Oddities of Lesotho

So I’ve been keeping a list of things that seem odd to us in this fine country, and I have quite a collection at this point. I’m sure this topic will warrant many more posts in the future, but here are a few things we’ve come across so far!

1) Cattle herding in the capital. Here is a picture of the herd of cows that come own our street on a regular basis. As you can see, the cars have to wait for the cows. The herd boy tries to whip them to go faster, but the cows go at their own pace no matter what. It’s a sight. :) We’re told that Lesotho has open grazing and that one of the biggest reasons that the Basotho (that’s the name for people of Lesotho) want to stay separate from South Africa is to preserve this policy of open grazing.

2) Lots of workers, lots of supervisors, lots of sitting and chatting. Things in Lesotho get built on African time. The guard stand out front of our house has taken more than two weeks to take shape. The guards finally got their own bathroom finished yesterday and we’re told their going to have power on Monday. We won’t be holding our breath. We also have been trying to get a shower installed in our bathroom and Jay has been to the house on no less than three occasions with plumbers to discuss the process. Meanwhile, we haven’t seen any progress nor do we know what the timeframe might be. It’s a guessing game.

If we were in America, Jay would just go get the parts and do it himself, but in a country where something like 45% of the people are unemployed, hiring out is important. Not only that, but we have no idea where to find a hardware store, and no car to get there! Our director, Dwight’s, favorite phrase is, “When in Maseru, be patient!” We understand now.

3) Pre-paid in cash is the norm. Everything here is prepaid and it is the norm to pay in cash. The cell phones, the internet, even the electricity is pre-paid! Also, when you go to a store and want to pay with a credit card, they have one line that will accept your card, and it holds up the whole store to have to run the card! People simply get their paychecks cashed and take the cash for the month. Almost all of them get paid on the last Friday of the month, and there’s a huge line for the bank on that day.

While some of our salary will be direct deposited to our American account via electronic deposit, we will also be paid a majority of our salary in Maluti and will have to cash our checks and take the cash since you can’t open a bank account here without residency and residency takes a LONG time (read: about a year). Having been to the bank once already (on a day that was NOT the last Friday of the month), we are not looking forward to this task.

Also, the biggest bill they have here is a 100, and our checks are going to be for numerous thousands (we also get monthly and remember, $1 US = roughly 7 Maluti), so we will end up with a lot of bills to find hiding spots for! Oh yeah! AND you can ONLY go to the branch of the bank to which your institution belongs. So, while there is a branch of the Standard Bank of Lesotho in the mall that is right near to school, we have to go downtown to cash our checks! It’s quite a process!

5) You need a light bulb? What kind of lightbulb? There are several types of lightbulbs that are commonly used in Lesotho. There’s a “regular” screw-in kind (not very popular), a “pin” kind (very popular), and a long florescent (also popular), so before you go to the store to buy lightbulbs you have to investigate which kind of bulb you need. If you don’t get the right kind, you’re out of luck!

6) Termite mounds galore! While driving along in Lesotho and South Africa, one commonly sees whole fields full of termite mounds. There are so many, in such patterns, that it looks as if someone planted them. It’s quite odd, and it explains why they build everything in cement here! Sorry we don’t have any pictures. We usually see them when we’re speeding down the “wrong” way of the highway, and I’m far too pre-occupied to get out the camera!

7) Beware the Tokoloshe! Basotho are a bit superstitious, especially the under-educated. The thing they fear most is a mythical creature called the Tokoloshe (Toe-kah-low-she), which is sort of like a gremlin that supposedly lives in this area. Tokoloshe can bring destruction, and you don’t want them to jump out and attack you, so the best thing to do, according to the Southern Africans, is to put your bed on risers so they can’t get you and cover any gaps under your doors. Our favorite thing to do is to blame small disruptions in our day (of which there seem to be many!) on the Tokoloshe. We’ll try not to bring any back with us when we come, but you might want to invest in some risers just in case!

8) Iceskating in Africa?! The little mall that we have here, which is quite impressive for a middle-of-nowhere type place like this, has brought in an “ice rink” as a special feature for a few weeks. For those of you who haven't been paying attention, it is the start of spring here and it gets quite chilly (read: 30's and 40's Fahrenheit), so people are in the winter mood. Here is a picture of said “ice rink”. The kids who were skating were having a lot of fun, but we were in hysterics at the sorry impression of an ice rink with which they will be left! To us, the rink looked like a linoleum floor with a thin layer of ice on top. :) We can’t wait to see the “ski resort” that is open in the winter (that’s right, Afriski!)

