Before I left for Peace Corps, my girlfriend, Sarah, had gone on her own adventure to Kenya. She was studying abroad in Nairobi for the fall semester, and then stayed in country until June, doing everything from helping to edit World Bank grant proposals for the government, to volunteering at a home for rehabilitating street kids. I was somehow able to convince her to leave the equatorial weather of Kenya to come visit me in one of the coldest places in Africa during winter. After an adventurous journey, she met me in the lowlands of Lesotho. She was able to stay around for about a month, but unfortunately the beginning of her time here coincided with a week-long Peace Corps workshop I was attending. We got to spend some time together during it, but mostly she wandered around exploring the town each day while I was in the meeting.
The workshop itself was probably one of the best and most useful we have had to date. It involved our entire group of Education volunteers and each of us brought a Basotho counterpart. This could be a colleague, supervisor, or community member, but someone who would be willing to work with us on community projects. The first few days were all about designing and managing what Peace Corps calls “secondary projects.” This can be anything from starting a support group to ringing electricity to your village, namely anything you do that is not your primary assignment (teaching high school). We were given a ton of great ideas for such projects, as well as many of the tools for making sure they will be and remain successful even after our departure. A few of the possible ideas for my community that myself and my principal came up with were building a fence for our school grounds to prevent overgrazing on that land, and a project he had tried in the past whereby paper from the school is recycled into dense little bricks that can be used as a fuel source for cooking fires. Though these both seem like cool ideas to me, we learned at the workshop that a major reason that projects fail is lack of community involvement or sense of ownership. So, before we start to put any such plan into effect, we will need to make time to sit down with members of the community and hash out what it is they really want, need, and will support.
The second half of the workshop focused on educating us and our counterparts further on HIV and AIDS, specifically in Lesotho. We learned more about the disease itself and it's history in this country. We also found out about many of the organizations working in our particular districts to combat the epidemic. Considering that around 24% of all adults in Lesotho are HIV positive and that the country has the 3rd highest HIV prevalence rate in the world (topped only by Botswana and Swaziland), this was an immensely important set of meetings. It was also interesting to hear our counterparts' viewpoints and questions on the topic, with them having grown up as the disease spread in a culture where sex just isn't discussed openly. All in all the workshop, as I said, was very valuable and informative. It also didn't hurt that we got fed and had a place to take an honest-to-goodness shower for a week!
Monday, June 25, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
It's June in Mokhotlong. The temperature has definitely begun it's downward trek into winter. Pretty much every morning I have no psyche myself up to make that startling leap out of my warm covers with hot water bottle to the bracing air and cold floor. This is followed by a quick dance across the cold floor to put on my hiking boots and jacket. Yes, before I even get out of my pajamas, I'm into my boots.
The walks to school are as good of a wake up as the instant coffee here(I suspect the spoonfuls of sugar I add to make it bearable account for most of its short-lived invigoration). Being amidst the mountains, I don't get to see the sun itself until well after I arrive at school, usually when classes are starting. We have yet to get any snow here, but any shady rock is covered in ice for much of the day.
While Wisconsin had (imho) a rather disappointing election, the national elections were held in Lesotho this past month. In place of TV ads or debates, it seemed to me the sole medium of political advertisement and support building was large groups of people packed into the back of open trucks(usually something massive, not unlike a deuce-and-a-half) or buses, carrying their party's flag and driving around singing and screaming their heads off. Not sure if it is effective and was at times a little obnoxious, but I do prefer this method to the mud-slinging political ads in the States. Anyhow, after about a month of this, the elections were held on May 26th. It took another 4 days until the votes were all counted, and even then we did not find out who the new government would consist of. Lesotho has a parliamentary system, with a certain majority of the MPs being necessary to create a government, but none of the 3-4 major parties had enough seats to do so. So, it took a bunch of political deal brokering, but yesterday 3 of the parties announced they were forming a coalition to get the majority. They announced that the new Prime Minister will be Tom Thabang, leader of the ABC(All Basotho Convention) though we still don't know if the government itself will be a coalition government or what. It was all very interesting to an American with a very poor grasp of such political systems. The good news is that, unlike the elections in 1997, everything has gone down with no major incidents of violence. Peace Corps was justifiably concerned about this possibility, and so, kept us on alert until it was clear that things would proceed without trouble.
In other news, the school term has come to an end. The last 3 weeks were taken up by a 'revision' week and two weeks of tests. I was surprised to find that lots of sports and little studying happens during revision week. That that does occur appears to me to be rather misguided. The students spend most of their time memorizing questions from previous tests instead of working problems, making flash cards, etc. Learning how to study is an essential skill and, after seeing this, I think I will put some serious effort into teaching my students HOW to learn. Not surprisingly, the end of term tests were very disappointing for all but a handful of my students. However, now I know better what the impediments to their learning and my teaching are, so hopefully I can tackle things next term with a more effective approach and attitude!
Well, that's all on my mind for now. Hopefully with school out, I will find myself less lazy about updating this blog and will have some more adventures about Lesotho and Southern Africa to report on!
The walks to school are as good of a wake up as the instant coffee here(I suspect the spoonfuls of sugar I add to make it bearable account for most of its short-lived invigoration). Being amidst the mountains, I don't get to see the sun itself until well after I arrive at school, usually when classes are starting. We have yet to get any snow here, but any shady rock is covered in ice for much of the day.
While Wisconsin had (imho) a rather disappointing election, the national elections were held in Lesotho this past month. In place of TV ads or debates, it seemed to me the sole medium of political advertisement and support building was large groups of people packed into the back of open trucks(usually something massive, not unlike a deuce-and-a-half) or buses, carrying their party's flag and driving around singing and screaming their heads off. Not sure if it is effective and was at times a little obnoxious, but I do prefer this method to the mud-slinging political ads in the States. Anyhow, after about a month of this, the elections were held on May 26th. It took another 4 days until the votes were all counted, and even then we did not find out who the new government would consist of. Lesotho has a parliamentary system, with a certain majority of the MPs being necessary to create a government, but none of the 3-4 major parties had enough seats to do so. So, it took a bunch of political deal brokering, but yesterday 3 of the parties announced they were forming a coalition to get the majority. They announced that the new Prime Minister will be Tom Thabang, leader of the ABC(All Basotho Convention) though we still don't know if the government itself will be a coalition government or what. It was all very interesting to an American with a very poor grasp of such political systems. The good news is that, unlike the elections in 1997, everything has gone down with no major incidents of violence. Peace Corps was justifiably concerned about this possibility, and so, kept us on alert until it was clear that things would proceed without trouble.
In other news, the school term has come to an end. The last 3 weeks were taken up by a 'revision' week and two weeks of tests. I was surprised to find that lots of sports and little studying happens during revision week. That that does occur appears to me to be rather misguided. The students spend most of their time memorizing questions from previous tests instead of working problems, making flash cards, etc. Learning how to study is an essential skill and, after seeing this, I think I will put some serious effort into teaching my students HOW to learn. Not surprisingly, the end of term tests were very disappointing for all but a handful of my students. However, now I know better what the impediments to their learning and my teaching are, so hopefully I can tackle things next term with a more effective approach and attitude!
Well, that's all on my mind for now. Hopefully with school out, I will find myself less lazy about updating this blog and will have some more adventures about Lesotho and Southern Africa to report on!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)