Computer Lessons for Katse

Right now I am sitting in my community's taxi rank & market center. It is a row of small concrete walled stalls with sheet metal roofing. Here you can order a plate of traditional Basotho style food (vegetables, mealie meal and chicken), get a haircut, have your cellphone charged, purchase airtime for your phone or even watch a Jason Statham movie.
Surrounded by drunken taxi drivers waiting to take you to the capital or point beyond, it is not a welcoming place for a foreigner. People stare at you, ask you for money or ask for a ride in your car...even though its obvious you walked into the market. I've come to know and appreciate this place over the past year and even more so over the past week.
This week, something special has begun in the Khokhoba taxi rank and market center. Go over to stall 1 and behind heavy black burglar bars and an unassuming wooden doors sits a roughly made wooden table. On top of this table is a single PC. On any given day of the week, between 12pm and 4pm, you can find half a dozen children ages 7-17 learning how to turn on a computer, use the mouse as well as keyboard and turn of the computer.
The start of these lessons marks the culmination of almost a year of work with my supervisor, Ntate Molahlehi Moses Kotelo. When I came to work with him in August of last year, our 1 computer looked like it predated the dinosaurs and wasn’t worth its weight in dirt. Over the course of the year, we’ve written applications and hassled organizations working in the capital. A year later. We now have 2 working PCs (1 with a flat screen monitor) and a laptop (Many thanks to the fantastic Tamara Weiss).
Right now our lessons are limited to local primary school students and a small group of orphans. Over the next few months, as my supervisor becomes more competent navigating a computer, we will begin introducing these lessons to the general community.
You can find pictures of these lessons on my Facebook page under the photo album “Computer Lessons for Katse!”

YEABO!

So here I am, 1 year to the day that I left America for my Peace Corps service. 1 year living in a mud hut with grass roof, 1 year without electricity or running water, 1 year washing my laundry by hand on sunny days and 1 year never tiring of the beauty that is Lesotho.

Many of my friends and family are familiar with what I do here but for those who aren't quite sure, who don't know me or have just forgotten...

My name is Michael Kerr and I am an American serving in the US Peace Corps program. I swore in as a volunteer in 2010 and will be living here in Lesotho, Southern Africa until August 2012. The program I work for within the PC is Community Health & Economic Development. The focus of this program is to assist my community in projects to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is engulfing southern Africa.

I live in a community called Katse, Thaba-Tseka. It is home to the Katse Dam, Africa's 2nd largest. At 184M tall, this behemoth holds back a gorgeous 54KM reservoir home to delicious salmon and rainbow trout.a It is an astoundingly beautiful mountain community to call home and I couldn't be happier with it.

In Katse, I am known as Nyakallo Kotelo. Nyakallo roughly translates into happiness. Some of the Basotho (people of Lesotho) people will tell you that Nyakallo is a women's name while others will tell you that it is just a more respectful form of the more common "Thaboo". Regardless, I love the name!

This is just a brief hello so be sure to check back infrequently for actual stories, etc.

Thanks!