9) On African time, using the Basotho process, which varies depending on who you ask! The effort to acquire a work permit in Lesotho is quite involved. Luckily, our friends, colleagues, and neighbors, the Powells from South Carolina, arrived in Lesotho about a week before we did and got started on the process, so now the school has a better idea of what the exact steps are! To start, we had to get chest x-rays at the private hospital (just to confirm that we did not enter the country carrying TB), a loooong process that involved a lot of waiting and a lot of forms with signatures and stamps.

The next step was to get copies of our passports, certificates, and marriage license certified at the police station. They were closed the first time we went (the hours aren’t posted, but apparently they only certify from 8-11 and 2-3 or something), and when we returned we had to stand in line for quite a while! Once we made it inside, they barely glanced at the actual documents before signing and stamping the copies. One guy did the signing part, while another did the stamping. It’s all very official.

Next we’ll go to the certification office. We were meant to go on Friday, but they apparently were closed and said that we would need an appointment, so we’ll have to look into that next week. Apparently, they don’t like American teaching certificates because they have expiration dates, which Lesotho ones do not, so Dwight (our director) wrote a long letter explaining the expiration dates and he attached descriptors from the Maine Department of Ed. He’s hoping the amount of text alone will intimidate them into just stamping our Lesotho certifications. The thing is that there is a shortage of teachers here, so it really shouldn’t be this hard. It’s all part of the Basotho line of thinking -- things must be done “properly”, but that means something different to each person. You could go one day and get one answer, and go the next day and get a different answer!

Luckily, we have a wonderful “fixer”, the school’s secretary, Vivian, who is assertive and speaks with confidence in Sesotho to all of these officials. That’s her in the picture! She also knows a lot of people in various positions of importance. We are very appreciative of her!!


10) Living a Guarded life. Although Maseru is certainly not a hub for major crime, petty crimes are quite common and ex-pats are, of course, a prime target. Thus we have a guard at our house 24-7, our house is gated, and we were advised to keep all doors locked at all times. The school is also gated and guarded. We were advised that if we were out and got uncomfortable about where we were or what to do, we should go back to school and ask the guards.

While the guards are more for show than for might (they are not armed), it is strange to be guarded. One is never really alone here. It would take effort for someone to not know where you are. We also have to learn all of the customs that go with having a guard. Our ex-pat informant, Donnette, who is from Maine (*HOOT!*) and has lived overseas for years and years, has been our main source for information about this matter. Just so you know, guards are expected to bring their own food, but it is appropriate to provide them with a kettle, coffee, tea, and sugar since it is in your best interest that they stay awake! When the guard stand out front of our house is done (maybe Monday?!), it will have power, and we have purchased the above items for our guards. The primary day guard is our favorite (we can’t pronounce his name yet, but we’ll keep working on it!), and he is quite excited to have that stand done and get his kettle!

Okay, that’s all the odd that will fit in one post! Tune in next time for an update on how school is starting off and pictures of our classrooms. Jay’s first day as an official teacher is Monday, so send him good wishes via e-mail if you would! We have internet at home now, so we’re able to keep up with our on-line communicate a bit better and we would love to hear from you all!!

Malealea Lodge: An introduction to Lesotho and AISL

Dumela All! (Doom–AY-lah = hello!)

We’re back from what is sure to be one of several trips to the lovely Melealea lodge where the mountains are beautiful, the air is crisp, the ponies are tame, the rondavelles are warm, and the spirit is high. The lodge is owned by Europeans, but manned by many Basotho from the nearby village. It was quite well maintained, and they even gave us “conference” facilities with linen-lined tables, a powerpoint station, and waters for each person. We were impressed.

While there are many activities at Malealea, we mostly ate (and ate and ate) wonderful Basotho (bah-sue-too = the people of Lesotho) cuisine, which included a lot of lamb, rice, and epapa (cornmeal paste). While the epapa was not our favorite, it was good to try it, and it goes well with the lovely array of sauces and meats that the Basotho women seem to have such a knack for putting together. We certainly will not starve in Lesotho.

In addition, we saw a Basotho choir and a band! The choir was a bit like a church choir with Sesotho words (they also sang in Zulu apparently...I couldn't tell the difference!). The band, however, played on instruments constructed of found materials like tin cans, and they came with dancers who were amazing! I tried uploading a video to youtube, but it was going to take 43 minutes and eat up most of my internet time, so I'll try to do it later when I'm at school and have a bit more freedom to wait around for it. Look for that soon.

Sesotho lessons were also on the agenda for the weekend. The foreigners were taking notes like crazy and attempting to mimic the young Sesotho teachers, while the Basotho members of our staff sat on the other side of the circle laughing at us and making jokes in Sesotho. I’m sure they had a good time of it. Mostly we came away overwhelmed. We did, however, learn a few phrases and some basic concepts of the language. Today when we said “thank you” (phonetically it’s “KAY ah lah BOW ha”) to the check-out person at the grocery store, she said “Oh, you speak Sesotho?!” I laughed and laughed!

