Into Africa

Before I start I must apologize for any duplication between reports. I do not have easy access to earlier reports and have to rely on memory which is not a good thing.

Things are not going very well at Mamohau and I may end up changing schools for the last month or so. The problem has been there from the start (when I was not picked up on the day arranged), but I guess my optimism made me think that I could overcome this. The school was chosen for twinning and to receive a volunteer because of the strong leadership it has. The principal and deputy principal are both very nice men but are frequently absent from the school. In the case of the principal, he is there for an average of less than a day a week and the deputy for about three days. They were given a copy of my work plan but had apparently never read it – in any case, I was never introduced to either the staff or students and my role there was never formally made clear. This meant that I had to explain it to each person or group individually. Not surprisingly, the teachers (and kids) did not feel all that comfortable with a stranger coming in, without a clear mandate from the principal, to suggest that there might be better ways to teach and learn.

I have taught lessons for teachers and taught in the absence of teachers (and the deputy who teaches Form E English) but am not really getting anywhere. The standard teaching method is for the teachers to write something on the board (copied from a textbook or the government syllabus) and the kids write it down and memorize it. There is little thought given to what this might be. I came into a Form E class and there was something on the board about “…breathing chemical bonds by heating them”. The kids had all copied this down without thinking. I suggested that perhaps the ‘th’ in breathing should be replaced by a ‘k’ and I could see faces light up when they actually thought about it. An introductory computer class was being taught word processing by typing a passage on the blackboard with the errors that it included so that they could try the spell checker.

One of the Form E classes told me that they did not want me to teach them because they could not understand my accent (I spoke very slowly and clearly) and, more to the point, because I gave them too much work. I was teaching the probability unit (grade 9 in Ontario I think, but grade 12 here) and the kids were having huge difficulty with it. They prefer it when the teacher just copies the answers on the board so they get it in their books – even if they do not have a clue about how the questions can be done.

I have also discovered that the kids suffer from sleep deprivation. They seem to get from 5 to 6 hours and it means that they always falling asleep in class. I checked with a couple of the sponsored girls (in Form A and B) and they go to sleep at around 1030 and wake up at 340 to get ready for the day. They have to be out of the dorm rooms at 5 am to allow for cleaning and line up for breakfast at 6. They are supposed to be in class to study at 7 but they tend to sleep there for obvious reasons.

The Deputy Principal has just gotten a job as a principal about 40 km from Mamohau, so there is really no one there to lead. It will be interesting to see how much more the principal comes. I was told that the appointment of a deputy can take 1 to 2 years but that an acting appointment is likely.

Last weekend there was a very strange combined staff meeting and BBQ held about 40 km south of Maseru. Not sure why we had to travel so far from Mamohau for this, but it was on the grounds of a lodge that used to be the summer home of the British High Commissioner during colonial times. During the staff meeting, prizes were given to the teachers who had the highest passing rate during the Form C and E central exams. They also were asked to explain the reasons for their success (generally that they taught courses that had the highest marks across the country, but they did not say this of course). The teachers with the worst success rates (math and computers) had to explain what they would do differently this year – it had the feel of something from the Cultural Revolution, with self-criticism in order. The reality is that no schools do well in math and computer science. At Mamohau they stopped teaching physics because the math skills were so bad – and they are terrible, but it is a shame that kids who might be good at math/science are virtually eliminated from taking engineering, most science etc.

The principal also made his remarks about what had to improve and it was like he was reading from parts of the interim report I had given him. Unfortunately, he focused on teachers not missing so many days of school (a major problem for sure) – but hard for him to talk about (he said he was away, but ‘that there were good reasons for this’. He also said he wanted people to be on time at school and for each class and to stay in class until the end of the period. This was also problematic, since his wife, who teaches geography, is the worst offender here. Anyway, nothing has changed this week except that the teachers are pretty angry, but not showing it.

