March 14th, 2008 (Written by Janeen)
Jason just passed over the computer to me to write a blog. So mine will appear first. :) I have a funny story for you all:
This week I have been on duty which means that I am out patrolling the campus at 7 am while the students should be studying. They are in the midst of writing their quarter one exams (which means I have A LOT of grading to do— 290 literature essays, 180 compositions on a variety of topics- one of which is the time I visited the traditional doctor, 180 grammar and reading comprehension papers… anyone jealous??? Now back to the story…). So, all the students are in the hall for study time.
Anyway, yesterday morning our cat (Tau) did not stroll in at 6 am like he normally does after his night of gallivanting. I was a bit concerned, but was just hoping he would show up. I went out for duty and had just gotten the students settled down in the hall reading their notes when all of a sudden I hear screaming and see a bunch of students running out of the hall. I asked them what was going on and could not think of what would make them so upset. They didn’t hear me so I had to yell and finally was told, “Madam, a cat.” Knowing it was my cat, I ran in the hall and tried to find where he was. Students were jumping on top of their desks, others were screaming, and yet others were chasing our cat. Finally he broke loose and was able to run outside of the hall. He ran along some of the classes. I was running after him mainly to get the students away, but the students were also running after him. So I stopped and yelled at the kids that it was my cat and that they needed to go back inside the hall. Unfortunately there were already 2 classes outside picking up trash and I only stopped a few students when I yelled at them to get back in the hall. So they were all running after our poor cat and some students even went to the extent of trying to stone him. I’m not sure what happened, but he somehow managed to get away from the chasing students.
Here is my morning announcement at assembly, “I am sure you are all aware that it was my cat that caused the chaos this morning and I apologize for the disruption. However, my cat has now gone missing because you all scared him away. If you see him, please leave him alone. He is five times smaller than you, so you should not be afraid of him.”
A few hours later Tau came home somewhat safely. The pads on his paws have been torn and his nails have been filed down to a nub. But he is back and I am sure he won’t be making any more surprise visits to the hall. Jason thought that Tau had heard my voice on the other side of the hall and thought that going through the hall would be the shortest way to me. I am also not quite sure why the students were so upset over a cat. Maybe they were just surprised and once they started screaming it was infectious.
Anyway, once it was all over, I thought it was quite comical and thought you would enjoy it. I better get back to grading. Love and miss you all!
March 14th, 2008 (Written by Jason)
So it is 3:48 a.m. and I can’t sleep so I decided to get up and do some work. It is not that uncommon for me to wake up in the wee hours of the morning because we go to bed relatively early here. Our normal time to go to sleep I would have to say is probably close to 9:00 p.m. It is actually kind of nice to be up this early. Things here can get pretty hectic with all the students coming and going from the house. I like the early morning. I call it my thinking/brainstorming time. If you ever want to clear your mind and be able to brain storm try and wake up early as possible when it is quiet. You will be amazed at the thoughts that run through your head. It is kind of fun.
This week has been a good one. Not doing a lot at the schools right now because of Moshoeshoe’s day (the founder of the Basotho nation and therefore a national holiday) and the end of the first quarter. But just because I am not doing a lot at my schools doesn’t mean a lot of stuff is going on. On Tuesday (Moshoeshoe’s Day) we went up to my school, Phechela Primary for school singing and athletics competitions. Basotho people don’t have a lot to celebrate so when they have something, they cut loose. It was fun watching the children and adults get really into the athletics competitions. There was dancing and singing whenever their school came in a placing position. Often times a whole herd of students and adults would rush out to congratulate their champion.
Because a lot is not going on at school, I have been in the capital a lot recently doing all kinds of stuff for the advancement of my assignment and the advancement of Peace Corps. As I wrote last week, a newly formed committee and myself partnered together to clean the transit house for volunteers in the capital. It was a lot of work but we felt really good about the progress we made and it actually feels like a place that you would want to stay now.
Janeen and I are in Maseru together for the first time in a long time to have a weekend in the city. We are going to go to a party at the Lesotho Sun tonight for St. Patrick’s Day which should be fun. We are then going to hang out over the weekend catching up on blogs (hence this thing) and responding to e-mails and other business. Then on Monday we will be attending the Irish Ambassadors Reception for St. Patrick’s Day. It is their biggest party of the year and we have heard that the King is likely to be there so if he is we will try and snap a few photos with him. I have heard that he is very kind but a little shy. Hopefully we will see.
Then after the party Janeen will return home to continue marking as I stay in the capital for a few more days. I am working with another committee to build a Wiki for volunteers in the Southern Africa region. I don’t know if any of you have tried to build a web-page before, but getting it to look and feel right is a huge task. It is made even more so when you have the internet connection that we do here. Now don’t get me wrong I am glad to have it. We are very fortunate to have the internet at all but it is a huge change from home. I was talking to a friend the other day who said that he was getting 15 mbps (megabytes per second) that is like getting a 5 mb song in a 1/3 of a second. FAST!! Here we are getting just about 80 kbps. Do you remember the days of 56 kbps modems? Yeah we are just barely above that speed. So think about that when you are asking me for photos (which are 3 to 6 mb) and movies. I will hopefully get some posted but that is just because I will have 2 full days on the computers.
Well that just about does it. I would love to hear from any of you. I know you are probably loving the spring weather after what sounded like a cold and rainy/ snowy winter. Yesterday was the first day it felt like autumn was coming. I am not ready for the cold again. Oh well. I will live.
All the best
Jason
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Back in the city
March 6th, 2008 (written by Jason)
So I know what you are thinking. Why isn't Jason ever with his wife? When he is writting these long boring blogs what is his wife doing? Well the short answer is that she is BUSY! She, as many of you know, is teaching a lot this year. 28 teaching hours which means that she is doing a full time job with a part time job on the side (marking papers).
But what does this have to do with why I am here? Well the answer is I am working on secondary and tertiary projects. This week, we are in the process of cleaning and reorganizing the volunteer transit house. This is the place that volunteers stay when they are in the capital. I was nominated to be the chairperson of this committee. We are busy painting and cleaning to make the house as nice as possible for all volunteers who stay there.
I am doing this mainly because lately my teachers have been less interested in working with me. This is not a bad thing because I am seeing really positive results in how they act and behave. It is really inspiring to see teachers that last year thought a text-book was something for the kids to use only to revise with. Now they are using them intelligently and consistently which is a remarkable change.
I have been doing some primary project stuff though too. Last week we (me and 2 other volunteers) held 3 workshops in different villages on using manipulatives in for teaching math. It went really well though there was still some feedback that the food provided was inadequate. Oh well you can't win them all.
As for now though I need to cut this short. Thanks for all the recent e-mails and what not. We love you more than we can say.
All the best,
Jason
So I know what you are thinking. Why isn't Jason ever with his wife? When he is writting these long boring blogs what is his wife doing? Well the short answer is that she is BUSY! She, as many of you know, is teaching a lot this year. 28 teaching hours which means that she is doing a full time job with a part time job on the side (marking papers).
But what does this have to do with why I am here? Well the answer is I am working on secondary and tertiary projects. This week, we are in the process of cleaning and reorganizing the volunteer transit house. This is the place that volunteers stay when they are in the capital. I was nominated to be the chairperson of this committee. We are busy painting and cleaning to make the house as nice as possible for all volunteers who stay there.
I am doing this mainly because lately my teachers have been less interested in working with me. This is not a bad thing because I am seeing really positive results in how they act and behave. It is really inspiring to see teachers that last year thought a text-book was something for the kids to use only to revise with. Now they are using them intelligently and consistently which is a remarkable change.
I have been doing some primary project stuff though too. Last week we (me and 2 other volunteers) held 3 workshops in different villages on using manipulatives in for teaching math. It went really well though there was still some feedback that the food provided was inadequate. Oh well you can't win them all.
As for now though I need to cut this short. Thanks for all the recent e-mails and what not. We love you more than we can say.
All the best,
Jason
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
February 26, 2008 (written by Janeen)
I went to the eye doctor in Bloemfontein again yesterday (which is kinda a bummer because I had to miss school yet again and the stress is on since I am teaching Form C students who will write a national exam at the end of the year). So basically I am getting multiple styes in my eyes. The problem is that they are releasing the fluid into my eyes. Since my eye is blocking the release, they get clogged and become chronicly infected, which basically means that the fluid hardens and can no longer come out on its own. Last week when I went she had to cut them out. Which was quite strange as I have never had anything done to my eyes. The strangest part was when I opened my eyes and could see a red tint from the blood. My eyes are healing fine from the minor "surgery" (I think Jason may have freaked some people out with his blog). I went back yesterday because I thought that she had missed one of the clumps, when it turns out what I was feeling was just scar tissue. I realized I was probably wrong as the swelling finally started going down on Saturday, but the Peace Corps medical officer said I should go again since they were already making a trip to Bloemfontein with another volunteer. I'm glad I went because she helped tell me what to do to get the rest of these infections taken care of. (e.g wash my eyes with hot water twice daily, use the ointment she prescribed, but rub it in- I wasn't doing that before) She also prescribed doxycyclin (sp) to thin out the liquid. That is a malaria medication that is often used to get rid of acne. And I guess you could basically say that I have acne in my eyes- GROSS! :) So there is the update. I am at the office waiting for staff to get in so I can get my meds and a reimbursement and go home. I am hoping to make it back before my 11 o'clock classes, but that might be wishful thinking!
Well now that you have my health update. I can tell you what else is going on-- don't worry its not much. I am teaching away. I have been busy because I try to make up the time I missed while at the doctor's. Plus I have been grading the first exam. I'm sure I'll finish just in time for them to write their first quarter exams! Lucky me! Fortunately Jason has helped a bit. He has been bored. Not many of his teachers have been asking for his help, so he has not been doing much while at school. So when he comes home he wants to hang out with me and then gets bummed when I am busy. And the problem is he doesn't want to be busy for busy's sake. He wants to do something that matters.
The days that we want to come home are more frequent than they have been the previous year. I've already got a mental count down for the number of months (9). It will probably get even harder come May when our nephew will arrive and in July and August when Rachel & Kevin and Mike & Heidi are getting married. We hope everyone knows that we REEEEEEALLY want to be with you all and miss you SO much. It has been nice getting some emails from people recently. Maybe since our blogs have been a tad morose people feel like telling us we are missed (which makes us feel really good!). Well it is almost time for me to head out so I'll sign off here. I hope everyone has a very special leap year day! :)
Well now that you have my health update. I can tell you what else is going on-- don't worry its not much. I am teaching away. I have been busy because I try to make up the time I missed while at the doctor's. Plus I have been grading the first exam. I'm sure I'll finish just in time for them to write their first quarter exams! Lucky me! Fortunately Jason has helped a bit. He has been bored. Not many of his teachers have been asking for his help, so he has not been doing much while at school. So when he comes home he wants to hang out with me and then gets bummed when I am busy. And the problem is he doesn't want to be busy for busy's sake. He wants to do something that matters.
The days that we want to come home are more frequent than they have been the previous year. I've already got a mental count down for the number of months (9). It will probably get even harder come May when our nephew will arrive and in July and August when Rachel & Kevin and Mike & Heidi are getting married. We hope everyone knows that we REEEEEEALLY want to be with you all and miss you SO much. It has been nice getting some emails from people recently. Maybe since our blogs have been a tad morose people feel like telling us we are missed (which makes us feel really good!). Well it is almost time for me to head out so I'll sign off here. I hope everyone has a very special leap year day! :)
Friday, February 22, 2008
February 20th, 2008 (written by Jason)
Hey all! So I had just started a blog that was going to be a bitch fest and then I decided, why do I want to do that? I am sure these good people reading this blog don’t want to hear me bemoan the same old crap day after day. So I won’t. That’s right. I am making a conscious decision to keep this blog positive and by golly that is what I am gonna do!
So last you all heard, my school had started well and we were plugging right along. That has continued to happen over the course of the last month. Although we do waver from time to time, the school is doing well and staying on track. One of the more successful stories out of that has been the parents’ council. They have really stepped up and taken the initiative at restoring one of the classrooms by themselves. It has been really inspiring watching them over the weeks collecting mud, stones and even cinderblock bricks to repair the wall between the two classes. As you can see they have smeared it with a thick mud. This will help diffuse some of the sound and can also be use as a giant tack board. It is pretty sweet. You can also see how they have smeared a lighter color mud on the walls that really brightens the place up! It is so cool!
But we are no where near done. There are still all kinds of opportunities for you to get involved in helping our school raise some much need funds. There are two different projects. There have been some questions about this. One is being sponsored by my parents. They took it upon themselves to help raise enough money to build a new classroom. They are doing fundraising projects to achieve this goal like a yard sale and selling a cord of wood from a tree that fell in our backyard. So far they have raised about a $1200! This is great but it is still well short of our goal of $7000. This project as of right now is not tax deductible because my parents are collecting the money. I am working on getting a partner here that you can send your money to so that all donations will be tax deductible. But do be thinking about interesting and creative ways that you might be able to raise some money for this project.
The other project is the school restoration. This will not include any new buildings but will be a total refinishing of the school. We are talking new chalkboards, windows, doors, paint, etc. It will make the school functional again as opposed to its current state in most of the classroom. Any extra money from this project will go towards stoves for those oh so cold winter school days. Brrrrr!! This project you can donate directly too by going to https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=632-047®ion=africa . All donations made here are tax deductible.
So be thinking about it. I don’t want to pressure you but this would really mean a lot to me and the community that I am working with. Anyone that does sponsor one of these projects will be recognized on a memorial plaque that I am going to make and will be thanked by me personally with a little gift from Lesotho for you to remember you donations that you made to the community here.
Other than that, we have been hearing sporadically from a few of you and that is great. Right now we are feeling a little homesick and would love to hear from a lot of you. So send those e-mails and letters. It will take a few minutes out of your busy day but it truly does mean so much to us. We hope to hear from you soon and that you are all doing well.
All the best
Jason
Hey all! So I had just started a blog that was going to be a bitch fest and then I decided, why do I want to do that? I am sure these good people reading this blog don’t want to hear me bemoan the same old crap day after day. So I won’t. That’s right. I am making a conscious decision to keep this blog positive and by golly that is what I am gonna do!
So last you all heard, my school had started well and we were plugging right along. That has continued to happen over the course of the last month. Although we do waver from time to time, the school is doing well and staying on track. One of the more successful stories out of that has been the parents’ council. They have really stepped up and taken the initiative at restoring one of the classrooms by themselves. It has been really inspiring watching them over the weeks collecting mud, stones and even cinderblock bricks to repair the wall between the two classes. As you can see they have smeared it with a thick mud. This will help diffuse some of the sound and can also be use as a giant tack board. It is pretty sweet. You can also see how they have smeared a lighter color mud on the walls that really brightens the place up! It is so cool!
But we are no where near done. There are still all kinds of opportunities for you to get involved in helping our school raise some much need funds. There are two different projects. There have been some questions about this. One is being sponsored by my parents. They took it upon themselves to help raise enough money to build a new classroom. They are doing fundraising projects to achieve this goal like a yard sale and selling a cord of wood from a tree that fell in our backyard. So far they have raised about a $1200! This is great but it is still well short of our goal of $7000. This project as of right now is not tax deductible because my parents are collecting the money. I am working on getting a partner here that you can send your money to so that all donations will be tax deductible. But do be thinking about interesting and creative ways that you might be able to raise some money for this project.
