Travel, Teaching, and Feelings

Hello all!

Wow, it’s been a whole month since my last post. Because of that I’m just going to do a general update blog here to keep you all in the loop!

[Also for anyone following my track team, a few of my runners qualified for the district competition, but no one qualified for nationals after that. They had a blast though and I did too! Next year, we will take home the gold at nationals.]

As I said in the last post, my cohort and I had a 10 day training all together at the end of March. It was oh so nice to see everybody and we all won’t be together until our mid service conference which is early next year. Us education volunteers teach English, math, and life skills. Life skills entails a lot of lessons on relationships, awareness of one’s self, and some sex education. So, most of our training was comprehensive sexuality education which was overall good to talk through how best to teach certain concepts among cultural stigmas and 4th grade maturity levels :). We stayed in a hotel for this training conference and it was so lovely to have meals made for me, a beer after sessions, and showers. Oh! And they had a pool. Dreamy.

first real sandwich sasha and I have had in 6 months

After training, a group of friends and I went to Durban in South Africa for the long Easter weekend. And let me tell you. It was so so nice to be a normal person and get a taste of what life used to look like in the US. Showers everyday - no bucket baths in site. Real coffee - not chicory instant stuff. Drinks with ice in them - a luxury. A real grocery store - they had cheese! A rugby game! The beach! Friends! Restaurants! Bars! Dancing! Let me tell you, I had the best time and loved getting to have fun and relax and be fully myself and not a PCV for 5 days. A few of us drove back into Lesotho through Sani Pass, a famous spot in this country, and it was beautiful. After almost dying taking a 4x2 car up a strictly 4x4 mountain pass, I stepped foot into the highest pub in Africa and she was a beauty. I want to go back here for a weekend trip one of these days!

#takemebacktodurban

“Wow, Alexandra you are living so luxuriously!” you might be thinking. And yes. I was. And then I got back to site… Y’all I have never once felt lonely in Lesotho even though I’ve definitely had time alone. But coming back to my village and being the only American and taking a chilly bucket bath in my hut, I was not feeling the happiest. Adjusting back to real life here has been a little tough, for sure. That said, my friends here are great and going through the same things so it is really nice to talk with them and figure it out together. Every day back has gotten easier and I am still really happy to be in Lesotho and everything. My students were so excited to see me back at school and that warmed my heart so much. I adore them.

sani pass!

My coteacher has been a little MIA lately so it's been a lot to have grade 4 all to myself. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but corporal punishment is a thing here, unfortunately. The kids know that I disagree with this and won't hit them, which makes them like me a lot more but also makes them act up a lot more when it is just me in the classroom. So dealing with this and figuring out different ways to manage classroom behavior is a challenge. Positive reinforcement doesn't work very well when they are used to being hit at home and by all the other teachers. So this has been a recent struggle as I've been solo teaching a lot more. But hey, we will figure it out.

I think I just have to remember that this is a very dynamic experience! Some days are awesome and I feel so joyful. Others are really really hard (not all bad, just hard.). But in it all I’m able to see the hope of it and the beauty in the hard things. Life in Lesotho is just hard. In all aspects, and that’s what I signed up for! So I’m enjoying the process of finding joy in hard things, savoring the weightless moments, and soaking up all of my time here, because I know how much I will treasure it after these 2 years are over.

Thanks for following along! Love and miss all of you back home!

disclaimer (my fav part of the blog): all thoughts and opinions are sheerly my own and don’t reflect those of the US government.