Nothing Much

As promised I'm doing my best to keep on the blog. I don't have much to mention this time, but I suppose I can just do a quick update on what's been going on.

DANCE~
Dance class is going great! The girls are still loving it! Now the students at the other primary school (Hlotsenyane) where I teach Life Skills are bugging me to dance with them. I don't know if I'll have time to do both. Especially since I have to split up my current class into two different days to accommodate the big age differences. I told the girls from Hlotsenyane just to come up and join the current dance class. We'll see if they actually do it. They'd have to walk about 20 minutes up hill to get there :( However, while teaching Life Skills at Hlotsenyane last week I honored Mr. T Maresco by playing some music for the students during and activity, and then allowing them to have a "one minute dance party". They really loved it!!! Tom said he did this with his students, which makes me laugh cause the kid couldn't dance for crap, but he was right when he said the students really enjoy it!

ECCD~
Early Childhood Care and Development, also known as my "primary assignment" here in Lesotho. My job is to train the teachers. This second year with my teachers has gotten off to a slow start. I feel frustrated because we're discussing all the stuff that I trained them on last year, all over again. I hoped to get passed "how to do a lesson plan" and onto more interactive ideas. I wanted to get into things like classroom management and specific activities they can do with their students. We touched on these things a little bit last year, but now they want to cover the same stuff all over again. I worry about what will happen when I leave. I was hoping to have laid a stronger foundation last year so that this year the Area Resource Teachers could work as the trainers. This way once I leave they'll still have someone who can teach them. We're off to a very slow start. I'm not giving up, but its clear that I've got my work cut out for me.

MOSHOESHOE'S DAY~
This Friday, March 11, is Moshoesheo's Day (pronounced Ma-shway-shway). This is a Lesotho holiday honoring King Moshoeshoe. Last year I went to some ECCD events. Basically I sat in the sun while the teachers and children did races and some traditional dances. This was fun for an hour or two, but by the end of it I was hot and tired. This year I decided to skip the events and use the long weekend to visit my friend Parker in Mokhotlong. Mokhotlong is the most northern district in Lesotho. Getting there is a long and uncomfortable taxi ride. But I've only gone once, and it was to deliver very tragic news, so I thought I should go back on a happier note. However, in the last couple of days I've caught a nasty little cold. I'm pretty sure I got it from my host family. They were all sick last week, and the kids spend A LOT of time hanging out in my house. Now I'm suffering from a soar throat, headache and constant runny nose. I'm not looking forward to feeling this way on a taxi ride up the mountains for 4 hours to get to Parker's site. I'm going to decide in the morning if its worth me making the trip, or if I should reschedule. We'll see.

THIS & THAT~
Not much else is really going on. I've got some beautiful sunflowers growing outside of my rondoval (I'll post a photo once I have a camera again). I would have a lot more flowers to go with them, but my family has been doing some renovations on the house next to mine, which lead to the destruction of my seedlings.
My family adopted a cat a few weeks back. We (fellow PCV's) named him Zygote, to go with the dog, Fetus. But we were calling him Ziggy. When I returned home last weekend after a visit to some friend's houses Ziggy was nowhere to be found. I asked the kids where he was and they said he either ran away or was eaten by dogs. Sad right? But animals tend to come and go here and no one thinks much of it. I don't like cats a whole lot, but I was pretty excited about Ziggy. He used to come sunbathe on my porch all day. He was a cutie :(
I planted a garden a while back and am now reaping the benefits. However, the benefits are few. As with my flowers, my family dug up my garden without realizing it. My Ntate (host father) went out to weed my plot one day. He didn't realize I'd planted on the whole thing, as he couldn't see anything sprouting up (this was only weeks after I'd planted the seeds), so he dug up most everything. He left the lettuce that was just beginning to sprout, but the peppers, cucumbers, and zucchinis were lost. I was disappointed, but I can buy all that stuff in town. I was left with TONS of delicious leafy green lettuce, which I cannot buy, so I guess its okay. I've been having some AMAZING salads, and those are hard to come by in Lesotho. My family has some tomatoes growing which they share with me. I buy onions at the shop and green beans in town. Add some American Ranch dressing and I'm one happy girl!

Well I suppose that's enough for one day. I hope everyone reading this is doing well. I miss you all very much. But I thank you for the letters, phone calls, packages, and blog comments. Like I've said before, you're an amazing support group! Miss you!
Hay