colorful passport

The Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho - one of the prettiest countrysides I
have ever seen.

One of my favorite things about travelling to different countries is getting my passport stamped each and every time I pass through immigration. Trevor makes fun of how enthusiastic I get each time I receive another passport stamp, but I still cannot get over the fact that in less than five months, I have filled several pages in my passport.

The most recent additions to my passport are the stamps I received crossing into and out of the Kingdom of Lesotho. In order to get to and from Lesotho, Trevor and I took taxis. But these taxis are nothing like the taxis that roam the streets of New York City or Washington D.C. For starters they are a lot bigger and can fit anywhere between 14 – 22 people. And they operate more like buses, meaning that you don’t hail your own taxi; instead, you pay for a seat in one of these large taxis and share the journey with strangers. But unlike buses, they leave when they are full and only when they are full (Trevor and I waited anywhere from 2 minutes to 2 hours for these taxis to fill up). And the last thing that sets them apart from U.S. taxis is that the drivers are even more aggressive, reckless and crazy than taxi drivers found in the States.

But Trevor and I made it safely (even if not too comfortably) to and from Maseru. We travelled to Maseru because we wanted to visit the interns in Maseru, Meghan and Hasmin. Meghan and Hasmin are actually interns for Kick 4 Life, a GRS partner organization, and the first thing we did upon arriving was check out the Kick 4 Life office and FIFA Football For Hope Center (located at the same place). 

A turf 5 vs. 5 soccer pitch at the Football for Hope Center.
This soccer pitch is open all the time and the Lesotho interns told us that
there are always kids playing on the pitch.

Kick 4 Life (K4L) is a very unique organization. Although they are a GRS partner organization, they are independently organized and funded and the only thing they really share with GRS is the Skillz curriculum. K4L only exists in Lesotho (unlike GRS, which has sites in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia and works in about 15 additional countries) and not only works in schools delivering the Skillz HIV-prevention curriculum, but also runs additional programs aimed at helping highly vulnerable and at risk youth.

One program that Hasmin works on is the K4L recycling program. In this program, street kids (kids – most of whom are orphans – that spend their time on the streets because they don’t have homes and have dropped out of school) are provided with a bike and wagon that they can use to collect recyclables around Maseru. K4L actually has clients (there are lots of expats in Maseru) that hire their recycling services. The recycling boys earn points for working and when they have earned a certain amount of points, then K4L will pay for their school fees so they can return to school, receive an education and hopefully find their way off the streets. The coolest thing about this program is that it generates profits and is therefore self-sustaining because it does not need money from funders in order to continue.

Hasmin at the Lesotho Football for Hope Center.

K4L also has programs aimed at reaching vulnerable women and girls. Meghan coordinates/ runs these programs and she told me that a majority of the women that come through the K4L programs tend to be sex workers who are looking to change their way of life. In these programs K4L teaches these women job skills, helps them build their CV/ resume and even works to place them in a temporary volunteer job so that they can get work experience. Meghan explained that K4L is so well known in Maseru that there are several organizations with which K4L has formed partnerships with who are willing to hire these women for a period of time and sometimes even permanently.

Even though I love what GRS does and I believe in the ability of our programs to inspire behavioral change, I really enjoyed learning about the programs K4L runs – these programs not only aim to change behavior, but also to help at-risk individuals in concrete and tangible ways.

After seeing the center and getting the grand tour of Maseru, we returned to the intern house and waited for Ben (Joburg), Katie (Joburg) and Podge (CT) to join us (they were driving in from Johannesburg). When they did arrive we stayed up until four in the morning just laughing, talking and of course, pillow-talking.

Saturday we headed into the mountains of Lesotho (it is after all the Mountain Kingdom). I loved driving through the country. Lesotho is a lot different from the parts of South Africa that I have seen. Instead of having townships, which have a high density of people in a very small (and impoverished) area, small villages dot the countryside.  Most of these villages reminded me of Botswana and Malawi. Houses/ huts were circular and constructed from mud and cement mixtures with thatched roofs. In some of the larger villages we passed there were very plain tin shacks (still smaller than the size of a dorm room) that were the shops and restaurants for the village. And over all the country seemed more rural than part of South Africa that I have thus far frequented. Everywhere we went we could see at least one herd boy (these boys spend all their time watching and feeding their animals and usually only eat once a day themselves) with his flock of either cows or sheep.

The valley we walked into.

Meghan drove us to Malealea Mountain where we booked a group room for on night at Malealea Lodge. After throwing our stuff in the room we set off on a hike – without a guide – hoping to find a waterfall. We never found the waterfall… but we did stumble into an amazing bedrock river channel!

A bedrock river channel!

I had some major geo geek-out moments and couldn't help but think about my senior thesis (which explored how weathering effects the evolution of bedrock river channels). We spent several hours exploring the stream, climbing on rocks and taking in the breathtaking scenery. 

That night we braiied (grilled) dinner, shared stories by candlelight and laid down in the grass to gaze at the stars together. On Sunday we returned to Maseru, played a quick game of 5 vs. 5 soccer at the Football for Hope Center with some of the kids that were hanging about, crossed the border into South Africa and then Trevor and I taxied home to Kimberley exhausted but happy.