Irenasjourney Blog

June

irenasjourney — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:12:18 +0000

UGH! This blog is a pain in my butt!

And June, dear sweet present June. June brought my birthday…a rather uneventful one I might add. I spent it at home with a couple of friends. We listened to music and read magazines while I drank hotty-totties alone. I think that’s a sign of getting old but whatever…mind as well do it in Africa if I’m gonna do it, right? Help me. So my birthday also marked the beginning of the World Cup which officially started the 11^th but the 10^th was an awesome opening concert that I didn’t even get to see on TV. I did however get to go into Maseru and watch the first game in the theater on the big screen. My friends and I were in the VIP showing of the game and received free drinks, chips, cookies and dinner. It was absolutely amazing and one of my best nights here! The World Cup has brought a crazy energy with it. It’s so exciting being so close to something so HUGE! After the first game, my friends and I went to a local hotel and watched the second game. The following day, we found ourselves back at the hotel for the America vs. England game. What a fun time. We went all out and painted our faces and went wild…and in all the hubbub, I got elbowed in the face…it was still fun. I’ll be going to Bloemfontein on the 22^nd for the South Africa vs. France game. We didn’t actually get tickets so I think we’ll find ourselves at the Fan Park. Should be a great time never-the-less. And the only thing left to say about June is it’s f’in cold folks. Its f’in cold. It was 19 degrees the other night. The mornings are unbearable and so are the bucket baths. The weather is bringing me down. Its hard to get out of bed and step on the concrete floor. Its hard to walk 20 steps to the latrine in what feels like arctic temperatures. Its hard to take your clothes off just to change…oh summer, how I long for thee…

A picture from today...its cold bo!

May

irenasjourney — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 10:06:26 +0000

So…this is like my 5th attempt…holy sh**!

May…what happened to May? May flew by. Unfortunately, time is flying by. Any who, I started teaching a Life skills class with Leeza. She’s a volunteer that lives 15 minutes away and has become a fantastic friend. So we’re teaching grades 6 and 7. The kids are amazing! We are mostly talking about HIV and Aids and condoms!! They already know so much of this information which is a really good sign. They are very interesting kids though. Extremely shy. Its actually kind of sad. They never really seem to learn anything. They memorize everything. And they never really have an opportunity to express creativity. Anyway, I love them. Sweet little hearts. Oh man, I was part of Lesotho’s first ever Career Fair. It was awesome. A neighboring volunteer asked a few of us to help here with this project. It was put on by an NGO in Lesotho, GRO. Over 2,000 students showed and there were representatives from over 30 schools of higher education in Lesotho as well representatives from the department of agriculture, the police, banks, military, …you name it. If you grade it on outcome and participation- major success; if you grade on effectiveness- FAIL. Aawwww…for real, it was really too bad but an excellent learning experience. And more recently, towards the end of May, a PCV friend Jessica came over and helped me reorganize one of the weaver’s show room. Man we did an amazing job and had a lot of fun doing it! Check out those before and after, LOL!!

Before...

...and after...

...and another after...Yum

April

irenasjourney — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:50:32 +0000

So…I had to do it in 2 parts, LOL. What a headache…

April, Happy Easter. Oh, Easter was an easy Sunday spent with a friend. That’s all I really have to say about that. I went ahead and half way filled out the grant application and attempted to submit it. Of course, it wasn’t even looked at. I had a PC staff member step in and instruct the weavers on how to go forward. She offered some new ideas and recommended a new grant the weavers may want to apply for…to this day neither group has gone into the office to get the application. Shame. And April ended bitter sweet. We had a going away party for the CHED group that came in 2 years before me. They will all be leaving between May and September except for maybe a couple people extending. The going away party was incredible and PC as usual. Saying bye is difficult in PC because you’re not saying bye for now…chances are I’m never gonna see half the amazing friends I’ve met here. Its weird. But I really do have some amazing memories!!! UGH! I’m really gonna miss these people.

