Lesotho III

Africa » South Africa » Mpumalanga » Barberton
January 9th 2013

Published: January 9th 2013

The highlights of my Lesotho trip remain to be told. Hopefully I can make it shorter than my description of public transport. Those first 3 days impressed upon us (I hope they impressed you!) that we were indeed venturing into the unknown. Hmm... watching Star Trek Next Generation episodes this past week has rubbed off... “venturing into the unknown”... navigating with the help of an old The Lonely Planet guidebook. Perhaps a more apt comparison is this: When I saw a Lesotho man wearing a T-shirt saying “Alaska - The Last Frontier,” I wondered: “Maybe Alaska is “The Second to the Last Frontier” because I’m in the REAL frontier now.”

Our first two nights in Lesotho were the most rustic. At Sani Pass, they turned on the generator from 5 pm to 10 pm, and gave us a supply of candles. There was a propane hot water heater and a propane stove. (Hostels are called backpackers and generally have self-catering kitchen facilities for guests to prepare meals) That evening, we walked up to the pub and the more luxurious cabins where a generator ran all day. Sitting by the fire at the pub, we talked with the two gracious women who ran the lodge. I was curious about how much snow they get in the winter, how they plowed the road, etc. The young man who showed us our room invited us to his rondavel to see the crafts he made. I bought a 2 in. version of the Basotho hat which I hung on my camera. The next day’s taxi took us to Mokhotlong, where we stayed in a nearby village at St. James Lodge, associated with the Catholic church and mission there. We slept in a rondavel and used paraffin (oil) lamps. There was no electricity and at 5 pm they started up a wood-fired boiler to heat water for showers. The kitchen had a propane stove and there was a nice lounge with a fireplace.

At Sani Pass and St James, we shared lodgings with two groups of white South Africans, the first Afrikaaners I have had a chance to talk with. The first group drove up from Pretoria to hike and mountain bike around Sani Pass. They were a man and woman who were engineers, and an older woman who was a University professor. During one conversation, the man asked the question we had been told to expect sometime, “Aren’t you afraid to live with the blacks?” We answered, “We are there because the community asked for Peace Corps to send someone there.”....Then we went on to other topics of conversation. We’d been at St James a few hours when three 4x4’s pulled up. They were 7 people from Durban who come every December with donations of clothing and toys for the people there. The nuns at the mission would help them distribute the items on Sunday. The project was spearheaded by a young woman in her 20’s. After unloading everything, she and her friends went down to the village to play soccer with the village kids. Monica went along, and Lee and I stayed in the lounge looking through the photo album of their visit last year. The young woman’s father was busy cooking, having planned much better meals for his group than our PB sandwiches or prepared noodle packages. He and the other older gentleman (who had been on his phone finding out about the success of his racehorse) invited our group to join them for dinner. (I will interrupt here to say that none of our phones worked in Lesotho because we just pay for air time in SA.) Every function (gathering) in SA has to have a braii, outdoor grilling of beef strips and coils of sausage. The young men grilled the meat, while the older man provided salads, vegetables, and bread. After cleaning up, we sat with our wine, listening to one of the young men play guitar. He is going to University, giving guitar lessons, and writes songs for the band he’s been in for 5 years. The lamplight and crackling fire only added to the pleasant evening. Meeting these people helped to break down some of my preconceptions about white South Africans. And yes, we were achieving two of the three goals of Peace Corps.

From the Peace Corps Act in 1961:

To help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of the people served.

To promote a better understanding of other people on the part of the American people. (that would be me, <em style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and now you, reading about this trip!)

For the remainder of our trip, we were in Maseru for one night, Ramabanta for two nights and Maseru again for one night. Accommodations were more luxurious with electricity, refrigeration, microwaves, TV! It was in Maseru that we saw the TV news reports about the school shooting in Connecticut.

Our Maseru lodging was a basic backpackers, often used by Lesotho PCV’s traveling through. Another side note, about travel: We arrived in Maseru late, because of The Bus Ride from Hell, and gave the street address of the backpackers to a taxi driver. The driver didn’t speak much English, and when we found another man to help translate, it appeared he didn’t know where the street was either. Trusting that he had been given good directions by the other man, we piled in the taxi...but then got nervous when he seemed uncertain where to turn. The poor man had four very tired women telling him what to do in a language he didn’t understand. We made him go back to a main road to ask for help. Our solution was priceless; we stopped at a pizza place and the pizza delivery man got into the taxi with us to direct the taxi-driver. It turned out the taxi driver had been within 2 blocks of our destination when we had made him turn back, so we were a little sheepish about that.

