Day two in Lesotho! Alex and I woke up early a took a taxi to downtown Maseru only to find that most stores and businesses are closed completely on Sundays. We made a stop at the Shop Rite, a popular grocery store in South Africa and Lesotho and bought a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly, along with some juice and potato chips. We sat on a table outside to enjoy the morning sun and had some sandwiches. After that we decided to walk around the city and see what we could find. We were looking around for the Peace Corps office, but ended up finding a bunch of other stuff instead. We found a basically abandoned Red Cross office and a United Nations house. At the UN house we were given directions to the Peace Corps training center.
When we got there we found about ten or so volunteers hanging out in the house. They thought we were new recruits, but we explained we were volunteers in South Africa and were just on holiday in Lesotho. We talked with them for awhile about what the Peace Corps is like, because the both of us have an interest in joining after we graduate from MSU. Some of them took us to the Peace Corps office down the street and we talked with some more people who answered a lot of our questions. There was even an MSU alumni there named Amber! She had gotten her masters in a school in the south of the US for Public Health and now did work along those lines for the Corps. That was very interesting meeting all of them, as it cleared up a lot of confusion I had about the Peace Corps.
I learned that I could do something along of the lines of education and educational development, whether it be teaching myself or training teachers. I would like to do either, because I believe that education is truly the path to success. An educated person is a more confident person, and a more confident person is more like likely to become a leader in the community that helps inspire positive change. Knowledge is a terrible thing to waste, so I believe those who possess it should share it, and connect others to other resources that help make it more accessible. It wouldn’t be right of me to not use my privilege and share my time, resources, and knowledge with others. At this point in my life I am not tied down to anything, so something like the Peace Corps or World Teach would be a perfect fit for me.
We left the Peace Corps office happy and stopped at a local backers where we tried a granola bar looking thing called “Moosie.” We ate a park by some churches and continued our walk to once again see what we could randomly find. We started walking up a hill and then found ourselves at the gates of the palace of the King of Lesotho! There we stopped and talked to the guard at the front gate. He was very young, and was there as part of a special assignment. When I mentioned that his family must be very proud of his post, he got a big smile on his face and laughed, assuring me that this was the case. He was sorry he could not let us in, but told us if we kept following the road we were on we would see some pretty cool things like several embassies and the Prime Minister’s home. We thanked him and were on our way.
The houses down the street were absolutely beautiful and almost all had some sort of private security system of armed guards. We were walking down one road and saw the flag of the African Union. Alex innocently wanted to take a picture of it, so he did. We walked away and soon we were passing the Prime Minsters’s home when a security car pulled up to us. The man driving the car said he heard a report from one of the guards that a white man and a white lady were taking pictures of the Lybian embassy. He didn’t want to talk to us without first talking to the armed soldiers right outside of the Prime Minister’s gate. He came back to as us questions, and we convinced him that we were taking pictures of the mountains in the distance because where we live, there are no mountains. He was convinced pretty easily, and let us go. It really all was a mistake from the beginning—we didn’t know it was the Lybian Embassy—we thought someone was just flying the AU flag. Even so, I couldn’t help but thinking that part of the reason he let us go was because we were white, American tourists. He didn’t even ask to see the camera or search us. Anyways, it was a close one, and I breathed a sigh of relief when he drove away.
After our little run in, we decided to get dinner and go back to the guest house because everything else was closed. We ate at KFC and grabbed a 4+1 back to the guesthouse. We had a really nice taxi driver who’s name was David. He offered to take us back to Joburg because he was heading that way anyway later in the week, but our traveling days didn’t match up. We thanked him and I took down his number, just in case I ever found myself back in Lesotho and needed a ride.
We were watching the SABC (South African Broadcasting Company) international news later that night, when all of a sudden the power went out. I looked out the window to see nothing but pitch black. Some places far, far down the road had power, but the mountains in front of us were completely dark. It was so strange to see the entire mountain, usually glittering with the lights of many huts and homes, extinguished of all light. Soon someone came from the office with candles and emergency lights. The power was out for a few more hours, so we just read and played cards. When the power came back on, we watched a few movies and went to bed. Tomorrow we are going to be rested…we’re going to climb a mountain!
No comments:
Post a Comment