See? We’re gradually learning some Sesotho, the native language here. Also, lebitso la ka ke Robby, and ke a laboha for taking the time to read this second blog post (the spelling could easily be wrong, but I tried). You guys, just fair warning, this might end up being kind of long. I wanted to wait until some stories piled up before sitting down the write again, so there’s a lot of ground to cover…

In this first week or so, I’ve found Lesotho to be a beautiful country with wonderful people. There are dangerous times and areas, just like anywhere else, but for a good illustration of this place’s quaint, mountainous-country-as-a-small-town feel, I’d encourage you to read Amit’s blog from the same day as this one. The story he tells about being creeped out in twilight took place right after our first attempt at climbing a small mountain with “Police Training College” spelled out on it, “Hollywood”-sign style. The 5:30pm sundown cut that hike short, but we tried again the next day, led by two girls with about six fewer years and twice the climbing ability of any of us, and reached the summit, where we witnessed the vistas shown in a couple of the pictures below. I’m having trouble uploading some other pictures from the trip to the Morija Scott and Roma St. Joseph’s hospitals — bar none, one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever taken.

Our trips to those hospitals were parts 2 and 3 of a mission to see how the infant incubator “hot cots” given to several area hospitals fared since last summer. The hot cots were designed as stand-alone solutions to provide warm (85-90 degrees Fahrenheit) environments for critical-status infants using locally-available materials with a low overall cost. Our Queen Elizabeth II hospital visit, destination #1, failed; we couldn’t locate the cot. At Morija Scott hospital however, the BTB-donated hot cot was actually their only operational infant incubating unit, and the people we talked to in the Maternity ward were very appreciative. St. Joseph’s had stopped using their incubator because they were concerned that it would get too warm without sufficient monitoring by the nurses. (Side Note: it was amazing to me how much nicer these two smaller hospitals were in terms of facilities and staff compared to Q2, the government hospital, even considering that patients apparently pay amply for those advantages. I’m glad the Lesotho government is constructing a replacement for Q2.)

Moving to a country so different from the U.S.A. requires some adjustment, and it’s something I’m still dealing with. For instance, I just can’t get used to people driving on the wrong side of the road. OK, so technically it’s not the wrong side here, but for some reason I still find it shocking every time I almost get run over while crossing a lane of traffic after looking in the wrong direction to check for cars and trucks. I also do a double-take everytime I think I see a car being driven by a ghost — until I realize that here the steering wheels are at the other front seat! Everything from cell phone minutes to water is prepaid in Lesotho, but I still get confused when a text message refuses to send for lack of credits. I’m sure I’ll get used to these things in time. On the other hand, some adjustments happened quickly. Nowadays, I think nothing of plopping down in taxis that are completely unmarked (which I would probably never do in the States), and walking into an actual heated room is now reason for surprise.

For the past few days, we have been helping Masianokeng High students study for their upcoming exams. When they get tired of talking about school though, Grace and I happily entertain questions about our BTB project, life in America, and our marital statuses. All the students are friendly and dedicated; they have made our time at the school wonderfully challenging and enjoyable. Our project is currently slated to begin June 15, and involve 30 students in the Microenterprise course and 16 students building four new hot cots for Morija Scott and Roma St. Joseph’s hospitals. We’re don’t have a firm schedule at the Family Art and Literacy Centre as of yet, but we will probably start going periodically to provide elbow grease and read to kids once the Centre has its grand opening.

To end with, today was a strange mix of alarming and reassuring. We were able to track down 2 of the 3 donated incubators from last year, but only one of them was being used.  Also, having heard that HIV/AIDS was a taboo subject here, I was pleasantly astounded when some students proactively asked me questions about the disease. However, the rumors they had heard were distressing; one student asked if it was true that an HIV-positive male can be cured if he has sex with a virgin. In this instance, it’s misinformation that we have to confront, and I hope Grace and I can come up with good ways to do that with the health component of our course. Overall, everyone here has had a successful time of it so far, and I’m anxiously anticipating (in a good way) the start of our course in about a week and a half.