Introduction to Lesotho
Hello all,
I’m sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written but internet access isn’t readily available here…neither is phone or any other form of communication with the outside world. ( In the villages)
Malealea is a majestic valley veiled in an aura of beauty…the physical area is beautiful, the culture is beautiful but most importantly the people are beautiful.
I’m afraid my pictures are too big to upload here but I’ll try to explain.
Every morning I wake up at 6am with the cock crowing. [This is called a 'sleep in'!] I live in a Basotho traditional hut with a family overlooking one of many gorges. My ‘Lesotho mother’, as ‘M’ Makomiti calls herself, boils some water and I use some of it to wash in a basin. At ten to seven my little brother, Manyanee (6), and I head off for school. He’s a student in standard 1 at the school I work in.
Along the way we pick up countless straggling academics and our motley crew can be seen hopping and sliding along the rocky faces of the gorges as we make our way to the school one hours walk from home. The children are so full of wonder. There is little or no silence on the way as question after question, which has been rehearsed in its best english, is trundled forward. The walk is all about going around the edges of these gorges, down to ‘ground level’ from time to time to cross streams and then back up again to ring yet another in a seemingly endless series.
At about ten to eight Pitseng Primary School comes into view. A collection of worn stone cottage-like structures with a bright green water tank peaking out from behind one of those rare trees grasping for life. As we make our way down, across a stream and up again we pass women and children washing clothes in the barely trickling water, a herd boy and his father with a collection of rattling goats and, of course, countless other students crossing other streams and climbing along other pieces of mountainous terrain.
As the groups merge near the school, on the edge of the embankment, I hear the usual, “Good morning sir”, “Good morning sir”, “How are you?”. Thrilled with their eager attempts at english before most of my previous world has stirred I usually respond with “Fine. Thank you, and you?” Some rise to the challenge, while those who don’t will learn a response and try again tomorrow. Those who rise are met with another question as we scale the last hill before the school day begins.
At 8am the one hundred and fifty students scurry into place in the yard for morning prayer. Pitseng is the school of some form of evangelical church and my blessing myself every morning seems to entice more than a little curiosity from eyes that, according to the principal, should be closed. Times of prayer in Lesotho are very poignant moments for me as “give us this day our daily bread” takes a meaning we have long since forgotten in the affluent west.
After the prayer the school files into its respective class ‘rooms’ which are little more than shacks. They are dark with tiny windows, corrugated iron ‘doors which creak as the class goes one ( they have to be kept open for light), warped blackboards held in place with some wire to holes in the mud brick wall. There are some old benches but most of the children sit on bricks, old pots or anything else to hand…not that there’s much.
Standard four spend five minutes after the prayer emptying the shed of its tools so that they can regain their ‘classroom’. There are six teachers for seven classes, a real improvement on last year’s four. There is no road to the school and so most teachers won’t come here. There is a plan by the development trust to build a new school but again a road most come first and any supplies that are needed ( as in needed, not like the wants in Ireland) can’t get to the school but have to be divided and carried across the mountains by the students.
When I was in Ireland my family and friends worked hard to fundraise for projects in Lesotho. My eyes are now pealed to find those most in need. It’s not the nicest job as there is so much need. This road will be one of the projects.
Class finishes at 2pm with another assembly for prayer. The group then dissipates into the same morning patchwork of oddly red ‘uniformed’ students. Manyanee and I are home by half three. We have something to eat and then I head off again for another half hour’s walk to the tourist lodge where I meet Gillian and Tello of the local development trust for my daily catchup. At a quarter to six I have to scurry back up the hill to get to the house before ‘M’ Makomiti starts worrying. I’m not to be out alone when it gets dark as there have been three murders in the valley in the last few months.
I then have dinner with the family and leave at seven for the highschool with my other brother Lyky. I help with english grinds there until about ten and then we head home. We’re back by half past and I’m in bed by eleven….That’s my day.
Since I’ve been here there have been some extraordinary things worth mentioning here. These range from a local fire to roofing a grandmother’s orphanage in the mountains, from a Sunday Mass experience to more descriptions of the people and the life which gives this wonderful place its radiant beauty or even my visits to certain orphanages or the work of the Irish charity, Acara, building an orphanage here for twenty five orphans. These and more are all, sadly, for another day. Please do come back to visit.
Friday, October 24th, 2008 and is filed under Messages from Africa.
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Ann Says:
What an adventure! I can’t imagine being in a place without communication and yet instinctively I sense there would be many benefits in that situation – and not only from the spiritual side of things.
How fortunate you are to be living with a young family, perhaps later you will tell us how different family life is there and who the breadwinners are in the villages and how they eke out an existence. Thanks, Ronan.
Keep them coming.
P.S. I hear the Mass is something else!
October 25th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Dave Says:
Sounds amazing Ronan.
If you get a chance to upload photos elsewhere then be sure to send us on the link.
All the best
Dave
October 28th, 2008 at 1:10 pm