For The Kids :)

Lumelang! Hello everyone! I figured I’d share some of my favorite stories and things that have happened with my students lately because they are just too funny and need some attention! Every time I’m on the phone with my sister Katelyn, she asks me what my kids were up to that week and that one question can keep me talking for hours! But here are some highlights as of late (my personal favorite is the last one)…

Dead Birds:

I’m sitting in the school office, having woken up an hour ago and mentally preparing myself for another day of teaching when one of my favorite 4th graders makes a hasty “Ko Ko!” (knock knock) on the door. “Kena!” (come in!) I say. “Madam, madam! See!!!” I look over expecting to see a toy or trinket he’s found but no. This kid is holding a real bird in his hand. Alive? No. Wearing gloves? No. “Oh… wow!” I say, cause what reaction are you supposed to have when a nine year old shows you a dead bird? “What are you going to do with that?” “Madam we are going to eat!” And then the maniac bursts out laughing and runs out of the room, bird in hand. To this day I don’t know if he actually ate it but I pray he was joking.

poor bird :(

Hand Dryers Are Scary!:

We recently had a school trip to the capital of Maseru which was awesome to see a city through they eyes of children that have never left our quaint, rural village before. I laughed a lot that day, the first instance being when we drove up to one of the few stop lights in the city and one of the kids starts yelling “WOW! So wow madam, see the robot!” to which all the other kids (probably 30 of them stuffed in the 15 passenger van) breath in and go, “OOOOOO, robot!” I did not correct them.

The best part of my day wasn’t watching the kids see airplanes and helicopters, hear someone talking through a microphone, or sitting in the parliament chairs for the first time. It was when I took a group of the girls to use the bathroom at the mall. We walk in there and the first order of business was showing them that they had to flush the toilets. Our no plumbing, no electricity village doesn’t necessarily expose you to modern plumbing etiquette. Then, everyone came out of the stalls and washed their hands in the sinks - big deal. Soap dispensers? Who knew?! I walked over from the sink to the hand dryer and proceeded to dry my hands. I then turn around and have all the girls staring at me in fear. “Madam! It is what?!” Molelekeng asks me. This is where I start to giggle and realize I don’t speak enough sesotho to explain how a hand dryer works! Instead, she just holds out her hands to me and I place them under the hand dryer. Wooooosh! Oh my, hand dryers can be scary! So loud, so strong. But we all timidly dried our hands and then after realizing the beauty that is electricity and clean hands, proceeded to say that their hands weren’t clean enough and they must wash them (and dry, of course) about 3 more times each. The belly laughs coming out of these girls while the air dried their hands for them was too precious and I wish I had a video cause I would listen to their sweet sweet joy every single day!

Loose Tooth:

It’s a long day of teaching grade 4. These kids hate adverbs and aren’t afraid to tell me. They are restless and I’m exhausted. We’ve got an hour left in our day and I’m about to just let them draw the rest of the day when Mapula walks up to me. “Madam” she says mischievously. “What’s up?” “Madam, see…” And this girl opens her mouth so wide and starts showing me her wiggly tooth. Aw, I think, how precious she’s so excited about her loose tooth! But Mapula isn’t done. She then reaches into her mouth and yanks out that tooth right in front of me, no reaction or hesitation on her face, and then grins a big, bloody grin, with tooth in hand and no regret on her face. “Oh… Wow!” I say, cause what reaction are you supposed to have when a nine year old pulls their tooth out right in front of you?! :)

How Low Can You Go?!:

My Grassroots Soccer club is in full swing and uses soccer games and skills to teach kids about relationships, self care and esteem, HIV/AIDS, sexual health and education, and other life skills. One of the games we used last week with our club on peer pressure was limbo. Limbo is non existent here in Lesotho, but it sure is around now! The kids LOVED this one and have been finding sticks to play with their friends at recess. If you want to watch the best limbo players play an extremely high spirited limbo game, text me cause I sure do have a video for you! I don’t know what these kids are on, but i’ve never seen someone go so low in limbo. Color me impressed!

Teddy Bear Day!:

grade 4 and our bears!!

A few months ago, I partnered up with an organization in the US called Mother Bear Project. If you like to knit or crochet, look them up! People from all over send in handmade teddy bears which the project then ships to kids in communities affected by HIV/AIDS. If you didn’t know, Lesotho is ranked in the top 5 countries for a few things: HIV/AIDS rates, lightening strikes, murders, crime, suicide, and some other extremely sad sad things. Needless to say, the kids here go through a lot. With my kids living in such a rural, poor village, most of them don’t have toys or stuffed animals or anything besides what they make themselves. (My favorite creations are sticks as toy horses, cars made out of wire, bottle cap racing games, marbles, and a “keep your circle lid rolling by balancing it with a stick” situation). SO when the SAINT, Amy, who runs the Mother Bear Project, sent me bears for every single kid grades K-4, I was ecstatic. Of course, the bears took 3 months to arrive, and then I had to convince the taxi driver to pick the boxes up for me in town because I simply wasn’t going to be able to bring them back myself. But, teddy bear day finally came. All the kids lined up and got their teddy bear and then we’re so beyond excited you’d have thought it was christmas and their birthday and every holiday combined! The amount of kids coming up to me and saying, “See, my baby!” with such radiating happiness spread across their faces was so so fun to witness.