Karolina reading to 2 of my neighbors

Pre-COS party...that's all I can give you. My friends

January, February, and March

irenasjourney — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 08:47:42 +0000

Its officially been 6 months since I’ve written on the bloggy blog. Shame! As usual, this will be stupid long; Enjoy!! Lets see, where did I leave off. Durban…haven’t had a vacation since…In January we had All Vol. Its one weekend a year when all the PC Lesotho volunteers come together. We review policies and also enjoy each other. Some of it is fun…we all got to meet the new group of Education volunteers so it was good. My group had our very delayed Phase III training. We got to go as a group to Semonkong which is absolutely beautiful. Cant wait to go there again! We also got to bring our counterparts in and create a business plan together. Two of my three weaving groups were represented and they decided they would like to do a chicken project. Right off the bat I did not see this working too well. I certainly voiced my opinion that we should focus on our weaving business instead of venturing in a new direction- chicken rearing. Anyhow, my reason fell on deaf ears and we forged on with the chicken idea. I really don’t want to bore you with the details and all so long story short there were a few tasks to complete before the grant application was due…mid April…they were never completed. I guess you could say it all worked out in the end.

Karolina and me in Semonkong

Charles and I in front of the waterfall in Semonkong

February is marked by my friend Kristiney’s birthday. She lives all the way in Mokhotlong. Its one of the farthest places to reach in Lesotho. My friend Melissa and I went to see her and we celebrated at her house and then went to
Sani Pass which the highest place in Lesotho or SA?? Any who, it was absolutely amazing and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the pictures!

Happy Birthday Kristiney!!!

Women hard at work! We built a Gingerbread house!

Kristiney, Me and Melissa

I'm helping put the tent up

Highest pub in Africa! Yebo!!

Melissa, Kristiney and me above the cloud! Amazing!

Just a cute pic of Andre, Megan and Leeza on the side of the road.

March… a damn good month! Another PCV and myself went to one of my weavings groups and took pictures of their products for a potential website. A lot has happened since these pictures were taken…another long story short, the pictures were photo shopped last week. OK? What else…I changed my life and got electricity wired into my house. Another PCV helped my hire a young entrepreneur named Theko. He wired electricity from my host family’s home into mine. It cost me about $75. Its been absolutely great having electricity on the one hand, then on the other I’ve found myself at odds with my host family. This really isn’t an appropriate setting for that story so…On St. Patrick’s Day, I met with a few PCVs at a local hotel and we created a new holiday- Shepherd’s Day! Yup…we also invented a new drink-its called the Wild African Kombi Bomb…and its good and gross at the same time.

Theko and Ed wiring in the electric

Shepherd's Day...oops! LOL

Durban!!

irenasjourney — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:04:40 +0000

Durban- holy shit! Let me just get right into it. Barb, Kristine Melissa and I went to Durban, South Africa on Dec. 29^th. It took about 5 hours on public transport. we stayed the first few nights, until the 2^nd, at a hostel called Anstey’s. It’s right across from the ocean and about 30 minutes out of the city. We camped in a tent. We went swimming- in the Indian Ocean, holy cow. it’s a really strong ocean!! And there were a lot of jelly fish and a shark or two spotted. Anyway, we also went to a crazy huge mall and ate like kings! We met some great people from South Africa that were staying at the same hostel and on New Years eve we got conned into going to this ‘club’ everyone else from the hostel was going to. The ‘club’ ended up being the equivalent to an Elk’s Club- a freaking VFW! There were 70 year olds and 7 year olds- o lord. And the DJ was 65, lol!! Anyway, we drank enough to have a good time. I’m really going to try to make this long strory short…so at about 10 minutes to midnight Melissa and Barb notice this man (from our hostel who just checked in earlier that day)leaving the party…5 seconds later, Kristine notices her camera is missing from the table…great. So we ring in the new year and at about 1:30am we go back to the hostel. Most everyone is having a good time. A bunch of us are hanging out by the pool, swimming, hanging out and we hear some other campers have noticed some of their items missing as well. While at the pool, Melissa sees the man (the one that left the party) leaving the hostel…walking away. At about 2:40am Melissa goes to sleep, Kristine and I go hang out with Barb for a bit in her “Honeymoon Suite”. at about 3:20am we go to sleep but we can still hear people out at the pool having a good time. Roughly at 4am, the people who’s camp had been robbed decide to go have a look around the hostel, see if they cant find anything. What do they stumble upon??? A dead body at the bottom of the pool! Yeah that’s right. Holy Shit! It was some guy staying at the hostel with his wife…she went up to bed, he stayed and that’s the whole story. Nobody knows if he was drunk or who was with his last or nothing. The police came and got the body and that’s it. No questions asked. So New Years day started with and ended on a real somber note. Some people checked out and others checked in. I felt real bad for the new comers because they had no idea what just happened…and the whole vibe was off. And they didn’t drain the pool or anything- just weird. So like I said, we stayed there until the 2^nd and then went on to another hostel called Tekweni and it’s right in the heart of Durban, which I forgot to mention was a HUGE city!! Like 10 times Charlotte- for real! We stayed in the dorms here and I in the end I actually preferred Ansteys. Anyway, while in the heart of Durban we went to an awesome African craft market- o bought lots of stuff, but should have bought more, and we went to Ushaka which is a huge water park and Sea World right off the ocean. We had such a great time!!

