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