lesotho
2 october 2004
Back in Port St Johns, I was speaking to a local guy who was telling me about the history of the place and about his own Xhosa culture (that's pronounced Corsa with a click in the back of your throat on the c). One thing he was saying was for him to get married to a local girl, he would need to come up with thirteen cows to give to her parents. This is called a labola. This labola you may think is no problem, if you liked a girl so much, yeah thirteen cows. But a cow is worth over a thousand dollars each and these guys get paid about a quarter of what we do. He said they just work their butts off and get the job done to prove they love their wife to be. You have to admire the dedication of these guys and I'm sure they get good support from the people around them. He said the cows and the money from the cows all comes back around again and the community is the better for it.
He also said that the Zulu culture is very different in regard to marriage. They can have as many wives as they want. Wow on that point alone I can see why these guys might have had some tension towards each other some time ago and maybe even now. Geographically these cultures are very close together and this appears to be the way it is in South Africa with pockets of people having their own culture living in there own groups. With me being a person that finds it hard to manage one wife I feel a need to find a Zulu man with many wives and ask him some questions. I think I'll come under the guise of one who is thinking about having many myself.
The drives around South Africa continue to surprise us. This drive around the Drakensberg mountains to get into Lesotho took us through The Golden Gate national park which has valleys and passes with sheer cliffs amongst a dry light brown landscape and scattered around the place are trees that look similar to weeping willows with bright green leaves. Quite a contrast. We stopped for fuel and then headed into Lesotho. Wow what a change. The weather turned grey but the people were so bright and friendly. We got sore arms from having to wave back to people. Its not as developed in Lesotho but the peoples attitude sure makes up for it.
The Lesotho shepherds wear a blanket wrapped around them as their clothing. There are woman here as in other places in South Africa that carry things by balancing it on their heads. They carry twenty litre buckets nearly full of liquid, pumpkins and a lot of other stuff with no hands. Amazing. We saw one person looking after one sheep or one cow and thought what type of relationship they might have with their animals. Lesotho is not a big place and maybe due to the fact that the brakes on the van were not working properly, we seemed to get to the capital Maseru pretty quickly. We went around a market there and it was so busy and exciting. I'd been thinking of getting a hair cut for a while so I asked around and found a few of them next to each other upstairs in this building. They were glass partitioned and about the size of a generous bathroom. I went into one where a platted haired lady was platting someone's else's and asked if I could get a hair cut. She said hesitantly no. I wanted a yes so I said I wanted one just like his, pointing at a guy who was getting his shaved. While they were laughing I went up to the mirror and pulled my hair back as if to see what I'd look like bald. The woman who was getting her hair platted said not to get it shaved because I'd look like a serial killer. We saw her half an hour later in the streets and she repeated the statement.
It was getting dark and accommodation was not easy to find so we left and went back into South Africa toward Bloemfontein. We woke to the sound of rain and then spent the morning studying people at a shopping mall. It was very crowded because it was a public holiday called Heritage Day (I've asked a few people through the week what the holiday was for and they didn't know, even on tv the best way they could describe it was that it meant something different to everybody) and what I started to see was that I looked very much like all these people. With walking past a hairdresser earlier with the thought of getting a haircut, I started to worry because with already having a South African drivers identifiication number, a South African registered vehicle in my name and a South African phone number. I don't want to look like a South African too. The waiter in the breakfast shop we are in then comes and starts talking to me in Afrikaans. A few minutes later a waitress does the same thing. What's going on? All I need now is someone to come and sing the South African national anthem. What is the South ! African national anthem? Great. I don't know. I wished I got the haircut in Lesotho. I'll wait for somewhere else.
We got going on the long drive across the plains towards Upington. There is always a good feeling about getting behind the wheel a hitting the open road. Driving down a road you have not been on before, seeing things you have not seen before and listening to music you have not heard before. When we come across roadworks, there is no such thing as lollipop men over here but they do have guys with giant red flags waving it with purpose like their trying to bring in a plane. After a couple of hours we came into an old diamond mining town called Kimberly. It has a open mine over one kilometre deep and half a kilometre wide maybe the biggest in the world. It was good to have a look around the museum. Damien got his miners permit and found some shavings that looked shiny and clear. We then stocked up for the four hundred and fifty kilometre drive across the plains to Upington. Took in a game of soccer half way across in a small place called Cambell and what a game.
There were about eighty vocal supporters and it was played on a dust field with high wind. Not long after we arrived this guy ran across the middle of the pitch straight over to us. He gave me the cool mans handshake and then after muttering something about the game asked me for a cigarette. Now this guys face looked like someone had been putting cigarette butts out on it or he did it to himself as a party trick. I said that I didn't smoke and then he went over to Damien to bother him. The game was highly skilled and was played at a very fast pace. Much faster than I have seen in Sydney parks. The players were kicking up heaps of dust but luckily there was a strong wind to blow it away. Every few minutes a player off the ball would throw one of the thousand rocks off the field. Anyway it we! nt to a penalty shootout and nearly all the eight spectators moved around to the goals. It was high intensity stuff with every player doing the slow walk from the centre circle to the penalty spot feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders to take his kick. It may as well been the world cup. The best team won with the goalkeeper being the hero. We moved on from there but not before ashtray face scabbed the dregs of my beer. We arrived into Upington pretty late and tired. The times we have arrived into a town or city at night it has been hard to avoid the neon signs of Adult world but it was pleasing not to see them this time.
We took the day off on Saturday and spent it in a steakhouse and bar watching the cricket final and local rugby. We spent the next day at a national park a couple hundred kilometres from town. The Augrabies Falls were spectacular with its claim to fame being the sixth highest but who should really be counting. Amongst other animals we saw our first family of giraffes in the wild and they are impressive creatures. Damien went a long way to get a snap on one but having eyes five metres off the ground gave him a good view of Damiens approach. Damiens mining instincts were on show again scratching up all sorts of rocks and crystals. Our highlight of the day was to walk down a massive gorge to swim across the Orange river which is a big and well known river over here.
Businesses that could be successful.
2nd hand wheel barrow sales, services and parts in Lesotho.
Hammocks (for all the people that just hang around).
South African News Today.
Hippo on the Loose.
Authorities are giving a hippo that escaped Rondevelei Nature Reserve "animal time" to return to the Reserve through a one way funnel fence. The hippo escaped after thieves stole a section of fencing.
Putting the ''green" into sugar.
Green sugar might be the order of the day following attempts by environmentalists and sugar farmers to find common ground for environmentally friendly sugar. This comes to tackle environmental problems posed by sugar cane.
Sport.
The South African national soccer team ''bafana bafana" lost a controversial world cup qualifying match against the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 130000 Congolese crowd went nuts after the DRC scored in the 87th minute to give it a 1-0 victory. Bafana bafana controlled most of the match and were unlucky not to get a couple of penalty kicks. It was quoted '' bafana bafana players would of had to broken their legs to receive a penalty". (I've asked around the country what bafana bafana means and been told different things. From "little boy's" to "men of men")
Fast-food Update.
Not many Maccas, Spur Steakhouses are everywhere, KFC are everywhere, Chicken Licken has popped up in a few places, Hungry Lion which tastes like chicken and Steers are common which is a hamburger joint.
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