Our trip to the Mountain Kingdom

Lesotho, The Mountain Kingdom welcomed us with open arms this March

We stayed at the lovely Morija Guest House in the foothills above the village. Apart from the comfort, we found many friends as we gathered in the evenings for drinks on the patio and tasty home cooked meals.

Our first day trip was to Mafeteng to visit 'Me Anunciata who was the headmistress at Paul the VI high school when mom and dad taught there. When we pulled into the church parking lot, Dad spotted a nun and asked her if 'Me Anunciata was around. She replied, "I am Anunciata!" She was overjoyed to see us and after a tasty luch we headed to Taung to see the school and the house where I was born.

Next day we headed into the capital, Maseru. We toured the hotel where we lived for a month in 1991, enjoyed lunch at the Alliance Cafe, visited the Peace Corps office and found some interesting sites.

The landscape surrounding the guest house was breathtaking and serene. Just fifteen minutes up the hill and through a eucalyptus forest you emerge onto a tranquil mountain lake, not something one would expect in Africa. Nora and I made the most of it by swimming of course!

Our next outing was to Roma. In 1991 Mom worked at the National University of Lesotho there, so we wanted to visit our old house and the well worn dirt pathways that Nora and I vaguely remember following to school. We dropped in on Lois Sebatane, who came to Lesotho with the very first Peace Corps group and stayed. Dad co-authored a paper about adult education with her.

We then ventured into the Mountains to view the Mohale Dam. This is the second dam built by the Lesotho Highlands Water Project aimed at providing electricity to Lesotho, but mostly for channeling water down to Johannesburg. Coming down from the mountains we stopped to buy peaches and dad had trouble deciding with so many offers. Mohale Dam

Next we stopped at Me Anunciatas cresh to visit her students on our way to visit 'Me Laurentina in Mohale's Hoek. The kids had no end of songs to sing us and it brought a smile to Sister's face seeing the children so happy and engaged.

At Lapeng La Sefapano, we found 'Me Laurentina safe in the shelter of the other sisters and an abundant grape harvest. She accompanied us to visit Ma Neo in Quthing. Mom and 'Me Laurentina cooked lunch while dad, Nora, 'Ma Neo's daughter Angela, and I found the Masitise Cave House, built in 1866 by Paris Evangelical Society missionary, Rev. David Frederic Ellenberger. Cave House

Our last day was spent climbing the plateau behind the guest house. We met cows, saw some Dinosaur footprints and got some good exercise.

From the local press

Here are a couple of recent articles from The Post of Zambia, a lively, informative and unabashedly partisan newspaper.

• A news article from today's (April 3) paper re. the recently concluded nationwide strike by workers for the Shoprite supermarket chain: http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=19525

• A commentary article, "Giving money to the poor," by a Dutch diplomat: http://www.postzambia.com/post-print_article.php?articleId=19433

On a different tack entirely, I recently read again Carl Sandburg's Chicago, and couldn't help thinking of Lusaka. Wonder if any Zambian poet has hymned this sprawling, brawling, hard-working, gritty metropolis.

- Bill

Lusaka: Everyday memories

A Wednesday in February
"Hot work," I remark.
"Yes," he says, resting his load,
"The bike is buggered."


March 23
Walking to Grippes, I
pass lush fields of maize and grass -
that stink of sewage.

March 24
A fruit vendor's small
girl greets me every morning:
"Hello! How are you?"

March 26
On Munali Road,
singing choirs pass on trucks . . .
followed by a hearse.

March 27
Hard pew, long sermon,
but the singing moves the air,
stirs my sleepy soul.

March 29
Chamba Valley dawn:
Cocks crow, a dove coos, "Get up!
There's work to do!"

-- Bill

Grippes

  Grippes is what’s called a “peri-urban community.” It’s on the northeastern edge of Lusaka, about a mile and a half from where we stay. Most homes there are made of mud bricks with grass roofs. The Lusaka Council has annexed the area and plotted it out, so nice houses are being constructed along the road leading to and curving around the settlement; and - as I understand it - people already living there have been allocated plots on which to build homes. Fields of maize and pumpkins, beans and sweet potatoes surround the village, and plots of vegetables grow amongst the houses.

  Grippes residents are trying to improve their lives and living conditions, with the support of an NGO called Grassroots Heroes International (GHI). Community development projects include a community primary school, an adult basic education program, tailoring classes and a program through which people learn to raise and market goats, rabbits and ducks (for their eggs). 

  At the request of Mr. Vincent Luwizhi, GHI’s local representative and a neighbor of ours at Justo Mwale, I’ve been assisting with adult basic education. Mr. Boyd Ngoma started a class in reading and writing English, in October with eight learners. Now, there are 40 or more. When I came, Boyd split the learners into two groups and asked me to work with the beginners. So, on Wednesday and Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings, I'm helping ladies learn the alphabet, develop phonemic awareness and learn letter-sound associations. We communicate in a mixture of Cinyanja and English ("Chizungu"), which isn't ideal because it's best to learn these things in your mother tongue. But we manage, somehow, and I'm trying to recruit a Zambian friend or two to take up the work. Meanwhile, it's fun.
 -- Bill

The Grippes adult learning community (with a couple of passers by). Photo by Bill

Mr. Ngoma with the more advanced learners. Photo by Bill

Our ABC class. Photo by Boyd Ngoma

Grippes ABC learners. Photo by Bill

Mary's Birthday

Mary's Birthday Party. 

Left, from bottom of circle:  Isobel Patterson, Sophie Patterson, Amy Patterson, Kendra Bowman (face not visible), Bill, Nora, Jennifer Campbell, Mary, Neil Patterson. Photo: Lebo.

 

 We celebrated Mary's birthday for a whole weekend. Lebo and Nora were house-sitting on Friday (the actual day) so Mary and I had supper at the Times Bar and Cafe in Arcades Mall, completed with two varieties of Baklava (Serbian and Greek) and coffee, at Mint Cafe. On Saturday, Lebo and Nora arrived early to help prepare a delicious feast of Terry & JP's beer & honey-glazed ribs, coleslaw and potato salad, finished with a scrumptious chocolate cake that Nora made from scratch and Lebo frosted - accompanied by ice-cream, of course. Jennifer, from Lubuto Library Project and Mary's Fullbright colleagues, with spouses and children, came for the party. But that wasn't the end: On Sunday evening, friends Bambang and Putu joined us for a brai. Poor Mary had a meeting at the University and arrived home late, so the fire required some resuscitation before we could cook, but we had a lovely dinner in the end. 

-- Bill

"We'll count the years away!" Photo: Lebo.

Nokia-Siemens engineers Bambang (l) and Putu, at work. Photo: Bill