The morning started early as we were heading off to school which starts with assembly at 7.45. After last nights storm it was a bright and clear morning but a gentle breeze kept it from being unbearably hot. The school has almost doubled in size since last year but the children were all very well turned out and on the playground for assembly in their straight lines in their school uniform as always. We delivered a very large suitcase of books to Me Florence the headteacher from Uganda and as always she was delighted. I was delighted to find on her desk a pen that I had taken her last year from Ray Williams my mechanic. It was well worn and obviously well used - also behind her desk were pictures of our children from St Nics which i had taken her last time. After the usual formalities of assembly during which i introduced Mr Dobson and Mrs Wisbey the children marched into their class rooms as usual. I was very touched that when i said good morning to the children they all remembered my name and responded with 'Good morning Mrs Dobson, how are you today' a greeting which goes on for quite a long time and everytime you go into a class the children stand up and say the same thing.
Dobbo had not been to the school before in his previous trip so I was assigned the task of taking him and Linda around and giving them the tour! When we got to the computer room the IT teacher happened to be there and he assured me that the printers were both still working and they had used them a lot - in fact there was a great photo that they had printed themselves on the wall. The IT teacher then took us to the library and i could not believe it. This room which had been empty back in 2012 was now well stocked with books and i recognized some on the shelves that i had taken over from St Nics. They had another donor from Australia and it had changed the lives of some of the children who could now take a book home with them - they could borrow it for a week.
I visited all the classes with Linda and Dobbo and as always I was so impressed. One class had 60 children in it but there was a lot of work getting done. All the children stand up when you enter the room and always stand up if they are invited to speak. One teacher had her medicine stick (a short twig which she will use to tap a child if her or she is misbehaving in any way). The children dont misbehave because they know how important education is in their lives. While she laid on morning tea for us (complete with white tablecloth and home made cakes) she told me to sit at her desk in the reception hut! 2 children came in - one for tablets for a head ache which the secretary just gave her and another to buy a pencil to replace the one he had lost! We take our pencils for granted, as we take so much for granted and i thought what a good idea that was - it makes children take responsibility for their own things. The school amazed Steve and Linda as it always amazes me that the behaviour is so good. Discipline is strict, the teachers are respected and the children really want to be there. The highlight of the morning for me was when the teacher gave Dobbo and Linda books to hand out so they had to call their names out..... Not many childrens names are less than 3 syllables long and the children were having a good giggle as Linda and Dobbo tried to pronouce their names! The rules of grammar are interesting. An L followed by a U or an e is always pronounced as a D!
After lunch Linda and I had a couple of minutes rest in the sun while Stephanie sorted some books out to take to the Beautiful GAte library which Wendy has set up. My rest was not long enough even to get my book out really before i had to get a few other things sorted before i took Linda and Steve into town to visit the tourist shop. We parked in a place which gave us a little walk through the main shopping street to experience Maseru on foot. There were so many car horns going and people selling their fruit and veg off the street that it was with some relief that we finally got to the Basotho hat to do some souvenir shopping before braving Shoprite for a few supplies. We then drove back to the new mall as i wanted to buy some towels with the money that the children at school had given me which they had raised at their cake sale for Beautiful Gate. I had noticed that some of the towels which were being used to bath the children were in a bit of a bad way and that seemed a great way of spending the money the children had raised.
We were a bit delayed coming back but fortunately the 5pm predicted rain storm had not happened so we piled into 2 cars with Bryan and Anita's family and Terps and Grace and headed to Lancers Gap. This is a mountain overlooking the whole city which has always been a favourite place of mine since my first visit in 2006. We had a vague plan to watch a sunset, eat some nibbles and head back for a takeaway. Well the clouds had gathered so the sunset wasn't great but that did not really matter to me - the place is special, sunset or no sunset. We were then surrounded by about 15 local children which meant we could not open any food, we only had a few nibbles and we could not have eaten it in front of the children without offering them some and had we offered them some, at least another 50 children would have miraculously appeared from nowhere so we sat and watched the sun go down and chatted and some pictures. Terps and I had travelled in the back of the baccie which had been our long awaited treat and it felt good to be back - with the wind through my hair travelling in my favourite African way. We decided against a pizza as some people fancied milk shakes and decided to to instead to Spur and sit in a proper restaurant! This we did although the STeves and the rest of the team who were following us in the Baccie took a wrong turning as they lost us at a roundabout but thanks to some initiative and a mobile phone we found each other! Sadly Spur had sold out of milk shakes (!!!!) but we had a delicous meal and it was a great way to spend time together at the end of a diverse day.
On arrival back at home, having travelled once again in the open top back of the baccie but this time in the rain going round roundabouts a couple of times and our driver (Bryan) finding every pot hole he could, we found that our house was without power for no obvious reason so that involved lots more going out in the rain.
Eventually it all came back on and we came and sat and chilled. Poor Linda suffered a bit with the altitude of Lancers - she has really suffered with the lack of oxygen and going even higher up was not good for her. I am hoping that she sleeps well tonight as she is very tired with having to work at breathing. Its Ok though Barry if you are reading this - she is being well looked after and having a good time, she just has to take things slowly and has a nasty cough.
Tomorrow we are privileged to be able to witness an adoption ceremony which will be a real high on which to end the week. The boys will need to focus on finishing the jobs of technology and this time tomorrow we will be packing up to leave and come home. Not something i am reallly looking forward to to be honest, there are a lot more things i would like to achieve! It doesn't seem possible that this time last week were were up in the air on our way here - it has gone so fast!
Tomorrow however is another day and there will be lots more things to be shared and enjoyed.
Till then
Tsmaea Hantle as they sat in Lesotho - stay well.
Jenny x
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