The other project is the school restoration. This will not include any new buildings but will be a total refinishing of the school. We are talking new chalkboards, windows, doors, paint, etc. It will make the school functional again as opposed to its current state in most of the classroom. Any extra money from this project will go towards stoves for those oh so cold winter school days. Brrrrr!! This project you can donate directly too by going to https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=632-047®ion=africa . All donations made here are tax deductible.So be thinking about it. I don’t want to pressure you but this would really mean a lot to me and the community that I am working with. Anyone that does sponsor one of these projects will be recognized on a memorial plaque that I am going to make and will be thanked by me personally with a little gift from Lesotho for you to remember you donations that you made to the community here.
Other than that, we have been hearing sporadically from a few of you and that is great. Right now we are feeling a little homesick and would love to hear from a lot of you. So send those e-mails and letters. It will take a few minutes out of your busy day but it truly does mean so much to us. We hope to hear from you soon and that you are all doing well.
All the best
Jason
Friday, February 08, 2008
February 8, 2008 (written by Janeen)
Well this morning I woke up with a swollen eye, and am now in Maseru (3 hours after leaving my site). The Peace Corps doctor decided to refer me to an optomologist. He said that the optomologist is normally busy and might not be able to get me in today. Which is true. He called and I can't get in for the next month because THE optomologist is out of the country. So I may have to go to Bloemfontein. We are just concerned because it is recurring and I don't even know what it is. I thought it was a stye, but I've got them in both eyes and the pimple looking whiteness has gone away and left a small hard bump on my eyelid. Today is the second time my left eye has been swollen. Now that I have somewhat described my condition, I will move on.
The past few weeks have been the roughest by far of all my service. I don't really want to get into it on my blog for all to see, but it was the first time that I actually felt like coming home. I of course still want to come home and can't wait until the end of 2008, but I'm sure we'll stick it out!
I was thinking about trying to get back for my afternoon classes at 2:00, but I now realize that was wishful thinking. But am bummed that all I came for was to find out that the optomologist is out of the country!
Jason and I are planning on going to Bloemfontein for Valentine's weekend. We'll get to watch a movie. Has anyone seen any good movies you'd like to recommend? It will be nice to get away for the weekend.
Love you and miss you all! P.S. We've only gotten 1 letter in the past 3 weeks. :( (Yes I am trying to guilt some of you into writing!!)
The past few weeks have been the roughest by far of all my service. I don't really want to get into it on my blog for all to see, but it was the first time that I actually felt like coming home. I of course still want to come home and can't wait until the end of 2008, but I'm sure we'll stick it out!
I was thinking about trying to get back for my afternoon classes at 2:00, but I now realize that was wishful thinking. But am bummed that all I came for was to find out that the optomologist is out of the country!
Jason and I are planning on going to Bloemfontein for Valentine's weekend. We'll get to watch a movie. Has anyone seen any good movies you'd like to recommend? It will be nice to get away for the weekend.
Love you and miss you all! P.S. We've only gotten 1 letter in the past 3 weeks. :( (Yes I am trying to guilt some of you into writing!!)
Monday, January 28, 2008
A new start...
January 24, 2008 (Written by Jason)Good day to all our faithful readers out there in cyberspace. Over the last year and a few months you have followed the trails and tribulations of living as a cross-cultural, diplomatically placed volunteer here in the country of Lesotho. It has been a strange year, one full of extreme highs and disparaging lows. But through it all I have received many e-mails asking how if you were able to, how you could help.
Well now is that time. This week we began our second school year here in our village of Tsa-Kholo. I returned to school to find that after a great meeting with about 100 parents at the end of the school year about restoring the school, that work had already been done to this effect. I have told you all about how our class 5 is meeting in an old chicken coupe and that our class 3 and 4 share a large hall with no walls separating the 2 classes (hence it gets extremely loud in there). I haven’t really shared about our class 1 and 2 that meet in a building that was originally used as the first church on the site back around 1930. Yeah it is that old.
Over the years they have done the best they can installing windows and what not but they never got around to building the wall up to the roof and therefore it is like the class 1 and 2 are in the same room. Once again it gets extremely noisy during lessons and activities. Well, after a long and wonderful break from school, I returned to find that the parents of the school had torn down the old wall that was made of mud bricks and had begun building up a new wall of cinder blocks that had been scavenged from around the community.
The parents haven’t stopped there either. The parents have continued to gather bricks from around the community, while also smearing the wall with a nice thick clay, so that the wall can be used like a giant cork board. It is so cool. While working on the wall, some other parents cleaned and repaired (as best they can) the rest of the classes so that on the first day of the school, the teachers were able to come right in and start teaching classes.
Now if you have been following my blogs from the beginning you would realize that this is a dramatic difference from last year, when it took about 3 weeks for us to finally get down to the business of teaching. And that is not the only thing. This school, named Phechela Primary, is so motivated for change and progress that they have been going the entire school day taking only the breaks that they have scheduled and following the school time table as far as I have seen.
You may be thinking ‘well so they are doing what they are supposed to. Big deal!’ What you don’t understand is that this is a massive change in approach and philosophy. Last year I could barley get anyone to listen the smallest suggestions that I made. This year though, it is like everything that comes out of my mouth is gold the way that they are responding. I would say that 90% of my suggestions have been attempted or implemented and we are only going on day 4 of the first week of school. It is AWESOME!!
That all being said, I have decided to go forward with a project that I put in an application for earlier this year due to the nature of the commitment that I have seen thus far in words and in action. The project in its very basic form is a complete overhaul of the schools infrastructure. At its very core it is to provide a place that is safe , clean and more efficient than the current areas that exist for learning at the school. We will do this by repairing walls and floors, adding and completing walls in buildings to provide separate learning areas, new chalkboards, new doors and windows for classes that need them, and improving the facilities so that it is more conducive to continued learning.
However, I can only do this with your help. The Peace Corps does not provide funds for projects like this anymore. They have created an office called the Office of Private Sector Initiatives that handles projects for volunteers and gives family members and friends an outlet to donate to those projects. My community and I have completed an application for such a project and it has been approved by OPSI. They have issued me a project # which means that I can begin asking for support and help from all of you out there. If you feel that this is something that you would be interested in doing, please go to
https://www.peacecorps.gov/resources/donors/contribute/projdetail.cfm?projdesc=632-047®ion=africa
Then you can look for my project with the # 632-047. You can read more about the history of the school and the goals of the project. Also you can choose at that point if you want to make a donation to my project.
Once the full amount of the project has been funded, OPSI will cut me a check which I will then deposit in a bank account here and we will begin the reconstruction of my beautiful school. The only constraints that I am under are that I can not begin to work until I have received all of my funding. Now this may seem cruel but it is important as they don’t want half built libraries and pit latrines to be the legacy of Peace Corps volunteers. So it means that I need you to e-mail your friends and family, post notices at schools and churches, and help me get this thing funded!! The sooner it is, the sooner these beautiful kids can learn in an environment that is suitable and appropriate.
Once the full amount of the project has been funded, OPSI will cut me a check which I will then deposit in a bank account here and we will begin the reconstruction of my beautiful school. The only constraints that I am under are that I can not begin to work until I have received all of my funding. Now this may seem cruel but it is important as they don’t want half built libraries and pit latrines to be the legacy of Peace Corps volunteers. So it means that I need you to e-mail your friends and family, post notices at schools and churches, and help me get this thing funded!! The sooner it is, the sooner these beautiful kids can learn in an environment that is suitable and appropriate.
If you have ever felt that your donations go to some nameless project at best and at worst into the pockets of corrupt charities, this is your chance to donate directly to a school and a group that needs it. I will of course be updating this blog with pictures and links to pictures as often as I can and you will see your money directly at work. How cool is that?!?Ok so that is it. No more begging for me. I hope that you feel compelled to give. I pray that this finds you all happy and healthy in the New Year. All the best
Jason
Friday, January 18, 2008
January 18, 2008 (written by Janeen)
Well we are done with our all volunteer conference/one year reconnect with our group. It was nice to be in Maseru and with other volunteers. School starts on Monday and things will get busy (at least for me). Right now I am waiting to see our doctor. I've got some funky things going on with my eyes. I had what I thought was a stye in one eye, then the exact same thing happened in the other eye, but worse. Now in each eye I have a small bump. So I might go on antibiotics. Well there's my health update for the year, sorry to bore you I am just tired of waiting! Miss you! Love you!
Monday, January 14, 2008
January 10th, 2008 (written by Jason)
Hello to all our loyal readers around the blog-o-sphere. I know that it has been quite a while since we have written anything. I know also that to many of you this is your only link to our adventure here in the mountain kingdom and that you look forward to reading about what we are doing. For this I am truly sorry but as I have mentioned many times before our internet use here is inconsistent at best and when we do get on it is usually to catch up on e-mails, check out the latest happenings in the news and maybe see what friends are doing on Facebook. We rarely have uninterrupted time to use the computer and write out a blog and then get on both websites to update them (hence the incongruity sometimes). We are going to be trying to be more diligent now that we are back home and we have our own computer.
You see for the majority of the last month we have been in and out of Lesotho on holiday/vacation. School let out for us around Nov. 30 and this afforded us about 6 weeks to do what we want. Before we could get to traveling and vacation we did a few technical trainings for the new group that arrived here around the 10th of November. This sucked up the first part of December.
About mid-December we left for our trips that included going to Cape Town and the surrounding area and touring Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe with Janeen’s family. I don’t want to bore you with everything that we did during that time but I do want to give you the highlights (and lowlights) of the trip.
Cape Town and surrounding area
• Great White Shark Cage Experience (seasick for the first time in my life)
• Camping
• Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch (awesome wine and cheese; check out Goats do Roam from the Fairview Vineyards. Easy drinking red blend)
• Table Mountain (didn’t hike it because we are lazy but it is beautiful)
• Beach
• Cape Point and crazy baboons
• Long Street (ripped off at a bar that raised its prices after 10 p.m. and had it printed in fine print on the last page of the menu.)
• Great food
• New Friends (Abby, Meera and Tamar and Christoff)
• Sleeping in
You can see we packed a bunch of stuff into a very short period of time. This is how we do things here though: long periods of work followed by sprint vacations. It is the only way we can do things affordably (you know we only get paid $235 a month, right?).
Almost immediately after coming home from Cape Town, Janeen’s family arrived from the states. It was so great having them here for Christmas and New Years. We had the joy of having Janeen’s parents, her brother and his wife, her sister, and her grandparents with us for 2 weeks. It was so cool being able to see them that it just made everything else just pale in comparison. Not to say that we didn’t do some amazing things. Here is a concise list. I am being serious too. We did way more than just the stuff mentioned here.
Lesotho
• Christmas Eve dinner of pea soup, Thai cucumber salad, rice and home made bread. It was a weird combo but it was the easiest thing we could do for 9 people on short notice (We thought we would have dinner at the hotel we were staying at, but it closed its services).
• Windy mountain roads are even more fun in the rain (right Carla ;-))
• Horse riding in the mud
• Amazing Christmas dinner
• Mountains- Yes grandpa there ARE mountains in Lesotho!!
Kosi Bay
• Lake system boat ride
• Hippos and birdlife
• Monkeys on the deck eating a mango at 3:30 a.m.
• Watched a Loggerhead turtle come up the beach, lay its eggs, bury them and go back to the ocean (long walk on the beach)
• Snorkeling (Devil Fish and Morrey Eels)
Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe side)
• Victoria Falls Hotel (a colonial beauty)
• Depressed economy (shelves were empty at the store and restaurants had more things missing from the menu than on them)
• Curio Markets and aggressive traders
• Bungee Jumping (only Jason)
• Gorge Swinging (unbelievable and again only Jason did this)
• Gorge Zip-Line
• River Cruise (that we missed because of the bungee jumping)
• The Falls (the awesome power of the Victoria Falls)
• Elephant interaction and riding
• Walk with lion cubs (so cool)
• Being chased by monkeys (both Janeen and Andy had an unwelcome monkey encounter)
Sabi Sands Reserve (Vuyetela)
• Big 5 Action (Lions, Elephants, Buffalo, Rhino (white), and a Leopard!! So cool)
• Best Massage in a year
• Lazy Afternoons in the plunge pool
• Amazing food!
• Great service
• Saying good-bye to family for another year
Of course this is just a list of what we did and doesn’t really tell you anything about them. If you want to know about anything in further detail, either Janeen or I would love to fill you in. All you have to do is drop us a little message at either janeen_samuelian@yahoo.com or jason.samuelian@gmail.com and we will get back to you with details about a specific thing. We would love to be able to write about all of them but it would make a blog of like 20 pages and we know that you have lives and jobs that need attending too.
We know that many of you also would like to see what we did. For this we left it up to our family of paparazzi that followed us around. Janeen’s grandfather, father and brother all had really nice cameras so we just let them be our official photographers for this vacation. To view the photos all you have to do is go to Andy & Mari’s website at www.thelansfords.com From there you can read about their perspective of the vacation and check out some of our older photos from Lesotho and some new ones from this last vacation.
Let me know if you want to hear about anything in particular, otherwise I am just going to bore you with what is happening this year and what to expect from us in the upcoming year.
We love and miss you all.
Jason
January 10, 2008 (written by Janeen)
Jason did a great job at summarizing our trip. I tried to do that in a letter to his parents and it took me about 3 pages- hand written. So, mom and dad Sam expect a novel sometime soon. That is, of course, if it actually gets to you. Jason and Andy have kinda had a correspondence poker game going since we’ve been gone. I say kinda because it takes a long time, Andy took FOREVER to respond and they’ve pretty much just done 2 hands in 14 months! (Yes, I can still rile my brother up even though I am thousands of miles away!) Anyway back on track here… Jason folded his hand and we mailed the cards back to Andy in a letter sent back in September (Yes, I keep a list of the letters I send. Have you noticed that there is a small number on the left hand corner of the envelope?) and Andy hasn’t received that letter. So that saddens me to know that some letters are not getting back home. But, I guess if only a few don’t make it that is a pretty good percentage being that I have written about 325 since we’ve been gone. I respond to all letters or packages that are sent to us. So if you’ve written a letter and have not gotten a response, we either never got the letter OR my response is lost in post office space.
Today was the first day back on the job. We had a staff meeting that was supposed to start at 9:00am, but didn’t start until 10:00am because some members of staff weren’t here. This same meeting went until 3:00pm. There was sort of a break when the heads of departments were meeting to discuss which teachers would teach what classes, but we all had to hang around because there was not a specified time to meet back. At the end of the meeting it was discussed that we should start on time. I also put my two cents in that we should designate an end time and stay on task so that we can be done at a reasonable time. I didn’t mention this, but I think that it might even be helpful if the agenda was drawn ahead of time so that if there were other issues that needed to be addressed, staff members could bring them to the administration to either put them on the agenda or be saved for a later date. Maybe this is just my Americanism coming forth, but it does seem that the teachers here have other things they need to do and that they value their time and don’t want it wasted. Many times I feel like things can be done more efficiently, but maybe my culture is just different than theirs. Maybe they want the whole staff to be involved in decision making that I would deem fit for the administration. I just don’t know. Regardless I am only here for one more school year and I am still learning a lot even if I get frustrated sometimes.
We got the results back from the Junior Certificate exam (taken by Form C students) and our school did fairly well. We got 9 merit passes which is less than last year, but everyone was worried and in crisis-mode over these students that these results were not expected. We did have 5 failures, which they were upset about, but not surprised. One of the failures was a girl who got pregnant during the winter was expelled from school and went into labor while writing her exams. Needless to say she did not complete all of her exams so she failed. I am teaching 2 classes of Form C this year and the pressure is on to get good results. Not a single student earned an “A” in English from our school, so my goal is to get at least one. My principal says 20, but I try to be more realistic. I’ll of course be back in the good ‘ol US of A when the results are out, but will still be very interested in how my students perform.
