Ain't No Mountain High Enough

Well I hope that you’ll all be glad to hear that I’ve sort of recovered from my bout of the cold and am back on two feet again and continuing with the incredible adventure that is South Africa 2010!

Last Wednesday after blogging I made a bit of a snap decision to join a group of fellow international students on their trip to Lesotho, the country within a country. I needed to get out of PE for the weekend and this trip offered me the perfect opportunity to do so but little did I know that it was going to be so incredible! So with no class on Friday and a public holiday on the Monday we began our venture to a new country on the Thursday afternoon. Our original plan was to make it to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, by the end of the day, but we soon realised that that wasn’t going to be possible and so we booked a place to camp at a hostel in Bloemfontein. It was an 8-hour drive from PE to Bloem and we were all very tired by the time we made it. Our group comprised of American, Swedes, a Norwegian, a German and of course an Irish/British (delete according to your political preference) man.

We left very early the next morning in order to maximise our time within Lesotho and within two hours we had reached the border crossing at Maseru, which is where things began to get interesting. We actually managed to drive our car into Lesotho without getting checked once or getting a single stamp on our passport, either out of SA or into Lesotho. Only when we were in the country we realised this and so parked up the car, walked out of the country and walked back in again to get a stamp on our passport. I actually officially never left SA all weekend as I never got stamped out of or back into the country, however I did officially enter and leave Lesotho, which I am sire is going to look rather interesting to some customs officer somewhere down the line. In other words I think it’s going to come back to kick me in the teeth but hey, T.I.A (This is Africa). I’ll claim that this made me an illegal immigrant for a weekend because that sounds like a really cool thing to say. Border control in general was pretty lax. When we were leaving Lesotho the guy asked to see our passports, literally just see them, he didn’t even open them to see if they were ours. As well as that we also managed to send one of the girls in with all our passports to get them stamped out which I can’t imagine happening anywhere else in the world with a passport-controlled border!

Anyway, back to the journey to the centre of the earth, or at least Lesotho. A few interesting facts about this mountainous kingdom-

1. Lesotho is the southernmost land locked country in the world
2. I think, besides the Vatican City, it is the only other country to be entirely within a country (any alternative suggestions welcome
3. Lesotho holds only one of two ski resorts in southern Africa
4. And finally, and this will have you confused, the lowest point in Lesotho (in terms of altitude) is the highest lowest point of any country in the world.

My preconceptions prior to the trip were that Lesotho would be a seriously under developed country with really poor roads and extremely indigenous people. Driving through Maseru I very quickly realised that I was slightly off the mark. Yes the countryside areas are pretty underdeveloped but the capital is certainly far from underdeveloped. New buildings and roads made this ‘small town’ look a lot more attractive to the state that PE is currently in. We were only 5 minutes into Maseru when we had our first encounter with the Lesothan police. Both our cars made illegal U-turns when parking in the street but it was the girl’s car which got pulled up for it by the cops, although thankfully with a bit of fluttering of the eyelashes and puppy dog eyes, they got their fine reduced to a warning. After a quick stock up on instant noodles we legally moved our cars and set of on the road to nowhere. I say the road to nowhere because we actually had no plan as to what we were going to do in Lesotho, so we just drove.

After about a 2-hour drive east we cut south and into the Central Highlands. This was everything I had expected from Lesotho and much, much more. Now I’ve had the privilege of driving through the Alps as a passenger and to a lesser extent the Mournes as a driver but to actually drive on mountain passes, as a driver, is I think the most incredible and exhilarating driving experience I have ever had. The road twisted upward and upward and upward on very steep climbs and very tight corners and the scenery was just spectacular, absolutely spectacular. As well, unlike in developed countries, I had to negotiate rocks, sometimes boulders, which had fallen on the road, herds of sheep, donkeys carrying goods and of course people just wandering about. About half way up the first pass we stopped for around ten minutes to admire the scenery and we were instantly surrounded by kids coming from all over. I don’t know where they came from but they were soon enjoying having their pictures taken and laughing at themselves in their photos. As we took off they chased after us but even though the car struggled up the steep climb they couldn’t quite keep up. The view from the top was sensational as was the decent on the other side. I think going down was harder than going up as we had to keep a check on our speed and breaks which were seriously smoking by the time we got to the bottom.

We continued through several other mountain passes until we came to a spot where the tarred road turned into gravel, putting an end to our ambitions to reach a campsite we had intended on getting to. We were stuck in the middle of Lesotho, with night falling and nowhere to stay. It was going to take too long to go back the way we came and we couldn’t risk our 2-wheel drive on a dirt road. Thankfully, we discovered that we were actually only a 5-minute drive from Katse village where there was a lodge that we could stay the night. We took in a beautiful sunset over the reservoir and headed for an early night after trying to make plans for the next day.

However, the next day whatever plans were made the night before soon disappeared. The group split up with one car heading to a National Park, and the other, which included myself, staying behind to explore Katse. Our first mission was to try and find fuel for the car which was starting to run low. On the advice of some locals we headed into the local village which is built on a steep hillside with no roads, just dirt, potholes and a lot of deep trenches. To add to the treacherous terrain, I drove up into the village the wrong way, instead of taking the tarred slip road I managed to take the ‘road’ with two large trenches up the middle of it and a lot of loose stones. Nevertheless, I triumphed over my foe and kept heading up the mountain side through the town to find the fuel which we were told continuously was just around the corner. After about the third or fourth corner we though enough was enough, performed a pretty dicey 10-point turn and came back down with nothing to show put a dusty car!

