Back to School!

Hey everyone! Happy New Year! Seems the wheels are finally turning here at the schools. After a nice holiday hiking in Lesotho, see previous post, I have been back at site about 3 weeks now and getting things in place for the new school year. Unlike at home, January begins the new school year here. I am currently finishing some last minute fixes to the computer lab at my primary school. There are 22 computers, all donated about 5 or 6 years ago. I have cleared them of viruses (an arduous task to say the least) and refurbished a couple in preparation for a computer literacy class I will begin teaching soon. Im also going to be upgrading some of the hardware, pending a donation of RAM back home. Once everything is working I will start piloting this comp lit program for grades 4-7 here at the primary school. Basic stuff like how to use a mouse, typing skills, navigating windows XP, etc. Concurrently I will be teaching the teachers how to use them as well. Ideally after this term I will have trained another teacher sufficiently to take over my role in teaching comp lit. i am also trying to reinfore the sports program they have here at the primary school. Right now, every Thursday is Sports Day. Typically the boys will play soccer in the afternoon and the girls netball (similar to basketball, without the dribbling). In theory this should happen every Thursday but that does not seem to be the case so I will be working with the staff to make it a more regular part of the week.

Across the street at Ntalantala, the secondary school, things are rolling as well. The biggest news so far is the electricity being turned on finally. It's certainly an improvement but on a more selfish note it detracts from the otherwise dark landscape at night. Otherwise great news! I have been in close contact with the David Rattray Foundation in order to procure computers for a lab at Ntalantala as well. The biggest obstacle until recently was electricity, now I am doing whatever I can to fast track the preparations of the actual room for the computers (install new plugs, bars on the windows, razor wire in the ceiling). This will be a little different from the lab at the primary school. The idea here is to create a complete resource center for the school. The computers will at first be the primary resource, outfitted with current encyclopedia software. Then as more donations come in the center will be outfitted with print resources.

Other than school things are going very well. I have bounced back from dysentary and a variety of other maladies and am in great spirits. Things on the homestead couldn't be better. The forecasted rainy season is proving more mild than anticipated (so far) and the temperature remains comfortable (actually wearing long johns at night much more than you would think). The latest upgarde to my rondavel is a brand new shower! Inspired by another PCV, I hung a shower curtain around my bathing bucket and ran a 5-liter boxed wine bag up on a string. A nice improvement from my previous bathing routine to say the least. Even better, now I use a fraction of the water I used to. Well that is about all from here. I will be off to Durban next week to join the Consular General in celebrating the Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary.

Also I would very much like this to be an interactive blog, so please don't hesitate to comment with questions or thoughts! I would love to hear them

Go Steelers!