updates

Last week when there was no school I took a couple of days to hike in the mountains.  I visited another peace corps volunteer in the village of Ha Sefako, at the very top of Lesotho.  We were technically hiking on the border between South Africa and Lesotho.  At one point we were on the top of a mountain looking down into South Africa's  Golden Gate National Park.  We saw zebra, springbok, buffalo and eland through our binoculars.  We also heard monkeys and I thought I saw a hyena chasing the buffalo, but my friends say it was probably a dog!  On the left is me very tired and hiking down the mountains.  We went to the top of tow different mountains and were gone from 8:30 am to 6:00 pm, the terrain was pretty steep and rocky at times and I now have very sore knees!

     
Ok I have been asked to give some updates on some of the children I work with.  Maliso, the orphan that joined our school a few weeks ago is getting stronger.  Below is a picture of her doing one of our seated yoga moves.  She is starting to walk more on her own and the house mothers here are taking very good care of her.  I have really enjoyed spending time with her everyday and I am glad that I have the yoga to do with her because she does not speak english and I still have minimal Sesotho.  Additionally the boy MacD that I have been doing home visits with made his first trip to school today, at age 14!  He is in the picture on the right and you can see the adapted foot rests of his wheel chair that I made with an old broom stick, not perfect but it works.  He will continue to visit us in the mornings with his mother and hopefully at some point come for a whole school day.  The other students were so excited when he came and they all tried to talk to him and push him around.  Sometimes people with disabilities can really teach the rest of us how to be more inclusive.                                    

       School is back in action now and the teachers are working on assessing their students before we make new IEPs (Individual Education Programs).  I have been working to develop a relatively simple form for teachers to fill out for each student.  This information will also be combined with information on each student for the Child Status Index.  Ahh the collection and organization of data, even a challenge for many of our schools at home!  Next week the principal and I will start working on teaching each teachers how to use this system, wish us luck.  Additionally it is getting hot here and the students are picking a lot of food from their gardens.  The pig has a new home, and we are still working on getting a cow and some chickens for the school. The photo above shows the students working on building the new pig sty, they did all the digging, mixed cement, etc.  Hope all is well at home.  Go Pats!

Maliso doing some simple yoga