John's Lesotho Blog

Signing off

2009-05-30T22:06:00.003+02:00

Hi everyone. This will likely be my last blog post because my time here is running very short--I leave on Tuesday. Just wanted to thank you all for your support over the past 10 months. It has been, as always, a good stay in Lesotho. I have made good research progress, have been able to keep up with many old friends and make others. It is always sort of bittersweet to leave. On one hand, it is always good to come home. On the other, I really like Lesotho and a part of me always finds it hard to leave. The best summation I can come up with is a Sesotho expression that lLiterally translated means "I have remembered." The phrase, however, implies that you have good memories tinged with nostalgia, so Lesotho: Ke hopotse. I will be back at some point, but for now it is fond farewell. Stay well.

Going out with 90km of bang

2009-05-20T17:54:00.002+02:00

So this week on Sunday I will be down in the South African province of Kwa-Zulu Natal for that country's premier running event, the Comrades Marathon. I have mentioned on here before that I was going to do it, but now that I am but 3.5 days away from the event it is starting to sink in. I have been writing a series of articles on the race itself, its history, the most famous competitors and now my training. They have been going up on the web at: http://www.RunningTimes.com

This is no normal 'marathon' but rather two marathons plus an extra 5 km (3.1 miles). It will be quite the event with over 12,000 people entered. You can find more information about the race here: http://www.comrades.com

I am looking forward to it all. You can find results there and even live television from a number of points on the course (not that it will help those of you in North America as it starts at 5.30 AM South African time and I hope to be done by noon local time). Still, feel free to check it out.

Back in Lesotho, I am starting to say my goodbyes and have wrapped up most of my research except for a few interviews with friends that I still might try to squeeze in. Also, big congrats go out to my sister Katie and her husband Joel on the birth of their first child, a boy (I have not yet heard the name...even with the internet, sometimes news takes time to get down here)! Stay well.

Winding down

2009-05-09T13:37:00.004+02:00

Hi everyone, I know it has been a while since I posted on here. I am coming into the home stretch of my time in Lesotho. I will be leaving here on the 2nd of June so I have just over three weeks left. I have been doing a bit of travel, trying to wrap up my research and see all the friends here that I need to touch base with before I head for home. I don't feel close enough to the end yet to do a summation post...that can wait for later. My last few weeks will be busy as well trying to tie up loose ends and make sure that I am taking a lot at last minute research materials and getting in last-minute interviews. I am also running the Comrades Marathon (a 56 mile race) in two weeks and have been writing a series of articles on the race for Running Times magazine (http://www.runningtimes.com).
The photo here was taken on a beautiful Easter day a couple of weeks back now. I went up to see an old friend in the northern part of Lesotho and the light was just stunning for the drive back home.
This week I managed to interview two of the sisters who run St. Rodrigue (where I used to teach high school). It was great to see both of them (one is still the principal of the school) and to hear their stories. They were very easy interviews to set up and do because I have known both of them since 2002--another example of my research being greatly aided by my prior experience here--and they both had some very interesting insights on independence and what young people were thinking about it.
So, life is good. Fall is well advanced here with trees dumping leaves and the nights quite chilly. My morning runs have been crisp, to say the least, these past few weeks. It will be interesting to dump myself straight from early winter into a St. Louis summer in a few weeks, but I think I will be able to handle the transition! Stay well.

Also for those who have not been following the BBC article on HIV/AIDS in Lesotho that has focused on St. Rodrigue's clinic for the last six months, the last series of articles is up and they are excellent. Here is the one for the local chief, you can access the other people on the right side of the page after you get to his article. It is sobering, yet uplifting reading.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8026975.stm

Training in the mountains

2009-04-18T16:03:00.002+02:00

As some of you know, I am training to run the Comrades Marathon (a 56 mile race in South Africa) in addition to my research. I have been putting in a lot of runs since I arrived back in August--the race is in May. This weekend I decided to run the last long run of my training and I decided that Maseru was far too tame a venue for this event. I had already done a 50km (31 mile) training run here back in March but decided that a few more hills and another thousand feet of altitude were in order. What was I thinking? Not really sure, but I went for it anyway.
On Friday after a day of research at the university instead of heading for Maseru, I made the drive down to one of the best tourist lodges in Lesotho (and possibly the world, if you are ever here, check it out)...Malealea. I arrived in time for dinner and spent a relaxing evening here. Saturday morning I got up bright and early to (attempt to) conquer the hills. Malealea is at about 6000 feet and I was going up a road toward St. Rodrigue, where I used to teach) that would get up to 6200, drop to 5600 and climb back up to 6200, at which point I would turn around and do it all in reverse. The only hitch in this plan was that I had to carry all my water and I had a touch of the flu last week.
The scenery was amazing for the run, high mountain peaks, the Makhaleng River valley down below (Lesotho's 3rd or 4th biggest river) and a host of scenic villages to pass through (ie an opportunity for 5 or 6 kids to run with me for a couple hundred meters). It was a good run, a beautiful run even until I got to about 35 km (the low-point river crossing on the way home). I was running out of water and my body was telling me that I should have turned around at 21km (making the run a marathon) instead of dragging it out to 25 km, but at that point, what is one to do?
In this case, it meant walking most of the way up the large hill (600 feet of climbing in just over a mile) and then taking turns jogging and walking until I got to just over a full marathon (43km), asking a local high school student who was sitting by the road where the village water tap is, refilling my bottles and taking the shortcut back to the lodge. Sadly the shortcut only cut about 3-4km off the trip and involved going down and up from two different small rivers. So I made it back to the lodge chastened to listen better to my body, especially when I have been sick, but also confident that if I can undergo epic journies like this at altitude then I should be able to get through it when I am down at sea level for race day.
I also managed to talk my way out of a traffic fine (that was largely bogus to begin with) by telling the cops the names of the villages I had run through as I was driving back to Maseru later that afternoon. They thought if anyone was crazy enough to try that and knew the places, they had better let me go, I guess! Stay well.

Research ups and downs (why I will never be a reporter)

2009-04-08T08:57:00.002+02:00

Autumn is in full swing here. As I sit at the desk in my apartment I watch the leaves on the tree outside turn yellow and fall off. It also means my time here is drawing down as I come back to the US in June. The other day I drove south from Maseru to possibly try to interview a woman that a friend told me would be an interesting person to talk to and to go to the Protestant Church archives. I went back and forth on the 30 minute drive over whether I wanted to stop and try to talk to this woman. I knew where she lived as my friend had pointed out her house, but I had never met this woman before and had no phone number for her so I couldn't call in advance--it was going to be a cold call or nothing. After mentally debating for about 25 minutes the turnoff was rapidly approaching and I finally decided to just go for it. I bounced over the dirt road to her house, stopped and went to knock on the door of her house. Turns out I tried the wrong door. There were voices inside but the door on the other side of the house was the one that they used so I cautiously went around.
Standing there in the doorway was a very small almost 80 year old woman. I greeted her and introduced myself in Sesotho (including my connection with the friend who had met this woman earlier) and, as has happened so many times here, she welcomed me warmly into the house and we sat down in the living room. We ended up having a great, wide-ranging 45 minute interview as this woman had been a primary teacher and an organizer for the school's Junior Red Cross and Girl Guide groups. She was a very spunky woman who loved to laugh as she told stories so transcribing the tape is more fun than usual as she had a good laugh at a few of my questions!
This interview has gone like so many other ones that I have had here and makes me thankful that I ended up in such a friendly place. Imagine this scenario playing out in the US: a random guy speaking only a bit of your first language shows up at the door claiming that so-and-so gave your name to him and he wants to ask you some questions about history. Would you welcome him into your house and answer his questions? Here the answer has been yes almost 100% of the time and for that I am grateful. Still, I dread the cold-calls and don't think I will ever make a career of something like journalism or sales where cold-calls are a big part of the job! Stay well.

