Teachers: Fisher! Where did you get that _______?
Me:America.
Teachers: Wowww, it’s so nice!       really, their _______ are a lot cuter than my nasty Peace Corps _______, but since it’s from America, it must be “so nice!”
Me: Well thank ya!
Teachers: Will you leave it for me when you go back toAmerica?
Me: laugh laugh…. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Well, it’s winter now, so naturally I am breaking out a lot of “new” clothes I haven’t worn yet. I wore my winter coat to school for the first time this week (not a cute coat… trust me).

Teachers: Fisher! What a nice coat! Where is it from?
Me:America.
Teachers: It’s so nice. You look like a Cheese Girl!
Me: Thanks…. wait, huh? What is a Cheese Girl!? by this point I am laughing
Teachers: A Cheese Girl. It’s a girl who is always eating cheese and polony (bologna, only nastier, if you can imagine).
Me: What does that mean?
Teachers: It means you’re rich! You look rich Fisher!

Man… if only eating a lot of cheese really meant I would be rich, I’d be set! Cheese Girl…. I could not stop laughing.

I’ve been looking forward to this break for an I’m-not-even-going-to-mention-how-long long period of time. School closes June 7^th and re-opens August 1^st. While the break is close to two months, I know this time is going to fly by. I am making my way home June 28^th for two weeks so I can see my sister get married (ahhh!) and we have a Peace Corps Workshop for a week before I leave for home. That really leaves only about one month of “break.” I hope to use the time to go visit my far away friends in Mokhotlong and Maseru, and I want/need to start drawing again, but I also need to be working on my secondary projects.

My goals for break are to make sixty mini-chalk board from pieces of wood (my amazing aunt sent me the paint and brushes). At the same time, I want to make two shelves to hang in my “kitchen.” Other Peace Corps projects are to solve all problems from the COSC Maths Exams in the past three years. I am doing this project with Kevin, and we hope to organize the questions based on subject matter and have full solutions to every problem for students and teachers to reference (yes, that’s right. Teachers. These problems are tough!). I also want to start taking inventory of books in the library and organizing them based on genre. My big project for my Peace Corps service is starting a fully functioning library at my school. I am applying for the books through an organization called the African Library Project and my application is due May 31^st. The books won’t arrive until March 2013, but I still have a lot of work to do in the meantime. The library is in a tiny room—I’m talking 3 meters by 3 meters—and I have to find a way to fit all of these books and seating for the students into this space. As a person with an architecture/design background, I’m stoked, but I also know it will not be easy! I need to come up with a plan, fundraise (eek!), and build everything in time for the books to get here. Anyways, I also need to start planning with my principal for his project he asked me for help with. He wants to start a piggery/chicken coop/garden in our community to employ the parents of the disabled children living in my village. I think this is a really cool idea (you’re all thinking “Caitlin Fisher starting a piggery…. what?!”) and we need to start applying for grants, coming up with a budget and project schedule, ect. So much to do!

…. P.S. Last weekend I took a hitch with a black market diamond seller. Bad ass!

The tar road goes along the perimeter of the country, but does not connect Mokhotlong to the southern districts. This tar road goes through all of the districts’ camp towns. To get from your camp town to your village you have two options:

Option 1: Take a “taxi”