I am working on a series of study skills workshops to do with students at the beginning of the year. I brought it to the attention of staff today and the idea was well received. I had 4 teachers volunteer to help, which I was very happy about. This way if it turns out to be good, they can continue teaching them when I am gone. I am also trying to type out a curriculum so that I can share it with other Peace Corps volunteers.
Today I also found out my work load. I will be teaching 3 more class periods than last year, and I will have different classes. I am kinda bummed about that and asked to switch, but it didn’t work out. I will have C1 (had them), C4 (new), B1 (had them), and A1 (new). I wanted to teach C1, C2, B1, and B2 to keep all my students since I know their names and their abilities. My head of department said that they wanted me to teach one form A class to help lay the foundation for their later years. Oh well, I’ll just have to learn about 100 new faces and names. I did it once, I’m sure I can do it again. The part about teaching 3 extra hours I am not stoked about since I have other things I want to work on like the study skills workshops, but I don’t always get what I want (despite what my husband might say!!).
Now that I’ve written a novel (sorry!), I have only one more thing to say. Thank you to all of you who have sent us packages and letters. We had another Christmas when we returned home from vacation and opened 11 packages! Five of them were those from my mom and grandparents that were being held hostage with a ridiculous tax rate since October. They were finally released for the bargain price of 10 Rand each! I have been working hard to respond to letters that we got while out on vacation. I’ve written about 15 since we’ve been back and still have 7 letters waiting for responses. I’ll try to get them done before school starts on the 21st because after that my main focus will be school and hanging out with my hubby (he doesn’t like it when I ignore him and write letters).
We’ll be home this year! YIPPEEEEE! Is it bad that we are already counting down? There are only 11 months until we are home. I’m told the second year goes by too fast, but I think I am OK with that.
Love you and miss you all,
Janeen
You see for the majority of the last month we have been in and out of Lesotho on holiday/vacation. School let out for us around Nov. 30 and this afforded us about 6 weeks to do what we want. Before we could get to traveling and vacation we did a few technical trainings for the new group that arrived here around the 10th of November. This sucked up the first part of December.
About mid-December we left for our trips that included going to Cape Town and the surrounding area and touring Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe with Janeen’s family. I don’t want to bore you with everything that we did during that time but I do want to give you the highlights (and lowlights) of the trip.
Cape Town and surrounding area
• Great White Shark Cage Experience (seasick for the first time in my life)
• Camping
• Wine Tasting in Stellenbosch (awesome wine and cheese; check out Goats do Roam from the Fairview Vineyards. Easy drinking red blend)
• Table Mountain (didn’t hike it because we are lazy but it is beautiful)
• Beach
• Cape Point and crazy baboons
• Long Street (ripped off at a bar that raised its prices after 10 p.m. and had it printed in fine print on the last page of the menu.)
• Great food
• New Friends (Abby, Meera and Tamar and Christoff)
• Sleeping in
You can see we packed a bunch of stuff into a very short period of time. This is how we do things here though: long periods of work followed by sprint vacations. It is the only way we can do things affordably (you know we only get paid $235 a month, right?).
Almost immediately after coming home from Cape Town, Janeen’s family arrived from the states. It was so great having them here for Christmas and New Years. We had the joy of having Janeen’s parents, her brother and his wife, her sister, and her grandparents with us for 2 weeks. It was so cool being able to see them that it just made everything else just pale in comparison. Not to say that we didn’t do some amazing things. Here is a concise list. I am being serious too. We did way more than just the stuff mentioned here.
Lesotho
• Christmas Eve dinner of pea soup, Thai cucumber salad, rice and home made bread. It was a weird combo but it was the easiest thing we could do for 9 people on short notice (We thought we would have dinner at the hotel we were staying at, but it closed its services).
• Windy mountain roads are even more fun in the rain (right Carla ;-))
• Horse riding in the mud
• Amazing Christmas dinner
• Mountains- Yes grandpa there ARE mountains in Lesotho!!
Kosi Bay
• Lake system boat ride
• Hippos and birdlife
• Monkeys on the deck eating a mango at 3:30 a.m.
• Watched a Loggerhead turtle come up the beach, lay its eggs, bury them and go back to the ocean (long walk on the beach)
• Snorkeling (Devil Fish and Morrey Eels)
Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe side)
• Victoria Falls Hotel (a colonial beauty)
• Depressed economy (shelves were empty at the store and restaurants had more things missing from the menu than on them)
• Curio Markets and aggressive traders
• Bungee Jumping (only Jason)
• Gorge Swinging (unbelievable and again only Jason did this)
• Gorge Zip-Line
• River Cruise (that we missed because of the bungee jumping)
• The Falls (the awesome power of the Victoria Falls)
• Elephant interaction and riding
• Walk with lion cubs (so cool)
• Being chased by monkeys (both Janeen and Andy had an unwelcome monkey encounter)
Sabi Sands Reserve (Vuyetela)
• Big 5 Action (Lions, Elephants, Buffalo, Rhino (white), and a Leopard!! So cool)
• Best Massage in a year
• Lazy Afternoons in the plunge pool
• Amazing food!
• Great service
• Saying good-bye to family for another year
Of course this is just a list of what we did and doesn’t really tell you anything about them. If you want to know about anything in further detail, either Janeen or I would love to fill you in. All you have to do is drop us a little message at either janeen_samuelian@yahoo.com or jason.samuelian@gmail.com and we will get back to you with details about a specific thing. We would love to be able to write about all of them but it would make a blog of like 20 pages and we know that you have lives and jobs that need attending too.
We know that many of you also would like to see what we did. For this we left it up to our family of paparazzi that followed us around. Janeen’s grandfather, father and brother all had really nice cameras so we just let them be our official photographers for this vacation. To view the photos all you have to do is go to Andy & Mari’s website at www.thelansfords.com From there you can read about their perspective of the vacation and check out some of our older photos from Lesotho and some new ones from this last vacation.
Let me know if you want to hear about anything in particular, otherwise I am just going to bore you with what is happening this year and what to expect from us in the upcoming year.
We love and miss you all.
Jason
January 10, 2008 (written by Janeen)
Jason did a great job at summarizing our trip. I tried to do that in a letter to his parents and it took me about 3 pages- hand written. So, mom and dad Sam expect a novel sometime soon. That is, of course, if it actually gets to you. Jason and Andy have kinda had a correspondence poker game going since we’ve been gone. I say kinda because it takes a long time, Andy took FOREVER to respond and they’ve pretty much just done 2 hands in 14 months! (Yes, I can still rile my brother up even though I am thousands of miles away!) Anyway back on track here… Jason folded his hand and we mailed the cards back to Andy in a letter sent back in September (Yes, I keep a list of the letters I send. Have you noticed that there is a small number on the left hand corner of the envelope?) and Andy hasn’t received that letter. So that saddens me to know that some letters are not getting back home. But, I guess if only a few don’t make it that is a pretty good percentage being that I have written about 325 since we’ve been gone. I respond to all letters or packages that are sent to us. So if you’ve written a letter and have not gotten a response, we either never got the letter OR my response is lost in post office space.
Today was the first day back on the job. We had a staff meeting that was supposed to start at 9:00am, but didn’t start until 10:00am because some members of staff weren’t here. This same meeting went until 3:00pm. There was sort of a break when the heads of departments were meeting to discuss which teachers would teach what classes, but we all had to hang around because there was not a specified time to meet back. At the end of the meeting it was discussed that we should start on time. I also put my two cents in that we should designate an end time and stay on task so that we can be done at a reasonable time. I didn’t mention this, but I think that it might even be helpful if the agenda was drawn ahead of time so that if there were other issues that needed to be addressed, staff members could bring them to the administration to either put them on the agenda or be saved for a later date. Maybe this is just my Americanism coming forth, but it does seem that the teachers here have other things they need to do and that they value their time and don’t want it wasted. Many times I feel like things can be done more efficiently, but maybe my culture is just different than theirs. Maybe they want the whole staff to be involved in decision making that I would deem fit for the administration. I just don’t know. Regardless I am only here for one more school year and I am still learning a lot even if I get frustrated sometimes.
We got the results back from the Junior Certificate exam (taken by Form C students) and our school did fairly well. We got 9 merit passes which is less than last year, but everyone was worried and in crisis-mode over these students that these results were not expected. We did have 5 failures, which they were upset about, but not surprised. One of the failures was a girl who got pregnant during the winter was expelled from school and went into labor while writing her exams. Needless to say she did not complete all of her exams so she failed. I am teaching 2 classes of Form C this year and the pressure is on to get good results. Not a single student earned an “A” in English from our school, so my goal is to get at least one. My principal says 20, but I try to be more realistic. I’ll of course be back in the good ‘ol US of A when the results are out, but will still be very interested in how my students perform.
I am working on a series of study skills workshops to do with students at the beginning of the year. I brought it to the attention of staff today and the idea was well received. I had 4 teachers volunteer to help, which I was very happy about. This way if it turns out to be good, they can continue teaching them when I am gone. I am also trying to type out a curriculum so that I can share it with other Peace Corps volunteers.
Today I also found out my work load. I will be teaching 3 more class periods than last year, and I will have different classes. I am kinda bummed about that and asked to switch, but it didn’t work out. I will have C1 (had them), C4 (new), B1 (had them), and A1 (new). I wanted to teach C1, C2, B1, and B2 to keep all my students since I know their names and their abilities. My head of department said that they wanted me to teach one form A class to help lay the foundation for their later years. Oh well, I’ll just have to learn about 100 new faces and names. I did it once, I’m sure I can do it again. The part about teaching 3 extra hours I am not stoked about since I have other things I want to work on like the study skills workshops, but I don’t always get what I want (despite what my husband might say!!).
Now that I’ve written a novel (sorry!), I have only one more thing to say. Thank you to all of you who have sent us packages and letters. We had another Christmas when we returned home from vacation and opened 11 packages! Five of them were those from my mom and grandparents that were being held hostage with a ridiculous tax rate since October. They were finally released for the bargain price of 10 Rand each! I have been working hard to respond to letters that we got while out on vacation. I’ve written about 15 since we’ve been back and still have 7 letters waiting for responses. I’ll try to get them done before school starts on the 21st because after that my main focus will be school and hanging out with my hubby (he doesn’t like it when I ignore him and write letters).
We’ll be home this year! YIPPEEEEE! Is it bad that we are already counting down? There are only 11 months until we are home. I’m told the second year goes by too fast, but I think I am OK with that.
Love you and miss you all,
Janeen
Thursday, January 03, 2008
December 5, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Well I have been in Maseru since Sunday and have not had a chance to write a blog. Everytime I've come to get on the computers there have been several people waiting and all I've had time to do (without feeling guilty) is read my emails.
Things are going well. I am here helping with training of the new group. They are practice teaching this week. A school is having a summer session strictly for the new volunteers to practice. I think it is great practice for them and they are doing really well and responding to our critiques. I'm almost running out of suggestions!
There are less than three weeks until the whole Lansford clan comes out to Lesotho and we are really looking forward to their arrival. It will make it much easier being away from home for Christmas! Fortunately we get to go to Cape Town before they arrive. I think it would be pretty torturous having not all that much to do while we waited for them to arrive.
I am getting my mid-service medical done while I am here. So far all I've done is my TB test. It's only been 24 hours, but I am pretty sure that I am TB free (which is actually a good thing because some volunteers do get TB). I'll be sure to let you all know the final results after I find out tomorrow!
I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season. We've been getting into the spirit by playing Christmas music, but somehow it feels strange singing along to wintry songs in summer, but it makes me happy! Miss you and love you all!
Things are going well. I am here helping with training of the new group. They are practice teaching this week. A school is having a summer session strictly for the new volunteers to practice. I think it is great practice for them and they are doing really well and responding to our critiques. I'm almost running out of suggestions!
There are less than three weeks until the whole Lansford clan comes out to Lesotho and we are really looking forward to their arrival. It will make it much easier being away from home for Christmas! Fortunately we get to go to Cape Town before they arrive. I think it would be pretty torturous having not all that much to do while we waited for them to arrive.
I am getting my mid-service medical done while I am here. So far all I've done is my TB test. It's only been 24 hours, but I am pretty sure that I am TB free (which is actually a good thing because some volunteers do get TB). I'll be sure to let you all know the final results after I find out tomorrow!
I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas season. We've been getting into the spirit by playing Christmas music, but somehow it feels strange singing along to wintry songs in summer, but it makes me happy! Miss you and love you all!
January 3, 2008 (written by Janeen)
Happy New Year! We hope that everyone is enjoying 2008 so far! We had a great Christmas and are enjoying spending time with family. We miss you all and will get a good update typed out when all settles down a bit. Be prepared for "Back from Vacation" blues from us!
Monday, November 26, 2007
November 26, 2006 (written by Janeen)
Today feels a little more like the Christmas season. I put up the few decorations we have and we are listening to Christmas music. It’s fun!
Here is the anticipated list that I promised in my last blog. I know the suspense is high!!!
As the anniversary of being in Lesotho has come and gone, I thought I’d create a list of things that I have learned and how I’ve changed.
Things I’ve Learned and How I’ve Changed
I can now bridge cards when shuffling
I am willing to try new foods and have found that I do like onions. I’ve even gone so far as eaten some raw, though I still don’t want to put them on my hamburgers.
Sadly, I have become more cynical and jaded. Many people want to help poor people in developing countries and their way of helping is often sending money. I know that a lot of money is being sent to Lesotho in general. It doesn’t seem to be helping the people that need it most, but the ministers get to drive around in Mercedes Benz cars. Does that sound right?!?!
I have a new love for cats. Don’t worry I have not become a cat lady, but I no longer fear them and even would go as far as saying that I love the little guy that we’ve got! AND I wouldn’t be opposed to having a cat when I get home.
We’ve changed the way we shop for food. This is mainly out of necessity, but we make a list of the meals we want to eat for the week and only buy the things we need. This has also changed how we eat. If we didn’t buy snack food, we don’t eat snack food. Of course its not like home where you can jump in your car when you have a craving. We have to walk to the road, wait for a taxi, & ride to town. It is a pretty big deal! Needless to say we’ve both lost weight. I gained some back after the vacation with Jason’s family, but we both look and feel healthy. We hope that we can keep that trend going when we get home!
I am now afraid of dogs. At least I am here in Lesotho. Even the ones that look cute can run at you out of the blue. They are trained to be mean and they are. Jason has been rushed at and almost attacked at least 3 times. I wouldn’t hesitate to throw a rock at a dog if I felt I was in danger, and that wasn’t the case when I first arrived.
I’ve learned that making fresh bread is not only delicious but rewarding, especially if you tried something new. Today I just made ginger bread and it was pretty good for a first attempt.
I’ve learned that you can make some pretty neat toys with what you may normally just throw away.
I’ve realized that we make A LOT of trash. We’ve tried to cut down by utilizing every last resource and making a compost pile, but we still have a large footprint on the earth. I’ll keep this in mind when I get home and hopefully keep the same ideals of making the smallest footprint possible. In fact I have told Jason that when we shop for a house, finding a community that recycles is important to me.
I’ve learned that you can bake almost anything in a Dutch oven.
I’ve learned to appreciate all the resources we have at home. You don’t realize what you’ve got until its gone!
I’ve learned how to bathe with a small amount of water. Albeit, I still enjoy some nice long hot showers.
I’ve learned to appreciate the rain. At home I looked at is as a nuisance that made my hair frizzy and made all the California drivers forget how to drive. Here, I see it as a necessity and it is especially for those who depend on their fields to support them. In fact, I get excited when it rains here. I even jumped up and down with joy when the first rains of the season came.
I have learned to be more patient. The emphasis here is on the more as I have not perfected this trait and don’t think I ever will. There is a part of me that screams inside every time we have a staff meeting that takes three hours when it could have been done in one.