We had a visit for two days from Peggy and Peter, who are two of our volunteers. What they are doing is quite remarkable. They have been in Africa since November doing HIV/AIDS education. In that time they have been in Rwanda (apparently most of the women in the country were raped during the genocide, giving AIDS a big boost), Zimbabwe (one of the basket cases of Africa under Mugabe) and Lesotho. Peggy has been HIV+ for 20 years and Peter is HIV- negative and they can talk about the subject with great credibility and considerable knowledge on the subject. Many people here cannot believe that Peggy has been positive for so long since here getting infected has been a death sentence.

Lesotho has become one of the African leaders with respect to AIDS. Testing is free and available widely, including at the hospital near the school. For those who know this, my apologies – once you test positive, the next step is to have a monthly test to check your CD4 count. This is a measure of the health of the immune system. Generally it takes 5 or so years after infection for the count to drop to 200, which is when ARV treatment is needed. CD4 monitoring is free and the ARVs are technically free but there is a charge to transport them from Maseru. This means that the cost is R10 for three months – this is a bit less than $2. ARVs should have been available in Africa years ago (millions of lives could have been saved, but at least they are here now – at least in Lesotho, the story is not so good elsewhere I understand. Peggy and Peter were focusing on two messages – get tested and protect yourself.

I have been doing some follow-up with the teachers and students after these presentations. Only 2 (of 24) teachers have been tested and I have talked to several about their fears about being tested. One of the problems in the country is that huge numbers of teachers (and other community leaders) have died. This week I will also be working with the school’s AIDS club.

The seriousness of the problem can be seen from simple stats. In Lejone, near the school, the AIDS clinic did a workshop for 60 women. At the end of the workshop, 29 of the women were too frightened to be tested. Of the 31 who were tested, 29 were positive. More scary was that only 3 of these women have returned for CD4 testing.

Rains continue here, almost every day. Older people in the community are saying that they cannot remember such a rainy time in their lives. It really is a cruel joke after so many years of drought.

We set a new record for the 15 person taxis on the way here. It might have been the last taxi from Mamohau to Lejone (6 km or so) and it was pretty full when it stopped to pick up the 6 or so waiting. We managed 25 people including the two who were standing on the bumper holding on to the luggage rack. I was standing up with one foot in the door well and one between someone’s leg – the idea of personal space is not remotely the same here as in Canada. You are crammed into the taxi and could have someone’s arm around your shoulders or a hand on top of yours. You start to get used to it after while. The people here tend to fall into two categories with respect to personal hygiene. Most people are scrupulously clean – they often will have two sponge baths a day. A few people, the herd boys in particular, only seem to bathe in months that have a ‘V’ in them.

An interesting thought I had about South Africa …, they have benefited from the sanctions that were put in place during Apartheid. During this time they seemed to develop a great deal of economic self-sufficiency. Almost everything that you see for sale in Lesotho comes from there – for example, all manner of tools and foodstuffs. A particular favourite of mine was Da Vinci’s Genuine Scottish Shortbread. I imagine that globalization will gradually have an impact, but not much evidence of it so far.

Enough for now I think - except to say that the radio is on in the Internet cafe and it seems to be a combination of a phone-in show and Christmas music. This is the not the first time I have heard Silent Night in Feb here.

Made a surprise trip to the Lowlands and can post a week earlier than I thought (more on that later). Last weekend I went to Maseru, the capital, for a visa renewal. With the govt bureaucracy this took only about 20 minutes but it was a four day excursion overall. Maseru is another level of development again from the rest of the country. There are buildings up to about 10 floors, large suburbs, good internet (about 1/3 of Canadian broadband speed) and even treated water and sewage.

The hotel was quite nice. It had been the prime minister’s residence (not sure why he needed a new one) and was in a nice part of town across from the golf course (yes they have one). It was a bit quirky, the toilet flushed with hot water and the light switch was in the hallway (not even in the room). Maseru has two Shoprite stores. These are quite large supermarkets that would not be out of place even in a large Canadian city. It was great to be able to buy a wider range of food stuffs, but I was limited in terms of what I could carry from the road to my house.

