Weather and Some More Photos

 The weather here is quite amazing and very varied.  One day it will be warm and sunny then the next there will be tons of wind and thunderstorms coming through, then the next will be really cold.  Other days I will be wearing long johns while I am at school in the class, then on the way home just wearing a t-shirt and paint I am sweating.  I know that thinking/talking about the weather is not something many people around here do, but I just wanted to share some of my thoughts about it.  I was also able to include a few pretty pictures of the area I am staying.

A thunderstorm in the distance at sunset

 There have been quite a few thunderstorms that would hit us during the night.  At first I was not able to sleep at all during the storms.  Now when the storms hit I wake up for the close lighting hits but sleep through the rest.  The big reason why I could not sleep through the storms is the sound of rain hitting the tin roofs.  I had to once put a pillow over my head so it was not as loud. One day I thought it was really raining and I put on all of my rain gear, got outside and it was barely spitting.  My host family just laughed at me, they do that quite a bit. Quite a few of the thunderstorms that hit have had hail, and that is really loud inside the buildings.  I had to stop reading in one of my classes because the hail was so loud that I could not even hear myself talking. And this is the winter, apparently these storms are nothing compared to the summer time.

Clouds from a distance thunderstorm

 The thunderstorms here also have huge anvils, that start to block out the sun an hour or more before the storm hits. So you know that a storm is going to hit and adjust your schedule.  Yesterday school got out early because many of the kids (and teachers) have to cross water courses to get home.  Many of them become impassible the hour after the rain has fallen.  There is a mostly dry creak bed between my house and the school and when it fills up nobody can cross it, but when it is not raining you do not really have to even cross on rocks it is so low.  (I should take pictures of the differences some time). 

Clouds at sunset

When there are thunderstorms in the evening, or even rain storms, there are really beautiful moments where the sun breaks through the clouds.   The house that I am staying in is up on a crest of a hill so it allows me to see both the sunrises and sunsets.  I have noticed that the clouds are really beautiful here, somebody said that the clouds are lower because we are higher up in elevation.  That might be why I think they are so beautiful but I do not know.

Rainbow view from the front porch

 I have found when the thunderstorms come through, at least the ones that have come so far, there are rainbows that are quite easy to see.  The picture above the sun is hitting the far side of the valley but where my house is the rain is still falling.  I was once outside and looked up and it was clear, and had been for a while and it was still raining.  I was trying to decide if it was okay to bring out my laundry to hang up and all of my host family was making fun of me.

Dust storms

The wind here is quite strong.  It makes the roof sound like it is taking off.  My host family makes fun of how I always mention how loud the wind can be.  Yesterday when I was going home from school it looked like there was a huge rain storm coming.  It turned out to be a little bit of rain and a whole ton of dust. The wind was so strong that it tore a roof off of a chicken barn and pushed over an outhouse in town.  The dust was so thick that you could not see any of the mountains that surround the valley.  It even was able to put a layer of dust on the inside of my room, even though there were no windows open.

Sunrise after a night of storms

This week has been an interesting week:
Their is an conservation farming conference this week and I have been taking part in it as much as I can when school is not happening.
There has been a field trip to a dam where all of the teachers went on the trip causing school to be cancelled for all of the students who did not go.
The day after the field trip most of the teachers did not show up because they got back at 3 in the morning and there were 300 kids will little to no supervision.

I also updated my background picture, it is now a view of the valley looking towards my home and the school that I work at.  And the mountains that are behind it

My Culture Shock

This week I experienced some major culture shock.  I am getting quite used to being at school and realizing I have no idea what is going on or what is happening.  For example this Monday I was going to read to one class, around 50-60 kids, but then when I got there it was actually over 100 kids because three different classes did not have teachers. They were the Reception (kindergarten), Class one and Class two students and they listened to me and the story and asked questions for 15 mins.  I was kind of shocked.  I have realized that it is normal for me to get to a classroom and there to be no teachers around and the kids are doing what ever they kind of want.

The Major Culture Shock that I got this week was on Wednesday at school.  My host brother was playing on one of the roundabout play pumps.  And another kid pushed him backwards into the center, he hit is head and had a huge gash on the back of his head (He is fine do not worry).  It happened at the end of lunch and there were no teachers around because they were all in a two hour staff meeting, about a field trip, that went through all the afternoon classes.  So while the teachers were busy in a meeting the kids ran around free doing what ever. I read to some of the classes I was scheduled in but had no idea what to do with the rest. 

When they were done the staff meeting about a field trip they then had another meeting, a prayer/bible study time.  During the prayer time my host brother came in and showed the teacher what had happened to his head.  By that time it had stopped bleeding and that is when I really felt out of place. I did not know how to comfort a child from Lesotho, did not know if they were going to give him first aid.  They did give him first aid, I watched to make sure that it was not negative but it was not the best.  Then they told him to go home and maybe go to the clinic the next day. 

