Mundane Mondays

Recently my posts focused on the several community projects my counterparts and I are engaged in. However, my day to day can be generally just as uneventful as yours and I wanted to share that with you in an extremely unnecessary and analytical way.

In the Peace Corps, I have become more diurnal than my previous university self. I can barely stay up after sunset, and I wake up just 30 minutes post-sunrise. Summertime I usually wake up around 5, and now that it is Winter I wake up around 7. It’s still pretty cold nowadays, so when I wake up I stay huddled in my blanket trying to absorb some of the leftover warmth of my rubber water bottle heater. Technically, teachers are required to be at school at 7am to observe the morning study. However students are always late, and teachers are even later. It supposedly happens every year. When the school year starts, teachers and students are gung-ho and we are always present before 7. As the school year proceeds, we show up progressively ten minutes later than the previous month until we reach the 2nd semester, where we show up at 8am. During my training, we were encouraged to integrate by modeling behavior, therefore this is subjectively one of those opportune moments to gain an optimal standard of integration. I’m not lazy, I just want to retain the heat I generated in my cocooned blanket throughout the night.

7:45am. I am late. I jump out of bed, brush my teeth outside, toss my pee bucket remains into my “flourishing” garden, greet my neighbor child pooping in the trash heap ahead of me with a gentle wave, slip into some warmer clothes for school, drag my two solar setups outside and rush out the door. As I walk towards the school I realize I left my red pen back home, run back, realize I should probably urinate and run back out to my latrine for a quick release.

Basotho roulette to see who greets me in the morning

I get to school by 8:00am. We are late to start our morning assembly, but I somehow always arrive right before the students sing the National Anthem. In the United States we raise our right hand and place it over our heart to recite the pledge of Allegiance. In Lesotho we sing (sometimes passionately, we are a big singing people) the National Anthem and keep our arms and hands at our sides parallel to our bodies. After, we sing a church hymn. We have 5 grades in the school, so Form A leads the songs on Monday, and Form E closes with usually a stellar performance on Fridays. The Form A’s for some reason just don’t get it. We have done it everyday since the beginning of the year, but they always, as a collective group of 150 students, somehow forget that they should sing. Heathens. After some announcements, the teachers release the students to the classrooms except for the Form A’s. Because they didn’t sing on time, and probably sang pseudo-synergistically, becomes pertinent to have a massive corporal punishment session. 

The morning assembly line-up

8:20am. The form A’s line up to receive their weekly character building energizer. Honestly, corporal punishment isn’t that bad at my school. My staff has even talked about how we shouldn’t do it as much, but it’s just an easy solution for the teachers - students actually say if you don’t beat them, they won’t learn. Parents even want teachers to beat the children. I don’t beat any students however, I do punish by ensuing creative psychological embarrassment torture methods. What I dislike most about this method of punishment is that it causes a lot of noise, which is distracting when I am teaching a different class. Also, I expect the teacher who is beating the students to be very tired, that’s over a hundred swings. Students are smart however. They always seem to move their hand at the right time away from the stick in order to lessen the blow.

The students are choosing who gets beaten first

9:20am. I get to my favorite class. These students know how to distract me, but I don’t even mind. They always get me to talk about sex, and since we don’t have Life Skills I consider these lessons important. I always talk about HIV/AIDS, its history, prevention, and treatment. However recently we started talking about other sexually transmitted diseases. I usually get my phone and browse the Internet for various disturbing photos and pass it around as a teaching aid. Recently a student somberly sauntered up to me and said, “Tonight I will have nightmares.” I was proud, but I think I did my job when another told me he would never have sex. I don’t tell them sex is bad, I just describe that it can be dangerous if you are too scared to pose questions, don’t protect yourself and or know the risks. A result of encourage inquisitive minds led to a complete backfire.

“Sir is sex nice?” “How do girls masturbate?” “Do you do the oral sex?” I thought I was supposed to make them feel uncomfortable. I am not sure if it is right, but I try my best to answer accurately yet appropriately. Keep in mind that many of us learned from Google because we were too encumbered to ask our towering adult figures. They don’t have the luxury of the Internet and the parents are even less knowledgeable of the issues. I like to think I am a walking, talking, sextionary (sourcing my iPhone).