I have found that it is pretty cool to be able to go outside to your garden
and pick fresh vegetables for a meal. Of course all I have done to help with the garden is provide student workers (weeding is a good punishment) and I occasionally water the garden. I give Jason all the credit for the success. We have corn, green beans, peas, sunflowers, tomatoes, cucumber, rape, swiss chard, onions, basil, cilantro, green squash, and carrots. Its SWEET!
I’ve been reassured that God provides for us. We get paid quarterly which makes it difficult to budget for 3 months on an already small salary. We usually are penny pinching towards the end of the pay period, but we always seem to make it. This last time we got a generous gift from a couple of Irish people who were visiting Lesotho and that helped get us through without stress to the next pay check.
I’ve learned that there will always be challenges and you have to give it all you got and just accept that everything is not going to be perfect.
That is about all I can think of for now. I’ll update my list as I think of more. Hope you enjoyed reading it!
November 26th, 2007
Hey to all my friends and family around the globe. It has been a few weeks since I have written anything other than my Thanksgiving wishes. I hope that you are all enjoying the holiday season (Hanukkah starts on Dec. 4th) and are enjoying all those sweet foods and wonderful parties. We are not alone (lots of friends) here and that makes being away from you a little bit easier.
Despite some sad news last week (my favorite teacher’s husband died) we are doing really pretty well. As you have read in Janeen’s blog we are learning a lot about ourselves and our world. The fun part is that we get to impart some of this knowledge onto our fellow volunteers. Last week Janeen and I did 3 days of technical training with the new group. They are 23 bright and eager people from a variety of different backgrounds and places around the U.S. It is really nice being around their optimism and exuberant energy. It refreshes the body and soul.
On top of being around those positive new people, we were also invited to go to the American Ambassadors house for Thanksgiving dinner. We wouldn’t really have been normally invited but he had invited all of the trainees to dinner and since we were in town we got a chance to go with them. Let me tell you, it was awesome. We arrived about an hour before dinner after a long day of thundershowers. It was cool but not cold and he had a heated pool for us to swim in. Now I have not swam in a heated pool for maybe a year and a half and after living in Lesotho for so long it really did feel like a giant chlorinated bath. It was pretty outstanding.
After swimming and playing the mandatory pool games (marco polo, colors, etc.) we sat down to a huge feast. I have eaten well here at funerals or other parties but we Americans know how to party. There were approximately 40 people there and we had 4 turkeys with like 12 sides. This does not include all the chips and fresh veggie platters before dinner. These were all washed down with beer, wine and soda provided by the Ambassador. After dinner we enjoyed all 6 desserts. That’s right 6 desserts. We definitely pigged out. I had to sit down multiple times after dinner and just breathe so that I would not go into food shock. It was pretty great!
All in all though I would say the best part of being at the ambassadors was the way that he made us feel. Our previous ambassador did not exactly reach out to Peace Corps as part of the mission in Lesotho. In contrast the current ambassador expressed his feeling of gratitude to us as members of the greater mission of the United States government and welcomed us as informal ambassadors to the country of Lesotho. He really made us feel like we are part of something larger than ourselves and even though we don’t get all the perks and respect of the state department people, we are still important to what is going on here. It was a really nice thing to hear especially at this point in our service.
I concluded the evening running around and playing with kids for about an hour (doesn’t sound like me at all right? Could have been rubbing shoulders with the ambassador instead I was the clown for the kids. Man where are my priorities?). It was a blast. I don’t really get to do it all that often at school because if you play with 1 child in 2 minutes you will have 100 around you. This can be seriously overwhelming. So I enjoyed not having more than 5 at one time that I would get mobbed by. It was really fun. I was a tickle monster.
So now we are back home. It rained really well today. We are happy about that to be sure. We hope that the weather wherever you are is good and that you are happy and safe.
All the best, Jason
November 24, 2007(written by Janeen)
Well it has been quite some time since I have last written a blog. The last month or so I have been busy with school, but I am happy to say that on November 21st I finished my last obligation for the school year. I am done grading, done with meetings, done with everything for 2 months! School starts again January 21st. Of course I still have projects to work on, but I can take a very relaxed pace. AND even better is that we have family coming in less than a month! YIPPEE! Mom, Dad, Grandma & Grandpa Lansford, Andy, Mari, & Lynette all arrive December 23rd. We’ll definitely be having a Merry Christmas here!
Jason and I just finished two days helping train the new group of education volunteers. Today they are going to the village. I can remember the strange overwhelming feeling of going to the village and having NO IDEA what they were saying to me. I just told some of them the story about how our mother wanted us to iron the clothes we were wearing. The situation went something like this: When she mentioned something about ironing, I brought different clothes for her to iron. Then I took the ironing board into our bedroom thinking she wanted me to iron there. Finally after at least 20 minutes or so, we changed clothes so that she could iron the clothes we were wearing. My skirt was a peasant style skirt that is supposed to be wrinkled, so she struggled to iron that and I didn’t have the heart (or the words) to tell her not to iron it. So I had creased ironed in wrinkles on my skirt that day!!
Since we have now passed the year mark, (Yes we have been gone a year now!) I’ve been thinking about making a list talking about how I’ve changed and what I’ve learned. Now that I’ll have more time at home I’ll be sure to get on that and get it posted. Some things will be funny, some will be sad, and some neutral. Here’s one example: I have learned how to bridge when shuffling cards. Some of you may not be impressed, but it is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do and just thought that I was completely incompetent, BUT I have learned that I am not! You should all be proud!
Well I need to sign off now so I can make it to the post office before it closes. We’ve had some difficulties with packages here. Lesotho started charging outrageous taxes to pick up boxes. It has been fixed and we recently got 3 packages (1 from Gma & Gpa D & 2 from Aunt Sharon & Uncle Bob—Thanks!) without the taxes, but we have 5 waiting for us that we could not afford to pick up. For some reason the Maseru post office can’t relay the message of canceling the fees to our post office. So, I have to run to the post office today and get some proof that the taxes should be removed in order to pick up the 5 packages waiting for us! Whew! Now after explaining all that I really have to go!
We send our love to all of you and are certainly thinking of all our friends and family as the Christmas holiday approaches.
We hope you have a wonderful season.
Today feels a little more like the Christmas season. I put up the few decorations we have and we are listening to Christmas music. It’s fun!
Here is the anticipated list that I promised in my last blog. I know the suspense is high!!!
As the anniversary of being in Lesotho has come and gone, I thought I’d create a list of things that I have learned and how I’ve changed.
Things I’ve Learned and How I’ve Changed
I can now bridge cards when shuffling
I am willing to try new foods and have found that I do like onions. I’ve even gone so far as eaten some raw, though I still don’t want to put them on my hamburgers.
Sadly, I have become more cynical and jaded. Many people want to help poor people in developing countries and their way of helping is often sending money. I know that a lot of money is being sent to Lesotho in general. It doesn’t seem to be helping the people that need it most, but the ministers get to drive around in Mercedes Benz cars. Does that sound right?!?!
I have a new love for cats. Don’t worry I have not become a cat lady, but I no longer fear them and even would go as far as saying that I love the little guy that we’ve got! AND I wouldn’t be opposed to having a cat when I get home.
We’ve changed the way we shop for food. This is mainly out of necessity, but we make a list of the meals we want to eat for the week and only buy the things we need. This has also changed how we eat. If we didn’t buy snack food, we don’t eat snack food. Of course its not like home where you can jump in your car when you have a craving. We have to walk to the road, wait for a taxi, & ride to town. It is a pretty big deal! Needless to say we’ve both lost weight. I gained some back after the vacation with Jason’s family, but we both look and feel healthy. We hope that we can keep that trend going when we get home!
I am now afraid of dogs. At least I am here in Lesotho. Even the ones that look cute can run at you out of the blue. They are trained to be mean and they are. Jason has been rushed at and almost attacked at least 3 times. I wouldn’t hesitate to throw a rock at a dog if I felt I was in danger, and that wasn’t the case when I first arrived.
I’ve learned that making fresh bread is not only delicious but rewarding, especially if you tried something new. Today I just made ginger bread and it was pretty good for a first attempt.
I’ve learned that you can make some pretty neat toys with what you may normally just throw away.
I’ve realized that we make A LOT of trash. We’ve tried to cut down by utilizing every last resource and making a compost pile, but we still have a large footprint on the earth. I’ll keep this in mind when I get home and hopefully keep the same ideals of making the smallest footprint possible. In fact I have told Jason that when we shop for a house, finding a community that recycles is important to me.
I’ve learned that you can bake almost anything in a Dutch oven.
I’ve learned to appreciate all the resources we have at home. You don’t realize what you’ve got until its gone!
I’ve learned how to bathe with a small amount of water. Albeit, I still enjoy some nice long hot showers.
I’ve learned to appreciate the rain. At home I looked at is as a nuisance that made my hair frizzy and made all the California drivers forget how to drive. Here, I see it as a necessity and it is especially for those who depend on their fields to support them. In fact, I get excited when it rains here. I even jumped up and down with joy when the first rains of the season came.
I have learned to be more patient. The emphasis here is on the more as I have not perfected this trait and don’t think I ever will. There is a part of me that screams inside every time we have a staff meeting that takes three hours when it could have been done in one.
I have found that it is pretty cool to be able to go outside to your garden
and pick fresh vegetables for a meal. Of course all I have done to help with the garden is provide student workers (weeding is a good punishment) and I occasionally water the garden. I give Jason all the credit for the success. We have corn, green beans, peas, sunflowers, tomatoes, cucumber, rape, swiss chard, onions, basil, cilantro, green squash, and carrots. Its SWEET!
I’ve been reassured that God provides for us. We get paid quarterly which makes it difficult to budget for 3 months on an already small salary. We usually are penny pinching towards the end of the pay period, but we always seem to make it. This last time we got a generous gift from a couple of Irish people who were visiting Lesotho and that helped get us through without stress to the next pay check.
I’ve learned that there will always be challenges and you have to give it all you got and just accept that everything is not going to be perfect.
That is about all I can think of for now. I’ll update my list as I think of more. Hope you enjoyed reading it!
November 26th, 2007
Hey to all my friends and family around the globe. It has been a few weeks since I have written anything other than my Thanksgiving wishes. I hope that you are all enjoying the holiday season (Hanukkah starts on Dec. 4th) and are enjoying all those sweet foods and wonderful parties. We are not alone (lots of friends) here and that makes being away from you a little bit easier.
Despite some sad news last week (my favorite teacher’s husband died) we are doing really pretty well. As you have read in Janeen’s blog we are learning a lot about ourselves and our world. The fun part is that we get to impart some of this knowledge onto our fellow volunteers. Last week Janeen and I did 3 days of technical training with the new group. They are 23 bright and eager people from a variety of different backgrounds and places around the U.S. It is really nice being around their optimism and exuberant energy. It refreshes the body and soul.
On top of being around those positive new people, we were also invited to go to the American Ambassadors house for Thanksgiving dinner. We wouldn’t really have been normally invited but he had invited all of the trainees to dinner and since we were in town we got a chance to go with them. Let me tell you, it was awesome. We arrived about an hour before dinner after a long day of thundershowers. It was cool but not cold and he had a heated pool for us to swim in. Now I have not swam in a heated pool for maybe a year and a half and after living in Lesotho for so long it really did feel like a giant chlorinated bath. It was pretty outstanding.
After swimming and playing the mandatory pool games (marco polo, colors, etc.) we sat down to a huge feast. I have eaten well here at funerals or other parties but we Americans know how to party. There were approximately 40 people there and we had 4 turkeys with like 12 sides. This does not include all the chips and fresh veggie platters before dinner. These were all washed down with beer, wine and soda provided by the Ambassador. After dinner we enjoyed all 6 desserts. That’s right 6 desserts. We definitely pigged out. I had to sit down multiple times after dinner and just breathe so that I would not go into food shock. It was pretty great!
All in all though I would say the best part of being at the ambassadors was the way that he made us feel. Our previous ambassador did not exactly reach out to Peace Corps as part of the mission in Lesotho. In contrast the current ambassador expressed his feeling of gratitude to us as members of the greater mission of the United States government and welcomed us as informal ambassadors to the country of Lesotho. He really made us feel like we are part of something larger than ourselves and even though we don’t get all the perks and respect of the state department people, we are still important to what is going on here. It was a really nice thing to hear especially at this point in our service.
I concluded the evening running around and playing with kids for about an hour (doesn’t sound like me at all right? Could have been rubbing shoulders with the ambassador instead I was the clown for the kids. Man where are my priorities?). It was a blast. I don’t really get to do it all that often at school because if you play with 1 child in 2 minutes you will have 100 around you. This can be seriously overwhelming. So I enjoyed not having more than 5 at one time that I would get mobbed by. It was really fun. I was a tickle monster.
So now we are back home. It rained really well today. We are happy about that to be sure. We hope that the weather wherever you are is good and that you are happy and safe.
All the best, Jason
November 24, 2007(written by Janeen)
Well it has been quite some time since I have last written a blog. The last month or so I have been busy with school, but I am happy to say that on November 21st I finished my last obligation for the school year. I am done grading, done with meetings, done with everything for 2 months! School starts again January 21st. Of course I still have projects to work on, but I can take a very relaxed pace. AND even better is that we have family coming in less than a month! YIPPEE! Mom, Dad, Grandma & Grandpa Lansford, Andy, Mari, & Lynette all arrive December 23rd. We’ll definitely be having a Merry Christmas here!
Jason and I just finished two days helping train the new group of education volunteers. Today they are going to the village. I can remember the strange overwhelming feeling of going to the village and having NO IDEA what they were saying to me. I just told some of them the story about how our mother wanted us to iron the clothes we were wearing. The situation went something like this: When she mentioned something about ironing, I brought different clothes for her to iron. Then I took the ironing board into our bedroom thinking she wanted me to iron there. Finally after at least 20 minutes or so, we changed clothes so that she could iron the clothes we were wearing. My skirt was a peasant style skirt that is supposed to be wrinkled, so she struggled to iron that and I didn’t have the heart (or the words) to tell her not to iron it. So I had creased ironed in wrinkles on my skirt that day!!
Since we have now passed the year mark, (Yes we have been gone a year now!) I’ve been thinking about making a list talking about how I’ve changed and what I’ve learned. Now that I’ll have more time at home I’ll be sure to get on that and get it posted. Some things will be funny, some will be sad, and some neutral. Here’s one example: I have learned how to bridge when shuffling cards. Some of you may not be impressed, but it is something I’ve always wanted to be able to do and just thought that I was completely incompetent, BUT I have learned that I am not! You should all be proud!
Well I need to sign off now so I can make it to the post office before it closes. We’ve had some difficulties with packages here. Lesotho started charging outrageous taxes to pick up boxes. It has been fixed and we recently got 3 packages (1 from Gma & Gpa D & 2 from Aunt Sharon & Uncle Bob—Thanks!) without the taxes, but we have 5 waiting for us that we could not afford to pick up. For some reason the Maseru post office can’t relay the message of canceling the fees to our post office. So, I have to run to the post office today and get some proof that the taxes should be removed in order to pick up the 5 packages waiting for us! Whew! Now after explaining all that I really have to go!
We send our love to all of you and are certainly thinking of all our friends and family as the Christmas holiday approaches.
We hope you have a wonderful season.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Saturday, November 10, 2007
November 10, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hey all the peoples in the world. It is Jason yet again. I know you are all thinking, 'why hasn't Janeen written a blog in a while'? The short answer is, is that she is marking like a mad woman. You see our jobs are inherenetly different. She has a lot of marking at the end of the quarters while I have very little work all the time. So I have time to do things like read, blog, ponder the deep questions of life and other such endevours. Thus many of you can spend you days (or nights) being bored to death by my irrelevant comments about life and the nature of things.
