The library is doing great :)

Because of extraordinarily generous donations, the library now has excellent resources: science, math, and Lesotho history books for students and teachers. More materials for the children recently arrived... and everyone loves learning phonics! Below are some recent photos of student teachers working on their assignments and the children enjoying the library.

Thank you again, Mom, Dad, Jed, Ilana, Marlene, Bill, Emma, Valerie, Ryan, and many more... everyday your materials are enjoyed and make a tremendous difference in the learning here!

STUDENT TEACHER STUDY GROUPS

THIS MORNING

Two mid sized rooms with cracked window panes and dung smeared floors sit on a ledge overlooking the Senqu river. Six primary classes are taught within these buildings. Three teachers. The nearest camptown is about three hours walking. It doesn’t seem like a recipe for success. And yet…

“You are welcome,” Ntate shares his soft smile with me. I’ve just asked about our schedule for next Tuesday. We are talking outside his class room after one of my weekly visits. I come to work with his classes and the classes of the principal. This week I observed an English class and taught rounding decimals. Next week we rotate – I’ll watch math then teach English.

“Ok, so next week I will watch your lesson on percentage? You can use that same game we used today, it should be ok.”

“Yes, Mme. I have seen how they show fractions and decimals, and percentages, they are all related, so…” he pulls the concepts together with his hands in the air in front of us. “Yes Mme,” he repeats as he turns back to me, “You are welcome.”

“Thank you Ntate! And thank you for today! I think the children had fun too.”

“Yes, I have seen that they have somehow understood, they have somehow gotten this concept.” He pauses, and I’m waiting for what I think will be his goodbye.

Instead he looks back at the classroom door, and when he turns back he has a huge grin. He begins to tick something off on his large chalk dusted hands.

“You know, this school, we have gotten best results in math,” he glances up at me from this statement symbolized by his pinky, and then keeps going by taking another finger, “Best results in English,” and he quickly grabs a third finger, “and best overall results for this region.” He beams.

“What!?! Ntate! This school?”

“So you see, Mme. We are somehow listening. And we are somehow not just listening. We are doing.”

“Fantastic, Ntate! Hantle!”

“Yes, Mme. This school. Our school. Next week we will go to pick up the trophies.” He holds up his three fingers again. “Those three trophies.”

I take his hand. “Ntate, I am not surprised. You have the most loving and dedicated teachers working here. And the students love to learn. And that is something, a love that they also learn from you.”

He grins and looks down shyly. We hold hands for a minute in the morning sun, listening to the light rustling of dry corn stalks tiptoe across the wind. The river flows far below us. The song of time passing and time standing still.

I remember my first visit to the school, when I saw only decrepit blackboards, students crowded on precarious small wooden benches or sitting on the floor, and teachers juggling two classes at a time.

I remember the warmth with which the principal welcomed me to try teaching, sharing with me her challenging topics with which I could assist, and carefully reviewing the lesson plans I brought before teaching.

I remember when we began co teaching to be sure students learned and that we learned from each other.

I remember my English lessons with children fascinated by my tape recorder replaying the voices of local Basotho telling a story, while they read the words printed on the chart paper behind me and the principal translated into Sesotho.

I remember teaching lessons and Ntate and I carefully going over what went well, what to improve, and making goals for next time.

“Ntate, thank you so much for telling me, but really I am not surprised. This school is a very special place. You must be so happy. Thank you for making me feel so welcome here, and for having me join your school.”

“Yes, you are welcome, Mme.”

We drop hands.

“See you next week, Ntate.”

“Yes, Mme.”

He returns to his eager students, and I walk the hour back to my village.

Multiples on the Hundreds Chart

These photos are taken during a maths lesson several weeks ago. We were using hundreds charts to look at patterns and practice multiples. The principal is guiding the children to find multiples and use the chart.

These photos are taken on a classroom visit to an ECCD teacher who has helped to organize the ECCD workshops in my local village at the Resource Center. She has made numerous math materials and recently established her math center.

For this visit, she requested that I assist her in teaching number sense during the Morning Ring, and then to demonstrate how those materials would translate into self directed constructivist activities. We co taught and managed centers together, then discussed how to observe student learning and begin to differentiate instruction depending on their demonstrations of understanding.

Hooray for Children!

As arranged last month, this group of ECCD teachers met to observe a day with the curricular theme: Technology: Transportation and Communication. Eight teachers returned to participate in morning ring, center time, music ring, and story ring. After school, teachers had the opportunity to make the materials that had been used.

Winter's arrival pushes off the next regional workshop until next September, since many of the teachers travel hours by taxi or by foot to join us on workshop days. Until then, the Regional Leader and I will work together on curricular ideas, materials construction, and classroom space improvements.

Thank you again for all of your support for these ECCD workshops! Lesotho Young Authors Program continued their support with donations of blank books. Multiple packages and small financial contributions have allowed the teachers to create their own materials, and provided them with lunch after hours of travel and work.

Morning Routine - Look! A Number Line!

Indoor Center Time - Stories, Words, Keyboarding, Wheel Math and Puzzles...

Teachers Making Materials

Lesotho Young Authors Program has been supporting our workshops and the library in a variety of ways. This past week they visited the village. Their book project has now become a critical part of empowering the ECCD teachers to take ownership of the curriculum, and it has also given a voice to local oral histories. I have used the stories in classroom lessons, and in the following pictures you can see students hearing a read aloud of the picture book written by their own teacher.

Below are photos from the ECCD workshop. We continue to focus on how to establish a Math Center with constructivist materials. The women walked each other through how a topic might be taught during the Morning Ring using the materials, used by the children independently at during indoor centers, re emphasized in a song during Music Ring, and finally revisited in a book [that they author] during Story Ring. Our next workshop is May 26.

After the workshop photos, you will see photos from the second weekly field trip from St Theresa. The children enjoyed reading picture books and playing games. After the Easter Break, a different small group from the same class will return May 13.

APRIL 14 LOCAL ECCD WORKSHOP

WEEKLY FIELD TRIP

We had been planning the field trip for weeks, but this morning...

5:33am SMS: 'Lumela Mme. Rain is coming, I think it's better 2 stay n look 4 another time. Wht d u think?'

5:41am My Response: 'U kno already? It's not yet dawn! Lets wait til a bit to decide.'

6:47am I check in: 'Well? What do you decide? I leave this to their teacher! U r welcome, or nxt wk, or both!'

6:53am SMS from the Teacher: 'W l c when they come. I think of coming.'

7:46am I verify: 'R u coming?'

7:48am SMS confirms: 'We r coming, right after saying de prayer.'

And it was a glorious field trip after all! Several adults helped to manage the small groups at centers while children played learning games, read books and rotated in to the library for read aloud.

I’ve squeezed into what I thought was the last spot in a taxi van, but as my backpack is handed to me and a bucket full of apples is heaved over the laps of the front row – another seat is uncovered.

The 17 or us, 18 including the driver, hunker down to wait for another passenger to arrive.

I’m hot. I want to go.

“We are full, Ntate. Ha Re Ea! [Let’s go!]” I say to the driver. He turns and smiles his rebuff.

“Ntate, we are full. There are 17 of us waiting to go.”

A curtain of crisp silence falls, and the passengers are a captive audience for this unexpected cross cultural theatre piece unfolding.

“We will pick this one up on the way,” I continue my monologue.

“How much is each ticket? R27,” I decide to take the business route. “So, if we each, each of us, each we pay one more rand, one rand more only, we’ve paid for the extra seat. And I will pay the remaining ten extra.”

The driver glances in the rearview mirror, sensing something I don’t. Sesotho suddenly breaks out among the passengers behind me, and before I know it the conductor has hopped in, closed the door, and we’re off.

“You’ve made it so that we can leave!” says one man.

“We might have waited hours,” another laments.

“Why are you having to pay the R10?” one asks.

“Um… it was my idea?” I grin sheepishly, calculating the extra rand as about $1.25.

But the taxi is already sputtering, threatening us with breaking down. On the inclines it stalls, and the conductor darts out to find a rock for the back wheels while the driver tries to start it again. We are not 15 minutes out on our journey. Somehow we inch along.

Passengers get out, and more get in. Soon we are at 20 plus.

At the next slope, the taxi stalls. After 5-10 attempts to start it again, we are all ushered off. Passengers start walking up the hill while the driver and condductor begin to dismantle the floorboard to fix the engine.

I am so annoyed. I take my heavy bag and hoist it on my back, my shoulders immediately begin to ache.

I catch up with the others, then turn to see a white pick up that is coming our way. I naively feel relief. “Ah, but he can help us! We can ride in the back!” I say to one of my previous business partners.

He looks at me in concern. “But no, I think that then the taxi driver will be quite angry.”

Momentarily I am confused over how that driver could possibly be angry with a load of stranded passengers. Until, I realize, the terms of their agreement with this driver are very different than mine. My roots of commitment lie only in my arrival at the final destination. Their commitment is something I cannot begin to understand as an outsider.

Indeed, the pick up slows down, talks with the driver a bit, then speeds past us with its empty open back. No hitches.

I can’t bear it. My heart beats ‘U’ ‘S’ ‘A’ and I pick up my bag again, my anger, my indignation and independence, and begin to walk. I pass the group sitting now by the side of the road.

“Where are you going?” they ask. I tell them. It might take three hours, but I refuse to sit and wait for that taxi.

I manage to get to my destination, and after retelling my story a few times in frustration, it begins to bury itself in my ‘mountains out of molehills’ file. I forget about it in the success of teacher training workshops and being with children.

Not until a week later, on my return trip, does it dig itself out.

I’m riding the taxi home. We’ve pulled over, paused so the conductor could get change at the shop on the way, and suddenly an Ntate is walking quickly and aggressively towards us. It is the driver of the taxi that broke down.

He leans in the driver’s window and glares at me. He rubs his fingers together. “Chelete. Money.”

This is certainly not an apology for the break down.

I say, “No way, Ntate” I am loud. “Uh-uh.”

The only word I know for broken down is just ‘to break’ so I seeth forcefully, ‘You are broken, You are broken” in Sesotho. I hope he gets the message.

He calls me ‘Tsotsi’. Thief.

I blow up. “Tsotsi?!? You tsotsi! You leave people on the side of a road! You are tsotsi!”

He yells. I yell. I’m pretty sure I’ve convinced him I’m not giving him any money.

After a while, he leaves. I see him go up to the current driver and yell, brandish a stick, yell. The driver comes back in. He looks at me and smiles. After all, moments ago we had been singing UB40 together, ‘Red Red Wine’.

“Do you know what he was talking about?” he asks me, still grinning.

“Oh yes, Ntate. His taxi broke down. He left me on the side of the road. He left everybody there on that road.”

