What? Pictures!? Plus a Library!

Update:  The Library link is up and running.  Look for “Library Project” up above.

 

Howdy gang.

Well, Tarsha and Khotso’s event was a huge success.  We ran around like a couple of crazies for a long, long, time now, and It sure paid off.  There were about 80 attendees at the event.  Kids, students, herd-boys, people living with AIDS, and many more came out, enjoyed some food and some good wholesome learning.  It was a solid, solid event.  Khotso is an incredible go-getter and problem solver, so the event went on with barely a hitch.

Activities included a Fun Walk to discuss HIV/AIDS, a speech from an openly positive Mosotho, lots of seminars, condom demonstrations, fun games, and tasty food.  Congrats to Tarsh and Khotso for putting on a solid event.  Mike, a new volunteer who i’ve just recently got to know quite well, and Joey, a good friend from my ED ’10 class, were also there helping out.

I also just got back from a great hike from Bela-Bela to Ha Lejone.  The hike was great.  I’m feeling pretty decent, especially considering that I’ve been busy grading 3rd quarter tests all day.

The student’s performance has been horrible.  This is the most confident I’ve ever been that there has been no cheating during my exams, so i’m trying not to let my brain think the two are correlated.  It’s really disappointing because I thought the kids were really into my teaching style this quarter.  I thought they were getting things, but the tests indicate otherwise.  So far the average is about a 45%.  Ugh.  Come on, guys…help me feel good about myself!  I love being in the classroom.  No matter how bad things get here, I always have the kids to fall back on, as i’m certain i’m having a positive impact on their lives.  Still, performances like this are kind of demoralizing.

Such is life, though.  It’s fine as long as I remind myself that test scores are no reflection of my significance in these kid’s lives.

I’m still thinking about Tom on a daily basis, but the thoughts are hurting less and less.  The most random sights and sounds bring me back to him, but most the time they’re just nice, feel-good memories.  I’m accepting more and more that there’s no way of making sense of his death, and slowly working my way back to a more normal day.  It’s just like climbing a mountain, you take it one step at a time.  Words can’t describe, though, how much it sucks that I don’t get to make new memories with him.  I’m scared that my old ones will slowly fade away.  I guess that’s why pictures are so great.

Speaking of pictures, I’ve uploaded some new ones.  The web site is now http://picasaweb.google.com/ryan.mcclaine.  I promise this is the last time it will change.  Picasa gives an upload limit of 1gig.  Of all the pictures on this site i’ve used about 1.5% of it.  I think this will last for the rest of my service

Finally, I’ve received confirmation that my school will be receiving a library! We are working with the African Library Project to get it done.  My Mom is currently tackling the task of raising 1,000 books, while Aggie Habitat for Humanity is going to help with the fund-raising effort.  If you’d like to contribute either with money or books, check out the tab at the top of this web-site called “Library”.  As of this posting, it’s not up yet, but it should be up in the next few days.

Hope things are well with you all.  Missin’ the heck out of America.  Send letters or give phone calls!

Tagged as: Hike, HIV/AIDS, Library, pictures