Lesotho part 2

So, how are we going to cope with coming back to cold, sleepy, “out-of-the-way” Lesotho after such a holiday? Flying back we are both quiet, in the taxi to Maseru we are both quiet. Seeing capital city Maseru from the air, holiday blues hits us. Three, four high buildings, a few streets, some scattered houses… No funky night clubs, live music, croissants or coffee bars, no white beaches, coconut trees or warm Indian Ocean. We are on such a low!

We get over charged from the airport to Maseru. We’re tired and moody and with our new haggling skills and assumed “Africa experience” under our skin we argue with the driver over the price he’s charging us. In the end he gets the Government set price list out and shows us that the prices have risen from R35 to R40 :/ We decide to become a little less cocky…

I sleep most of the way to M/Hoek. I don’t want to deal with what’s outside the window (mostly grey dust, rusty, broken cars, half fallen down buildings and rough sheppard boys wrapped in blankets, hats and gum boots). The taxi takes us to our new home, a house owned by St.Patricks Catholic nuns. We learn that our security fence will be locked at 6.00 pm and that we can not do any washing on Sundays! 3 empty, white rooms are waiting for us. The heater, cooker and hot water we were promised is not yet there…

Nothing could have prepared us for the freezing cold climate. We’re used to an average of 25-30 degrees, outside it’s about 10. In the night it drops close to 0. We go to bed about 8.00 pm tucked under a heap of blankets and sleeping bags. Its pitch black, with electricity cuts from 7.00 to 10.00 pm. We start regretting our choice of staying on for 6 months…

I wake up at 8 am, quickly write down some thoughts on my next 6 months project, before I get too cold and go back to bed. At 10.00am we psyche ourselves up to face the world and go to say hi to Me Mahathlo, a colleague and friend who is now our nearest neighbor. She gives us delicious, freshly baked bread and coffee. Going food shopping, we meet Thabiso, another friend. He takes us home in his car and tells us that there is a DJ playing in the hotel the following weekend. We realize it will not be so bad to stay on after all…


So why am I here for 6 more months?

I’m here to work on my own project (still under Dolen Cymru, funded by British Council). I’m intending to raise pupils Basic English Skills (speaking, listening and reading) through using story books and games. I’m mainly focusing on STD 1 and 2 pupils in two schools.

In MEMPS, where pupils level of English is high, I also (try to) run an “English/life skills” club for STD 5 and 6, where we discuss issues that concern them (friendship, alcohol/drugs, gender, HIV) practicing everyday English skills.

Three weeks a month I’m based in MEMPS, the private, English Medium “town” school I’ve already worked in, one week a month I’m in Mokhopa Primary School, a rural school, located in a secluded mountain village two hours journey from here. (All depending on transport and state of the road)


Mokhopa – memoirs of another adventure
A 100 year old woman, a drunken man with chicken and a flu medicine tree.


I find myself very alone in the combi on the way to Mokhopa, a traditional Basotho village far up in the mountains. Whose idea was it to run a project up there? People have been laughing and shaking their heads when I’ve talked about it. Only crazy people would voluntarily want to go up there! I’ll be possessed by a witch or kidnapped by the boys in the secret mountain circumcision school they say.

I haven’t been so nervous in a long time. Sitting there I make up my strategy of approaching scary, unknown Basotho mountain village:

Keep quiet, be polite, observe, observe, copy everything Me Lekita does and DO NOT flash up a camera!

Me Lekita, the dep head of the school, is meant to meet me in Holy Cross. If she doesn’t turn up I’ll be left alone by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. Luckily she turns up not long after I arrive and after some negotiations, we get a lift with a bakkie going up to the village. The usual transport is not running today.



Home and family

The best way to describe it: the TV series “Heidi”.

First I meet granny Me Mapomolo Leketa, around 70 y old and fit as a fiddle, outside her roundavel hut. She is cooking papa (maize porridge - staple food) in a three legged pot in the courtyard kitchen. Toothless Auntie Me Mathisetho, about the same age, is there too to assist and to chat. I realize quickly that my Sesotho is not up to scratch!

Also there are two cats, two competitive cocks, a heap of chicken, two donkeys, an outdoor toilet, two new square houses, another roundavel housing newborn chicks, three peach trees, a massive flu medicine pine tree and last but not least Ntate Lekita resting in his grave in the corner of the property.

I will be sharing a room in the new house with Me Leketa, and after having our evening bath together (something she didn’t seem to think was strange in the slightest, me a little more reluctant…) I realize that I can’t get much closer to the “traditional” Basotho lifestyle than this. After three days we’ve not only shared bath time, but thoughts on family issues, gender equality, HIV/AIDS, teenage pregnancies, alcohol/drugs, religion, school issues, you name it. I think we are both learning heaps!


School

This smallish mountain school with 200 pupils has a good atmosphere. Its main purpose seems to be keeping the children busy for the day, out of trouble and feeding them their daily, free school meal. Wednesdays has the highest attendance, as there is a whole egg each +papa and vegetables on the menu.

The children’s level of English is very low, even the older classes, so many are shy and giggle when I talk to them. My job so far has been to paint the alphabet, numbers and basic shapes on the walls in STD 1 and 2. Now the classrooms are looking colorful and inspiring for the children, and it was great seeing their excitement as they were running over to their new wall pointing and giggling, saying “apple”, “boy”, “cat”. The next step is to work with the teachers in developing learning games and visuals to compliment their teaching.

Looking forward to sharing ideas with them, they seem like quality teachers with a lot of experience.


One lunchtime I was dragged into the tiny staffroom. The dinner ladies wanted to perform for me… Walking in, one of them was playing the drums, while the other three, dressed in heavy bottle top mini skirts were whistling and dancing rhythmically. This was a dance only for ladies (saw a good few STD1 faces peeking through the window). As I got the lyrics translated and had a second look at their moves I understood why… all about making babies basically. (They do not understand how I can soon be 30 and not have children or a husband yet…)

It’s amazing the gratitude the teachers and villagers have showed me. I came back down with more food than I brought up. One being an alive chicken, brought to me by a little boy riding backward on a donkey with the chicken under his arm. The school choir sang and danced for me too.


The village

Most impressive to me was meeting a 100 y old lady living in a neighbor roundavel. She lied crocked and bent together on a mat on the floor. Apparently more or less clear headed still.

I’ve also learnt to collect wood with the children after school, learning plant names and uses of about every green straw in the mountain side. I have visited the new Water Project, where the villagers are damming up a stream to water their fields, and I’ve learnt how to stop soil erosion, by building up stone walls in the “dongas” to hold the soil in place.