The bureaucracy for the visa was upsetting but reflects a couple of things. One is that the people there have a job and need to fill in forms and the like to justify their position – there were a great many people working in the office in relation to those coming to get service. The other is that you can see that she was a product of the educational system – unable to think outside-the-box. We had a letter from Help Lesotho saying that we were aid workers but it was addressed to the customs office (for our original arrival in the country) and she wanted something addressed to the immigration department. It finally went upstairs (literally) and was approved by the director of immigration.

My trip to the mountains was problematic. The mini-buses here do not leave until they are full – and this took almost two hours. I had two bags and a herd boy (around 25) jammed against me and could not move my legs at all. We went to the gas station and then were stopped by the traffic police – these are common. They look for lights out or bad tires and drivers get a ‘choice’, pay a fine of M150 ($30) or promise to get it fixed with a ‘tip’ to the cop of M50. Before we got to the permanent police check point (you have to get out of the bus and walk through a gate where they may look at your stuff) and get back into the bus; we managed to run over a man’s foot (he was standing next to a broken down taxi). Looked like we might have had a fight between two drivers, but we ended up driving the guy to the local hospital. He was in the hospital for no more than three minutes and then we drove him back to the main road where he could get a taxi back to his taxi. He was walking better and had a few little cuts on his foot. One of the other volunteers was talking about a child being hit by a taxi this week and being seriously injured. Another child was drowned in one of the swollen rivers – it has continued to rain (and hail at times) like mad. At Mamohau it rained hard every day this week. Usually between 1 and 4 pm for an hour or two after a lovely morning. On our drive to Maseru – in the major farming area – the soil erosion was a tragedy. In some places, the soil was gone right down to the bare rock. There are huge gullies everywhere.

The other problem with the rain for such a long time, is that the ground is now totally saturated so the mud is worse than even and the farmers’ fields are sodden and many crops are being lost.

I am making considerable progress with the kids I think. They respond well to the fact that an adult is nice to them and does something other than yell at them. Some kids are starting to borrow English reading materials and I was a judge at a debate where the Form Bs beat the Form Es (there is a three year gap here so the Form Es should have won but the Bs had two highly articulate girls who did a great job.)

Something neat at school … I mentioned earlier that I had put some stepping stones along the path the girls take to school so they would not have to walk through the mud (the students and some teachers called this my bridge). The students decided to do a proper job of this and built a little bridge of corrugated steel over the worst part, dug a channel to drain the swampy bit (made a little stream in effect). They also moved hundreds of rocks to make a pathway. It was almost like they needed to be shown that they could alter a natural problem.

Had one of the neatest teaching experiences last week. During the evening study period (7 to 830 pm) I had almost all of the Form Es in one room as I helped them with math questions. Meanwhile there was a raging thunderstorm just outside. No discipline problems here. If any kids talked, the others shushed them instantly. Afterwards, four of the boys insisted on escorting me back to my house, in the pouring rain and with the mud (they wear black, reasonably formal shoes).

Weeks ago a girl was brought to the school office (principal and deputy were not there). The teachers thought she had bad hiccups but I thought it certainly was not that. Beyond Red Cross first aid I have no expertise but I thought she might be having a minor (petit-mal?) epileptic seizure and pushed for the idea that she should be taken to the medical clinic across the way. This week a letter arrived from the district nurse in the next district to say that she is epileptic and on meds but there is so little understanding of proper medical care here. One of the young nuns at the convent where the guest house is had a tooth ache and they just pulled out one of her front, upper teeth.

The reason why I ended up unexpectedly back in Leribe is that yesterday was a sort of retreat for all of the teachers. It was a combined staff meeting and BBQ held on the grounds of a lodge that used to be the summer residence of the British High Commissioner in colonial times. Not entirely sure why we had to go so far (it is about a 4+ hour trip), but I decided to be dropped off at the guest house for the night (a shower and conversation!). The meeting was interesting. They give prizes to the teachers who have the best results on the external exams in Form C and E (typically Sesotho and Geography). These teachers then explain the reasons for their success. The teachers with the worst results (math and computer) have to explain what they will do differently in the future.