Enjoy the pics and talk to ya’ll soon- I promise

Ansteys Hostel

The scene of the crime- er accident??

The VFW, lol

At the Gateway Mall in Durban

Ushaka- dolphin show

Such a good time at the waterpark. Karolina and me

Club night out in Durban at The Reform

December…

irenasjourney — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:47:29 +0000

December was all over the place. I took part on an UN Conference on Trade and Development. I had an excellent x-mas and a crazy new year…and said good bye to some good friends

I went to this UN Conference on behalf of my weavers. It lasted 3 days and was really informative. I met a lot of ‘important’ people and it was a great experience. On the final day we took a field trip to the Phillips Plant which produces energy saving light bulbs. It was really cool. The company’s only been open running for about a year. It was basically to show us an example of investment in Lesotho. This country has an incredible opportunity for growth…um, I’ld probably call it a possibility instead of opportunity.

So some of my really good friends left Lesotho and are back in America. They are the ex-pat friends I talked about. Anyway, before they left we went to a Club in Maseru. Yup, that’s right. It’s called Club Awesome. Well, its actually called Litaleng but strongly referred to as Club Awesome- cuz it’s awesome. I wish I could take pictures to show you but if I brought a camera in there I would not leave with it J. the place is bonkers. Anyway, we had a great time and it was really sad to see them go…miss you guys!!!

In the middle of the month, one of my PCV friends Merrill invited me to her house for her host mother’s graduation party. It was also a great experience- a real Basotho party! I have some pics to share. We ate good, all the people were super friendly, I got excellent pictures of some kids and I met a really inspirational Mosotho man named Peter. He deserves his own blog entry…

Christmas was great. I stayed with some friends (other PCVs) at a friends house in Maseru. In a proper house with a TV, rooms, a toilet, a shower, washing machine…yeah, it was great. My friend Karolina cooked an amazing Christmas Eve dinner for us; we had a beet soup, perogies, cookies…lots oh- goodness. It was soo great! Best of all, on Christmas day I went to the Peace Corps office (which would normally be closed but my friend really needed some from there) and guess what was waiting for me?? Two packages from you guys back home! Freakin a! it was a great x-mas. Thank you so much for those perfectly timed gifts. I got great stuff too- you guys are too good to me! Thank you thank you thank you!!

For Christmas I also got bitten up! I got like 36 mosquito bites on my legs alone. For real. The mosquitoes here are weird, you don’t even feel them biting you. So that was really the downside of that week…

The next week, on the 29^th several other PCVs and me took a New Years trip to Durban- holy Conoly…this deserves its own blog entry as well…

Phillips Plant

Jamie and me; our last weekend together

OMG- a crazy humingbird puzzle that took weeks to put together- haha

Christmas Eve dinner- YUM

Its been soo long!!

irenasjourney — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:40:14 +0000

I know, I know…I am not doing very good with this whole blog thing- but here are some updates- from November to today- Enjoy!!

