Lesotho

I escaped from the office on Wednesday and went to Lesotho - a one hour flight in a very small plane with eight passengers - to take part in a schools event a couple of hours drive out of the capital, Maseru. Lesotho is variously billed as "the mountain kingdom", "the Switzerland of Africa", "the kingdom in the sky" (because the entire territory is above 1,000 metres) and also "thirty years behind South Africa". It has an interesting history - for a good part of the 19th century the first king, Moshoeshoe the first, manoeuvered and battled to maintain some sort of independence for his kingdom, accomodating European missionaries and accepting treaties with the territory-hungry British and even going to war to escape from local rule from the Cape colony and return to being a British protectorate - which was a better deal, apparently. Lesotho was never part of South Africa and so escaped apartheid - but by the same token suffered from being surrounded by a hostile, powerful neighbour - and so is still a very poor country.

Lesotho is very beautiful - mountainous, green, unspoilt - and feels much more African than what I've seen so far of SA. Immediately outside the small capital you see vast open spaces with the occasional small village; men (and boys, some of them very young) wear traditional blankets and carry sticks and stand around looking after very small herds of cows and sheep. The Basotho (the name for inhabitants of Lesotho) are very friendly, hospitable, and laid back (the language is called Sosotho). The schools put on a great event for us - a history lesson, songs, dances, speeches, displays of national costume (some of them minimal, consisting mostly of a layer of ochre), constant ululations by the women. I asked the teachers how much time they spent rehearsing the well-choreographed performances and they said no time at all - the kids arrive in school already knowing these traditional songs and dances - they learn them at home. A pretty good alternative, I'd say, to Cartoon Network.

It was a working visit so I didn't see much more, but I'd love to go for a holiday - there is in fact a ski resort in the higher mountains, so it'd be great to go back in winter and ski. In July. In Africa.

Above: how mountainous is my kingdom; school uniform; peacock dance; gumboot dance; teacher in a blanket; we have table mountains too. I wish I knew how to upload audio files - the singing was sublime.