Into Africa

{Kids playing soccer with some of the jerseys I brought. The soccer tournament was a flop because of the rain - after a very heavy rainfall it took a week or so for field to dry. Note that the kids are wearing their uniform pants in most cases, the referee is wearing his whole uniform. Note the field conditions. On the near side, balls went down a hill toward the creek; on the far side there was no out-of-bounds, balls were played off the hill.}






Getting to Work

This update will be a long one and will include my first impressions of life at my school at Mamohau in the mountains south of Leribe. I was to be driven there on Saturday afternoon but finally left about 630 pm – this seems to be the norm here in many ways. The inefficiency really gets in the way of getting things done. I can imagine a Japanese person would go nuts here. I took two new sponsored girls with me ‘up the mountain’ since they are new students at the school,

Mamohau is a lovely place when the sun is out but not nearly so nice when it is raining – which it does a lot. I did not think that it was possible for rain to be that hard. Last night it rained really hard for four hours and then just ordinary hard for another 6 or so. I am now in Leribe and they have had 48 hours of rain. The rainy season drought seems to be a thing of the past. The problem at Mamohau is the mud. The lowlands are sandstone and the mud is grainy and not too bad. In the high mountains, it is clay and the mud is like a World War 1 battlefield – you end up with great globs on both feet. It is already pretty cool at night – I imagine that by the beginning of March the nights will be cold. I am glad that I have the warm clothes I brought for touring in Europe. I think I will need them.

Mamohau is between 7000 and 8000 feet about sea level and you really notice the elevation when you go up hills (which is half the time – the other half is downhill). Next week I will be going to my other school at Makhlefane which is even higher into the mountains = something like 8500 feet I think. There is only one ‘taxi’ in a day and it comes out the next morning so you have to stay over – it is not far from Lejone which is the town near Mamohau, but you can only get there with a four wheel drive vehicle. More on that later.

I have one of the teacher houses at the school (there are about 12 of them across a little valley and below one of the cabbage fields. It is about 3 m by 4.5 m in size and has a living room/dining room/kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. Only one problem with the bathroom, there is no plumbing. I get water a few doors away and use the outhouse nearby – as these things go it is not a bad one. There are flush toilets in the teachers room at the school so I try to plan ahead. I have electricity – perhaps not a surprise since the power lines from the Katse Dam pass quite close to my house. There is a gas stove and oven but no refrigeration so meal planning and organization is a challenge. Shopping in Lejone is very limited so I will do a fair bit in Leribe this weekend.

I am eating a fairly decent diet but there is not much variety, at least shopping up in the mountains. The local peanut butter is fine and they have a dairy/fruit juice drink that does not need to be refrigerated until it is opened. They have amazing Cheesies here and I do not even like Cheesies!. They are very flavourful and chewy and are a nice add on to any meal. I am getting a lot of use from my Swiss army knife for opening cans. I tried the local canned meat product and the only thing I could think about was dog food – but I ate it. You really get to know what you have and you do not waste anything. I emptied a pill bottle today and I will transfer my jam to it from the open can it is in now. The only problem I am having is with my garbage – mainly cans and plastic drink bottles. I asked one of my neighbours what I should do and he said throw it down the steep hill in front of the house. The hill is steep enough that you would not see it. Instead we see the garbage thrown down the hill across from we were they make the food for the kids.

I am only starting to chip away at getting to know the school system. I have found almost nothing good about it. The kids are given stuff to memorize without concern about how much they actually understand. I went into one class and they had been taught that drugs are ‘chemical compounds that influence the functioning and behavious of a person’. I checked to see if they understood this and they had no idea what a chemical compound was or what influence meant. I gave up at that point. The teachers go into the class and put the answers to questions in the textbook on the board and the kids are to write it down and memorize it. At the same time, I have been looking at the dreaded Cambridge Overseas O-level exams that almost no one passes here. They are not too hard and appropriate for high school graduation I think but you do have to be able to think eg to infer meaning, explain what various expressions (often metaphors mean), that sort of thing. They are often asked to answer in their own words but are not taught to do so.

