Shangri-La

I love a good road trip.

That's why when GRS asked me to drive 10 hours to our central city location of Bloemfontein to deliver some supplies to our program I jumped on it. The other benefit of this little task was that the following day I would get to join the 3 interns in Bloem on a trip to Lesotho – a tiny little country entirely surrounded by South Africa, high in the mountains (the ‘low-lands’ are still 1000m above sea level).

With only 2 days notice, I packed a rental car full of soccer balls and jerseys for the trainers and set off from Cape Town. The drive was spectacular and I wasn’t bored for a minute, thanks to a random assortment of South Africa CD’s and Ryan’s audio book J Even without those I would have been fine as the scenery was unbelievable. Let me recount a few memories:

-some kind of large baboon-like monkey crossing my path then perching on the side of the road overlooking some mountains (wish I could’ve stopped for a picture!)
-road kill was not the usual porcupine or skunk but a massive 3ft lizard
-beautiful weather the entire day with only an hour’s interruption for a massively entertaining lightning storm
-the first Hobo I ever saw; not a hitchhiker - this guy was scraggly and just walking in the middle of nowhere… as I recently learned Hobo stands for “homeward bound” and I can say with great certainty that this guy was IT.
-missing by about 20 mins some kind of explosion of container trucks – I saw the skeletons of 2 Macks on the side of the road, possibly hit by lightning

Ok so the last one was a bit freaky, but as you can see, it wasn’t your usual Sunday drive.

I arrived in Bloem at 7:30 pm and was immediately off to a soccer game. 10 000 people in the stadium for a local Pro team – Celtics vs Sundowns.

The fans were manic. The quality of soccer…meh, not so good. But so enjoyable anyway. A little hectic in the crowd, had to keep your wits about you with so many people. Usually they play in the township and that's even more unruly but regardless we left a bit early to ensure safe passage out.

LESOTHO ("Le-soo-too")
The next morning we set off the Lesotho which was all the more incredible. As soon as we passed over the border from SA, we could immediately tell we were in another country. The landscape, the people, the clothes - all had their own flair. All along the country side shepherds tended sheep and there was an immediate sense of calm and well being. As though the word ‘war’ had never been uttered in this place, and the concept of hate would simply not be understood. Just as another gorgeous day was coming to a close, we were greeted with another storm; this time huge pellets of hail. It was practically a whiteout!

The people in our car to Lesotho were each from a different country!

This pic is from the border crossing.
Passports from the USA, France, Canada, SA and Botswana.

We soon arrived at the field for the tournament and helped set up tents for the next day. The tournament was soccer based but the main purpose was really to promote testing of HIV status. We had 14 tents for counselors to test individuals between soccer games. Seems very unorthodox to those of us from North America, but events like this work wonders for a community where HIV is found in every third person and there can be serious consequences to openly living with HIV.

The next day took off in a fury of kids arriving in 15 seat mini-buses, blaring music and ready for action! School teams (just a random assortment of students really) had a packed day of playing soccer and participating in GRS games which taught them about HIV. The thought of living with a disease as detrimental as AIDS is enough to overwhelm even the most grounded of people. Imagine throwing it into a family where a) sex is simply not discussed, b) promiscuity, though common, is absolutely abhorred and c) because of poor knowledge, an HIV positive status causes most people to assume you engage frequently in drugs, alcohol and sex with the wrong people. These factors bring a shame to your family unlike anything we could appreciate in western society. Living communally, as the great majority of people do in Sub-Saharan Africa, means you can be shunned from everyone in your life, left to deal with inevitably failing health on your own.

This is why we do what we do. We carry messages like ‘With help, you can live a long and healthy life with HIV!” and “We must support our loved ones through no matter what”. We break down misconceptions about how HIV is transmitted, and let people know that those who are positive are not ‘bad’ people. The games we played at the tournament explained concepts like the Immune System and how treatment medication (ARVs) work. Find the Ball explained that you can only know your status by having a blood test (readily available on that day!) and also let the children know where else they can be tested and receive counseling.

We Were Treated Like Royalty… Till Royalty Showed Up.

Between playing soccer, our activities and just getting together with other schools (events like this rarely happen) the kids had an amazing time. I can personally attest for this as I ran the feedback sessions at the end of the day :) All the students thanked us (the facilitators) and fought again and again for pictures of everyone to be taken together. Then, a special surprise came when a helicopter suddenly swept across the open valley, circled a few times and landed a few hundred meters away. The King of Lesotho? Well, I heard Lesotho’s Prince was there I am slightly embarrassed to say I remain unsure if he was or not. It was all drowned out when England’s Prince Harry approached the field. Some of you may know he spent some time as a volunteer in Lesotho himself and his charity had links to the event. Nice of him to drop by J

There is so much more to say as the weekend didn’t end there. In fact, that was only Friday! The other interns and I backpacked toward the center of Lesotho and stayed in mud-huts for 2 nights. Hiked to waterfalls, saw a local soccer match and generally had an amazing time! All to come soon… till then I hope this finds you all happy and healthy!

Hlala kakule – stay well (Xhosa)