Fortuitous timing

2009-03-26T18:00:00.002+02:00

I know I just posted the other day, but I have a good story. So I made it out for a run this morning even though I was not very motivated to get out of bed. As a concession I ran a shorter, flatter 7-mile loop rather than the hilly 8-miler I had planned. I still wasn't feeling very good about 2.5 miles into the run but then I saw a guy coming the other way down the road also running. I gave him a friendly wave and he turned to come with me, which happens on a fairly regular basis here as there aren't that many people running. Company is always nice. So we start chatting and he figures out pretty quickly that I am American. Not too tough to do, but he starts telling me how he used to know a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers. Again, nothing too unusual as the Peace Corps has been here since 1967 or so and tends to keep between 80 and 100 volunteers in a rather small country. Many people here have been taught by or lived in the same village as a Peace Corps volunteer and they do some good work.
Where the story turns is when he told me where they were from: New Jersey, Grinnell, Iowa, (someplace I didn't hear because my ears were burning). I interrupted him and asked if he knew Ntate George and 'Me Sue and he said YES! I couldn't believe it (for those who don't know, 'Ntate George' is George Drake, my undergraduate advisor who was here with his wife in the Peace Corps 1991-93 at St. Rodrigue and he was the instrumental is setting up the teaching program there that I did in 2002). Turns out he was in school at St. Rodrigue primary when George and Sue were there and he used to come visit them. His family would also lend one of their horses to Sue so she could get to some of the mountain primary schools so she could run workshops for the teachers. They also helped him through high school by putting him in touch with a group called Friends of Lesotho (http://www.friendsoflesotho.org) that helps students in Lesotho with school fees.
So we ran together for 4 or 5 miles chatting away and having a great time. The timing of it all and the close connections really turned around the run and made my day a great one. It really is the personal connections that make living away from home and doing mostly solitary work worth it. Stay well.

Autumn

2009-03-24T20:58:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone. The equinox came and went last week on Friday--a day of amazingly comfortable temperatures and cobalt blue sky. In other words, vintage autumn around here. Like the American Midwest where I grew up, autumn might be the best season around here. The weather is usually good with little rain and clear days where you feel like you can see every detail on the mountains no matter how far away they are. The photos here were taken on my trip down to the southern-most district of Lesotho, Qacha's Nek. I took the buses down there and stayed with a friend who is a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching in a small village on the bluffs overlooking the Orange (Senqu in Sesotho) River. It was a fabulous couple of days and I got some good interviews in while I was there, including one with an amazing women whose husband was frequently gone either in jail or in exile because he was a Communist Party organizer in Lesotho. While he was gone, not only did this woman raise her family, but she was also the point person that political refugees would come to when they were fleeing apartheid South Africa. They knew to slip across the border and find her at this tiny village and she would help them get to Maseru and other points in Lesotho where there were more support networks to assist them. A 20th century Underground Railroad...that mainly used the small airplane connections that Qacha's Nek had at that time with Maseru (they only finished paving the road that goes between the capital and the district in 2005 or 2006). Yet another fascinating story that I had the honor and privilege of listening to in my research here.
If it doesn't come through in these posts, I just want to say that I am eternally grateful for the number of people here in Lesotho who are willing to humor a stranger showing up at their door asking them questions about the past. When I look back on my time here the majority of the mind-blowing moments I will have had came about because of the generosity and openness of people who were complete strangers to me a matter of minutes before. Kea leboha haholo, batho ba Lesotho (Thank you very much, people of Lesotho)!
Stay well.

Moshoeshoe's Day

2009-03-11T15:43:00.003+02:00

Today (March 11th) is Mosehoeshoe's Day--the anniversary of the death of the first Morena e Moholo (literally translated, the High Chief...or as it has come to be known, the King although Moshoeshoe would not have recognized the title) in 1870. The day is a public holiday and an opportunity for the country to reconnect with its heritage as Moshoeshoe is the Morena a Moholo who brought a disparate group of people together to form what is today the Basohto nation and fought a series of wars against other African groups, the British and the Afrikaners to defend the land that is today Lesotho (although people here are to this day wishing for the return of some of their lands which now fall in South Africa).
So I went downtown in the morning to check out the festivities. The current King Letsie III was there as was the Prime Minister and the entire diplomatic corps stationed in Lesotho. It was an interesting time. I ran into a Kenyan friend who I run with so we hung out and watched the proceedings. The man in the blue blanket in these pictures is Letsie III. He is very well respected and received the loudest cheers when his horsemen and motorcade made a dramatic entrance. You will see his horsemen in front of the army honor guard and band in the first photo. They were quite the site trotting in formation and carrying long spears with Lesotho flags on the ends.
The seocond photo shows (barely) the King about four people in front of me accepting a torch from two runners who brought it from Thaba Bosiu (the mountain stronghold and home of Moshoeshoe) that morning. They would then light the torch. I was about 10 feet from all of this. Again, very cool.
Then the King, the Prime Minister and other high ranking officials and army officers made their way to the top of the hill to pay their respects to Moshoeshoe at a large statue on the top of the hill that was unveiled the day before independence in 1966. As a historian it was an interesting event and as someone who really enjoys Lesotho and the Sesotho culture, it was quite the day. I didn't stay for the speeches as the acoustics were bad, but I can read about them in the papers later this week. It is hard to say which day means more to people here--the actual independence day on October 4th or Moshoeshoe's Day on March 11th.
Stay well.

Surrender Hill Marathon

2009-03-07T17:11:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone. Hope you are well. I was over in South Africa on Friday and Saturday doing an interview with a former colonial agricultural officer in Lesotho (or, more correctly in Basutoland most of the time he was there) and also running a marathon. As some of you know I am planning on running the Comrade's Marathon this year, a 56 mile (89 km) footrace from Pietermaritzburg to Durban (two cities down in the southern African province of Kwa-Zulu Natal). in order to do that you have to have run at least one marathon length race or longer in the previous year. So I figured I had better get on that!
I chose the Surrender Hill Marathon in Clarens, Free State mostly because it was close--less than a two-hour drive from Maseru. While it is beautiful country as you can see, it is also tremendously hilly and at an even higher altitude than Maseru. The race started at 6000 feet (about 2000 meters) and featured over 1700 feet of climbing (and 1700 feet of descending) over the course of the 26.2 miles (42.something km). It was pretty brutal, but also spectacular. I needed to finish under 3 hours to start where I wanted to at Comrade's so that was my only goal. I managed to stumble home in 2:51, which was good enough for 4th place--a distant 4th as the top three were all professional runners from Lesotho who took home the prize money. It was a good time and I got a good interview the day before so we will call it a successful weekend.
The two photographs were taken on the course on the way home. The first two were both taken at the top of the actul Surrender Hill (the hill was a place where a bunch of Afrikaner soldiers surrender to the British army during the South African War, 1899-1902). One is looking down it to the turn around point, which was cruelly located at the bottom near the grove of green trees, so we came down it and had to turn around and go straight back up! The other one just shows the magnificent views from the top of Surrender Hill. The third photo shows me with Bruce Fordyce, probably South Africa's greatest long-distance runner. He won the 89km Comrade's Marathon an unreal nine times in the 1980s and 90s and at one point had the world record for the fastest time over 50km and 50 miles. His mother lives in Clarens so he comes down to jog a half marathon and hand out awards. Pretty neat guy.
Stay well.

Reminders

2009-03-04T14:46:00.002+02:00

Lest you think that every day of doing historical research is highly entertaining and interesting, today serves as a good example of the mundane stuff that takes up a lot of my time. I am alternating between straining my ears to try to transcribe an interview I did the other day with a very soft-spoken man who wanted to keep watching a soccer match while we talked. It was a bit distracting at the time of the interview, but nothing compared to trying to decipher what exactly he was saying at various points as I feel like I can hear the soccer commentators better than I can him at many points! When I can't take that anymore I start going through the files of notes and scanned newspaper articles that I picked up the last time I was down at the archives at Morija (the main archives of the largest Protestant Church here in Lesotho). I read through the articles and notes and tag them in an organizing program so that when I go to write my dissertation and want to find all the sources I have that talk about 'opposition parties', the 'Boy Scouts' or 'Agricultural training projects' I just search for those phrases and up pops a list of all the documents I have that mention the topic. Quite tedious work, really, but all part of the job.

However, just when I was forgetting where I was today as I bunker down in front of the computer with my American music playing for company, my ears pick up what sounds like a large group of people chanting or singing in unison. While this is far from unusual for Lesotho, it is not coming from the school just down the hill from my place (I can hear all the children there happily playing after school) and I am not sure where it is coming from. Finally, I figure it might be people coming down the road where I live so I poke my head out the door. Sure enough, about two minutes later as the singing gets louder I see the entire cadet cohort of the Police Training College dressed in identical white t-shirts and royal blue pants with a gold stripe down the leg come jogging slowly by in formation singing. It is quite an impressive sight, especially as their trainers flank them to block traffic on the more major roads. To do this, they carry very long branches that they broke off birch-like trees to warn motorists, if they couldn't see, that there is a large formation of recruits coming down the road, boats striking in unison and singing at the top of their voices.
Stay well.

