Lumelang kaofela! Hello everyone! I'm writing this from our Phase III workshop just outside Maseru. This is the 3 month mark since arriving at site! We've been at the workshop since March 23rd, and will be going back to site April 3rd. It's long, but I've loved seeing all the volunteers again. All fifteen of us are here! The time we get together is nice, and I do miss my site and I am looking forward to going back home in a few days.
This post has some fun stories from since I last posted. Happy reading!
Kittens
Reese's kittens have migrated to living in my host family's house. They slowly hobble around, which is adorable, and all squeak at top volume. I've only been able to hold one so far, and it's so tiny and fuzzy! I know they'll have grown so much in this time I've been at the workshop. Though, I should be able to spend lots of time with them before my family puts them up for adoption. As you can see in the middle picture below, they've made their home behind the couch.
School Activity
Mohapi, my counterpart, gave our students an optional assignment one day to make a clay mug. They were supposed to burn them to solidify and bring them back to school to test if they will hold water. A few students brought pretty well made mugs! Unfortunately, only one survived the water test, but they had fun looking at them anyway. Since there isn't art taught during the school day, the only art time, beyond drawing during other lessons, is when teachers give students activities to do at home.
Testing
The week before the workshop was test week. Our process is that the teachers make the tests for the previous grade, so the students are seeing what they can expect the next academic year. Since there are four grade 4 teachers including me, and four subjects (English, Numeracy, Sesotho, and Integrated Part), we each made one test. We gave one subject per day, and students generally had 2 hours to finish. We pass out notebook paper for students to write on. We have the students go outside to do some last minute studying with their notes and classwork while we write the test on the board, then they come back in and start. Most students don't take the full 2 hours. Finally, we grade them all and calculate the percentages. Mohapi and I were able to split the English and Numeracy grading, but she had to grade all the Sesotho and Integrated Part (which is science and social studies) since my Sesotho hasn't reached that level yet and I wasn't there when they wrote the Integrated Part. Pictured is Mohapi in the middle of writing the Numeracy test on the board.
Workshop
As I mentioned earlier, all us volunteers have been at a workshop since March 23. That was our travel day. It was interesting coming here because the three of us in my camp town met up with some others from a different camp town at the mall in Maseru. I stepped into the mall and pretty much immediately wanted to go back to my site and be in nature. It’s just very different being out in the village, and even in the camp town, it’s small and there aren’t many buildings that have more than one floor. So it was very different being in a mall, which looks like an American mall. Two floors, lots of nice stores, etc. There’s even a grocery store. We did some shopping and got food, then got a taxi to go to the guest house.
Molengoane Guest House is in a beautiful location, surrounded by mountains and flower fields. Which, yes, we went to frolic in the flower fields. There have been a lot of sessions, learning about teaching numeracy, more Sesotho, and other helpful information. The education volunteers also taught a couple practice numeracy lessons at the school nearby. It’s a pretty small private school. It was a bit jarring to be at the assembly and realize that the small number of students was the entire school…it was about the size of the one grade 4 class I (and a couple other volunteers) teach. Which is also the reality for many other volunteers. The other difference is that since it’s a private school, the students can have hair. In public schools, they are all required to keep their heads shaved. From what I saw, it looks like they can’t have long hair, but they can have braids or short hair. Teaching there was fun, and we’ll be back Saturday to lead a camp. For teaching, we were with either grade 2, 3, or 4, and the camp will be with 40 students from grades 6 and 7. We’ll have activities and games to teach about different topics like leadership, gender roles, and staying healthy. We’re very excited to be with them for the day! And it’s good practice for facilitating our own camps back at site.
Below, the top row are photos of the guest house. The top left is the view from the front. The middle row is from a walk I took near the guest house at sunset, it was beautiful! The bottom row is from the school. There's a big flower field and a grove of pine trees we went to see after teaching.
We have all very much enjoyed seeing more of this beautiful country, and seeing a different school. Wishing everyone a happy almost April! Salang hantle!
Sunrise from my house a couple weeks ago!