Holding the trophy with our female runners!
The short-relay girls at the starting line
Boys grab pick axes, spades, wheelbarrows and scurry up to
the rocky terrain that serves as a field for our school. Girls not-so-joyously
hurry out to the grounds where their duty is to move stones that are hacked
from the earth by the boys and put them into piles. The girls are not happy
about getting their hands dirty and hate the idea of soiling their uniforms (I
now hate my getting my clothes dirty too-hand washing and fetching water is a
task and half!) but regardless they take pride in beautifying our school to
impress all our visitors that will arrive soon. A group of five boys left
school to go mine lime from a small quarry out in some marked cornfields,
returned to mix it with water and pour into watering cans where is could be dribble
over balanced rock piles that marked our official “track field.” The
preparation for Mosheoshoe’s Athletics Competition at Khoro High School was
long lasting but interesting to facilitate and observe utilizing available resources
to the extreme. The event called 14 schools to come and participate in about 10
different running races for girls and boys and invited the village of Ha Khoro
and surrounding villages.
I was given the task of “catcher 2” where I ran after the
second place winner of each event, held their hand, and took them to the score
keepers. It was so exhilarating and exciting embrace the kids whom were utterly
exhausted after there runs but still smiling with pride (some of them went into
shock after their runs..because they do not drink water-a hot topic that I am
working on). At the end of the day, Khoro High School placed number two and we
could not be more proud of our new trophy in our office. The kids placed number
five last year, so we are now on the map because our hard training paid off!
Khoro High School is not only a new school but many other schools have not
heard of our small (poor if I may say) village and are constantly trying to
find ways to insult us. One insult (that I chuckled about at first just because
of cultural differences) was that children at our school are selling rotten
peaches for money…it didn’t go well
All the girls holding up Number Two!
Tripod head stand at the big river
After this glorious event Jeff, Lars, and I had a slumber
party at my place and I’m sure all of my conservative villagers were whispering
about it-so scandalous of me! Co-ed slumber parties with friends are not a
thing here. I am sharing the culture of the USA with Lesotho? Haha! The three
of us made tacos and shared them with my host mom..She just loves the word
“tortillas” and keeps repeating it. It might be the cutest thing ever. We had a
nice evening of listening to my neighbors play the accordion and home made
drums while gazing at the stars for entertainments. The following day Jeff and
I attempted to climb this big ol’ mountain in South Africa that we can see from
our sites but the river that separates Lesotho from SA was too full of water from
the week’s rain and was declared unsafe as all hell to cross. But we still had
a wonderful morning of frolicking through the fields or maiz, pumpkin, and
sunflowers (sonoblomo in Sesotho, well actually Afrikaans because it’s a
“borrowed” word). We returned home with big grins covered in mud and decided to
wash our selves with a bucket bath and go into town. When I returned home my
kind, kind, kind Me’ washed my mud encrusted shoes and socks..I need my mother
in America and need my Me here in Lesotho. Anywhere I go in this world I need
my mother.
My Me (on the left) and her two friends peeling peaches to be canned for Winter
Three school boys holding 3 out of the 2000 baby pines that were planted around the perimeter of our school campus
