June 2002
Maseru, Lesotho

Dear Friends,

Greetings and welcome to another installment on our life in Lesotho. Although the winter solstice arrived last week, winter temperatures have been with us since early May. It’s been near freezing at night lately, but we are told that July will be even colder. The word for "July" in Sesotho is the same as the word for "funeral," which has us a little concerned. Winters are hard for the Basotho people, as houses and other buildings here have no insulation, nor any type of central heating system. Individual room heaters such as propane heaters, electric oil heaters, paraffin (kerosene) heaters, wood stoves or fireplaces, or for those who can afford it, coal stove heaters are the order of the day, though even with heaters it isn’t very warm. We’ve become used to wearing 3 or 4 layers just to stay warm indoors.

The Joining Hands Against Hunger (JHAH) network is progressing well, and I think we are setting a good foundation. The members seem very happy that they’ve been involved in the formation and definition of their network ("bottom-up" approach).

In mid-May, a three-day JHAH organizing conference was held in the town of Mazenod, about 30 kilometers outside of Maseru. We had a total of 45 participants, representing about 18 organizations in Lesotho, plus the South Africa JHAH national committee and a few other visitors. We had presentations and discussions on topics including an "Introduction to JHAH," "Globalization and Alternatives," and "Opportunities for the Poor of Lesotho." It was a younger group of people than I had somehow expected (average age was less than 30), but it was a very enthusiastic and insightful group. I was very pleased (overwhelmingly relieved, actually) that the conference went very well. The conference attendees decided to have a one-day meeting as a follow-up to the conference, so on June 14 we met again, at which time the JHAH network was formally constituted, with 15 member organizations (and 3 others pending). An executive committee was elected, and the next task is for the network to determine a specific goal to work toward.

Thanks to a generous gift from Bob’s home church, he now has a used 4x4 truck, which will greatly facilitate moving about the country (and makes us a two-car family for the first time in our marriage). This will also make multi-day trips possible without impeding Samantha getting to work. Another "gift" I’ve recently had is the volunteer help from Rethabile (James) Sello, who has been going around with me on visits and helping with the transcription of notes from the conference and follow-up meeting, as I try to put it all into report form for the participants.

Samantha’s work

Samantha continues to plug away at her job at the seminary library. The school year finished in May and culminated with a wonderful, though extremely long (five hours with no breaks) graduation ceremony on June 1. The ceremony was comprised of many, many speeches, skits, songs, and dancing (see photo below), and ended with a delicious typical Basotho meal of papa (thick maize meal porridge), nama ea khoho (chicken), pumpkin, and meroho (vegetables). The graduating classes from both schools were quite small (four students from the seminary and ten students from the Bible school). At one point in the ceremony each graduating student was introduced to the audience, and their family and members of their village were asked to stand. Acknowledgment of the families and communities was particularly nice as it symbolized that the students’ successful completion of their program of study is only possible with the support of their families and communities. Having gotten to know a few of the students, it was nice to share in their special day.

Lesotho elections

Lesotho went to the polls on May 25 for national elections. It was about six months later than they were supposed to be held, and there was concern that snow in the mountains might keep many people from voting, as they often have to walk long distances to get to the polling stations. There were snowstorms the preceding week, but election day had good weather. The ruling party won most of the seats in parliament in elections declared "free, fair, and transparent" by international monitors and observers (including an Canadian observer team). The leader of the #2 party, who had been a military dictator here from 1986-1990, was of course shocked that he didn’t win, but so far things have been peaceful (in contrast to the previous three elections, which were followed by rioting). This leader has now formally requested a "forensic audit" of the elections results, but we have heard nothing so far on the outcome of those investigations.

Visits and visitors

One of the features of Joining Hands Against Hunger is that each country network is linked with a particular presbytery (group of churches) in the U.S. The partner presbytery for South Africa is the Presbytery of the Western Reserve (in the Cleveland, Ohio, area). Four people from their "Hunger Action Network" came to visit our South Africa JHAH network in April. Since Bob is involved with the South African network (and his counterpart in South Africa, Kay-Robert Volkwijn, was in the U.S. at the time), we went to meet up with them for the last few days of their whirlwind tour. A couple days were spent at Kruger National Park (South Africa’s largest game park. OK, that wasn’t exactly work—we’ve included a few photos below), and we had a day visiting Soweto (SOuth WEst TOwnships of Johannesburg) with them, where we spent a couple hours with a local community ministry (Soweto Kliptown Youth), and saw some key landmarks of the anti-Apartheid struggle.

We were recently treated to a visit by Brenda Rian, a long-time friend of Bob’s from the U.S. She was in Durban for the Habitat for Humanity Jimmy Carter Work Project and squeezed in a weekend visit with us before heading to Cape Town for a week’s vacation. Brenda is a civil engineer by training, so she begged us to take her to see Mohale Dam, a venture of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (the largest water project currently under construction in the world). She was in geek heaven. She was also kind enough to bring us some of the finer things in life (e.g. Hershey’s miniatures and chocolate chips), which we have thoroughly enjoyed.

We are enjoying not having a television (by choice), as it has given us more time to read. We’ve been reading together a few evenings a week, which has been good. We’re trying to mostly read literature from this part of the world, rather than books by North American authors. Our recent reading list has included:Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by Alexandra Fuller (about Fuller’s childhood growing up in eastern Africa); Sachs Street by Rayda Jacobs (about a young Cape Muslim girl growing up in the Bo-Kaap district of Cape Town); and Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela.

The way things go

Many days just don’t work out as planned, but they keep life interesting. Our church decided to hold a "soup supper" for a few of Maseru’s street kids this week. These kids seem to tug at the consciences of a lot of people, but it’s always a dilemma as to what we can do for them. Giving them money further encourages their begging, which makes it harder for them to see value in trying to do anything else, like school. There’s also a fairly high incidence of substance abuse, which we don’t want to support. With the cold weather upon us, we thought at least providing a hot meal would be helpful. The Lesotho Girl Guides (a JHAH member organization) works with some of these kids, providing housing and getting them into school. So, through them, Bob was to spread the word about the dinner to those kids, plus the others "on the street." I (Bob) went down to church at 11:00 on the day of the dinner to let the ladies who were doing the cooking know the approximate number of kids to cook for. When I arrived, I learned that the man who was to take the ladies shopping hadn’t shown up, plus the stove at the church was not working properly. Knowing that we were likely to have 40 kids coming for dinner, I took the ladies shopping, and then we came to our house to do the cooking. So, what was to have been a 15 minute stop at the church became an all-day undertaking. Our house still smells of split pea soup. We ended up with about 35 kids for dinner, who all seemed grateful for the meal. The amount of food was just right. A driver for the Girl Guides played the piano, and most of the kids joined in singing. One boy about 12 years old gave the closing prayer, which was very touching.

In closing, we would like to express our thanks for your continued prayers and the protection they have provided. We apologize for the lengthiness of this message, but hope you feel "updated."

Peace,

Bob & Samantha