Half way update

I had hoped to blog a lot more often while I was out here in Lesotho, but a combination of some unfortunate internet connection failures and a jam-packed schedule have led me to making this first post after a whole week has passed. And what an amazing week it has been! After our absolute martathon trip to get here (including a 5 hour drive through the night from Johannesburg, notice how journey times seem to increase) we have been going pretty much non stop. We have visited schools and orphanages, sometimes giving AIDS awareness classes, sometimes just playing with the kids; played a lot of football (won three, lost two, drawn one); toured around Maseru and the surrounding countryside.

It's very hard to sum this place up, especially as most of our time has been spent here in Maseru, the capital city. It is a strange combination of wealth and indigence. On the one hand there are shiny supermarkets that would make any Tesco branch back in the UK proud, KFC's, Internet Cafe's and stores selling designer clothes and footwear. However, outside the immediate city centre are large areas of very poor small concrete houses, shacks and rickety stalls selling not very much at all. Of course the majority of the wealth of Lesotho is held in Maseru.

The people here are universally friendly and will stop to shake hands with you at the drop of a hat. They joke and smile and I guess we have a certain novelty factor.

One of the highlights of the week so far include our visits to schools where hundreds and hundreds of children would come screaming out towards us and mob us like we were film stars. They shook our hands, stroked our arms, asked us a million questions, and went wild to have their photos taken.

Another highlight was our trip to Thaba Bosiu which is probably the most important historical site in the whole of Lesotho. It was here to this flat topped, easily defended peak that the founder of Lesotho, King Moshoeshoe I, led his people several times and fought off numerous enemies from Zulus to Afrikaans. It is now the official burial site of the Royal family and also affords the most amazing panoramic views which take in the strangely shaped conical mountain Qiloane, which is said to have inspired the traditional Lesotho hat.

There were contrasting emotions on Saturday when we went to visit a school for the blind and an orphanage. The former was small but clean and neat and housed 40 children whose visual problems ranged from badly needing strong glasses to total blindness. It was a bitersweet visit, on the one hand there was joy as we gave them footbal shirts and sang songs with them (inevitably they sang better than us), while always we were aware that these were mostly orphans whose future prospects were bleak. One girl who was about 16 had been there since she was 7 and her problem was that she needed corrective glasses, but they couldn't afford them. Before we left we donated the 700 rand required (about 50 UK Pounds) to get them for her. It was a very emotional moment, they were utterly greatful while all we could think was how little it comparitavly was for us to make such a big change in someone's life.

Immediately after that we went to visit an orphanage which can safely be described as a couple of sheds in a piece of scrubland off the main road. Here a woman and her mother have dedicated their lives to trying to help children. There are 22 of them in these two tiny rooms with no running water and a well that is just about dry. 7 of the children are HIV positive including a mother and her beautiful little baby daugther. It was utterly heartbreaking but they greeted us with such verve and fun and we played with them and again donated items. Luckily Lesotho has a policy of giving free AIDS medication so all of them are improving and the mother of the baby has been trained as a Nutritionist and now works at the local Hospital. A small glimmer of hope in amongst the desolation.

Finally of course there is the football and we have been doing well considering the conditions. Lesotho is absolutely crazy about football and all the Premiership games are shown here. The pitches have ranged from terribly bad to a dustbowl and all of us are physically depleted. Personally I contracted a pretty nasty flu and have had a pretty rough few days not made any easier by my insistence on playing in a couple of the matches when I should sensibly have been in bed. Still though, I am on the mend a bit now and will take it much easier.

This week we head up to more rural (and inevitably poorer) areas before flying home on Friday. It's been a tough week, emotionally and physically, but it has also been fun and very rewarding. Hopefully it will continue so!