to be more proactive about having HIV/AIDS stuff in their classroom.
Then we are off to Mauritius for a well deserved break from the cold. We will be staying there for a week before we return back home for a few weeks before the beginning of the 3rd quarter.
Adoption update: We are in the initial stages of communication with the Ministry of Social Welfare. They have told us that we have to work with an Adoption agency from home and so far they are only working with 2 agencies in the US; neither of which is in California. So we are excited but we still have a long way to go before the end of this process.
We would love to hear from any of you and hope that you are doing well. All the Best
Jason and Janeen
Monday, June 04, 2007
June 4, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hey there kids! Hope this finds you all doing really well. We noticed that our page views kind of peaked off in March. This is probably because we have not been posting as diligently as we were towards the beginning of our service. So I vow here and now that I will try and be more diligent in posting. However, this will probably be on our other website as I still can't get the school computer to work right. That address again is,
www.lifeofanominee.blogspot.com
Anyway, Janeen filled you all in on the haps with the Irish Ambassador. That was really fun being able to have a really deep and intellectual conversation with a seasoned verteran in the "system". He was extremely knowledgable about his job and had lots of interesting stories. I hope that over the next few years I am able to pow-wow with him and his family a little bit more.
Going into exams this week means that my first 2 quarters are pretty much done. The teachers are really just proctoring examinations. This means that I will really just be hanging around doing nothing but planning for the next term. It is good though because the teachers I think are sick of me telling them that they are doing good but they could still do "this and that" better. It does also give me a chance to catch up on some all important reading and journaling too.
I am also starting the process for a Peace Corps Partnership Grant. This is where all those of you who feel compeled, will be able to give to an actual project that I am involved in. It won't be too much money and it will go to something amazing. I am just building anticipation though as it still needs to be approved by our out-going Country Director. So stay tuned...
Hope that you all are doing great. We would love to hear from all of you. So send us an e-mail, letter, messenger pigeon or any other such device any time.
All the best
Jason
June 4, 2007 (written by Janeen)
So we're in Maseru again, but today we have a meeting scheduled with the Department of Social Welfare at 2. We are going to talk with the head of the department about the adoption process and hopefully get the ball rolling today. We are very excited and are praying for a smooth process.
This weekend has been enjoyable. On Saturday we went up to TY to join our friends as they celebrated 2 girls' birthdays. It was fun and we got to see some volunteers from the northern part of the country that we have not seen in over a month.
Yesterday afternoon we enjoyed lunch with the Irish Ambassador and his wife. They are very generous people. Jason met Dee when she was at our school finding students to give scholarships. She also works a lot with different orphanages in Lesotho. They both have big hearts and especially enjoy the children here. It was great to be able to sit and talk with them.
Well we'll hopefully have an update for you about the adoption process soon, but you'll have to check the other blog because we will not be in Maseru for a while (I have used up my 5 days. Luckily the quarter is almost over.)
Hey there kids! Hope this finds you all doing really well. We noticed that our page views kind of peaked off in March. This is probably because we have not been posting as diligently as we were towards the beginning of our service. So I vow here and now that I will try and be more diligent in posting. However, this will probably be on our other website as I still can't get the school computer to work right. That address again is,
www.lifeofanominee.blogspot.com
Anyway, Janeen filled you all in on the haps with the Irish Ambassador. That was really fun being able to have a really deep and intellectual conversation with a seasoned verteran in the "system". He was extremely knowledgable about his job and had lots of interesting stories. I hope that over the next few years I am able to pow-wow with him and his family a little bit more.
Going into exams this week means that my first 2 quarters are pretty much done. The teachers are really just proctoring examinations. This means that I will really just be hanging around doing nothing but planning for the next term. It is good though because the teachers I think are sick of me telling them that they are doing good but they could still do "this and that" better. It does also give me a chance to catch up on some all important reading and journaling too.
I am also starting the process for a Peace Corps Partnership Grant. This is where all those of you who feel compeled, will be able to give to an actual project that I am involved in. It won't be too much money and it will go to something amazing. I am just building anticipation though as it still needs to be approved by our out-going Country Director. So stay tuned...
Hope that you all are doing great. We would love to hear from all of you. So send us an e-mail, letter, messenger pigeon or any other such device any time.
All the best
Jason
June 4, 2007 (written by Janeen)
So we're in Maseru again, but today we have a meeting scheduled with the Department of Social Welfare at 2. We are going to talk with the head of the department about the adoption process and hopefully get the ball rolling today. We are very excited and are praying for a smooth process.
This weekend has been enjoyable. On Saturday we went up to TY to join our friends as they celebrated 2 girls' birthdays. It was fun and we got to see some volunteers from the northern part of the country that we have not seen in over a month.
Yesterday afternoon we enjoyed lunch with the Irish Ambassador and his wife. They are very generous people. Jason met Dee when she was at our school finding students to give scholarships. She also works a lot with different orphanages in Lesotho. They both have big hearts and especially enjoy the children here. It was great to be able to sit and talk with them.
Well we'll hopefully have an update for you about the adoption process soon, but you'll have to check the other blog because we will not be in Maseru for a while (I have used up my 5 days. Luckily the quarter is almost over.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