This is really a large convi-van with four bench-seat rows and a seat in the front of the van. This taxi holds 15 passengers, legally, and legally only matters while you are inside the camp town. It does not leave until there are all 15 passengers, and often you end up waiting for at least an hour. The longest I’ve had to wait was three hours, but I know volunteers who have waited up to five hours for their taxi! During the ride, or the wait to leave, you’re crammed between some of the smelliest bo-ntate and some of the biggest bo-mme you’ve ever seen! There’s a good chance that some type of animal is also along for the ride with you (such as a box of puppies, a goat about to be slaughtered or sold, or a baby pig being carried on a lady’s back). You get the idea. My taxi takes about one-and-a-half hours to get to the taxi stop in my village, and from there it is about a half-hour walk to my house. There are “traffic police” posted outside most camp towns almost every day. They check to make sure the taxi is not overloaded and its tires are inflated. Once they clear that, it’s a free for all! The taxi will pick up anyone wanting a ride on the side of the road, and will cram four, sometimes five, people in a single row. The conductor (the guy who collects the money and tells the driver when and where to stop) is also floating around the taxi wherever there is space, so don’t be surprised if he is sitting in your lap or if his armpit is right in your face! The worst is when you are in a row of three and the driver pulls over. The door opens, and you see the woman who is about to get on. Yikes! Then, all of a sudden, there’s this huge ass coming towards ya, and it’s expected to fit between you and the person next to you! It’s like the music “eek-eek-eek” from the Bate’s Hotel should be playing. Oh wait, the worst is when the lady sitting next to you is picking her nose (very normal here) and darnit, she has nowhere to put those boogers, so she is forced to fling them in your direction (proof that Peace Corps training really does train you for everything). I guess I can’t make up my mind on what the worst is. What your guaranteed when you get on these taxis is a story. That’s for sure.

Option 2: You hitch!

I remember hearing that this is the most preferred method of getting around by other volunteers during training, and I was scared as hell! But, really, if you can hitch, you hitch. These “taxis” are uncomfortable, time consuming, and cost a lot of money! Before I knew it, I was sticking my finger out on the side of the road and cruising down the road in an air-conditioned Audi. The risk here is completely different than in the US. Like I said, there is only one tar road, so you always know where you are. Plus, most people do not own their own private car, so the people you are hitching with are a more educated and successful, and therefore less desperate group of people than those riding the taxis. Some of the best conversations and coolest people I’ve met here, I’ve met while hitching. The most memorable hitch is blasting “the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!” in a small truck with Kevin and this chubby jolly man and having a massive dance party on the way to Christmas in Katse. He even took us by his mother’s house, and she was even chubbier and jollier than he was! Saves you money, and you meet amazing people. What’s better than that?

Later of course I realized what he actually meant. He was just talking about a male chicken, and now this poor kid thinks there are no male chickens in America. Oh well, better than me having to say that I have a cock.

The other difficulty of the language is that there are noun-classes. Every noun belongs to a class, and from there you know which subject pronoun, possessive pronoun, adjectival prefix ect. to use. For example, the word moruti means priest and belongs to the singular person noun-class. Moruti oa ka o motle means the priest of mine is beautiful. If you want to say the katse, cat, is beautiful, then you say Katse ea ka e ntle. Lovely.

Other than that, the sentence structure is very simple. Verbs are not conjugated and have no subject/verb agreement. Many small words simply do not exist such as articles (a, an, the) and certain prepositions such as at. You say Ke lula Butha-Buthe for I live in Butha-Buthe or I live at Butha-Buthe. Many words also share meaning, which makes speaking easier and listening a little more difficult. The word ka can mean at (pertaining to time), with, in, by, about, and many others. Look, I’ve already forgotten.

The problem is that as much as I want to learn Sesotho, my job does not allow it. Teachers and students are only allowed to speak English during school, and what little Sesotho I learned during training suffices for the rest of the day. The CHEDs (Community Health and Economic Development Volunteers) absolutely have to speak better Sesotho because they work at the community level every day. I don’t mean to make it sounds like I know no Sesotho. I can talk to my Mme, find out which taxi to take, tell the creepy man to stop touching my hand and that I have a husband (just thought I’d throw that in there), and buy what I need at the shop. Ho lokile (it’s okay!).

Here is a list of ways to greet:

Lumela                                             Hello (literally means agree)
Khotso                                             Peace
Ho joang?                                         How is it?
Respond: Ho sharp!                     It’s good.
Le kae?                                            How are you? (literally means where is your family?)
Respond: Re teng.                      We’re fine. (literally means we are present as in no one has died)
U phela joang?                                  How do you feel?
Respond: Ke phela hantle.            I feel fine.
Lebitso la hau u mong?                      Your name is who?
Respond: Lebitso la ka ke…         My name is…

Maths (it is Mathematics afte rall) is the most failed subject. This means that by the time they reach me in Form A (8th grade) or Form B (9th grade), they could have failed Maths their entire schooling. My Form B’s do not know their times tables and you see them adding 7+7+7+7 on the sides of their papers for 7×4 and counting on their fingers. It’s insane! In Form C and Form E, they take an external exam issued by the government in each subject. These scores are submitted in the newspapers, the exams cost a lot of money to take, and their scores are very important. I must teach for this exam. I cannot go back and teach multiplication.