“So you are not going to pay him?”

“No way, Ntate. I will pay you, because your taxi works. I pay when I am taken to my destination, not when I am left somewhere along the way.”

“You don’t even know where it was that he left you?” He is implying that I should have paid for the distance that I did ride.

I’m fuming and nearly pitiful. Why would those passengers pay? And yet, I know there will be no consequence for my decision to leave without fare. The taxi drivers are strangers to me, and I will still be taken to where I need to go.

Had I lived and grown up in this place, for how long would I have known that driver – and his family? Would anyone pick me up the next time, since all the taxis are poorly maintained? Only if the passengers as a group were organized and resolutely united not to pay for such disrespect – only then would, or might, things change.

Ten minutes later, well before the final arrival and after some heated discussion between the driver and the conductor, I am asked for my fare. I hand over exact change. It’s clear this taxi will complete the journey.

I am not a thief.

This ECCD, featured in previous blog entries, hosted its first regional workshop. Nine teachers from surrounding villages arrived to learn about using songs and math in the morning routine, to watch direct instruction for the first 'morning ring' around a theme, and to learn about concrete manipulatives and constructivist activities at centers. After observing the children and taking a guided tour, teachers spent time making materials together.

At the end of the workshop, we made a plan: April 28, 2011. Theme: Technology [Transportation & Communication]

See you there!

Six ECCD teachers, walking between 1-3 hours, came to this workshop. They made manipulatives to guide children from concrete through semi concrete to abstract early numeracy. To build spatial skills and fundamental 'part to whole' relationship understanding, they made puzzles from magazine pictures and cardboard. Thanks to Lesotho Young Authors Program, who donated blank books, colored pencils, and pencil sharpeners, these teachers made books and pattern blocks to teach their children about shapes and pattern. Our group decided that April 14 will be our next workshop together. See you there!

When I first arrived back at village, Aussi Ntsepeng barely looked up across our yard as I walked over to greet my Mme and Ntate. She stayed focused on her stick drawing in the dirt. Only when I walked right over to her and crouched down to level our eyes did she raise her head slightly and murmer, “Lumela”.

Her head had grown larger. Her hair was longer and matted, dull and dirty. I barely recognized her without sparkling eyes. I left her there sitting on the stoop outside the room next door to my rondavel, where she slept with her dying mother. I cowardly walked past to go to my latrine, not ready to greet inside.

The next day I finally found the courage.

“Koo koo,” I sang to announce myself.

“Ke na,” Mme called back. I’m here inside.

Opening the door, I see Mme lying completely covered by a blanket, she is struggling to pull it down far enough to turn and look at her audience. Then her skeletal face appears. “Aussi Nthabeleng!” she says, and smiles with white teeth that pop out from her jaw bone.

The room where she lies is completely bare except for a pile of clothes at the foot of the mattress. I see a Sesotho picture book I had given to Aussi Ntsepeng before my December vacation, it lay abandoned on the window sill. The cover was filthy.

There are dark wet spots on the dirt floor near the left far wall, and I subconsciously register that this is likely where she urinates – she is too weak and unable to walk to the latrine because of her feet. There is a large jug of water next to her head.

She is so sick. So sick it smells like sickness, so sick that my feet grow roots of shame and I’m barely standing inside the door as we begin to talk. She is so sick her breathing takes visible effort and focusing on me seems ellusively challenging.

“Mme, you are still sick.” I can think of nothing else to say to replace the cruel cordial greeting to ask how she is doing.

“Yes, Aussi Nthabeleng, I am still sick.”

“Have you been to the clinic?”

She wails, catching me off guard, and begins to cry. “I have no money, Aussi Nthabeleng. I can’t take the taxi. I’m too weak.”

I stand for a moment, grasping at hope. “Aussi Ntsepeng, is she sick?”

“No.” And we both hold on to this for several seconds.

“Holokile, Kea Leboha,” Ok, Thank you. This is my exit. As I leave, I make a quick sms to my friend who works at the nearest clinic and happens to be visiting that day. He advises me to bring her bukana [health book] to the nurses and to speak with them about getting medicine. I share this with Mme, but am not sure what is understood.

That afternoon I sit with my Ntate and broach the subject of Aussi.

“Aussi, she doesn’t go to school Ntate?” It is prompting him to respond to my implicit additional question – why.

“No. She has no uniform,” and he throws his hand out, casting away his frustration with this mandated expense shackling universal primary education.

“Oh.” Aussi Ntsepeng, it turns out, only has the clothes that she wears. The rest she has outgrown I learn. I never did see her with a pair of shoes.

That night I make zucchini and pumpkin from our garden, and bring some for Aussi and her mother. I have no idea how Aussi has been getting any food. Her mother surely does not cook, and I have not seen my host mother giving her anything. But when I tentatively step forward into the room holding the steaming bowl, the Mme explains and motions her clarification: she can’t eat anything, she vomits it all now. So much for getting her medicine, I think grimly.

So Aussi Ntsepeng eats everything, and she is famished. I watch her skin as she eats, stretching over confined bones. When she finishes she smiles and I see a flicker in her eyes that hunger had extinguished. I know I’ll make extra for her now.

The next morning Aussi Ntsepeng is sitting just outside my door when I open it. My Sesotho teacher comes later to find us doing a puzzle together, and the three of us walk down to the library. I share with him about Aussi and her mother, how they arrived the end of last November, and when I returned to village just recently her mother had become much worse. Aussi looked dangerously thin and was not attending school.

My teacher begins to talk with her, and learns more of her journey before arriving in my village. It turns out she’s been moving around for quite awhile. She stayed in South Africa, where she spoke Zulu. She stayed in another part of Lesotho, where she spoke Xhosa. Now she stays here, where she must speak Sesotho.

I ask my teacher about getting a uniform for mer for school, and Aussi Ntsepeng pipes up that she knows of a shopong where they sell them.

“Ke bokai?” I ask, and she runs off to find the answer. 90 Rand it turns out, or about $15.

By the afternoon she has told the children at library that we will go to school tomorrow to see what can be done, as I’ve promised her. Lemohang asks me to make sure, “Tomorrow Ntsepeng goes to school?” His voice was full of surprise.

“Yes, tomorrow,” I say with more confidence than I have in the outcome.

That night I save more pumpkin zucchini, this time gourmet with chicken flavor ramen noodles. I had already eaten until I was full.

The next morning, moments after I wake, she rings my doorbell, a beautiful red robbin given to me as a holiday gift from a best friend from home. I knew she either wanted confirmation that we would still go or food.

“Ema,” I say firmly from inside. Wait. “Re tla ea ka sekolong haufinyane.” We will go to school soon.

Fifteen minutes later, I have about ten bites more of oatmeal with raisn and cranberries than I can finish, so Aussi Ntsepeng has breakfast also. I have to silence the fleeting absurd nightmare that she will be allergic to some strange item of food I’ve introduced her to. It is strikingly simple, saving the last bites when I’m full, and she has a meal.

Just after seven she knocks again, and when I open the door she is standing with Aussi Rapelang. Aussi Rapelang wears her bright blue uniform and carries her lunchbox in one hand, waving to me with the other.

“Already?” I say. It’s summer. Everything happens earlier in summer, I had forgotten, and I still need to wash and dress. They both continue standing and smiling and watching me as I hurriedly try to explain in Sesotho. I close the door and prepare myself.

Finally we are on our way. Other children are walking to school and join us. They say her name in surprise, happy to see her, then they take off together talking. Some eat moroho [a leafy green spinach variety] and papa with their hands while they walk.

Then Ntsepeng is beside me again as we walk up the dirt road. Her bare feet are trying to catch my shadow, and the moment I notice what she’s doing I glance sidelong at her. With a shared nod, we both declare game on. Round 1 begins.

I go faster, my shadow goes faster, and Aussi Ntsepeng races giggling to keep inside. I stop. Aussi Ntsepeng has run to far, caught alone in the light ahead of us. We laugh, both ready now for Round 2.

On a rocky throne at the top of the hill, past the bus stop and the bar, lie four rectangular buildings that make up the primary school. When we finally reach it, assembly is just starting. The children line up according to grade while I greet the teachers. I know many of the children and they see me. We wave to each other in delight, knowing we’ll be together in the afternoon at the library. School marks time, one year to the next the children’s lives unfold. We have all grown one year older.

After assembly I approach the principal and explain.

“She came with her mother last year, November. Her mother is very very sick. Then I left for December. When I returned, both were still with my family, staying there. Her mother still likes there, even more sick. Aussi has just been staying there at home. She is not going to school. I brought her to see whether she can come join in this school year."

The principal is sympathetic, kind, and starts talking with Aussi. Then she goes to talk with her likely teacher, and some minutes later returns.

“Yes,” she smiles at me and gestures towards Aussi Ntsepeng, “she will start tomorrow.”

“Oh! Really? Thank you!” I wasn’t ready for it to be so simple. I wasn’t ready for my frustration at why it had not been done before yet.

“But she mus thave a uniform?” I ask. I’m uneasy about buying her a uniform because of the precedent that it sets in the village, on the other hand I won’t let $15 be the obstacle barring her from education.

“Ah, it will come. She can come in her dress until it is found somehow. Then she will have a uniform.”

I thank her again. Aussi Ntsepeng has become increasingly nervous and happy, and she bites her thumb.

Then her new teacher comes in, a teacher I know well as she has welcomed me often in her class to help me learn to teach over 80 children in a single room with only a blackboard for a learning aid. She starts to talk with her, trying to ease her anxiety. But Aussi Ntsepeng is so anxious she cannot even raise her head or respond to her questions.

The teacher looks at me and shakes her head in concern. It might be a long year, but Aussi Ntsepeng will start school tomorrow.

The head teacher leads the learning center on left and right sides. There are outlines of the left and right hand on the cardboard box, and on either side are boxes to put different items into depending on the directive. The hokey pokey was our transition song during centers :)

The assistant teacher led the read aloud center. She gave a picture walk through this Sesotho picture book, donated by Biblionef South Africa.

The visiting teacher was in charge of the arts/writing center. Today, the children trace their left hands on the 'left hand' poster and their right hands on the 'right hand' poster. At the end of the learning time, the posters are displayed. This follows up the week theme of left and right.

At the math center, children put together puzzles. The puzzles feature wild animals - pictures from magazines glued on to the back of cereal boxes and cut in to two pieces. Learning about animals and environment is part of the ECCD curriculum.

In these two pictures, after center time, the assistant teacher shows the visiting teacher the weekly planning and daily schedule. They talk together about scheming and lessons.

At the end of the morning, the visiting teacher pages through the read aloud book from the literacy center. Later she comes to ask me about the math manipulatives, and we experiment using them together. We agree that next time, she'll welcome us to her site so that we can begin working together. Meanwhile, the head teacher agrees that he will host his first regional workshop on March 31st. The ripple effect is in effect!