Life is getting back to somewhat semblance of normallcy. I am in Maseru for a meeting and because of this I will be missing the funeral of Motlatsi. I am pretty good about this though as I am slowly coming to terms with his death and what that means at large. I am feeling really weird about being so self-absorbed about this. I mean, he was 16 years old. His family seems to be taking it in stride but I am having a really hard time moving past it. It affected my whole last week and I was a rather large pain in the butt to live with (sorry Janeen).
I will work this out but it is just really stupid. I don't want to feel bad about feeling bad, but what can you do?
Otherwise, we still don't know anything about the packages. We will keep you up to date as we love getting packages here. It really makes us happy when we open them and see all the love poured out on us. Please keep sending letters and cards. We love those just as much.
My best friend comes in just 17 days and I am PUMPED!! Can't wait to see him.
All the best
Jason
Hey all the peoples in the world. It is Jason yet again. I know you are all thinking, 'why hasn't Janeen written a blog in a while'? The short answer is, is that she is marking like a mad woman. You see our jobs are inherenetly different. She has a lot of marking at the end of the quarters while I have very little work all the time. So I have time to do things like read, blog, ponder the deep questions of life and other such endevours. Thus many of you can spend you days (or nights) being bored to death by my irrelevant comments about life and the nature of things.
Life is getting back to somewhat semblance of normallcy. I am in Maseru for a meeting and because of this I will be missing the funeral of Motlatsi. I am pretty good about this though as I am slowly coming to terms with his death and what that means at large. I am feeling really weird about being so self-absorbed about this. I mean, he was 16 years old. His family seems to be taking it in stride but I am having a really hard time moving past it. It affected my whole last week and I was a rather large pain in the butt to live with (sorry Janeen).
I will work this out but it is just really stupid. I don't want to feel bad about feeling bad, but what can you do?
Otherwise, we still don't know anything about the packages. We will keep you up to date as we love getting packages here. It really makes us happy when we open them and see all the love poured out on us. Please keep sending letters and cards. We love those just as much.
My best friend comes in just 17 days and I am PUMPED!! Can't wait to see him.
All the best
Jason
Monday, November 05, 2007
November 5, 2007 (written by Jason)
So last week I wrote a really emotional e-mail. I really appreciate all the words of encouragement. It has been a long and really weird week. It was emotional going to school today talking to the teachers about the funeral and working out how it is going to work. It looks like due to a prior commitment that I won’t be going to the boy’s funeral. I think that this is probably better for me anyway. I am going to go to the families house on Thursday and pay my respects then.
The crazy part is that we have been gone now for exactly 1 year. We had our going away party on the 3rd of last year. We then left for Washington on the 4th really early in the morning. I can’t believe that this year has already flown by. It is totally nuts. We have had our ups and downs here but I still feel that we are happy to have come.
One thing that is frustrating is that the postal service here has decided that it is going to start charging sales tax (on what exactly we still don’t know) that is about 20 to 30 US dollars per package. Needless to say because our salaries are around 250 dollars they are sitting in storage until we get paid or they revoke the sales tax. My favorite part about all this is that the post office never notified us that this change would take place. We just went in one day and the charge had increased by 500%. It is so the way things sometimes work here. Cracks me up!
Well I hope that you are all doing good. We love and miss you all. Drop us a line if you get a chance!
Peace Corps Out!
Jason
So last week I wrote a really emotional e-mail. I really appreciate all the words of encouragement. It has been a long and really weird week. It was emotional going to school today talking to the teachers about the funeral and working out how it is going to work. It looks like due to a prior commitment that I won’t be going to the boy’s funeral. I think that this is probably better for me anyway. I am going to go to the families house on Thursday and pay my respects then.
The crazy part is that we have been gone now for exactly 1 year. We had our going away party on the 3rd of last year. We then left for Washington on the 4th really early in the morning. I can’t believe that this year has already flown by. It is totally nuts. We have had our ups and downs here but I still feel that we are happy to have come.
One thing that is frustrating is that the postal service here has decided that it is going to start charging sales tax (on what exactly we still don’t know) that is about 20 to 30 US dollars per package. Needless to say because our salaries are around 250 dollars they are sitting in storage until we get paid or they revoke the sales tax. My favorite part about all this is that the post office never notified us that this change would take place. We just went in one day and the charge had increased by 500%. It is so the way things sometimes work here. Cracks me up!
Well I hope that you are all doing good. We love and miss you all. Drop us a line if you get a chance!
Peace Corps Out!
Jason
Thursday, November 01, 2007
November 1, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hello to all the readers around the globe. I hope that as you are reading this that you are happy and healthy. Life here is an up and down journey as I know that many of your lives are as well. Last time I posted a rather extensive blog (one person even called it a novel). I am really sorry about that but I am trying to get you to understand the depth and gravitas of what we are experiencing here.
Along that line, almost immediately after I posted the blog I wrote last week, a teacher from one of my schools called me to notify me that one of our students had passed away. His name was Motlatsi and he was in standard 6 (Sixth Grade). He was a young and beautiful person. He was one of the few students that took it upon themselves to really engage me as an adult and as a person. He was tall and handsome and his singing voice rang exquisitely above all the rest as he sang in the school choir.
I think what is most difficult about this is that he probably died of something that if he were in a country where his health was monitored and the right medicines were administered, he may have gone on to be a productive and integral part of figuring things out in this country. The death of one so young with so much promise makes my heart heavy with the tears I can not shed. I feel nothing but regret and sadness but my heart won’t let me weep. I think this is part of the self-preservation that takes place here.
We are ensconced in so much death. Basotho family members, colleagues, neighbors and students die every week. With the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our country we see funeral tents up all around the country side on Friday and Saturday (the traditional days to bury someone here). We become callused to these events.
Yet when someone young or close dies, it rips the callus of our hearts and exposes the raw flesh underneath. We have little to buffer us from the blow that this brings to us. It is so real and so raw, it is difficult to know what to do with this. We sit and we try and understand why but we are often found wanting.
All the best
Jason
Hello to all the readers around the globe. I hope that as you are reading this that you are happy and healthy. Life here is an up and down journey as I know that many of your lives are as well. Last time I posted a rather extensive blog (one person even called it a novel). I am really sorry about that but I am trying to get you to understand the depth and gravitas of what we are experiencing here.
Along that line, almost immediately after I posted the blog I wrote last week, a teacher from one of my schools called me to notify me that one of our students had passed away. His name was Motlatsi and he was in standard 6 (Sixth Grade). He was a young and beautiful person. He was one of the few students that took it upon themselves to really engage me as an adult and as a person. He was tall and handsome and his singing voice rang exquisitely above all the rest as he sang in the school choir.
I think what is most difficult about this is that he probably died of something that if he were in a country where his health was monitored and the right medicines were administered, he may have gone on to be a productive and integral part of figuring things out in this country. The death of one so young with so much promise makes my heart heavy with the tears I can not shed. I feel nothing but regret and sadness but my heart won’t let me weep. I think this is part of the self-preservation that takes place here.
We are ensconced in so much death. Basotho family members, colleagues, neighbors and students die every week. With the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in our country we see funeral tents up all around the country side on Friday and Saturday (the traditional days to bury someone here). We become callused to these events.
Yet when someone young or close dies, it rips the callus of our hearts and exposes the raw flesh underneath. We have little to buffer us from the blow that this brings to us. It is so real and so raw, it is difficult to know what to do with this. We sit and we try and understand why but we are often found wanting.
All the best
Jason
Friday, October 26, 2007
October 26th, 2007 (written by Jason)
Hey all! How cool is it that I have been able to post a blog twice this week? I mean man this is the cat’s pajamas. I really appreciate all the well wishers that sent me their stories telling me about their experiences with being sick. I am currently asking them if I can post them because they are super funny. Not to make fun of their pain but so that you can feel their pain as I did and put perspective on how I felt this week.
I am fine today, finally. I missed 3 days of work this week; 2 because of my sickness and today because the weather is getting nasty. So I am making the most of it by posting another blog and sending out a message of love and inspiration to you. You guys are all so good to us. The people that have sent care packages, and you know who you are and those many of you who have sent e-mails and letters, have really blessed our hearts.
Many of you have heard that we have a few students staying with us because of their mothers lack of funds to pay for housing for them. We have decided that because of the shear size of our house that we would open our doors to them and give them a free place to stay.
This has been one of the most rewarding parts of our service thus far. I see in a personal way the way I am able to influence these kids to make good decisions and teach them discipline in their lives. We are also able to provide them with new foods and experiences that they would not normally have (pizza, lentil burgers, stir-fry, etc.). It is really a neat little family we have founded here. In many ways I feel that we get more out of them than they get from us.
Peace Corps service is filled with all sorts of highs and lows. This year we have been stuck in the monotonous routine of daily schedules like many of you back home and have experienced all sorts of interesting and strange cultural interaction that is far from the normative. I want to share a letter that a friend and colleague wrote some time ago. She is far more insightful and reflective on life here, than I have been in the numerous blogs I have written. I hope you enjoy her letter and that it gives you a small picture as to life here.
Just so you know you can write us anytime regarding any questions you have and I would love to expound on them in detail. Love you all
Jason
Taken from http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/outside_do.html
Knowledge is like a baobab tree -- no two hands can encompass it." (Ghanaian proverb)
March 24, 2007
Public Letter #7:
"What Can I Send You?"
This letter is tough to write and maybe tough to read. It's my answer to your question, "What can I send you? What do you need?" Maybe you've asked it and maybe I've answered, "Soccer balls for children. Sports bras for teen girls on the track team. Easy-to-read books for students and 2007 calendars for schools. Hands-on activity books for teachers."
But these are not things that people in my village truly need. They are short-gap answers – things that you can send and I can give that make both of us, as Americans, feel good, feel like we've addressed, in some small way, the poverty that is Africa.
But poverty is huge, grinding, complex, layered. It has no easy solution. The soccer balls get confiscated by older kids or punctured on barbed wire fences. The girls' running team disbands because the teacher is "sick." Books are locked away in the principal's office. A teacher decides she has no time to do hands-on learning activities because she's pressured to keep up with the syllabus.
It's like giving a child candy – the pleasure is momentary, for the child and the giver. The candy solves no major problem, perhaps even creates one.
What Kids Need is Education
What the children need is education – school fees and school texts for secondary school, school shoes and school uniforms for standards (grades) 1-12. School uniforms cost $10 - $30; shoes cost $10-$30 and feet keep growing; a year of high school texts costs $35; high school fees range from $150 to $800/year, depending on the school. These are huge amounts for a country whose people live on $1 or $2/day = just $400-$1000/year. I remember the Tibetan community trying to get us Madisonians each to support one child in Daramsala, northern India, for $245/year. While it was an attractive idea for me, I never did it. I figured I was putting out thousands of dollars a year for "my own" Tibetan refugee family, and that was enough.
Like you, I also saw the "Adopt a Child" ads in the back of magazines. Now I'm at the other side of those glossy photos, and I see that "adopting a child" truly makes a difference in a child's life. Education is one answer. If you want to help one child, send money to Friends of Lesotho. They are helping us Peace Corps Volunteers provide high school scholarships – we can each nominate five village children, and I've already located my five. Each will receive 500 Rand ($90) toward school fees – a great program. ( www.friendsoflesotho.org) Mention my name. Maybe we can get 100 drop-outs and orphans back in school.
What Adults Need Are Jobs
But Lesotho doesn't need to save one child – it needs to support 100,000 orphans, and to give education to ALL its children. To do this, yes, it needs help from outside Lesotho. But the country needs jobs. Parents want to support and educate their OWN children and the nieces and nephews of their sisters and brothers who've died, who've they promised, on deathbeds, in tears, that yes, they'd look after the children. So it's jobs we need, if we're to educate children.
And where are the jobs? For Basotho people, jobs are not in Lesotho. Just a few government jobs, which are shabby, which lack the infrastructure that makes government effective, and which invite "dipping into the till." Oh, one can be a driver of taxi's, or a farmer, or a shop keeper, but here we're talking about eeking by – taking the small, sweating coins of one's neighbors.
There are jobs in South Africa – grueling jobs in the diamond or copper mines or in textile factories owned by the Chinese. There are jobs in America – for doctors, scientists, professors. So Lesotho sends its strong and able men, its educated men and women, far away. Do they come back? Do they better Lesotho? They do, but it's not a viable solution. The men in South Africa come back shells of men, and they bring HIV/AIDS. The sisters and brothers in America help younger siblings come to America, leaving elderly mothers in the village, without help for everyday chores, without daughters and sons for everyday laughter.
The World Steals from Africa
Lesotho is a country / Africa is a continent stripped of resources, from its diamonds and spices and endangered species to its doctors and nurses and writers. The world has taken from Africa, but not given back. It's a continent of 52 countries, unconnected by highways, airports, trains or train tracks, ships or shipping companies. A company from China or Germany opens a factory here, creates "jobs" (cheap labor). The company does not build an Interstate highway. It builds a little highway or water way that is unashamedly direct – from the factory to the port, or from the factory to the airport. It must make a profit; it cannot afford to build a road for the "people."
It's easy for Americans to think of Africa being poor, a wasteland, a pit of problems. It's harder for us to acknowledge or research how much of our greatness, how much of our wealth came and continues to come from African mines, mountains, veldts. It's harder to count how many nurses and doctors in our hospitals and HMO's come from countries with African names, how many professors in our in our universities represent the best and brightest of their own countries. It's harder yet to see how inter-locking directorates of global corporations (South African Airlines / Shell Oil / KFC / banks) skim the cream off the continent. Africa staffs and supplies not just North America, but also South America, China, Europe.
So, yes, please keep sending the soccer balls and children's books. But know they are not really what my village needs.
What My Village Needs
It is hard for you to send initiative and problem solving skills. That's what my village needs. When you think how you yourself learned "initiative" and "problem solving", you'll think of a long line of experiences, tiny successes that came from kindergarten (which we don't have here), summer camp (which we don't have here), sports teams (which we don't have here), singing in a musical or acting in a play (no after-school activities here), or the attention of a gifted teacher or doting relative (which hardly exist in this adult-impoverished society).
The hardest time of day for me here is 4 pm in the afternoon. I usually need to walk uptown to buy some tomatoes or to go to the post office. Schools are out, and the road is lined with kids, still in their school uniforms, with NOTHING to do. They just "hang." Well, teens everywhere like to hang, talk to best friends, call out and tease classmates, flirt with the older boys (taxi drivers), smoke their first cigarettes. But teens in many other countries have options – they can work on a computer; play on a soccer team; do homework using charts, graphs, calculators, magic markers, glitter; go to a mall; read a magazine in a library. They can take ballet or piano lessons or play in a garage band. They might own or be able to use a camera, an i-pod, a CD player, a camera phone. All these create early experiences with initiative and problem solving.
My high school teacher Volunteer friend Sara up the hill says that when she gives her kids an assignment to compose, "How I'd solve Lesotho's problems if I were Prime Minister," they all write, "I'd ask America for more money."
In Lesotho, problem solving and funding and new projects come from the Outside. Someone like me turns up (virtually unsolicited), in a village so people ask, "What can you give us?" That was what I encountered my first day here (Public Letter #4 – One Day Down, 724 to Go). It's what I meet daily, in various forms. Kids say, "Give me money?" "Give me candy?" Adults say, "When are you going to invite me to dinner?" "When are you going to do a workshop at my school?"
What White People Are Good For
White people arepeople who are here briefly, who go away, who somehow have access to resources that the village doesn't. Get what you can, while you can.