So as promised, I ventured out of Lesotho for the first time on November 8^th! My friends took me to an amazing park in South Africa called Golden Gate. I’ve attached some pictures for you all to see. Also in the time since my last update I spent some time with my weavers (pictures again, attached) and I spent some serious time in my garden; its looking pretty good. I went to a Cherry Festival in South Africa and also went to an amazing restaurant called Living Life (also in SA) for Thanksgiving.

So Golden Gate; absolutely amazing!! I went with my ex-pat friends (I think I’ve mentioned them before) and we did an amazing hike and saw baboons and something that resembles a fox…and of course some fantastic scenery. The hike was about an hour long and at one point we were literally mountain climbing. South Africa is a beautiful country and a stark contrast from Lesotho. Not that Lesotho is not beautiful, it is, but SA is soo different. There is so much greenery and a lot more for tourists.

My garden is looking good ya’ll! I really will have to take some pics so you guys believe me. I’ve de-weeded the entire thing and my lettuce and tomatoes are growing like crazy. Ima be eating good here J and I’ve decided to give the watermelons another go…wish me luck, again

A couple of weeks ago my weavers had a workshop where they learned about felting. I actually got in the fun and made a bowl/ pot out of felt. Basically you take raw mohair and get it wet and soapy and work with it until it turns into felt. Then you shape it and let it dry…it’s a forever long process but it was great fun and. I am still looking forward to the product development that begins the 29^th, so just in a couple of days, and I’ll definitely let you all know how that works out.

Cherry Fest was awesome! It was on November 21^st in a border town called Ficksburg. Its only about 30 minutes from where I live. We weren’t able to stay very long but I did get my first dose of Afrikaaners. Wow, very different and very interesting people/ culture. Ficksburg itself was really nice and the festival was fun. They had great food, rides, camels, and of course delicious cherries on which I damn near overdosed. Haha, no but I did eat a lot of them J. I didn’t get too many pictures here, but you can see the relationship I built with the camels.

Thanksgiving= fantastic. I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well. The restaurant we went to was in Ladybrand which is another border town, this time right outside Lesotho’s capital Maseru. Living Life is like a hidden gem. It seems to be in the middle of nowhere…all of a sudden you are at this place with so many flowers and trees and customer service and great food; couldn’t have asked for a better time. The food and company were great.

Lastly, I will leave you all with some random pics… a couple of my local girlfriends J and some pics just to show you I am enjoying myself. Love you guys, take care and ttys

Hike at Golden Gate in South Africa with great friends

Haha...still Golden Gate

OK...we climbed up that...see the trail below?? Holy scary

Yup, we climbed to the top of that cliff- so beautiful!

This marks the end of our hike

OOH- an ape!!

OOH, more apes!

Kids in the peach tree in my front yard

Me and the camels at Cherry Fest

Some weavers felting

A young one learning to felt!!!

Quick update

irenasjourney — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:57:37 +0000

Quick update, since I wrote that last blog a few weeks ago… In 4 days I will be free from Phase II of my PC service. Phase II, also known as “integration”, consisted of the first 3 months of my service. Basically during this time I was to settle in and integrate with my community. I was not allowed to leave the country, but clearly was allowed to visit other areas of Lesotho. If I get all of my Phase II work in by Nov. 6^th, I can leave the country. Phase II PC work was questions we had to answer about our community and we had to do 60 interviews on people in the community. I will turn the last of my work in on Wednesday and will take my first trip to South Africa on Nov 21^st J . Tell you more about that later.

Well, my garden looks like a large patch of weeds now. I’ve begun de-weeding it but…and some crops have definitely sprouted…though no sign of watermelons yet L .

Halloween came and went. There was a PC party that I did not go to, heard it was great fun…but instead I had Melissa over. We had fun too!!! LOL, we ate like pigs.

