find America on the map

Rapoleboea is a small village about 30 minutes outside Ramabanta, nestled in the Maloti Mountains. It’s windy and has a more remote feel than Ramabanta. Instead of looking up into the mountains across the river valley in my village, your view is of rolling peaks and fields that have recently browned from frost. The primary school here consists of four chilly classrooms (for seven grades), six teachers (of which 3 were present on the day I last visited), a small office for the teachers to share and a set of latrines. After months of promising to appear to paint a map of Africa for the students I finally got a small project grant and purchased paint, brushes and supplies, then hauled it all to the school on a chilly but sunny Thursday morning.

The kids were more than a little surprised to see me walk up to the classroom window searching for a teacher; the teachers were surprised I’d finally come through on my promise to get materials up there to paint. Now a bright map decorates the wall where I'd gridded and penciled in an outline months ago. One of the teachers helped me as I painted (instead of teaching his class, leaving a total of five classrooms without teachers for the day) and asked me where America was on the map. Students poked their heads in as each country was outlined and eventually filled with one of five colors – I quizzed them on geography and most knew 4 or 5 of the southern most countries. Not that my geographical knowledge is all that great, either...

The money for all the supplies came from an organization called Friends of Lesotho; a non-profit started by RPCV’s from Lesotho years ago that raises money in the US and gets it to communities here by way of current PCV’s. They have a tuition assistance program and provide grants of up to 500 Rand to volunteers with sustainable, community based projects. They’ve supplied us with the money to paint this map – so that people who try to put the Atlantic Ocean off the east coast can get a better idea of where they fit into the world.