The rain is merciless. I climb in the taxi, and the driver turns to me, "Ach! This rain!"

"Yes, ntate," I agree, "It is too much. That rain needs to stay in the sky now." The urgency and magnitude of the drops feels more like a massive migration, a giant celestial climate change protest, than a natural flow.

Three months ago the most common greeting in my village was, "But where is the rain? Let us pray for rain. It is too dry." Now I want the droplets to stay put, nested in the clouds. I imagine the garden as I left it, carefully hoed and weeded each morning, Each evening my Ntate and so many children worked tirelessly to carry water buckets up the mountainside to keep those seedlings moist. Now I pray that garden is not mud.

We travel down the paved road in Maseru, where I've been stuck for three weeks because the rain has flooded the rivers and made it impossible for me to return to my village.

Ntate Thabo begins to drive, saying, "It is ruining our people. It is destroying our crops. It is preventing us from reaching our families. It is making it so that we cannot work. It is damaging our cars, and creating pot holes. It is hurting us, everyone." He's emphatic, his hands grip the steering wheel, he is shouting back at the loud drumming on our vehicle.

He's right. There are stories of houses being swept away, daily drownings, and, Ntate continues, "They say that there is a bridge, it has collapsed. But I'm not sure where. I heard that on the radio this morning." This morning I tried to go to the post office, arriving 30 minutes after opening time to allow for delays due to rain. Instead of finding the doors open, there was a line of people that wrapped around the building. It never did open.

We drive on towards where I am staying. Suddenly the other side of the road is underwater, and as the truck driving the opposite direction speeds by, our small toyota is doused in water. We can't see anything but brown water streaming across the windshield.

We look at each other. Ntate Thabo raises his eyebrows and shakes his head. "These people, they do not even slow down. They are dangerous. They are just speeding." He expertly navigates the remaining block on paved street and turns down my dirt road where pot holes collect water like small bathtubs.

I pay him. "Be careful, Ntate. Please keep safe." I'll soon be inside shelter without leaks, change into dry clothes, and put on tea. He'll stay steering through the growing rapids to make his living.

"Yes, Mme. I know that this is the time to be careful. And it is the time for us to pray for the rain to stop."

Literacy Center

-Alphabet Letter Strip

-Vowel Letters to match to the Alphabet Letter Strip

-small loose alphabet letters to use for phonics, spelling, name writing, etc.

-books

-'Can You Spell?' activity [Each card states 'Can You Spell' and a simple word, then blocks in marker to outline the lower/upper case letters. Children use alphabet letters to find the correct letters and spell the word printed.]

-Jumbo crayons

-Colored pencils

Math Center:

- Number Line w/an additional set of matching digits separate for children to place in order or match

- Digit Poster

- 'Count to Five' Boards

- Matchbox Counting

- small yogurt containers that hold stones for counting, etc.

- number wheel adding

- Memory match puzzle boards [Each playing board has a grid of pictures, the child matches 'picture cards' to the correct image on the board until the board is replicated.]

During this visit to an ECCD center about 5 hours travel from my village, the focus was on math - as the teacher had requested. Initially, his plan was to teach whole numbers 1-10 on Monday followed by addition and subtraction during the rest of the week. When we discussed the schedule, I showed him some new examples of concrete manipulatives and ways to make the lesson more constructivist and student centered.

Within the hour he had taken over guiding his students to understand the concepts of quantity, increasing quantity, and the corresponding digit symbols that represent this. We had revised his schema so that digits 1-5 would be the focus this week, and depending on how the students demonstrated understanding there might be a group that moved on to 5-10 next week.

This was an extraordinary lesson to me in how flexible, eager, and enthusiastic ECCD teachers can be to develop their understanding, and thus their students understanding, in math. This ECCD center has requested a number of workshops in the coming year and has agreed to host and lead regional workshops in the Spring as a classroom lab/model center.

These manipulatives are made out of cardboard boxes and matchboxes. All are designed to help the students move from concrete to abstract understanding. In some, the children have to demonstrate understanding of one to one correspondence. In others, the children have to pair or match the quantities with the digit symbols.

The matchbox activity allows the teacher to select digits [not shown here - they are stored in the larger matchbox with the label 1-10] and place them on the white mat space below the box, then the child has to place the appropriate number of small stones in the box to demonstrate understanding of the symbol. This can move through digits 1-10 sequentially, demonstrate odd or even numbers, or be randomized to assess full understanding.

Most importantly, these are materials that are accessible, familiar, easy to assemble or make into math materials, and easy to replace. The teachers will now make multiple replications of these materials with materials on hand so that many children will have the opportunity to use them in the 'Math Center' during indoor activity/center time.

This was the third and final ECCD Workshop before the end of the 'school year'. The focus was on how to schedule the daily program thematically. We chose the curricular topic of 'Myself', then looked at how this could be thematically addressed throughout the day. Using mirrors, singing songs, and reading books, we all had fun and agreed next year we have a lot of work to continue together! A special thanks and much love to M & B in Oregon for the materials that made this workshop possible.

I’ve come back from the library at early dusk, as I promised Ntate. I want to know whether we should water today.

Several weeks ago I gave my Ntate seeds for kale, spinach, carrots, tomatoes, zucchini, even pumpkins seeds gifted from the Sisters after I excitedly told them about my new gardening career. He set to work preparing the plots, and hoeing [I tried to help but my hoeing ended up preparing the plots for his hoeing.].

We planted together in the face of a menacing thunderstorm.

"You must put one, one, one," he had demonstrated expertly with the seeds. I watched them fall from his fingers in to their new homes - like a stork delivering it's babies. He assured me that we had time for one more plot even as I felt the first raindrops. Of course, he was right though – the downpour began only as I opened the door to my rondavel with dirt caked fingernails.

But the intervening time refused another drop to our fields, the dirt has begun to crack and the seeds sizzle in their ovens. In the morning, Ntate had told me that we should water tonight - "Let the water cradle the seeds all night!" he said, so that the morning sun would seem again full of promise.

So I am here to meet him, to water seeds with him. Ntate meets me with different ideas though. He is wobbling with beer breath, and he holds up a cigarette.

“Borrow me a match!”

“Ntate, you smoke?!”

“Yes, I am going to smoke.”

"Ntate, I will not help you to hurt yourself." I shake my head and look away with a small smile, but genuine disappointment.

He laughs. "Yes. I will decrease it little by little."

"Ntate, don't you see you are the grandfather for so many children? They come to you, all of them. You must keep yourself strong for them. You are a grandfather for the whole village. They must see how long life can be."

The last month, every weekend hosted the burial of a woman or man in their 20's.

On a recent Saturday, my Ntate had asked me, "Are you going?" He had a joint between his fingers then too, and the smoke curled up and dissipated like released fireflies.

"To the funeral?" I'm sure it is what he has asked, but I say it anyway to fill the lost time.

"Yes."

"No," I say. I look away.

"You are busy." He looks at me, pulls me back into his gaze.

"The DTEP students should be coming to the library to work on their assignments with me." I say it weakly, self conscious of my avoidance and distance.

"Oh." He is disappointed in me.

"There are so many funerals, Ntate. So many funerals."

He looks sharply at me. "People are dying, Aussi." He is finished with my weakness.

"Yes."

"She was young," he continues. "I think 22 or 25. Her mother died in August."

He finished one last pull on the dagga and flicked it away under the tree. Then we both walked away, returning to our separate realities.

And then within a few days a mother and her young daughter appeared on the stoop of the house of my Ntate. The young woman, emaciated, sat with bony arms and legs folded around each other and her feet swabbed in clothing - too swollen to imprison themselves in shoes. Her cheek bones boasted forward like a sculpture. Her daughter, not more than 10, stared at me with bright eyes, her body swimming in a t-shirt and bright pink sweat pants. Both now stay with us, and the mother wastes away watching her beautiful daughter play and laugh in the last moments they will share together, imagining her adolescence and young adulthood, wondering who will comfort her when she is crying and scared...

This evening, I am disappointed in him. I want him to see himself as I see him, a rare survivor who holds the history of the village and the memories of a full lifetime.

I see now that Ntate has turned back to me with brightened eyes and a dawning smile. He has recognized himself in the mirror I've spoken - Grandfather of the Village seems to be a title he likes.

"Yeah..." he nods, unblinking, one hand on his hip and the other casually beginning to gesture as if ready for his welcoming remarks.

"You must keep yourself well. I will not help you to hurt yourself," I conclude with a more stern reproach, now that I have his attention and his ego. I smile, inviting him to reconsider his original request.

He joins me, and chuckles. "Ok, Aussi." He turns, drops his hands, and begins to walk away. "I'm going to make my tea!" he loudly remarks over his shoulder, his hands nearly shooing me away with backward waving.

Perhaps there is a new seed planted...

Biblionef SA donated over 100 books, most in Sesotho, to the Resource Library. After the purchase of a new bookshelf, our library is becoming more and more official... Thank you so very much for the profound impact this donation has made on the next generation... a generation of readers, learners, and who's to know what will come :)

Live Oak School made this workshop possible by sending a fantastic package of phonics workbooks and lesson materials. This is the second monthly workshop organized by the local ECCD / Preschool teacher. The group is now creating a 'lesson activities booklet' that will collect new ideas for literacy and maths lessons [in several of the pictures you can see teachers referring to it or looking at it].

I was invited by the Sisters of St. Theresa Mission to attend an Ordination in Mokhotlong. These images show the ceremony. We attended one ceremony in Mokhotlong, then another celebration in the village where the priest had grown up.

A large white tent was set up in the yard of the St. Joseph's primary and secondary school compound. Seats surrounded the tent. This photo shows the priest walking down to the large tent.

This is the choir, complete with two choir directors and a set of drums [Rubber stretched across a container, with a wire attached threading through hundreds of bottle caps to become the 'cymbals'. Amazing.]

This traditional stick with cow hair attached rhythmically punches at the air to celebrate during singing and dancing.

Some attendants dressed up as a way to celebrate the event - women dressed as men, young women dressed as old women, one couple - pretending - dressed as a bride and groom.

The ceremony begins.

The priest spends nearly 15 minutes in 'private' prayer shown here.

Two boys watch together. It is common here for boys and men to hug and to hold hands, this moment between the boys seemed so beautiful.

The celebration begins!

From the pockets of some of the most desperately poor, these baskets became full with bills and coins.

Guests brought forward gifts for the priest. Note the corn, ram, and kindling.

Mass

The village ceremony and celebration.

