Dumela St. Rodrigue!

An inventory of my first week in Lesotho (thus far):

• 5 ADORABLE neighbor kids
• 4 maths classes taught
• 3 candles (that illuminate our home every night)
• 2 dead mice
• 1 rain gauge installed

There were maybe a dozen people on the half-empty plane with me when we touched down at the Maseru International Airport. It now ranks as the smallest airport I’ve flown to (nudging out Des Moines). But its best feature was that it contained all my baggage and my co-fellow waiting for me! That knowledge brought relief that totally replaced the cocktail of nerves, jet lag, and disorientation that I had been stewing in for the previous 48 hours. Although I really can’t complain – all my flights went smoothly, I caught up on some movies (I highly recommend Attack the Block), my hotel in Joburg was lovely and I had a window seat for the flight into Lesotho. The last leg of my journey was a trip in the nun truck (maybe 2 hours?) through the mountains to St. Rodrigue.

School started the next day (Monday), but I didn’t teach any classes – very few people did, actually. We’re still working out the details of the schedule of classes, but I did say that I wanted to teach math and agriculture (or as we say here, maths and agric). The school day begins at 7:40 with assembly, where the girls say their prayers, read a Bible passage, sing the national anthem and a hymn, and greet the teachers in unison. Because it was the first day of classes, the nun who serves as principal had all the teachers introduce themselves, beginning with me, the new ‘M’e! (All adult women in Lesotho are called ‘M’e and men are called N’tate, as signs of respect). I first introduced myself as ‘M’e Gwen, but that’s proving difficult to pronounce (it’s a tricky combination of consonants) so now the students mostly call me ‘M’e Varley, which is much more melodic.

I cooked my first meal in Lesotho (using the gas stove in our kitchen) for lunch – risotto improvised with basmati rice and some onion soup mix. Afterward my co-fellow introduced me to the head priest, who runs a little shop in the convent and is incredibly friendly. In the afternoon my co-fellow had to plan a class, and I was still waiting for a schedule, so I headed back to the house to unpack, and to my surprise saw little mice brazenly running through almost every room I entered. Now, I have had some experience living with mice, and immediately declared open war on the fuzzy little intruders (no one had lived in the house for about 6 weeks, so their presence and audacity was actually not that surprising).

One unlucky mouse was rustling around in the wastebasket, so I quickly covered it with a plastic tub and weighed it down with a big rock. As of this post we are still waiting for it to die. My chances of catching/killing another one on my own were pretty slim, so I continued my unpacking but wielded a broom to chase them off in a round of whack-a-mouse. My co-fellow came home a couple hours later to find a crazy person with a broom ranting about mice, and when we immediately saw another mouse dash across the room, we called over the neighbor kids for reinforcements. They came over armed with sticks, diligently searching the living room (which we’d sealed off). We lost track of it for awhile, but eventually saw it run under a cabinet. So we called the kids back from outside, and flipped over the cabinet to trap the mouse and began madly tossing out the magazines and papers stored inside. After much shouting in both English and Sesotho (Where did it go?? There it is!! KILL IT!!!) one eager young boy slayed the mouse with his stick, while my co-fellow and I alternately offered encouragement and cringed. Then there were rewards all around (booty from the excavated cabinet, which probably hadn’t been cleaned in years). They each got a small toy – one little girl was particularly enamored of a red clown nose.

Our little victory left us feeling pretty confident, but we had to wait until Thursday to buy mousetraps in Maseru. In the meantime we locked away all our food and did all the dishes with soapy unboiled water, bleach water, and warm boiled water (usually we just use the first).

Tuesday I taught my first class (!!) – Form C (equivalent of 10th grade) maths. Each class is team-taught, and my team teacher led the lesson, so I didn’t have to do much besides look serious and teacher-y. But I did go around the room and help those having trouble and corrected homework. I really hope I can learn names soon. I think next week I’ll get a labeled seating chart to study. After class I had about half an hour to prepare a lesson to teach the A2s (equivalent of 8th grade, 2nd class). I quickly drew up a lesson on magic squares and sequences, and it actually went okay! I had a few discreet suggestions from my team-teacher to steer the class in a direction more suited to the girls’ level of understanding. One challenge I’m facing is to adapt my teaching style so that it fits with the experience the girls at St. Rodrigue have in their other classes. This includes everything from speaking in a Basotho accent to marking (grading) practice exercises in class. My team-teacher is very kind and seems to be very invested in her students, and for that reason I think we will find common ground and have a successful year.

