The Epic Catch-Up Post!

For the month of October we lived in a village called Malealea in Lesotho. I was roommates with my friend Joaquin. Our family consisted of our mother, Mme Theresia, her grown children Manapo, Nono, Pakela, and Pakela's wife MaKhotso. MaKhosto has a 5 month old baby boy Khotso, and Manapo also had two young children who lived with us. So there were about ten of us all together. Our family happened to be in the process of adding on to their house, but they fixed up one of the new rooms so that it was suitable for Joaquin and I to stay in. We each had our own double bed, and then the rest of the family was living in the main living room/kitchen area. We enjoyed our family life very much. My mother was very outgoing and made sure we knew how to do everything in the Lesotho ways. For example: It is unacceptable to drink water with your bread, you must have tea. She also insisted on boiling our water before we drank it even though we assured her that it was safe for us to drink and that we had filters on our water bottles. Our family was also very helpful and willing to help us learn Sesotho, and their Sotho was much easier for us to understand than in Soweto where it got mixed in with other languages. I got a new name, Lerato, which means love, and Joaquin's name was changed to Thabo (happiness).
A typical day in Lesotho: breakfast around 7 (usually 3 maquena, or "fat cakes" which are essentially doughnuts without any sugar on them.... on a good day we would just have bread), then meeting the group in the village for either a work/development project or going to help at the primary school. Then we would usually come home for lunch (usually papa, pasta or rice on Sundays, and some kind of canned fish or gravy) and have a free afternoon to either go hiking, read, visit with friends or family, or do laundry. In the evenings I would help cook dinner by lantern light and then we would have our dinner and tea. Our family liked to sing so we would often sit around before bed and teach each other songs. These were some of my favorite moments with my family. Then Joaquin and I would have our bedtime routine of brushing our teeth in the yard, then trekking to the outhouse and praying that we wouldn't have to use the bathroom again once we got in bed for the night.
The people of Lesotho have a different style of hospitality that takes awhile to get used to. They make you feel very welcome, but they also can be very critical of the way you do things. I have been corrected on tasks as simple as putting peanut butter on bread... but I just learned to always assume I didn't know how to do something =) There were many misunderstandings on both ends, but we still found a way to communicate.
We also spent one week working on a farm as a group, which was a very different experience than village life. It was hard work, but it was good group bonding time. The final week in the village was so relaxing and comfortable to return to. I wasn't quite ready to leave the beauty and the serenity of Lesotho.
The very next day we took a bus ride to the Orange Free State in South Africa and arrived at the Royal Hotel in Bethulie. This is probably were the most culture shock occurred for our group. The Hotel was such a beautiful and comfortable place to stay: A historical old building in the center of town, the walls were all lined floor to ceiling with books, encyclopedias, and a record collection. The dining room was the perfect atmosphere for the murder mystery that we did on Halloween night. Bethulie was the home stay where I stayed at the Ou Vellies coffee shop that I mentioned in my previous post. We had a great time with Peter and Annette going on game drives in the back of Peter's truck, getting baking lessons from Annette, and playing with their adorable dog with cerebral palsy. We also spent a day on a farm with Frankie & Audrey's host parents. We hiked to a cave in the side of a mountain, swam in a freezing cold irrigation dam, had target practice, and ended the day with a braai. We had a grand time in Bethulie, but the challenging part was reconciling the Afrikaners stories of South Africa with the stories we had heard from Soweto and Lesotho. It's amazing how after living with black families for two months how quickly you can be influenced by views of the "other side." So many times I heard "I'm not racist, but..." and honestly it was hard to listen to. Yet at the same time, I know there is some truth to what they think about the black people because I have experienced it first hand! There is a blatant lack of respect on both sides that I was finding myself caught in the middle of.
Following Bethulie we split into small groups and traveled down the Garden Route to Stellenbosch. We had much time just relaxing on the beach and going on mini-adventures.
Stellenbosch was a really awesome university town and it was nice to all be together again. However, I definitely felt myself feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated by too much shopping and too many restaurants. After being away from these things for so long it was a lot at once. Even now, life is just not as simple as it was a few weeks ago. When we arrived in Cape Town we stayed at a lodge for the first few days. We did a lot of shopping and haggling at outdoor markets and I always crashed of exhaustion at the end of those days.
Whew! If you are still reading this, thanks for hanging in there! I am currently in a Cape Town home stay with Heidi, as I mentioned before. A few days a week we take the train to the campus of the University of Cape Town and attend a lecture that is given especially for our EMU group. So far they have been very interesting. On our days off from lectures, we go on adventures in "town." Our family lives in Wynnberg, which is near (if not part of) the Cape Flats. Our family would have been considered "coloured" under the Apartheid government, so they do not like to say that they live in the Cape Flats, because it has a negative social connotation. It is sad that there are geographical areas that people are still trying to avoid because the stigmas developed under Apartheid still live on. Our family is adorable: They do everything they can to show us a good time. They have given us a cell phone so that we can get in touch with people in our group. They are always encouraging us to get together with people and to invite people over. Last night was Justin & Heidi's three year anniversary, and Justin & Mike's host mom prepared a beautiful dinner, and invited Heidi & I for a little dinner party for the four of us. They set everything up for us and then went out to attend a party of their own. It was such a nice gift.
It's hard to believe that the trip is winding down. Cape Town is so exciting and we are trying to see as much of it as we can. I am enjoying myself but of course am looking forward to being reunited with all of you. Love,

Laura