After two weeks...

I am within phone communication until Sunday morning (Feb 22) at 6am (West coast). Please give me a call if you get a chance.

So, some stuff has happened in the last two weeks. First and foremost, I am an uncle (and my parents are GRANDPARENTS (read: wicked old)). Candice birthed gorgeous little Lucy Dianne Kennedy last Wednesday. I'm very excited as I just got news today as to whether it was a boy or girl and if everybody was doing well. Secondly, below, there is an account of cultural day that was held last Wednesday. It was amazing. Other than that I have been trying to teach my students how to learn. Flashcards were a new, novel and ill-understood concept that is going to take a while to catch on. Hopefully they will learn their multiplication tables though, they are in the 8th and 9th grades after all. Next week we are splitting the 70 student strong 8th grade class into two classes. It will be amazing/ another period or two of lecturing a day. Also, I have learned some student names. It makes it difficult to learn student names when they spell them wrong on exams though...

For everybody from NGC who has chipped in and started looking at getting me projector, thank you so much! I'm going to start saving off lessons from howstuffworks.com, some interactive math pages (Wolfram has some great ones), and a ton of biology slides and pictures. If you want to send the textbooks on CD then I can print stuff in Maseru or Butha Buthe. And, believe it or not, I found a Mechanics of Materials textbook in our school library. I'm refreshing my learning of stresses in pressure vessels. You can take the nerd out of NGC, etc, etc, etc...

February 11, 2009

Today was cultural day for the area schools. The high school has been practicing for the last week or so with students dancing and singing after school. Finally, today was the day. In typical Libono-area-lack-of-communication style, nobody knew what time things were starting. Jen and Neo came up last night, so they waited with Mike until after I taught a couple classes (that I was not prepared for, as I was told we were going to the host school immediately) and we went on our way. It was a little rainy and cold, but I expected the sun to break through eventually. We had made it just past the Machina when a car approached. It happened to be a manager of the Highlands Natural Resources Program, who had had a PCV English Teacher in ‘68! He lived in Pullman, WA for a while also. Crazy. He was going to Mafikalisiu also, so we got a lift.

There were a number of tents set up at the school with people milling about, and we could hear primary school children practicing their dances in one of the classrooms. Jen continued to remark about how gorgeous this part of the country is, and it is certainly true. The school is in a small valley that opens up with a flat valley floor where corn and sunflower fields patch the ground. Willow trees dot the banks of the Caldon River that is the border between South Africa and Lesotho, and, today, the mountains rose into the clouds where they abruptly disappeared. Rough but worn sand stone cliffs showed through where it was too steep for dirt to overcome the affects of rain and erosion.

We hung around the tents for a while, looking at the Basotho hats, bowls and earings that were for sale. Eventually people began to arrive and the school field began to fill up. When all of the schools had arrived one of the principals began speaking. TV Lesotho had shown up at one point and one of the ladies with them hastily handed me a camera, asking “do you shoot?” I said yes and promptly began taking pictures of everything around me with new found boldness. I got some ridiculous candids of people in the background of shots, and a few that I wish I could have gotten copies of. During my time with the TV Lesotho camera, the following happened:

1. The Sefako High School Chorus sang. It was beautiful.

2. A number of long-winded speeches and Ntate Makhosi, a teacher at my school, danced around a bit in his very, very cool, 34 year old Elan/Spring Bok cape and hat (the hat looks like an Ewok, the one who wears orange, I want it badly).

3. A group of Bo-Ntate rolled in on horse back wearing red capes. They cruised around single-file, not unlike the Ellensburg Rodeo Posse coming down from Craig’s Hill, and circled up in the middle of the field. The leader was in the middle of the group and stood up on his horse. He blew his whistle and one-by-one the other riders dismounted. The TV crew hustled out there, and I, now a part of the media crew, rolled out with them. As I got closer I heard a thud and saw a horse lying on the ground. Then, the Dude sat on it, as if it were on a horse throne. I snapped pictures wildly, then, Dude STOOD on the horse’s side. The horse just laid there. I would have bit him. Hard. A few of the caped crusaders gave speeches. Then they mounted up and rolled out.

Shortly after that I gave up the camera in order to take my own pictures. Pictures somewhere on my camera include:

1. A skit by the high schoolers that mimics girls choosing the boys. They align themselves red rover fashion. Then a girl saunters over and toys with the boys mostly employing head fakes and twirls to keep them guessing who they will give their “stick” (it was a stick) to. When she chooses, she gives her stick to a boy and he walks her back to her side then returns to his.

2. A number of primary school girls shaking their asses.

3. Girls returning from initiation school. They were topless and in 3 columns of 8. Their upper bodies were covered in a white paint/powder and they had beaded masks over their faces. Around their midriffs they had what looked like blankets bunched/rolled around them and safety pin closed. They wore skirts. We paid them a rand to sing a song, which did not match the quality of the choir, but they had been paraded around for a number of days now and surely are sick of showing their boobs to strangers.

I think the last noteworthy happening was that I tried a chicken foot. It turns out that chicken feet are just skin, bone and a lot of tendons. Also claws. The pictures we got were well worth 1 rand, but I probably won’t try chicken feet again. I’ll stick with the drum sticks.

So, cultural day was neat. It was great to see the community get together and see students sing and dance.