All for now. Will be back here next weekend (25-27) getting ready for the four of us (Penney, Carol and Ray) who will be going to Mahlefekane with new benches we are making, paint, school bags etc.

[Top left photo: The students at Makhelefane get two meals a day at school cooked over an open fire in several large pots. There is a serious shortage of firewood and about once a week a team of four oxen arrive pulling two or three smallish trees that would have been better left to get bigger. Bottom left photo: This is Penney inside the main building at Makhelefane. Remarkably four classes are held in this space with most of the kids sitting on the floor. It is only this light because the two doors are open. After painting white (hard to paint mud!) and building benches, it was much better. Top right photo: Lesotho consists of the lowlands which are still above 4000' and the mountains which are 7000- to 11000'. The road to Leribe goes from the foreground to the edge of the plateau to the left of the higher peak (it can be seen cutting diagonlly across the rock face). Just below this point there are the remains of a mini-bus part way down the cliff. There were 11 killed in that accident. Vehicles need to be in good shape mechanically but are not as a rule.}

Hope this works. I am typing this in the school office on the only computer here that will take a USB key. Much to report in the week and a half since my last report. There is really no internet access available for me near Mamohau so I can only get online during my visits to Leribe. Even there the internet is painfully slow and unreliable.

After my last visit to Leribe I was to go to Mamohau with Peter, the deputy principal, at around 5 pm. We finally left at 930 which seems pretty standard around here. To add to the fun it was during a hellish thunderstorm. There were about 6 minor rockslides on the highway through the mountains. None covered the entire road but you had to be careful. The highest point on this road is about 3100 m and it is pretty good road considering everything. Just about all vehicles are standard since you need to use engine breaking on the steeper parts (there is one place where it is 12 km downhill). Otherwise the load on the brakes is excessive.

While I was in Leribe I went to the Metro store which is like a Costco and acts as a wholesaler for small retail outlets in the whole region. I spent almost $100 on food. I see why there is not much selection in the stores – there is not much in the wholesale store. The Shoprite store in Leribe is to open this month and should change the entire shopping dynamic in the area. I have been told it will ‘have everything’ (it is a big South African chain) and apparently can be predatory like a WalMart.

I seem to have many small impressions of life here to share with you, so bear with me. Next is a description of my options for walking between the school and my house. This only takes 5+ minutes, but there are several choices. The shortest is across the outlet of the tiny duck pond (there are only three ducks that are going to be sold at some point). This is terrible when it is muddy and passes reasonably close to the latrines behind the boys’ dorm. Picture a 15 holer that really smells. I avoid this route if it is wet or the wind is from the wrong direction. The other major option is to go through the small cabbage patch near the school office and teacher room – then down a steep hill (these are everywhere); then skirt a large cabbage patch before going down a longish hill to the teacher houses. This is further but works out well except when the school cattle are grazing along this route. I am entirely a city boy and these are large animals. I asked someone if they are friendly and was told that one bull (or steer, like I know which) was not. At that time I could identify this beast but they move around and I am not sure which one it is now (I know it is not one of the cows). Along this route it is typical to pass within about 3 m of them. Today at lunch it was really muddy (not the duck pond route), but the herd was straddling the other route. Chose the latter and it was fine – the bull must have had a good day I guess.

Went to my other school Makhelefane last weekend. This was quite the adventure. I go to the nearby town Leribe and catch the ‘taxi’ that goes at 2 pm (it actually left at 430). It is only something like 6 or 7 km but if you go you are there for the night, because the return trip is only available in the morning. The taxi is a 4 wd pickup truck – typically a ¼ ton (ie little) Toyota. You cross about 6 shallow streams and go up and down some very steep hills. On the way in the truck had a fibreglass cap on the back which limited the load – there were 15 people in total along with perhaps 200 kg of freight. I was wedged between two large ladies (many of those here too) and literally could not move at all. By the end of it my knees were killing me. On the way back, the pickup had no cap, which meant that more people could be carried. There were two toddlers and 16 adults for this trip. People were most friendly, after they ascertained that I was not an Afrikanner. Apparently they are not well-liked here – may be as a result of the treatment that Basuto miners got in the gold and diamond mines of South Africa for so many years. There were language difficulties, but I did receive one marriage proposal – one lady was very keen to move to Canada.

