Out and About

It is a rainy day here in Maphutseng. Usually I would say this is a rare thing, but this week has been full of rain.  Fall is a rainy time, so I have heard.  A rainy friday afternoon seems like a good time to update my blog, or rather upload some more pictures, as it seems like this is what my blog is going to be used for. If you ever want to hear more of the stories feel free to e-mail or comment. 

This post is called 'Out and About' because recently we went on a little expedition to Pietermaritzburg, Durban, Bloemfientien, Maseru, Thaba Bosiu and everywhere in between. The main purpose of the voyage was a spiritual retreat with MCC, but we also did some vacationing along the way. Also 'Out and About' is the phrase that shows off my Canadian accent the best :), according to some of the Americans that have been here.

A group of 200 Basotho and 6 Makhoa on a very long hike. We signed up for the hike, but only because we had no idea how far we would be going.  Well that is not entirely true, but 120 km in 3 days does make you think twice.

On Day 2 we started at 4am. The dots are people with headlamps coming down the hill, seriously.

It was a beautiful sunrise, over a beautiful valley

We could still see the moon

The scenery the was amazing throughout the hike.

Unfortunately, on our longest day of hiking I forgot my hat, so I wore a different kind of apparel

We saw many interesting things along the way, such as this church with no walls

Every time we stopped children showed up to gather the bottles from our water and powerade

On a wet Sunday we made it back to the tar roads

That Sunday was Moeshoeshoe Day. The day celebrating the founding king of Lesotho. This is our Flag

There were many people to greet us at the end, including this group of 'friends' I made

Our fun trip out of the valley

Geese at the toilets at the taxi rank in Quithing

A delicious cup of coffee in Durban (one of the delights of travel)

 Back at Maphutseng, we have been doing a lot of harvesting. Mainly tomatoes, but also maize and beans.

The bean harvest

Some chutney we made from all the tomatoes

Me picking my maize from the first field I ever planted!

The post harvest stalk lodging aka destruction of maize stalks

Well, the rain is stopping, so those are all the pictures for now, hope you enjoyed.

My Host Family

Here are a few pictures of my host family, at least some of the members.

'me Malintle, my host mom, modeling the oven mitts my mom in Canada gave for Christmas

Me and little Rorisang, the grandaughter of 'me Malintle, and part-time resident at our house

Me, Noxolo, 'me Malintle, and Rorisang on our front porch.

There are 2 younger children at our house, but I have already posted pictures of them.  There is also my older host brother, Atang, who you can see in the Christmas pictures. I realized I have not put up a lot of pictures of my family here, so I hope you enjoy.

Where do I see God?

Last Sunday I was supposed to skype with my church in Canada.  Unfortunately, the Internet here does not work well in the evening.  I did prepare some thoughts though that I sent by e-mail ahead of time.  Some of the stories are ones I have blogged about before others are new.  However, all the stories are still relevant to my life here, and I hope you enjoy reading them.

Here are some reflections and stories with you related to some questions my pastor sent me.

The first question was ‘what do I see God doing around me’ and my first thought was ‘what do I not see God doing around me?’ In this place there are so many things going on, so many people working to try to help others, so much community care, so many people trying to understand more of who God is that I wonder ‘where is God not at work?’

But here of some specific instances.

I see a school that is trying to teach conservation agriculture skills to students.  Agriculture is a part of life for almost everyone who lives in Lesotho. Whether people live in a village in the mountains or a house in the capital city everyone has a garden in their yard and in every village families have a field of maize somewhere close by.  However, the yield from many of these plots is poor.  There are a variety of reasons for this, that would take a lot of time to explain, but the poor yields are a problem. The teachers at the primary school know this and want to teach children skills so that they can help their families grow good crops.  There are fields all around the school that the children plant and tend.  The other purpose of these gardens is to provide income to the school.  Primary education is free in Lesotho.  The government pays for everything from teacher’s salaries, to school books for the children.  However, the supplies are very sparse, and there is very little money for infrastructure and furniture repairs, sports equipment and many supplies that would increase the quality of teaching.  So selling produce from these gardens would be a way to provide more money to pay for these things.  This is the vision that the principle and the teachers have for these children, and I see God in that.

