Everyday life

We’ve had the first days of frost in the mornings and snow on the mountain tops. I’ve purchased a woolie Basotho blankets to keep me warm at night and the thermal layers are worn more and more frequently. Not what you expect from Africa!

We had a “Quality Education For All” event in school, with all schools in town meeting up on a big field singing, dancing and showing plays, all to highlight that education is not just for pupils in school, but for everyone, young and old, rich and poor… Really not sure about the message, and I’m not sure if the children knew either, as the speeches from the chief and the principals were done with the back to the children, towards the Department of Education representatives, sitting under a big plastic tent sipping coke!

In school ST1’s English is improving well. Now they come up to me in lunchtime and chat in English instead of Sesotho. In Art Tie&Dye and making paint butterflies have been the greatest successes. Next week will be the final term tests before 6 weeks winter holidays…

We’ve squeezed in a weekend in Bloemfountein to visit Mohau, a student teacher friend from here, and to do some shopping. We even had some seafood which tasted absolutely amazing… Followed by a Cappucino! What a kick… Not daily procedure here basically!

Other things worth mentioning… I’d proudly say I’ve viewed my first chicken killing (voluntarily) and have plucked and prepared the poor little chicks after. Didn’t taste so good after. Also, we met the prime minister of Lesotho the other week. He happen to swing in to Mohales Hoek to plant some trees and do a little dance with the villagers here. Obviously he had with him his 5 follow cars, security guards with machine guns and were sitting under a fluffy plastic tent decorated with flowers, silk and satin, having a heap of soft drinks to neck down during churck service. Apparently I missed the chiefs invitation to shake his hand… not too sorry for that, as my hand would probably have wondered into his pockets to get back some of the money he steals from his people…

It’s also been 17. May. We celebrated Norway National day in an evaluation meeting with our organization and after by watching Cardiff City playing Porthsmouth(?) in the FA Cup final, ending the night with a party in our house. Good fun!

And lately I've done...

As I am getting used to living here and things that I before thought was very strange, now is just a little bit strange, I realize I don’t write updates on my blog so often. Impressions were so strong in the start, now we mostly realize the differences in culture by the sense of relieve when we talk to people back home (and they understand what you’re talking about and where you’re coming from) or when we go to South Africa for a good cup of Cappucino in a café. I guess this is a natural process when you live in such a different environment to your own…

Anyway, I’ll give you a brief update of the latest happenings…

Aliwal North

About a month back we went with a bunch of young Basotho teachers to the hot springs of Aliwal North in South Africa. The teachers had been loofing forward to this trip for ages, and it was organized for the end of the month when they’d all been paid…

In proper Basotho style the party started already before take off at 7am! We waited around at the Shell garage from 7-9 for everyone to turn up, everyone dancing, chatting and drinking… No morning grumpiness here! As the combi swung out of the garage we’re standing, swinging in the handles of the bus dancing our socks off to the “Best of African House”… dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk…

We WhopWhop, whistle and wiggle all the way to destination, frequently stopping for pee stops, picking more people up or just for a dance by the side of the road… We are a slow moving party on wheels!

Reaching destination we find two-three stinking pools, no other people and a chilly autumn wind in the air. Look who cares! We splash around the pools for a few hours, trying to teach our new friends to swim! Not a skill that’s taught in schools like at home… and with no sea or many pools why would they know? Some pretty comic scenes for sure!

Next thing happening is that we insulted by some Afrikaaners for hanging out with black people! Just like that! Out of the blue! It was a really strange feeling, as back home it just doesn’t happen…

The way back was pretty much the same getting there, just three times as long! Stops in each town to visit some random friends or girlfriends, for some side of the road dancing, food stops, more drinking, more dancing… The Basotho’s are definitely having their partying stamina in order. I was absolutely knackered by this point and slept heavily for the last 2 hours…

To sum up the experience, what we learned about the Basotho’s that day, is that it is not the destination that counts, it is the journey!

Visit the medicine man




Breakfast










Little darlings on schooltrip






















The start of my dreads...

Quaqua school trip

230 6-8 y olds and staff were going on a school trip to Quaqua, the Basotho cultural village funnily enough based in South Africa right over the border to Lesotho. Breakfast and lunch was provided, so Thursday night all teachers stayed after school to cook and pack the food for everyone. After the 197th lunch pack, there was no more chicken so all teachers scratched their heads, had a long discussion about the problem and sat down to watch me count them all again… obviously no point of helping out… and surprisingly, yes, there still was 33 pieces of chicken missing. The time was close to 6, all shops were closed and take off was at 5am!!! the next morning. What should we do? “KFC in Maseru” someone shouts. We’d pass there the next morning… Problem sorted, done and dusted!

The 5 am take off stretched closer to 6.30, before the 2 ½ buses were filled with children, teachers and food. God only knows how we got the right children on the buses as it was pitch black and we couldn’t really see who was who… A lot of the responsibility for being in the right place at the right time seems to be put on the children themselves, even at this early stage. I guess this is why they are so street wise!

So, at 6.30 we woke up the whole neighborhood, as the music was pumping out of the windows and 230 over-excited 6-8y olds were screaming and shouting and dancing their socks off (in the bus) on their first ever school trip!

