Pitseng Village and Youth Centre

October 30, 2008

We took a public combi to Pitseng this morning, accompanied by a volunteer “guide” from HL.  Nothing feels quite as snug as 19 people in a van!

Once we arrived in Pitseng, we took a second, smaller cab down a dirt side road to the youth centre.
The Pitseng Youth Centre is a large, beautiful and quite new building.  HL runs any number of youth activities here, including reading clubs for ages ranging from five through late teens. HIV/AIDS education, gender equity training and tutoring. Just to name a few. 

After seeing the building, we picked up a second guide and did a huge walking tour of the area.

We walked downhill for about three kilometres in blazing sunshine. This was concerning! The terrain was a mixture of rock, hard packed dirt, sand and dried out grass.

We toured two schools and met principals and some teachers and lots of kids. One was a “have” school, (private), with kids boarding there from all over the country because it had a reputation of being such a good school.  The other was a “have not” school, (free, public).  A sharp contrast about 100 yards apart from each other.  The free school is twinned with an Ottawa area school in relationship with HL. They were delighted to meet people from Canada.

At the lower end of trek we reached a cave and stopped to eat our lunch. Then we made the long trek uphill for the return trip to the youth centre, stopping at the chief’s house and another school along the way. The chief and his wife were very charming, about 85 years old judging by appearance and physical condition.  Obviously very poor, but very happy to have visitors! After we took some pictures, the chief went inside one of the rondavels and reappeared moments later with a calendar bearing his picture for November 2008. It had been produced by another European NPO, I think. And I suppose one of them was kind enough to ensure a copy of the calendar found its way back into the hands of the chief.

The drought is very bad again this year and the ground throughout every area we have walked here in Lesotho is extemely dry.

We caught a combi back out to Pitseng.  We sat in four make-shift seats in the very back, entering through the hatch.  (Which the conductor then closed and sealed via a small iron bar on the outside of the hatch through the bumper.  In the event of an accident, exited the vehicle  would have been challenging.

In Pitseng we had to switch combis to get back to Hlotse. The taxi rank was crowded and competitive.  There was much pushing and shoving between conductors to secure our business. Then we made our choice and got in. And waited 30 minutes while the conductor sold the other seats.

Got back to town, went to the usual watering hole and shared our impressions of the day with one another.  (Gary and Wes had traveled separately from us and experienced some common but also some different things on their walking tour.

Pizza Regina at the Hotel Leribe is pretty sweet!