It's been a while...

Yes, life has been pretty full to the brim of late.

LOVELY THINGS…

FINDING A GREAT SCHOLARSHIP opportunity for our students here, and having one of our student nominees accepted for a FULL scholarship to attend UBC in Canada! It’s even better that she is a wonderful young woman who is very, very deserving.

TEACHING SHAKESPEARE to kids who don't know they're supposed to find it boring or too hard to understand is really fun. Listening to my 'babies' the S1's who are 11-13 as they hoot with laughter, or chuckle at every appropriate funny moment as we watch the movie version of Twelfth Night, is so rewarding. Having a young twelve- year-old state with enthusiasm that the movie version of Twelfth Night is, “the bomb Mrs. Fath," just keeps me chuckling. The bomb? That means it's fantastic!

I love the fact that these kids, most for whom English is NOT their first language, get so many of the subtleties, even of Shakespeare's English which a lot of first language speakers find intimidating. The thing I love is that my students here don't seem to know they are supposed to find Shakespeare’s language boring, antiquated, “Why do we have to study this?”… so they just tackle it. Okay, they DO admit that reading it was getting a bit tough, but when the language is brought to life through the set, costumes, gesture, facial expressions and interactions of the actors, they love it! In fact, students ask me if they can borrow the DVD to take it home and watch.

When I encourage this group to discuss their favorite moments of the play they want to go on and on…so after we’ve discussed as long as we can, I ask them to write me a response for homework telling me about their favorite scene and their favorite character. No complaints! Well, not from them. I’m groaning to myself as I realize that’s just one more batch of reading and marking for me!


MAYBE…JUST MAYBE A HOUSE FOR THABISO and his family! Our wonderful life insurance agent in Red Deer is considering coming over next February and maybe bringing some others, and maybe helping with a project to build a house for Thabiso’s family. We’ll see how that progresses, but just the idea that someone from home is enthused and willing to consider helping with such a project is a HUGE, HUGE piece of encouragement!


THABANG is another good thing. He’s the baby in Benno’s last blog. Tonight he was over playing with us while his mom was Skyping with our niece, Jillian. Gosh, this little guy is adorable! It’s so fun to see how fast he is learning to crawl and ALMOST to walk. It is so heartening to see a healthy and so well loved and cared for little fellow. He is so bright and full of all the promise life has to offer.


HARD THINGS
For other babies, life is so much more…MUCH more tenuous. We have a friend who is now working part time at the local public hospital. The stories she tells… In fact, Thabang’s mom confirms these stories with a very horrified, “Uhh, uhh,” as she shakes her head and rolls her eyes when I ask her how her labour and delivery was at this hospital. Clearly it is something she has no wish to recollect. This is the same hospital Steven Lewis so poignantly describes in a video clip about Maseru on Youtube. Are the medical conditions here really so appalling? Last weekend’s paper had an article about a young mom who has been charged with abandoning her twin babies. Ironically, at the same time there are twins who are dying of neglect at the hospital in Maseru. No one is feeding them regularly. No one is holding them regularly, if at all… NEGLECT. In the hospital.

It is strange for me to hear such stories and feel such a knot in my stomach knowing that even if I could do something about this situation, it would be one miniscule move against a tidal wave of social issues here.

Sometimes it’s a bit of a struggle for me, too, that I see some of these things—hear some—and yet, for the most part, I live in a bubble here compared to the average person. So do my students, even as they live side-by-side and walk amongst those who have so much less. Do we just turn a blind eye? I’m often confronted with the fact that even here I am living with more than I need while others live with so much less. I’m challenged to consume less and give more, but I’m still not as good at that as I could be—not by a long shot. It bugged me at home when I saw how much money students had to spend on junk food but they weren’t too keen on doing fund-raising projects for social causes; yet here I see the same lack of awareness or interest or concern or whatever it is that motivates us to reach out and help others. Here, too, the kids line up to buy their junk food every single break and lunch hour. Somehow this little thing appalls me yet I am just as guilty. Last trip to the store for groceries I bought a bag of candy that costs more than half a day’s wages for many, many Basotho. It’s easy to self-justify, rationalize, or ignore… but it may all come down to the words of Christ referring to such things as cups of cold water, that when we give to others we are giving honor to HIM.

~ Wendy ~