One of the other highlights of the weekend was the pony trek. It was awesome. The ponies are well trained to follow each other in a line and navigate the sometimes steep paths, so it was quite fun to just enjoy the view and the ride. Here are a few pictures from our time!



The hat in that last picture is a traditional Basotho (pronounced Bah Sue Too) hat that we bought at the local arts market. We were delighted to have one (we've seen tons of pictures!) and happy to be supporting the local economy. We also bought two wool wall hangings, and have one happily hung here in our living room. They're quite amazing!

The most important part of the weekend was getting to know our colleagues. There are 17 teachers and 5 assistants along with office personnel and, our personal favorite, the bus driver, Ntate Fred (Ntate = father, but you use it as “Sir” to show respect to elders). Our group divides up into teams of Early Ed., Lower School, and Upper School, and the Upper School team seems like an especially wonderful crew. We had a great experience getting to know everyone and asking tons of questions about life in Lesotho and teaching at AISL. It is sure to be a year of first attempts and team efforts. We’re excited.

When we got home it was off to the store and then home to laundry. Here is a picture of our first load!

That’s right, it’s all done by hand until we get a machine, which will require them to build a room off the side of our house. Seeing as how the guard stand that was going to be done on Saturday is still unfinished tonight (Thursday), I have a feeling it will be a while before our laundry room is finished! We will be getting some household help (it’s the norm, and it’s a great way to support the local community), so we won’t have to do it all ourselves, but things move slow here, so we’ll be patient and do a load each night until then. Hand washing of course means line drying and ironing, so we’ll be honing those skills. If you have any tips for making things really clean or really unwrinkled, we’ll take ‘em!!

Okay, that’s all we have time for today! We hope you are well and would love to hear from you via e-mail! We hope to have internet at home by the end of the week, but until then we’ll be at school regularly, so we’ll have access.

Hello from Lesotho!

Okay! Okay! We'll write an update already! :)

We made it!! It was a veeeeeeeery loooooooong trip, but we're here now and happy of it!

South African airlines is a lovely airline. They have great food (as you can see in the picture) and the seats were adequately sized. We had an empty seat beside us, so we switched off having the seat next to the empty so that we could spread out a little more. We did do lots of walking and stretching, but apparently not enough since my (Sarah) ankles were HUGE when I arrived in Jo-burg. We watched a few movies on the plane including Endgame (about the end of apartheid in S. Af.) and Date Night (hilarious! We were afraid we were waking people up because we were laughing so much!). All-in-all a great flight except that it was 15 and a half hours long.

Arrival in Jo-burg was pretty uneventful. We had shrink wrapped our luggage and zip tied the zippers for protection (see picture), but we don't think that we really needed to. Most of the other bags were not protected as such. Dwight, the director, was right at the other side to meet us and swept us off to the parking lot where some "helpful" S. Africans put our bags in the car (quite illegally, but we figured that three of us could take them if we had to and the bags were shrink wrapped anyway...).

From Jo-burg we headed south to Maseru. We stopped a few times to get out and walk around. The ride was terrifying at points (driving at break-neck speeds on the "wrong" side of the road!), but also fascinating. It actually looked a lot like Eastern Montana prairie land. If you have been there, you can definitely see what I mean from the picture below. However, at several points we went through towns where there was an African shanty-town on one side of the road and beautiful houses where white Africans lived on the other side of the road. I've included a picture of one a shanty-town below. It's not the best picture, since I was unprepared to take a photo in the first shanty-town we passed through, which was much closer. This was the best I could do. The white houses off to the right of this on a hill. It was a painful reminder of how deeply apartheid affected this area. It has definitely not yet recovered in full. Will it ever? We keep hope.

Customs in Lesotho was a little different than that in Jo-burg. They made us get out of the car to go into a building to have a person stamp our passports on two different occasions. I was unclear why we had to do that twice, but I guess that's how it always goes. Meanwhile we had 6 suitcases and all kids of carry-ons, but they didn't seem to care about checking. Dwight just said "We have nothing today. Just personal affects!" and we were good.

The border crossing is right at Maseru, and we came to the school direct from the crossing so that Dwight could grab us an extra blanket from the stash in his office. The school is beautiful! I've included some pictures here and there will be more in the weeks to come.

This first picture is our "house" where we both have our classrooms. The rooms are big. We'll send pictures once they're set up.

Here's Dwight (the director) with the new sign in front of the main office.