Peace Corps asks us to create SUSTAINABLE projects. The country is a skeleton of past projects brought by various NGO's (non-governmental organizations like Red Cross or World Vision, etc.) Clinics unstaffed; empty teacher resource centers used as a place to urinate; shells of buildings with peeling signs in front of them, like "GDZ Germany Seedling Center" or "Community Sewing School." The volunteer leaves, the project collapses.
It's not because people are lazy – it's because they are not skilled, not confident, not persistent, don't have telephone networks and acquaintance networks and computer networks to put them in touch with real help. Volunteers can start a project; we can seldom stick around to maintain it.
What I call "initiative" and "problem solving skills" are in reality skills built on huge, interlinked infrastructure systems. Infrastructure – it's a boring word – but it's what my village needs. Roads that lead somewhere; a public official who can get you a service you need; a service that is hooked to other services.
The idea that a Peace Corps Volunteer can do anything more than be friendly to neighborhood kids and teach a few people a few things is pretty ridiculous. Do we need 10,000 computers – which I might write a grant for? No – we need 10,000,000 computers. Do we need 2,000 trees planted – which I might help with? No – we need 2,000,000,000 trees planted. Do we need South Africa to complete Phase II of the Katze Dam and pay us $2.65 million Rand a year for the water? No – we need South Africa to help us train a generation of hydro-engineers, so we can manage our own damn dam, and by the way, the price should be $2.65 million Rand per day, not per year.
That's what we need. Some hard negotiators who quit giving away the continent.
And Now for The Good News
To end on a positive note – two items:I recently sent a set of 90 slides on a CD for a PowerPoint presentation for the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies conference. We did a "live by telephone" interconnect, with me yakking in the background on a speaker phone, while the slides cycled through. What I tried to show in the slides was the absolute, stark beauty of this country, and the joy and resourcefulness of children. Children here, without "options" or "infrastructure" and with few adults in their lives, create volumes of laughter, joy, fun, games. They are strong, lovely, imaginative. The slides show them building clay animals with mud from the river, playing games with old wheel rims, playing dolls and house with scraps from the trash heap. They are merry and strong. I think many American kids would love their freedom to roam, and their dawn-to-dusk days outdoors amidst majestic mountains and bleating baby goats and meandering river gullies.
With a bit of inquiry (initiative, problem solving), I think you can get your hands on a copy of the CD, if you'd like to see it or to show it to your kids.
The second positive thought I have about what you can "do" for Africa is what you are already doing – loving children and giving them genuine attention, building stronger local communities with community planning and recycling, teaching problem solving and initiative, being empathetic, working to end the wars in Iraq and in the Sudan, writing me letters to reflect on our shared lives on this planet. These are the things that matter, that in the long run help Africa and help America. Africa's problems will be solved by a world of educated and empathetic people, by a planet not racked by global warming, by governments not at war, by a sense that we are a global community and must reprioritize resources for "people."
What can I send YOU?
I send you love from Lesotho. Autumn is on its way. The mornings are now often chilly. Inside my rondavel the candle is burning; the two teen boys who live with 'M'e Mabokang in the big(ger) house are laughing, bringing buckets of water. Our rooster is crowing. A new day dawns.
Madeline / Sesotho name "M'e Lerato" (Lerato = Love)
NOTE ADDRESS**:1/2007 – 11/30/08
Madeline Uraneck / ('M'e Lerato)
PO Box 172Mt. Morosi, 750 LESOTHO AFRICA
E-mail – for best results e-mail it AND air mail it. 90 cents to air mail a letter from USA to Lesothoglobalmaddy@gmail.com (I get to Internet sites only rarely)
After 1/2009:C/o Marilee Sushoreba1818 Adams StreetMadison WI 53711 *** USA(608) 255-0772 E-mail: msushore@facstaff.wisc.edu**
(Any mail previously sent to Maseru will reach me, don't worry)
PREVIOUS PUBLIC LETTERS
Request them (one or two – not all) from my sister Susan in Oregon: s_uraneck@yahoo.com
1. First Impressions (November 11, 2006) – via e-mail
2. First Impressions, Continued: A Mountain Village (November 16, 2006) - hand-written
3. HIV/AIDS in Lesotho (December 4, 2006) – via e-mailPublished in WorldView Magazine
4. What's Your Name? 4 Weeks in a Basotho Village (December 31, 2006) – via e-mail
5. One Day Down: 724 to go (January 3, 2007) – via e-mail
6. Collecting Best Days (February 26, 2007) – via e-mail
7. What Can I Send You? (March 24, 2007) – via e-mail
Hey all! How cool is it that I have been able to post a blog twice this week? I mean man this is the cat’s pajamas. I really appreciate all the well wishers that sent me their stories telling me about their experiences with being sick. I am currently asking them if I can post them because they are super funny. Not to make fun of their pain but so that you can feel their pain as I did and put perspective on how I felt this week.
I am fine today, finally. I missed 3 days of work this week; 2 because of my sickness and today because the weather is getting nasty. So I am making the most of it by posting another blog and sending out a message of love and inspiration to you. You guys are all so good to us. The people that have sent care packages, and you know who you are and those many of you who have sent e-mails and letters, have really blessed our hearts.
Many of you have heard that we have a few students staying with us because of their mothers lack of funds to pay for housing for them. We have decided that because of the shear size of our house that we would open our doors to them and give them a free place to stay.
This has been one of the most rewarding parts of our service thus far. I see in a personal way the way I am able to influence these kids to make good decisions and teach them discipline in their lives. We are also able to provide them with new foods and experiences that they would not normally have (pizza, lentil burgers, stir-fry, etc.). It is really a neat little family we have founded here. In many ways I feel that we get more out of them than they get from us.
Peace Corps service is filled with all sorts of highs and lows. This year we have been stuck in the monotonous routine of daily schedules like many of you back home and have experienced all sorts of interesting and strange cultural interaction that is far from the normative. I want to share a letter that a friend and colleague wrote some time ago. She is far more insightful and reflective on life here, than I have been in the numerous blogs I have written. I hope you enjoy her letter and that it gives you a small picture as to life here.
Just so you know you can write us anytime regarding any questions you have and I would love to expound on them in detail. Love you all
Jason
Taken from http://www.bu.edu/africa/outreach/outside_do.html
Knowledge is like a baobab tree -- no two hands can encompass it." (Ghanaian proverb)
March 24, 2007
Public Letter #7:
"What Can I Send You?"
This letter is tough to write and maybe tough to read. It's my answer to your question, "What can I send you? What do you need?" Maybe you've asked it and maybe I've answered, "Soccer balls for children. Sports bras for teen girls on the track team. Easy-to-read books for students and 2007 calendars for schools. Hands-on activity books for teachers."
But these are not things that people in my village truly need. They are short-gap answers – things that you can send and I can give that make both of us, as Americans, feel good, feel like we've addressed, in some small way, the poverty that is Africa.
But poverty is huge, grinding, complex, layered. It has no easy solution. The soccer balls get confiscated by older kids or punctured on barbed wire fences. The girls' running team disbands because the teacher is "sick." Books are locked away in the principal's office. A teacher decides she has no time to do hands-on learning activities because she's pressured to keep up with the syllabus.
It's like giving a child candy – the pleasure is momentary, for the child and the giver. The candy solves no major problem, perhaps even creates one.
What Kids Need is Education
What the children need is education – school fees and school texts for secondary school, school shoes and school uniforms for standards (grades) 1-12. School uniforms cost $10 - $30; shoes cost $10-$30 and feet keep growing; a year of high school texts costs $35; high school fees range from $150 to $800/year, depending on the school. These are huge amounts for a country whose people live on $1 or $2/day = just $400-$1000/year. I remember the Tibetan community trying to get us Madisonians each to support one child in Daramsala, northern India, for $245/year. While it was an attractive idea for me, I never did it. I figured I was putting out thousands of dollars a year for "my own" Tibetan refugee family, and that was enough.
Like you, I also saw the "Adopt a Child" ads in the back of magazines. Now I'm at the other side of those glossy photos, and I see that "adopting a child" truly makes a difference in a child's life. Education is one answer. If you want to help one child, send money to Friends of Lesotho. They are helping us Peace Corps Volunteers provide high school scholarships – we can each nominate five village children, and I've already located my five. Each will receive 500 Rand ($90) toward school fees – a great program. ( www.friendsoflesotho.org) Mention my name. Maybe we can get 100 drop-outs and orphans back in school.
What Adults Need Are Jobs
But Lesotho doesn't need to save one child – it needs to support 100,000 orphans, and to give education to ALL its children. To do this, yes, it needs help from outside Lesotho. But the country needs jobs. Parents want to support and educate their OWN children and the nieces and nephews of their sisters and brothers who've died, who've they promised, on deathbeds, in tears, that yes, they'd look after the children. So it's jobs we need, if we're to educate children.
And where are the jobs? For Basotho people, jobs are not in Lesotho. Just a few government jobs, which are shabby, which lack the infrastructure that makes government effective, and which invite "dipping into the till." Oh, one can be a driver of taxi's, or a farmer, or a shop keeper, but here we're talking about eeking by – taking the small, sweating coins of one's neighbors.
There are jobs in South Africa – grueling jobs in the diamond or copper mines or in textile factories owned by the Chinese. There are jobs in America – for doctors, scientists, professors. So Lesotho sends its strong and able men, its educated men and women, far away. Do they come back? Do they better Lesotho? They do, but it's not a viable solution. The men in South Africa come back shells of men, and they bring HIV/AIDS. The sisters and brothers in America help younger siblings come to America, leaving elderly mothers in the village, without help for everyday chores, without daughters and sons for everyday laughter.
The World Steals from Africa
Lesotho is a country / Africa is a continent stripped of resources, from its diamonds and spices and endangered species to its doctors and nurses and writers. The world has taken from Africa, but not given back. It's a continent of 52 countries, unconnected by highways, airports, trains or train tracks, ships or shipping companies. A company from China or Germany opens a factory here, creates "jobs" (cheap labor). The company does not build an Interstate highway. It builds a little highway or water way that is unashamedly direct – from the factory to the port, or from the factory to the airport. It must make a profit; it cannot afford to build a road for the "people."
It's easy for Americans to think of Africa being poor, a wasteland, a pit of problems. It's harder for us to acknowledge or research how much of our greatness, how much of our wealth came and continues to come from African mines, mountains, veldts. It's harder to count how many nurses and doctors in our hospitals and HMO's come from countries with African names, how many professors in our in our universities represent the best and brightest of their own countries. It's harder yet to see how inter-locking directorates of global corporations (South African Airlines / Shell Oil / KFC / banks) skim the cream off the continent. Africa staffs and supplies not just North America, but also South America, China, Europe.
So, yes, please keep sending the soccer balls and children's books. But know they are not really what my village needs.
What My Village Needs
It is hard for you to send initiative and problem solving skills. That's what my village needs. When you think how you yourself learned "initiative" and "problem solving", you'll think of a long line of experiences, tiny successes that came from kindergarten (which we don't have here), summer camp (which we don't have here), sports teams (which we don't have here), singing in a musical or acting in a play (no after-school activities here), or the attention of a gifted teacher or doting relative (which hardly exist in this adult-impoverished society).
The hardest time of day for me here is 4 pm in the afternoon. I usually need to walk uptown to buy some tomatoes or to go to the post office. Schools are out, and the road is lined with kids, still in their school uniforms, with NOTHING to do. They just "hang." Well, teens everywhere like to hang, talk to best friends, call out and tease classmates, flirt with the older boys (taxi drivers), smoke their first cigarettes. But teens in many other countries have options – they can work on a computer; play on a soccer team; do homework using charts, graphs, calculators, magic markers, glitter; go to a mall; read a magazine in a library. They can take ballet or piano lessons or play in a garage band. They might own or be able to use a camera, an i-pod, a CD player, a camera phone. All these create early experiences with initiative and problem solving.
My high school teacher Volunteer friend Sara up the hill says that when she gives her kids an assignment to compose, "How I'd solve Lesotho's problems if I were Prime Minister," they all write, "I'd ask America for more money."
In Lesotho, problem solving and funding and new projects come from the Outside. Someone like me turns up (virtually unsolicited), in a village so people ask, "What can you give us?" That was what I encountered my first day here (Public Letter #4 – One Day Down, 724 to Go). It's what I meet daily, in various forms. Kids say, "Give me money?" "Give me candy?" Adults say, "When are you going to invite me to dinner?" "When are you going to do a workshop at my school?"
What White People Are Good For
White people arepeople who are here briefly, who go away, who somehow have access to resources that the village doesn't. Get what you can, while you can.
Peace Corps asks us to create SUSTAINABLE projects. The country is a skeleton of past projects brought by various NGO's (non-governmental organizations like Red Cross or World Vision, etc.) Clinics unstaffed; empty teacher resource centers used as a place to urinate; shells of buildings with peeling signs in front of them, like "GDZ Germany Seedling Center" or "Community Sewing School." The volunteer leaves, the project collapses.
It's not because people are lazy – it's because they are not skilled, not confident, not persistent, don't have telephone networks and acquaintance networks and computer networks to put them in touch with real help. Volunteers can start a project; we can seldom stick around to maintain it.
What I call "initiative" and "problem solving skills" are in reality skills built on huge, interlinked infrastructure systems. Infrastructure – it's a boring word – but it's what my village needs. Roads that lead somewhere; a public official who can get you a service you need; a service that is hooked to other services.
The idea that a Peace Corps Volunteer can do anything more than be friendly to neighborhood kids and teach a few people a few things is pretty ridiculous. Do we need 10,000 computers – which I might write a grant for? No – we need 10,000,000 computers. Do we need 2,000 trees planted – which I might help with? No – we need 2,000,000,000 trees planted. Do we need South Africa to complete Phase II of the Katze Dam and pay us $2.65 million Rand a year for the water? No – we need South Africa to help us train a generation of hydro-engineers, so we can manage our own damn dam, and by the way, the price should be $2.65 million Rand per day, not per year.
That's what we need. Some hard negotiators who quit giving away the continent.
And Now for The Good News
To end on a positive note – two items:I recently sent a set of 90 slides on a CD for a PowerPoint presentation for the Wisconsin Council for the Social Studies conference. We did a "live by telephone" interconnect, with me yakking in the background on a speaker phone, while the slides cycled through. What I tried to show in the slides was the absolute, stark beauty of this country, and the joy and resourcefulness of children. Children here, without "options" or "infrastructure" and with few adults in their lives, create volumes of laughter, joy, fun, games. They are strong, lovely, imaginative. The slides show them building clay animals with mud from the river, playing games with old wheel rims, playing dolls and house with scraps from the trash heap. They are merry and strong. I think many American kids would love their freedom to roam, and their dawn-to-dusk days outdoors amidst majestic mountains and bleating baby goats and meandering river gullies.
With a bit of inquiry (initiative, problem solving), I think you can get your hands on a copy of the CD, if you'd like to see it or to show it to your kids.
The second positive thought I have about what you can "do" for Africa is what you are already doing – loving children and giving them genuine attention, building stronger local communities with community planning and recycling, teaching problem solving and initiative, being empathetic, working to end the wars in Iraq and in the Sudan, writing me letters to reflect on our shared lives on this planet. These are the things that matter, that in the long run help Africa and help America. Africa's problems will be solved by a world of educated and empathetic people, by a planet not racked by global warming, by governments not at war, by a sense that we are a global community and must reprioritize resources for "people."
What can I send YOU?
I send you love from Lesotho. Autumn is on its way. The mornings are now often chilly. Inside my rondavel the candle is burning; the two teen boys who live with 'M'e Mabokang in the big(ger) house are laughing, bringing buckets of water. Our rooster is crowing. A new day dawns.
