Day Zero (July 2, 2006)
Hello everyone,
We are just coming to the close of our third day in Lesotho. The flight was long and tiring but we have recovered quickly and are now adjusted to the 6 hour time difference. We landed in Maseru which is one of the largest cities in Lesotho. Our luggage was delayed in Johannesburg and we waited at a beautiful cafe for the next flight to arrive in Maseru. We met a Swiss woman who runs a small Swiss NGO in Lesotho whose husband is the only physician for a large area. She had some very spectacular stories to tell about third world medicine. Her husband is ‘paged’ 24 hours a day by patients knocking on his bedroom window.
The culture shock on the first day was overwhelming and lingered into the second day. I have never seen such poverty nor so many people living in it. The countryside is spectacular with mountain views and thatched-roofed huts strewn everywhere, people mulling about in brightly coloured Besotho blankets (I bought one today). Donkeys, sheep, cows and dogs, few trees, Mimosa trees in full bloom, red clay earth and escarpments everywhere. It is spectacular. There are many children, many older people and many teens, remarkably few middle-aged but everyone looks healthy and happy. We have already witnessed households with many children and one or two grandparents.
Yesterday, Canada day, the Tsepong team traveled to Clarens, South Africa for lunch. The town looked like Elora in November or Jasper in the fall- quaint, expensive shops, outdoor cafes and fabulous restaurants all surrounded by mountains. Just blocks away are the neighborhoods lived in by black South Africans, formerly called the projects and now called the location. People living in run down shacks and surrounded by filth and decay, just blocks away.
The days are sunny and warm (15-20 degrees) but the temperature drops rapidly at about 5 pm as the sun goes down. The nights are cold and we spend them surrounding the woodstove, sharing stories. The team is very close knit and lives in a compound of bungalows called ‘Little Canada’ by the locals. Dinners are shared by all and rotate each night to the next bungalow. Western food and lots of South African wine, to bed early as it is too cold to stay up, lots of blankets, many layers and a wonderful hot water bottle.
The Lesotho people have no indoor plumbing, no indoor water or heat and no electricity. As you travel the country side you will see many Besotho women doing their laundry in the crevices created by erosion. It was very eerie to drive home in the dark and see none of the huts and shacks that were so plentiful in daylight. They all seem to disappear at night in the darkness and the cold.
Today we traveled to a village in the mountains outside of Leribe. All thatched roofed mud huts and many children to greet us. They are so beautiful. So many children and so few adults. Three year olds were playing together with no adult in sight anywhere. We took pictures at the chief’s house ( she is the female chief of three villages). Her children and many others are being raised by her mother. She was thrilled to watch all of ‘her’ children play with a ball that Joanne brought.
We walked to Leribe this afternoon and on the way home we were stopped by several Besotho women who asked if they could name us. Every Canadian at the Tsepong clinic gets a Besotho name. They named Adam ‘Tabow’ which means ‘happy’ and they named me ‘Matabiso’ which means ‘happy woman’ and ‘Matabow’ which means ‘mother of Tabow’. I received my name on the street and I am honored. This was a gift as the relationship between doctor and patient is too formal for doctors to receive Besotho names. These women did not know who I was. I am thrilled.
I am in an enchanting place surrounded by incredible beauty, astounding poverty and decay and a mounting human catastrophe.
Tomorrow is my first day at Tsepong…
I love you all.
Anne-Marie (Matabiso)