This small city has a bustling street market next to a huge taxi rank, and a good crafts shop to visit. We visited their workshop which had 4 large looms (like my Glimakra) used to weave scarves and shawls. Women were spinning and weaving tapestries too. They also sold batiks, and I saw silkscreen equipment in the workroom that might have been used for part of that process...but I couldn’t find out. (There was one man in the Maseru workshop who was weaving, and in the other two rural craft shops there were no men. The men mainly tend the livestock. This was different from Oaxaca, Mexico, where the well-established rug weaving workshops are run by men, with the women only doing the spinning and dying.) We took a day trip out to Teyateyaneng (TY) to see more craft shops. The shop mentioned in our guide book was closed down, another was small and appeared to be struggling, and the third looked quite successful (they took Visa) They wove tapestries with mohair yarn from the long-haired goats we had been seeing grazing in the hills. I bought a small tapestry at each shop. (Outside of TY are cave dwellings, built in the 19^th century and still lived in by the original families. I’m sorry we didn’t have time to go there.)

I was getting concerned that I wouldn’t find anybody to sell me any yarn!!! We found it at a workshop in Ramabanta. This time, The Lonely Planet was “spot on”, Ramabanta was everything we could ask for. A two hour taxi ride from Maseru took us to this small village on a hillside, facing mountain ridges in every direction. (Further on is Semonkong with the waterfalls/abseiling which we also missed going to.) The Trading Post Lodge we stayed at, provides jobs for people in the village. Lerato, the manager, and her assistant (a young German girl doing volunteer service) were very helpful. Lerato grew up in Ramabanta and told Monica about the Peace Corps volunteer who had encouraged her to continue her education. This PCV also started a workshop for women supporting families on their own. They knit hats and scarves from handspun wool yarn. The Lodge and its sister establishment in another town sell their handicraft. Lerato contacted a young boy (who had quit school at Gr 10 because his family couldn’t afford the school fees) who we paid a few rand to show us the workshop. We needed his translation skills ..the women didn’t have a full skein to sell me, but would have it done by the next morning. So, we got to see a “sustainable” Peace Corps project. Maybe the building looked a little shabbier than it had when the volunteer had painted the walls with words of hope, but the women were still there after 5 years, and they had a market for their product.

For the rest of Ramabanta, the photos help, but you know you had to be there. The Lodge had beautiful grounds, great rooms, and a view that I can’t describe. The first morning, I sat out on a rock ledge (but not too close to the edge, Serena and Amanda!) overlooking a deep ravine. Main street is a block of stores...buildings that sell cold drinks, igwinya (like deep-fried donut holes, oh so good!) and anything else. Horses and donkeys are loaded up, or unloaded, with supplies for the week. Small groups of homes dot the mountainsides; where life is the weekly visit to Ramabanta for food supplies and maybe a once a year visit to Maseru. Ramabanta’s largest store is the Frasier Trading Post, which looked like it had seen better days. Think of Hudson’s Bay Trading Co. in Canada and northern US, and the Hudson’s Bay Blanket that was so popular. I once had a coat made from one. The Basotho blankets were sold by Frasier’s (from Great Britain) and became very popular with the people of Lesotho. There are distinctive Basotho designs, and Susan bought one with a picture of King Moshoeshoe I. The Lodge also arranges for pony trekking for its guests. We were 6 guests with two guides. (The young couple who accompanied us, became engaged later that day!) We planned for a 3 hour trip which would take us to caves and a rock painting from the Sani village that had been there many years before. I don’t know why the trip took 4 hours instead....my horse didn’t like going downhill, and I would say “Hiyeeee!” or whatever siSotho expression it was, to tell him to get going. We all had a great time. The weather was perfect too.

So that is Lesotho in 8 days and 3 blogs. Hope you enjoyed it....I would love to visit again, but next time I’d rent a car to go through northeast Lesotho. I just wish I could see a photo one of those tourists took of a super-loaded taxi with me in it! Proof that I did it and survived.

Copyright Notice: All Rights Reserved