So I am at the point in training where I am so over training. I have my mid LPI exam on Saturday and it’s just very stressful. Even though most volunteers say not to stress about the language because once we get to site our organization wants us to teach in English anyway. Only a few volunteers are in a place where they have to speak Sesotho very well. But I am still trying to learn as much as possible, that’s also the best way to integrate once I get my site placement. Next week on Wednesday I get to find out where I will be working for the next two years. My first choice is in a place called Mohales Hoek and it is working primarily with OVCs (orphan’s and vulnerable children). I would be teaching life skills and sports. I hope I get it! Cross your fingers!
Another cultural thing here is to repeat everything! Not because they think you are stupid or anything but it is just very big to emphasize and repeat everything multiple times. As I have found out in training, we will do a session at the HUB (central place where we have session in our village), then we will go to a clinic or place that specializes in said tasks and they will do a session on it. Very much so repeating the information. As someone who has a huge health background and also had 40 hours of HIV/AIDS training before coming to Lesotho. I am so over these sessions. It is Peace Corps mandated policy and not everyone has a health background and so I understand the need for it. But I would much rather spend my time shadowing someone at the clinic then listening to lecture. Good news is that I am halfway through training so it is almost over and then I will feel like I have a purpose once at site. Right now we are all kind of in limbo because we aren’t allowed to do anything.
Some places we visited this week were the Planned Parenthood association of Lesotho, The Baylor Clinic/Baylor School of medicine, and the Olympic training center.
The Planned Parenthood association focuses mainly on educating. They do a lot of classes on HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as youth education classes. They also do testing for HIV/AIDS and provided counseling. So how it works is you have a pre-counseling, test, and then post counseling. So in pre-counseling they go over with the clinic about the test and kind of engage on how much they actually understand about HIV/AIDS, then they prick a finger and take some blood to take the test. It takes 15 minutes for the results to show up. If it comes out with one line you are negative and two lines you are positive. If the test is positive, they do a secondary test to confirm. But majority of the time if the first test is positive, then so will the second test. Then regardless of the results they give post counseling. Either on how to continue to have a negative result and if it is positive they are referred to the proper ARV and treatment facility. This is usually the hospital, unless they have a specialized clinic.
The Baylor Clinic/Baylor School of Medicine focus primarily on children. Primarily the Mother to child transmission. So every pregnant women must get an HIV/AIDS test to know their status, so they then can take measures to protect the unborn child. But mainly is for children with HIV/AIDS and TB treatment. Here in Lesotho they have a 25.8% prevalence rate, the 2nd highest in the world, as of 2011. This has actually gone down, in 2009 it was 27.7% prevalence rate. The Baylor clinic has many sister campuses through Lesotho and this is helping to keep the number of children born from being infected. There are about 57,000 births in a year, about 14,706 are HIV/AIDS positive. Most of the population here in Lesotho are under 40 years old. This is why youth is such a big subject here, and we focus on educating the youth.
Olympic Training center: This by far has been my favorite place. They work with youth through sports and do HIV/AIDS education. They hold a lot of workshops and have lots of different community youth programs for children to come and play sports. Then after they discuss what they have learned, and also what they have seen, and how they can apply that to everyday life. We played lots of games here and it got a bit competitive. But it was really great to see how they would work in the community and how they teach these skills to the youth. By standards in Lesotho youth is from 10 years old-30 years old. Although mostly at these facilities, it is common to see primary to high school students. But it is also not uncommon to see older people in younger classes. Here in Lesotho you do not move on to the next grade level unless you pass English and your exit exams. Also here they wait till after High School to apply for colleges, so they have about a year or two before they end up going to college. This is due to many reasons, but mostly they have to wait for their exam results and then some have family problems or issues and they may have to work first before continuing on to school.
The school system here as follows:
Age 3-5: preschool (kids walk themselves to school)
Age 6-12 years: Primary School (Grades 1-7). This is free for everyone.
Secondary School: Grades 8-10. This is when you have to start paying school fees to attend school. Another reason why there are older kids is they may not have been able to afford school at the time and had to go work to save up the money to go back to school, depending on the family situation.
