Talking history

So this week I hit the road to finally get started on some interviews here in Lesotho, or what I like to call, the interesting part of my project! It was good to get started with that and I had two really interesting people to talk to. One was a Catholic priest who works at the College of Education (the teacher training institute) and the other is a retired 81-year old who lives out in a small village outside Maseru (see last post about finding him). The attached photos are from that interview because he has rock art (very old stuff and very cool) on his property...the rock it is on forms one side of his sheep pen. Incidentally, stuff like that is what I love about Lesotho...some guy can just have history sitting in his back yard, he takes good care of it and is more than happy to show it to you. Many other places in the world, that would be a national park and you would have to pay big money to see it. Here, just an integrated part of life.
So anyway, I drove out there and had a great conversation with him. He snuck off to school at a young age when he was supposed to be herding animals. He made a deal with a friend who was also herding, each would spend one day at school and the other watching both sets of animals. He ended up as a teacher and worked his way up to the Field Commissioner for the Boy Scouts of Lesotho in the 1960s (as well as a founder of an anti-communist group that later merged with one of the major political parties) so he had some really interesting stuff to say about the days and years leading up to independence. Evidently the Boy Scouts played a big role in the actual celebration of Independence with them helping to get ready for it, acting as marshalls and also doing demonstrations like "pitching tents blindfolded" and other fun stuff like that!
Currently he has going what he calls his "little project" which is all the agricultural stuff you see in the photos. He has probably 2-3 acres until cultivation right now with a variety of fruits and vegetables as well as pigs and chickens. He has three hand-dug earthen dams and a series of pipes and taps so that he can water all parts of the extensive garden. Not bad for a little retirement side project. Evidently the Department of Agriculture is bringing people here as this is a model project and after walking it with him, I can see why!
So yea, life is good. Fieldwork is tough to get started but very rewarding once you get into it. I need to cut this off now because I am going to an international cricket match over in South Africa today--South Africa vs Kenya. Should be a good time. Fortunately it is only a one-day international, about the right kind of time investment for a group (there are about 8 of us going) that only about 1/2 the people really understand the game! Should be fun. I will try to post photos from that this weekend or early next week. Cheers!