Taking stock

2009-02-28T14:56:00.002+02:00

Hello again. About a week ago I passed the 6-month mark of this trip. Summer is starting to fade out a bit here, although the unseasonable rains have made this one of the most comfortable summers I have ever experienced with daytime highs in the 70s and nighttime lows around 50. Good for running, good for work, good for living and the farmers! About the only thing suffering from all the rain is the topsoil which is eroding even faster this year and heading downstream to South Africa and the Atlantic Ocean.
So after another six months living in Lesotho, where do I stand? My work seems to be progressing well. I am gathering together a nice collection of very interesting interviews, most averaging an hour and a half of sitting and chatting. Having invested in a scanner my computer is also filling up with scans of newspapers from the 1950s and 60s along with photographs, election posters, anti-communist literature and other random documents that I happen to come across when I have the scanner and access to electricity. So work, while it does drag at times like when I am trying to get in touch with people who are not easy to track down or when I think about spending another day by myself in the archives digging through dusty boxes of yellowed, musty newspapers, would have to be called a success so far.
Socially, it has been a lot easier to find things to do then I expected coming here to live in a new city where, outside of a few teaching friends who have their own families, I really didn't know anyone. Through a series of fortuitous coincidences and random encounters I have managed to make some pretty good friends here and now keep as busy as I would like. I have also been running a lot, some on my own and some with two different groups--one a group of South African bank employees who are serious marathoners and ultra-marathoners, and the other a group of younger Basotho who are trying to make the jump from decent school runners into the ranks of those who could conceivably compete for cash prizes at some of the road races in Lesotho and South Africa. Both push me in different ways and both are a lot of fun to hit the roads, hills and trails of Maseru with. I will be running a marathon next weekend in South Africa to qualify for the Comrade's Marathon, which is a 56-mile (89 km) race between the cities of Pietermaritzburg and Durban. Needless to say, it is a big undertaking. It will go down in May, a little over a week before I leave to come back to the US.
Of course I still maintain contact with St. Rodrigue (the high school where I used to teach) and some of my oldest friends here in the country come from that connection. So on the whole, while I won't say that the time has flown by all the time, it sure surprised me to realise that I had hit the 6-month mark. I dare say the final three months will go faster as work gets more pressing and my departure date gets closer. Stay well.

Rain and theories

2009-02-22T22:32:00.004+02:00

For much of the spring (September-November), many people in Lesotho were fervently hoping and praying for rain (some of the sisters at the school where I used to teach had gone for a pilgrimage to another mission to pray for rain when I went up there to visit back in August). People need it to loosen up the rock-hard ground after the cold winters here in order to plow and plant. They also need it to water the grass that the ubiquitous cows and sheep feed on. Lesotho is also just a much more pleasant place to live when the hills and mountains are green rather than the dull, dusty brown that comes with winter.
After much delay the rains finally came in mid to late November, about two months late but just barely in time for most people to still get in a decent crop for the year. We had wonderful summer weather for a few months, but in late January, it turned again. Since then we have had a period of fairly intense rain that is somewhat unusual for the region. Full days of rain. For two or three days at a time separated by a day or two of warm sunshine. This part of the world is known for its impressive summer thunderstorms, but not its full days of rain and low gray clouds.
It has made the summer not very hot. Many days here of late we are only getting up to 20 or 22 degrees C (around 70 F). Almost everyone I talk to has said that the rain is unusual and I agree heartily with them. No one can agree on causes, but many people have pet theories ranging from global climate change to the effect of putting two very large new lakes in the high mountains of Lesotho. No matter why it is coming, it has certainly breathed life into the fields of Lesotho and made the rivers, which can run to a trickle or even nothing in the winter, into raging torrents that flow over the low bridges built on the gravel and dirt back roads of Lesotho and take enormous quantities of brown muddy water and the topsoil of this country down into South Africa and eventually the Atlantic Ocean.
Stay well.

Around Lesotho

2009-02-19T09:31:00.002+02:00

It has been a while since I have posted, but my parents were here for a visit. I don't really have anything profound to write. We had a great visit and it was a lot of fun to show them around Lesotho (it was their first time visiting the country). It rained a lot but that just made the back-country dirt/gravel roads more interesting! Fortunately we were not in my little car, but in something a little more powerful with four-wheel drive. The pictures here are just a few that I took. The stone house is the house of the first King, Moshoeshoe I. It was built in 1839 and is still standing on his mountain fortress, Thaba Bosiu--Mountain of the Night. The rest of scenery pictures. The waterfall is up at Semonkong, the 200 meter tall Maletsunyane Falls and the photo of the three of us shows St. Rodrigue, the school where I taught and which the BBC is currently documenting, in the background. Enjoy the photos and I will try to find something more deep and profound to say in future posts! Stay well.

Month end

2009-01-31T21:19:00.002+02:00

For those who have never lived in places where virtually every person is paid at the end of the month (or at the best, twice a month), there is very little to compare the phenomenon that is month end, especially here in January where many people are short on money because they spent a lot on the holidays. Plus the new school year just started two weeks ago so people need cash to pay school fees (all high schools in the country have tuition fees, books, uniforms, etc that parents ad guardians have to fund).
What does this mean for daily life here in Lesotho? It means that last weekend was a very quiet one in town with precious few taxis full of people speeding towards town. This week was the complete opposite. Everyone from the suburbs around Maseru and even many rural areas have to come into town to use the banks and ATMs to access their cash. So from about Thursday there were enormous lines at all the banks. And by enormous I mean sometimes they stretch for two blocks and people will wait over an hour to use an ATM. Today as I was running through the center of town at 7.30 AM, there were already long queues at all the banks even though they would not open for at least another hour. I guess it pays to get their early and get out. This means that the stores and the shopping areas of town, like the bus station, were also totally packed as people make their necessary purchases.
It is also a time to kick back and relax with friends, so when I ran past a public bar at 6.30 this morning there was already a loud-speaker set up blasting out the local famo music (which is accordion and guitar based with guys singing over the top of a bass riff...I find I don't really mind it unless I am sitting in a taxi with the volume turned up to 11 and the speaker right next to my ear) and people already hanging out. There are always more parties and get-togethers at month end as people can afford to spend a bit more on food and drink.
I can't say that I really like month-end. Going back to my teaching days, riding the bus at month-end was always a unique experience as it was the most crowded (and hot) time as the conductors continued to cram people in long after it was over-full. Now living in Maseru, month-end means there are more people on the roads who might have had a few too many drinks and it is harder to take care of errands as all the stores and offices are more crowded. However, to really experience and understand life here you need to be aware and sensitive to the ebbs and flows of the cash cycle. Sorry I don't have any photos for you this time, but my camera needs batteries and I wasn't going to get in the crush today just to get those!
Stay well.

Human nature and diverse experiences

2009-01-21T15:20:00.005+02:00

So yesterday I had three very different experiences that sort of sums up the different circles I run in around here. During the day I spent my time in a small village out near the mountain where the first King of Lesotho gathered together a disparate group of individuals and made them into the Basotho people of today offering them shelter and security in a time of great unrest in exchange for loyalty and fighting for him in battle when it was needed. The old men I was interviewing (with the help of a Mosotho friend as my Sesotho language skills wasn't quite good enough for full-length interviews) were both prophets in an African independent church that was formed in the 1920s and takes its name from the founder of the nation, Moshoeshoe. Both of them emphasized during the interview that they are not the ones controlling their message and that Moshoeshoe himself must have had a deeper understanding of religion (ie sent from a higher power) because while he invited missionaries of different denominations into his country (in the 19th century, a time when denominational differences between various Christian groups mattered a lot more than they seem to today in the West), he himself never joined any of the churches. He saw them as useful to his mission and for his people but stayed above them in order to try to preserve peace in his country.
Then in the late afternoon I found myself sweating on the hot streets of Maseru running hill repeats with a disparate group of Basotho ranging in age from late teens to well over 50 who all meet in the afternoons to do some training. It is mostly a junior development running group for aspiring national-class runners, but there are some serious trainers who happen to be older and slower as well. A fun group to train with and the hill repeats certainly burn the lungs and legs at 5500 feet! I try to meet up with them at least once a week to get in a good quality workout and a couple of them might even make it to the St. Louis marathon this year to race in the US.
Finally, I made it with two minutes to spare to a get-together in the backyard of some friends' who were hosting an inaugural-watching party for a group of 30-40, of whom probably 2/3rds were American. We watched the pageantry on the Mall unfold, the excited coming together for the peaceful transition of power and heard a speech that echoed some of the great figures and speeches from the American past.
Doing all these things on the same day may sound like a disparate day of acts not connected, but in all of them, the theme ran through that we are all human and need to treat each other as such and life not only can and will go on, but can improve for all people. All the people I came across were working not only to better themselves but had also come together with others to make life better for a wider circle of people. While I did not understand much of what the prophets of the independent church were saying (even when they were translated into English), some of what my running colleagues were saying in Sesotho or what all the people watching the speech in Washington, Maseru or anywhere else in the world were thinking, it made me reflect that the most powerful acts come from people coming together to understand each other and work for good.
While the news reports of conflicts and death in many places (and ignores others, like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but that should be another post), only listening to/watching or reading the news can cause us to lose the human perspective--that everyday throughout the world, people are coming together to better understand each other and work for good. It isn't reported in the news, but it is what makes the world go on and gets me out of bed in the morning.
Stay well.