I have had several marriage proposals for each of my sons from students. All they know is their ages (25 and 20), the fact they are unmarried and that they live in Canada. There is an enormous desire here to move to Canada – since life there is ‘so easy’. I had so many questions from teachers that I did a seminar for them entitled, “ How to move to Canada, and why it is probably not a good idea.” Some were turned off by mention of income tax; others by my description of lifestyles or the fact that their training would not qualify them to teach in Canada (many have not been to university and many primary teachers have only high school).

Makhelefane itself was remarkable. It is like yet another step backward in economic development – no electricity, no running water, and the worst outhouse I have even seen – it was only about 5 feet tall which caused me certain problems. The children at the school receive breakfast and lunch and the region is supported by the UN World Food Program – and it is so close to Lejone which has stores full of food and vendors all over. The children’s food (cornmeal mush and a few vegetables) is cooked over an open fire in a giant cauldron. There is not even much firewood available. The fuel was tiny sticks gathered in the area.

The school is very poor indeed. The main building has about the floor space of a largish Canadian classroom (about 50’ x 16’) but has 4 classes and teachers and about 120 kids in it. There are only a few benches – most of the kids sit on the mud floor. It is also very, very dark inside. The floor and walls are mud and dark brown and the windows are few and small. Three classes are held in a tent (think the type used for wedding receptions). In the winter, conditions in the tent are very bleak indeed. The government has promised an additional building ‘when funds allow’, but that could be never. Four of us are going there in about 10 days to see what we can do to improve conditions. We will paint the interior white, build some benches so at least some of the kids will be off the floor. In addition, we will make knee desks, which are just pieces of masonite that the students can put their notebooks on so they can write. We are also providing 120 small school bags so the students can keep their books and pencils somewhere – now they get lost because there is nowhere for them to be kept. The school bags are being made of denim by a local woman, so it is helping the local economy a bit too. We are hiring a 4wd truck to take the stuff and us there on the 27th. We will prefab the benches and assemble on site because it is easier to transport this way.

In spite of this poverty, clearly the worst I have seen, the people are lovely there and the setting is breathtaking. The school buildings are traditional stone and actually quite pretty (if not very functional) and they are set on a hill above a deep valley (almost a canyon) with a river that looks like it would be fun to canoe.

I have finally gotten over my problem of throwing my garbage in the small pit on the hill in front of my house. It was hard but there is no other way. I certainly keep anything that might of use – the peanut butter jar to put sugar in, the pill bottles for jam, the bread bag to wrap a cut onion. The garbage goes into a shallow pit which is burned (a bit, only).

Cooking is a challenge without refrigeration. I was able to buy Knorr soup and I made a nice beef soup with a tomato and onion added. I have a bottle of chutney, which is my only condiment and I added it. There was too much for dinner so the rest I had for breakfast. Similarly with the long-life milk – if I make cocoa (not like Quick, this is real cocoa); the milk I open (500 ml) has to be finished at the next meal. It will not last longer.

I made a conscious decision not to have someone do my laundry, cook my meals or clean my house. The teachers all have students do this and I have a feeling that they do not even pay for these services. I tried to explain to one teacher that this would not be considered appropriate in Canada because it would be very hard for the student to refuse. In general, the students here are treated as servants by the teachers. Students are never asked to do something (carry books, pick up trash); they are told and in most unpleasant tones. Much of this society seems to be based on the power relationships that exist between and among people: men over women, adults over children, those with money over those who without it. Perhaps this is my over-sensitive, social-democratic populist sensibilities, but I do not think so.

