The Good the bad and the ugly!

The day started off frosty again and I was out at 7 with my pyjamas under my jeans and jumper to go and sort out the paint problem for Annette.  She has drawn a wonderful mural on the playgroup wall and then discovered that the paint that we thought was here was all hard and old.  Allan, the volunteer from Australia who has been here for many years who is an amazing man was the man to talk to and as predicted he sorted the problem out for me.  Thank goodness for fixers!

Some of the team went off to playgroup after breakfast while I took a small group out to the shops to buy food and we stopped off for a coffee at a little coffee shop in the mall.  The TV was on and it was really weird to see the canoeing on Dorney Lake.  We  had forgotten that the Olympics were on having been watching wall to wall Olympics for the whole of last week.  It seems we are doing well on the medal table!

We managed to buy all the food we needed although Chickens were a challenge!  We wanted to cook roast chicken for 14 and could only find tiny chickens and the shop only had 5 so we bought them all. We had an early lunch and then left with Donna (Allan's wife) for a visit to the other orphanage that I had visited when I was here last.

Brian had spent some of the morning painting Pula, one of the baby houses and  when we returned from shopping Annette joined him and did a great job.  It was hard work but they rose to the occasion and it is beginning to look good.  They and the other men chose not to come to the other orphange.  I drove the minibus with 8 of us, following Donnna and I thought I had prepared the group for what they were about to encounter. 

We had taken a couple of footballs for the children to play with and they were delighted with them. They sang to us as they greeted us and we introduced ourselves to them.  The group were not surprised by what they saw - the poverty, the lack of care shown, the complete disrepair of the placs - leaking roofs and broken windows.  What really shocked them was the feral nature of the children who have not had much love shown to them for a long time. Donna who goes in to provide basic food and medical care is an amazing lady and shows them so much love and care but other than that they do not have any understanding of human love!   What a difference to the love and care shown to them at Beautiful Gate.  Jo played football with some of the older children while we sat and played with some of the younger ones.  The children have no nappies, they often eat no meals and sadly the lady who runs it does not direct any money that she is given for the children to the right place.  If I say that she was wearing very nice clothes and had perfectly manicured nails, it may help explain the situation.  It was no less harrowing than my first visit but dealing with the emotions of others made it much harder to deal with and it was with relief that we piled into the minibus and headed off.

We had arranged to meet the others to head up to Lancers Gap, a high cliff overlooking Maseru which has been a favourite place of mine since my first visit.  We met to watch the sun go down and it was stunningly beautiful, a stark contrast to what we had just left.  Bryan came with us and after taking lots of photos we quietened down to pray about what we had seen and experienced during the day and during the week.  We then enjoyed a glass of wine and the most magnificent sunset. So so beautiful......................The drive to Lancers Gap was a challenge - I was driving the minibus and following Bryan in his 4 x 4 over very rough terrain but we stayed in one piece.

Heading back through Maseru rush hour traffic was also a challenge but we arrived back at Beautiful Gate at the same time as Allan and Donna who were going to be our dinner guests.  Shortly after another couple of friends that I had made in February - Benno and Wendy came to join us and so we had a very multinational evening. It took a while for dinner to finish cooking and there was lots of noise as we all conversed and shared our experiences together.

Fiona and Chloe with James' help with it came to dishing up, served up a wonderful roast chicken dinner and dinner was a lovely relaxing and friendly time.

It has been a good but harrowing day.  Everyone needs time to process what they have seen and done today and I think a day in the mountains tomorrow will be just what is needed to heal some hearts and minds.

Washing up is done, jacket potatoes stabbed ready for dinner tomorrow and I am trying for an early night,well it is at least before 11 tonight!

From a beautiful but sometimes painful Lesotho......................goodnight.

Jenny x