More Lesotho on the BBC

2009-01-14T19:52:00.003+02:00

For those of you who don't have the BBC Africa page bookmarked (and I am in that category as well), they have updated some of their stories from St. Rodrigue, Lesotho--which is the community where I taught high school in 2002. It is a story about how people in rural Lesotho are coping with the HIV/AIDS crisis. It is extremely well written, dare I say beautiful. The link below takes you to the story of a primary school teacher. The other links are on the right side of the page. Only the first four have been updated since the first time I posted this link, but if you haven't checked them all out, please do so.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7806217.stm

Stay well.

Not so 'funny' money

2009-01-10T14:47:00.003+02:00

On a more serious note, on my travels I was right on the Zimbabwean border at Livingstone, Zambia. There the street vendors were selling what you see in the photo as tourist curios. I gave a guy all the Namibian change I had left in my pocket (less than $1) to get this note from him. It is what passes for Zimbabwean currency these days, although if you look closely, you will note that it has already 'expired'. How money can expire is beyond my comprehension, but then so too is money that is worth 50 billion anything. And I didn't have enough change for him to give me the 100 billion note.
It really is a sad commentary on a country that is destructing right now. The Robert Mugabe-led regime in Zimbabwe is currently making a mockery of that country and while I don't know what the solution is, more awareness of the problems the country faces can't hurt. People there are starving and dying of a disease that is easily treatable in a country with working health systems--cholera. International condemnation by 'the west' (aka Britain and the US) has so far backfired in that Mugabe just twists whatever is said to present himself as the victim. I would like to think it couldn't get worse, but it really could. Right now Mugabe can't really govern because he slipped up and let the opposition win Parliamentary elections last March--he most likely lost the presidency as well but delayed the results long enough to rig them. It could get worse if he declares a state of emergency and is able to govern without the small level of checks he (and the heads of the police and army, who currently hold the real power) has now. So, while I don't have an easy solution to the problem, the least I can do is help raise awareness and showing the joke that passes for 'money' right now there is a powerful image.
I don't know if writing Congresspeople, Senators, President-elects, Members of Parliament or whoever your local representatives might be will help, but the least you can do is to not skip another newspaper article about Zim that is buried on page 8 of the local paper and to add your voice to those calling for peaceful and meaningful change there.
Stay well.

Happy New Year

2009-01-06T20:49:00.002+02:00

Hi everyone. Just wanted to wish you a happy new year and give a sampling of photos from my travels. I managed to see quite a bit of southern Africa in a few weeks of travel. I spent time in and around Cape Town with Lauren (my fiancee for those who don't know her)--the shot of us on Table Mountain comes from that part of the trip. We hiked up and down and the clouds even cooperated to give us good views and cool breezes. The second part of the trip (once she went home) was a road trip up through Namibia into Zambia and home via Botswana and South Africa with some friends from Lesotho. You can see Victoria Falls here (from the Zambian side), along with the spectacular Fish River Canyon of southern Namibia and a photo taken in northern Namibia of a lion crossing the road and running into the bush. That was quite the stroke of luck as there was a very short window for our paths to cross and they did. Seeing lions in the real wild was incredible and left my friend Matt and I both buzzing for a while (it was a National Park but one with no fences so the animals wander back and forth between Angola, Namibia and Botswana--it was in the Caprivi Strip for those familiar with geography). Anyway, much like most of you I am now back to work and will post more boring work stories as they arise! Take care and have a safe and happy new year.

Some travel

2008-12-07T22:16:00.002+02:00

Hey, quick post here. I am leaving for some travels here over the next few weeks so I might not be posting as regularly. Just wanted to leave you with some views from around here. The sunset picture with the city in it was taken from my yard the other night with a couple of big thunderstorms passing us by. The other two were taken just across the border in the Free State province of South Africa and were taken from the top of a small mountain a couple of friends and I climbed. If you look carefully, parts of Maseru are visible in the background of the one with all the farmland. Have a safe December and I will be in touch!

Public Spotlight

2008-12-04T21:58:00.004+02:00

So I went to the grocery store, as I often do on Thursdays because it is the day one of the two weekly English-language newspapers comes out. So in addition to my fruits and veggies, I catch up on the latest goings on here and what a smattering of English language news sources from around the world have decided is important (they run stories from the Guardian (UK), Yahoo (US), BBC, Reuters, South African papers). It is always interesting. Today's issue was very heavy when I picked it up--the paper averages about 45 pages--4 or 5 in Sesotho, 10 on random business stuff cribbed from other sources and a bunch of pages announcing government contracts in addition to a few pages of local news and sport. Getting home I wondered if it was full of Christmas adds (despite the 80 degree plus Fahrenheit temperatures we have been having with lots of big summer thunderstorms), but I quickly realized it was the start of a different season here: exam result season.
Sitting in every newspaper purchased (for five rand...about 50 US cents), was a 130 page supplement that showed the results of the Primary School Leaving Exam. Every student in the country, every school in the country, listed in black and white for every other person in the country to examine. This was just the results of those who finished their 7th (and final) year of primary school. The other students who have to take the big, high-stakes exams (those who finished their 3rd year of high school--basically sophomores--and those seniors who finish high school) will also get the same royal, or ignominious, treatment when their results are announced in the New Year. Now there are some advantages to the system--I could check and see how the children of my friends who were finishing primary did this year, right down to the individual subjects (they show the results for English, Sesotho, Science, Social Studies and Math for primary), which was nice, so I can congratulate her next time I see her. And you can check to see which schools are not getting very many students to pass. I know students use these numbers to see which schools they want to attend to get the best results and parents peruse it to see which school is going to best serve their children.
But in another light, it assumes that all schools and students are equal and by pasting the results there for all to see, the students and schools who didn't do as well are there too for everyone to see and potentially criticize. Is it really fair to compare an English-medium primary school in Maseru whose students are children of government ministers, whose school has running water and electricity and access to internet and all the modern amenities Americans would expect from a primary school to a small mountain primary where the students come part-time when they aren't herding animals, that has no electric, possibly a communal tap for water if they are lucky and is hours on foot from the nearest post office, not to mention telephone service or internet access, which struggles to recruit qualified teachers because it is so remote.
As a once and future teacher I think accountability is important in education, as in any other field, and low-performers need to find ways to bring up the level of education for their students' sake. However, I feel that this particular rite of summer here is one that doesn't necessarily contribute to the furthering of educational aims here. People accept it, however, and even look forward to the results coming out every year. It is great for those who do well (they also publish the Top 10 list of students who got the best average), but I can't help but feel it is a bit unfair. I remain unconvinced on some level that this public shaming of schools and students that are not starting from a level playing field, but are being treated like they are, does some harm. What exactly the harm is I cannot say, but my impression is that it does not encourage those who have not passed to try again for fear of being named two years in a row, publicly, as a failure. There is no rule that says students can't try again next year, but especially for the Primary School exam, this naming and shaming seems a bit harsh.

Roof of Africa

2008-11-30T13:28:00.003+02:00

So this weekend I helped marshal the Roof of Africa, one of the craziest and most technically demanding motorcycle races in the world. My friend Matt and I spent three days hanging out in various scenic spots in Lesotho waiting for the bikes to arrive, helping service crews organize themselves for the arrival of the riders and checking in the bikes when they arrived. It was a long three days, but well worth it. We moved progressively further from town each day into more remote mountain areas. Around 300 riders started on Thursday in the time trial, about 260 started Friday's section and about 120 on Saturday. Some withdrew because of injuries, some because of mechanical failures and others because they had to be able to hit a certain time for the course and couldn't do it. All-in-all, I don't know how many finished, but I can't imagine it was more than about 70. It was a brutally tough race over rocks, mountain passes and through some pretty difficult terrain. These pictures only capture the race around the checkpoints (the easiest and most accessible parts), but believe me, the riders reported some crazy obstacles. Of course it rained for part of Thursday and Friday taking a difficult trail and making it harder. I must say that all the guys are crazy, but at the same time, this is their ultramarathon and I respect them for having the guts to try it and to make it as little or as far as they did. We all have our vices and passions in life and these guys have a particularly wild one!
The winner was a guy from New Zealand who made the rest of the field look like amateurs (which they certainly were not). The best description I came up for his riding was that he rode his motorcycle down the hills like he was skiing, slaloming back and forth as if the bike were a part of his feet rather than a couple hundred pounds of metal. He gapped the field by a wide margin. The pictures on the left show some of the fueling stops with the support crews and a couple of riders I managed to snap photos of as they went by. The one of the rider headed straight down a mountain pass was on the last day of the race as the riders headed into the most difficult section of the trail. It was a mountain pass at 2200 meters (7,200 feet or so) that they crested, checked in and headed back down, only to climb up the pass on the other side of the mountain again! They had completed about 1/3 of the route at that point and still had a long, challenging day ahead of them. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.

