Lesotho

 

This week I will be in Lesotho. I’m running an annual International Leadership camp for South African children. We stay at a mission station in a rural area. There are only a few outdoor toilets and no bathing facilities. You have to wash in a bucket. It is quite an experience if you haven’t done it before. The culture-shock is very big for city kids. They don’t know what a cow looks like, now they have to help milk the cow, if they want milk with their coffee. There are no malls in Lesotho and all the shopping that the children want to do is at street stalls. The boys sleep in the church and the girls sleep in a cave and an old house built before 1863. 

The children always have a great experience and it has become very difficult for us to keep the number of children down to what the Mission Station can handle. For me the biggest attraction is the cash injection what the community receives. All the money that we spend goes right back into the community. Some of the ladies that do the cooking for us work just once a year when we are there. The money they earn must last them for a whole year. It’s very difficult when you see how hard some people have it. Yet they are always friendly and helpful.