How BIG is the WORLD?: ST RODERIQUE, Lesotho

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

ST RODERIQUE, Lesotho

22 – 24 JULY 2011

ST RODERIQUE

Visiting Sara

The house for St Roderique’s foreign teachers has no power, no running water and certainly no heating other than a spirit heater donated to them. Sara’s university has been running this program for over 20 years but as services have broken down, the nuns have not repaired or replaced utilities.

Tittie mountain TRULY

Meanwhile the nuns live with solar power, electricity, water tanks and staff to cook and care for them. Another case of volunteers being unappreciated and treated as unneeded, methinks. The teachers have 12 months each and they cycle about every 6 months, meaning the last teacher has gone home and the next one is due in a week or so, which works well for the newcomer. They are popular with the villagers but the work can be challenging in the sense that he staff don’t appreciate their experience due to their youth. Speaking of which, the village is dirt poor but Medicin sans Frontieres set up a HIV clinic and pharmacy here, now run with local staff giving locals from round abouts access to good healthcare. The countryside is very beautiful is harsh and very cold. Mountains surround the village but erosion is a huge problem here and across the country with the hooved animals contributing to the problem. These can be seen all over the country – herds of cows being led by young boys known as herdboys. Sara tells me the problem is that most families need their young boys to look after the cattle, which are a status symbol, till 11 or 12 and then they are sent to primary school till they drop out. Girls on the other hand tend to quite well educated here, generally reversing the trend I have seen in many other countries here. Weekend rolls around and I start to explore alternative transport back to Maseru other than the 4hr bus ride.

Sara and guests

We find the taxi comes twice a day and takes only 2 hours, but we walk about town telling everyone we meet that I would like to return to Maseru via Roma, which would take me up and over the surrounding mountains. Suggestions are made that if I could walk up the mountain to a certain road I would meet the road where the taxis travel. I decide that I would hire a donkey to carry my pack if I head out that way. Then we meet a woman who says she is heading out to Roma and will call in to conrim departure tomorrow. She eventually appears late in the afternoon to say that they are leaving tomorrow and will pick me up at 6.30am. No worries – an early start suits me. In the meantime Sara and I amuse ourselves cooking up feasts in the rudimentary kitchen. First night it’s a vego peanut curry, next day we make Pita bread, hommos and falafel (that was yummy feast) then we try refried beans and eggs!

Angora goats are big business

Mmm Sara tells everyone that she cannot cook but I say she can follow a recipe to the letter and produce great food. Sara is of Salvadoran heritage and it was really interesting to listen to stories of her family and how they managed to end to be resident in the USA now. Sunday we’re up bright and early and wait and wait and I’m soon ready to give up on the lift when they turn up at 8.30am and I farewell Sara to travel up and over the mountains and into Maseru within a couple of hours. I had originally planned to spend the night in Roma but the Trading Post was also fully booked until August! Pesky school kids! So another night at HaTsolo Royal Guesthouse, travel out to St Agnes again to find the weavers there. I soon find that they weave tapestries, not blankets and I certainly don’t want a tapestry, not that they aren’t very nice and the sales pitch is not unique –we are starving, please buy something.

Waiting for the taxi

The traditional blanket is now made in either china or India and is most definitely not wool – I’m disappointed and so are the weavers when I don’t buy anything. Molapo visits me later that night, tells me to cancel the taxi I’ve booked because he will drive me to the bus, at 5.30am! He arrives next morning at 5am and waits in his car for ½ hour till I’ve packed, sees me to the bus and I wish him well –a real gentleman!

FACT: Lesotho recently denied 26 Chinese ‘tourists’ from entering the country! The chinese were coming from Mozambique, claimed to be tourists, but failed to name places they intended visiting, leading to their detention and deportation back to Maputo. This incident made big headlines in this little country. There are many chinese here running very successful businesses here in Lesotho but they are not at all popular with locals. They tell me they avoid patronising the chinese businesses but seeing as they are so successful, someone must be buying from them!