Working at Parliament/Running

2008-11-23T09:09:00.002+02:00

So this last week was an intense one spent mainly in the Parliamentary Library. The National Archives sent me over there the other week when they didn't have the records I was looking for. It didn't seem like they get a lot of outside researchers there; in fact, it seemed like it was mainly used by Members of Parliament to do research on previous sessions and to stay current on the Lesotho and South African newspapers. But they were happy to have me sit in there and dig through stacks of Government-published newspapers from 1965 and 66 (the year of independence here). I have probably one day left there of work, but it was an interesting place to sit and work as it is right across a big driveway from the House of Parliament so I got to watch all the comings and goings of top government ministers and MPs while doing my work!

In other news, I traveled yesterday (leaving at 5AM) up to Ficksburg, a small town in South African about 80km (50 miles) from Maseru for their annual Cherry Festival Race. The town is in the middle of the cherry, asparagus and peach growing region of South Africa and the race was brutal! It was 23km (14.5 miles...or almost a mile and a half longer than a half marathon). It started out in town, but about 2.5 miles into the race, turned off onto a dirt/rock/gravel/mud trail that wound its way up and over the mountain that sits right behind town. Someone with a GPS watch told me we climbed over 250 meters in the course of the 5km (3 mile) climb. Then we ran on top of the mountain (more of a plateau really) in a series of ups and downs before dropping the entire 250 meters in about 3km (2 miles), in a part of the race that was especially hard on the legs. Then it was just 6km more (@ 4 miles) back into town. Ficksburg sits at an elevation of about a mile to begin with so this was quite the race. I managed to place 8th overall out of about 700 with an average right around 6 minutes a mile, which seemed pretty good considering. I am a bit sore today, but hopefully that will work itself out pretty soon! It was a good time and I even got to hang out at the Cherry Festival afterwards (think American midwestern county fair-type atmosphere with all things cherry for sale). Good times!

Lesotho's waterfalls

2008-11-18T20:29:00.002+02:00

In case you were worried that all I do here is work, fear not. Last Saturday I went with some friends up to the mountains (about a 45 minute or an hour drive from Maseru) to hike to the waterfalls that you see pictured here. They are called Qiloane Falls (the Q is the click sound in Sesotho...try it). They are stunning, especially after a week where it rained a few times. The pool at the bottom is excellent for swimming, if a bit cold. However, this being Lesotho, you can just hike right down and jump in as many times as you want (one in my case). The hike to get there, which you see in the third picture was spectacular through the treeless high mountains. It was a quite managable hike (+/- 2 hours) through some spectacular country and a good excuse to get out of the city for a while on a nice early summer day here.

In case some of you are worried because I have not updated on my running in some time, I am still going at it pretty hard. I am planning to run a 23 kilometer race (about a mile a quarter more than a half marathon) this coming weekend in the South African town of Ficksburg, which is on the border with Lesotho about an hour north and east of Maseru. It is a partially off-road, up, around and down a mountain that, like everything else around here is at altitude of at least 5000 feet! I will let you know how it goes. Take care.

Degrees of separation

2008-11-16T17:31:00.003+02:00

Happy weekend to you (even if it is mostly over). I was reminded last week how small and interconnected this country is when I went out for an interview. I had been given the name of a man from one of the other guys I had interviewed who he said would be interesting to contact. So on Thursday I set out for the place where he had told me to go (he said, just go to St. David's mission near the town of Mamathe's and ask for him). Sure enough, I rolled up and knocked on a door and found a secondary teacher who knew exactly where he lived. We walked together down to his house and he sat with me as I interviewed a very nice and informative gentleman who had been active in the Boy Scouts and had taught at various schools in Lesotho for 58 years (58!). At the end of the interview, I mentioned that I had a former teaching colleague who had lived just near here as well and asked if he had known her (she has passed away, this is 'Me Libe for those reading this who know her) and, of course, not only did this man know her, but he had taught with her and her husband at various times in his career. So here I was sitting in a man's house who I had met less than an hour earlier who was 55 years older than me and we had taught with some of the same people. It was a neat situation, a great way to end the interview talking about former friends and a good reminder about how small a country of 1.8 million people (according to the census) really can be.

Lest you think I spend all my time running around the countryside, on Friday I was asked to take part in a round-table discussion at the university on the US presidential elections, the crisis in Zimbabwe and the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As the collection of topics seemed rather scattered I was a bit nervous about sitting on a panel like that, but it turned out very well (thanks to the skill of the moderator) and was quite interesting with a free-wheeling discussion about African politics, the role of western foreign policy and what should be done to move forward in these situations (not the US, but the others). The university has an interesting staff that gets many professors from around the southern African sub-continent so there was a lively discussion with professors and students (mostly local Basotho) that left me feeling more hopeful that someday there might be enough pressure from 'civil society' to force the hands of regional governments to bring about some constructive change in truly bad situations. Stay well!

St. Rodrigue in the news

2008-11-11T05:57:00.002+02:00

Hello everyone, I was just informed that the BBC is doing a feature on the area around where I used to teach here in Lesotho, St. Rodrigue. The link is below, but it is a long-term project of theirs to chart how HIV/AIDS is affecting people in the rural communities. It could be a very interesting project, so please check it out at least once. I don't know how often they will be updating it, but you might want to check back in a month or two as well (I will try to keep up with it as well).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7697831.stm

Take care!

ps for those who know St. Rodrigue, I don't know exactly what they have shown on the Google Map at the bottom of the article, but it is not the main mission. It might be one of the clinic outstations (Ha Shoaepane, perhaps?)

Obama reaction in southern Africa

2008-11-08T13:05:00.002+02:00

As I am sure some of you are curious as to how Obama is playing here in southern Africa, I copied an editorial from the "Sowetan", a South African newspaper that is, as its name suggests, based in Soweto, the former township outside of Johannesburg that was home to Mandela, Bishop Tutu and many other famous South Africans, and is widely available in the region as an English-language newspaper. If you want to check it out for yourself, their site is... http://www.sowetan.co.za

Anyway, here is the editorial. I think they captured the mood around here as I have seen it since Wednesday's announcement (6 AM local time on Wednesday), especially the first line. It is a kind of public euphoria, the likes of which I have never experienced, not really a 'he-needs-to-do-something-for-me-now', but just a 'right-now-nothing-seems-too-impossible-to-imagine' kind of euphoria. Enjoy.

Sowetan Says: Now all can dream of a fairer world.” Sowetan (newspaper), Thursday November 6, 2008. Staff Editorial

The US votes in a black president and now nothing seems impossible in the world. Barack Obama swept into the White House by offering voters hope for a fresh start after eight years of turmoil, despair and economic gloom. The victory of a man whose father was born in Kenya also gives hope to hundreds of millions of Africans throughout the world. He won fair and square by exciting the mass of Americans to the possibilities of a more just and equal order. Not since John Kennedy in the 60s have we witnessed such a spontaneous outpouring of affection and hope for the realisation of the American Dream, which cynics in the US and abroad have long dismissed as a Utopian fantasy. Now comes the hard work. Obama has raised expectations so high that any failures in restoring the US's broken economy while developing a more egalitarian society and a just foreign policy will bring out critics around the world with a vengeance. Revolutions are staged by those with thwarted expectations, not the no-hopers. Obama won his overwhelming victory by stressing multiculturalism and not once playing the race card. Maybe everybody in the US can dream of being treated equally regardless of race. But the realisation of Martin Luther King's grand dream has been spotty at best. Every nation's foreign policy will reflect its interests, yet the world lives in hope of a sensitivity to local needs and values, and an end to the crass venality of the Bush era. We expect the US to continue consuming far more of the world's resources than any other nation, but we hope it will no longer trash our globe in the process. Obama must ride the wave of optimism he has engendered to take the hard decisions that will often clash with the immediate interests of his constituents. But as many world leaders have learnt, these are difficult times that demand a new vision and a determination to do what is right by us all. And a son of Africa is the man of the moment who might just pull off that dream.

