Opportunity and Success

There is a young girl who visits me occasionally.  I first met her at the river one day while I was chatting on the phone and she was doing laundry.  She comes to me for English vocabulary help.  She’s fluent in English, but wants to broaden her vocabulary base.  She wants to be a poet or an actress.  She brings me things she’s read, elaborate poetry or Bible texts, so I can help explain the difficult words to her. Finding synonyms for difficult words which aren’t also difficult is difficult.  This afternoon, she walked into my kitchen.  I was expecting someone else so it surprised me to see her standing there.  She came to tell me she had failed 10th grade math and wouldn’t be able to continue her studies.  She wanted to know if I knew anyone she could work for or what she could do.  She was afraid to go home because her grandfather was coming to beat her.  That is the only punishment here.  It’s harsh.  High school isn’t free, so if a pupil struggles, it is seen as a waste of money.  I felt so deflated when she said she wouldn’t be continuing her school.  There isn’t much opportunity for young people here, but without a high school education, there is even less.  I took her to my neighbor who is a teacher at a different school.  She suggested she discuss with her teachers and see if she could do tutoring to make up her 10th grade math and then continue on with her schooling next year.

It made me think.  I grew up in a society where children are asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Everything is a possibility.  Opportunity is available.  Success is achievable.  You want to be a brain surgeon?  Go for it!  Study hard and apply yourself.  You want to be an actress?  Get involved in a local playhouse and chase your dreams.  You want to be an electrician?  There is no shortage of opportunity or job availability!  Your profession will always be useful.  Learn at a college or study under a skilled electrician.  That isn’t the way it is here, or in most places in the world.  I grew up believing I could be whatever I wanted to be.  I still believe that!  Someday, when I’m old and I’ve raised my kids and have more free time, I’d like to open a small cafe.  There isn’t a thing in me that makes me believe I couldn’t do it!  But here, when I hear, “I want to be an actress” or “I want to be a pilot”, I think, “There is no way.” I’m not trying to be pessimistic!  I want to be optimistic!  I want to believe that the opportunity is there.  But I know better.  The funding isn't there for schooling.  The jobs aren’t there to be filled.  There is only an up hill climb for anyone in Lesotho who wants to be something out of the ordinary.  So I encourage her, study hard.  Try to go to university in South Africa.  Try to build your credentials and maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a break.  But in my heart, I feel the truth.  It’s so unlikely, it’s nearly impossible.  I pray she can finish high school and I pray, with God’s grace and lots of determination, she will have the future she dreams of having.  And I pray her parents and grandparents are easy on her, because she’s obviously a brilliant student who probably just spends too much time on English and not enough time on math.

In other Mokhotlong news…..

I found sweet potatoes in South Africa a couple weeks ago.  It’s a rare find.  I’ve only ever found them once before.  I snatched two bags and have been dreaming of what all I wanted to do with them.  I found this recipe for chocolate sweet potato cake in one of my go-to Taste of Home cookbooks and decided to give it a try.  I followed the recipe with a few simple adjustments.  Firstly, 2 cups of sugar is ridiculous.  I cut it in half and judging by the batter, it’s plenty sweet!  Recipes almost always call for way more sugar than necessary.  Then, 2 cups of pecans.  Seriously?  Have you priced pecans lately?  No.  No way.  I don’t use 2 cups of pecans in a month and I’m certainly not dumping that many in a cake.  I buy pecans fresh from the health food store in South Africa at the cheapest price around and they are still painfully expensive.  So, I just grabbed a handful of those cherished nuts and chopped them up well before tossing them in.  Then to add some more texture and yum due to the lack of pecans, I added a handful of chocolate chips.  Obviously.  I will split it up and take it to my neighbors for safe keeping, since I can’t be held accountable for what would happen to this chocolate sweet potato cake should it all remain in my home.

Dinner tonight is ribs, which come from my favorite butchery.  I’ve become such a butchery snob.  They are cheaper than the grocery stores here, and the meat is so fresh and customizable.  I always get just what I want.  I’m using some of the barbecue sauce my mom brought because I have enough to take a bath in, and because it’s amazing and tastes like home. Thanks, Selena!  I rubbed the ribs with Fat Jake's, a spice blend a friend makes.  It's so good!  I’m making these potatoes because cream cheese improves everything and fresh carrots because we bought them along the road-side this week and they are beautiful.  I know ya’ll think we are really suffering up here, eating unidentifiable food and never having a treat.  Sorry not sorry for shattering the image of poor, unfortunate, sacrificing missionaries.  It’s not such a bad existence, I promise.  You should try it!