Here are some of the kids at that school

I see a mother, who is also a teacher, who took in a female student so that she could finish her education.  This mother was already caring for 3 children, who were not biologically hers, although they were family.  She had already raised 2 children of her own and many relations, and she is now 52.  However, her heart continues to care for those children in her school.  This girl was already 18, but still in grade 7 (the last grade in primary school).  She lived with her Aunt and Uncle in a nearby village.  Her mother passed away when she was younger and her father had been off working in the mines in South Africa. Recently the father also passed away, leaving the girl a double orphan.  The Aunt and Uncle continued to let the girl go to school, but they had been talking about how she should get married since she was 16.  The teacher at school was concerned this girl would not make it all the way through grade 12, if she continued to live at home, so she did the only thing that seemed right, she took another child into her home.  I see God this heart whose love has no boundaries.

I see people who’s attitudes and practices are changing.  Change is hard.  When you have done things the way your parents and grandparents have you are often resistant to change.  That is the way it is with the farmers here in Lesotho as well, they are resistant to new ways of farming.  The project I am a part of is trying to teach people better farming practices.  We are growing crops, which are doing very well compared to the people around here; in order to show farmers, not just tell them about better methods. But it takes time for people to trust and believe that a new method works.  And it takes God working in people’s hearts for them to be ready to change.  However, I do see God working, I do see people trying something new.  One example is our language teacher.  He has never attended training at the project, but he has seen what is happening and talked to people in the village that are using conservation agriculture.  This year he has started using conservation agricultures methods on a small portion of his maize plot.  He has neighbours that think that the new method is ridiculous, but his plants are looking good and people are continuing to change.

The second question was ‘What do I see God doing in me?’  I know I continue to grow through my experience here, but sometimes it is hard to see that while in the middle of things.  I am sure it will be easier to see with perspective, but here are a couple of things I have noticed already.

I am a very independent person that grew up in an individualistic culture.  I am now living in a group culture that is very community minded.  I see this in many ways every day and I have to continually choose whether I will do things my way, on my own, or whether I will let the people around me interrupt ‘my’ way of doing things myself.  As an example here is one story.  Washing clothes by hand is a physically demanding and time-consuming task; I try to resist help, to show that ‘I can do it’.  I like to think of my laundry as a private matter, it is my problem how many clothes I wear and how dirty I get them.  However, as when I brought my wash outside one Sunday morning those around me had a very different lesson to show me.  As I started to work independently, in my little bubble, my 4 year old host sister appeared and started ‘helping’ me soak the clothes.  Just as she was pulling out my underwear 3 small faces appeared smiling and staring, looking at what I was doing.  Two of the children do not even live at my house, but after 8 am on the weekend is fair game for friends to come over.  So my washing had become a community matter.  As I continued doing my wash my 11 year old host sister came over and told me (not asked, just told me) she was going to help me.  When she saw Zane hanging up my underwear she mentioned how when she was little she loved when her mother let her help wash the handkerchiefs.  I have been learning that helping out, and letting others help, is not just about the person doing the task (ie. It’s not about me).  You are letting someone feel valued by letting them be part of your task; to tell them you can do it all alone is saying their help is not appreciated.  This is a communal culture, and your problem is never just your problem or task, as much as you may want it to be.  I feel like interdependence is something God is continuing to teach me.

Another way God is working in me is ‘breaking’ my heart over things I have become callous to.  Here is another story.  America bo pelo ha bo thata. This is a phrase we worked on in our Sesotho lessons.  It means, In America life is not hard.  We were talking about how life is hard in Lesotho these days because of the lack of rain.  When we were asked about what life is like for us, this was our first response.   However, these phrases led to an interesting conversation with our language teacher. We talked about how there actually are problems in North America, how life is difficult for some people there, but our problems are different.  The problem of poor crops, and the effects on people was one major difference.  In the village it is common for people to only eat 1 or 2 meals a day.  If the drought continues this year there will be even less to be and there may be starvation, because people are subsistence farmers.  We contrasted this with the farmer in North America, who can still feed their family in a year with poor crops, because the family does not actually eat the maize.  In fact, we started to talk about how maize is used to make ethanol in North America.  At this point in our conversation the disparity and absurdity of the situation made me cry.  The fact that people in one country barley have enough to eat, while we are burning the very thing that could fill their stomachs, just so that we can drive our vehicles, made my heart feel so heavy. I have thought about the problem of using maize for Ethanol, while in Canada, but the problem never made me cry.  It was not until I came here and was sitting beside the households without enough to eat that the problems became real to my heart.

Prayer is something that is always appreciated.  I have a few things you can pray for, for the people, the project, and for me personally.