It is intimdating to go into a class of 70 or so, none of whom has a decent command of English, but the kids are just so willing to learn.. The deputy principal is trying very hard to improve the school and he is my chief ally. I also am getting on quite well with several younger teachers who are my neighbours. The older teachers are pretty set in their ways and, while pleasant at all times, seem a little afraid that I might want them to change – as if!!

It is strange to be the center of attraction here. One day on my way to the school I thought it would make a good picture of the kids waiting for their breakfast. They were a bit more than a hundred metres away – the pic would have them, some school building and mountains in the background. As soon as I unzipped my camera I got this loud, spontaneous reaction from across the way – they had been watching me. Similarly when I was going to the biffy, I heard lots of reaction from the area of the boys dorm about 120 m away. Today when I got on the bus to come here, an elderly man way very excited and smiling. I thought he wanted to shake my hand but he actually kissed me.

I should mention the bus ride on the ‘King of the Mountain’. It was three hours and cost about $3. I know better understand those little stories in the paper about ‘Bus crash in [put in country name here] kills 46.’ The King looked to be about 30 years old and the road it something else. It was built about ten years ago to get stuff into the mountains to build the Katse Dam. Before that time the only way to places like Mamohau was on foot or horseback (this in the 1990s not the 1890s.. You have to cross a pass and both times I have done so it was in the clouds. Going up to the pass the King could only manage about 20 km because of the steepness. At the top there is a big sign that says “Engage Low Gear Now”. Immediately after is another sign that says “Stay in low Gear for Next 12 km”. This in a bus that the driver seemed to have stir around the transmission at each stop to find low gear. Oh well, the King has done the road many times and will continue to do so

I highlight of the week at school was the Form A tryouts for the track team. The entire school headed over to the football pitch which is about 15 away from the school near the primary school. This is the only place that has enough flat land for a field that is almost flat and almost rectangular. I have heard sports fields described as cow pastures before, but this one had a herd of about a dozen cows on it just before the kids started running (with the expected result). All the Form As have to run and they all run barefoot and in whatever clothes they have. Many ran in their school uniform – some of the boys even with tie intact, Almost all of the girls ran in skirts of one sort or another. I now know that, contrary to what we see in the Olympics, not all Africans can run. The top ones are gorgeous runners – so fluid but most just coach along. We hope to start the World Cup soccer next week.

Each morning the opening exercises are held in the space between the upper school and lower school classes, both in terms of forms and geography – as you progress in school you move uphill. It is a Catholic school so there is prayer and then they sing a hymn. The singing is remarkable. It is done in multiple parts with very elaborate harmonies. I don’t have the musical knowledge to explain this properly but is amazing to hear. And this is all done without practice or anyone arranging the parts. People will sometimes just start singing and others will join in but almost always with harmonies.

I am back in Leribe to help Ray do more work on the dorm for the orphans here. It is starting to come together nicely. Almost all of the girls came to the guest house tonight to watch ‘Sister Act’ on a laptop. We had popcorn for them and they devoured it. They are very nice girls and it make you feel good to make their life better.

A general comment about the people here, and this may go along way toward explaining why development is so slow. They seem so accepting of the status quo. The girls have to walk about 600 m from their dorm near the mission to the school. With all the rain they have to cross a very muddy area with a couple of rivulets in it. Between the water and the mud, it is not good for their school shoes (most kids only have two pairs of shoes). About 50 m from this mess is a large pile of building stones left over from the construction of a building. I spent about an hour selecting flattish stones and carrying them over to the muddy area and making stepping stones. Now the girls use them and stay out of the worst of the mud. Several teachers have complimented me for my ‘bridge’ but it seems not to have occurred to anyone at the school to do anything about the problem. To North Americans it just seems so natural to see a problem and attempt to find a solution but not here.

Until next time, which is likely not to be for two weeks when I have to go to Maseru to renew my visa (you can only get 30 days at the border). I will be staying in a hotel with real showers and toilets and stuff like that.

BTW, if anyone would like to write to me, my address is

Bruce Clark
Mamohau High School
Box 768
Leribe 300
Lesotho
It would be nice to receive parcels from home but probably not a good idea – they tend to arrive marked, “Damaged in transit” which means someone helped themselves.