On Saturday I decided to go to Lejone for some shopping (milk, bread, eggs, fresh veg or fruit). Rather that taking the public I decided to walk. This should be a 90 minute walk but I decided to follow some trails that led away from the road. I ended up next to the reservoir created by the Katse Dam (the largest in Africa – it is about 50 km from here – the lake is very long and narrow). It was a neat walk and I always knew where I was – but I had to hike up a very steep hill from the lake to the level of the town. I thought my heart was going to come out my left nostril at one point. It ended up being a 3½ hour hike. I did my shopping (not much more than 5 minutes) and went for lunch at the local restaurant – Chocks. If you are in this neighbourhood I recommend it. There were 11 items on a large dinner plate including a chicken leg and piece of locally caught fish, rice, pumpkin greens (very nice), squash, great homemade French fries, etc. This cost somewhat less than $4. With two beers and tip (not the normal custom in rural Lesotho), the entire meal was less than $8. I took the public back to the school – but still had to climb a very steep hill up to my house. BTW, when you buy eggs (they are very large dark brown eggs) here they come loose – at best you end up with a bag full of eggs or maybe your eggs wrapped (together) in a sheet of newspaper. After I recovered from my hike I ended up playing volleyball with the kids in the afternoon, so I slept well that night.

The academic skills of the kids are very weak and the English skills are worse. I was helping some Form C kids with an assignment (about grade 10 level) and they had obviously been asked to use more complex language (I would have been more satisfied to see them using simple language well). One student talked about ‘… the plenary stadium being very noisy’. Took some time to explain to him that not all synonyms in a thesaurus are equal and that you have to be careful. I gave the Form E English classes an assignment to read an issue of National Geographic (there are not many reading materials here but there are perhaps 300 copies of NG). They were to provide a two sentence summary of each article and then analyze one article in terms of identifying the introduction, major points made in the article, and conclusion. None of them could do this since they are completely used to just memorizing what the teacher gives them. The summaries (at best) tended to be whatever they could copy from the beginning of the article that previewed the contents. Identifying the arguments of the piece just did not happen at all. Then they wonder why they cannot do questions on the Cambridge O-level exams, which ask them to explain the meaning of one a passage in their own words. I was in one class where the students had learned a definition of what a drug is. It included the idea that drugs are ‘… chemical compounds that influence the body …’ I asked someone to explain what a chemical compound was and no one had a clue. I asked them what ‘influence’ meant and none could tell me – and yet they could parrot the definition perfectly.

I had an almost surreal experience this week. Last year’s Form E results were announced (every student in the country’s marks are listed in the newspaper btw). The teachers acted as if a major war had just ended – jumping up and down screaming, dancing, crying – one woman was even rolling around on the ground in her excitement. This was because the school’s results were very marginally better than last year’s. About 86% who wrote the exams passed, but this ignores the fact that most kids drop out of school before reaching Form E. Even the graduates have such limited skills. They do not seem to understand that massive improvements are needed in the schools if Lesotho is to emerge from poverty, since economic growth must come from human capital, not from the limited (and overstressed) natural resource base.

In my travels I am getting to understand the country a bit. The women do the vast majority of the work while the men often just sit around – the unemployment rate is something like 60%. On one hand I feel like giving the men a kick in the ass and tell them to get out and help weed the garden where his wife is working in the hot sun. On the other, I feel sorry for the loss of identity they feel. Generations ago they were hunters and then they became herders. Then they went off to South Africa to work in the mines but most of those jobs are gone now. There are now so many men and boys available that a typical herder might only be watching (full-time) over one or two cows or half a dozen sheep. About the largest herd I have seen with one herder is perhaps 10. There is little enough for them to do otherwise. It is very common to see men walking around or herding while wearing their hard hat from the mine – I guess as a symbol of the status that they used to enjoy when they provided for their families by being away for 3 to 6 months at a time. BTW, the fact that they were working away for long periods of time is a main reason for the spread of AIDS from prostitutes working near the mines to the spouses and babies of the miners here.

At times, this experience is very taxing and one can feel quite lonely. There are lots of Canadians in Leribe and they have a different kind of life there than in the mountains, but I can recommend this to others I think. You really get an opportunity to think about yourself and those around you and to figure out what really matters in life and what is really just ‘stuff’ that you can do without.

All for now.