Update with the weavers…not too much to update. We have a product development scheduled for the end of November and beginning of December. That should be good…I hope. The weavers have a bunch of orders in now so that’s good too. We havent had a meeting yet and nobody is quite sure when they would like to meet next so…

Heres a couple more pics…me winning a chess game J …a group of us getting fat at a desert party at my friend Elissa’s house, a gathering at an ex-pat’s house for a friendly game of beer pong J …just a couple more, enjoy J

Love ya all!!

Chess game, very intense

And my winning move

Dessert party at Elissa's

Palulu, nice shirt huh?

Sky...

Holy hail!

Ex-pat pong party (Shin, Erin and Tara)

Yup, we won

Family Portrait, LOL

Its been a while…

irenasjourney — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:17:17 +0000

Ok, wow, it feels like its been so long. I’ve been kind of busy so here’s the update. A couple of weeks ago, I went to a pre=”a “>Lioli game, a couple PC parties, the Morija Cultural Festival, I taught a class about HIV/Aids, and planted a garden.

The Lioli (dee-o-dee) game was crazy! Lioli is the local/ professional soccer team in TY. A person in TY is a Seoli (say-o dee) and the people are Lioli. Anyway…we get to the game which in the TY Stadium and at the entrance they tell us we have to turn around and pay R5 (about 67 cents) to the lady back there…the lady sitting in the back seat of a car with the window half rolled down. It felt like a drug deal. A lady standing outside the car stamped our arms and we were allowed in. the stadium turned out to be a dirt field. No seats (though I’m not sure why I was expecting any). Situated between ‘modern day Detroit’ and the ‘slums’; see pics. ‘Modern day Detroit’ is actually a grocery store on the floor level, owned by Asians. The rest of the building is where the Asians live. The ‘slums’ are actually the back side of the TY taxi rank. You have to love this place! The game was wild, the fans were great, and it ended in a tie.

On September 19 we had a huge “north side” party where basically all the people (PCVs and some ex-pats) living in the north side of the country came and we had a party at a park. That was real wild and I’ve learned PCVs are pretty nasty people. I am going to leave it at that…but enjoy the pics.

On October 10^th we had a ‘New-b/ going away party for my district. We were welcoming the new people (which is me and the 2 others from my group) and saying good bye to the PCVs whose service was ending. A pretty great night too. Both parties we ate and drank well.

The Morija Arts and Cultural Festival was pretty neat too. Getting there was as a wild time. Five girls from my group got together at a house the day before and went to the festival together. Instead of paying for transport, we decided we would hitch…so our first ride came in the form of a police paddy wagon. We got in the back and as soon as the policeman shut the door, there was no air and a sense of claustrophobia. However, as soon as he started driving there was a nice breeze and we all calmed down. The police did not go all the way to Morija so they dropped us off and we began hitching for another ride. This time a man with 2 others in the car stopped to pick us up. 8 people were now in the car the size of a VW Golf. Just around the bend however was a police stop. The driver clumsily slammed on the brakes and pulled into a village. We were like 20 feet from the police and the village road was too bad to drive up…so we (the PCVs) got out the car and instantly were greeted by a group of kids. In some pathetic attempt to elude the police, we began singing anything we could think of from the Lesotho National Anthem to the Hokey Pokey. It didn’t work…the police called us over and in the beginning we were all going to jail for riding 8 in a car that seats 5. This driver also had a temporary tag and was allowed only 3 people in the car at a time. After about 30 minutes the police told us only the driver is going to jail but we all have to go to the station as witnesses to the offense…another 15 minutes later the police let us go J . we walked a bit from the police and this time got in public for the remainder of the trip to Morija. The festival itself was pretty cool. There were quite a few tents, though many were more than half empty, and there was a really good tent of crafts from Swaziland. I think I mentioned in a past blog that my weavers were going to be there, and they were. Morija did not go very well for them as 4 of the 5 days it rained pretty hard. So, in hindsight, I should have bought a lot more crafts, but I guess there is always next year.