Madeline / Sesotho name "M'e Lerato" (Lerato = Love)
NOTE ADDRESS**:1/2007 – 11/30/08
Madeline Uraneck / ('M'e Lerato)
PO Box 172Mt. Morosi, 750 LESOTHO AFRICA
E-mail – for best results e-mail it AND air mail it. 90 cents to air mail a letter from USA to Lesothoglobalmaddy@gmail.com (I get to Internet sites only rarely)
After 1/2009:C/o Marilee Sushoreba1818 Adams StreetMadison WI 53711 *** USA(608) 255-0772 E-mail: msushore@facstaff.wisc.edu**
(Any mail previously sent to Maseru will reach me, don't worry)
PREVIOUS PUBLIC LETTERS
Request them (one or two – not all) from my sister Susan in Oregon: s_uraneck@yahoo.com
1. First Impressions (November 11, 2006) – via e-mail
2. First Impressions, Continued: A Mountain Village (November 16, 2006) - hand-written
3. HIV/AIDS in Lesotho (December 4, 2006) – via e-mailPublished in WorldView Magazine
4. What's Your Name? 4 Weeks in a Basotho Village (December 31, 2006) – via e-mail
5. One Day Down: 724 to go (January 3, 2007) – via e-mail
6. Collecting Best Days (February 26, 2007) – via e-mail
7. What Can I Send You? (March 24, 2007) – via e-mail
Monday, October 22, 2007
Why I hate being sick...
October 22, 2007 (written by Jason)
So today I am sick. Yeah I know we all get sick it is just part of life. But this is the annoying sick. Not the debilitating sick that some of us get from time to time. This is the swollen throat, itchy eyes, achy muscles sick that could go one of two ways. It could be done and over with tomorrow, to where I feel good enough to return to work. Or I could slide farther down into the hole that is sick and not get out of bed. Now if I had my choice I would rather go to work tomorrow. Sure there might not be a lot to do there (I mean there is tons to do but very little that gets done), but it sure beats sitting around the house all day. Even if I did get the internet back up!
That does rock by the way! Now I can hear from you. Tell me about the worst time you got sick. Where were you? Did you have anybody to take care of you? Give me the gory details. I hope that this at least makes you laugh!
And I hope too that tomorrow finds me on my way to school and not stuck trying to stay warm eating soup and lying around.
All the best
Jason
So today I am sick. Yeah I know we all get sick it is just part of life. But this is the annoying sick. Not the debilitating sick that some of us get from time to time. This is the swollen throat, itchy eyes, achy muscles sick that could go one of two ways. It could be done and over with tomorrow, to where I feel good enough to return to work. Or I could slide farther down into the hole that is sick and not get out of bed. Now if I had my choice I would rather go to work tomorrow. Sure there might not be a lot to do there (I mean there is tons to do but very little that gets done), but it sure beats sitting around the house all day. Even if I did get the internet back up!
That does rock by the way! Now I can hear from you. Tell me about the worst time you got sick. Where were you? Did you have anybody to take care of you? Give me the gory details. I hope that this at least makes you laugh!
And I hope too that tomorrow finds me on my way to school and not stuck trying to stay warm eating soup and lying around.
All the best
Jason
Sunday, October 21, 2007
October 21, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Well I am in Maseru and will be here all week! If you want to send an email, I'll be likely to respond! Yes, we are still alive despite the absence of a new blog post! :) Here is what we've written recently (one from Jason and a boring one from me).
October 20, 2007(written by Jason)
Hello to all my peeps out there in cyberland! This is Jason coming at you for the first time in 2 months or so. What is up with that? I promised that I would do my best to be on top of blogging so that I would make sure that you weren’t left out in the cold as to what is going on with us. I have failed you all and for that I am deeply sorry.
But now I have the chance to make up for lost time. I am going to come to you with a super long special edition (that most of you will probably just ignore anyway! he he he). As you can tell I am in kind of a giddy mood this morning. I made pancakes and coffee and that just puts in me in a good mood I guess. This is also the first blog that I am writing from the laptop that my parents lugged to Lesotho on their vacation, but I am getting way ahead of myself.
These last few months flew by with my birthday, my family coming to visit and lots of other little activities thrown in to keep us exceedingly busy. Way back in the beginning of September, the Education group of 2005-2007 had their COS (close of service) conference. I got a chance to be there as I am part of the group known as PSN (peer support network) to do a session on grief and loss. It sounds like a crappy topic to talk about but it is really important as Peace Corps volunteers we are thrown in the midst of a hectic life and have very few opportunities to actually reflect about what we are going through and what that means to us a people in the great big world. It was a great session and I cried (if you know me you know that is really not that strange. I cry at Kodak commercials like Lloyd and Harry in Dumb and Dumber).
After that, we had my birthday party. I can’t believe that I am already 28 years old. I know that for some of you out there that 28 seems very young and that you would give your right ear (or maybe a finger nail) to be 28 again. However to me, 28 is getting up there. Most of my friends, from what I hear are already having their second or third child, while Janeen and I are still globe trotting, playing development worker and what not. It is not that I am not happy about that but I definitely won’t be a millionaire before 30, unless something drastic happens in the year when I get home. But that is ok too. Too much pressure sometimes is put on making money and not enough is put on living life and that is definitely what Janeen and I are doing. We are making the most of our crazy lives and are having a blast doing it.
Lesotho as we have said has had a rather large drought for some time. Well the day after my family arrived for their vacation with us, the heavens decided that it was time for a thorough soaking of this parched country. My brother claims that he has a direct line to God and that his prayers made the difference. We seem to think that God was just impressed to hear from Mike and decided to show him what was up. The funny part is since it started raining, it hasn’t really let up. I mean some rain is good; a lot of rain is better but flooding rains, come on already. My buddy up the hill or mountain lives in a village that you have to cross a river by boat to get there and he said that 2 people have drowned in the last month. So thanks a lot Mike!! Way to go!
More about my family's visit. What can I tell you? They came, they saw, they cried…The story behind this is that my school that I work for wanted to do something nice for my family. So, they put the whole school in the large building and had songs and speeches, a traditional way to honor people in this culture. Then at the end of the celebration, they brought out some gifts for my mom and my brothers fiancé. This was when the water works turned on. I mean they went for it too. It was at this time that my teachers began to worry that they had insulted my family or something. You see, crying is not that common amongst adults here except at funerals or if your football team loses. So when they saw them crying when they brought out the gifts, they got a very frightened looks on their faces. I had to explain that they were crying out of happiness and that they should not be worried. This seemed to amuse them, but I don’t think that they really fully believed me.
We had a great time traveling around in our little car, seeing many parts of the Southern Africa region before they had to head back home. It was really a great time to be together even if my parents did think that they were going into the middle of the bush. In case I haven’t said this in the past, Lesotho is not the bush. It is sparsely vegetated and even less so after a long drought. So if you think that I have to hack my way through the jungle to get to school, readjust your radar to think of something like New Mexico or Arizona.
Now we are back into somewhat normal life here. I am clocking the KM away on my bike as I have ridden it 9 times in the last 14 days. School is also winding down for us and I am trying to get my teachers to start preparing for next year and the years after that by encouraging small changes to the way they teach. This week for example, I taught my class 1/2 teacher to do a morning introduction activity that involved the date, the weather, the alphabet and some songs. It sounds rather basic but this was a huge improvement for this teacher. She loves it, the kids love it and I am just glad to see them doing something that I recommend. All in all a pretty big success in a land with few success to be had.
Just so you know, my family is thinking about putting together a project to help my school. I will be writing more about that including putting the proposal up in the following weeks. If you are interested in helping, shoot me an e-mail and I can give you more details. Until then please don’t forget to write (e-mail, snail mail, carrier pigeon, whatever). We love getting little notes hearing what you are up to. Also make sure to pass these sites on to your friends and let them know that some people are somewhere doing something… I think
All the best, Jason
October 11, 2007(written by Janeen)
Well we have been back in Lesotho for four days. It was great to see Mom & Dad Sam as well as Mike and his fiancée Heidi (we really like her by the way). We did some site-seeing in Lesotho and then headed to South Africa, where we went to Durban, followed by St. Lucia where we went on some game drives. Unfortunately we only saw 2 (buffalo and rhino) out of the “Big 5” animals. The elephants, lions, and leopards were hiding that day. We saw A LOT of deer, different types too. We also saw some baboons, monkeys, zebra, and giraffe. It was pretty impressive to just be driving along and seeing these animals right next to the car. The last stop was Swaziland. We were all impressed with Swaziland. I thought that it would be a lot like Lesotho, and there were many similarities, but overall I would say that Swaziland is more developed. We stayed at Mvubu Falls Hotel, went craft shopping, and also hiked to the falls.
The trip of course had to come to an end. Last Sunday we made the ever so pleasant 6 hour trip from Johannesburg to Maseru cramped in a 15 passenger taxi with our bags (and all the other passenger’s bags). Fortunately Jason and I packed VERY light. We each only brought a small backpack. We’ve gotten quite used to wearing our clothes more than once. It was hard saying good-bye knowing that it will be over a year before we see them again AND knowing that Mike & Heidi will be married by the time we come home. It’s been a challenge getting back into the swing of things.
I only have one month left of the school year. We went 2 weeks longer over the winter and now we will have an extra long summer break! I still have a lot I want to cover before school is out, but the break will be VERY nice because Kelly is coming for a visit at the end of November and my family is coming in December. Plus I have some activities I want to develop for next year that I just don’t have the energy to complete after school.
I will be in Maseru for an entire week beginning Oct. 21st through the 26th (that means I’ll have internet access all week if you want to email). I will be working on developing some lesson plans and helping prepare for the next group of education volunteers who will arrive in November, which means that we have almost been here a year. It’s crazy because it feels like it has gone so quickly, but yet we are only about ½ way done. We still REALLY miss family and friends too. I do have to mention that our mail has been trickling down. There are only about 3 or 4 people who still mail on a somewhat regular basis, and just so you know my letter writing policy states that “I will only write to those who write to us! AND I’ll send birthday cards if I know when your birthday is.” So if you haven’t gotten a letter from us, (or pretty much, me…Jason MIGHT tag a short note at the end) it’s because you haven’t written us!
OK enough of the guilt trip. We hope all is going well in your half of the hemisphere. By the way we finally got rain! It had been dry for quite some time. We had a lake at the bottom of our mountain that had completely dried up, animals had started to die of dehydration, but the rains have finally blessed us. In fact we had a short shower today. We hope it keeps up!Love you and miss you all!
October 20, 2007(written by Jason)
Hello to all my peeps out there in cyberland! This is Jason coming at you for the first time in 2 months or so. What is up with that? I promised that I would do my best to be on top of blogging so that I would make sure that you weren’t left out in the cold as to what is going on with us. I have failed you all and for that I am deeply sorry.
But now I have the chance to make up for lost time. I am going to come to you with a super long special edition (that most of you will probably just ignore anyway! he he he). As you can tell I am in kind of a giddy mood this morning. I made pancakes and coffee and that just puts in me in a good mood I guess. This is also the first blog that I am writing from the laptop that my parents lugged to Lesotho on their vacation, but I am getting way ahead of myself.
These last few months flew by with my birthday, my family coming to visit and lots of other little activities thrown in to keep us exceedingly busy. Way back in the beginning of September, the Education group of 2005-2007 had their COS (close of service) conference. I got a chance to be there as I am part of the group known as PSN (peer support network) to do a session on grief and loss. It sounds like a crappy topic to talk about but it is really important as Peace Corps volunteers we are thrown in the midst of a hectic life and have very few opportunities to actually reflect about what we are going through and what that means to us a people in the great big world. It was a great session and I cried (if you know me you know that is really not that strange. I cry at Kodak commercials like Lloyd and Harry in Dumb and Dumber).
After that, we had my birthday party. I can’t believe that I am already 28 years old. I know that for some of you out there that 28 seems very young and that you would give your right ear (or maybe a finger nail) to be 28 again. However to me, 28 is getting up there. Most of my friends, from what I hear are already having their second or third child, while Janeen and I are still globe trotting, playing development worker and what not. It is not that I am not happy about that but I definitely won’t be a millionaire before 30, unless something drastic happens in the year when I get home. But that is ok too. Too much pressure sometimes is put on making money and not enough is put on living life and that is definitely what Janeen and I are doing. We are making the most of our crazy lives and are having a blast doing it.
Lesotho as we have said has had a rather large drought for some time. Well the day after my family arrived for their vacation with us, the heavens decided that it was time for a thorough soaking of this parched country. My brother claims that he has a direct line to God and that his prayers made the difference. We seem to think that God was just impressed to hear from Mike and decided to show him what was up. The funny part is since it started raining, it hasn’t really let up. I mean some rain is good; a lot of rain is better but flooding rains, come on already. My buddy up the hill or mountain lives in a village that you have to cross a river by boat to get there and he said that 2 people have drowned in the last month. So thanks a lot Mike!! Way to go!
More about my family's visit. What can I tell you? They came, they saw, they cried…The story behind this is that my school that I work for wanted to do something nice for my family. So, they put the whole school in the large building and had songs and speeches, a traditional way to honor people in this culture. Then at the end of the celebration, they brought out some gifts for my mom and my brothers fiancé. This was when the water works turned on. I mean they went for it too. It was at this time that my teachers began to worry that they had insulted my family or something. You see, crying is not that common amongst adults here except at funerals or if your football team loses. So when they saw them crying when they brought out the gifts, they got a very frightened looks on their faces. I had to explain that they were crying out of happiness and that they should not be worried. This seemed to amuse them, but I don’t think that they really fully believed me.
We had a great time traveling around in our little car, seeing many parts of the Southern Africa region before they had to head back home. It was really a great time to be together even if my parents did think that they were going into the middle of the bush. In case I haven’t said this in the past, Lesotho is not the bush. It is sparsely vegetated and even less so after a long drought. So if you think that I have to hack my way through the jungle to get to school, readjust your radar to think of something like New Mexico or Arizona.
Now we are back into somewhat normal life here. I am clocking the KM away on my bike as I have ridden it 9 times in the last 14 days. School is also winding down for us and I am trying to get my teachers to start preparing for next year and the years after that by encouraging small changes to the way they teach. This week for example, I taught my class 1/2 teacher to do a morning introduction activity that involved the date, the weather, the alphabet and some songs. It sounds rather basic but this was a huge improvement for this teacher. She loves it, the kids love it and I am just glad to see them doing something that I recommend. All in all a pretty big success in a land with few success to be had.
Just so you know, my family is thinking about putting together a project to help my school. I will be writing more about that including putting the proposal up in the following weeks. If you are interested in helping, shoot me an e-mail and I can give you more details. Until then please don’t forget to write (e-mail, snail mail, carrier pigeon, whatever). We love getting little notes hearing what you are up to. Also make sure to pass these sites on to your friends and let them know that some people are somewhere doing something… I think
All the best, Jason
October 11, 2007(written by Janeen)
Well we have been back in Lesotho for four days. It was great to see Mom & Dad Sam as well as Mike and his fiancée Heidi (we really like her by the way). We did some site-seeing in Lesotho and then headed to South Africa, where we went to Durban, followed by St. Lucia where we went on some game drives. Unfortunately we only saw 2 (buffalo and rhino) out of the “Big 5” animals. The elephants, lions, and leopards were hiding that day. We saw A LOT of deer, different types too. We also saw some baboons, monkeys, zebra, and giraffe. It was pretty impressive to just be driving along and seeing these animals right next to the car. The last stop was Swaziland. We were all impressed with Swaziland. I thought that it would be a lot like Lesotho, and there were many similarities, but overall I would say that Swaziland is more developed. We stayed at Mvubu Falls Hotel, went craft shopping, and also hiked to the falls.