This ECCD Workshop was organized by the local teacher, whose center is just behind the resource library. She had been coming just about once or twice a month to skim through curriculum books, brainstorm ideas, and make learning manipulatives with me. Then we had the idea that she should call together area Reception class [Kindergarten] and ECCD -[Preschool] teachers so that she could present all that she had been doing and also encourage them to make their own materials. In several photos, you can see her sharing how she uses text in the classroom and you can see other teachers making their own sets of materials based off of the ones that we did together.

Most of these women journeyed between 1 and 5 hours to attend this ECCD workshop. They are making math and literacy games or center activities. They stayed between 3-6 hours. The group photo was taken at the end of the workshop, when everyone [except the mother who stayed inside to breastfeed and insisted that we go without her] brought out something that they had made during the workshop.

“Lumela, Mme!” Good morning mother, I wave to Retsepile’s mother as she sweeps the front step of her rondavel.

Retsepile is one of my most devoted library vistors, he reads book after book in Sesotho and English. He always carefully places books back in their appropriate bin. He makes sure the puzzles pieces all find their way back in their baggies and are replaced in the activity box. He loves playing English Go Fish with me, and he often helps the littlest ones begin to understand books – even if it just means putting the book right side up.

His mother must be an angel. She’s also HIV+, and Retsepile’s father has died several years ago.

It’s early Saturday morning. She looks up and returns my wave, “Lumela, Mme Nthabeleng!” She puts her hands on her hips and regards me. There’s more. “Today’s the wedding day!” she informs me.

“It is?” I smile in surprise. I vaguely remember a principal I work with inviting me to a wedding some weeks ago, but I had forgotten or never known the day.

“Yes! You are coming! It is there, in that village,” she responds and gestures across the mountain.

“I am?” my knee jerk response is to repeat the idea of the person who has just spoken, it buys me time to think of a more appropriate, or at least more useful, contribution.

“Yes! About 1 or after 1 o’clock!”

I juggle my morning plans: hiking to the nearby mission to charge my laptop, my Saturday Sesotho lesson, my English lesson for a Basotho friend, lunch with the Sisters… yes, I should be able to hike back in time.

“Is 2 o’clock ok?” I ask, then bite my tongue. The difference between 1 o’clock and 2 o’clock compares to the difference between windy and still windy.

“Yes! You are coming!” Mme repeats only the most important information so that I won’t get confused.

After my visit with the Sisters, I return to the village and dash inside my rondavel to quickly change into my seshoeshoe skirt [This is the dress or traditional skirt worn by Basotho. It is pronounced se-shway-shway]. I walk out along my path, and receive so many unexpected compliments. ‘Motle haholo!’ My Mme claps her hands and shakes her head, repeating that I am beautiful. I beam. I feel like going to a wedding.

On the way, I meet with another friend who is going. We walk up to the turn off, which is also by the bar, and he turns to me, “Let’s go inside and have a drink. You must. You cannot say that you will not. I am buying you something. What will you have?”

Meanwhile I continue to receive rave reviews of my seshoeshoe by the different young people I pass, but I am beginning to get suspicious. No one else is wearing one. And they are all going to the wedding.

I follow my friend into the bar, and he presents me with Stony – my favorite soft drink ginger beer. I notice a man is staring at me from across the room. Since we are in a bar, and I am wearing a seshoeshoe, I do not return this with my usual smile and ‘please be nice to me I’m American’ wave. Instead I glance up, down, back at my friend, back at my drink. Then this semi familiar face is right next to me.

“Do you know me?” he casts his lasso.

“Do I know you?” I try my old technique.

“Do you know me, Nthabeleng?” he repeats.

I’m caught, a deer in the headlights of my name and his question.

“Yes! You know me!” Thankfully he answers his own question. “Didn’t you come to my shop?” Maybe he knows the answer to this one too, I pray.

“Yes! You did! I am the one who cut your hair!” Ah! Of course! I gulp. How could I forget the day I hacked off my hair to conserve future water supplies… I decide not to tell him I’ll never cut my hair again.

Instead, I opt to show him my progress. “Look!” I pull out my ponytail holder. “It has grown!”

He nods. “Yes, you will have to come back.”

I laugh and switch the topic. “Are you going to the wedding?”

“Yes! Let’s go!” And we are off to ride up in one of the cars now caravaning up to the big white tent on the side of the hill. We climb in to the car and I realize I am with a DTEP student that has frequently come to the library for workshops and independent study. In fact, she has RSVP’d to a Lesson Planning Workshop to be held the very next day! I am thrilled to see her, but realize that perhaps we shouldn’t talk ‘shop’. But she starts before I have a chance, and soon we are talking about what we can do together tomorrow.

Then the car gets stuck, and the bald tires refuse to travel any longer on the dusty rocks. We climb out and walk the rest of the way. My seshoeshoe is still the only one I’ve seen so far.

The villages gather together at the top of the hill and wait for the arrival of the bride and groom, and the bridal party. It turns out that the bride is from Maseru and the groom is from the neighboring village. They met in Durban. Many of the guests have come up from Maseru. I stand awkwardly with three young men and a young woman from Maseru. They comment incessantly about my seshoeshoe, while they comfortably adjust their jeans and skirt and laugh to each other in Sesotho.

Eventually the couple, families, and friends come. The bride has on a gorgeous gathered white wedding dress, the groom is wearing a silk grey suit with pink button down and tie. The bridesmaids and best man all wear matching attire. I finally spy other seshoeshoes, worn by a few of the groom's family.

They all begin to dance towards the tent and the villagers fall in line behind them. We dance across the dirt, then wait while the bride and groom enter the tent first. Now my friends appear out of the crowd, each taking my hand and welcoming me until the next person recognizes me and takes my other hand to lead me somewhere else. Before I know it the groom’s father has brought me into the wedding tent.

The bride, groom, and bridal party all sit at the banquet table like royalty. There are two rows of chairs facing them, two rows on either side of the table. I am seated virtually across the table from the bride. It is a little awkward, and gets only slightly worse when the groom requests that I come and take a picture with them.

I recognize the wife of the best man. She was a part of the HIV+ support group organized in the village by the volunteer before me. She is glowing with happiness for her friend, her plump figure running to and fro to help with various logistics. Her husband must also be HIV+, and I watch him a few moments as he jokes with his best friend, the groom. Everyone appears the picture of health, happiness, love.

The bride and groom are the first to take their food from the buffet inside the tent. They are not shy – No nervous wedding jitters – these newly weds are HUNGRY and they load their plate with samp, nama, moroho. Basotho love to eat.

Soon the whole tent has their plates full and we are eating in our rows. The woman next to me is also a teacher, an older woman who has been teaching more than 20 years. Next to her is the principal who initially invited me, and on the other side of the principal is a Sister from the mission I have just visited.

The older woman and I talk about many things, I feel very grateful she has taken me on as her student here on this wedding day. She tells me about the customs of a traditional Basotho wedding, where the bride must not eat until the grooms family has slaughtered a sheep to welcome her and given her a new name.

At one point I spill my drink. I grimace and apologize.

She says to me, “In our culture,” and here she pauses to refer to herself with her free hand while the other carefully balances a drink and a full plate of food, “to spill, it means you have given some to the ancestors. Even when we spill, we spill our food or drink, we say, ‘Oh look! The ancestors were waiting for some of that. They wanted it before you could have any.’”

I’m relieved. All this time I thought I was just enormously clumsy.

After the meal, we dance. I have been feeling pretty comfortable in my Basotho rhythm, but apparently I have a long way to go. The favorite sight seems to be watching the white woman in the seshoeshoe try to dance like a Basotho. Still, my hands are held by friends and we are all laughing.

Finally it is close to dusk, and the party is just beginning. I decide conservatively to walk home, despite being assured various companions. I bounce from friends to friends, singing the favorite song here in Lesotho, ‘The ring on my finger I’ll never take it off!’ and ‘My wedding day, it’s my wedding day…’.

One of my final images while I walk back home is when I look up in time to see the sun set silhouette cows walking home on the crest of the next hill over. A small boy trots alongside his charges. Sun rise, sun set.

“They shot Tom! They shot Tom!”

Her voice is ripped in agony, scraped raw from screaming three words. Her trauma shakes us all. The seconds pass muddy with fear and disbelief.

We pass a body lying on the road. Who has fallen? What has happened?

We huddle together inside the Peace Corps gate, weeping.

“Why can’t I see him? Why can’t I?”

“You can’t help him now. It’s dangerous out there. He’s with the people who can help. You can’t go.”

“He’s gone. He took two bullets…”

Blankets draped over shaking shoulders, numbly we sit on the couch. Sobs echo, calling to each other across the emptiness and pain.

Finally the sun rays claw at the dark, rip it open and dawn enters, dressed in a hideous light to show the cruel truth again. The moments we had prayed to be a nightmare drag behind this demon of violence, hatred, senseless loss.

Tom you are beloved and missed. You will always be a part of us.

I arrived back at village and went to draw at my favorite lookout where I go to find solace. A new body lay buried there on the overhang, forever in a place of peace.

Two other drawings I had done before, they show signs of life - so I put them also next to this prayer to Tom.

http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.media.press.view&news_id=1612

Peace Corps Mourns the Loss of Volunteer Thomas Maresco

WASHINGTON, D.C., Sept. 4, 2010 – Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams is saddened to announce the death of Peace Corps volunteer Thomas “Tom” Maresco in Lesotho. Tom, 24, died as a result of a gunshot wound on Sept. 3 in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. The investigation into this incident is ongoing, but at this time it appears it may have been an attempted robbery.

"Tom was an exceptional volunteer, leader, teacher and coach – he was an integral part of his host community where he shared his passion for teaching, music and sports,” said Director Williams. “We are deeply saddened by this tragic event, and I ask that you keep Tom's family and our volunteers and staff in Lesotho in your thoughts and prayers.”

Tom, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., was a secondary education teacher in the village of Katse in the highlands district of Thaba-Tseka. He arrived in Lesotho for Peace Corps service in November 2009. A graduate of the University of Florida, Tom served as a science teacher in Lesotho. He was an active member of his local community in Katse and coached youth in a number of sports including basketball and swimming. Tom became his district's representative on the Peace Corps Lesotho HIV/AIDS committee and was committed to developing innovative ways to address HIV awareness and prevention among young people. He was scheduled to complete his Peace Corps service in January 2012.

The Peace Corps is providing grief counseling and support to volunteers and staff.

The Peace Corps works closely with the Department of State's Diplomatic Security operations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other federal agencies to support, as appropriate, the investigations conducted by host country law enforcement. Crimes committed against Peace Corps volunteers overseas generally fall under the legal jurisdiction of the government of the country in which the crime was committed. In this case, the government of Lesotho will conduct the investigation into this crime.