I also had to teach about crabs

10:40am. I get a break, run back home and eat some leftover dinner for an early lunch. Sometimes I buy makoenya and polony, which are essentially fried dough bread balls and bologna. It is not bad, but not that great either. Then I get back to school to finish the rest of my classes.

Students relaxing on break absorbing sun to stay warm

At 1:00pm we break for lunch. All of last year I used to eat the school food. I now choose to eat at home. I enjoy Basotho food, but not school food. Often you encounter foreigners in African countries chastising the quality of the food the African children or people eat and advertise it as an injustice. Although I don’t eat the school food, the kids love it. Just because it isn’t American style food doesn’t mean the whole continent is starving. Papa (boiled corn meal, almost like plain grits) and Meroho (spinach or cabbage) are what the students usually get. Tuesdays and Wednesdays they get protein through beans, eggs, or hot dogs (we call them Russians). Around this time, we as the teaching staff can just relax and chat. Usually it is all in Sesotho but it turns into English whenever I want to chime in.

This is papa (white)

We have fun conversations on all sorts of topics. My favorite conversations however are when we talk about the differences in our accents, or when they teach me inappropriate Sesotho lingo.

When classes end, the afternoon study begins around 2:00pm. Some teachers and I will work on secondary projects, which included the HIV/AIDS Soccer Tournament, the Solar Paneling, and now the Library. The library is coming together really well, but slowly; I will create another post on its completion.

The girls helping with the library

I get home around 4:00pm at which time my Mother never ceases to send a whatsapp encrypted, “Good Morning Shawnee.” Now, I have never brought this up with her, but I hope she realizes I am at least 6 hours ahead. So when she says good morning, does that mean she is telling me she is having a good morning? Or is she telling me that tomorrow when I wake up to have a good morning? She calls every few days and we chat for an hour while I pace around my house. I can’t bring my phone inside or else I lose reception. During the call, she always laughs at the random chicken or cow noises in the back, the numerous children squabbling, and my interrupted greetings to fellow villagers (it is very rude to not say hello here).

These boys are always playing knock-knock ditch 

At 5:00pm students sometimes show up for some extra studying or just to talk. I don’t mind because it is often the older students who are around my age. While they are hanging out on my couch I indulge them with random American foods or anecdotes and prepare dinner. I try to cook early while I have daylight because cooking and eating by candlelight may be romantic for two, but it is intolerably ill advised for one. They leave just before dark and I start eating my dinner while warming up water for my bed. I snuggle into the covers around 7:30pm, watch some random movie or tv show on my laptop while whatsapping friends in the States and here. I quickly fall asleep around 9:00pm if I am able to make it that late.

The family I usually say goodnight to

I am lulled to sleep by the gentle random unpredictable church hymns surrounding the school compound getting ready for another day.

I hope you enjoyed getting an exclusive peek into the wonderful world of a rural Peace Corps Volunteer. In related news, I have been nominated as a finalist for the Blog it Home Competition for the Peace Corps. The Peace Corps has three goals which paraphrased are: 1) Do Development Work for your Host Country. 2) Provide Insight into American Culture to Locals. and 3) Make Americans aware of your Host Country and what it is like to be a Peace Corps Volunteer.

This Peace Corps Competition is centered on the 3rd goal, and with your help I may be able to attend a conference in Washington D.C. to represent my host country of Lesotho (The Forgotten Kingdom). As an avid Math/Science enthusiast, I rarely considered anything English-Oriented of mine to be generally literate, but it has been very encouraging to hear all your comments about my blog, my work, and especially being recognized as a finalist. Between August 1st and 10th you will get an opportunity to like a certain picture that is linked to my blog on the national Peace Corps Facebook Page. The more likes/comments I get, the more likely I can become one of the chosen ones in September. 

Like the photo by clicking this link:

https://m.facebook.com/peacecorps/photos/a.10152404780060914.1073741843.110634980913/10152404780180914/?type=1&source=43

If all goes well, maybe I'll see some of y'all in D.C. 