 We spent the rest of the morning taking a tour of Katse Dam, Africa’s 2^nd highest after the Aswan Dam in Egypt. The water held by the dam is used to generate electricity for Lesotho and to supply water to all of Johannesburg, Pretoria and the surrounding areas. Completed in 1997, the dam wall stands at 165m and is an extremely impressive sight, with the reservoir behind stretching for 54km through mountain valleys, which puts Spelga slightly to shame. After our tour inside an along the top we returned to the lodge for lunch when the rain started, and it didn’t rain but it poured and poured and poured. The lightning and the thunder in the mountains added to the spectacle as the entire landscape lit up with sound and light, God’s creation at it’s absolute finest! Whilst waiting for the rains to subside we decided in our wisdom to engage in a game of Uno which as I’m sure those who have played the game know has several different interpretations of the rules and those who played in the dressing room during panto will know that I like to stick very stringently to my interpretation of the rules, so needless to say a few of us got needlessly stressed! Thankfully the storm broke outside before it started inside and we headed out to meet our guide for our pony trek.

At least I thought it was going to be a pony trek. It turned out we were going on full on horses, something which I hadn’t been on since I was about 10 for 5 hair-raising minutes in my lane at home! To make matters worse my horse seemed to have a mind of its own and nothing I could do would persuade it otherwise! I mean how do you tell a Lesothan horse to stop or to turn? It doesn’t know English! Neither did our guide for that matter which led to some very interesting conversation which I think involved a man with 6 wives coming over the mountain to settle in the area in the 40’s and a helicopter crashing into the reservoir in 2000, but you’re guess is as good as mine. Although I was always slightly on edge on my horse it was a fantastic way to see the landscape and an experience which I thoroughly enjoyed, even if I’m not in a rush to do it again!

We spent that night camping on an outcrop overlooking the dam, which was opened to release water, as were the heavens! A very wet night pursued and my poor little tent was unable to hold off the rain, leaving me having to sleep in a rather uncomfortable position to avoid lying in puddles. So after a pretty rough night, we woke up packed up and headed back the way we had came with very littler fuel and a lot of mountain passes to travail. The first petrol station we came to didn’t serve unleaded petrol. The second petrol station did server unleaded petrol, but they were all out. At this point we were freewheeling down the mountain sides in order to save fuel in a tank which had very little left. Knowing the next town was only about half an hour away we pressed on, Kate and myself deep in prayer! When we arrived in Lerebi the first station told us they were out and to try the next one. The next one’s power was out and so they weren’t pumping and we were thinking we were going to have to push the car home. Thankfully the last station before leaving the town had unleaded fuel and filled our tank for only R180, approximately £15…a double blessing from God!

From Lerebi we travelled to meet up with the rest of our group in the National Park which was situated about 30km off the main road. Again, in our attempts to find our companions we were left driving on a ridiculous ‘road’ which probably wasn’t suitable for our car but we pressed on nonetheless! Eventually we found them and after having lunch we headed off on a short hike into the forest where we found a small rock pool and waterfall in which I was able to wash for the first time since we left and boy did it feel good! After swimming, splashing and jumping we headed back to the car and made haste to Bloemfontein where we would stay the night before heading home again. The drive home from Bloem was very enjoyable as the roads are so straight across the flat expanses of the Free State and and the northern parts of the Eastern Cape. I really enjoyed driving on this trip as it was a completely different experience to anything at home. Anyone who has been to Kenya will know about crazy overtaking manoeuvres which actually don’t seem so crazy anymore. Drivers here seem to be more alert of each other than they are at home and I think the dangerous conditions actually make driving safer…if that’s actually possible!

 

So back In PE again where I’ve had my first experiences of things coming to an end already even though we’re only in March. Yesterday I had my last day of observation in Khwezi Lomso before beginning my teaching practise after Easter. I’m going to be teaching on religions within South Africa which will be exciting if not challenging. It will be interesting for me to learn about other religions but it’s also going to be challenging for me to teach something which I know isn’t true. How will I teach this subject in an unbiased way, or should I even teach it in an unbiased way? Should I make the children aware of my faith and spend more time focusing on Christianity or do I stick to a curriculum which encourages equality? A question which is just as applicable back home as it is here, with the introduction of PDMU and one which I battled with last year on placement, coming to the conclusion that it was absolutely OK to allow the children an insight into my faith but will I find the same here completely out of my comfort zone? It will be interesting and I’d appreciate your prayers on the matter!

Also, today I had my last class in my Inclusive Education module for the second time this year! This class has taught me a lot and actually turned out to be quite different from the module at Stranmillis. This module focussed more on strategies to deal with inclusive education, whereas at home the module was focused on identifying special needs such as autism, dyslexia and Down’s syndrome, and working with children with Special Educational Needs. I have learnt a lot through this module, particularly in regard to Universal Design for Learning which focuses on making every lesson accessible and applicable to every child and Functional Behavioural Assessments which set out stages in positively enforcing correct behaviour and setting right behavioural problems of children. These are good strategies and I hope to adopt at least some of the ideals and principles into my own teaching. My only concern with theses ideas is that they are taken as being good practise because they are used in American schools and I think everything has to be looked at in its own individual situation. Just because something works in America does not mean that it will work in South Africa or in Northern Ireland and so I have learnt to critically reflect on any information that is presented to me.

So, a much more eventful week than last, made possible mainly due to the fact that Monday was a public holiday for Human Rights Day, thus creating a long weekend. I’ll leave you this week with a link to some information on the reason that South Africa has a Human Rights Day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre Certainly a sad tale and one which thankfully should never be repeated in this country. How things like that can be allowed to happen never ceases to amaze me, even though we know all to well in Northern Ireland that things like this do happen in the world. On a brighter note, it’s almost Easter, the most glorious time of the year, a time for reflection and for celebration as we recognise that even amongst all this darkness, we have a God of light, a God of love and a God who lives!

Peace

God Bless

“Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when He returns, we can live with Him forever.”

1 Thessalonians 5:10