Off I go to wake Sadie from her nap because she’s sleeping too long and I want to sleep tonight.  Hope you all have your Christmas decorations down.  I believe today is the deadline.  Mine are all down, it took me about 5 minutes.  

~Abby

Wife Life

I started the day earlier than I would’ve liked.  It is Saturday after all.  But Sadie didn’t seem to remember that as she came crawling into my bed for “milkies”.  I still need to wean her. I still don’t know how.  I was already in the kitchen getting ready to start breakfast by 7:45.  In my opinion, that’s too early for a Saturday morning unless something very exciting is about to happen. Today nothing exciting happened.

Before I could get going on breakfast, there was a knock at my door.  The lady who comes occasionally to hand wash things that don’t go in my washing machine was here.  For five years, I’ve had people asking me regularly for work. There are countless requests to nanny my children.  There are many offers by passersby to do my laundry as I hang it out on the line.  Many request to weed my garden.  I’ve had people come to the door, stop me in town, ask me quietly as I pass them along the road.  I’ve turned down so many people for “piece jobs”, as they are called here, and it is hard.  It is hard to know whom to help and how to help.  I couldn’t possibly employ all the people who come by asking for work.  I usually turn them away saying I don’t have any work to be done (which is true, I do it :) ).  Truly, what would I give all these people to do and what would I do if I had all my jobs covered?  But sometime last year, this little lady came to my door.  She had a baby on her back.  She asked for R12 (less than $1) to buy paraffin, which is used here for cooking.  She asked if I had any laundry that needed doing.  I prefer to wash things in my machine.  Maybe it’s my culture or the way I was raised, but I think they are good and clean that way and they feel softer than when they are hand washed.  But some things don’t fit in my machine or don’t belong in my machine.  Rugs and coats are two major ones.  So for whatever reason, when this lady came by, I offered her a few things to wash.  She did such a thorough job, I told her to come back any Saturday and I would find her something to wash.  She doesn’t speak a word of English and my Sesotho is atrocious.  I usually have to get Detay or Joy to translate for me so we can communicate.  So, she comes by every so often (amazingly not every Saturday….) and I always find a rug or two for her to wash.  Today she washed my two biggest rugs.  I paid her generously, by Mokhotlong’s standards, but to me it’s still hard to stomach someone working for as little as they do here. 

This morning I cleaned the entire house.  I spend my days sweeping.  Africa produces a lot of dirt.  Children produce a lot of dirt.  Even so, every week or sometimes less, the house needs a thorough going over, from top to bottom.  I love a clean, neat, sweet-smelling house.  It’s like a visual sigh of relief.  I love clean, wind-dried sheets and can’t wait to go to bed tonight.  I also love clean kids which means this every night.

During the girls’ afternoon rest/nap time, I went for a jog.  Ruby needs the exercise and so do I.  I enjoy the fresh air and sunshine.  It’s a great time to just clear my head.  I pass by lots of kids and they make me smile.  The little girl in the picture below (can you spot her?) is so spunky.  She’s so thin, she looks like she could blow away in the strong midday winds.  But she’s full of herself and she swings her tiny hips and jabbers to herself as she walks past me.  I see her regularly.  Everyone asks for my dog.  She isn’t actually mine…. She’s on long-term loan from a friend.  I appreciate her for her companionship and protection. For some reason, even though Basotho are terrified of her, they all want her.  Then when I say I’m not giving her up, they ask for her puppies.  You should see the confusion on their faces as I tell them she won’t be having any puppies…. A very foreign concept here.

Sadie Kate and I did yoga before dinner.  I am not any kind of yoga fanatic, but I started doing some short videos a couple months back.  I’m still suffering mightily with my aching head and neck and thought maybe I could stretch out some tension.  I am using Yoga by Adriene videos which a friend downloaded for me.  The jury is still out on if it’s helping or not, but I continue trying regardless.  At least I have a cute yoga buddy.

For dinner, I pulled this recipe to try out of my favorite cookbook — Taste of Home Country Cooking.  I like the older ones because they use a lot of “from scratch” ingredients, which I need in Mokhotlong.  There’s no canned soup, ready-made biscuits, jars of enchilada sauce, bottles of teriyaki sauce, etc etc.  I had some ground pork I wanted to use and decided on this recipe.  Because I didn’t have “pork sausage”, I added a bit of salt, paprika, sage and garlic to my ground pork.  Everything else I kept the same.  It was seriously so easy and so good!  I served it over rice with stir fry on the side.  When I make it again, I will reduce the sugar some because it was pretty sweet with the ketchup and brown sugar.  But otherwise, it got two enthusiastic thumbs up from my clan.  Give it a whirl!

