A different world called Lesotho

I have a confession.  A year and a half ago, I had never heard of the country I'm living in.  Honestly, had you ever heard of Lesotho?  And would you know how to pronounce it if I didn't tell you (it's Lis-ou-too, by the way)?  Even after I learned that I might be placed here and started to do some research, I didn't really believe that a place like this existed.  I had read that Lesotho is still a very traditional society and parts of it, particularly the mountainous middle of the country where Mantsonyane is, are still very similar to the way they were 100 years ago, the way they've always been.  Yeah, I had read that (thanks Lonely Planet!) but I didn't quite believe it.  Well, I'm here to tell you it's true.  This is one of the most remote places I've ever been,  and it really isn't Westernized at all.  Herd boys really do wear their Basoto blankets and walk up and down the mountains after their sheep or cattle.  Men ride around on donkeys or Basotho ponies.  Women leave their round, thatched roof huts to go to the river to get water.  And there are villages on the sides of mountains that have no roads in or out.  I can see one on a hill across from the hospital.  Let me assure you, places like this DO still exist in 2014, and I get to live here for the next two months!  It's like going back in time, like arriving on an alien planet.  You really cannot imagine how utterly different life is here.  Yet people are still just people, and the Basotho people I've met so far are warm and friendly and wonderful in every possible way.

I have to admit that life in Mantsonyane is challenging.  Here are some reasons why:

There is no hot water.  Which means bucket baths are the only possible option. You heat some water in a kettle or urn and use that to wash, which is neither very glamorous or very fun.

Sometimes there is no running water inside the house at all.  This seems to happen daily, for anywhere from a couple of hours to most of the day, the water just stops coming out of the taps.  I don't know why.  Luckily, there is a tap on the hospital grounds that has water even when the water in all the buildings has stopped flowing.  So you just go fill your giant bucket at the outside tap.  Well, if you're me, you ask someone to help you because that bucket is heavy when it's full!

Obviously you can't drink the tap water, or the water you fetch in your bucket, unless you want to boil it first.

It is VERY cold here at night, well below freezing, and there is a dusting of snow on the ground.  I know, y'all were polar vortexing all winter while I was lying on the beach in South Africa, but it's not a fair comparison.  You had central heat.  I do not have heat.  Or hot water.

And that's life on the hospital grounds, which believe me, is much more modern than the surrounding villages.  For example, here are some things I have that the average person living in the next village over does not have:

The outdoor tap with running water.  Many people have to walk to the river to fetch water.

A large house.  The hospital really gave me a great place to live!  It's a little bigger and similarly furnished to my house in Hawston.  There are actually four bedrooms, enough space for 6 people, but I have it all to myself.

Internet access.

A gas oven and stove.

A gas heater, otherwise known as my new BFF.  It doesn't heat the whole house, or even the whole room, but it is a big help on these frigid nights.

Access to and money to buy bottled drinking water from Maseru.

A fridge.  Not that you really need one, you could just stick your food outside and it would stay quite cold.

A TV that works.  My TV in Hawston didn't work, so this is actually an improvement!

As you can see, I am very lucky.  

What sort of work will I be doing here at St. James?  One of my goals is to support for the Hands on Health program.  HoH is basically a public health initiative with the goal of getting local communities to be more involved in taking care of their holistic health.  Facilitation teams comprised of staff from the hospital, local clinics, the Anglican church, and other interested people conduct visits to community residents and talk about their concerns.  It's basically a grassroots way of identifying needs in the community.  HoH is still in its early days, so I will be working with the coordinators to develop some written guidelines for how to conduct visits and record information.  I will also be spending some time in the hospital learning from the nurses here, particularly in the labor ward, OR, and outpatient department.  The hospital has asked me to help evaluate the way they capture and organize their patient care related statistics.  Finally, I'm going to help the hospital look at the effectiveness of the health education they provide their patients.  I think it will be a busy two months!

So that is an overview of what is going on in Mantsonyane right now.  After I spend some more time in the hospital next week, I can tell you a little more about what it's like.  And I promise I am taking lots of photos, but I don't have access to a laptop right now to download them from my camera, so just wait a few weeks, then I'll show you some.

Until then, stay well!