A Day

BBC Africa wakes me up in the mornings these days. The shortwave signal is clear at my site this time of year and the news has finally moved on from the Egypt revolts. I won’t dare pretend that the Egypt story isn’t a great, interesting, and time-worthy story, but waking up at 6:00am to the same depressing news of frustration and disappointment day after day was getting a little old. This morning there was a different sort of news of frustration and disappointment in Africa, particularly in regards to corruption. It’s nice to have some variety in one’s morning dose of frustrating Africa news!

My beard trimmer exploded on me yesterday, so i ended up finishing the job with scissors. Obviously not the most perfect trim, so I worked on that a bit more before leaving my house for school, aside from my normal morning rituals. Ended up being a bit late for school, but still got there before most of the other teachers.  I still let myself feel guilty, though.

The classes were uneventful, but a student from the school the year before I arrived had apparently committed suicide. One of my teachers was really upset. Locals will tell you that suicide is a bit of a rarity in Lesotho. I’m starting to wonder, though, as several volunteers have told similar stories of students at their schools who have taken their own lives. Is this one of those things that happens, and villagers just don’t acknowledge/talk about, or are we witnessing a form of helplessness and frustration from the younger generation that wasn’t so overwhelming in years past? I spoke with the colleague who was really upset about it. She wasn’t close to the student, but seeing the sister of the student, a form B at our school, must have set her off.  Another one of the teachers was giving the student a nice supportive talk.  Seeing her sister brought our thoughts to the conclusion that suicide is really the most hurtful act of selfishness that a person can commit.  I couldn’t decide if the thought made me more angry or sad.

During lunch a kid came to the staff room with blood rushing down his face. The staff was amazing at handling the situation. Someone had some gloves, someone got some water and started washing the wound.   I sat on the sidelines, munching on some mokoko(I was hungry!)   The kid was a form A, and had gotten in a fight with another student. Once the blood was cleaned up I saw it was only a small gash in his head…still in America it would have required a stitch or two. I found some old hydrogen peroxide in the laboratory, but decided we shouldn’t use it as it was dated 1997 and who knows what was in the container now. Later in the day I heard there was going to be a formal investigation to find out the details of the fight and what would happen to the students involved. As I said, I was very impressed with how the staff handled it.

A bit later, the agriculture teacher, a great resource for the school, came in fanning herself excitedly. She had just found out she had gotten a job with the ministry of agriculture. I’m so happy for her, as it is no doubt a wonderful opportunity for her and she was competing with a lot of others for the position. I’ll be sad when she leaves the school, though. She’s a tough worker and brings a lot of positive energy to the school.

Since it’s Wednesday, the day ends early and then we have sports events. I went to watch the field throwing activities. We have shot-put, javelin, and discus. I also ended up bringing a boomerang that my mom sent in a package. Unfortunately we couldn’t get it working as well as i remembered it working with my younger brother back home, but it was still fun. Then I went for a run down to the water and back.

Once I got back home, a friend who had his computer at my place came to pick it up. I was fixing it. My final count on the viruses was well over 2,000. After deleting the viruses all kinds of problems started up and windows wasn’t working correctly, so it took a lot of work to fix without wiping the whole thing clean. I’ll be patiently awaiting a formal thank you…and waiting…and waiting.  Maybe I can just thank myself for some satisfaction from a job well done? Good job, Ryan. What a nice guy you are!

After that I started digging through my old care packages for some candy. Luckily I was smart and saved some Jelly Bellys for just such a sweet craving. They are few and far between but when I do get them i’m always grateful for whatever candy I have lying around. I also finished listening to the “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” audio book on my ipod. Solid story. Then i heated up some water and had some orange spice tea.

Bed time is soon, but i’ll no doubt read for a bit before. A pretty boring day for me, but every day i’m here, I realize I love it a little more. Yeah, the day is full of frustrations from start to finish, but there’s so many little things that make the days great that I can still go to bed with a grin on my face.  I have almost a year left but i’m already feeling the slightest twinge of anxiety when I think about leaving. I’ll be happy to leave a lot of the things here behind, but I have a lot of good friends to talk to, good places to walk to, good okay food to eat, and a pretty nice life here in the mountains. Getting back to the real world in America is going to be weird. Well…kind of real world. I still have med school to look forward to