Lesotho (pronounced Lee-su-tu (though the last u is often dropped))
Odi and I did a bit of traveling around Lesotho when we weren’t needed at the conference. We decided to drive around a bit and see what we could find. From having read my handy dandy travel book on Lesotho, I knew that not too far away there was a cave village that apparently housed some very old bushman rock paintings—though I knew little more. So off we went to try to find our way. We didn’t know that not that far actually meant driving on an unpaved road for what had to be close to 15 miles, having to park the car at the shop of a nice young man who was kind enough to help us, walking down through a small village, and getting a taxi (a minibus, generally driven very recklessly, and nearly unroadworthy), and then walking down to the caves. It really wasn’t that bad—just way more involved than we initially thought. We had to stop and ask for directions a couple of times, and when we stopped to ask children they came running to the car asking for sweets (so we stocked up the next chance we had). Children are left much to their own devices and to walk around quite freely—apparently kidnapping is not really a problem in this country (nor is it in SA I’m told). Driving through these rural areas was amazing. Cattle are allowed to roam free and cross the roads wherever they please. I’ve nearly been in a handful of accidents involving some kind of livestock or another. Goats, sheep, chickens, donkey—they’re all over the place.
Back to the cave village. It was called the Kome Cave Village. Apparently, these caves were first found and settled by a traditional healer who was exiled from Maseru (the capital city, approx. 30 or so km away). He needed to fins a place to live and hopefully a place to teach, so he settled here and hoped for the best. These caves are built into this gigantic rock surface, and the people living here are the descendants from those original settlers—if I’m correct in remembering I think our guide said this happened in the early 19th century. The people were incredibly gracious to welcome Odi and I to their village and let us take a look at their homes. The children begged me to take their picture, and then would laugh hysterically when I showed them their picture. It was adorable. Just next to the village on the underside of this gigantic rock are remnants of the bush paintings. They were very hard to see, but pretty cool.
Along with the rest of the students at the conference, I also went to Thaba Bosiu. This is Lestho’s most prized mountain and attraction. Again, in the early 19th century, the king of the Basotho people, King Moshoeshoe, settled on the top of this mountain. In Sesotho, “thaba” means mountain, and “bosiu” means at night-because of the local belief that the mountain grew at night. The mountain was impenetrable to enemies, and under Moshoeshoe’s rule, it was never taken. He and a few others are buried at the top. Ruins and graves are all that remain on top now. However, many local people travel to the top on a daily basis to gather wood and other necessities; children even use the mountain as their local playground as we passed a group of children around age 7 making a pick up back of their own (on instruments they made themselves I was told). There is a newer village just at the base of the mountain that is inhabited, and it is where the king stays when he is visiting that part of the country. It was a great little hike. It took a little over an hour to get to the top—it was pretty steep, but not that long of a hike. However, I will attest to the local belief that the mountain grows at night—we left the top of the mountain a little later than we should have and it was dark about a third of the way down—and it seemed to take forever to reach the bottom.
As an outreach activity for the students at the conference, we all went to work in a small village near to the university. Some of us went to the hospital to clean, others to an orphanage that needed work done, and the rest of us went to visit and to play with the orphaned children of the village. I went with the final group. The number of children was hard to pin down. Every time I turned around a new group of kids would be running over. My best guess would be that even in this tiny village of only a few hundred, there were at least 50 orphans. These children loved having their pictures taken; I must have taken dozens of photos of them and they kept asking for more—it was by far one the largest sources of entertainment during our visit. These kids were some of the happiest children I’ve ever met—no hesitation to jump into a game of soccer or join in a dancing circle, and though they did get upset from time to time over normal kid stuff, they moved on faster than anything I’ve ever seen. They act much older than they are, and in some cases a 7-year-old child is taking primary care of one or two younger siblings. They have been hardened by this difficult life that has made them learn how to do things they shouldn’t have to know for years and to grow up far too fast. But somehow these children have also held onto the ability to be children—to play as if there were nothing else in the world they have to think about. To play, play, play—right up to the second they have to turn away to go make dinner, or to go shepherd the sheep in the field, or to walk to nearest town alone to pick up some medicine. My hope is that we all work on developing this playfulness in ourselves. That we all work to keep at least one place in ourselves soft against the world that has hardened the rest of us in one way or another. So often we lose this ability as we become adults, just as some of the children I met in Lesotho will also find it more and more difficult to hold onto—but it is not impossible—and it is so necessary.
