Smitten and In Love

I must confess. There is another woman in my life. Well, more correctly a girl, a tiny girl. But she has stolen my heart. Her name is Neo.

You may remember my entry where I described three babies arriving within the span of about a week. One was aged 6 days, one was about eight weeks, and the third was five months old. (I had reported then that she was four months.) All three babies weighed less than 3 kilos. One of he babies, Palesa the eight week old, died shortly after arriving. Neo was the five month old. She weighed in at 2.9 kilos and after loosing Palesa I was so worried about her. Here is a bit of her story.

Born: 26 April 2007

Her mother was referred from a northern town to the hospital here in Maseru where she delivered Neo (or maybe arrived with Neo). The mother subsequently died. Neo remained in hospital for five months during which time there was no contact from any relative or family friend.

Mother’s Name: Malibe
Father’s Name: Not known

Home Village: Not known. We just know that the mother was referred from a town north and east of Maseru.

Arrived at Beautiful Gate: 28 September 2007

Weight on 28 September 2007: 2.9 kilos

Today Neo is still tiny. She weights in at 4.6 kilos. She still does not sit up on her own. She does not yet try to roll over or stand on her tiny legs. But she has stolen the heart of a grizzled old guy who visits her every day that he is at Beautiful Gate. He is no longer worried that she might not survive. Rather, she is growing and smiling and he just needs to see that smile and have a wee chat with her about how she is doing.

No folks, I am too old to consider adopting her, but ... if one of my sons should get married I sure could recommend a grand-daughter to him and his wife.

Here is Neo (and a smitten admirer).



~ Benno ~

Loose Ends

It is about time I tied up a couple of loose ends as I have not made an entry for nearly a month. I have gotten too busy at work. Wendy has said I never brought so much work home when working for the provincial government, and that I need to find a better balance. One casualty has been time for updating our blog.

Mountains III: This goes back to October and my trips to the mountains with my finance clients. The second trip was with my “client” who is into trading. He is able to secure things in Maseru that folks in the mountain villages value, things that often have little value here. If he can get them to his home village the folks there are most willing to pay with grain, sorghum or maize. The problem is transport as I again learned. This time the trip was longer in kilometers, but better roads. The catch was that the last 4 kilometres was a hike in.

So, after a three hour drive we walked 40 minutes into his village. There we loaded up donkeys with sorghum, and back to the truck. Unload the sorghum, and load up the items for the village. Back to the village, load up the donkeys with more sorghum, and back out to the truck. Those little donkeys are so tough.

These photos are from a different trip but they give

a picture of what the little donkeys carry.

Then it was the drive home, up and down incredible grades with about 800-1000 pounds of sorghum. The costs of using a Beautiful Gate truck were M600, and I was concerned about what kind of return Ntate Edward would be able to make on his investment. I need not have worried. He is doing fine, if you consider folks showing up at his door at 5:30 a.m. in hopes of getting sorghum directly from the mountains. Apparently the imported sorghum sold in the stores just does not compare. Ntate Edward spent a few extra Maloti here in Maseru to get the sorghum ground, and now folks almost line up to obtain ground sorghum direct from the mountains. He looks to recoup his investment with a healthy return. I am most pleased for him.

The challenge, as in my trip with Ntate Kuene, is transportation. The villages can produce food products, the challenge is getting the product to market. The subsidized Beautiful Gate vehicle will not often be available.

Water and Electricity: The saga of utilities at Beautiful Gate continues. But I have learned that if us Makhooha (white guys) might have been a bit more willing to ask the Basotho staff some questions we might be further down the road, especially with the power.

We do have water. And I am so proud of our Basotho guys. They were the ones that make the final arrangements with the water authority and figured out how to set up an effective, though interim, connection that means we no longer have to worry about running out of water.

And, when explaining my understanding of our electricity connection woes to the Basotho staff I work with directly, they pointed out most clearly the steps one needs to follow to obtain a connection. Yes, it is a bit of a tedious process, but had we Makhooha been a bit more humble and only asked and then followed the process we would have power by now. Rather we are finding ourselves having to apologize to the power company for our rather demanding attitude and only now begin the process. With Christmas upon us it may be late January before we get through the process and connected, but at least we are on the right track now.

The next entry (above) is a further update, but I wouldn't want to call 'her' a loose end. :)

~ Benno ~

Disparity

There are so many ways to define disparity here, but one of the most recent ones was experienced today. I've been curious about the local gym and decided to check it out and maybe get a membership; so Benno and I walked into town early this morning. Well...everything I had heard was evidently--very evidently true. Just walking past the huge tennis and basketball courts outside, with great seating all around, AND the huge 25 m. outdoor pool my head was shaking with the opulence of it all, juxtaposed against the poverty here. This complex covers about half a city block, and once we walked around and found the main entrance and walked down the lovely terraced boulevard down to the entry doors I was feeling like this must be another universe. Inside, I discovered the best-equipped gym I've ever seen. It is HUGE and has every possible piece of equipment any training athlete could hope for, PLUS another 25 m indoor pool, PLUS a full-sized gym and a clubhouse...WOW! Obviously there are some people here--I guess the ones who drive the Mercedes--who can afford the luxuries. Also, the gym was the generous gift by the Central Bank (like the Bank of Canada) to its employees, and anyone else who chooses to purchase a membership. What a fabulous community facility. In Canada, we'd expect it. In Canada, this would be like some of the world-class facilities created for the Olympics in Calgary.

But here? Here, where the local hospital is a nightmare? Here, where just yesterday our young friend, Thabiso, dropped in for a visit to tell us that his sister has been very sick and to thank us for the bed. I am reminded that their little 'house' is likely smaller than one of the washrooms at the big gym facility. The needs of Thabiso and his sisters are so very very HUGE yet meeting them, financially would be just a drop in one of the swimming pools of the snazzy gym.

I'd love to be able to just hand Thabiso all the solutions; I do hand him a bit--enough to buy a bit of food and maybe a Christmas gift for his sisters and grandmother--and my small gift feels like a mere drop in the deep pool of his need.

And now, Benno sits at our dining table visiting with a friend who has just lost his job--no notice--because the construction job he was doing is now finished. This friend also has just acquired the extra responsibility of some family members who are now living with him...and his challenges go on...And he goes on with such dignity in the face of so much potential for despair.

Here, disparity is defined in many ways. Here, questions are weighed on a larger, more imbalanced scale. The disparity creates a dissonance in me that I find hard to endure. But even here, I wonder...will I get a membership at the gym? Will it matter if I do? Will it make any difference if I don't? Who will care? What does living in the midst of this disparity do for the local wealthy who use the gym and drive around in their expensive cars? Who knows? What really does it do for any of us? We see it all the time, don't we? Do we just all eventually become inured?

~Wendy~