The trip of course had to come to an end. Last Sunday we made the ever so pleasant 6 hour trip from Johannesburg to Maseru cramped in a 15 passenger taxi with our bags (and all the other passenger’s bags). Fortunately Jason and I packed VERY light. We each only brought a small backpack. We’ve gotten quite used to wearing our clothes more than once. It was hard saying good-bye knowing that it will be over a year before we see them again AND knowing that Mike & Heidi will be married by the time we come home. It’s been a challenge getting back into the swing of things.
I only have one month left of the school year. We went 2 weeks longer over the winter and now we will have an extra long summer break! I still have a lot I want to cover before school is out, but the break will be VERY nice because Kelly is coming for a visit at the end of November and my family is coming in December. Plus I have some activities I want to develop for next year that I just don’t have the energy to complete after school.
I will be in Maseru for an entire week beginning Oct. 21st through the 26th (that means I’ll have internet access all week if you want to email). I will be working on developing some lesson plans and helping prepare for the next group of education volunteers who will arrive in November, which means that we have almost been here a year. It’s crazy because it feels like it has gone so quickly, but yet we are only about ½ way done. We still REALLY miss family and friends too. I do have to mention that our mail has been trickling down. There are only about 3 or 4 people who still mail on a somewhat regular basis, and just so you know my letter writing policy states that “I will only write to those who write to us! AND I’ll send birthday cards if I know when your birthday is.” So if you haven’t gotten a letter from us, (or pretty much, me…Jason MIGHT tag a short note at the end) it’s because you haven’t written us!
OK enough of the guilt trip. We hope all is going well in your half of the hemisphere. By the way we finally got rain! It had been dry for quite some time. We had a lake at the bottom of our mountain that had completely dried up, animals had started to die of dehydration, but the rains have finally blessed us. In fact we had a short shower today. We hope it keeps up!Love you and miss you all!
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
September 2, 2007 (written by Janeen)
YIPPEE! Today is hot! Ok I bet all you are still experiencing some temps in the 100s, but I am happy to see the warmth of spring and am even excited for summer to come!
Things here are going well. Next weekend we are having a little celebration for Jason’s birthday. It will be a little early, but what can you do when your birthday is on a Tuesday and your closest (geographically) friends live at least an hour or more away via public transport, which means it could be SEVERAL hours away? After the bash, my school is having a pageant and a talent show. We are having this event to raise funds for the 30th anniversary celebration that my school will have on the 6th of October. They think that the king will come to the anniversary celebration and want to make the place look spiffy as well as have some nice eats. SO… we have to raise funds to do so. One fundraiser fizzled, but I think we can try it again. We only raised 60 rand (the equivalent of just less than $10) in a photo taking fundraiser. My guess was that many kids had not budgeted to spend 5 rand on a photo. Many students went home this weekend so maybe they will want to buy a photo for 5 rand this week! On Friday we raised 800 rand by charging students a 2 rand entrance fee to watch a movie. Jason and I suggested this a LONG time ago. We wanted them to buy a projector and pay for the projector by showing movies. NOW that they see a need for it, it sounds like a good idea. This time they just had three TV screens. Maybe they’ll rethink our idea after the 30th celebration. Anyway, so the Miss Tšakholo pageant and talent show will be this Saturday. I think it will go well. I am helping to coordinate it, but the prefects are the ones who are really putting on the show. One class is organizing a raffle too-- all this to raise funds for the 30th celebration. It’s funny to me that they make a big deal over this event, but only left 2 months to plan it---including raising funds! I’m sure things will turn out fine, but will just be busy until then.
So today as I put on a nice, strapless summer dress that Jason bought me for our anniversary, I felt almost naked. The dress comes down to my knees (which haven’t seen much sunlight since maybe May) and exposing my upper chest and arms is just so strange. Anyway, that made me start thinking about the expectations that I had before coming here. Many of my expectations are false and made me laugh at myself a bit.
For example:
I thought that I might want to wear socks with all my shoes because it would be so dirty here…false. (Socks with dress shoes… what was I thinking?!?)
I thought that I would not care about what I look like… false. (My colleagues often dress WAY better than I do. Though there is some truth to this statement. I hardly ever wear make-up and during the winter I didn’t care if anything matched as long as I was warm!)
I thought I would not shave my legs… false. (I just can’t stand the itching AND my legs are pretty hairy even if it is blond!)
I thought that I would gain weight from eating a heavy starch diet… false. (I have actually lost weight and don’t eat the traditional Basotho food every day thus minimizing my starches)
I thought I would be living without electricity and running water… false (though I am not sad that I don’t have to make that sacrifice)
I thought that pit latrines would just be holes in the ground that you have to crouch down over to use the toilet… false (pit latrines actually have a toilet seat)
I thought I would become fluent in Sesotho…false (I teach English, hence I speak English. My Sesotho has probably decreased since training)
I thought I would have to wear dresses and skirts all the time… false (thankfully! We had to wear them in training and I was missing pants)
I thought that I would be teaching the beginning of English language…false (Most of my students have a basic level of English. I just have to improve it and help them understand their reading)
I’m sure there are more expectations I had that turned out to be false, but those are all I can think of right now.
Things here are going well. Next weekend we are having a little celebration for Jason’s birthday. It will be a little early, but what can you do when your birthday is on a Tuesday and your closest (geographically) friends live at least an hour or more away via public transport, which means it could be SEVERAL hours away? After the bash, my school is having a pageant and a talent show. We are having this event to raise funds for the 30th anniversary celebration that my school will have on the 6th of October. They think that the king will come to the anniversary celebration and want to make the place look spiffy as well as have some nice eats. SO… we have to raise funds to do so. One fundraiser fizzled, but I think we can try it again. We only raised 60 rand (the equivalent of just less than $10) in a photo taking fundraiser. My guess was that many kids had not budgeted to spend 5 rand on a photo. Many students went home this weekend so maybe they will want to buy a photo for 5 rand this week! On Friday we raised 800 rand by charging students a 2 rand entrance fee to watch a movie. Jason and I suggested this a LONG time ago. We wanted them to buy a projector and pay for the projector by showing movies. NOW that they see a need for it, it sounds like a good idea. This time they just had three TV screens. Maybe they’ll rethink our idea after the 30th celebration. Anyway, so the Miss Tšakholo pageant and talent show will be this Saturday. I think it will go well. I am helping to coordinate it, but the prefects are the ones who are really putting on the show. One class is organizing a raffle too-- all this to raise funds for the 30th celebration. It’s funny to me that they make a big deal over this event, but only left 2 months to plan it---including raising funds! I’m sure things will turn out fine, but will just be busy until then.
So today as I put on a nice, strapless summer dress that Jason bought me for our anniversary, I felt almost naked. The dress comes down to my knees (which haven’t seen much sunlight since maybe May) and exposing my upper chest and arms is just so strange. Anyway, that made me start thinking about the expectations that I had before coming here. Many of my expectations are false and made me laugh at myself a bit.
For example:
I thought that I might want to wear socks with all my shoes because it would be so dirty here…false. (Socks with dress shoes… what was I thinking?!?)
I thought that I would not care about what I look like… false. (My colleagues often dress WAY better than I do. Though there is some truth to this statement. I hardly ever wear make-up and during the winter I didn’t care if anything matched as long as I was warm!)
I thought I would not shave my legs… false. (I just can’t stand the itching AND my legs are pretty hairy even if it is blond!)
I thought that I would gain weight from eating a heavy starch diet… false. (I have actually lost weight and don’t eat the traditional Basotho food every day thus minimizing my starches)
I thought I would be living without electricity and running water… false (though I am not sad that I don’t have to make that sacrifice)
I thought that pit latrines would just be holes in the ground that you have to crouch down over to use the toilet… false (pit latrines actually have a toilet seat)
I thought I would become fluent in Sesotho…false (I teach English, hence I speak English. My Sesotho has probably decreased since training)
I thought I would have to wear dresses and skirts all the time… false (thankfully! We had to wear them in training and I was missing pants)
I thought that I would be teaching the beginning of English language…false (Most of my students have a basic level of English. I just have to improve it and help them understand their reading)
I’m sure there are more expectations I had that turned out to be false, but those are all I can think of right now.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
August 16, 2007 (written by Janeen)
Good news! Today some girls in form C really put a smile on my face. I have received some books from home to add to the school library. Thankfully, I did not have to start a library from the beginning. At least there was something already in place that I get to help enhance. Anyway, my parents and grandparents have both sent some books. It has taken me some time to get them into the library (about a month) because I had to rearrange a bit, stamp the books with the school stamp, and glue in a small piece of paper for the return dates (plus it was winter break). Today 3 girls came in to check out a book and they squealed with excitement when I told them that there were new books. I couldn’t help but smile as they oohed and ahed over the new books. They were so excited that they had a hard time deciding which book they wanted to check out! So that made me feel good. Even if the library is often a disaster and many students can’t put the books away properly—I guess it is good that they are reading!
I just wrote a grant from Friends of Lesotho, and I was granted 500 rand to purchase different colored stickers to put on the spines of books. They are already in categories, but students have a hard time putting them back where they found them. So, I am hoping that the new color coded sticker system will help in maintaining the organization of the library. The idea is to create a system that will be easy to manage and someone will actually keep it up when I leave!
Other than that I am keeping busy. My form A students wrote their first quarter 3 exam yesterday. I am already half way done with the grading! Yippee! No composition this time though, so that always makes it easier. My form B students will write their first quarter 3 exam next week and they will have a composition. I am also working on developing a rubric so that I can be consistent when I grade the compositions and so that the students can know what to expect. I will share this with my colleagues too. It seems that I always have something to do and am working constantly from 7:40 until 4:30 everyday with almost no breaks in between. Then of course at 4:30 its just about time to start preparing dinner as well as dish out punishments to students who have not done their assignments! I’m often tired at 6:30, when we have just finished dinner and the dishes. We have been crawling into bed then and watching a DVD. It is still pretty cold at night, so it’s really the only warm spot! Did I mention it is REALLY hard to get out of bed at night?
Oh yeah! I also got nominated to be on the party planning committee to plan the 30th celebration of our school. I was not too excited about that, but the way they do it here is not very democratic. Here is how the meeting went. “We need a committee of teachers and I want to spend roughly 15,000 rand to throw this party. The committee will plan the program and find funds for the event. The planning needs not interfere with classes.”—headmaster. “We need to all use our outside resources to fund this”—head of English dept. “The committee members also need to be responsible”—teacher. “I nominate M’e Janeen”—deputy headmaster. “I second that”—another teacher… and BOOM I am on the committee along with 7 other staff members. One teacher appealed, but someone had already seconded that she be on the committee and of course she is on it whether she likes it or not! We’ve been meeting often, which means I have less time to work on my other mini-projects, but oh well. I am here as a volunteer at the school and this is what they want me doing. We’ve already planned a picture taking fundraiser—charging 5 rand per print when it costs 2. They are also going to show some movies and charge 2 rand as an entrance fee. We have written letters to businesses around to solicit funds as well. Apparently they want to raise funds to pay for the event initially and then any excess money they raise will be used towards development: like repairing the classrooms, building a science lab, etc. We’ll see what happens. At the event we may be selling T-shirts to raise funds as well as possibly doing an auction. We don’t have much time to plan this huge event as it will be on the 6th of October, so we’ll see what gets done. I have luckily stayed off the radar from taking any integral roles on the committee (i.e. chairperson, secretary, or treasurer).
Things are going well though! Jason is pretty busy too. He has been running to and from Maseru. Our funds have been interesting. We did take a nice vacation to Mauritius, and now we are 2 weeks away from being paid and we have about 575 rand left. I think we won’t starve, but we will probably have a larger than normal list of things we want when Sept. 1st rolls around! Peace Corps only pays us once every 3 months because all banks here charge a fee for EVERYTHING (deposits, withdrawals, ATM, going into the bank…everything!). So they save money by doing it that way, but it usually makes things tight around the last couple of weeks! Especially this time because we did a bit more visiting of other volunteers while we were out of school. Transport costs are usually the killer!
Well I guess it has been a while since I have written a blog and that is apparent by the way I have rambled on. So I hope I haven’t bored you too much!
Lots of love, Janeen
P.S. I had a really good lesson this week about question tags with my form B students. I get happy when that happens. That is really great, isn’t it?
I just wrote a grant from Friends of Lesotho, and I was granted 500 rand to purchase different colored stickers to put on the spines of books. They are already in categories, but students have a hard time putting them back where they found them. So, I am hoping that the new color coded sticker system will help in maintaining the organization of the library. The idea is to create a system that will be easy to manage and someone will actually keep it up when I leave!
Other than that I am keeping busy. My form A students wrote their first quarter 3 exam yesterday. I am already half way done with the grading! Yippee! No composition this time though, so that always makes it easier. My form B students will write their first quarter 3 exam next week and they will have a composition. I am also working on developing a rubric so that I can be consistent when I grade the compositions and so that the students can know what to expect. I will share this with my colleagues too. It seems that I always have something to do and am working constantly from 7:40 until 4:30 everyday with almost no breaks in between. Then of course at 4:30 its just about time to start preparing dinner as well as dish out punishments to students who have not done their assignments! I’m often tired at 6:30, when we have just finished dinner and the dishes. We have been crawling into bed then and watching a DVD. It is still pretty cold at night, so it’s really the only warm spot! Did I mention it is REALLY hard to get out of bed at night?
Oh yeah! I also got nominated to be on the party planning committee to plan the 30th celebration of our school. I was not too excited about that, but the way they do it here is not very democratic. Here is how the meeting went. “We need a committee of teachers and I want to spend roughly 15,000 rand to throw this party. The committee will plan the program and find funds for the event. The planning needs not interfere with classes.”—headmaster. “We need to all use our outside resources to fund this”—head of English dept. “The committee members also need to be responsible”—teacher. “I nominate M’e Janeen”—deputy headmaster. “I second that”—another teacher… and BOOM I am on the committee along with 7 other staff members. One teacher appealed, but someone had already seconded that she be on the committee and of course she is on it whether she likes it or not! We’ve been meeting often, which means I have less time to work on my other mini-projects, but oh well. I am here as a volunteer at the school and this is what they want me doing. We’ve already planned a picture taking fundraiser—charging 5 rand per print when it costs 2. They are also going to show some movies and charge 2 rand as an entrance fee. We have written letters to businesses around to solicit funds as well. Apparently they want to raise funds to pay for the event initially and then any excess money they raise will be used towards development: like repairing the classrooms, building a science lab, etc. We’ll see what happens. At the event we may be selling T-shirts to raise funds as well as possibly doing an auction. We don’t have much time to plan this huge event as it will be on the 6th of October, so we’ll see what gets done. I have luckily stayed off the radar from taking any integral roles on the committee (i.e. chairperson, secretary, or treasurer).
Things are going well though! Jason is pretty busy too. He has been running to and from Maseru. Our funds have been interesting. We did take a nice vacation to Mauritius, and now we are 2 weeks away from being paid and we have about 575 rand left. I think we won’t starve, but we will probably have a larger than normal list of things we want when Sept. 1st rolls around! Peace Corps only pays us once every 3 months because all banks here charge a fee for EVERYTHING (deposits, withdrawals, ATM, going into the bank…everything!). So they save money by doing it that way, but it usually makes things tight around the last couple of weeks! Especially this time because we did a bit more visiting of other volunteers while we were out of school. Transport costs are usually the killer!
Well I guess it has been a while since I have written a blog and that is apparent by the way I have rambled on. So I hope I haven’t bored you too much!
Lots of love, Janeen
P.S. I had a really good lesson this week about question tags with my form B students. I get happy when that happens. That is really great, isn’t it?
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