Already half way in SA…..

Time flies when you are having fun and that I have! The last weekend of May Inge (fellow volunteer) and me went on a weekend trip to Lesotho. Lesotho is a Kingdom that lies as an island in SA, totally surrounded by it. It managed to stay a separate country mainly because its boundaries consist of high mountains (circa 3000 meters). Everybody kept on warning us to bring warm clothes, because at night temperature drops below 0? C. For all the Norwegian readers this is not cold at all and sounds more like the beginning of spring, but for South-African and Lesotho standards this is winter at its top! To be sure we packed our hats, gloves and an extra fleece sweater and were on our way!
We stayed at Sani Lodge, just on the border with Lesotho but still on the SA part. This is a true backpacker hostel and an ideal place for me to get used to a backpackers lifestyle. The first night was actually very cold, but a fire and some extra blankets did the trick.

On Friday we went of on a two-day trip into Lesotho. ‘We’ consists of: Inge, Matthew (the crazy and funny guide), Adam (American guy), Nathan (also American) and myself. Although it was a randomly formed group we got along really well, especially because everybody loved playing games (card games and drinking games) and loved to sing! After driving through Drakensberg, the Sani Pass (see pictures) we entered Lesotho. It had snowed a couple of days before, so we actually hiked in snow (a little bit of Norway in the Southern Hemisphere).

In the afternoon we arrived at an original Lesotho house, where we were going to spend the night. Before going to sleep a trip to a traditional village was organised. You can see on the pictures that the rural areas of Lesotho are a couple of decades back into time when compared to Europe. Dancing and music is a big part of the Lesotho culture and very impressive. After seeing how it is done, we had to try ourselves as well, which was more difficult than expected…the picture says it all! After a fun night, close by the fire, playing the Moose Game (an instant hit, go to Norway and ask Stine if you want to learn) and some chatting a well-deserved rest was next.

The next morning it was time to visit a traditional healer and go horseback riding!! According to the healer my ancestors are making sure my travels will go safely and I should keep on smiling. After this great news you can see on the pictures how relaxed I am sitting on the horse…

On Sunday Inge and me did a 5 hours hike, which was a bit hard after a Saturday night at a backpackers hostel talking with people from all over the world! It made me look forward to my coming backpacking trip even more.
On Monday evening I was ‘home’ with my kids again and I missed them.
Thankfully they missed me as well. This was the last week that I had them all for myself, because now I have to share them with 4 other volunteers. The new volunteers arrived last Monday. I showed them around and we went Zulu dancing with the kids on their first night! We talked about what has been done at what still needs to be done and ideas just kept coming. The new volunteers are super enthusiastic, full of energy and ready to role up their sleeves! Just a couple of ideas we want to realize:

Next week we will take the house moms bowling!We will use some of the given money to buy track school uniforms for the kids, so that they are not to cold in the winter mornings
Coming Saturday there will be a party night for the kids, with games, presents and maybe Singstar...
We continue to help out in the day-care and are finally able to split the group into smaller subgroups, giving all the kids the attention they need.
We will organise an Open Day at the end of June at Mother of Peace.We started with the ‘Sponsor a Child’ programme, where companies and private persons can pay a fixed amount per month to enable housing, feeding, counselling, education, medical treatment etc. for the kids.
We will clean out some of the storehouses and go through all the stuff inside to be able to divide the very valuable from the less valuable things.It is really nice to be with five people now, because so many things can be done!

I am sure this month will be very productive and helpful to Mother of Peace. Hopefully the volunteers after us can pick this up, so we get continuity in these projects and make a difference!

Just in case you are wondering: I am still very happy I made the choice to volunteer and go to Mother of Peace! Of course it is hard at times, but it is great to experience that at times were I might feel a bit down, the kids come to me to ask what is wrong. And that is just a hart warming overwhelming feeling. That those kids, with all their own problems, also take care of me by bringing back a smile on my face when needed. And then we all forget about our worries and pick up a hockey stick and play the bad feelings away! I attached a picture of the area of MOP, to give you an idea.

Do you remember me writing about the little boy that had just come to MOP? The one that didn’t know how to make a laughing sound? Well, he knows now! He is laughing a lot, running around and looks so much more happy. It is great to see how 3 weeks at MOP have changed him so much for the better! That makes it all worthwhile, see the last picture to know what I mean.

Mirjam

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