Quick update--elephant pushing

2008-11-06T10:19:00.002+02:00

Hey, this will be very short. Learning new languages and about different cultures often lets me appreciate more the nuances of language. The Royalist party that I was discussing in my last blog is/was known as the Marematlou Freedom Party where Marematlou is a Sesotho idiom for the 'people who get together to push the elephant.' At the time it was formed, there was a Regent for the young King and the people who started it were concerned that the Regent would never make way for the young king, so they got together to try to 'push the elephant.' To ruin the suspense, they succeeded and the new king took over! Still, I think it is one of the best names for a political party that I have ever heard.
Also, people here in Lesotho (Basotho and expats from all over) are very excited about our new president. I have had many people come up to me or text me telling me how excited they were. Let's hope some of the expectations can be met.

A different kind of politics

2008-11-04T18:54:00.002+02:00

Well, happy American election day to all of you. I cast my absentee ballot a couple of weeks ago and hope it arrived in time. Life continues to go well here despite a touch of sickness today for me. I still plan to get up early (3 or 4 AM) to watch some election returns with some American friends. Should be a good time.
The cricket match was a good time: imagine a baseball game that goes a lot longer and has nice grassy banks on which to sit and relax and watch the game. South Africa beat Kenya by a lot and a good time was had by all.
I had an interesting interview the other day with a man who was in the words of my friend who pointed me towards him: "a right proper gentlemen of a type they don't make anymore" and sure enough it was true. He was a very thoughtful, soft-spoken man of about 70 who had spent much of his life as a close adviser to the King of Lesotho during some of the more turbulent days politically here in Lesotho. So, yes, this man was a committed royalist (my friends who study British history and read this blog just did back-handsprings to find that people of this political persuasion still exist). He said he has had many opportunities in his time since then to join some of the political parties here (of which there are around 19 registered, depending on the day and who is splitting off from another party), but that this was not for him. Needless to say, he had a very interesting take on events in Lesotho in the 1950s and 60s (and even into the 70s but I didn't press him on that although if I had had more time perhaps I would have). So yea, research is still going well here and I am finding that I really enjoy finding people and sitting down to a chat with them about the past.
Viva le roi!

Talking history

2008-10-31T10:59:00.004+02:00

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!

How to find people in Lesotho

2008-10-23T16:57:00.002+02:00

So today I set out to find a man who I had heard a lot about. He was a Boy Scout leader in the 1960s and was a very well known man as I had heard from multiple people that I should talk to him when I told them the project I was working on. Unfortunately, and this happens a lot, they didn't know exactly how to get in touch with him. Two people told me to check at the Catholic printing works (where they print the weekly newspaper and books), so when I was up there the other week I did. Again, they couldn't really tell me how to get in touch with him, but they drew me a map of the area where he lived and, like an earlier source, just told me to ask for him at the local high school. So armed with a vague knowledge of where said high school was I set out this morning from Maseru. It ended up being about 35 miles outside town and the road to it was paved (that in itself is impressive). I parked on the school grounds and just wandered towards the school with someone pointing me to the staff room. I walked in and introduced myself and told them who I was looking for. The first teacher I met whipped out her cell phone and gave me him number. Then the principal, a nun, walked in and told me she would find someone to take me up to his place. So five minutes after I arrived I was walking through the fields and then a village to get to this man's house. I show up, introduce myself and he says he would be delighted to talk to me, but he has a meeting to attend today and I should return next week.

Great. Interview set up, only took a bit of guesswork and three people to help me find the place. Then as I am leaving, he asks for my full Sesotho name. I tell him: "Thabiso Masupha" and then he says, "Of course, they have told me a Masupha would be coming to look for me and to speak with me!" The moral of the story: no matter how hard it is to find someone, the 'village telegraph' will beat you to the place where he or she is. He didn't know who I was or what I wanted from him, but someone (probably from the Cathlolic printing works) mentioned that I was looking for him and word got back. Good stuff in a small country! The interview, by the way, should be fantastic. He is a very nimble and spry 75 or 80 year old. I will keep you posted.

Urban hiking

2008-10-19T18:35:00.004+02:00

Hello all, hope this post finds you all well. I am doing fine, although we still haven't really had the end of winter rains down here in the lowlands of Lesotho (lowlands being relative as Maseru is still at 5000 feet, but the mountains are much higher). We have been having lots of nice sunny days, but it would be nice to get rain, both for the farmers who need rain to plow and plant and for me as right now the place where I live has a terrible fly infestation that will start to go away with the rains. The photos I have attached are from a hike I did on Saturday. I have been going to the Maseru Hash House Harriers, which is a group that meets every weekend to have a run/hike in a different place. Different people each week set the trail with chalk and you have to try to follow it and they try to confuse you with multiple trails in some places. All in all, a good time and a good way to meet people. Saturday, however, I went out with two friends, John a Brit and Matt a Scotsman (pictures to the left) to a mountain here in the middle of Maseru. We had a good time setting the trail and there were some spectacular views. On one side we looked down on the large textile mills here (the huge buildings with the big blue roofs), on top, it was like a nature preserve. Unfortunately, the top is also used for Basotho initiation/circumcision schools that are a part of the coming of age process. Not all boys go to these schools, but the entire process is very secretive and they are not open to outsiders or even uninitiated Basotho. We tried to ask some people on the way up if there was a school currently underway and got a variety of answers. So we set out and marked the trail, noting at one point what sounded like singing, but didn't encounter any people. So today when the full group met for the hike, we figured we would be okay, but unfortunately, two guys on motor bikes chose this day to drive up the hill as well and this alerted the guys at the school that there might be others around so we were met at the top and firmly told that we had to turn around and cut the hike short. Still, we were able to do almost all of it and it was a fabulous day with great views.

New House

2008-10-12T12:57:00.005+02:00

So this week I moved into a new, 'permanent' house that will be my home for the rest of my time here. As you can see from the photographs, it is a very cute little one-bedroom, bathroom, kitchen/study area. It is basically a little guest house in the backyard of an American couple who has lived either here or in Malawi since the late 1970s. They are very nice and have four young children (the oldest is 12 or 13, the youngest still in diapers) so I have lots of screaming and playing going on in the yard outside the entire weekend. It is a good time. I think it will be a very nice place to stay. It is located less than a half mile from the main border post, but is on a quiet side street...the main noises at night even here in the capital are insects and dogs. It is a nice space in which to work, cook, live.
This week was an interesting one work-wise. I got into the archives of the Catholic newspaper and scanned about 75 of their photographs from the 1950s and 60s. It was sort of like a mystery game, however, because while most of the photographs identified one person in the picture, or the group to which a bunch of people belonged, very few had identifying captions telling where or when the photograph was taken (the ones that did were, of course, mainly in Sesotho in very light pencil so I was squinting a lot). So I spent a lot of time looking at clues in the photos to try to get dates and places with them. The paper itself (it is a still-published weekly) is published on Wednesdays and I was there on Thursday so most of the staff was not working very hard and I had constant visitors looking to get more photos for me or willing to take a look and see if they could help with the identifying process. I got the feeling that while a few people might have stopped in before to ask for photos of specific people (big-name politicians and church people most likely), they had never had anyone interested in their entire archive before! I am planning on heading back there this coming week to look at more photos and see if I can track down an old mission journal published in French there (for use by the mission home offices in Quebec for fundraising) to see if they would have more photos and other good stuff. So work continues on in a winding, very-few-days-are-alike manner, but I am enjoying it still. Plus we got a little rain this week so green is starting to appear! Spring is always exciting.

