In lieu of my absolute inability to maintain the order of something like the Flashback Tuesday or whatever I was calling it - here is Wahoo Wednesday. Basically no idea what that means, but it is what it is and I am what I am...
So I thought I might continue posting about my trip to Africa, mostly because I think its important for me to remember the details before they get too fuzzy and I start making up memories. Did you know people do that?
I do.
Anyway...when I last left my little tale, we were on a trail. A horse trail, in a van. Trust me, this is not the best way to travel. Many heads were bumped and many stomachs tossed in the course of an hour's trip. I think I even remember our guide saying "welcome to Africa."
This is Lesotho (Le-soo-too). It is the other country (along with Swaziland) that is inside of South Africa. This one is very small. It is 12,000 ish square miles with 1.8ish million people. (For comparison - Kansas is 82,000 square miles with 2.8 million people.)
According to wikipedia.com, (my favorite source of information complied by people just like me) 40% of the people live below the international poverty line of $1.25 (US) a day. Wow. They also suffer from an AIDS rate of around 23 or 24% - one of the highest in the world. Life expectancy is around 40 years for men and women. Its just unreal. It was so hard to visit this place.
We did have a great time, we took a walking tour and saw some cave paintings (awesome), and then met some of the local people.
According to our guide, these cave drawing were like 150 or more years old (the red part - its hard to see). They are telling the story of the white man's arrival to the area and also telling where to find animals to hunt. I wish I had written down the details of this story a little more and a little sooner. It was such a neat thing to see.
In Lesotho, they don't really have cars (hence we drove in on a horse trail) and no running water or electricity. So they use flag signals to communicate with neighbors. White means we are celebrating come join us, green means we harvested our crops come trade, and red means we slaughtered a cow come trade. We saw this
at her house.
She welcomed us in and we shared in the "drink" (some kind of beer like beverage) and the food. The food was good. Beans and corn and some sort of seasonings all mixed in one bowl shared with everyone (including the spoon). However the drink was nasty. I wouldn't recommend it, but we said thank you anyway and drank when prompted. :) Oh, yeah, it was all out of one community cup.
We shared with him. :)
We also got to visit (through a translator) with a local "healer" or medicine woman. It was such an interesting experience. They believe that you can be healed through intersession with your ancestors. She speaks with them and they recommend treatment and she prescribes it. Luckily, these healers have been taught how to diagnose HIV/AIDS and TB. She doesn't conduct the test, but she does recognize the symptoms and then will send the sick person to the large city (probably by horse or if they are lucky a van) for further testing and treatment. Healers no longer believe that these to diseases can be treated by them. This is her.
Finally we visited a school. We met the principal, the students, and one interesting individual that thinks the United States has a cure for AIDS and is keeping it a secret from Africa (this is an in person story so ask if you are curious).
These men and women are making crafts to sell to the tourists so that they can provide a new roof for the school. The woman in the tie-dye is the principal. They sing and dance to make the day go faster - or probably just for show. :) The women on their knees in the 2nd photo are demonstrating a really old dance that involves intricate movements of the shoulders in order to attract a man... it was so cool.
I loved the kids here. They were so sweet and let me tell you - they loved the white ladies. :) We walked for about a mile with this little one, who was so excited to have a plastic water bottle. She wouldn't even let me carry it.
Like I said, a hard place to go, but such wonderful people.