Farewell Ms Langan, Ms He, Ms Le Fevre & Mr Lai

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Tag: Harvard University

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Harvard scholars Ms Genevieve Le Fevre, Ms Ruiqi He, Ms Haley Langan and Mr Brian Lai 
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This morning (27 July), the MaP community bid farewell to Harvard scholars Ms Genevieve Le Fevre, Ms Ruiqi He, Ms Haley Langan and Mr Brian Lai, who have been with us for eight weeks on an internship. During their time here, the group immersed themselves in the MaP community, teaching classes, facilitating SAT preparatory sessions, and hosting games for the school community. Katlego Paakanyo (U6) shares how their presence has made a true impact on the school below:

”I went around asking MaP students to describe our wonderful Harvard interns with a song title. Some of the responses I got were Treasure by Bruno Mars, Happy by Pharell Williams, The Greatest by Sia and my personal favorite, Michael Jackson’s You Rock My World. Ms He, Mr Lai, Ms Langan and Ms Le Fevre, thank you for being part of the MaP community. We appreciate the time you took to interact with and get to know us. We will forever hold the conversations we had about music, science, university life and food in the USA.

Being a student isn’t always easy and you have taught us to have fun with it. Through your interactive and slightly exaggerated discussions & SAT prep sessions, you helped us believe that we can be part of the 5.4% who get accepted into Harvard. The boys in the Boys Boarding House (BBH), especially Tshepang Dipholo (U6), are thankful for the meal time conversations about engineering and stereotypes.

We have had some fun times: Ms Fevre’s performance at Tutti e Soli, Ms He’s skit at the Creative Borders Collective showcase, and how Ms Langan put so much love and passion into learning Setswana. You fell in love with MaP and MaP loved you back! You are a part of the MaP community and you will always be welcome.

On behalf of the students, and in the words of Winnie the Pooh, ”how lucky we are to something that makes saying goodbye so hard”. We wish you all the best in your future and you will be sorely missed.

~ Katlego Paakanyo (U6)

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Brian Lai

Brian Lai is one of four Harvard University scholars who visited MaP on an internship for eight weeks. He shares his MaP experience in his first four weeks below.

”Dumelang!

We hit the ground running. Ms He, Ms Langan, Ms Le Fevre, and I were quick to immerse ourselves in the Maru-a-Pula community. We opened up at assembly with a wonderful and enthusiastic skit of dance moves, embellishment, jokes, and hobbies that caused plenty of laughter and earned street cred from the forms 1, 2, and 3s. By the end of the week, we had already gone on a service trip, delivering basic foods to an impoverished area in Gaborone, ran a Q&A college discussion with the Form 6, beat the English Department and Mr Taylor at Scrabble, and all started teaching in our respective busy schedules of 3-5 classes per day. The highlights for me that week were the two meal-side conversations I had that Friday. A student invited us to her home, and we met her family over lunch. We talked a lot about our high school experiences and passed on any wisdom that we could to the student. The flow and ease of the conversation, laughs, and serious talks too with Ms He, Ms Langan, and Ms Le Fevre left me with a warm, and good feeling that I’m part of a great team at MaP this summer. The other meal was a dinner at Nando’s, thanks to the ever-so-kind Ms Khan. There I talked to another staff member, who had graduated from MaP and was a local. We started off talking about why I came to MaP and it ended up in an awesome talk about Botswana’s politics and its economy. Those conversations and the activities of the first two weeks had me fired up and ready to go for the next six!

I was so excited to see the rock quarry. On this fine Sunday, we were climbing up to Kgale Hill, a humble hill of 1,287 meters that overlooks Gaborone. The adventure was nice because it was the start of a full day spent with the Juilliard School interns. There were five of them, two actors and three dancers. I had never befriended performing artists, and here were some of the best in the US. They turned out to be great people, very talented and ended up putting on a great, great performance. I am proud of how they incorporated people from the community and so many of the kids in their show. As for us, I felt that things were going swimmingly. We have been proactive with the events, planning movie nights and SAT prep on the weekend, switching up where we sit per meal and getting really involved in the community overall. Two highlights of these two weeks were that on week 3, I got to teach an Upper 6 Math class by myself. I was the only one in the room, going over problems of trigonometric integration! That was exciting and challenging, and I have shared with my friends back at home that I have developed more appreciation for pedagogy since trying teaching myself. The second highlight would be impromptu Trivia Night. Ms Langan, Ms Le Fevre, and Ms He, being awesome teammates, baked a huge batch of cookies for the boarders. I passed them out to the boys, and had some extra. They were really, really delicious, and so the kids were fighting over them. To divvy them up, I ended up asking trivia questions. Apart from one kid, Gustav, who got probably half of them, it was fair and really fun. Everyone was so into it! I am having much fun, and I feel the love back from the students.”

~ Brian Lai

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Ruiqi He

Ruiqi He is one of four Harvard University scholars who visited MaP on an internship for eight weeks. She shares her MaP experience in her first four weeks below.