The class I taught on HIV/Aids was just this past week and it was in a village in Mafeteng. 5 PCVs and myself taught Form A students (which are like 7^th grade) about how they can get HIV and how to protect themselves. We taught a one hour class for 3 days. It was so cool. I am really glad I got to do this because as I am working with weavers, this is not something I will normally be doing. Anyway, it went really well. The information was received well and when you could tell the kids were really getting what you were saying, it was encouraging. Some things you could tell they did not get…but most of the message was received. They had so many questions; it was awesome but also a shame because the Basotho rarely talk about things like this. Recently, the ministry of education said life skills must be taught in every school, but Basotho are soo shy to talk about things like sex and condoms and HIV/Aids. It never happens here and that’s why there is such a huge Aids epidemic here. Anyway, it was great and the girl we stayed with had a dog J you all know how I feel about doggies!!

On the way home from Mafeteng, a PCV and I hitched again, and you know what happened…got in a car designed to seat 3 but now had 4 people total. The driver ran a police stop because he didn’t want to go to jail for the overload…the cops chased us…and after some more smooth talking and another 30 minutes, they let the driver go and they drove us to the capital, Maseru. LOL, the cops are always catching me…but I guess they like Americans J

And so before you fall asleep, I planted my garden about 10 days ago. So far my radishes have sprouted along with a bunch of weeds I did not plant. I planted some tomatoes and peppers in egg cartons, but by the time I came home from Mafeteng they were bone dry…I don’t think they’ll make it.

That’s that…for now. Thanks again for all your support…I love you guys…and miss ya for sure!

Detroit/ Lioli game

: Karolina and the slums/ the taxi rank at the Lioli game

PC party and Chris’ b-day; no, both of those drinks are not mine

PC party, Sept. 19th

: We’re so cute and soo PC (sept. 19th)