And a long, adventurous journey it was… nearly 7 hours it took us to reach destination. Before that we’d crossed the border to South Africa, had one kid hit by a car!!!, had 230 children trying to push themselves into two toilets, breakfast served on the road side and numerous pee stops where luckily no children were left in the high grass! Fortunately after the first blast of excitement and Whop Whooping, most children fell asleep in big heaps everywhere, as there were at least two children pr. bus seat…

As we reached Maseru border post, many children (somehow!?!) manage to “escape” the buses to go to the toilet, and as I came proudly out of the passport office with my new ZA stamp well in place, Me Belina grabbed me and commanded me to look after a boy lying on the ground… A mass of adults and children had gathered and some were anxiously pointing here and there and loudly discussing in Sesotho. The poor boy was crying and shaking and I had no idea what was going on before someone shouts in English, “Me Silje, he was hit by a car!”

Shocked I ran for the first aid kit, as the school’s designated first aider was not to see, and started checking for broken bones. Not the most pleasant experience! Luckily nothing was broken, only a swollen, bruised knee and a shaken boy, which after a long sleep and a bandage, was ok to limp around with us at destination.


Just over the border we stopped for breakfast, all children having a goodie bag of polony meat, rolls, juice and an apple each, all distributed by the teachers. Everyone was happy again, dancing and singing to “I wanna fly, over the rainbow sooooooooooooo high!”.

We reached Quaqua after driving through some spectacular Drakensberg mountain sceneries. The children were amazingly still in good spirit after nearly 7 stuck on a bus… I’d like to see that happening at home!

Great village, a shame we have to rush through it all, as we are meant to reach back home for 7 pm! This is what we did:

First we visited the Chief to ask for permission to enter his village. After all teachers had shared traditional beer with him (in front of the pupils) we were accepted and went on to see the witch doctor! He showed his special witchdoctor house and threw his stones for good fortune. We felt safe! Next, a walk past traditional Basotho weapons, spears and shields, to pay the chief’s wife a visit. She had no less than 3 roundavels, enclosed in her own little courtyard surrounded by strong straw walls. She showed us the traditional women’s wear and served us sour porridge and crushed corn, salt and sugar powder. From here we ran passed some women smearing a floor with cow dung and a band playing traditional instruments before we had to go back to the bus to eat lunch…

Strangely there were still 33 meals still missing, because no one had stopped in Maseru KFC!

Somehow we managed to get some food from the village for the children, and half the teachers went to the nearby town to get extra supplies (and a probably very planned secret KFC visit!!!) Helek, what can one say… Everything goes in Sesotho, so it is not easy to understand what’s going on until it is already gone on…

The journey back was long but beautiful. I got to know my young teachers better, which was very nice, as in school I see mostly my fellow Standard 1 teachers. Me (Miss) Selloane lives next door to me, and it is great knowing some young people in the neighborhood.

The children were dropped off along the way, and picked up by dads and mums and sisters and brothers and aunties and uncles, covered in blankets and duvets and woolly hats and wellies, all having a great party waiting for their loved ones to return home in the dark. No winging here for bringing their children home about two hours after agreed time!

I crashed out early that night, my head full of new impressions, smells, tastes and rhythms.

Neighbour kids dancing in our house



Learning to cook corn on the fire

Everyday life in Mohale’s Hoek

Since Durban we’ve had some quiet weekends back in the house. Some of our pupils are regularly around, to get help with home work, to play football or just to hang around for a chat. We learn just as much from them as them from us; they teach us Sesotho, traditional dances and games, how to cook maize on an open fire!, how to get rid of our rubbish, that our gate is NOT safe and that we should fix it, what plants are edible in the garden… you name it! These children are no older than 6-12, but they are incredibly streetwise. They report all neighborhood rumors about the Mokhoa (whities), back to us… very useful!

We are also happy to start making friends our own age. Some of the young teachers in our schools are nice to spend time with, and next weekend a bus load of us are going to Aliwal North hot springs in South Africa. Should be fun!

We are also getting more and more careful about of who we have around, and what things we show people. The word on the street is that the Mokhoa’s house has money from ceiling to the floor, unfortunately not true, but it has made us feel a bit unsafe! So now new locks have been fixed, our gate secured and the children are told to tell people that the rumors are not true.

Luckily we’ve got a good relationship with the big boss CHIEF, which people have a lot of respect for, so I think that helps on our security! (Apparently his interrogations involves a lot of beating!!!)

Getting to know the country better I realize the great contrasts here. Most of the time we go on with our everyday lives, go to school and teach, chat to the neighbors, enjoy time with friends, go to town for shopping, make our dinner, just to suddenly find out that the mother of a child in our class is dying (because the witches in the neighborhood has cast a spell on her…), another that the 10 year old boy visiting us after school is the head of his family, responsible for getting food on the table. The poverty we prepared ourselves for before we left, feels so different on the body than what we expected. It’s so different seeing it on TV and having it around you everyday…

What surprises me also, are the many witch stories we hear. They seem to be the way of explaining negative things that are happening, i.e. that someone has died of HIV/AIDS or that someone is mentally ill. The HIV/AIDS rate in Lesotho is close to 30%, and you see the effects of it in that people are often ill or run down and can not attend work, or that children are orphans and are taken care of by uncles or sisters etc. Young people are good at talking about it and are well informed, but there is still a great stigma around it, as it is so connected to multiple sexual partners. Something that seems to be more of a norm here, as both married men and women have concubines, and the unmarried ones have many boyfriends and girlfriends.

Some of my pupils have had serious conversations with me about how to keep the witches out of my house; keep the windows closed and invest in a cross to keep by my bed. What confuses me is that these witches seem to be actual named women living in the villages around here, not just made up characters… Room for more investigation here… Meanwhile I’m trying hard not to make any enemies!