There are currently 91 volunteers serving in Lesotho. Over 2,100 Americans have served as Peace Corps volunteers in Lesotho since 1967. Volunteers in this Sub-Saharan African nation work in the fields of education and community health and economic development. Geographically, volunteers are distributed throughout all 10 districts of the country.

August, 2010

Resource Center Data

Total Visits: 296

50% Children ages 4-10 yrs

33% Children ages 11-20 yrs

5% Children around 2-4 yrs

5% Local Non DTEP Teachers

For those of you who have asked how to help or what to send :), here are the favorite activities.

Books:

Eric Carle

[Spot Series] by Eric Hill

J. Cannon

DK Eyewitness Books [readers below 10yrs]

HS Math textbooks

HS Science textbooks

HS/College Business Education Texts or Magazines

Children often buddy read, so duplicate copies are welcome!

Easy math books [counting numbers, fractions, multiplication, division]

Easy preschool alphabet / sounds books / colors / shapes / animals

Books about puberty, aimed at children around 11 or 12

Simple information books about African nations or stories set in Africa

Simple information books about hygeine

Memory games

Unifix connect cubes

Puzzles

Newsprint drawing paper

Large preschool size crayons

Coloring books

Simple word search books

Simple ‘activity’ books that support reading and math skills

Children’s magazines such as Click and Time for Kids

English dictionaries

If you are able, please send in Priority Mail Box [this is expensive ($40) but ensures delivery].

Print 'Educational Resources: Books' and 'Materials for Library - Children' written in black marker clearly in several places. Thank you and photos will be sent!

Tamara Weiss, PCV

Peace Corps Lesotho

PO Box 554

Maseru 100 Lesotho

Southern Africa

“Coo coo!” Laughter outside my door. “Coo coo!”

I check my cell phone under my blankets so as not to make the light detectable. 2:51am.

“Coo coo… sesotho sesotho sesotho ‘sehua!’ [english language] sesotho sesotho ‘lehua!’ [white english person] sesotho sesotho…”

The voices outside my door travel to the next rondavel in the compound, speak loudly and call ‘Coo coo’. Then they return outside my door. I silently thank my burglar bars, my keys, and all my locking and unlocking that have been recently making me impatient and feeling silly and suspicious, a stranger at home.

“Coo coo!” The pattern repeats. Then silence, and a final light two taps on my door.

I know they can’t get in, that they are drunk to a blackout variety, and that if I just stay silent and feign a deep dead to the world sleep they should get bored and go away.

And they do.

But I am still very much still under my covers, awake, for another hour before adrenaliine tosses me out to keep busy until dawn. I wash my hair. I study Sesotho. I do the dishes. I work out. I eat breakfast. Finally at 5:30am the sun decides to arrive. I bring my buckets outside to wash my clothes, to remember other days, to watch who might come out of my Ntate’s home.

Ntate has been gone more than two weeks now. He left with two suitcases, so I’m told, saying he was headed for Maseru. I never saw him go, and he never told me. I feel somewhat abandoned in surprise – though his wife was left equally ignorant, and that should be comforting in someway, I reason, but it’s not.

A man comes out of the house, sees me leaning over my wash buckets, and looks startled. “Lumela, Mme.” Good morning, he says.

I give him my best steel eyed trying to be Basotho I-know-what-you-did-last-night stare, unfortunately not fully perfected. But I stare unabashedly. My brain takes photos of his sunken eyes, his long yellow buck teeth, his bony cheekbones and the rectangle scar carved out above his upper lip. A green blanket with beige flowers shrouds his frame, his grey boots are anonymous and common for herdboys.

He looks away from me, checks back with the uncomfortable feeling of being studied, then goes to piss on the pig corral in front of him.

When he has returned inside the house, I text a trusted friend from the village. “Last night…” Even though I know my friend is away, I know he is highly respected and has a large family here.

Within minutes a text comes back. He has alerted his family in the village, and they will be coming.

Meanwhile the man has opened the door to leave my Ntate’s house for good, his white tulip hat perched on his head and his walking stick probing for the first solid step. He doesn’t look at me as he zig zags down the hill, the path of a stranger. I trail him silently.

My Mme appears from the kitchen where she sleeps, and Abuti Thiela emerges from the house where he boards, and I tell them what happened.

“Pepe! Pepe!” Mme touches her hand to her heart and then places that hand on my chest. “Ke o rata.” [Sorry, sorry. I love you.]

Abuti Thiela offers, “He is the one who has no common sense.”

Yes, I agree, somewhat frustrated that common sense is even in the same sentence as the man’s pronoun. So, having shared our thoughts, I turn back to my washing. Mme goes to feed the pigs. Abuti Thiela watches the village wake up.

Within 30 minutes, three Bo’Mme walk across our yard. I am not sure who these women are, so I wait. They head straight for me.

“Aussi! Ho joang?!” How are you / What’s up? They ask in unision.

“Ho sharp, Kea leboha,” I stammer uncertainly.

“Aussi!” One Mme steps forward, cocks her head, and repeats, “Ho joan?”

They know. “Oh, bosiu moabane?” Last night?

“Eh!” They place their hands on their hears. They tell me that they are from my friend’s family. I rush to tell them about the night, and my voice cracks. Basotho don’t usually cry past the age of 15, so I try vainly to protect my maturity. After I finish, with only a single tear convicted by a brush of my finger, they are still waiting for something.

“Empa, holokile kajeno. But now everything is ok. Letsatsi le teng. The sun is here. Holokile. It’s ok.”

“He is coming,” they clarify why we are waiting.

“Here?” I double take. They know who it was last night? I have to speak to him?

“Yes. You will meet hiim. He will come here and see you.”

There’s nothing to do but stand together. Within minutes the same man, green blanket pig pee-er, walks up to us.

He’s shorter when I see him standing this close to me. His sunken eyes now fall even deeper into his skull, holes of hangover, mistakes, and regret swim in a yellow soup of fear beneath sagging eye lids. He commences the trial by babbling in Sesotho, the women answer, he answers. I imagine the ping pong conversation consisting of denials and offenses.

It stops abruptly, and Abuti Thiela steps forward as my translator.

“You must forgive him.”

“What?”

“He has asking for to forgive him. He is going.”

I hesitate. I try not to guffaw. I look at him and am surprised by the earnesty as he meets my gaze. “Will he not come here? I don’t want to see him. I want to feel safe in my home, in the village.”

“Yes, he is going. You must tell him.”

I don’t want to forgive him. I want to push him down, steal his blanket, and instantaneously transport him to an urban jungle where everyone speaks jibberish and threatens him. But now 6 pairs of eyes are looking at me, full of concern that this matter be resolved.

“Of course, I just… I just want to feel safe. I forgive. Just please ask him to go.”

“He is going,” Theila repeats patiently for the third time. “He will not come back. He is from over there,” and he motions across the valley to the other mountains witnessing village life. “He is not from here.”

The group begins to dissippate. The Bo-Mme make sure that I have their phone numbers. I thank them again and again. We hug. It is not yet 8am. Time to start the day.

In the warmth of the morning, the spring buds have whispered ‘we told you so’ to the doubting frost long since slunk into the thirsty ground. My meeting scheduled at the Resource Center consists of the ECCD Teacher scheduling three workshops for the region’s 8 nearby teachers, then we work together for two hours making alphabet letters for literacy lessons. A DTEP teacher, year 2 student leader, also comes to discuss the calendar. Then it is time to go to the semi final soccer games at the local field.

After one game, I’m exhausted. I pass the cows lazily enjoying the first hot afternoon of the season. I take a nap. A knock at the door lets me know I’ve overslept, and two girls have come to call me to open the library. We read book after book together, switching off languages and pages, and others join and then leave and then return. Finally, it is time to go home.

As night begins to bashfully return, an old man arrives on horseback at my rondavel. He dismounts and ties his horse to the post outside. “I have come to visit you.”

He walks over. “I could not sleep,” and he takes my hand to finish during our shake – hand, thumb, hand, “…until I know what has happened. From your own words.”

I realize that this is the father of my dear friend I had texted in the morning. He listens with his heart, his eyes pouring into mine, and at the end of my expressions of gratitude for him and his family, he says, “You have come here. You are here to help. We are here to help you. You must feel safe. You are at home here. Tonight you will sleep well. He will not come again. No one will come. We are here to protect you.”

We say goodnight. He calmly goes to collect his horse, and requests Abuti Thiela to bring my Mme so that they may speak.

I go inside my home, make dinner, light candles, and welcome sleep again.

Soccer and cows...

Spring peach blossoms...

At the library...

Winter stays unwelcome. Everyone wants Spring now: the farmers tilling the fields with four cows, the piglets born last week, the children walking to school with wind whipped eyes, crying. And me, my nose raw and my hands dry snake skin, I want Spring too.

There is ice in the mornings at the pump, and it freezes on my jacket arm as it sloshes in escape from under the lid of my bucket. ‘Qhoqane’ is the word for ice, I’m taught one morning. I practice saying the clicking to distract me on my climb back up the steep hill from the water pump. The first click has an ‘h’ blend, the second doesn’t.

The water has been out at the nearest pump since March. I’ve forgotten the summer days of luxury, when water was just five minutes to and ten minutes back with a bucket full. I’d go two or three times a day without a thought. After March, the stakes changed. Should I wash my hair or clean the dishes? Could I reuse the water from boiling eggs for my tea? How important is it to rinse after brushing your teeth?

During the last week, winter had angrily stomped back in from warming days in a tantrum of frost, wind, and stinging air. I had committed to visiting a school nearby, only an hour and a half by foot. A new dear friend, a local Basotho teacher whose family was from the village, had introduced me to the principal several days ago – and also had popped in on his former second grade teacher, who still worked there. It was an introduction that immediately created trust and community, I didn’t want to do anything to damage this new relationship – especially not on account of the weather.

It isn’t easy for me to let go of the idea that weather is surmountable, a challenge that I should arm myself to overcome to continue with my business. The villagers have no such quirky notions. When it is cold, you stay with others and make a place where it is warm - until you have to fetch water, food, or kindling. Free primary education, compulsory for children and thus for their teachers, does not mesh well with this framework.

Even so, the visit was a success. The teachers were huddled together outside in the sun with the children. I met with several, reviewed the lesson plan for next week when I should return because it will be warmer, and was thanked repeatedly by the principal for coming so far.

On our return, it finally began to warm up. Just as Ntate Tye and I were passing the field where the horse races had been held last weekend, a crystal clear sound flows across the grass. Music dances on the sunlight. Rhythmic strumming of guitar chords are coming from the herd boys who’ve taken a rest from walking with their charges. They stand together warming up in the bright patch of light. Their band is already framed on a timeless album cover: the glorious Lesotho mountains hover behind, arms around each other’s craggy shoulders, the valley cradling this next generation of caretakers.