The rugs are dry now and back in place.  The big one spent the afternoon on top of Rocky so as to keep it good and clean while it dried.  Thankfully there weren’t any bird droppings on it when we pulled it down tonight.  Ellee’s rug had horrible grease stains from where she spilled a bottle of baby oil on it some time back.  I’ve washed it since then, but the stains remained.  This morning I treated it with Shout and Dawn dish soap (my two prized American cleaning supplies) before the lady took it to the river to wash it.  I wish I had a before picture!  It came out so beautifully, I can’t believe it!

Overall, a productive Saturday for Mrs. St.Clair.  I’m tired, but it’s a good tired.  I am hopeful that 2018 is going to be a great year!  At least with a clean house and yummy leftovers, I know tomorrow is going to be a great day.  Off to bed I go.

~Abby

Racing Through Mokhotlong

Ellee and her new BFFs

Four weeks ago, when the World Race team arrived in Mokhotlong, we had no idea how they would nestle into our lives and hearts and leave us wishing that they didn't have to move on!  It's been such a treat to have them here and enjoy living our lives together.  Today they left Mokhotlong to journey on to another country where I know they will be a blessing and I pray they will also be blessed.

It is such a treat for us to have other "makhoa" (white people/foreigners) around.  For me, it's sweet to have friends close in age -- despite our obvious gap in life-position, I really do belong in that generation -- to have around.  Most of our friends here are a good deal older than I am.  Also, it warmed my heart to see some of the girls jogging around Mokhotlong.  They had to be adding to my stereotype of the "white girl runner" in town.  Nearly every day I jog and nearly every day I receive the same questions about what I'm doing and where I'm going.  Now at least people here can see it's not just me; we are all weird!

For my kids, it is sweet to have big kids they can look up to.  They loved going up to the mission house to hang with the team during their off-times.  I sometimes had to hold them back to allow the team some solitude.  It's great to have people you can trust to look after your little ones.  I know we'll be hearing stories from Kyle and Ellee for weeks and months to come of all the fun they had with the team.

We enjoyed lots of dinners together.  As I can't easily accommodate twenty guests in my home, we made a meal schedule up and let the team choose which meal suited their cravings best.  It was a great way to get to know each of them on a more personal level.  Sadly I didn't get a photo of the first meal, which was Cracker Barrel chicken tenders and the fixings.  But the rest we did document, including tacos, pizza, copycat Chick-Fil-A, and spaghetti.  The spaghetti night was a big hit for five hungry guys and two hungry girls and they killed three pounds of pasta, as much meat sauce as I could fit in my big blue pot, and two big loaves of bread.

Pizza night

Movie Night

Jono's Table Setting Skills

Taco Night

Games after Tacos

Faux Chick-Fil-A

The Spaghetti Crew

Spaghetti Night

Rudy Night

S'mores in the Cave

So long World Racers!  May your journeys be fruitful and may your lives shine brightly for Him!  Thanks for brightening our lives for a time.  We will miss you!

~Abby

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas.....

..... Except it's the beginning of May!  Winter is moving into Mokhotlong and I feel something like a bear preparing for hibernation.  It is funny how quickly one can forget how cold cold feels.  Sometimes it feels cold in my bones.  And we are only just beginning.  I’ve brought out my scarves, puffy vests and long socks.  My trusty sheep skin slippers are my long lost best friends.  We’re getting reacquainted.  The warm drink stash is dwindling and we need to restock.  I’ve baked lots of goodies full of ginger and cinnamon in the past few weeks.  A pot of apple butter simmered on my stove for hours and I discovered apple butter pancakes this weekend.  I’m never looking back!  Chili was on the menu for supper last night.  And a running headband/ear cover is on my buy-when-down list because…. brrrrr.

 

It’s been cool at night for the past month or more.  We began layering up the baby in early April.  The evolution of heat sources here is comical to me.  Typically when it starts cooling off back home, we just bump the thermostat up a bit and continue with life.  When it starts feeling cold during the day, we switch out our closets to winter clothes and continue on with life.  But here, without central heat, it is a much more detailed process which, after a few years of practice, we have down to a science.  

We first begin by warming rice socks.  Our bedroom is the coldest room in the house, so for weeks I’ve been bringing hot rice socks to bed at night to help warm up the sheets.  The kids rooms are notably warmer, so they just bundle up and snuggle in no problem.  The baby doesn’t stay under covers very well, so we dress her up like the Michelin man before bed.  She is currently wearing either one heavy sleeper and a sweatshirt or a lightweight sleeper under a heavy sleeper at night.  Then we slip her into a sleep sack before bed.  We did mittens for a cold, wet week.  For right now, she’s been sleeping mitten-free, which is obviously her preference.  