English is another hard part about my students’ schooling. It is a required subject which they start learning in Standard 4 (4th grade). School is only taught in English starting from Form A (all subjects except Sesotho), and students are not allowed and beaten for speaking Sesotho at school. This is because those external exams I just mentioned are written in English. Teaching Maths to them in their second language must be very difficult. I took Spanish in high school, and I cannot imagine all of my subjects, especially the difficult ones with their own vocabulary such as Maths and Science, being taught in Spanish. Also, these tests are tricky. They remind me of the GRE or the ACT, where you had to read every word very carefully to understand what the question is asking. Can you imagine having to do that in your second language? What about the students who struggle with a foreign language? They’re screwed.

All of these things make teaching here very difficult. Of course I expect the lack of money and resources, and students to be somewhat behind in Maths. But, I didn’t expect to be working in such a flawed system, and even though I am, I have a hard time coming up with any practical solutions. I also don’t want to make it seem like I am defending my students for failing and performing poorly in school. I hold all of them accountable for their education. They have difficult and complicated lives, but they are lucky to have a school to go to. They are paying to be at school (primary school is free, secondary school is not), and they should make the most of the time and money, and try to do their best.

My number one challenge, and I think that most education volunteers would agree with me, is getting these kids motivated to learn and invested in their educations. When I think of what motivated me during high school, it is incomparable to what must motivate these kids. My motivations were my parents and the goal of getting into college so I could get a job and make lots-o-monies. Well, most of my kids are single (have lost one parent) or double-orphans (have lost both parents), and if they are lucky enough to have one or both of their parents, their concerns are often far from their children’s educations, and it’s hard to blame them for that. Also, there are no jobs in Lesotho. And I’m not talking about America’s boo-hoo, there are no jobs and our unemployment is at 10%, I mean Lesotho literally has no jobs. I think it’s something like 85% of Basotho people are unemployed, meaning they herd animals, grow their own food, and trade for the other things they need. They are completely independent and contribute trivially to the economy. Of the 15% who are employed, 70% are government workers. Most of the non-governmental workers are migrant workers, seeking employment in places like South African and Botswana. All of this means that there are very few businesses and opportunities to gain employment in Lesotho.

How do I motivate these kids? I cannot call a child’s parents when they don’t do their homework—most likely there is no parent to call, and no phone to call to. I cannot motivate them by saying they could get a good job and earn a lot of money, because for them that is simply unrealistic.

So I’ve established that most of these kids have no drive to learn. Okay, but do they like to be at school? What did I like about school? Pep-rallies, lunch time, breaks between classes to talk with friends, football games, and orchestra class (woops, let’s not tell anyone that). Here’s an example of their class schedule:

7:00 – 7:45 Mandatory Study
7:45 – 8:00 Morning Assembly
8:00 – 8:40 Geography
8:40 – 9:20 Geography
9:20 – 10:00 Maths
10:00 – 10:40 Science
10:40 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 11:40 Business Education
11:40 – 12:20 Business Education
12:20 – 1:00 History
1:00 – 2:00 Lunch
2:00 – 2:40 Sesotho
2:40 – 3:20 English Literature
3:20 – 4:00 Mandatory Study

These kids are at school for 9 hours straight. There are no breaks between classes because the teacher switches classrooms, not the students. They literally sit in the same chair and classroom for up to three hours straight and are expected to be attentive and participate. I feel for them—my own mother knows that I can barely make it on an hour-long car ride. What about the break, you say? Well, the teachers use that time to send students to fetch them water from the tap down the road and makoenyas (fat cakes) from the shop. During lunch, girls have to clean the teachers dishes and serve them food in the staff room.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Don’t even get me started on corporal punishment—that’s for another day. So I think getting treated like the teacher’s slaves, beaten, with no time to spend with friends and very few extra-curriculars is not a very enjoyable school experience.