We approach, greet, and marvel at their craftmanship. We dance a step, and when I ask to take their picture they become professional and businesslike. I am offered portraits of serious musicians. As we continue on our way, the sun becomes more confident. I take off my jacket.

Then I realize the opportunity unfolding. “Ntate, I think it is warm enough that I should do the washing!”

Ntate Tye nods, agrees, then offers to pay someone to do my washing. No, I explain, again, I like to do my own. I know where it is dirty, I say, and I know when it is clean. I know the stories behind the dirt, and memories jump out of the soap suds while I scrub. And, though I don’t say it, some of my favorite times have been washing at the pump. Sometimes alone, sometimes with an audience, and often being helped in some way.

When we return to the village, I collect my washing and go down to the pump. Two other Bo ‘Mme are at the pumps also, their big family buckets of laundry nearly three times the size of my single life. They quickly motion where I place myself to join them. The women talk, watching me carefully to fill my bucket when I need clean water. Nobody asks me why I don’t pay someone to do my laundry, neither do they plunge their arms in to show me the right way to wash clothes. We are just three women at the pump, doing our work together.

It is another sign of a changing season.

The last rinse finished, and I trudge up the steep hillside to return home. Just as I pass the shop on the crest of the hill, I blink at an illusion. A ‘Mme is filling her water bucket at the nearby tap!

The tap! The tap is running water again!

“Mme! Mme!” I nearly drop my hard clean work and awkwardly trot up to her carrying it balanced on my hip. Her head swivels up to face me from her bent over position as she picks up the now full bucket. Her eyes meet mine, mirrored in my excitement.

She clearly announces, “Metzi o teng.” Water is here.

“Metzi o teng!” I repeat breathlessly. Water is here! Water is nearby! Water is close to my rondavel! Water is precious and it has come back, here, near, close to me!

I hoot! I forget what word might be appropriate in Sesotho, and instead I sing out, “WAAAHOOOO!!” She laughs. There are women coming with two and three thirsty buckets hanging from their hands, ready to store the abundance and jauntily walking goodbye to the morning trudges down the steep rocky slope.

And suddenly the world really does seem warmer, full of music, cleaner, and a lot closer to home. Metzi O Teng!

[These are pictures of the Musicians.]

Today was the first day back at school following the winter holidays. In the morning, we all walked up the hill to school together. After assembly, I joined my favorite class 2 to substitute an hour before the teacher arrived [many of them later came to visit the library - I'm hoping that by now I am a familiar face that helps to make their library a safe and fun place]. Then, it was time to prepare to reopen the Resource Center / Library!

There has been enormous support and help from various sources:

Note the growing children's section [Thank You Sara at LCE, American International School in Maseru, and M&B!], brand new science texts [Thank You Jed!] and math curriculum books, new 'Health Resource Center' with a book bin including a Basic Health Reference booklet [Thank You Erika!] and HIV/Aids Information brochures, and calendar board [Thank you Erika!], the children loving the new puzzles [Thank You M&B!], building/counting with unifix cubes and Liketso working on her phonics in Explode the Code [Thank you V&E, and everyone at LO!].

After school, the Resource Library opened from 2pm-5pm. There were over 25 visitors today, mostly children between the ages of 3-12, but including the pre school [called 'ECCD'] (who requested two books for a read aloud this Friday) and kindergarten [called 'Reception class'] teachers - both mothers, and the Traditional Healer [He asked to speak about HIV/Aids, so after a brief conversation about all those affected, infected, and available treatments - he picked up several brochures in Sesotho and sat outside reading them.] Thank you for all of your support!

Last night, near midnight, I opened my door to go to the latrine. I startled a horse tied up ten feet away, glowing in her moonlight silhouette. At dawn, the roosters cuckled through sunrise.

In the early morning, 10 year old Aussi Liketso brought me a bucket of water from the pump roughly 30 mins walk away, and shyly allowed me to give her a big hug and babble in English with excitement. Then we repeated to each other, ‘Ke thabile! Ke thabile haholo!’ [I’m happy, I’m so happy].

Just after breakfast, my ntate brought me over to see our very pregnant pig. ‘She will have them tonight, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. We need to find grass so the piglets can hide and keep warm,’ he announced. He also tells me that there will be two funerals this Saturday. My ‘Mme then absentmindedly looks up at the crystal blue sky, and tells me that there will be snow tomorrow.

Later I walk down to the water pump with my laundry, and the bo ‘mme are cleaning cow’s intestines. A Mme clarifies, “It is because someone has died. The Bo Ntate kill the cows and the sheep, the women kill chickens.”

When it is my turn at the pump, I notice that 8 year old Rapelang has followed me down and she is now keeping me company while I wash my clothes. We practice: ‘How’s it going? I am fine, thank you. How are you?’

At the library that afternoon, Liketso’s mother comes in to welcome me back. I explain, “Ke fihlile moabane bosiu [I arrived last night].” She smiles and nods, and explains further that I arrived at 8:20pm because that is when the car passed by her house. Then she gives me a big hug, walks in and picks up the newspaper. The children are packed inside and outside, playing games and pouring over the new books and magazines.

As the sun sets, I walk home and greet the traditional healer. We are both so happy to see each other, and after another warm hug he asks me, “How was Maseru?” and I answer by wrinkling my nose.

“Nkhang hampe! [It smells bad!]” We laugh, and I promise I’ll be opening the library again tomorrow afternoon, after the funerals.

I just boiled a pot of water so that I can pour it in to my water filter tomorrow morning after it has cooled, and I’m writing this by candlelight. I must be back home in the village.

We are crossing the border between Botswana and South Africa, returning from a trip with colleagues. I am exhausted and exhilerated, it seems impossible that the weekend is already over. My mind is full of the fun we have had – the dancing, eating, singing, and stories. Thursday night we boarded a school bus, drove all night to Famo music so loud that the rhythm became my heartbeat and the aisles became a disco club. Finally I remember my ear plugs, my last minute decision to bring eye covers, and by dawn I emerge from a blanket (draped over me by someone during the night) just in time to watch the sun rise itself hurriedly over the flat Botswana landscape. On Friday, we walked through the capital to marvel at the clean sidewalks, functioning traffic patterns, varied and well stocked shops, and markedly more diverse population. I overheard casual conversations in English slang while walking through the outdoor market and enjoying drinks on the balcony of a restaurant. After an enormous bilboard reminds us to ‘Keep Our Country Clean’, my friends and I suddenly kept a look out for well-positioned and frequent trashcans. We were out of practice; Maseru policy for trash means dropping it out the window or casting it in to the nearest gully – if your throw reaches that far. Bilboards invite us to buy electronics such as Blackberries, to stop smoking, to drink responsibly, and to invest wisely. I hadn’t yet heard of these theories in Lesotho. Saturday was ‘sports day’, and the stadium hosting our events was gorgeous. I discovered my hidden talent at netball, a variation of basketball for women. I realized that unfortunately volleyball requires eye-hand coordination. The end of the day found us scarfing KFC in the parking lot of a large shopping mall, next to our home away from home: the school bus. Both Friday and Saturday nights we danced all night. By Sunday morning, my head is swelling with new impressions and foggy from lack of sleep. I was almost looking forward to the 10 hour opportunity to sit still as we drive back to Lesotho. And so, walking towards the guards at the border, most of my thoughts were about the contrast between Botswana, South Africa, and Lesotho. Before I would re-enter South Africa, this framework changed in the typical way - from a window created by two people from the same region briefly interacting, a window wiped clear of the condensation formed out of my surface impressions and projections. We are crossing the border between Botswana and South Africa, returning from a trip with colleagues. As we approach the second passport control check, the Mosotho woman I am walking with begins chatting with the guards - her in Sesotho and them in Setswana. To my amazement, I understand… Hello… How are you… We are returning from our trip to Botswana… we live in Lesotho… Yes, even she… We are friends returning home… Then the marriage proposal comes from one male guard. In the moment, all I could recognize of this romantic moment was that the pace of Sesotho had picked up dramatically. I was dismayed, and a bit confused, that I could no longer understand anything but the repeated mention of ‘lihoho’ and ‘lihomo’ – chickens and cows. Later, my friend explained. “He said that he wanted to marry a Mosotho woman,” and she gently gestured to herself with a shy smile. “So, I told him he would need many cows!” She laughed, and continued. “Then, he says he does not have cows.” Her eyebrows rose up. It was as if discussing the misbehavior of a small child. She paused, remembering her suitor's next move, his banter and attempt at persuasively courting a Mosotho woman.“He says, but he has chickens! And, he says he has a big field of dagga [marajuana]!” We began to howl hysterically over this offer, grabbed each other's arms for support – chickens, marajuana… “Mme,” I gasped for air between laughs, “How can you refuse that? That kind of offer, it does not come every day!” We kept giggling and walked towards the rest of the group waiting by the bus. “You know, Mme,” I conclude, and she turned to listen by looking me straight in the eyes, “Those guards will say different things to me, alone, than to you.” She laughs, nods with a look back, and shakes her head with a roll of her eyes. We board the bus, the singing begins, and seconds later we are between the countries of Lesotho and Botswana.

Back in Maseru, the Lesotho College of Education is gradually achieving internet access. This morning I am in the DTEP office and there is a lecturer next to me who is trying to set up her Yahoo account. Yahoo prompts her to secure her mailbox with a secret question: "What was the make of your first car?". An innocent question that virtually sails across the oceans of a divided world.

Mme begins laughing and rapidly speaking in Sesotho to the other colleagues in the room. I can understand only enough to know that the idea of Yahoo assuming everyone had a 'first car', something that might be as easy to recall as your middle name, was a fantasy of a very rich world indeed. 'This is the Lehua world,' she calls it. 'They are playing with us.'

Another Ntate says, "Can you believe it? It is just something you don't have to think about for them, you just type it in easily and forget about it." His hand is raised and metaphorically flicks the offense away.

"Well," he continues, "tell them your first maker is God. If they don't like this, well let's see what they say to that. God is your first make, he is the one who first made you go."

