South Africa Sojourn a day in Malealea

As it had poured with rain all day yesterday and we were more or less confined to barracks the result would be a busy day today. Firstly at 9-00am we have to meet with our guide who will take us around the village complete with a visit to the school. The walk will take about 2 hours.
Our guide was called John and he proved to be most companionable with excellent self-taught English. First of all he taught us enough Sotho to get by. That was "du mela" which simply means hello. I always find that it is much appreciated if you are fluent in at least one word of the native tongue!

Here is Helen and John sitting down in the village "pub", but more of that later. We started by looking at at the shops. These consist of corrugated iron huts measuring about 6 ft square, somewhat dilapidated and without any services. We bought some homemade fat cakes which are much like doughnuts. We wandered further up the road and looked at some dwellings, each of which had its own "long-drop" loo. Remember there are no main services although there is a tap to supply several houses. The water is piped from springs. Some have electricity if they can afford solar power or a generator. The people are not all equally poor. A few people live in quite grand houses and have vehicles. They would have earned the money by working in the mines in South Africa. 

This chap, with the horse-tail fly whisk was particularly keen to have his picture taken.

A long drop. 

You can see a lot of houses have flags flying. There are three colours each representing the type of beer available for drinking (at a small charge) in that house. The types are, maize, hop or ginger. They have to buy the hops and ginger in. Let's go back into the pub again. 

Here are the brewing vats, each one is colour coded according to the type of beer. The strength is about 2%. Notice the "dresser"  on the wall. This is made from the mud and cow dung bricks when the house was built. This sheds a new light on the concept of built-in furniture. IKEA take note. Malealea is the largest of a grouping of 14 villages each with its own chief whose role I have described previously. The agriculture is run on a family basis. Each one will have a garden near their home for growing vegetables then a portion of the flatter land for arable purposes and finally the herd which typically consists of about a dozen cows, half a dozen sheep for meat and wool and maybe four goats for the mohair. These are grazed all day on the higher common land but need the constant attention of a male family member to act as shepherd. 

A raised bed garden

So now on the school. Malealea has a pre-school 

which is free and provided by foreign donations. The primary school is also free and paid for by the state but secondary school is fee charging which prevents many from progressing at 12+.

Some children outside the school and, Henry that's the flag of Lesotho on the wall. 

I was lucky enough to get the chance to teach an impromptu geography lesson. Note the attentiveness of the kids. This never happened in England. 

The school kitchen where lunch is prepared, generally pap a kind of mashed potato made from millet. The man is the teacher of the oldest class. Finally a picture of the staff room. 

The afternoon is to be devoted to a two hour pony trek. So after a short rest we mount up. 

The views were spectacular, the horses were very compliant and our guide could not have been more attentive. We had the time of our lives.The ride was just the right length, leaving us tired and satisfied but not quite sore. 

Look, one handed driving. Oh, and that's a hair net I'm wearing there. 

Monarchess of the Glen, Queen of the Mountains, Champion the Wonder Horse woman, take your pick as Michael Miles would say. How many remember those 1950s TV references? During the ride Helen began to feel rather unwell with stomach cramps and after she got back to our room she started to suffer from what proved to be an extended period of upset tummy. 

Signage on the way out of Malealea