Happy Herd Boy

It is getting cold in Lesotho now.  This morning it was around 30 degrees and then it will go up to about 70 during the day.  I love this weather, it is so nice to sleep in.  It is autum here and the wind is blowing leaves off of the trees.  Everyone is wrapped up in blankets and the mountains are turning dusty brown.  The change of seasons is nice, but it can be hard for some people.  People here spend so much time outside, especially children, and now they are getting cold.  Homes also don't always stay too warm with tin roofs and dirt floors, so people have to spend extra money for firewood or parafin for heaters to keep warm.  The free fruit, mostly peaches, are now gone and everything just feels a little bit more quiet.

The schools were closed for a few days for the Easter Break and I decided to just stay put.  I really enjoyed being slothful around my house.  I played with the kids, read a lot, and went to watch a football game with some of the boys from my school who stayed over the break.  Only the students that have family members fairly close to town go home over these short breaks, so the house mothers and fathers try to entertain them with little outings.  One day a group of about 10 girls and a house mother walked over to my house for a while and just hung out on my porch.  Although I understand a bit of Sesotho, I still have a lot of trouble communicating fully, but with the students we just kind of find a way around language and still communicate well together.  At the football game I heard one of our students yelling at another boy because he heard him call me "lekhoa" (not always a nice name for white person), he said "Me Lisa, not lekhoa"  It made me so happy that the kids were standing up for me and had fun hanging out with me.  I am really going to miss these students.

 Last week I was given a surprise birthday party at school.  It was really fun.  The teachers got cakes and balloons and we had a big dance party with all of the students.  It was really special because birthdays are not really celebrated here like at home.  Many people don't even know their actual birthday because they may have been born at home or in a village where there is no need for calendars.  After school I invited the teachers out to a hotel in town and we had some drinks and pizza, such a fun day.
  Things have been very busy at school again.  We are finalizing the new classrooms, just waiting on the plumber to finish up!  I have learned so much about plumbing, maybe a new career is in order.  Once everything is finished we will have an opening and then put the rooms to use.  The teachers are very excited about being able to teach cooking classes.  We are also trying to get things in order for our new volunteer speech pathologist from Australia.  She will be here working in Lesotho for 2 years and we are very lucky to have her based at our centre.  Finally we are getting the animals and gardens ready for winter.  This week one of our teachers, Me Mary, brought her neighbor's male pig to our school to try to get our female pig pregnant.  The pigs spent a few days together and then the male went back home.  Mary, who is 64, tied a rope around the pig and walked it all the way back to her village yesterday.  It is quite a funny and noisy thing to walk a pig.  It is not easy and she still manage, I hope I am as strong as her at that age.

Our pig Thuso

My principal's car on one of our trips to hardware store, we were so
squished we could barely drive home!!