“Come on, let’s go and get your mother! She’s been drinking.” My Ntante is looking at me impatiently, but his eyes are twinkling with amusement and he has half a smile drooling off his face. Earlier he had come home, I had been alone in the compound. I had spied him through my window as he staggered across our front yard with his cane. “Khotso, Ntate!” – Peace, Father! I tried to welcome him home. “Oh!” He turns with delight. “My baby!” Ntate has taken to treating me in a grandfatherly way lately. I walk out of my door, and he stops and turns to me. His eyes are bloodshot, but he doesn’t smell of alchohol… dagga? “No Mother! No Father! You are here all alone! Who will cook?” He turns to see a chicken dancing on the window sill of the coup. “The chickens!” he gasps. “Are they inside?” “I don’t know, Ntate,” I admit to this irresponsible oversight. He opens the door and shoos the chicken inside, then steps in after it. After a moment, he comes out, satisfied. “They are there.” He turns to walk away, as he typically leaves the scene without ceremony. I go back inside. Then he calls to me, “C’mon! We must go! Your mother! She’s been drinking!’ He’s standing a few feet from my door, and he repeats. “Drinking? Drinking?” I start smiling also. “My mother’s been drinking? M’me oa ka?” My quiet evening will now have a twist. “Ok, Ntate, I must turn off the stove.” “Yes, that’s good,” Ntate nods approval. “Turn off the stove first.” Then I am out the door and he takes my hand, a granddaughter helping her stoned grandfather, going to retrieve mother, who has been drinking. We go next door to the neighbor’s joalang. I enter the dark room of the rondavel. There are no windows. I block the light as I enter the doorway, it is now dusk and I feel like I have caused an eclipse. Fortunately my Ntate went in first and I see him sitting on a bench, hands clasped on his knees. I realize he is waiting for me. I sit next to him. Across from us I can make out a figure sitting in the dirt floor, legs outstretched. My Ntate points, ‘There she is!” accusingly but almost laughing. “She doesn’t want to come home.” I look over, put my hand up to ‘shade’ my eyes and jokingly to show that I am looking for her, and say, “M’me oa ka? My mother? Is that you? Have you been drinking?” She bursts out laughing, Ntate laughs, I laugh. After a few minutes in Sesotho I cannot understand, she stands up and we follow her outside. “Take her hand!” instructs my Ntate. I take it, and she offers her arm, too. Together we start walking back to the house. Then my Ntate pauses and lingers, hanging back, aware that a friend of his has just arrived to visit the neighbors and for beer. I look back at him, and he says, “You have helped me a lot!” Then he turns to greet his friend and join him for a drink. When I turn to continue home, I see my mother already walking across our front yard.

Apparently the library is next doorto the traditional healer. The man who rid the doorway of two hornets nests in one night:traditional healer. Staying on his good side is my only option. I frame it in my head: A 'mind healer' next to the traditional healer.

I find this out because I am at the shop next to Mashai Primary, and I invite the shopkeeper to come visit his library.

"Where? What is the Mashai Library?"

"It is just down there, Ntate, by the bus stop. By the court at the road."

"Ah. But where is the Mashai Library?"

I put my hand as a fist, and point to it with my other. "See, this is the court. Then this," and I move my fist to an open hand, unconscious of the symbolism," is the nearest rondavel, and this," and I close my fingers, which for Basotho is a hand gesture that means little or young, "is the library."

"Oh, you are next to the healer. That is the traditional healer."

"Am I?"

"Oh, yes, I saw you all the time down there and I was wondering if you were sick."

I burst out laughing, but my laughter barks in the near empty bar room and he smiles awkwardly at me. Apparently he didn't find my illness amusing. Did he appreciate at least the overwhelming cross cultural misunderstanding? Perhaps, I hope, he was too concerned with my health.

So now I wonder, the court, the bus stop, the healer, and now the library... what side of fortune put the us at the center of the village...

[These last three images give a picture of what the library was like when I first arrived.]

Ntate comes and tells me, “I am going to help them build a box. Them. Down there.” He points to the compound that is down the hill from us – our nearest neighbors. “Ok, Ntate.” I wait. He is still looking at me, so I have a feeling he is not through. He will explain. The reason comes. “It is because the baby has died. So they need a box. They do not know how to build a box.” “Died?” I repeat, shocked. “What happened?” “I don’t know,” He nearly yells, throws up his hands and looks away. “Yesterday she fell sick, and today she has died. They don’t know how to build a box, for her, so I will help them to build a box.” That afternoon, I am walking up the hill clutching my water bucket – I do not know how to carry it on my head. Yet. I hear singing. I look up to see the procession of villagers and a small coffin carried by the men in front. The women are at the back, and the mother – I learn later – is one of the very last walking. I put my bucket down, my back aching, and watch the tiny box come closer – as if carried above the heads by the haunting harmony. I just stand, uncertain what to do, hoping to convey my respect without intrusion, and already crying. The procession makes its way right past where I am standing, and several villagers greet me in a quiet ‘Lu me la’. One girl I tutored in math the previous evening at my rondavel. A smile feels so strange, but I am happy to see her and we both do anyway. A woman I do not recognize motions for me to join the walking, so I do. We walk up the hill. I know we are headed towards the graveyard behind the village. The singing continues. Women are making sure I am still travelling with them, short glances of encouragement as we make our way over the steep dirt paths. The mother is pointed out. She is wrapped in a thick traditional blanket, despite the heat of 85 degree weather. She has deep lines of grief under her eyes, a dark sadness veils her young face. We reach the plot. The men walk down to do the actual burial. The women stay up on the hill and continue singing. It is late afternoon and the sunlight reminds me of the metaphor of life as a single day. There is prayer, singing, prayer… then it is time to go. The mother begins to walk away, and others begin to follow. I move to join. “Wait, wait. The mother, she leaves first. Then those closest to her.” She stands with her hands held together in front of her, and smiles at me with lip closed. “Thank you,” I say earnestly. “Now we can go,” she says. We walk back together, and after a few minutes she asks, “How do they do it at your place?” She is asking about funerals in the U.S., I know. How do I find a way to compare an open mountainside to rows of neat grave plots? A village community singing to strangers united through the one life? A wooden casket made that morning by an elder to an elegant and expensive box from a company? A young girl who fell sick with no access to a doctor, and so died the next day? But, maybe the important things are the same. “The family is there, often there is singing, and prayer. Then the coffin is buried. Usually that is for only those who are in the family, who are close to the family.” She nods. “So it is the same.” “Yes, similar.” I hesitate. “Well, the singing is different.” We both smile. I return to my rondavel, and there is already a little girl waiting fro me to play a math game.

During the LCE Distance Teacher Education Program workshop, lunch is delivered… several hours late. It is gristled meat, canned peas, and hardened papa [the corn meal dish that is traditional and served at most meals]. No one is pleased with this meal, but we are hungry.

One lecturer comes in after his class and begins to eat hungrily. The flimsy white plastic spoon cracks on the papa. He takes another spoon, and within minutes it has also cracked. He looks at us, bewildered, and casts the useless plastic aside, “Forget this one.” He laments that in Ghana, his native country, there is one bowl and the family eats together. The other lecturers in the small office begin to nod in agreement, and one offers, “The Basotho ate like this not so long ago.” Another supports him, “Yes, it indicates commonality, one ness.”

The Ghanaian holds up his hand, crumbs of papa clinging to his finger tips, and touches each finger to his thumb to recite, “S… P… O… O… N. Spoon. God made us each a spoon, gave a spoon for us, and there’s no need to use this one.” He swats at the air as if telling the utensils to leave, to go away and leave him to nourish himself. Nourishment is not an insufficient utensil that barely holds a precariously balanced mouthful for a single individual.

St. Theresa Mission is nestled in the mountains, a two hour walk from my village. The children living here walk there and back every day. I was eager to visit.

One boy offered to come gather me in the morning so we could walk together, as it was my first visit.

"What time?" I ventured. Usually school is the one area where one could be clear about schedule, as the morning assemblies are around 8am. He replied confidently.

"6:30am"

That night I set my alarm for 5:30am, thinking it was fully enough time to prepare my bucket bath, dress, eat breakfast, teach some math, and do my dishes. I couldn't sleep well. It was serenely quiet... I felt completely safe... perhaps it was the excitement of visiting the school, but from 12 - 3am I was wide awake reading. Finally, I forced myself to try to sleep again.

The next moment my phone alarm was buzzing. I drowsily turned it off, stayed in bed a few minutes, and eventually got up to heat the water.

A knock at the door and a tentative, 'Me?'

I went to see who it was. And of course, there he was. Ready to go.

"Abuti, are you walking to school now?" I demanded, standing in my pajamas and hair sprouting from all directions. He smiled, then realizing the state of affairs, he covered his mouth. He looked off in the direction of St. Theresa, imperceptibly nodded, and put both hands on the straps of his backpack as if to say 'Let's go, lady'.

"You said 6:30am! It is 5:30am!" I show him the hour with my hands. It's no use. "You are leaving now??" He nods again, maintaining his position.

"Acch! Achh! I cannot leave with you. Look at me, Abuti!"

He nods in understanding.

"Acch! Abuti, you told me 6:30am!" I am smiling as I repeat my line of defense. I do not want to walk alone, but I cannot be ready to join him soon enough for his departure.

"Well, then, tsamaea hantle! I'll see you there." Go well.

He gallops off. I've wasted his valuable minutes with my hemming and hawing. I will find my way...

Now he comes to my door, shyly still, but easily and with more confidence every day. One day I opened my door and he was already standing there, one finger in his mouth for security, standing precariously balanced on one foot should he need to swiftly twirl around and run away.

But that first morning he was hesitant, and I was distracted. He gripped my iron burglar bars defiantly, angling the rest of his body towards freedom outside my rondavel. Finally, after about 10 minutes of his intense stare as I boiled my water and sat down to breakfast, the perfect game dawned on me.

I brought out my stone collection and cardboard numbers linking one to one correlation with dots to the number symbol. This kept him captivated at least one hour. I came over to teach or reteach or re re teach periodically, but mostly he practiced by himself.

Then, after some time, he stood up and decided to share something with me, too. He reached in his back pocket, where I hadn't noticed the small bulge there before. Between his tugging fingers, up popped the head of a dead baby chicken.

My expression transformed - I had had on a shiny proud smile mixed with curiosity at this latest development. Now I was covering my mouth and had let out an uncontrollable gasp.

"Eh - eh!" I managed to translate my thoughts into one solid Sesotho 'No!'. His fingers quickly shot the head back down inside his pocket, and he looked at me very worried.

The next day, he came to learn - and it was understood - the bird stays home.

