May 25, 2007 - Heroes Day, A National Holiday

A day for hiking in Africa and of to the mountain village. I love this mountain, the village that is snuggled on its slopes and the people who live there. Their lives are slow, simple and joyful. Children play constantly on the trails etched out by centuries of villagers walking from one thatched roof hut to another, each property a self-sustaining enterprise with garden, fire pit, cow, chickens, and pigs with this spectacular view. Women everywhere were sitting outside their huts with their backs hunched over large laundry tubs, children playing at their feet, cleaned colourful laundry hung carefully over fences and walls.

We sat at the top of the mountain and watched as the lives hummed below us. I watched as an elderly man, some distance below, whacked his cow in on the nose as the animal tried to nibble the straw before it was officially being placed in front of him. Such a simple, beautiful, uncomplicated life.

I was thrilled to see so many African families. Like North American long weekends, everyone is home and ‘hanging’ out in the back yard……so to speak. Adults chatting, kids playing, humanity proceeding as it should. We took a path down the mountain that I have never walked before. Several groups of teenage girls stopped to great us- so engaging, so bright and so beautiful. I caught a glimpse of a stunning child, probably around four and asked Chris to take a picture of her. We were instantly surrounded by six or seven children, always so excited with the tiny digital images we show them.

I coaxed Chris to sit amongst them so I could get a group shot. Chris, the Infectious Disease specialist from Ontario, was about to sit on a branch covered in thorns and was compassionately and instantly rescued by one of the children who insisted he not sit until she removed it. Than she stood outside the group, not expecting to be included in the picture.

Yes, even poor, uneducated African children, with no real hope for the future have concern and compassion for strangers and the ability to act on that concern…….with humility and grace. We could learn from her.

Her life expectancy is also 37………

As we meandered our way down, Chris was thrilled to see a group of older boys playing a game of soccer, the universal game, he called it. Soccer on a mountain in Africa, in one of the poorest countries in Africa. Here is the image:

Four boys on each team, a patch of uneven, rocky, sloping ground no larger than a tiny North American back yard. Two cinder blocks place 1 foot apart at either end serve as the goals, all surrounded by ditches filled with garbage and debris. The players dressed in shabby clothing and worn out shoes, likely their only outfit aside from their pristine and pressed school uniform ( if they can afford to attend school). The ball is a tightly woven collection of red plastic bags. It does not bounce.

We watched. How they could play!

Chris leaned over and said to me, “If we could take these eight players and put them on a plane to Canada, they’d make the best rep team in the country.”

Two teenage girls sauntered defiantly, exuding pride, across the field disrupting the game. They stood there motionless, a definite challenge. “You go girls”, I thought. One girl spoke perfect English. She is learning to be a teacher. I asked her to tell the boys that if the girls were to play against them, we would whip their sorry buts. She did so without hesitation and with strength and confidence of a budding feminist. The boys were shocked, stood silent and dumfounded and than broke out into complete, unabashed and hysterical laughter.

I stood tall, my right fist punching the air above me, and yelled, “Ausi’s rule”.

That’s when our middle-aged, fine-tuned competitive instincts took over and we joined the game, Chris on one team and me on the other. I don’t think these adolescent Sesotho kids knew what hit them. We shook hands, introduced ourselves and got started, problem was, they all looked the same. I couldn’t tell who was on my team and who was on the opposing team. One kid had a cool pair of red joggers on. He was the only on I could distinguish. Of course, Chris stuck out like a sore thumb so I just kept charging him.

Pretty difficult to make a soccer ball made of plastic bags move on uneven, rocky ground, not to mention making it slip through cinder blocks with only one foot between them. These kids could play. We lasted about 10 minutes before my sorry, out-of-shape, medical colleague made some excuse about needing to be somewhere. Yeah, like we have so much to accomplish on Hero’s day in Lesotho.

Back at the bungalow, Chris and I sat outside wrapped in Besotho blankets sipping tea and watched this same mountain in the distance. We’ve has many conversations about the beaurocracy the politics, the social and societal constraints that often block OHAfrica’s efforts here. The same obstacles that impede the efforts of relief organizations in any foreign country. We have both felt discouraged and frustrated. It is so easy to find many excuses as to why we should not persist. I said to him at one point as we watched yet another group of boys start up a game of soccer at the end of the road,

“This is why we must persist. For those children on that mountain, for those families etching out a meagre yet joyful existence, for that group of boys pushing the goal posts close together to make the game more competitive, for that one child who has learned compassion in the midst of such poverty. This is why we must persist. What kind of world would this be if one day I had to describe this incredible, vibrant, significant mountain scene to my grandchildren as a place that used to exist………

We must persist.