Lesotho, Part 2

Yesterday I had the day off, so I visited Thaba Bosiu (Tah-bah Boh-see-ou), which means mountain of the night. The first King of Lesotho, Moshoeshoe I, settled his people on the mountain because it only had a few paths up and was easy to defend. People tried to attack them at night and failed, which led to the myth that the mountain got bigger at night and smaller in the day.

It was a nice climb, about 700 feet in elevation, but whoa. Starting the climb already a mile above sea level made me huff and puff a lot. So while I rested I took photos :)

 When I made it to the top, my guide took a photo of me :)

 

To enter the burial grounds and ruins of the chief's village, you put a stone on the cairn signifying you come in peace.

 This is where Chief Moshoeshoe I gave speeches to his people. My guide demonstrated.

 From Thaba Bosiu you can see this mountain, which is the inspiration for the Basotho hat

 I got to stand in the first stone house built in Lesotho, Chief Moshoeshoe I's house.

 

King Moshoeshoe I's grave. His warriors were buried with him.

 

 

This is the grave of the father of the current king.

The path up and down the mountain was a bit steep!

At the bottom of the mountain is a cultural village, set up by the Lesotho government for tourism. Part of the village is a recreation of King Moshoeshoe I's village on Thaba Bosiu, and the other part shows the different building styles and totems of the different clans of the Basotho people 200 years ago.

 A statue of the first king.

 Recreating Thaba Bosiu

Inside a compounds there are several shelters. 

 Most clans used thatched roofs, but this one has homes made completely out of stone.

This clan has chosen the wild cat as it's totem. Other totems include lions, buffalo, clouds, pumpkin, and the house cat. 

Next post: Into the Mountains

Lesotho, Part 1

I arrived in Lesotho on Sunday afternoon, exhausted from 2 back to back night flights. I skyped our consultant whose trip overlaps with mine, since we were at the same hotel. ‘Made it, but going to take a nap’. Um, I went to sleep at 4pm and woke up the next morning. When I met him for breakfast the next morning and apologized, he just laughed at me and said he knew when I skyped him that it wasn’t going to be a nap. 

 

The lowlands (which still have plateaus)

 Lesotho is beautiful. The capital, Maseru, is in what they call the lowlands, and on Thursday we went farther south into the lowlands so I could see some of the laboratories that my work project supports. I won’t bore you with tons of laboratory pictures, but it’s really neat to see how things work, and meet really dedicated, committed lab workers. 

 One of the labs we visited.

We went all the way south to Mafeteng and Mohale’s Hoek. The trip there and back, with several stops at labs and one for lunch, took a full business day. [Sidenote: There is a really good pizza place in the middle of nowhere Lesotho!] So last week was mostly spent in the Maseru office except for Thursday, catching up on administrative stuff and working with the technical team on data stuff. I also checked out the mall next to my hotel and felt very at home- all of the chain stores are the same as Botswana. 

I found my favorite biscuits (cookies) :D

Once you are outside Maseru, it’s mostly rural. There are shops and scattered restaurants, but few banks or job opportunities (that I could see) outside of agriculture and small roadside businesses. There are several large Chinese garment factories in Maseru, but still not a huge business district that I saw. 

 A garment factory outside of Leribe. 85%+ of the employees are female.

Houses are traditionally round and made of stone. Now there are more square/rectangle cement structures, but all seem pretty substantial and able to weather the elements. Which is important, because it snows in the mountains and apparently hailed in Maseru last week (!). 

 

A village about 30 minutes from the capital.

The language, Sesotho (pronounced ‘Seh-sue-too’) is very similar to Setswana, the language I learned in Botswana. Similar enough that most of the greetings are the same and if I speak Setswana, people understand me. And then tell me how to say that phrase in Sesotho :)

Next post: I climbed a mountain and did some cool stuff on my free day.