Site Assignments

Locations of volunteers throughout the country.  I am the second farthest to the right.  The green and red stars are where current volunteers are living.

 We got our site placements last Tuesday and I got the exact site I wanted in the rural NW mountains.  My village only has four houses in it and I'll be living with the village Chief, which technically makes me a Prince.  I'll be staying in a rondavel made of stones and mud all covered by a grass roof.  I will be bathing in buckets (shower idea in the works), cooking on a propane stove, and pooping in a hole in the ground (urinal idea in the works).

I will be teaching Junior level maths (British thing) at a rural school called Sekonyela High School.  There around 500 students across five grades.  I've been informed that one of my classes has close to 100 students, which sounds bonkers to me.  I am lucky in that there are four other maths and science teachers so I will have help if need be.  Also I am the third PC volunteer to teach maths at this high school so hopefully I wont feel like I'm on Tralfadore being watched through a window.  The school is near a hydroelectric dam and has electricity as a result.  One of the former volunteers wrote a grant and got several computers donated to the school.  Unfortunately some of them were damaged in transport and the volunteer didn't have the skills to repair them.  Hopefully I will be able to repair enough of them to set up a small lab for extracurricular activities.

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Currently I'm at a very boring conference at a hotel in Leribe with my school principal and a coworker.  Quick side story, I was given the Sesotho name Taboho Lecheko, which means "happiness" or something like that.  That didn't really fly with me so I renamed myself Morathatha, which means "large machine gun".  Upon meeting my principal and peer, I proudly walked to the front of the 54 person audience and announced "Lebitso la ka ke Morathatha Lecheko".  They both cocked their heads slightly and then laughed.  It's now officially my name.  

I climbed the center mountain the first weekend in country.