Dancing at the Chief's

Pictures above (Not sure of the order): Boys and girls at the district cultural fair. They danced and sang and did well. My firepit looking back on the mountain and peach blossoms. Kemelo working on bookends. Some other Form As working on bookends. The class posing for a picture after watching Planet Earth.

Thursday Mike and I were finishing up some bookend for the library when Ntate Mokhosi dropped by to see what we were doing. We told them and he was happy to see that the library was getting organized and such. He is a language teacher and takes students into the library fairly often. Mike said that he’d heard a lot of drums and singing the previous couple of nights and asked Ntate Mokhosi if he knew what was going on. Mokhosi said he didn’t, but he was going up to the chief’s place and said that he’d ask.
Later that night Mike and I were boiling some lentils for lentil burgers when Mokhosi dropped by and said that if we went up to the chief’s they would sing and dance for us. So, we put on our coats and trudged up the hill to the chief’s place.
We knocked at the kitchen door and entered into the room with 13 people huddled around the wood fired cooking stove. Greetings were exchanged and we said that we were told to come up to see some dancing and singing. Some talking in Sesotho ensued and one of the ladies stood up and left the kitchen. She returned a few minutes later dressed in a red sweater and red skirt and she put on a string of triangular shakers around each ankle. Then the drum started along with singing, clapping and the woman in red danced. Hard. Everybody in the candle lit, wood stove warmed room was smiling and singing and clapping.
This continued for at least 45 minutes with different women in the family jumping up for different songs and dances. Eventually the woman in red indicated that she was exhausted and she was dripping sweat. Mike and I said our thank yous and headed back to make our lentil burgers. It was probably the most warm and cultural experience that I’ve had in Lesotho so far.

Planet Earth

Hey Y’all,

Sorry about the recent length between posts, but I haven’t been in town as frequently as usual. And now I neglected to bring the post I wrote with the pictures, so here’s a hasty redo.

Two weeks ago I carried a battery, inverter, laptop, micro projector and speakers into our hall. I set it all up facing a white wall and finished covering up the windows with cardboard curtains to block the light. Then, I marched across the lawn to one of my science classes and gave them the sign to follow me. They walked into the dark room with a large, red 3M logo on a blue background projected on the wall and began speaking in a dull roar. They dragged desks and chair over to create an ad hoc amphitheatre and whispered away. A few of them stayed standing and watched an gesticulated as I moved my finger around the scroll pad getting Planet Earth setup.

Then the Emperor Penguins came on the screen and chirped through the speakers. Bedlam. Chaos and a cacophony of laughter and screams erupted behind me. I stepped to the side and watched as all 30 students stayed glued to the screen for 40 minutes. Certainly it was on the cusp of their attention spans, but they made it. It was a phenomenal experience and helped me get out of the depressing mood I’d been in.

Teaching here is the most wholly taxing thing I’ve ever done. Trying to communicate to students how important condoms are in a country where 1 in 4 people has HIV, while students are asking if it’s okay to cut a hole in the end of a condom, is not an easy thing. And I don’t know how to restrict my vocabulary to the 200 English words they recognize, because those definitions are invariably inaccurate. Close, but not quite there.

So, Planet Earth is not only hugely fascinating and eye opening for the students, but therapeutic and encouraging for me. Thank you Ma and Pa for Planet Earth, and thank you NGC Crew for the projector and speakers. They are phenomenal and a boon to all who experience them.