Rain in on everyone’s mind these days.  We had late rains this year, we did not plant most of our maize until the first week of December, which is about a month later than usual.  After the rains in December there was almost no rain in January.  This week it has started to rain again, but many of the crops have become quite stressed.  Hopefully the crops will recover, but prayer that we would have good crops, so that the people in this valley are not hungry this next year continues to be on my heart.

You can pray for acceptance of the message we are sharing and people to be willing to change and work with us.  As I said before, this is something God is already at work at here, but it is something we continue to pray for as well.

I would appreciate prayer for wisdom and understanding to work well in such a multi-cultural, diverse setting.  I continue to learn more, and understand more about the people I work with, but there is still so much more.  I feel like I am just starting to get a feel for how things work here and I want to work well within that setting, and help things work even better.

I love hearing from people, and knowing that people are following what I am doing.  I try to post fairly often on my blog about what is happening here. However, life gets busy and blogging often gets left behind, so always feel free to send me an e-mail if you want to hear how things are, or let me know what is going on at home.  If you are interested in sending an old fashion letter, there is a post box in town and letters eventually get to me J

Thank-you for all your support and love and prayers

Sala huntle (Stay well)

Christmas Time in Lesotho

Christmas has come and gone, as has New Years.  However, being in a new culture gives you quite a bit to compare and contrast at this time of year, so I would like to reflect back on my holiday season, and give you a little picture tour of Christmas Day.

The build up to Christmas Day, and the ‘sacredness’ of the days around it are non-existent in Lesotho, compared North America.  There is no Advent series in church, there are no Christmas trees in the houses, there are no Christmas carols in the regular shops, children are not counting down the days until Santa comes.  Christmas here is a religious holiday in the middle of summer holidays.  This is not a bad thing; in fact it is refreshing to see a place where the commercial/consumer mindset has not taken over Christmas.  Also, from what I have heard, Easter is a bigger deal here, which makes far more sense from a Christian point of view.  However, it was still difficult for me to adjust my thinking and accept the low key manner of things when I am used to Christmas being a very special time at home in Canada.  

Now I would like to take you through the story of my Christmas Day, which will also be a story about a typical Sunday here in the valley.  I had been voluntold to make supper, which is typical of a Sunday.  So I got up early to prep, then after a special breakfast (we had granola, which is not on the menu for Sundays) I bathed and headed out to Chruch.  This is the first thing I saw out my door.  

It has become ‘normal’ to me, but I realize that sheep in the front yard would never be ‘normal’ in Brandon.  I walked along trying to keep balanced in my lovely borrowed shoes.  

I did not bring heels, I did not think I would need them.  However, I quickly discovered that all ladies wear black shoes to church and most of the shoes are heels.  It is always amusing to me to see them pull heels out of their purses and slip out of their running shoes just before they get to chuch.  So far I have just worn my sandals, but since it was a special Sunday I borrowed shoes from my host mom, who incidently is only 5 feet tall, so the shoes were a little small. 

As I walked past the water tap (the cement rectangle on the right) I saw the donkeys grazing, just like any other day. 

Along the way I also saw a couple of girls. I had my camera out, so of course they wanted me to take their picture. So here are my new 'friends' posing on Christmas morning.

It is always amazing to me the beautiful view I have whenever I walk out of my house.  In the foreground is the house of a grandmother that I always greet on my way to work.

Continuing along the way I got to the 'door' to the church yard.  It is just a hole in the barbed wire fence. It always makes me smile when I see ladies ducking through in their skirts and heels.

Here is everyone gathering outside under the tree since it was a very hot sunny morning.  It was such a hot day that during the church service we actually had a thunder storm!

The service itself was quite a long affair.  We got there at 11 am and left around 4:30 pm.  There were many different, special parts to the service, because it was Christmas Day.  One of them was christening, there were about 20 babies being christened that morning.

After church I finished making my 'traditional' North American Christmas dinner.  We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and a variety of other dishes.  It was enjoyed by everyone, but especially by the North Americans :)

Left to right: Atang (host brother), Randall (SALTer), Ntate Moletsane (pastor) Me Malintle (host mother)

After dinner we sang Christmas Carols together, a wonderful way to end the evening.

That is the tour of my Christmas in Lesotho.

Merry Christmas!

