A friend of mine told me before leaving on this trip of an article he had read predicting that Lesotho could be the first country to “disappear” because of disease, particularly AIDS. Lesotho’s prolonged drought and, as the world renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs would point out, its economic isolation as a landlocked country with limited resources are the two other elements of the perfect storm that have trapped this country in poverty.
Travelling around this here one sees some positive signs that Lesotho is getting down to business in dealing with its problems. For instance, there are the billboards that dot the landscape along the highways encouraging the use of condoms. One of my group’s favourite billboards is “AIDS kills…drink Coca Cola.”
Despite having the 4th highest HIV infection rate in the world (it is estimated that nearly 50% of the adult population is infected), Lesotho seems to be much further ahead of other developing countries in meeting this disaster head on. At the other extreme you have South Africa with the highest infection rate in the world, whose president Thabo Mbeki denies that HIV leads to AIDS or that anti-retroviral medications prolong the lives of those infected.
Another positive sign of life here is economic boom that has taken place in the local textile industry in recent years. A number of new factories have been opened since 1999 by Chinese and Taiwanese enterpreneurs to produce clothing for such US companies as GAP and Old Navy. The industry blossomed because of an Act of US Congress that allowed the US to ensure secured market share for poor countries. I’m not entirelysure if I have my story straight, but it seems that because of the WTO, Congress had to let the law lapse, which means Lesotho no longer has guaranteed access tothe world’s biggest market. Once again, Lesotho’s geography works against it and factories here are closing to relocate to Southeast
Asia where labour is as cheap but transportation costs are lower.
Yesterday we got a bit of a Lesotho history lesson. We went to the site of King Moshoeshoe I’s burial. The site is at the top of a mountain where Moshoeshoe and his followers were holed up for a number of years following 1833. Apart from being Lesotho’s first king, Moshoeshoe is its greatest hero, having successfully driven back waves of invaders that were being driven out of their lands by the encroachment of English and Afrikaner settlers. Moshoeshoe followers consisted of people of many southern African tribes. They were a diverse and peaceful people – two
characteristics that are still true today.
The story of Moshoeshoe is an interesting one. He is reputed to be a great diplomat. In addition to bringing together people of diverse backgrounds to create this mountain homeland, he also negotiated with the British government for recognition for his state to ensure that it would not be swallowed up by South Africa.
Speaking of South Africa, after our hike, we jumped in a taxi and headed to Ladybrand, located just on the South Africa side of the border. It took about 20 minutes to travel there but we lost another 20 minutes going through immigration. Once in Ladybrand, we found an Italian restaurant to dine at. We had looked forward to this little excursion for sometime because Maseru has little to offer in terms of nightlife and we were quite jazzed about something out of our usual routine.
As luck would have it there was a little bar connected to the restaurant, so after dinner we were able to hang out with the locals, play some billiards and sample the local swill. My last forray into a drinking establishment you will recall was my visit to the shebeen in the township outside Cape Town. Well this night I was hanging out not with black townshippers, but with white Afrikaners. While I did not have a lot of contact with Afrikaners in my time in Cape Town I noticed that they were quite extroverted, somewhat aggressive and generally associated with themselves (Afrikaners were generally the most reluctant of South Africans to embrace the fall of apartheid). At first I was a little worried about how a gang of rowdy Canadian and American tourists would mix with these locals, especially considering we were accompanied by our Lesotho driver and his friends and especially considering that my first act upon entering the bar was to dump over one of the Afrikaners’ drinks all over him. It didn’t
take long before we overwhelmed the place. Fortunately they seemed pretty good natured about it and there was no trouble all night. I could give you more details of what really happened, but this is a family email. Suffice it to say there was no violence involved.
We spent most of the next day visiting various weavers and artisans in the region north of Maseru, Lesotho’s capital. A few of us bought some local tapestries or other woven items that Lesotho is known for in the part of the world.
This week has been somewhat quiet at the build site. Most of the kids are back at school, though because of limited space they only go for half days. The young ones go in themorning and the older ones in the afternoon. We were relieved to see the young ones arrive home by lunch time because without their welcomed interruptions to our work, the labour can sometimes be a little dull. Since their time available to play with us has been halved since they went to school, we have all noticed that they are more insistant now in the afternoon to get us to play with them. They are such great kids and so respectful, it is difficult to turn them away. They love the attention they get from us. They find my sunglasses cool and find the hair on my arms and my red beard fascinating.
Today we visited there school and had an opportunity to introduce ourselves to the kids of the whole area not just those from Khubela (the Habitat community). It was nice to meet the teachers and meet and chat with the older students of the area.
Only one and a half days left of the build. We finish on Thursday after which we have 3 days of R&R time as a group. We will be travelling to a lodge to do some pony trekking.
sedativegunk 