Of course, I could get absolutely nothing done the rest of the day because my grade 4s were way to hyped up on teddy bear energy. So we instead all named our bears and spent the day playing. I told them the bears all had to speak English, so not a total waste of an educational day? At least that’s what I told myself!

The women all carry their babies on their backs here using a blanket to tie them on. So naturally, all the kids grabbed sweaters or jackets and tied their “babies” on their backs while eating lunch. I still see all the teddy bears around the village and the kids always make a point to come visit my house and show me any clothes they’ve made for their bear using scraps of fabric or yarn they’ve found around the village. Precious.

Class Pet:

Just another day my coteacher doesn’t come to school and I’ve got to figure out how to entertain a bunch of high energy nine year olds for 6 hours on my own. Oh and try to teach them things they don’t want to learn. Lovely. The day’s going well - we’ve got through English and numeracy lessons and are working on reading when one of the kids yells a Sesotho word I don’t know and points in a dark and eerie corner high up in the ceiling. Not a good sign. All the other kids swarm the corner and are staring up when I finally ask what’s going on and they all panickingly wave me over and use one of their catchphrases, “Madam, See!” I’m terrified at what is in my classroom at this point but am thinking, “Alexandra, you’ve dealt with spiders and bugs and frogs in your hut, surely this can’t be anything worse.” Oh silly me. I look up in the ceiling and can’t quite make out what it was but then this madam does see and my thoughts changed to, “Holy s*** that’s a f***ing bat!” To which I almost said out loud. I’m about to go get one of the male teachers to deal with this problem because my strong and independent female self can only do so much in one day. But the nine year olds come in with a big stick and a sense of determination, so I decide to just see how this plays out. If I know my students but at all, I know they’re resourceful and I would trust them with most things like this. The rest of this story went something like this:

Kids tell me that bats eat hair so I better leave. (they are all bald so they’re safe.) I tell them I’m good and will stay. Boys start to poke bat with long stick. Insert bat squeaking and panicking sounds here. I internally freak out. I externally appear very chill and like this is a totally normal situation. Kids poke bat for 10 minutes to no avail. I tell them to all sit down and put the stick outside. We finish our reading lesson. We eat lunch. We work on spelling. We go home.

New class pet I guess. I’m not sure if he’s still up there but we haven’t heard him in a while so I’m wishing that bat all the best.

I’ve got stories on stories on stories of these kids as they never cease to surprise me. Maybe it’s the lack of technology here or something, but these kids know how to be kids and have a sense of play and wonder in a way that I don’t see in the US. They’re the highlight of my day, every day. I LOVE how they try and speak English with me and their strung together sentences always make for a good laugh or smile. Lately, they’ve really loved me drawing stars on their papers if they get their work right and won’t leave my desk without one. “Madam, star.” Another thing lately has been trying to race me in the morning if they catch me on a run. Not to brag, but I’m undefeated. And lastly they learned the phrase ‘silly goose’ and will come to tattle on each other and say, “Madam, (name of kid who’s acting up here) is being the silly goose!” Makes me laugh every time. I know I’ve still got a lot of time here, but when it does come time to leave this village, I know the biggest thing I’ll miss are these sweet kiddos.

Other updates:

• Went on a trip to Clarens, South Africa with some friends for a week! SO. FUN. Coffee shops! Ice cubes! Restaurants! Showers every day! Time with friends! Hikes on real trails! A park! So many fun and fancy things.

• Got a new tattoo. Kids love it. Teachers love it. One neighbor told me i’m “one of the rascals” for getting it.

• Who knew you could vote online in Colorado? Sent in my ballot. Doing research and reading and voting on my phone with bad service was less than ideal.

• One and a half months left until I’ve completed my first school year in Lesotho! Yay!

• PCV fantasy football league is up and running in full swing. I am not doing well.

• Family fantasy football league is up and running in full swing. I am doing very well.

• Wrote my grant! Submitted my grant! Waiting to hear back about my grant!

• Propane tank for my stove ran out. Took a cold bucket bath cause I couldn’t heat my water. Bribed two seventh grade boys with gum to carry a new one for me from the shop. Tried to open the new tank for 30 minutes before giving up and calling my neighbor. He opened it in 30 seconds. Defeat.

• Summer is here again! Helloooo UV12, hot hot days, and spiders in my hut again.

Clarens with my girls!

Doing well in the ups and downs! Love and miss you all back home. I can’t believe I won’t be back there for a long long while. Everyone who calls or texts or reaches out - I appreciate you all so much and love getting to stay in touch with everyone. It’s truly a blessing to know I have such a good support system rooting for me! Until next time! Salang hantle (stay well)!!