Now for what most of you have been waiting for....details about my time with the children. As I said, my mornings in Roma were spent at a primary school in the village. We started the days by walking the half mile or so to the school, where each group spent the mornings with a different grade level (5th, 6th and 7th grades). It was interesting dealing with students of a different culture and educational background. There were some challenges, such as language barriers, extremely large class sizes (70ish per class), lack of electricity and encouraging students to move away from their traditional roles as listeners and toward our expectations of active learners. Despite these challenges however, the children were incredibly well behaved, respectful and intelligent. Although we weren't able to spend as much time with the students as we would've liked, we had a lot of fun teaching, dancing and playing with the students.
At the end of each morning at school, we returned to our guest house for a quick lunch and to change clothes, then drove the 10 minutes through the city to the community center on the other side of town. The community center in which I worked was called Bana Pele, which is Sesotho for Children First. Bana Pele is a shelter and center for AIDS orphans and was founded by the wife of the former Prime Minister of Lesotho, who spent her career as a pediatrician and now spends her time running the center and finding sources of funding for the center and the orphans who are a part of the center. The services this center offers are incredible, despite the economic hardships, lack of adequate facilities and the emotional distress that plague the director and volunteers.
Now, on to what I did there. In preparation for the trip, my partner and I prepared activities for 9 hours of work with approximately 40 children between the ages of 3 and 7. Unfortunately, as I've learned throughout my trip, things in Africa very rarely occur as planned. As the bus pulled up to the center on the first day, we were greeted not only by chaos, but also by approximately 400 children. A collective gasp, followed by some cursing and laughter echoed through the bus. After nearly an hour of trying to organize the children into age groups and figure out where to work with the masses, my partner and I took about 200 kids (all between 2-7) to a little barn where we taught them colors (in English) and led them in a coloring activity. Although the day was chaotic and pretty freaking stressful, the kids had so much fun, received some love and were fed, all of which are more important than anything.
The rest of the time at the center was quite different for me, as I was moved from the group of little ones and put into the position of dance teacher, which obviously was ok with me. I was then responsible for probably 100 kids between the ages of 7 and 15, all of whom I fell in love with. We had so much fun playing follow the dance leader, having dance circles and dance offs and learning an actual hip hop routine. Honestly, it was a blast. And let me tell you, those kids can dance!
Although I was assigned to Bana Pele, I briefly visited Leratong, the community center that is sponsored largely by Wittenberg and the center in which the other half of my fellow teachers spent their afternoons. The center has been decorated beautifully by Wittenberg students and, of course they left their mark by hanging flags and donating tshirts. It brought a smile to my face to see a connection to home in such a far away place.
Although we worked a lot while in Roma, it wasn't all work and no play. We had some free time to have a little fun, and we took advantage of that as much as possible. During our time in Roma, we celebrated the birthday of one of my fellow teachers by creating funny cards and posters, spoiling her with lavish gifts of booze and candy and having an evening bonfire complete with South African s'mores.
We had an opportunity to spend a wonderful day with some local artists. One was a traditional dressmaker, another was an artist who uses natural resources to create beautiful pieces based on historical events and another was an artist who uses recycled materials (mostly car parts) to create African themed art (mainly masks and animals). I immediately fell in love with an African mask and managed to beat out several of my travel partners in buying it. Although you can probably buy a similar mask online or at a store somewhere, there's something about buying it directly from a struggling artist that makes it so incredibly special.
We also had some local musicians visit us that day. They provided us with wonderful music, to which I clearly had to dance. Fortunately, I was able to drag several others onto the dance floor with me, so I wasn't the only one to make a fool of herself.
While in Roma, we had the honor of meeting the King of Lesotho. He spent about an hour with us, discussing our travels, our project, his role as king and his upcoming birthday celebrations. We had many questions for him, and he for us. We ended our time with him with tea, cake and a group picture, which unfortunately I don't have because we were only allowed to bring one camera into the meeting. Although the King is primarily viewed as a figurehead rather than a political leader, like the Queen of England, it was an honor to meet him and discuss his beautiful country with him.
My final night in Lesotho brought something of such great interest to me, and perhaps to some of you. While in Roma, we stayed at the Roma Guest House, which is owned and operated by a wonderful woman by the name of Jenny. Jenny not only provides jobs at the guest house for many locals, but also has created a trading post for locals to sell their goods, is on the board of the Leratong Community Center, organizes funding, housing and care for AIDS orphans and helps many locals with personal issues such as transportation, education, finances, etc. The final night, Jenny sat down with our group and explained her role in the community and told us ways in which we can help. She also brought in a woman living with AIDS who shared her story with us. She told us about the shame, the sickness, the medical care, her family and their reaction, everything she's experienced since receiving positive test results. This may seem insignificant to some, but when dealing with a country that has a 35% HIV infection rate, the highest in the world, Jenny's work and Daphne's story are very significant. I've pledged to help in any way possible and perhaps you will too. There are hundreds of AIDS orphans in Roma alone that Jenny works to support. They are in need of school supplies, clothing, money for food and housing and sponsors who will help pay school fees. An American dollar goes a very long way, so any little bit can and will help someone. If you're interested in helping, please let me know and I can send you more information.
As I said in my first Lesotho post, I'm still processing all that I experienced in Lesotho and trying to figure out how to express my feelings in a logical, understandable way. I'm constantly struggling with new emotions and thoughts while reflecting on my experience, so the formation of a reflective blog is a slow, ongoing process. I have things to think about, people to talk with and decisions to make before posting something so personal. So until I formulate something that I'm comfortable sharing with the world, I hope my descriptions of my time in Lesotho will suffice. I also hope that through the posts you've read thus far, you can realize the meaning of my travels, the importance of my experiences with the children and the beauty of the people I've encountered.
P.S. Just a little update about our situation with Owen, our driver...apparently he was not able to renew his license in Lesotho after all. The morning we left Lesotho we were informed that Owen was no longer able to be with us and that we would have a new driver from Lesotho who would escort us to Harrismith then a new driver from Owen's company would join us upon arrival in Harrismith. Well, the Lesotho driver joined us shortly before leaving Roma, but come to find out his license was also expired. So here we are with two illegal drivers. We had no other choice but to depart with crossed fingers with Owen as driver. We all held our breaths as Owen passed through security once again at the Lesotho-South African border. Fortunately the trip posed no problems. Our new driver, Robbie (or Roberto, as I choose to call him), greeted us in Harrismith and has been with us the past few days. Owen was an excellent guide and he will be missed, but so far Roberto has proven himself worthy.
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Location:Roma, Lesotho