”Upon arriving on the Maru-a-Pula (MaP) School campus in Gaborone, Botswana, after a particularly long 2.5-day transit, my fellow interns and I went straight to planning our introductory skit for assembly the next morning, which was filled with song, step-dance, rapping, miming, dabbing, and even Mr Lai’s orange-juggling. I then attended my classes on my first day at the school. I tutored English to eager, hardworking ESL students one-on-one in the library, attended discussion classes with upper forms (grade levels), led icebreaker activities to giggly, hyper drama students, and even got to help plan and teach a curriculum to MaP’s equivalent of health classes. My favourite part of my first day of classes, though, had to be the discussion with the Form 6 classes about feminism and whether it is “right” for women of various cultures to wear whatever at all they’d like to be able to wear. The discussion was so deep and comprehensive, and all viewpoints were accepted; it was surprising and absolutely exhilarating to see the level of intensity and liberalism (equivalent to that found at a university) of the discussion. One of the highlights of the first week was attending service-physical- enrichment (SPE) activities in the afternoon; my favourite has been the service activity “Childline,” in which we attend a childcare centre for orphans and underprivileged children and play with them. Seeing the children laugh when we entered the orphanage and playing with them made me feel like I was actually making a difference, and my heart beamed with joy. Other highlights include Shivali, a talented and kind Lower 6 student, inviting us to her home for an afternoon of food, talk, and tea; we were also invited to Principal Taylor’s home for two fantastic evenings of Scrabble and delicious dinner. 

We began the third week by putting on a movie night for the MaP boarder students on a Saturday evening, screening Pirates of the Caribbean while providing them with candy and home-made popcorn. We then continued our adventures by climbing Kgale Hill with the Juilliard students, who had arrived toward the end of the first week to hold a three-week dance and drama workshop, complete with a final performance capstone, for the MaP students. I was still recovering from a severe iron deficiency sickness but I mustered up my strength and courage to climb the Hill. After we arrived at the peak, the air was refreshing and I could see the entire city. It felt great to know that I pushed myself to reach this point. The third week also marked the beginning of my participation in the Juilliard adult drama workshops. Every evening, from 7-9pm, I would attend the drama workshop in which we wrote and practised a beautifully crafted mosaic of cultural and personal monologues. This culminated in two shows at Maitisong (MaP’s premier stage for the arts) toward the end of the fourth week, in which we had an extremely successful run. I enjoyed growing very close with those in my adult drama workshop and combining our stories for an impactful cultural kaleidoscope. On June 22nd, we celebrated Ms Langan’s birthday by surprising her with a ginormous pink and white cake with exactly 21 candles. We surprised her with the cake in front of all the MaP boarders during dinner and we all sang happy birthday at the top of our lungs. Last but certainly not least, throughout these two weeks of classes, lunches in the cafeteria, and SPEs, I also grew extremely close to many of the MaP students, whom I shared countless laughs and deep conversations with.”

~ Ruiqi He

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Genevieve Lefevre
Genevieve Le Fevre

Genevieve Lefevre is one of four Harvard University scholars who visited MaP on an internship. She shares her MaP experience in her first four weeks below.

”Upon our arrival at Maru-a-Pula, one of the first things I noticed was how friendly and welcoming everyone was. Ms Haley Langan and I were the first two to arrive. On that first day, we mainly just unpacked and rested, and we sat with some Form 2 boys at dinner. Day two was a Monday, and instead of jumping straight into class, we met a lot of the faculty members and teachers. On our third and fourth days, we had to introduce ourselves in assembly. Mr Taylor emphasised that he was expecting a polished and captivating performance, so we prepared a brief, amusing skit. We also had our first day of classes on Tuesday. I work with a lot of the drama and music classes, and I also help out with French, Forms 4-6s discussion classes, and Form 1 PSH.

On Wednesday, Mr Taylor invited us over to his home for Scrabble night. It was a fun night, and Scrabble was intense. It was a close game with competitive teams, but in the end team Harvard came out victorious. Though we won by sheer luck, we relished in our bragging rights for a couple days. The following week when we had Scrabble night with the students visiting from Juilliard. Ms Langan, Mr Darryl Gene Daughtry Junior (affectionately known as DJ, from Juilliard), and I were on a team and won again. We’ve determined that the secret to the game is having Ms Langan and I on the same team.

During our first weekend, there was an amazing student-led production called Verbal Emancipation that we all went to. It was amazing to see all of the talent that the MaP students have. There were a lot of rappers who performed, but there were also singers, actors, poets, and one dancer.

On Sunday, June 18th, we climbed Kgale Hill with the Juilliard scholars. The hill felt a lot more like a mountain, but the view from the top was amazing. Later in the week, Ms Langan had her birthday and Ms Khan (MaP’s Director of Form 1 & 2 Studies) ordered a huge cake for her with candles and everything. We had it at dinner and were able to share with all the MaP boarders, which was really nice. We were moved by Ms Khan’s kindness and we were able to keep it a surprise for Ms Langan. That Friday, Ms Langan organised a dodgeball tournament that had a pretty good turnout. Then on Saturday morning, we held an SAT prep session, where we put together a game of Jeopardy using Microsoft Power Point. All the questions were problems from an SAT practice test or questions that we made up that are important general SAT knowledge. The students were split into three teams and worked together to answer the questions. They were receptive to the game, and it seemed to be helpful for them.

The following week, the Creative Borders Collective showcase was held, hosted by the students from Juilliard. A lot of students and faculty got involved, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Ms Ruiqi He was actually able to perform in one, so it was great to get to watch her. The Juilliard students are each extremely talented. That weekend, Ms Langan, Ms He, and I took a trip to Namibia. It was an amazing experience. We were able to go quad biking on the Namib Dunes, take a seal and dolphin boat cruise, and enjoy the waterfront and local restaurants.”

~ Genevieve Le Fevre

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