Looking After the Environment

Friday was Moshoeshoe Day, a national holiday to celebrate the life of the first king of Lesotho, Moshoeshoe 1. He was the man who brought different tribes together in the 1800s to form the nation of Lesotho.

At school, most children and teachers were given the day off, but some chose to come into school for an environment day. You have probably been learning about climate change at school: it’s the same here. Some of the causes and effects of climate change are different here to those in the UK – you would be more likely to ride in a car or go on holiday on a plane, but also more likely to recycle. People in Lesotho reuse some rubbish, but don’t recycle anything. Most rubbish gets burnt or dumped. The children in Hoohlo primary are learning about how climate change is caused and how it has affected their country.

So last Friday, some of the children at school asked members of the local community in to talk to them about why it is important to look after the environment. We were joined by children and staff from 2 other schools in Maseru. The children led a march through the local village of Ha Hoohlo, singing and picking up litter. They showed people how they could help the environment by planting trees and making fire bricks to cook with from old paper, rather than burning leftover pieces of cloth from the factories.

Non-uniform Day

Just like in Wales, sometimes children in Lesotho have a non-uniform day to raise funds for the school. Last week, children could come dressed in their own clothes if they brought in 1 Maloti (about 10p) to help pay for the cost of sports day. Sports day will be held later this month. The children were very excited about the day and some even made their own accessories to wear.

Namoqaboko, a girl in Standard 5, said they had all dressed up “because we want to support our school. We are not paying school fees (primary school here is free to attend, but children have to pay to go to secondary school). I like wearing my own clothes and would like to be wearing private clothes every Friday”.

This week the school had an Ash Wednesday service to mark the start of Lent. Hoohlo Primary is an Anglican school, so the local Anglican vicar and her two deacons came to the school to take the service. Towards the end, everyone queued up to get the sign of the cross marked on their foreheads in ash.

Yum Yum!

School dinners in Lesotho are very different to school dinners in Wales. There are no sausages, pasta or curries. Each day of the week has a set meal, so the children always know what they will have. The dinners are made from traditional Basotho dishes, and are very filling to give the pupils lots of energy for their afternoon lessons.

Monday’s dinner is pap and moroho, Tuesday’s dinner is bread and pea soup, Wednesday’s is pap and moroho again, Thusday’s is samp and beans and Friday’s is pap and milk. This picture above is of pap and milk.

Pap is a food made from maize meal that is eaten with many different foods, often chicken or chopped vegetables. It doesn’t really taste of much, is cheap and full of carbohydrates. Moroho is chopped and boiled cabbage – this tastes nicer than it sounds! Samp is dried corn kernels. You can see it in the picture.

All the school meals are free and the dinner ladies (called caterers or ‘the Bomme’ here) bring the food into the classroom where it is served. Most of the pupils eat with their hands, but if they want to use a fork or spoon, they bring it in from home.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Hoohlo Primary celebrates St. Valentine’s Day in style. This year, each child in class 5 chose a friend from their class to exchange gifts with. Everyone brought in a present they thought their friend would love and made a card for them.

In the afternoon the class decorated their faces with glitter and had a Valentine’s Day feast in the spare classroom. The tables were decorated with flowers collected from the school grounds, placed inside old drinks cans that had been made into vases.

Each child took turns to read out the message in their card and exchange gifts at the front of the room, while the rest of class cheered loudly. Some were a little bit embarrassed when their friends read out the nice things about them. The teachers exchanged gifts too, and some wore red and white for the day as part of the celebration of love and friendship.

Tidy-up time!

Everyone has been very busy at the start of term cleaning the school. We don’t have cleaners here and the children have to look after their own school environment. When we came back from the holidays in January the school grounds had become overgrown; so each class took turns clearing the weeds away.

The students have Agriculture lessons where they learn how to look after farm animals and grow their own food. They take care of the school grounds and the vegetable garden in these lessons. 

Inside the school has to be kept clean too. After school each day, a few children stay behind to sweep the classroom floor with the old-style Basotho broom that is still used everywhere.