And to your right you will find a picture of the campus from the front porch of our "house". They have thatched picnic umbrellas over some tables in the commons. It's very beautiful!

After a brief stop at school, we headed to our houses, which are in the Thetsane neighborhood below the Pope stand (I'm sure you're all very clear on where that is!). The picture to the left shows the view of the Pope stand from our house. It's where the Pope came to speak when he came to Lesotho (when was that? I don't know...).

The house is in great condition and we have a lot of space. We went grocery shopping yesterday (600 rands = about 84 dollars, but we had some relatively expensive essentials to buy (ziplock bags, spices, oil), so it probably won't be that much every time) and going on Saturday to Bloomfontain to furnish it more thoroughly. They're building a guard stand in front of the house. There are many more construction workers than there probably need to be and there's always an overseer there who doesn't do much. We were shocked to learn that they plan to be done on Saturday. We doubt that will happen...


The kitchen has a nice sink, the all-important electric kettle (good for tea, oatmeal, and purifying water!), a good sized fridge and an "interesting" (read: very crooked burners that may or may not function) stove. There are no drawers and the "lazy susan" doesn't really turn, but we'll definitely be able to make it work. In fact, last night we made stir fry with rice, and it was delicious.

Thank you to Maureen and Brian (our neighbors and fellow teachers from South Carolina) who gave us a heads up to bring curtains and to my mom for pushing us to buy them. We have 24 hour security and a lot of windows, so we really needed those! The living room and dining area are looking pretty good. Now we'll just add some pictures and maybe a little area rug. We also get to redesign the area around the coal stove in the living room so that it looks a little nicer. You can't really see it here, but it's basically a stove on a sheet of metal nailed to the floor.

Interestingly, the toilet and the bathroom are two separate areas in our house. The toilet is currently running quite a bit, so we have a request in to get that fixed (the slogan here, however, is "when in Maseru, be patient!), and the bathroom needs some work to get a shower set up that doesn't require sitting in the tub. However, both are functional for now. We'll also have to purchase some mats for those rooms, because the floors are FREEZING in the morning (it's Spring here in mountainous Lesotho).

Beds in Lesotho are made with a bottom sheet and a covered duvet. Our duvet cover has African women on it, and is very cool. We did end up having to use that extra blanket that Dwight brought from the school, since it gets chilly here at night (in the 30ish degrees Fahrenheit), everything is made of cement, and there is no heating to speak of. We do have an electric heater in our room, but we've opted not to use it yet (we're told that May is particularly chilly, so we'll hold out). We are going to the mountains on a retreat this weekend with the staff, so we're going to bring our winter jackets and hats for that, since we can only imagine how chilly it will be at night up there!

Alright, that's all I have time for today. Next time I'll give you an overview of Maseru living and probably de-brief the retreat that we're headed on. Look for an update next week on Wednesday.

Till then! ~S&J

'Twas the Night Before Jo'burg

Just a little update from the road to Lesotho!

We've had a wonderful array of going away parties and early birthdays for Jay. A huge heartfelt thanks to everyone who had a part in those. I'm including a few pictures of the gatherings for you here:

From our trip to Tennessee in Julyto visit Sarah's Dad and family:
From our final Sea Dogs game with the Blanc family:

From a friends goodbye party at Steve and Kim's House:

From our Harrington Going Away Bash/Birthday Party for Jay:

From an 8 Red Reunion/Goodbye at the Blanc's house:

From a farewell picnic/concert with our 6 Grant neighbors and friends:

From a final farewell and Birthday bash in Montana:

We love you all and are excited to keep in touch with you using the blog and e-mail and skype and all those fabulous technological communication tools that we have to stay close. This is all part of the adventure!

In other news, we had a fabulous time in Montana visiting everyone and hanging out in Glacier Park. We hiked quite a bit and saw some amazing animals like these Grizzly Bears (Yep. They were that close!!):

And this pooping Whitetail Deer:






We also made a pilgrimage to one of Sarah's favorite spots on earth, Avalanche Lake:We spent the evening re-packing bags to make sure they aren't overweight. We now have five 50 lb bags and one 68 lb bag. It was a lot of rearranging and use of the luggage weight, but all is well now! We aren't quite sure what a 15hr 25 min flight followed by a 4 hr drive feels like, but we're interested to find out. It's all part of the adventure!

Okay, that's all for now. Next time: A review of our trip and first impressions. Stay tuned!!

The Move: A visual update

If you can't get the movie to work on this page (it takes a while, I've found), try clicking here to view it right on youtube.

It's been a long three days, but we're still hanging in! Thanks for checking in! We will depart for Johannesburg on August 17, arrive on August 18 in the morning and then drive to Maseru by car.