Hmmmm.....

This one is a bit of a thinker. Coming here I knew I would face many challenges, both mentally and physically (it’s a bitch only getting one diet coke per day). However, one of the more difficult challenges presented itself, as they always do, in Life Skills class. I’m starting to think I need to rename my blog “Allison’s Adventures in Teaching Life Skills.” But the current one has a nicer alliteration. So basically this challenge is one of moral beliefs but not the outright challenge that would be initially thought, but rather one of information exchange. When does information exchange become personal and opinionated and where do I stop to keep it non-biased? And should only a non-biased perception be presented where being shallowly conservative is used as a fore front for a sexually corrupted and impoverished society? I’m not too sure... So I’m just going to kind of wing it.
So what started this trail of thinking, was, of course Life Skills. It is so true that students really do teach the teacher. Not so much by presenting new information. Well I take that back these kids do give me new information pretty often, it’s just not always, well correct and can be disturbing at times. (Flashback: AIDS is not from America). Okay so this week we talked about the sexual reproduction system, mainly because sex is the most common way for HIV to be transmitted in Lesotho and very rarely do kids here get a straight forward explanation of how that works. So in my form A’s (equivalent to a freshman back home), they had a lot of questions. Which is great because that’s normally how class goes I present a topic for about a half hour and then the questions come flooding in. So I got the usual outlandish questions about situations that are so crazy I don’t think they would ever happen, even in Lesotho. And then they dropped the bomb: Abortion. They wanted to know whether or not I encouraged it. I was, well, stumped. In Lesotho it is illegal. So I told them that. I also explained the both sides of the argument and that most churches discourage it and why. I also told them it was a very sensitive topic and if they want more information they could come to talk to me later. They also asked about premarital sex. Yikes, they really pulled out all the stops. I explained simply the fewer partners they have the less chance they have of contracting HIV and depending on their religious beliefs it may be discouraged. I also explained that if they have sex outside of marriage and they have a baby there is no guarantee that the dad will stick around. I mean I do have my opinions on these topics, rather strong ones and I just don’t know, I feel like here with these kids I could make an actual impression on their beliefs and I know back in the states in public schools you have to evenly present both topics in order to let the students make up their own minds. So I did that as best as I could (and in like five minutes none the less) I explained that to them that I wasn’t going to tell them my opinions and that they need to make up their minds on their own. It would feel wrong telling them what to think like how celebrities use their popularity to sway their fans. And I didn’t want to do that. So there is my thinker for the week.
In other news, especially that regarding the pig, there is of course an update that needs to be conveyed to back home. So on Tuesday I find out they did eventually refrigerate it and they decided to cook it, for the patients, for HIV positive patients. So M’e Mpho, the cook for the week came to me and asked for some cloves of garlic because, and I love this, she was stewing the pork meat and it smelled bad and she thought two cloves of garlic would help cover up the smell and rotten flavor. Nope. So I also stressed to her that these patients are pretty sick and cannot have meat that would make them sicker and that she had to make sure the meat was okay to eat before serving it. They did not serve the pork that day; I guess the garlic didn’t help too much. Okay so fine, I figure we can now move on from the Pig Incident of 2009. Oh, Allison you fool and your innocence. Yesterday as I was leaving my house to go on my walk I popped my head into the kitchen pantry to tell the ladies I was on my way and I notice M’e Mpho eating a little meat, and I see her standing in front of something. That something was the pig’s head in a large bowl. I’m pretty sure it is still uncooked, unrefrigerated and still deemed good to eat. Not only is it a pig’s head that they are going to eat, I wouldn’t eat that if it was the safest thing in the world to eat, but it has been sitting out raw since last THURSDAY! EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you send tofu via mail? If so, mom, get on that. Enough said.
Well, finally my Easter holiday. I didn’t do too much except bask in the commercial bliss of Bloemfontein. I literally spent 3 days in two different malls there shopping, watching movies, and eating a ridiculous amount of food. I had sushi AND McDonalds (three times, I love those little cheeseburgers and fountain Diet Coke so much.) I guess the most notable thing we did is we went out to a club/bar on Saturday night. Not much notable about that, EXCEPT the name of the bar: “The Mystic Boer.” So the name alone, we had to go. And once we got in, it was a pretty cool bar but the music was not that great. Okay so a word about my dancing. I’m not a great dancer, I can’t dance to cool music because I have no cool dance moves, but I’m fantastic at dancing to lame music, because I only have lame dance moves. I think I pulled out “churning the butter” at one point which got rave reviews and when I did the robot, it was quite a special moment at the Mystic Boer. We also saw a guy that looked exactly like Napoleon Dynamite there, someone that looked like Jesus (you could tell the difference because this guy was drunk), and the Easter bunny. I wonder if he got a chance to talk with Jesus. Hmmm...
Well that’s basically it. I’m now buried under a large pile of work and not doing too much else. So I hope everyone has a great week and had a nice Easter Holiday. Take care!