Lumela hape! Hello again! I’ve shared a lot about things happening at school and different activities I’ve been doing, so I wanted to also talk about what I do when I have free time during the week. Mostly I lesson plan and read a lot. There are also more pictures from recent special events we've had!
Daily Life
School days go from 8am-2pm Monday through Thursday. Fridays are from 8am-1pm. The younger grades, 1-4, end classes at 1 (or 12:45 on Fridays) and clean their classrooms or play outside until 2 (or 1 on Fridays). The older grades, 5-7, end at 1:45 (or 12:45 on Fridays) to clean. (Primary schools here are grades 1-7, and high schools are grades 8-11 or 12 depending on the program.) Ending so early in the day is nice, especially since my house doesn’t have electricity (yet) and my day pretty much ends when the sun goes down. After school, I do dishes some days (which I've described in a previous post), sweep my house, maybe work on some lesson planning/making teaching aids, journal, and read. I also have Sesotho lessons from my host sister a couple times a week. I’m grateful she’s able to help me learn. Sometimes I walk to the shops at the front of the village to buy eggs, and a couple other things if I need anything else. The shops have limited options though, so most of my shopping is done in the camp town. Pictured below is the shop I usually go to, and parts of my walk to get there which is about a mile. I have also started doing workouts in the evenings with the resistance bands I brought. There are no gyms here, so I do what I can. Overall, I try to get school work done right after school so I can spend the rest of the time relaxing and doing personal things. I’ve started going to bed earlier and waking up earlier too, which I’ve enjoyed. Sometimes after it gets dark, I get bored and it’s hard to do things with only candle light. So going to bed when it gets dark and then waking up earlier has been what I’ve found works better for me.
Holidays
There have been a couple holidays since my last post! My school celebrates them, which has been fun. Mostly that entails dressing up for it. We had Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, and Ash Wednesday.
Valentine's Day
All the teachers and students wore red and white for Valentine's Day! I don't have red, so I wore pink which was close enough. It was a very happy day, and everyone was in such a good mood. We also had a morning assembly to talk about the holiday, even though it was Tuesday (they're usually just Mondays and Fridays).
Mardi Gras
People here don't celebrate Mardi Gras, and have never heard of it, so I was very happy to introduce it! This year it was on February 21. I grew up celebrating Mardi Gras, and I love the holiday. It was fun to share with my fellow teachers here. We just wore the colors (purple, green, and gold), but next year since we'll have more time we're going to plan a bigger celebration and have the learners dress up too. Hopefully with beads, of course! As it was, the teachers were excited to learn about a new cultural celebration. They certainly showed up dressed for it!
Pictured on the bottom right are the other 4th grade teachers. Left to right: Malefali (Ma-leh-FAH-dee), grade 4A; Mohapi (my counterpart); me; and Martha, grade 4B
Ash Wednesday
Since we are a Catholic school, we celebrate Ash Wednesday. This year we actually celebrated on Friday, since that's when the priest was able to come, but it was still the same celebration. For dress, women wore a skirt/dress and covered our hair while in the actual service. This is the custom for all events, such as weddings, funerals, and any church service. There was assembly in the morning as usual, though it was longer and with more prayer. When the priest arrived at 10am, he led the Mass. There was preaching and a lot of singing. Since our church hall here at school can't fit over 1,000 people, the older grades and some teachers sat inside while the rest were outside listening from the door. Those outside also were still able to participate in the singing. After Mass, the teachers gave everyone the ash cross on our foreheads. It was my first time participating in this day, and it was interesting to learn about. After receiving the cross, we went back to the classrooms and the priest came to each class to bless the students with holy water. He had a little bottle that he used to fling the water out as the students stood and sung a hymn. After that, it was lunch time. A few teachers had cooked food for the teachers, so we ate together. Overall it was a nice day, and I enjoyed learning about a new celebration.
For those who celebrate these holidays, I hope you had good days! I've loved seeing how a different culture celebrates, and the teachers have been very welcoming and happy to explain how they do things here to me. They are also very interested to learn how we do things in America. Until next time, eba le letsatsi le monate (EH-bah let-SAHT-see leh moh-NAH-teh), have a nice day!
P.S. Enjoy some cool sunset pictures I've taken recently! On the left was near the school, and on the right was at my house.
