Nenny Corn Where Are You?

jen none of the emails i have for you work. send me an email with how you're doing! mine is rereilly at gmail

I missed the bus, and that is something i will nevah evah evah evah do again

two of my co teachers outside school. notice the ravine of death behind them. yes my school is on a precipice. these teachers both have amazing names, as well, the man is ntate lebesele (milkand) chelete (money) and the woman is puseletso (just sound that one out).
some of my students at katse dam, being too cool
yes, it snowed already. mothergherkins. Thaba Tseka: SO COLD. and it's only autumn.





Today was amazing! we decided to be bad irresponsible teachers and not go back to tt today, and instead go tomorrow. we even woke up 2 hours earlier than we needed to to catch the bus home, but were having entirely too much fun laying around giggling, and i was the warmest girl evar with 4 blankets, so we stayed.

we went to this little border town in south africa that was like a dream. it's only 30 minutes away, and is so different from lesotho! there are real grocery stores there, too. and all sorts of cute restaurants, and funny looking boers. we ate brunch (yes, brunch! it even exists in africa!) and it was this cute place with a windy garden and there was this family there with a fat naked baby they kept putting in this fountain to take creepy anne geddesesque pictures of it. Then we went to a real grocery store where there was a "POTATO CHIP CRISIS!!" a huge sign informed us that due to a shortage of something or other, they might not be able to stock all our favourite brands/flavors of potato chip.
it's been a wonderful wonderful weekend with victoria and madeline, i'm not sure if we're capable of not laughing. giggle triplets? who knows. oh! and readers of mine, check out victoria's blog: nosoapplicable.blogspot.com. she's going through all the stuff i am, and she is much more in touch with her brain than i am, so she actually talks about all the myriad emotional crises we're going through whereas i prefer to ramble about specific instances and things. i love victoria because she balances me out, and helps to force me to talk about what's going on in my head. and my dear mad, i never see because she's on the other side of the country, but she's one of the wittiest people i've ever met, and i love how down to earth she is. so there's my synopsis of my cronies. and i love them.

this coming weekend i'm going out to another volunteer's site about 2 hrs from me, they're holding a children's health day i'm going to aid (possibly by way of face painting?!), where we're trying to get all the 0-5 year olds in teh area screened for malnutrition and HIV, and also dole out free measles vaccines, and talk about eating healthy and other various practices that lead to a successfully alive child. hopefully we'll do a children's health day in tt also someday. then after that i'm coming back to teh capital for a meeting, so i'll be able to internet some more. all around fun times

ok, love you all. and i continue to think you ALL SUCK MY GOSHDARN UNMENTIONABLES for failing utterly at keeping in contact with me. PLEASE send me communications. if you're going to refuse to send me letters, i'll also love emails. i miss you, tell me how you are, suckers.

Sci-WOW-ence!

spelunking on st. pattys day with airline whiskey bottles.

This weekend I’m teaching a workshop for teachers from 5 primary schools in the area. They (the teachers) get these maths and science supply/teaching aid kits from the ministry of education, but never use them because they’re afraid of them or something. SO, in my continued role as expander of horizons, enlightener of minds, and general bringer of the light, I am going to show them how to use these kits. Problem is, I have yet to see what exactly is in them. Ho hum. Also, I’m expanding this workshop; in june and july I’ll be leading an enhanced version of ‘love you maths/science kits like they love you’ in Maseru for the Lesotho College of Education. Eventually I’d like to create a short manual/sample curricula to give to all the peace corps resource volunteers so they can do these workshops in their own districts. Then the WHOLE COUNTRY will be able to successfully teach maths and science, and the students will be empowered, and the country will be elevated as a whole. Lookie me and my big aspirations. AND my momma is sending me my book! Yes, if you weren’t aware, I’m a published author of a book with the most cumbersome non-acronym friendly name in the history of evar: No Hassle Messy Science With a Wow: Chemistry in the K-8 Classroom. And I got some shitty credits on it, too. My name was listed last, so I look like a hanger on or something, but I know in my heart I wrote a large chunk of the book. So there.

Other projects in the works: Creating a library at my school (I may, sometime in the future request book donations from you all back home), starting an HIV/AIDS peer teaching group at my school (where I train some enthusiastic/intelligent/natural leaders of my students on all manner of HIV/AIDS information, and then they go out and teach their peers about it. So it isn’t just another talking head at the front of the classroom railing on them about the dangers of it all, like they don’t know already.), and also I want to bring in HIV AIDS testers/counselors/awareness spreaders to the winter sports tournament in June. Also in September we’re going to organize a sports camp event, where we use some sport (probably soccer) as a hook to get ~200 kids from the region to come for a weekend, then we’ll have free HIV testing, and also counseling/education/etc. And we want to do a career faire/day thing too sometime to show the kids that jobs do exist, and they matter, and stuff. Also I’m the Volunteer Advisory Committee representative for my district, I have yet to discover exactly what that entails, but I do get to come to maseru may 9-12 for a meeting and I’ll find out then. So much stuff happening! And school is hectic as well. I don’t get home till 5ish, and it’s dark by 6, so I have a very small window in which to get shit done. Which is going to get worse, because my school has been chosen to pilot this “double shifting” program to combat overcrowding of classrooms. How this works is half the students will come to school from 7am-noon, and then the other half will come from noon-5pm. Issues: 1) the same set of teachers is used for the whole day. Ergo, I will now be at school for 10 hours a day. 2)my school is really far away from everything, on a precipice. It takes all the students 1-2 hours to walk there, and in winter it’s pitch dark at 7 am and 5 pm, and it’s really dangerous to go out at night here. 3) all extra-curricular activities and sports are fucked because, when will they occur? And 4) I’m a whiny bitch and don’t want to work that hard. They’re paying the teachers extra for the long hours as compensation, so I guess that means I will just get to have an extra warm feeling in my heart since I work for free. Ugh.