Regional politics

2008-10-10T18:29:00.002+02:00

I have been requested to give some thoughts on the political troubles in South Africa (for those who don't know the ruling party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) forced out its president about two weeks ago and people within the ANC, which was one of the main anti-apartheid liberation groups, are threatening to split off and form their own party). So, here goes. In my day-to-day life, I really don't hear much talk about this from Basotho, some chatter in the expatriate community here, but most of them watch or listen to too much BBC or CNN anyway! The Lesotho press (yes, there actually is some here and the quality of the English-language weekly newspapers is noticably higher than it is has ever been in my time here with choices for your news) had an interesting editorial page this week with a staff editorial telling South Africa to get its dogs in order because any instability there will hurt the region, and it is the smaller countries that depend on South Africa that will be hurt most, just as the exporting border regions of Mexico feel an American economic downturn faster than small-town and big-city Americans. Right next to that, however, was an analysis piece from a South African journalist arguing (again, correctly I think) that the ANC members who are threatening to form their own party don't have the grass-roots organization behind them to start a new party that will be successful. Despite the split in the ANC leadership, the people are still strongly behind the ANC and many would rather not vote than vote for the mainly ineffective opposition parties. There really is no one in the ANC right now who has the stature to move off, form a splinter party and bring people with him or her (except, of course Nelson Mandela, who at age 90 might just be the most popular ex-politican on the planet and certainly in South Africa...he could win any race he wanted, but he is also extremely frail and has no desire to do anything with politics). So, while the ANC has problems (both in its structures and leadership), it will likely continue to rattle off electoral victories, including next year's general election, without any real serious opposition (I don't know what the various opposition parties have, but it can't be more than about 35-40% of the Parliament combined).
On a very weird note with all this political turmoil (the ruling party here in Lesotho is threatening to split as well ahead of a Party Congress in January to elect new leadership) and the global financial meltdown going on around us, one currency the US Dollar is really strengthening against is the South African rand, so I find my purchasing power growing rapidly. Last week my dollar bought 8.2 rand while today the rate stands at 9.2. Crazy stuff that I don't claim to understand. Hope everyone is well and my political rambling didn't turn you off. I will post some pictures of my new house this weekend and get you back to your regularly scheduled programming!

42 Years of Independence

2008-10-05T17:01:00.002+02:00

Well Lesotho celebrated its 42nd birthday yesterday (Saturday). It goes down here a little quieter than the 4th of July. The big national holiday is Moshoeshoe's Day (in honor of the 1st King), which is celebrated in March. For Independence Day, all the schools are out on holiday for a week, so there is more activity than normal, but around here people tend to do their celebrating only at month-end because that is when all the civil servants and textile factory workers (the two main sources of employment outside of subsistence farming) get paid. There is a big arts and cultural festival at a cute town to the south of Maseru and since the Ministry of Tourism and Culture (who runs the archives) is a big sponsor they closed down on Friday. So I decided (with a couple of other Americans here) to stay up and watch the Vice-Presidential debate on the satellite television. Besides, when else in life will I have the chance (or half the desire) to stay up for a debate that starts at 3AM???
So that was my 'American time' for the week. Otherwise, I had a good week research-wise. I stopped in at the Catholic newspaper offices and they said I could take a look at and make copies of their photographic collections from the 1950s and 60s (very exciting). So I told them I would come back next week when I found a scanner so I will be heading over there sometime this week. I also have an interview set up with a guy who currently teaches at the Teacher Training College who was heavily involved in youth organizations in the 1960s for this week, so I am starting to move beyond the archive, which is good. I have plenty of work to do there, but that stuff isn't going anywhere and the most interesting part of my work will come from interviews and photographs I can find, so it is good to have some of that going on alongside my other work.
What else? Spring is finally in the air here. We still haven't had the end-of-winter rains yet which means people can't really plow and plant (so people are starting to get nervous...they usually come sometime in September), but the last two days have been overcast (itself a rarity) and humid, so hopefully the rain isn't far behind. It will be nice to have all the fields and plants explode in green as well...the brown, dead grass of winter is getting a bit old. That's the news from here for now. Take care.

2008-09-29T17:22:00.003+02:00

Well I thought I would try to post a short video clip on here. This comes from the graduation party I attended on Saturday. A woman I taught with at St. Rodrigue, 'Me Maboleba Kolobe (formerly 'Malerato Lehloka) just finished her master's degree at the National University in English. I had a good time at the party, which took up most of Saturday afternoon. The song you will see here was towards the end after there had been about 15-20 speeches by people from various aspects of her life, family, high school, college, graduate school, church groups, etc (including one by me on behalf of all the St. Rodrigue teachers since I was the only St. Rodrigue teacher who made it). I gave the first about 25% of the speech in Sesotho and then had to switch to English because I didn't get much of a 'heads up' that I would be speaking. So it goes. The party was a good time. All the people from the English Department who were graduating with post-bachelor's degrees were there so it was a full table. in the video, 'Me Kolbe is in her robe and comes dancing out from behind the table with her 2nd daughter (she has three) in tow (Kamohela is her name for those who know the family). The song is a congratulatory song that basically says 'this is your day and we are proud of you'. Enjoy! Another sunny day is coming to an end here. Hope you all are well.

Another week

2008-09-26T15:16:00.002+02:00

Well, another week is down here. It really is amazing how time is starting to fly by now that I have most of the administrative details complete and am getting into the actual work. I tried to set up some interviews this week but was foiled by the busy schedules of the men I tried to get ahold of. Maybe next week! So it means that I spent most of my time at the National Archives picking through the records of the National Council (the advisory body that was partially elected and composed partially of chiefs...the precursor to a real legislative body) from the early 1950s. It can be interesting in spurts but as the books are about 650 pages each (the verbatim transcripts of the debates these guys held for the three weeks they met), it can also be quite tedious.
Still, it is good stuff and necessary to have for my future dissertation so I keep plugging away. The archives are quite empty other than me (I would say there in another person there looking at something maybe one out of every three or four days and those visits average under 2 hours).
This weekend is graduation at the National University (for those who finished in May) and there are four of my former teaching colleagues from St. Rodrigue who are getting degrees of some sort. Quite exciting. One of my friends is having her graduation party (for her master's degree in English--'Me Malerato/Kolobe for those who know her) on Saturday here in Maseru so I will be going to that. Another one (Ntate Leseli) is having his party (for a Bachelor's in Science) at the end of October at his home village up in the foothills so I have plans to get there as well.
I am staying connected and busy for sure. Life is good here. Hope the same is true where you are.

A grab bag

2008-09-18T17:58:00.002+02:00

In terms of my daily activities, I can assure you that research in the field is not something for those who like routine. Sure I can have a few days in a row where I do the same thing, like Monday-Wednesday of this week when I spent most of my time at the National Archives digging through boxes of old letters and various correspondence between government officials and people in London, South Africa and Lesotho. Yes, I know how to have fun, especially as most days I was the only person there and definitely spent more time there than the archivist did.
However, today was completely different. As I am here on a Fulbright Fellowship I was asked by people at the US Embassy to sit on a panel that was to interview Basotho candidates for a Fulbright position in the United States. There were two US embassy employees (one Mostho, one American), a retired Lesotho ambassador to Denmark and a retired professor of Economics/former Fulbrighter from the National University. We interviewed five candidates who all wanted to pursue higher degrees (mostly PhD) at American universities and ultimately selected one. Then the embassy was kind enough to take the panelists to lunch and I now have, in addition to a nice free luch,two very interesting people to interview about what they were doing during the 1950s and 60s. You just never know where you will find sources for my project!
Tomorrow I will head up to the university for their Friday history seminar where members of the department give papers on their research. Then I will probably spend some time in the archive up there going through educational records. A heck of a week! Like I said I am hoping to start interviewing people next week to start the oral component of my project. It is kind of fun to have to figure out what my plan of attack is every day. There are always more places to check for documents and more people to contact. Spring is on the way here. We are just waiting for the first rains to make it green and allow people to start plowing and planting, but the temperatures have been (mostly) nice. Take care!

More successes

2008-09-14T16:32:00.002+02:00

So a nice weekend is drawing to a close. Just wanted to let you all know some of the successes I have had over the last few days. The letter from the university finally came through on Wednesday of last week so I was able to pick that up and take it to Immigration to get my work permit for the year. I am legal to be here until June, which is nice. I also have an office at the university, so if you for some reason you happen to be at the National University of Lesotho, feel free to stop by Room 103 in the Institute of Southern African Studies and see if I am around. Chances are I am not because most of my time will be spent in the various archives and out in the country trying to find people to interview, but it can't hurt, right?
Otherwise, I have been doing some interesting research in the National Archives here. They don't have a lot on my time period, but some of the precursor nationalist movements in the 1930s and 40s that raised awareness among Basotho and lodged grievances against the colonial administration and chiefs here generated some interesting correspondence from the government and the chiefs. So I am spending some time going through those files and will go through the files of the National Council (the unelected precursor to Parliament here) for the 1950s and 60s to see what sort of issues they were discussing. All in all, interesting stuff for historians, but probably not too much for everyone else!
I have also been invited to the weekly History Department seminars at the University and went to my first one on Friday. Various members of the department present their work and the discussion is neat because for the first time in graduate school, I am completely surrounded by people studying African history. A real treat!
I am, of course, still running quite regularly. I put in about 50 miles this last week, which is pretty good as I am busy and Maseru is at an elevation of about a mile. I think I have adjusted well, however. Anyway, have a good week and I will post again when something interesting happens or the spirit so moves.