Solar for Breakfast

In January, my principal and I came together to tackle some of the issues that plagued our high school. The following are what we came to agree were the most devastating yet solvable issues:

Our school office

1. Hunger. Our double orphans come to school hungry. Because they are in school, they neither have the time nor resources to grow their own food. They also don’t have any income in order to purchase food. Therefore, when they do attend school (tuition provided by the government), they are sluggish, inattentive, and unable to perform to dig themselves out of poverty. It is impossible for these students to learn effectively when malnourished.

2. Electricity. Our school is spending excessive amounts of money on petrol for our generator to provide students with scholarly material, quizzes, and exams. The generator provides unregulated current that damages our computer and printers at least once a semester resulting in costly repairs and maintenance. We use the generator to run our school television during fundraisers, but unfortunately with the rising cost of petrol, our profits have been plummeting leading to a continued cancelling of our HIV/AIDS related secondary activities.

   
   
   

3. HIV/AIDS. Fobane High School does not have Life Skills education, which leaves our children more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS and an unprepared adulthood. Our English Club wants to desperately create a Life Skills/English Magazine in order to provide some education on this front. Previous magazines incorporated several important life lessons through grabbing images, and stories, however it had to be sold at such a high cost to the students that only ten were able to afford it. The inability to distribute the information leaves us just as precariously threatened to HIV/AIDS as before.

   
   A free condom distributor now in every shop!

To address the issues we cleverly evoked one material solution that would perpetuate the solving of the others. The idea was to create a sustainable solar panel system that would save money on petrol. Half of the expected savings would then create a breakfast fund to provide nutrition to at least half of the double orphan population. The other half of the savings would be used as emergency maintenance and repairs in the event that the green energy system would falter. Without the need to purchase petrol, the Life Skills Magazine would then be affordable for individual purchase and HIV/AIDS education can be distributed among the masses for invaluable CAPACITOR building.

Me caring for my own solar

We applied for a grant through the Peace Corps to generate the funds and purchase a large solar panel system. The project cost roughly $3000 USD and the grant covered about 75%. The system consists of 6 85W panels resulting in 510W of clean electricity stored in 6 105Ah Solar Batteries.

Construction

Some RESISTANCE:

As with any project, we have run into a few snags. Right after we bought the system, our printer broke from the unregulated current of our generator (see, major problem). We then purchased a new laser printer/copier, which now consumes power at a higher rating. Our system can still supply enough power, but our inverter is not able to cope with regulating the current need. However, we are underway with getting the new more capable inverter to handle our needs more appropriately. The electricity is CURRENTly (get it?) amazing, quiet, and convenient.

Installing

We also did not expect an issue of jealousy to arise. The solar panels are primarily for the office and printing needs, however the teaching staff is requesting additional paneling to provide for cell phones and laptops. The grant money does not, and will not cater to this need, but we are looking for alternatives to alleviate these unwavering pressures to accommodate.

Unexpected Benefits:

While teaching, we all noticed that we didn’t need to yell to teach (as much, I still yell at my students quite a lot). We didn’t realize, but that generator was obnoxiously loud, and at times it did make teaching quite frustrating. The silence has made it much easier to hear the unwarranted screaming of tiny children.

The community has been asking if they can charge there cell phones, to which our administration is considering using this solar system as additional fundraising potential as long as the printer is not being used. At the moment we are unsure whether this money will go to our breakfast fund, but that is what it seems we may be leaning towards.

Finished

Future

The project is not completed, but we may be close. We have the major construction portion and budgetary issues finalized, and are tinkering with how we plan on using our savings on petrol to provide our most needy students with regular sustenance. We expect that we can offer breakfast to 20 double orphans starting in two weeks. The literary magazine has its first drafts, and is being edited. In the following weeks I will repost on how we attempt, and hopefully solve our breakfast issues. Just recently I was able to speak to our several shopkeepers (all in Sesotho!) and struck a deal that could make breakfast cheap, efficient, and sustainable for each school week. Wish us luck!

