Lesotho

I have spent the last 5 days in Lesotho, an independent country which is surrounded by South Africa. I traveled with a tour guide called Matthew and a Spanish brother and sister, Marik and Christine. Lesotho is known as the Kingdom In the Sky, it has the highest low point in the world. In my last post I said I was going on a Lord of the Rings adventure, but I didn't realise that Lesotho was the inspiration for the film until Matthew advised us on the first day of the trip, I was excited, but a little sceptical of how a country and culture could have possibly inspired such a film. We crossed the boarder and arrived in Lesotho. We had a drink in the highest pub in Africa which is at 2874m about 10,000 ft and then set off on our journey. It didn't take me long to see exactly where the inspiration came from. The people in Lesotho live from the Earth, they nurture their animals and crops and they drink water from fresh springs. There is a western influence beginning, but the majority of people travel on horse back and use traditional methods of farming. I wondered where the inspiration for the Hobbit came from and then Matthew told us of Bush Men who used to occupy the mountains of Lesotho, They were about 5ft in height and very hairy, they no longer exist but they sound like a Hobbit to me. The majority of the men in Lesotho work as Sheppard's, they constantly move their cattle across the mountains, sometimes because of the cold winter months in the high lands and sometimes because they need to reach a place where they can sell their live stock. The Sheppard's can walk or ride for days to get to where they want to be. The typical image in Lesotho is a man on a horse, he is wrapped loosely in blankets, his face covered by a balaclava and he holds a decorated staff. More often than not the Sheppard will be pushing the horse to a gallop through the mountains, his blanket waving in the air behind him almost like a cape. I found this quite daunting and magical at first, but then when the Sheppard stops to say hi all this mystery vanishes as he is usually a young man with a big smile and a vein urge to have his photo taken, the insparation is most definatly there for the Lord of th Rings. The houses are round, the flooring is made from stone slabs then these slabs are covered with a mixture of dung and mud, there is a large circle left in the centre of the floor to the stone slabs. The walls are made of stone and the inside wall is also pasted with dung and mud. The roof is made from a wooden frame and then thatched grass to keep the water out. A fire is started in the centre circle on the floor, this heats the stone slabs which heat the dung and mud and this stores the heat. The smoke from the fire rises to the roof and helps to strengthen the grass, also the Sheppard's blankets catch the smoke and become water resistant. On the first morning of our trip I noticed the children were standing against the wall of the house which I thought was strange, it was frosty out side and I wondered why they were not warped in blankets, then I put my hand against the wall and felt the hot heat. In the west we have invented ways to create heat through electricity, this costs money, in Lesotho the cost of heat is the time it takes to gather the fire wood and set it alight. When I experience such simple methods of living which only cost time and thought, I realise that the western world has evolved so much, we have become lazy using money to compensate for loss of time. Money has become fuel which is too expensive to burn, what ever happened to time being too expensive to waste???
If you want to understand how far developed we are in Britain then Lesotho is a good place to visit, my only concern is that when a white man sees somebody drinking from a river, he sees poverty and offers a bottle of water. The bottle of water was never needed as the water in the river flows fresh from the mountains all year round. The person drinking from the river now understands that if he lives the way he always has people will come and give him more, the more we give to a person who does not need, the more they ask for, when the begging begins to over power the the need to take time to drink from the river, poverty begins to take effect. We were wealthy before we became greedy, but unfortunately being Human has a natural pattern which forces change no matter what the cost. Lesotho is one of the few wealthy places left on the earth, but slowly we are forcing change upon it, so just remember the next time you give a beggar food or money you are not changing their life, you are simply paying a fee to save time.
Become educated by a culture before you proceed to make changes which will have a life changing effect.