Ins and outs of daily life...

It's a beautiful Saturday morning and I am writing from the internet shop in Hlotse. I came in on Thursday as I needed to get my passport stamped in order to extend my visit, but apparently the lady with the stamp has gone away somewhere so I have to come back another time.

I am going to try and work backwards here as I have many little stories to tell and I know that they appear out of order on the Blog. I will begin with last Sunday when I made my first attempt to attend church.

Bokoro High School is a Catholic School, so they observe the Christian calendar and hold a service on Sundays. The service in conducted by a curate, so for Mass or other services, the priest must come in from another village. On Ash Wednesday the priest was already engaged (imagine that) so we postponed the service until the following Tuesday. No one told me about this so I missed most of it as I was in the far classroom drawing pictures of computers. I happened to wander out of the classroom to notice the entire school lined up and being led in song by an elderly man with no teeth. I quickly gathered my class and took them to join the service.

Last Sunday I decided to attend the morning service to see what it was all about. I must have asked at least half a dozen people to tell me what time the service began and they all said "10 o'clock". At five to ten I put on my skirt and washed my face and headed up to church. There had been a bell rung, so I thought I would be just on time. There was no one to be found in or around the room where the service was to be held. I came down and went looking for the kids who board at the school as they all attend. I found them in various states of getting ready which included cooking, ironing and playing chess. No one was at all bothered by the time and they said that they usually didn't go up until 10:30. I delayed and went up again after the third session of bell ringing. At this point there were a few more people and we began to set up for the service. The class theyuse was one where all of the desks had been removed to be fixed on Friday, so we carried an assortment of broken chairs and benches and stools into the room and a white cloth was laid and candles were lit. The entire service was in Sesotho, but the singing was wonderful and I felt very humbled by the sincerity of worship in this little broken down room in a tiny village in the mountains. I come from having so much, and these people all have so little and yet their voices carried their song to God out the open windows.

I didn't stay for the whole service, but for the hour I stayed people continued to arrive the entire time- reminds of another church I know!

This week we had a "formal" staff meeting and so afternoon classes were cancelled and we met for three hours to discuss various items. The focus was on self-evaluation as the teachers discussed the school results and tried to work out how they could improve. In Lesotho, exam results are published in the newspaper according to each school. Each student's name appears and their grades as well. This creates a lot of pressure for schools to have "good results". Math, science and English seem to be the trouble areas.

I suggested that the computer classes be reduced in order to focus more on core subjects- as least until the equipment is operational. The entire schedule was reworked to accomodate this request as well as to include a morning study period (a concern voiced by another teacher), so we now start at 7:40am instead of 7am-YAY!

I am still working out the whole food situation here. There is no refrigeration so I must eat whatever I cook and seem to eat a lot of bread and canned food. There is a shop in Khukhune, which is about a 40 minute walk. Graham and I usually walk down once a week or so to buy eggs or something, but they have a fridge and cold drinks. It is totally worth it to walk in for a cold coke. The walk is quite pretty and because it is a village, little rondavels and other buildings, children, chickens and donkeys dot the roadside. Our walking attracts a lot of attention and every child in the area will race out to the side of the road to say hello and try out whatever English they have shouting "Goodmorning, goodmorning! I am fine!!" The constant greeting does get a bit tiresome, but greetings are very important in Lesotho, so it is important to acknowledge each person as they will acknowledge you.

As with life in any small town there are little perks that you look forward to. One such perk is the passing of the breadtruck. There is a bakery delivery truck that passes the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, taking their wares to the villages close to the mountains. If you see the truck in time you can chase after it and it will stop and you can buy something. This is great because by Thursday my bread, or what's left of it is always stale. Graham was so determined to have bread one day that he made a big sign that says, " STOP. WE NEED BREAD." He puts it on the road to encourage the truck to stop. This helps a bit, but it is still not unusual to hear the bread truck and to then see a teacher sprint out of his classroom to chase down the truck. This amuses me to no end!

Living on the school property means that I don't really get a lot of exercise other than a bit of running during afternoon sports. I decided to begin running after sports, as I am feeling quite out of shape at the moment. If you go south on the road it heads to the village of Tsime, and it's about 2-3km away. Many of our students walk from there to attend school. I had walked it the other day and knew it would be a good route to run. It slopes unhill on the way out, and so the return trip is all mountains and valleys as far as the eye can see. 'M'e wasn't crazy about the idea of me running alone, so she sent a student with me. This was a bit of overkill as most students were on their way home. As I jogged past each group of students many would join me for a few hundred meteres or so. They thought this was was great. "Where to, Madam? Where to?" they asked. It is very importatnt in Lesotho to know where you are going and where you have come from, so this question is asked of you wherever you go. I replied that I was "training" which seemed an adequate answer and at one point was jogging with 6 girls in school uniforms, carrying their books. I felt like I was directly out the that scene in Forrest Gump where he begins running and people everwhere stop what they are doing to join him! The whole thing was alot of fun.

All the water that you use has to be carried from the water tap located down the road. It is only about a ten minute walk, but even so, I am very conscious of how much water I use each day. The students fetch the water for the teachers, but sometimes I go and help to push the wheelbarrow or carry the jugs. Water is carried in 20L jugs that used to contain sunflower oil. The girls carry the jugs on their heads. It is an amazing feat. I have tried it, and it just doesn't stay put for me. Women use their heads as an extra pair of hands, and I have been amazed to see very awkward looking packages perfectly balanced on a lady's head. I once saw a woman carrying an entire watermelon. Here, I think that I use about 20 L of water a day for drinking, washing, washing dishes etc. How much water do you use? I have determined that I likely use a hundred liters a day when I am in Canada. Maybe even more.

There was a small incident during evening study the other day. I was standing near a student helping with some math hoemwork when I noticed a shadow moving quickly across the floor. It took me a moment to realize that it was a rat, and that it was heading straight for my feet. I squealed, and was up on the counter in a flash, and the rat, confused by the commotion, changed direction and headed for the back of the classroom. Within moments every student was screaming and up on chairs and desks. I guess the Basotho are not fond of rats either. I laughed so hard that my sides hurt, and I then had to calm people down so that they would get back to work.

The Basotho (the name for the people of Lesotho) are a very warm group. Handshakes are customary and I guess as a result of living in such close quarters, students lean on each other and often hold hands as they walk. I was leaning over a group of students, trying to teach them how to change fonts on the one computer, and rested my hand on a student's shoulder in order to lean close enough to reach the mouse. As they all pressed closer to see what I was doing, I felt a small hand creep over mine and cover it lightly. It stayed for a just a few moments and then withdrew.