Although we still have our library to finish, this has been the final, biggest project I have had the honor of working with my community on, and it has been difficult, tiring, worthwhile, and enjoyable.

Kids

PS. This project was a selfish one. My cousin is visiting, and wants to straighten her hair. How American of her...WATT??? 

Tuition Assistance Program

Last year I became a co-chair of the Tuition Assistance Program. This committee, under Peace Corps Lesotho, works with the home based organization of Friends of Lesotho. Friends of Lesotho is comprised of several people stateside, Returned Peace Corps Volunteers or those who have worked in Lesotho in the past, who still remain vital, active members in the development of Lesotho. This post is to explain TAP and FOL’s purpose in aiding to the education sector of development in Lesotho.

Our senior team

Education in Lesotho has been one of the major fronts of development that the Peace Corps community has been addressing. Unlike the states, the government of Lesotho provides only some of the schooling for students. Children get no monetary support from the government for pre-school or kindergarten (actually I believe in the states, pre-school is also not provided for). The government does start funding children at Standard 1, or 1st Grade. They are paid for in full (with food for lunch) from Standard 1 until Standard 7. However funding for students cease upon graduation of Standard 7.

Although most schools have no electricity, no running water, little to no visual aids, and are essentially concrete cubes, the students perform vibrantly. They are taught English starting in Standard 5 and gain some form of fluency by the time they enter High School. The government unfortunately does not pay for students starting at Form A (8th Grade). This means that parents or guardians must save money for their students if they want them to enter high school. At my school the high school fees are R 1350 or approximately $130 USD for the entire year. This however does not include book fees or exam fees, which are similarly comparable.

Working hard

This may not sound like much for parents or guardians to handle, but in a country where 75% of the population is unemployed and most rural villagers get food from subsistence farming rather than through economic means, mustering the R 1350 to send just one of their many children into “higher” education can take its toll on the family. For those students who are double orphans (both parents deceased) the government does pay for the students in full as long as birth and death certificates can be materialized. Therefore the most at risk students who have the most difficulty paying are those who are single orphans, and whose living guardian isn’t working.

That is where TAP, or the Tuition Assistance Program, comes in with its support from Friends of Lesotho. The main premise as to further the education of the citizens in developing countries is that those who become educated will then in turn bring about further development in their own country. Education is the tool that trains a system to be self-serving. The true purpose to volunteering and development is to have that country become self-reliant. TAP and FOL hope to achieve that by funding the brightest, yet neediest of the students in the many schools in Lesotho.

Our most important meeting

The Peace Corps Volunteers in Lesotho work directly in the schools and gain insight and develop personal relationships within the school. We learn to see which students try the hardest, which ones are excelling with little to no parental support, which ones just need a little more help to become the tools for the future. Each volunteer who wishes to have their school participate in TAP scholarships submits up to 5 students chosen by the volunteer and the volunteer’s community. These students must not be a school member’s child (meaning a school member has a well paid job in order to pay for their child), must not have any other scholarship (for example: government double orphan scholarship known as manpower), and must be in the top third of the class (to statistically assess which student scholarships may allow more students to enter tertiary schooling).

These students then write compositions, which are used to judge their English skills and used to thank the sponsors that provide FOL with funding. The process is a simple one, with plenty of people benefiting.

Some students who applied 

Last year 30 schools participated with 290 students given half scholarship. Friends of Lesotho donated over $17,000 USD. This year 37 high schools in Lesotho applied. 71 students were awarded full scholarship while 46 students were awarded half. Approximately $10,600 USD was awarded and distributed giving the 117 students incentive to stay in school longer. The amount of funding is directly related to how much support is generated to FOL from America and other organizations. These students often receive food, life skills education (HIV/AIDS prevention), and invaluable mentorship. These students are encouraged to continue working hard to keep up their marks and we predict great things to amount from them.

Let's keep these kids in school

Without TAP and the support from FOL, these students may have been dismissed from their education. If you are interested in supporting FOL in its TAP endeavors next year please check out their website:

http://www.friendsoflesotho.org