There are a few more classes on my schedule that I will begin teaching next week. In addition to C and A2 Maths, I will also cover for the Form E (12th grade) maths teacher until he or she arrives. I’ll also take on a few agric classes (B1 and A2, I think). The agric classes should be interesting – I was able to sneak a peek at the Form C textbook in the library, and the content looks promising. So I hope the class consists more of lessons than standing around watching the girls weed the plots.

Cell phone service is nearly non-existent in St. Rodrigue these days, so we hiked a little ways up the mountain behind the convent to see if my co-fellow could check her email. The view was absolutely gorgeous (granted, around here it’s difficult to not find yourself in front of a stunning view) – there were a few rainclouds rolling over the mountains in the distance, and we sat there for awhile enjoying the breeze and watching the assorted donkeys, cattle, and goats being herded along below us.  We were also searching for eggs, which are sold in a couple little shops in St. Rodrigue, but no one had any – apparently more things will be in stock once the school year is in full swing.

In weather news, it was hot and sunny and beautiful until Wednesday afternoon, when it started drizzling. As soon as I got home from school I put up the rain gauge on a fence post (it’s a pretty shoddy job, patched with some grass, but it should work) luckily before the evening showers began. We were a little worried that it would storm and the roads would be too muddy to go to Maseru the next day, but Thursday morning was clear and beautiful, and we jumped into a taxi van with our backpacks at 5:30 am.

There weren’t many people on their way to Maseru (possibly because we’re nearing month end, payday for most people), so despite a few detours in search of customers we made it to Maseru a little after 8:30, which is great time. (One of those detours required us to ford a shallow but wide stream, which was pretty exciting.) For those who are curious, the trip cost the two of us 80 rand total, or about $10.

Thursday was a blast – my co-fellow gave me the grand tour of Maseru, pointing out the places where we buy food & supplies for the house, restaurants, the post office, an internet cafe, government offices, and the mall. We picked up some mousetraps for the house and some towels for me (plus a copy of South Africa Farmer’s Weekly, which I’m excited to read). Most of the grocery shopping we’ll do on Saturday, so that our produce will last as long as possible. After lunch we took a taxi to Uncle’s house. (My co-fellow met Uncle through the Indian government presence in Maseru – there’s no Indian embassy in Lesotho – and he’s been generous enough to let us stay at his house, which has electricity, showers, and wifi.) We had the afternoon to relax and enjoy the modern amenities, and then in the evening we were invited to a dinner with the Indian ambassador to South Africa, in addition to several other government officials, mostly from India but also Lesotho. The dinner was at a very chic hotel, and the whole outing made us feel pretty pampered. And funnily enough dinner was Chinese – even banquet-style, with big lazy susans and moderately authentic dishes. It was a perfect intersection of my current international interests – a meal in Lesotho, eating Chinese food, while listening to Hindi (mostly spoken offhand – business and cross-cultural conversations were all in English)

Anyway we still have about a day and a half in Maseru to run some more errands and enjoy the city before heading back to St. Rodrigue. I’ll try to update this blog whenever I’m in Maseru, which could be as infrequently as every 3 weeks. (Although it’s likely we’ll be here more often during the warm weather.) There’s basic information about me and the Grinnell Corps: Lesotho program on the ‘About’ page, but if you have any questions for me please leave them in the comments & I’ll try to answer them!

Pictures on the way soon!

Stray thoughts:

• Our plane was slightly delayed taking off from Joburg to Maseru – it’s pretty disconcerting to feel an accelerating plane hit the brakes on the runway (there was a technical problem they had to check; everything was fine)

• The peaches in our garden are not ripe yet, but I received a ripe peach from a neighbor kid while visiting one day (no idea where he found it) and it was delicious!

• I love the Form Es’ classrooms – they’re located in another building a little ways uphill from the main building. The rooms are so sunny and cheerful, and there’s a view of the mountains out the windows and an apple tree near the door.
• The cupboard in the living room is super organized and clean now. It’s part of an ongoing effort of my co-fellow and I to leave the house in a better condition than we found it. Not that there’s anything wrong with the house – we just want to spruce it up as much as we can.
• The primary school students make thick braided jump ropes out of grass that I think are super impressive – I totally want to learn how to make one