Walking4Water

Basotho pride!!!! So, a little background if you didn’t know…Lesotho is a country that is completely landlocked by South Africa. It got added to our route when our visas expired in South Africa; we drew a direct line north from where we stopped walking in Port Alfred, South Africa, and hit Maseru, Lesotho; the capital city. English is spoken there as the business language, but Sesotho is their primary language. And the people are known as the Basotho people. So luckily we were able to talk to many people, but they were usually impressed when we could speak their language. By the end we could speak enough to, as aaron would say, “get us into trouble”. It was enough to have a basic conversation, and answer their basic questions, but then they would assume we could speak more and would ramble off more and we would look so lost! I still don’t know how to spell any of the words we learned, it was all things we learned along the way. At the beginning, some people would shake our hands, and then say, “WE are BASOTHO, we speak SESOTHO. You speak SESOTHO!” and then they would teach us a few things. Like “mela” means, “hello”, or “dumelong” means “good morning”. “Dia guy” - where are you going? “Leswee guy” - where do you come from? ; etc etc The Basotho people are very proud of their people and country. They are resilient and have endured much. The people all gathered there as a refuge during the war so they were originally from differing people groups or tribes, but now all come together in a remarkable way. They live high in the mountains that rise in the middle of South Africa (it is known as the “kingdom in the sky”) and deal with harsh conditions in their country throughout the year. We were there in the beginning of winter and it was cold for us! Many people walk around with blankets around them, sometimes without clothes on underneath if they do not have any. We walked from the capital city of Maseru through the cities of Mafeteng, Mohale’s Hoek, Quthing, Qacha’s Nek, Sehonghong, and ended in Mokhotlong, 600 km in total. Hopefully we will be able to tell some of their stories through our blog. Much love to the Basotho people.