And it’s cold as balls at night! I have a gas heater which works pretty well, but releases an unknown and possible worrisome amount of carbon monoxide, and I have no detector, so I’m afraid to keep it on for more than an hour or so. I have 4 comforters though (1 down!) so I sleep pretty well, it’s just so hard to get out of bed in the morning, I snooze for 20-30 minutes. AND IT SNOWED! Already! This does not bode well for actual winter time.

Anyway, so July, in Sesotho, is “phuphu” which is pronounced “poopoo”. How fitting is that! I’m born in the month of poop! Though I’m a bit jealous of june birthdays because june is “phuptjane” pronounced “poop-johnny”.

On another note, I asked my students to write me anonymous notes telling me how I’m doing as a teacher. Here are some gems:
“To be fair and honest I am indeed enjoyable in most times when you visit our calss for teaching Madam; you teach us with solidarity and I am free with that!!!”
“you are teaching very nice but you have to decrease the notes hey! You are giving us so much notes To be fair you are teaching very nice KEEP IT UP!”
“you teach us nicely madam because you make us to laugh when it is time for science” “You tought us good, but a thing is that you are giving us a lot of notes but I tsoarela (forgive) you because you are not Mosotho and you cannot pronous words good.” “MADAM REBECCA As a maths teacher my announcement to you is that everything you do also what you have done. My under on you is good and my feelinfs about you are fabulous. I understand your teaching much better than the last maths teacher,”
“Infact I understand your subject and you tolerate other people. You don’t know how to tease people. You are always well dressed and you are pity.”
--from a whiny student I kicked out of class for fighting with a girl “you are not teaching well and you like to expel others in your class. You should not do that.”
“you do very well that every student understand. You are able to pass the knowledge that you have to us and you are the best of my maths teachers that have taught me. Keep it up please.”
“there is nothing further to worry about because she has got the ability to express herself in speaking then, she taught us well from the beginning up to end, until now. So congradulation for her!!!”
and, one of my favorites, i think the student mixed up "how" and "what": "you are walking but too slowly, going up and down. You are removing the bottle from its lid then take it from it for the last time"

Bus-iness a Usual

So... last time i left maseru, Lindsey and i ended up on this jankey bus from the 1960s/70s, but at least we got seats and didn't have to stand in teh aisles. TO ease or 6-8 hour ride we each took a "valium" (a weak neighbor of valium that's sold over the counter here for the equivalent of 20 cents US each). Anyway the main issue here with the bus ride home is that they don't stop for pee breaks at all, so you're fudged if you need to pee. A few hours into the ride linds and i need to pee like a couple of seabiscuits (or secretariats, if you prefer), it was a pretty unfortunate circumstance. Then, at a point where to road both inclined and turned sharply, the overloaded bus went up on two wheels, smacked back down, and the engine cut out. The bus then proceeded to roll backwards down the mountain and the driver turned the wheel so the bus ran perpendicular to the road and ran back into a ditch/someone's fence/shop. Linds and i were like, FUDGE YEAH! perfect timing! SO everyone had to get out so they could remove teh bus from teh ditch and we were able to run and pee behind a building.

They got the bus out of teh ditch in like 30 mins, but then had to wait 3 hours for a mechanic to come, so we had a nice mountainside picnic of an apple and 2.5 biscuits each (which, incidentally, is not enough food for an entire day). and we napped and read our books. i didn't get back to T squared until dark though, and had to walk 20 mins up the fucking mountain home in the pouring rain with 200lbs of groceries. I thought i would collapse. so sadd. Then when i finally reached my doorstep, my lock was jammed and i couldn't get in. Two bo-ntate (men), 2 bo-abuti (boys) and 45 minutes later they broke in using a nail, a rock, and a butterknife, and completely mangled my lock in the process. They were all super nice to help me out. Then i was home! hoo-rah!

It's been hard readjusting to mountain life. I got pretty used to hot showers and cheese. I'm no longuer under "lockdown" though so ui can, in theory, go to maseru/S. Africa whenever i please. I'll probably take 'pamper me' trips regularly, but i wonder if that'll make things worse because it will continually remind me of what i don't have. WHen i was here (thaba tseka) for 2 1/2 months straight, i got used to it, and though i will always yearn for cheese, it was a dull ignorable ache rather than a stabbing in my lactose-loving heart.