Downtown Maseru

Signing King Letsie III's birthday card


Sign in front on LCS


Little boy running around with scissors at Renaissance


The Basotho Hat (Maseru's travel and cultural center)


Basotho Hats at the Basotho Hat


Inside the Basotho Hat


Ladies weaving Basotho hats

This is where you can buy boxed lunches of traditional food for only R20 (about $2.50)


Wire toys-you see lots of kids running down the road pushing these homemade toys.


Not a "Cross Walk" but a "Humped Zebra Crossing". Apparently there are only like three of these anywhere in Lesotho. I drive past this one everyday on my way home from Queen II and it always makes me laugh.

Just a liiiittttle bit behind

Wow. So time has really flown by and unfortunately I haven't been able to keep up with my blog AT ALL in about a week! Just too many fun, exciting things going on here in Lesotho. (Not sure if anyone still reads my blog:)) But I'm posting pictures of the weekend and my project in the hospital. I've had such a great experience here in Lesotho and I can't believe I've only got a little time left!

Abseiling Maletsuyane Falls

There are no words to describe how awesome this was. I'll just post pictures. Though definitely the part I’m most proud of wasn’t the abseiling it was the 204m hike back up to the top!

Getting ready...I was the first to go!!


It's really hard to see but I'm the orange dot to the left of the falls about half way down.


I made it!


Skippy was overjoyed to see me at the bottom.


To give an idea of the temperature-that's a patch of snow to the right of the waterfall.


Melissa abseiling down!


Chasing sunshine and trying to warm up after the abseil, we got a little wet!


Giant rock formation we saw on hike back up.

Speedy Gonzalez and Miss Independent

After abseil training, we got a lunch packed for us at the lodge and took off on a three hour pony trek. The horses the lodge uses are rented from the locals. We asked when we were first starting off on our ride if they had names. Our guide said some people few people name their horses but ours weren’t. Melissa and I quickly found names for ours based on their personalities- Miss Independent and Speedy. The names kinda say it all. My horse Speedy was intent on being in front the whole time and literally didn’t respond at all to me pulling up on the reins! Melissa had an even tougher time with Miss Independent, so we had a very eventful (slightly terrifying) pony trekking experience. After our stop for lunch the horses seemed a bit better behaved, but both of us were kinda relieved to make it back to the lodge. The Malealea horses were definitely much better behaved than these!

Taking a picture of Melissa on her horse taking my picture of me on my horse.


The View from Speedy


People washing clothes by the river


After Miss Indepedent almost threw Melissa off into some trees.


Lunch Break: grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, yum!


Miss Independent being...independent.


On our way back to the lodge I took this picture. Turned out to be the family of our guide! Semonkong isn't such a big town.

Abseil Training

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early for a quick breakfast at the lodge and then abseil training. Melissa and I had been a little undecided about the abseiling (it’s what they call rappelling here) but we heard we couldn’t come to Semonkong without abseiling down Maletsuyane Falls so we had to do it! And I might have pressured Melissa just a liiitttle bit :) The abseil training was on a cliff right next to the lodge and we each went down three times. It went really well-quick and easy so we were both feeling pretty confident about the real thing in the morning!









Training Complete!

Heading Off for Our Weekend in Semonkong

Hands down the most exciting weekend ever! Melissa and I were picked up by the lodge owner from the Basotho Hat Friday afternoon for the drive to Semonkong. Maseru is in the Lesotho lowlands so we had a rocky, bumpy, jerky four hour ride up through the mountains to Semonkong. Unfortunately the seats didn’t provide much padding either, but we finally arrived in Semonkong in the early evening (days are are generally as warm as in Maseru, but nights are MUCH colder up in the highlands!). We had a delicious meal in the lodge and then headed up to our rondaville for the night. I had seen the round, thatched-roof huts in our other travels outside of Lesotho before and was really excited to sleep in one!

Heading off for the weekend


Construction workers' sign-kinda sums up how we felt on the drive up to Semonkong


Lodge doggie that came along to pick us up, his name is Jagermeister:)


Thatcher's Inn-the lodge's dining area


Our rondaville!

Day 30-Photo Day

I wanted to go around the ward at Queen II and take photos to include in the project proposal for the play therapy project. I was very hesitant at first to ask people if I could take their photos because I didn't know how moms would react to me trying to photograph their sick babies. Well I quickly found out that sick or healthy, all the moms, grandmothers, aunts, children, and babies absolutely LOVED having their pictures taken! Groups of people quickly gathered round to have photos taken of themselves, themselves with their babies, themselves with other people's babies, just the babies, kids with babies. It wasn't quite what I had intended to get pictures of for the project but it was the first time I had seen a lot of the families and patients really open up to me and get excited about something. For every picture I took, I made sure the moms and kids knew what I was taking the pictures for and I promised them copies of their photos. In the afternoon, I walked down the street to a photo shop and had pictures developed. It was exciting to see faces light up when I gave people their photos, and to know that it will be something that hopefully they can keep and treasure for a long time.

This is typically how the moms carry their babies






Moshoeshoe-haha he actually has a very cute smile!





Little boy in the acute room with an oxygen mask

































Pretending to make a phone call?


















This baby had the biggest eyes!


















Kenueoe-so sweet, she's one of my favorites:)