We are having drinks at a café in down town Maseru. It is my first night out, and after so many security warnings it feels fun to be out and about on a Saturday night. I am in conversation with a man about my experience in Lesotho. I share with him about seeing a chicken killed, and admit that although I watched, fascinated, I do not yet know how to kill a chicken. He asks me, “But have you killed a sheep?” He is dressed in a classic turquoise polo of sheer cloth, and he takes a drag off his cigarette as he waits for my answer. He has two drinks, a red bull and a whiskey – both on the rocks. I shake my head, “No, I have not seen a sheep killed.” He smirks and shakes his head. He turns to another man, originally from Rwanda [we learn later]. “You. You know how to kill a sheep, right?” The man smiles and shyly shakes his head, “No.” He pauses, then decides to continue. “No, but I know how to kill a goat.” Both men knowingly nod, and then the man next to me looks away and takes a long drink. The man from Rwanda leans forward and looks at me. “A goat, it is very different. A goat, it will move his head like this,” and he twists and rotates his head around. “And it will make a lot of noise.” The man next to me puts down his drink. “It is like a woman!” He laughs. “Yes,” the other continues, “But a sheep…” His head falls to one side and he begins to stare at me with mock expectation. “… a sheep will just wait, and watch.” Later I am reminded, “It is something that you will have to do to know that, yes, you are in Africa. You will have to kill a sheep.” He lifts his glass, raises it in my direction, then takes a long full drink.

When I move to site, I will draw my water from a pump and carry it uphill to my rondavel. During community based training I needed about 8 pitchers of water to wash my long hair, and by the end of the ordeal my neck strained from bending to wash it over my buckets. I decide to get my hair cut. Fortunately there are several other volunteers who join me, and one Saturday we find ourselves shepherded to a salon where a Peace Corps driver works as a barber. We walk in to a small clean room that is divided into two sections, the waiting area and the hair cutting area. There are two posters of African models with elegant haircuts and extensions. Everyone welcomes us inside with warm smiles. I will get my hair cut first. My hairdresser ushers me to the back of the room and opens a door for me. Immediately there is a chair, behind which is a basin, unattached to a sink, on a table. There is a hose. He gently places a towel around my shoulders and gestures for me to sit and lean my head back into the basin. While he washes my hair I look left and realize there has been a square hole cut in the wall that I just walked through, so that the ‘room for washing hair’ is neatly connected to the ‘main room’. The wall is thin panel that has been secured at various places, and it doesn’t quite reach the ceiling. After he washes my hair, I return to the main room and sit perpendicular to the mirrors on the right wall. This haircut I will not watch; my chair faces the back of the room. I stare instead at the man in front of me, who is receiving a buzz cut. I watch his hair shaved off in layers by the electric razor. By the time my hair cut is finished, I have given up trying to keep it shoulder length, admitted that it won't dust my shoulders, and tried to stretch out what remains to be long enough to put in a ponytail. In the end, I manage to save my long bangs, but the rest of my hair has been hacked off with meticulous precision. “No, it is better to cut the hair short. There is a water problem, here,” our Peace Corps friend assures me. I try to focus on the pitchers of water I will save.

It is my first week of work at the Lesotho College of Education, and I begin it with a fantastic run through Maseru with another PC Volunteer. At one point I am walking up what I perceive as a vertical cliff, being overtaken by a walking M'me with a heavy bag, while my wheezes and slap of running shoes makes her call to me, "Come on, you cannot let an old M'me like my self get there faster than you." She gently gestures to the top of the hill. But she is right, and I start jogging again. Moments later I pass her with a proud, 'Lu mey la, M'me. Kea leboha.' Thank you, Madame.

Later that day I pass by the bulletin board on my way in to the library to work. This poster catches my eye... There is rampant alcohol abuse by many in Lesotho, and the consequences are clear by the advertising campaign. How long has it been posted, I wonder?

It is still early in the afternoon, and it is scorching hot. The eldest daughter of my host family walks by my open door with a chicken in each of her hands. She holds them by their bounded feet. The bodies dangle as silhouettes of thick bleach white feathers against the red sandy earth. With a toss, the chickens mercifully sail into the shade under the only tree in the front yard. She turns around to see me gaping open mouthed, and she laughs. I ask, “Will they be finished?” grasping at my only vocabulary in Sesotho to investigate the obvious killing. She nods, watches my compulsive grimace, and laughs again.

I am watching their last hours, I think to myself. The chickens are stoic in the sweltering heat. There’s nothing to do once fate determines death.

I am back at evening after a lazy Sunday playing cards with other trainees. The chickens are still there, but they are a bit livelier now that the temperature is edging towards evening. Occasionally their wings pump, and they move inches closer to eachother.

And then it was time. My host mother walked purposefully across the yard with a bucket and knife. She picked up the first by its feet, and took it over the designated slaughter site in the yard. It is next to where I walk every day to toss my waste water. She steps firmly on the left wing with her left foot, and strings out the neck with her left hand. Her right hand begins sawing with the knife, and within 15 seconds the chicken is beheaded.

Blood squirts out the top body, and she waits patiently while it abates. She looks back at me, and delivers her classic laugh while I cover my mouth and realize where my chicken comes from. Her foot is still firmly placed, waiting as the body shudders violently and finally becomes still.

“How often do you kill chickens, M’me?”

She looks at me with pity, no longer confused by my ignorant naïveness. “Whenever I want meat!” She stepped off the wing to bend over and pick up the bounded feet. Until I can kill a chicken, I believe I should be a vegetarian.

World Aids Day: December 2009

The children came to school on this day with candles. After the first teaching session, the whole school walks outside together to where the road curves into the driveway. The children make two lines, and stand single file on either side of the dirt road. The candles are held straight, and the children are either silent or helping each other to light the flames and keep them strong against the wind gusts.

When the line begins moving, an uncontrollable metaphor enters my mind: I am witnessing a death march. As the children start walking, imagined images start to crash against the present. After 1 year, how many children will disappear in the fight against AIDS? After 5 years, or 10 years, how soon will only a handful of children be left in that line? I can see them walking far apart and abandoned as clearly as I now see them in two crowded lines. This is the visual expression that reflects the percentages we are given of AIDS rates.

But the children are still walking, on this day, here and now, and they are proudly carrying the memorial lights with both hands in their march back towards school. Slowly and silently they make their journey back to the auditorium building. Once we are all inside, the heat from the candles begins to bake us under the tin roof. The hopeful wind outside gently rattles the stones that keep the roof on.

Then the singing begins – beautiful, prayer singing – a mourning of the people lost in the fight against AIDS. These children have watched their family and friends die, and many may be facing the disease themselves. The flames reflect in their bright eyes. A young man dutifully chalks the anouncement of World AIDS Day on the only chalkboard in the auditorium. He carefully outlines the letters in alternating colors, making the message almost festive, and suggesting the day as a symbol of hope.

The principle is at the front, and she begins speaking to her community, “We must not shun those who are positive, we must love them and care for them.” When will they become we, and we become they?

Maseru Airport rises a glowing red orange , silhouetted against crystal blue skies. Customs, a small health center, and baggage claim are in one large room. We walk out and there is a huge cheer - welcome to Lesotho!

Morning begins around 5am here, the sky is afternoon bright by 7 in the morning - and by 8 you are ready for mid morning snack and coffee. Our first day we visit three schools, traveling to a near by village. There is one main road that is well paved, and full of traffic, leading out of Maseru. Once one turns off this oasis of pavement, the vehicle tosses itself over a wide hiking trail - for cars, cows, people, dogs, and so forth. It sways just gently enough that we disregard the danger, until a glance down from the window reveals the edge of embankments so steep we would surely sommersault if the 2 inch margin were to shrink. At each school we join the children for the morning assembly. In the yard, the children form rows based on their grade level. They are in the school uniforms, in varying stages of handmedowns. The children sing everything in swelling four part harmony. "Many of them are double orphans," the PC staff whisper in our ears. We are welcomed by the principal, we are stared at and giggled at and very shyly met by some of the students. We tour the classrooms, stare at broken wooden benches, crusted aged blackboards, walls dressed in a poster or two that have been painstakingly crafted by the head teacher. The principals thank us again, share how grateful they are for us coming to Lesotho, and soon we are back on the well paved road. Our first day has spit us out, back to the Peace Corps training center.

Weeks later, I am staying in a village as part of community training. Time means something altogether different in Lesotho. My host mother is teaching me to make bread. I am carefully eyeing each handful, translating frantically in my mind to cups and tablespoons, teaspoons, seasonings to taste. Later that afternoon we knead the bread, and she sets it inside a large round dutch oven pot. The water boiling in the bottom will 'steam' the bread. I don't bother to ask what temperature, as she has clarified that the boiling water means it is hot enough. I do make the mistake of asking how long to cook it, however. She looks at me surprised, bemused. Then she breaks out laughing, leans her head to one side, and says "You cook it until it is done!". I am a disappointing sous-chef, but we do laugh together.

Later that week, I come home from a training class. She is standing in the yard. She looks out and gestures to a vast expanse of land, plains that roll out before the mountains in the distance. Her face breaks into a huge smile again, and she says, "Look! Look at the dust!"

I am now wary of her laugh, even as it puts me at ease. I follow her gesture, and see dust swirling upwards in a terrifying echo of a mini tornado. "There will be a storm?" I confirm the obvious.

She laughs; yes, she nods. I can't bear another night in my tin roof shack, listening to the rocks roll across my ceiling when they are supposed to be in charge of securing the roof. I bury my dignity and spend the next several hours holding her hand in the living room as the wind rattles the windows and the rain pounds the ceiling. Her family sits with us, there are candles ready. Ntate, father, keeps watch by the window. They are alternately laughing at me and teaching me Sesotho. The storm dies down. I am ready to leave, when I turn and ask, "Were you scared too, M'me?" She looks at me and her smile vanishes.

"Yes! Yes! I was scared! I do not like these storms."

Dr. Judith Newman:

"The difficult thing about doing action research is that you have to override most of what you've learned about research as an activity. In a traditional research culture you begin by framing a question, setting up a situation which might provide some information, collecting data which bears on the question, then writing up results.

Action research isn't like that at all. The research activity begins in the middle of whatever it is you're doing — something happens that you didn't expect ... ...and you begin wondering about what's going on.

The dilemma in an action research situation is you may not even realize something interesting has occurred that you ought to think about unless you're already in the habit of keeping a journal or reflective log...

...For unlike traditional research, action research begins not with a research question but with the muddle of daily work, with the moments that stand out from the general flow, and unless we record those moments they vanish, unavailable as data for reflection, for discerning some larger pattern of experience...

...we really learn most from the unexpected — it's when something didn't go as we though it should, or someone's response was different than we thought it would be, or they do something we wouldn't have done, or we would have done it in a different way, that we can begin to see what our expectations/assumptions are.

As action researchers we're trying to examine our assumptions. But, obviously, before we can examine assumptions, we need to discover what they are. By exploring both familiar and unfamiliar situations we position ourselves to be able to interrogate our professional practice...

...The point of engaging in action research, in my estimation, is to help me uncover my assumptions and to examine my instructional practices...

...The outcome of such self-education is recognizing the tensions, conflicts, and contradictions operating...

...But recognizing inconsistency isn't the end of practice-as-inquiry. As I learn to detect disparities between my practice and theory, I need to take action; I need to change what I do."