Into Africa

{Left photo shows mohair articles being made at the workshop in Leribe. Right photo some of the 16 girls who live in a residence sponsored by a church in Canada. They are attaching the legs to the little coal stove that we bought to provide some winter comfort.}

Leaving from Amsterdam was a bit of an adventure. When I went to the KLM check-in I was told that, because of my week in Europe, I was on two separate journeys rather than one. This meant that the world baggage limit (total of 20 kg) applied rather than the North American limit of two bags of 23 kg each. I asked how much the overage would be and found it was 800 euros (more than $1000). I checked air freight and it would not arrive on the same plane. After a bit of begging, the nice lady said that she would make an exception because of the nature of my trip. She said I was not to tell anyone, so I won’t. Later I found that at least British Airways has a ‘missionary ticket’ which costs the same as a regular one but lets you bring more stuff.

Met a very nice Afrikaans couple on the plane who live in a town called Harrismith which is about 1 ½ hours from the Lesotho border. They said to call them if I run into any problems. There are also Project Help Lesotho staff here now that I can talk to as well. The couple also told me there is a really good hospital in a place called Bethlehem which is quite close to the border (note that there are no decent hospitals in Lesotho – there are four in total).

Joburg, as everyone calls it, is a very modern city of something like 6 million. Some observations: there are huge numbers of people doing labour everywhere. There were many announcements about only using official borders, but no indication about how you could tell. I was offered help by an individual dressed in a tie and blazer – turns out he was not official and indicated that a tip in Canadian dollars was just fine (I had only rand available at this point) but it was the guys in orange overalls who were official. Anyway, I found the shuttle to the hotel. The hotel was very spiffy and almost $200 but very nice.

Next morning I went back to the airport to meet Penney Place who was coming from London. We then met Francis who had rented a car to come and get us. It was an older Corolla and we fit in three people, four large hockey bags, a suitcase, and two backpacks.

Driving through Joburg and rural South Africa was very interesting. It is sort of like Alberta without oil. Huge ranches and corn fields (I know that is not common in Alberta). Six lanes highways became four lanes and became two lanes as we approached the Lesotho border. It also got progressively higher and started to look like Monument Valley in the US (think classic John Ford cowboy movies). The change at the border was amazing, all of a sudden it was like what I expected Africa to look like. In SA, the rich, white society dominates the poor, black. In Bethlehem there were several new BMWs and Land Rovers and modern shopping. In Lesotho, the cows were scrawnier and the corn shorter and not uniform. The population density was much higher and the land much poorer.

I have been staying at the guest house in Leribe that is run by an order of Anglican nuns. It is reasonably comfortable and I have my own room – there is even a shower (some measure of warm water is available). The nuns make us lunch and dinner and there is lots of food but it is pretty bland and repetitious.

People here are remarkably friendly. We asked someone where we could find a store that sells beer and she took us there – it was a 20 minute walk down a very rough road. There are some people here with a bit of money but most people are very, very poor. My main work will start next week when I travel 90 minutes into the mountains – I checked the map today and it is between 7000 and 8000 feet above sea level, so no running for me.

Until then I am working on a couple of thing here. One is doing some repairs (broken windows, new door, etc) on a dorm used by 16 girls (we are trying to find a better word than ‘orphans’) who are sponsored by Canadians. We may also be installing a small coal heating stove. The room where the 16 girls live has no heat and it does go below zero in the winter. We found one for sale for about $180 including the chimney piping. A cheap price to keep these girls a bit warm in winter. We would also like to find a way to heat water so they have warm water for washing. The kids work very hard to keep clean – two sponge baths per day generally while they stand in a plastic basin. Not sure how far the budget goes for that. I am also trying to see if we could arrange to get some woven mohair articles into 10,000 Villages stores in Canada. These scarves, vests, etc are made at a workshop entirely staffed by handicapped people. They buy the mohair from shepherds who have goats, they spin and dye the wool before weaving. Some of the stuff is very beautiful. I have contacted 10,000 Villages but this will be a slow process. I know nothing about the commercial aspects of this but will work on it.

There are eight volunteers at the guest house but we will be heading off to various parts of the country in the next few days. Tomorrow we have been invited for dinner with the doctors/pharmacists from the AIDS clinic here that is being run by the Ontario Hospital Association.

Spent the morning working on the girls’dorm. The building is about 26 feet by 14 feet and 16 girls live there. They are not all orphans since they may have a parent who is just not capable of loving after them – for example, dying of AIDS with the grandmother who is looking after many children and a terminally sick daughter. There are really any number of stories. We are going to be fixing broken and cracked windows, building storage shelves, installing the heater and fixing up the showers and latrines, along with lots of painting. I was going to help another volunteer, named Ray, do the windows but the guy who sold the glass said he could install the windows for $40 – this involves removing 34 panes of glass and replacing them. Not a bad deal and it does provide some local employment which is the biggest problem of all.

BTW, the alphabetical phone listing for the whole country are 63 pages long. This does not include cell phones though and there seem to be many of them.