Happy Easter

The internet is poke-your-eyes-out slow today, so I hope that this message will get to you...

When I last wrote I was on my way to Maseru with Carolyn, Bruce and Penny. They were all headed home to Ottawa and I went with thenm to get my passport stamped and also to spend a little time with them before they left. While the social pasrt was really great, the rest of my time in MAseru was a bit of a comedy or errors...After spending two months in the country, and at its busiest, in town, arriving in a more major city was a bit of a shock! I was completely disoriented by the traffic and the noise and felt like a country bumpkin lost in New York. I was hoping to make short work of the passport business, but had heard that for some people it took half an hour and for others 6 hours...it all depended on who was there, and how busy they were. Well, it was short work all right because I didn't have my volunteer letter with me, of which I have three copies safely stored in my rondavel in Bokoro. I hadn't realized that it was required to get this visa. There was nothing that could be done, and I wandered back to the hotel with Penny feeling quite discouraged. I really didn't want to have to make another trip back to Maseru, as from Bokoro it is quite a long trek. I realized a bit later on that I had a copy of this letter saved on my email, and on Saturday was able to print it off at the local internet cafe. It was decided that I would stay until Monday and go back to the passport office and then head back to Bokoro. This suited Penny fine as she wasn't flying out until Monday anyway, and so we could keep each other company. We bid farewell to Carolyn and Bruce on Saturday and then spent the next two days chatting and reading. Graham was also in Maseru at a week long training session at the Peace Corps compound in Maseru, and joined us a few times. Everything seemed to going to plan until I was knocked flat by food poisoning Sunday night. I don't know what I ate, but it was BAD. Seeing as I was to travel all day on Monday I wasn't sure what to do. Penny graciously offered to pay for another night at the hotel so that I coud sleep all day, but I really wanted to get going. She helped me to drag my sorry self to the passport office, where thankfully my paperwork was processed quickly. But alas, I was still too sick to get onto a taxi. I returned to the hotel and went back to sleep until Penny had to leave. She had met up with a Masotho lady who was friends with some Canadians and had offered to drive her to the airport. This lady also drove me to the taxi rank and put me on a taxi to Maputsoe, where I would change taxis and head to Butha Buthe. She instructed the conductor (the man who collects passengers and money) to take care of me and he did. I was the only person on the taxi ( always a bad beginning) and so after an hour he put me on a different taxi that filled up much more quickly. I realized that I would not be able to make it all the way to the school so aimed for Hlotse, where I knew I could crash at the Help Lesotho office. This is exactly what I did and after five hours of travelling I collapsed into bed and slept for 15 hours. In the morning I felt much better, although I did have wait for THREE hours for the taxi to the school to fill up before it would leave.

'M'e Mapalesa was very concerned abuot me and spent the rest of the week trying to feed me porridge, which was all could eat anyway.

Easter school holidays begin on the Thursday before Easter and end the following Tuesday. The school is closed during this time and all of the boarders go home. It was quite strange to be left quite alone at the school. Even though many of the boarders are orphans, they go home to visit their relatives. Three boys stayed at the school. Two prefered to stay at the school, and the third was invited to stay at the school by 'M'e Mapalesa because the last time he went to his grandmother's there was nothing to eat.

Graham and I went to South Africa to a town called Bethlehem for Thursday and Friday. We picked this place out of the guide book and it turned out to be a great choice. We stayed in a very nice guesthouse and ate nice food and fought over the hot shower. As we hiked up the hill we were picked up by a lovely South African lady in her Mercedes mini van, which we appreciated very much as we had done quite a lot of walking already. The guest house was in an affluent part of town and the security was top notch. We were given a remote for the front gate and there was razor wire across the rear wall of the garden. The architechture was very interesting- each house very different and each house also seemed to have about three large dogs roaming the property. Again, the division of rich and poor struck me, but this time the division was very much by colour. Graham and I were the only white people on the public taxis, and around 4pm, as we returned from town, we greeted the domestic workers in Sesotho as they walked down the hill to their homes.

As nice as this little trip was, we were both glad to return to Lesotho. On Easter Sunday I was determined to have an Easter dinner, a tradition in my family and one I was not about to let go of. We invited the three boys to join us and pooled our resources to serve corned beef and mashed potatoes, butternut squash, rice and canned vegetables. I also had found a package of Easter eggs in Bethlehem, and we ate those for dessert. It was quite a nice little party and one of the boys, Chief, asked me questions about culture in Canada and what we would typically eat. Even though everything we served was from town, there was an awkward pause at the beginning of the meal and I explained what each dish was. The boys ate slowly and I was worried the whole time that they didn't like the food, and that I would have been better off serving papa, but in the end they took all the leftovers with them to eat with their breakfast.

Well, I have well exceeded my time here. Will try and write more in a week or two. all the best to you all!