Odds and Ends

Today's entry is a collection of tidbits of information.

The weather: The endless Indian summer weather just goes on and on and on. It really is wonderful. The highs are getting a bit warmer each week, but we still have very cool nights, often with frost, but warm sunny days. We have had a few days of wind and that certainly adds a wind chill, and makes it less enjoyable outside.

Lesotho: Where I carry extra clothes in my back pack while I walk to work (yes, I continue the trek) so that I have something extra to keep me warm if I end up working inside at work.

I hang my head in humility: My efforts to keep our heater going seem to be much less successful than those of Wendy and the other woman who shares the staff house with us. My efforts seem to do more to put out the fire than to inflame it. I will need more lessons in coal fire building.

Talking about lessons: “Letsatsi le monate!” Or, “Have a good day!”. Sometimes my head feels like it will burst trying to grasp some basic phrases in Sesotho. But, bit by bit I am working on a vocabulary of words and phrases. Wow, but the basic elements of the Sesotho language are so different. One example is that to make a word plural one changes the prefix, but the new prefix is dependent on what the previous prefix was. So there are about 5-6 different prefixes that are used to change a word to be plural.
- moshangyana is one boy, bashangyana is more than one boy.
- sefati is a tree, lifati (pronounced dee-fa-tee) a number of trees.
- mokotla, a handbag, becomes mekotla.

Correction: Remember when I described the fallen down homes I passed when I described my first trek to Beautiful Gate. Well, while some were fallen down homes, other seemingly piles of rock, on closer inspection, are actually stacked three foot circular walls, or cattle kraals. That wasn't too hard to figure out when during my morning treks I would see cows placidly looking out at me from over those low stacked walls.

Is this really Africa? Yes, I know I explained to many folks before leaving for Lesotho that the temperatures here actually dip below freezing. Yet even for me, despite the frost on the ground many mornings, it didn’t really strike home until the morning I was looking for something to scrape the frost off the car windshield. And no, a small windshield scrapper is not something I have noticed on any store shelf here.

More lessons: Everyone here it seems carries a cell phone, so after years of resisting the trend in Canada I have gotten on board here. Besides, here it is pay as you go. I spent the equivalent of $40Can, plus another $10 for air time, and I had a cell phone. No contracts, no monthly fees for three years, just pay as I go. And as every teenager in Red Deer knows, text messaging is the cheaper way to go. So now my thumbs are taking lessons in nimbleness, as I am trying to find my way around a cell phone. I did finally figure out how to capitalize a letter and to add punctuation to my messages.

Wendy and gardening: Since the weather is beautiful and spring like, Wendy is just itching to get gardening. She received some tips and a planting guide from the Masotho lady next door. (Masotho being the singular, Basotho the plural.) But what the heck, the weather was saying spring to Wendy so she was off and planting. When she announced to our Masotho neighbor that she had planted some squash, the kindly neighbor gently inquired if Wendy had read the planting guide that the she had provided. (October is when one plants squash.) I casually mentioned to Wendy that late August here is the equivalent of late February in Canada. Besides, the rains don’t come until late September/October.

Correction #2: Back to my trek to work and some of those seeps I mentioned. Well, some of them are actually a source of water for some folks. The first morning I saw someone dipping his water container into one, I almost gasped. Now I tell myself that they must be using the water just for washing, but ….

Until next time.

Oh by the way, few of you have left comments for us on the blog. Thanks so much. We would like to send a note of thanks, but your comment on the blog leaves no tracks so we cannot reply. If we haven’t your address and if you are willing to leave an e-mail address, we could send a note.

~ Benno ~