New-b party, Oct 10th

Karolina, new-b party

Our ride to Morija

Our second ride to Morija

Morija Cultural Fest

Oh, Jess is too cute- but in the background are some of the weavings at Morija

Morija Fest

Awesome herd boys as we are leaving Morija

Here bloggy bloggy…

irenasjourney — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:18:48 +0000

I hope you all are ready for this one…its gonna be a douzy! So, it’s been a fantastic 6 weeks at site. And I have some more pics to post J. Since the last time, let’s see, I’ve had an extremely successful meeting with my weavers, spent time with friends, prepared my garden for planting, helped on a HIV/Aids Speak Aloud, watched a high school beauty contest, and met with a whole lot of people in my area.
From the top: the weavers are currently getting ready for a pretty large craft fair/ festival. There will be handicrafts from several South African countries and in the past years, this event has proven to be lucrative. I am really excited to see all the different crafts and to see how we do. This is a pretty large festival called Morija Fest and it’s in Morija. The fair is at the end of the month so I’ll keep you’ll updated on that. Also, the other volunteer that works with the weavers, Andre and I spoke with the owner of a local internet shop and he allowed to us hang a few weavings in the café. As an internet café it attracts tourists. Perhaps someone coming in will be interested in buying a weaving or will be interested to see more. Andre and I are also making plans to visit all the hotels/ inns/ guesthouses in Lesotho. We are trying to go everywhere tourists go since tourists make up our market.
A couple of weeks ago I went to visit my girl Palesa in Mafeteng. She had several people over as we were celebrating Jessica’s b-day. It was a great time and we gorged on some homemade tacos- YUM! Mafeteng is out of this world…and so is Palesa’s house. Mafeteng is like TY times 10. It’s so intense; there is so much going on and so many people…and it’s huge just like her house. She has a hallway! And electricity, running water, a separate bathroom and bedroom and living room!! It’s like a mansion.
Besides that, I’ve spent good times with Andre and he had a few other volunteers over so we had a great time. We went to eat at the great pork plate place and walked to a fantastic cliff that offered amazing scenery. We also bough some wood…which will come at the end of this blog.
As far as the garden goes…that was hard work, lets be honest, and I haven’t even planted anything yet. I just mixed some cow dung into my dirt to add some nutrients to it. The dirt here is so bad…its almost sandy. It has been so abused over the years…though that’s a whole nother blog. I laid some bricks and called it a day- and it took all day. I am so excited to get planting and have a great variety of fresh vegetables. There is no variety offered here . So, keep your fingers crossed and I’ll keep you posted on this as well.
Now, the Speak Aloud was held at St. Agnes High School which is right close to my house. We have a volunteer there, Karen, and she is amazing. She was in the PC Romania a view years back. Anyway, this was a PC event sponsored by PEPFAR I believe. We had about 30 youth and we had a grouped called OYAP facilitate it. We also have a volunteer from my group, Brice, working with OYAP in TY. So as you can see, several PCVs got together to put this thing on. Basically OYAP is a group that works with youth/ teaches them about many different things, like HIV/Aids through activities. As this was a PEPFAR event, we talked about just that, HIV/Aids and we also offered free testing, free pizza and snacks too. All in all it turned out to be quite a success. The youth had a great time and learned a lot about this epidemic that is sweeping their little country.
Conveniently, on the same day, also at St. Agnes, the school held a sports day and beauty contest. Sports day was great…the beauty contest was so wrong on so many levels. St. Agnes competed against King Moshoeshoe II High School in basketball, volleyball, and Tae Kwon Do. A married couple of PCVs in my group, Ed and Carol, work at King Moshoeshoe and Carol is a black belt in TKD so she was there too.
The beauty contest was held in the assembly hall and for such a conservative place (St. Agnes is an Anglican private school) showcased young girls in bikinis and well their bras! WTF! I’m talking 13 year old girls parading around in their bra, some painted on jeans and heels in front of kids ages 10 and up and adults. Grown men, teachers, faculty. And OMG, the crowed was going absolutely wild. I was in shock, but enjoyed the high energy of the crowd. They also did some dancing and lip singing. They did model some dresses and what not, but nevertheless, I was still blown away.
That’s pretty much it, but I still want to walk you through my experiences buying a piece of wood. So…I walk into a lumber place called Lioli Lumber (deeodee). Side note: Seoli is a person who lives in TY; Lioli are the people who live in TY. Anyway, I walk in to the ‘store’ and tell the man (Man # 1) I need a piece of wood 25” by 70”. He tells me to go into the office and ask the man in there…so I do. The man in the ‘office’ (man # 2) tells me I need to go speak with man # 1 about what I want. So man # 2 and I go back to man # 1 and he tells us to go look at the wood they have available. Man # 2 and I go and I find the wood that I want- some type of particle board or something. So at this time man #1 joins us and I ask them to cut this piece to size. They tell me they don’t cut wood here?!?! Even though I am looking at wood that has been cut. So I find this pile of already cut wood and start looking through it. Believe it or not, I found a piece almost exactly the size I needed so I tell man # 2 I will take this. He tells me to pay man # 1. I go and show him (man # 1) the piece that I want and he tells me the manager is out and he doesn’t know the price without asking her. What the heck?! This is business in Lesotho. So…he throws a price out there and tells me I can come back and get the change in case he has overcharged me, in the mean time he will check with the manager. LOL after 45 minutes I got my piece of wood.
As promised, here are some pics. Love ya!!

Walking up into my yard

Closer view of my home

My house is the door and the window...ends where the concrete seam is. And that's my garden to be in the front

My house, from the front door

To the right...

...and to the right again. we are now back at the door

Turning around now, here is a view from my front door

Another view from the front door, a bit to the left

My M'e's wonderful garden

Our chicken coup and to the far right is where our milking cows live

Behind the chickens

One of our milking cows- isnt she pretty

My beautiful latrine- the one on the right. Someday I'll show you the inside...its real nice

Weavings we hung up at the internet cafe

Best place in town for a plate o' pork...look at the people in the back

Hmm...thats an interesting log

Friends on the cliff- lovin life!

View from the cliff- Lithabaneng