Wheels

2008-09-09T10:55:00.002+02:00

So as you might be able to see, I have acquired a car. I have checked out the used car places here in Maseru and found this sporty little number that should get me where I need to go. I basically have it on a long-term rental because I will obviously not be taking it with me when I go. But, for now I have wheels on two continents! It looks all nice and snazzy, but is plenty old with over 200,000 miles on it, which is how I was able to afford it! However, it should get the job done as long as I can remember to stay on the left side of the road! Seriously though, it really isn't that hard to get used to, but driving the stick shift with my left hand will take some practice.
Otherwise I am still trying to get my work permit and visa arranged from the university. This car will allow me to get there easier to knock some heads if need be in the near future. I have also been spending some time at the National Archives here in Maseru which are nice for what they have (information up to the end of the 1930s), but aren't really that helpful for stuff on the time period I am looking at. However, the archivist called a bunch of ministries for me and they said I should stop by anytime and they will try to help. We will see, I will keep you posted. Well, it is a warm sunny day here so I am heading back out to get some more work done. Take care.

Ups and downs, strikes and gutters

2008-09-03T21:14:00.002+02:00

Progress is a funny thing when living in a foreign country and trying to research in the field. I am often not sure what is going on around me or what I should be doing next as this whole 'research' thing is pretty much self-directed. The last few days around here have been complicated. I stopped by the university to check on the status of my paperwork that I had been assured the week before had been submitted (I am applying to be a Visiting Research Fellow there) only to find that it was still sitting on someone's desk and had only been submitted that morning. So instead of getting a letter that will help me get a visa and a work permit, I ended up in the archive there going through old colonial education reports (yea, I know how to live the high life).
Tuesday rolled around and I stayed in Maseru (the university is in a town called Roma about 40km by road from Maseru) doing some errands and working on some old research notes I had. I got a call around 5 PM from one of the secretaries who said that the paperwork had (finally) gone through and I should come the next day to take care of details and get the letters I need. Great! She also says I might get an office (an office?).
So Wednesday dawns and after my usual morning run I head out the door to catch the taxis that will take me to Roma. I roll in to find that the secretaries are too busy dealing with something else to help me today. "Thanks for your understanding." Well, I ask, when should I come back? "Maybe Friday." Never a good sign when a maybe precedes the answer around here, but hey, what else can I do? So I headed back to the archive there to bury my frustration in more colonial education reports (again, aren't I the high roller?).
So, we will see. Hopefully I will not have to develop superpowers to get these letters and my visa and work permit. I will keep you posted and will (hopefully) have some good news to report by this weekend or early next week. Until then, well, there are more colonial education reports waiting for me!

Why I am here

2008-08-30T13:24:00.003+02:00

There have been some requests to detail what it is that I am doing here, so I will do my best. Right now, I am trying to take care of all the details when you move somewhere new overseas. I am still trying to secure a work permit and visa and a place to live. The photos above were taken from the house where I am staying. It is in a quiet neighborhood of Maseru called Katlehong. The sunsets, as you can see, are amazing.
As for my work here, I am doing my research for my PhD. I earned my master's degree in May finishing my coursework and taking my comprehensive exams. So now the 'only' thing left to do is to do my research and write a dissertation. I am spending my year here to get the research done. My project is looking at Lesotho in the 1950s and 60s as it transitioned from colonial rule to independence. I want to know how young people who were not necessarily involved in political parties viewed this process and what they wanted to see from their new country. I will be looking at how their views differed from their parents and where they did and did not manage to make their views heard.
What this all means on a day-to-day basis is hard to say. I will spend time in the archives around the country looking for documents and photographs. Much of my time, however, will be spent interviewing people who were involved in youth groups (church groups, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Young Farmer's Associations, etc) at that time. I already have a decent list of contacts that I will start getting in touch with when I get all my details nailed down.
I hope that helps give a better idea about what I will be doing here until June. Take care!

Life in the city

2008-08-26T16:13:00.002+02:00

For the first time in my travels to Lesotho I find myself living in the capital city, Maseru. I am house sitting for a woman who is the country director of an NGO here while she is gone for two weeks. It is a quite nice place in a quiet part of town very close to where one of my good friends from my teaching days lives. It is close enough to walk to the government offices and stores that I need to get to, but there is a mountain in between so we don't have the noise and the hustle and bustle.
My life right now consists of trying to take care of a thousand and one details. I am trying to get a letter from the US Embassy to secure my visa. I am looking for a permanent place to live. I am trying to find a cheap car so that when I am going to archives and meeting people to interview I don't have to rely on the public transport which is slow and unpredictable. I am also trying to make my introductions at the various archives around the country and secure affiliation at the university. All-in-all, my days are full, although not really of research yet. That will come once some of these details are taken care of.
The house where I am staying sits on the side of a hill looking out over some of the Maseru suburbs and the gigantic stand where Pope John Paul II said his public mass when he visited Lesotho in 1988. The huge field surrounding it is still (as of right now) free of development and a wonderfully flat place to run, although like any place in Lesotho, I get more than my share of stares when I do so.
While I am house sitting I have internet access in the house so if you are looking to get in touch with me, the next few weeks would be a good time. I am hoping to have internet in the place where I eventually end up, but I need to find that first! Anyway, the peach trees are blooming a vibrant pink here so spring is on its way. Hope you are well!

Arrival

2008-08-22T11:41:00.002+02:00

Hello all,
I just wanted to let you know that I have arrived safe and sound in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. I have had some requests to post what exactly I am doing here and why, but I will save that for a later post as I have a lot to get done here on Friday before everything closes for the weekend. It has been great so far to be back...Lesotho feels more and more familiar the more times I come. I had great luck yesterday to be on the same flight as the Prinicpal Secretary (2nd in command) at the Health Ministry and an American who works for a health NGO here called PSI. Not only did we have interesting conversation but the American woman asked me to housesit for her for two weeks starting next week so I now have time to look for permanent housing and don't have to pay for it!
Later in the afternoon I was walking down the main street in Maseru (the capital) on my way to the US Embassy and I ran into some former students of mine from St. Rodrigue. It is hard to be incognito around here! Today I bought a phone so if you want or need to call me here in Lesotho, feel free. I can also receive text messages, which is a much cheaper option for you (as it is for me...if you hear from me it will likely be via Skype or text message). The number is: 5909 5486. The country code for Lesotho is 266. I bought this particular brand because my former teaching colleague told me they have the best coverage even up in the mountains and it works in South Africa as well. I will be testing both of these claims in the coming months!
After some big rainstorms overnight which made everyone happy because they can start plowing once the rains come, today is a bright sunny day. The highs will probably be in the low 70s and the lows tonight around 50 or maybe into the upper 40s. All-in-all, pretty nice weather for late winter in the mountains. Take care and I promise I will not be posted every other day all year!

Leaving on a jet plane

2008-08-19T05:33:00.001+02:00

Hey everyone,

My bags are (almost) packed and I am getting ready to leave in the morning (Tuesday). I fly to Johannesburg (via Atlanta and Dakar, Senegal), spend the night there and then fly to Maseru on Thursday morning. I will keep you all posted when something interesting starts to shake down in Lesotho, but the first few days will be filled with mundane tasks like finding a place to live, buying a phone (Lesotho's country code is 0266 for those who wanted the answer to that trivia question) and start figuring out what sort of work I need to be doing. It will be late winter when I arrive so it should be pretty nice with daytime temperatures in the 60s and lows around 40. I am hoping that the snow is done for this year and that spring and the pink-blooming peach trees of Lesotho will be just around the corner. Take care on this side of the world and drop me a line every now and then and I will get back to you. Be safe!

First Hello

2008-08-05T18:59:00.002+02:00

Welcome to my blog. I am writing this from 99-degree Saint Louis, MO deep into my preparations to get ready for my Lesotho trip. I just purchased my tickets today and will be leaving on August 19th. I will be spending about 10 months in Lesotho doing my doctoral research on African History. I will, of course, be posting much more about that in the months to come. For now, it should suffice to say that I am looking at the 1950s and 60s investigating the transition from colonialism to independence. I hope that many of you will comment here or email me to keep in touch. I should have a cell phone as well once I get there if you want phone communication. More to come soon...at least once I get to Lesotho.

For those who don't know, Lesotho is an independent country completely surrounded by South Africa.