Today is Christmas eve.  That is hard for me to believe, sitting here in a t-shirt and skirt after watering my vegetables, but the Christmas music helps.  December has been a full and interesting month, although I think that is true of all the months here.  However, since I have not found time to blog during the whole month I think things have been even more busy than normal.  A big part of the business has been planting.  We finally got rain, and lots of it, so we have been planting for the last 3 weeks.  Planting has been slowing down, but since there is such a long growing season I will be continuing to put in more vegetables.  Rather than trying to tell you about the all the different things that have been happening in the last month I will give you a little picture tour.

Yeah for Christmas baking! Gingerbread, yummy!

We took a hike one weekend, trying to get to the far peek but...

...we didn't quite make it all the way!

The couple at a Basotho wedding I got to attend.  This is them at the beginning of the reception.

Weddings involve lots of 'costume' changes.  This is the couple in the traditional 'African' dress.

The wedding was in Quthing, so I got to see where my host mom is from. This is her sister's house where we stayed for the weekend.

Our work Christmas party was at some natural hot springs in South Africa, it was a wonderful treat.

We sat around singing after swimming.  

The other SALTers (people doing the same program as me) came visiting in November and we took a hike with them.

Can you see how long the line is? We are waiting to get back into South Africa, this has become a monthly adventure in waiting.

What do I do with this child? Actually she's alot of fun. A one year old granddaughter that is visiting for 2 weeks, she came back with us from the wedding.

Let is rain, let it rain, let it rain! This is what it has done a lot of this month.

 Well that is all for now folks! I hope you enjoyed the tour. Have a Merry Christmas!

The Simple Things in Life

It is always amazing to me how much more I appreciate things after being without them.  This simple Sunday lunch is a good example of some things I appreciate so much more now that they are not a part of my everyday life.  It may look like quite a simple meal, and it was, but I think I appreciated it far more than some fancier meals I have eaten in Canada.  Can you guess what I enjoyed so much? The ratio of green things to carbohydrates, eggs instead of meat, drinking my juice with my meal, ketchup (or at least the closest thing to it here) and eating with a fork were the main things.  The unseen parts that I considered a bonus were spontaneity (this meal was not on the menu), listening to music while eating and a quite lunch by myself.  I do enjoy eating regular meals with my host family, but this is just an example of how I am learning to appreciate things as a rare treat, rather than expect them as a regular part of life.  

A simple Sunday Lunch

Lesotho in November

Today was the first day it felt like summer here. This is not meant to rub in the fact that it is cold in North America, it is just an observation.  It has not felt like summer yet, even though there have been some very hot days.  Many days I am out working in the field, and it is just too hot to enjoy. But today is Saturday and I was finally able to just laze around in a tank-top and shorts and read a book (I was in the shade, which made being outside enjoyable).  The mountain climate though reminds me of Manitoba, in the variableness of the weather.  On Thursday (which was American Thanksgiving) it felt cold enough for it to be Thanksgiving in North America, but today it is too hot to be comfortable in the sun in the middle of the day.  There is my rambling about the weather, just to give you a little taste of what things are like here.  The more important weather news is that it RAINED this week! There was a lot of rain on Wednesday and Thursday.  Unfortunately it is hot and dry now, but we are hopeful that the rains will continue.  Hopeful enough that we (the project) have been planting and we (my host family) are continuing to plant.

We are getting to the end of school, and the beginning of the holiday season, which means a lot of comings and goings at my host family.  The 2 smallest children left a couple of weekends ago, the oldest girl left last Wednesday and the only other child will leave this week.  However, the house will not be empty for long.  MeMalintle’s son and daughter, plus the daughters child and husband, will be coming for the holidays.  We are going to be visiting family and going to a wedding in mid December as well.  I am looking forward to meeting more of the family and getting to know some new brothers and sisters.  However, I am going to miss having the other children around.  As much as I sometimes wish for my own space, I have grown a love for all the children.  

There have been a lot of groups coming and going at the project as well.  There have been groups from South Africa and Lesotho for training, researchers from Lesotho and America and most recently (and most excitingly) the other young adults doing the same program as me.  It was refreshing to be able to speak English, enjoy conversation and cards and late night star gazing.  It was also wonderful to be able to enjoy some of the foods I have been missing, like fresh vegetables and dairy.  I do get a little bit of each of those, but not nearly as much as at home. 

Well there is a short update on life here in Lesotho.  As always, if you want to e-mail and chat about anything I have said, or ask other questions feel free.

Welcome to my office!