Illness, a Gecko, Lemonade, and School

Corn fields. Corn fields everywhere. It’s the time of the year in Lesotho where the crops stretch high into the air and Basotho are hard at work keeping the fields free of weeds.

Endless corn fields. A-maize-ing. Sorry, was that too corny?

Come to think of it, I never shared my Sesotho name. My name is Rethabile Tumo (pronounced reh-tah-bee-leh too-mo). Almost all Sesotho names have a generally positive meaning such as happiness, pride, or gift. Rethabile means “we are happy,” and Tumo is simply the name of the village I am residing in. 

Let’s jump right in. This post will have various topics regarding some events of the past month.

Illness

After going through training without encountering any illness or digestive problems, I was pretty confident that my body was well-adjusted to the new environment. Little did I know what lied ahead once I came to my site.  After the holidays, I was served the whole menu from Lesotho’s Digestive Demolition. Vomiting, diarrhea, headache, fever, a side dish of incredible amounts of gas, and also the fine musical accompaniment from my groaning stomach. Five stars, assuredly. It lasted for about three days, and those three days were truly the most miserable so far in this country. I talked with the Medical Officer, who guided me on what to do and what medicine to consume from our handy Medical Kit. 

We became friends really fast

The culprit for the illness still remains a mystery since a copious amount of food was consumed as a result of the holiday celebrations. About a week later, I became sick yet again, but nowhere close to as eventful as the first. Partly because of these battles, I ended up losing some weight as I now have to tighten my belt buckle a notch. Now, I’m much more conscious about the food I eat, and have been eating more to get my pounds back. As a Mosotho man once told me regarding diarrhea, “Your insides have been cleansed.”

Gecko

One day, I was about to wash the dishes and was greeted by a small, orange gecko. This two-inch-long critter was relaxing in one of my dish basins and slowly turned its head towards me. Being the paranoid person I am when it comes to creatures, I initially jolted back before realizing the thing was harmless. I grabbed the dish basin and gently set the visitor down in a patch of grass outside away from the house. The following day, I was about to wash myself and was sorting through my toiletries on my makeshift shelf, which was a chair at the moment. I picked up my bar of soap and in its place stood the orange gecko once again. After my instinctual body jerk, I carefully looked at the gecko and determined it was the exact same once from yesterday. I was actually impressed that this little guy managed to get back into my house, and even climb a chair to give me a surprise.

The persistent little rascal

I thought about what to do with the gecko this time. Then I realized, “Hmm, maybe I should just keep it.” During training, I concluded that I wouldn’t adopt a cat or a dog because of the responsibility and potential hygiene problems involved. But a gecko seemed rather low maintenance, and I’d be able to have a tiny companion to grow with in Lesotho. Thus, a gecko, who I have named Sticky, is now taking shelter in a glass jar in my home, and is fed unfortunate flies and insects that enter my home.

Host Family

Though I have a host family who lives next door, my lifestyle is largely independent. The family consists of a mother, grandmother, and two little boys. The mother is a pastor and leaves occasionally to partake in church-related activities. My two host brothers are adopted and, I am assuming, orphaned. Sadly, there are several orphans in this country with one of the major reasons being the alarming incidence of HIV/AIDS throughout the population. The older brother named Thabelo (pronounced Tah-bell-oh; writing this reminded me of Taco Bell and now I am seriously craving it..) is six years old and it seems he has taken a liking into me. He often comes over to my house and keenly observes whatever I’m doing. Lately, he’s taken an interest into peeling carrots and helping me cook. Whenever he helps, he gets a little compensation in food from me. The younger brother, Naleli (pronounced Nah-leh-di), is probably around two years old. So I actually thought this little boy was a girl for about a week. However, I have recently concluded that there’s approximately a 50% chance that the child will be roaming about without pants on. So, one day I was greeted by the child’s void of pants and went, “Oh.” This brings us to another story.

Partners in Crime. Naleli on one of his "free" days.

About a week ago, I was working on something with my counterpart in my home. As we were busily discussing, Naleli casually strolled in with his usual curious, google-eyed expression and stood by the door. Of course, he was without pants. Our words were graciously interrupted by the sound of liquid splattering on the ground. I looked over at the source of the sound with growing panic and found a very relieved, almost satisfied, expression from the pants-less Naleli. My counterpart and I cringed in unison and rushed to the scene to redirect the still-continuing stream outside. Following this event, I established that any baby children without pants on are banned from entering my home. 

The entirety of Naleli’s day consists of constantly (and I mean constantly) calling for his mother, who is usually weeding the gardens nearby our houses. The funny thing is, he basically only knows one word, ‘M’e (prounounced mm-meh), which means Mrs./Mother. His chants for his mother are often followed by repeated, nonsense “thi-tha-the” sounds. A few days ago, as I was leaving to use the toilet, I think I heard the little child say “ntate” (pronounced n-ta-teh) to me, which means mister. I was pleasantly surprised that he had learned a new word! He’s also been directing more of his gibberish sounds toward me lately..

School Begins

School officially began last Monday and things have become significantly busier. I didn’t actually begin teaching until Wednesday though because students still continue to register into this week and trickle into the classrooms. I am teaching four different math classes to Forms A, B, and D (coincide with grades 8, 9, and 11), but the number of periods I teach is equivalent to that of three classes since I am sharing two of the classes with another teacher. Because of the historical British influence in Lesotho, the teachers are called “Sir” or “Madam.” Speaking English in the classrooms is mandatory throughout the country (which surely helps me). The students seem to get a kick out of my American accent; Basotho say the letter “r” differently – actually they don’t say it at all if the word doesn’t start with it. For example, they pronounce “birds” as “bids” and “car” as “cah.” 

Three days ago, the scores of the LGCSE national exams for the Form E students last year (graduating class) were released. This exam is similar to the SAT, but is heavily weighted for college admissions. Basically, if you do well on this single exam, you’re going to college. My school ended up ranking 20^th in the country out of over 200 schools, which is an impressive feat. The news was so moving that school was cancelled halfway throughout the day and the rest of the day was spent celebrating.

A thought occurred to me as I took in this news: “Maybe I should be teaching at one of the academically struggling schools. Does this upper-ranked school really need me?” But the reality is, this school can still improve in so many ways. There’s no laboratory for the science classes (yet there are still A’s for science); the library still needs a lot of work; there is a lack of classrooms; and math scores are the lowest out of all the subjects. Why not change my vision to a more ambitious one and help the school become an even better school so that it can build leaders for the country? I’m the third and last Peace Corps volunteer at my school (three is the limit), and I know the previous two volunteers contributed to the continuous progress of this school over the past four years. Being the last volunteer, I need to make my service count and help propel the school to greater heights.