High School: Grades 11-12. They have a big exam at the end of high school that determines if they can go to college or not.
Tertiary: Which is college. You can go for a Diploma which is 2 to 3 years, 4 year degree, and then there is post grad which is where you would go get a PHD.
Another cultural thing here is to repeat everything! Not because they think you are stupid or anything but it is just very big to emphasize and repeat everything multiple times. As I have found out in training, we will do a session at the HUB (central place where we have session in our village), then we will go to a clinic or place that specializes in said tasks and they will do a session on it. Very much so repeating the information. As someone who has a huge health background and also had 40 hours of HIV/AIDS training before coming to Lesotho. I am so over these sessions. It is Peace Corps mandated policy and not everyone has a health background and so I understand the need for it. But I would much rather spend my time shadowing someone at the clinic then listening to lecture. Good news is that I am halfway through training so it is almost over and then I will feel like I have a purpose once at site. Right now we are all kind of in limbo because we aren’t allowed to do anything.
Some places we visited this week were the Planned Parenthood association of Lesotho, The Baylor Clinic/Baylor School of medicine, and the Olympic training center.
The Planned Parenthood association focuses mainly on educating. They do a lot of classes on HIV/AIDS prevention, as well as youth education classes. They also do testing for HIV/AIDS and provided counseling. So how it works is you have a pre-counseling, test, and then post counseling. So in pre-counseling they go over with the clinic about the test and kind of engage on how much they actually understand about HIV/AIDS, then they prick a finger and take some blood to take the test. It takes 15 minutes for the results to show up. If it comes out with one line you are negative and two lines you are positive. If the test is positive, they do a secondary test to confirm. But majority of the time if the first test is positive, then so will the second test. Then regardless of the results they give post counseling. Either on how to continue to have a negative result and if it is positive they are referred to the proper ARV and treatment facility. This is usually the hospital, unless they have a specialized clinic.
The Baylor Clinic/Baylor School of Medicine focus primarily on children. Primarily the Mother to child transmission. So every pregnant women must get an HIV/AIDS test to know their status, so they then can take measures to protect the unborn child. But mainly is for children with HIV/AIDS and TB treatment. Here in Lesotho they have a 25.8% prevalence rate, the 2nd highest in the world, as of 2011. This has actually gone down, in 2009 it was 27.7% prevalence rate. The Baylor clinic has many sister campuses through Lesotho and this is helping to keep the number of children born from being infected. There are about 57,000 births in a year, about 14,706 are HIV/AIDS positive. Most of the population here in Lesotho are under 40 years old. This is why youth is such a big subject here, and we focus on educating the youth.
Olympic Training center: This by far has been my favorite place. They work with youth through sports and do HIV/AIDS education. They hold a lot of workshops and have lots of different community youth programs for children to come and play sports. Then after they discuss what they have learned, and also what they have seen, and how they can apply that to everyday life. We played lots of games here and it got a bit competitive. But it was really great to see how they would work in the community and how they teach these skills to the youth. By standards in Lesotho youth is from 10 years old-30 years old. Although mostly at these facilities, it is common to see primary to high school students. But it is also not uncommon to see older people in younger classes. Here in Lesotho you do not move on to the next grade level unless you pass English and your exit exams. Also here they wait till after High School to apply for colleges, so they have about a year or two before they end up going to college. This is due to many reasons, but mostly they have to wait for their exam results and then some have family problems or issues and they may have to work first before continuing on to school.
The school system here as follows:
Age 3-5: preschool (kids walk themselves to school)
Age 6-12 years: Primary School (Grades 1-7). This is free for everyone.
Secondary School: Grades 8-10. This is when you have to start paying school fees to attend school. Another reason why there are older kids is they may not have been able to afford school at the time and had to go work to save up the money to go back to school, depending on the family situation.
High School: Grades 11-12. They have a big exam at the end of high school that determines if they can go to college or not.
Tertiary: Which is college. You can go for a Diploma which is 2 to 3 years, 4 year degree, and then there is post grad which is where you would go get a PHD.