When I go home my host brother had gone off to  play with friends and everything seemed to be okay.  I did not know if I should tell them that he needs to go and see a doctor or if that was not something they would do for that type of injury.  I looked to make sure that everything was alright and he was not going to have major complications.  I also told him that we needed to change the dressings sometime and I would help with that.  He seemed fine before bed and I thought that he might not need any more medical attention.

Then in the morning he did not feel well and was still in bed when it was time to go to school.  I check to see how he was doing and told my nkhono that he should go to a doctor.  I made it quite clear and he looked like he was not feeling well.  When I got home from school he was doing great and he had gotten the cut cleaned and got medicine and he is heading back on Monday.

The whole time I felt that I was totally out of place, did not know what the cultural norms were.  I did not even know the very basic things that I should be doing or saying.  It was the first time that I felt not apart of the culture in a way that I was not expecting.  I knew in some areas, especially the school that I would not know what to do, but this just took me by surprise.

On another note:  I have heard from some people that they would like some more information about the school, my home life here and the food that I have been eating.  I also want to share some of the crazy weather we have been having as well.  Those all will be blog posts coming up.  Unless something else crazy or exciting happens.

Post full of Pictures

This post will be mostly pictures with stories that go along with them. The internet where I go to write emails and post for my blog had been down for over a week.  I have done a lot of fun activities and experienced lots.  Here are a few photos to show you what all I have been doing.

The library where I spend most of my time

I have been spending most of my time in the library when I am at school.  I have been looking through all of the books that are in there, determining reading level and topics.  I have read quite a few novels, and many picture books.  Over the lunch hour kids can come in and read books.  I have been teaching them about setting, plot and characters.  I use that to quiz the kids when they want a new book, to see if they have actually read the book.  They are starting to know what I am asking and that is wonderful.  I also spend rest of my day reading books to all of the different classes.  I realized fairly quickly that I was picking out books that were too hard for them to understand through my accent.  But not I think I have figured it out. 

Khotliso and his pet Rooster

This is my host brother, and he is tons of fun to be around.  This was one of his pet roosters. The key part of that sentence is the word "WAS".  Yes, I helped butcher that very rooster for dinner.  I do not know if I really helped with the cooking of the chicken or just witnessed the whole thing happen around me. 

The chicken cooking

The most of what I did was built up the fire for the pot with the chicken. So really I did not do a whole lot.  My host family does most of the cooking for the household in a separate hut near our house.  The house does have a kitchen with a gas stove, but gas is quite expensive and there are many trees around that they can use. 

My next door neighbour

 This is my next door neighbour and his goat.  Every day he watches his families goats in the country side.  One day they said that I could go along with them.  Everybody in my neighbourhood thought it would be hilarious if I would do that for a day.  The reason why he is holding the goat is because animals are really scared of me here.  This kid goat was more scared of me trying to pet it than another one of my neighbours trying to scare it.

My next door neighbours

 These are two of boys that live in my neighbourhood.  They usually visit every day around dinner time and stay over until it is time for bed.  We head to bed around 8 each night.  At first it was weird to go to bed so early, but now it is quite normal.  During the time that they, along with many other neighbouring kids are visiting we do a short bible study.  We find a passage and I read it in English and they read it in SeSotho.  I still no very little in SeSotho and have no idea what they are saying when they are over.  Once and a while they will tell e what they are saying in English. I realized that I do not have a picture of Hopalong, my host sister. I will take one soon to post.

Nkhono Norah and Nkhono Masechaba

I went on a hike with my host grandmother (Nkhono) Masechaba on the right and her childhood friend Norah.  They noticed that I was taking pictures of them looking at the valley and then they started dancing so I could take pictures of them.  Nkhono Norah spent time in South Africa working so she knows English quite well, we seem to visit with her every Sunday afternoon.  This week we traveled to the top of a plateau near by. It had amazing views of the valley.  We also visited where Nkhono grew up and saw many of her relatives.  It was fun, a lot of talking in SeSotho but I will understand in time. Here are some of the pictures that I took while looking out over the valley.

View of the Valley looking to the East

Another view of the Valley Looking East

A view of the valley looking South-West

A view of a home looking down from the Plateau

Dinosaur Foot Prints

At the top of the Plateaus that are near my host house has many dinosaur foot prints.  At first I did not believe that they were actually up there.  Most of them are circle imprints in the rocks and you can not tell if they are erosion or not.  But then we found these ones that you can actually see three toe prints into the stone.

The view out of my bedroom window

Flowering peach tree

I have to say that the house that I am staying in is a beautiful location.  My bedroom window over looks the whole valley.  We are at the top of the ridge so the sunsets are right behind us.  And they are beautiful.  I can also see the sunrise over the mountains on the other side of the valley.  The whole country side seems to be getting greener and greener.  When we first arrived the peach trees were just starting to bloom, now most of them were done flowering. My nkhono has many of peach trees growing in her front yard.  They were beautiful to see all over the valley.

Sunset from the ridge near my host families home