A couple weeks ago, when it started getting below freezing nearly every night, we broke out the hot water bottles.  These things rock!  We own three but need more.  For right now, the kids get them for sleeping.  I boil water in the electric kettle and then pour it into the hot water bottles, leaving space to press air out before screwing on the lid.  Then we tuck the bottles into their cute little covers and stick them into the kids’ beds before bedtime.  They retain heat so well, the bottles are still warm in the morning.

This weekend, I brought out the electric bed heaters which go beneath our sheets.  They aren’t expensive to run, really, but electricity isn’t cheap so we try to hold off on using them as long as we can.  But enough is enough.  I have one on Kyle’s bed and one on our bed.  I’m too nervous to have one on the girls’ beds because I don’t really love the idea of electricity running under their sheets.  So the girlies can have the extra water bottle and rice socks now that the big people are finished with them.  

When we return after our trip this week, we’ll start running the wall heaters, which really help to heat Kyle’s and Ellee’s rooms, and the anthracite stove.  We need to get some more coal and fix our chimney before we can start the stove.  Those things are on our short-term to-do list.  Jonathan and our neighbor guys are burying the new pipes to the tank in our yard as I write.  We also have to reinsulate some other pipes which needed replacing.  I think you could call this “winterizing” the house.

I have winter goals of working on my hand embroidery and reading good read-aloud books to the kids.  We are looking forward to a school break after a fun first year for Kyle!  And we are expecting a brutally cold, possibly snowy winter.  There was heavy snow last year while we were in America.  Although I would love to see some good snow, I’m hoping this year it doesn’t knock the electricity out for a month!  Nevertheless, we’re armed and ready with candles and lamps, our coal stove and gas oven so we should be able to manage with or without electricity if necessary.  

~Abby

All About Sani

Well before we moved here, we heard about Sani Pass.  We heard that it was dangerous and scary and that is gives young people gray hair.  Google confirmed all those accusations.  It truly is a treacherous journey when we drive down that direction.  Because the vast majority of you won’t ever experience it yourselves, I thought I’d describe it in detail here.  Just for fun.  

It takes about an hour from our driveway to the top of Sani.  The road between here and there was literally a piece of work the first few times we drove it.  The Chinese had come in and were busy blasting, carving, chipping and chopping away at the mountains to make space for a decent road.  We once were stopped for over an hour waiting to pass because they were blasting ahead.  Before, the road was narrow and unpaved.  Now, the road is smooth, wide and, although windy, easy to drive.  

At the top of Sani is the Lesotho border post.  It is very small and the folks who work there are almost always inside by a fire playing cards.  It is very relaxed and they know us now.  The top of Sani, at approximately 10,000 feet elevation, is chilly even in summer.  In winter is it bitter cold.  The fire inside burns nearly year round.  We stamp all of our passports and pile back into Rocky.  The law states that only 4X4 vehicles are allowed to travel the pass.  Rocky qualifies.  Jono switches the gear box into low range and puts on the difference lock.  There are reasons for this which I don’t fully understand and/or don’t fully want to explain.  But basically it makes Rocky safer to drive down the steep road ahead.  A sign requests that right of way be given to ascending vehicles, as it’s harder to stop and go as you are traveling up.  Many spots in the road are not wide enough for two cars to pass, so you must be aware of oncoming traffic.  

We start down.  Oftentimes you can see far into South Africa with an unobstructed view.  Other times there is a layer of clouds hanging lower than the mountains, which makes it look like a big white blanket is spread across the lowlands.  And occasionally there is fog which means you really can’t see anything.  That doesn’t feel too good.  But we really aren’t nervous.  We turn on some Toby Keith to bump down so our singing voices sound like his.  We figure if we go over, we go over.  What can we do?  We need groceries and want fast food.  The hairpin turns begin immediately.  I believe I've counted 14 major turns with a number of other twists and turns along the way.  They have names like: Suicide Bend, Reverse Corner and Hemorrhoid Hill (gross).  The rapid turning only lasts a few minutes; we drive slowly and carefully.  The road is narrow and there is no guard rail.  Not that it would help if there was one; it’s a long ways down.  A few of the turns are a really close call and Rocky’s tires are closer to the edge than we’d like to admit.  There are small water falls coming from all directions.  Water is coming out of the rocks.  In the wintertime, that water is frozen solid in places that never see the sun.  It is then two foot long icicles. 

When the quick turns are over, we wind down and around and down and around another bumpy 20 minutes to the South African border post.  The road here is essentially a ton of large rocks packed hard into the dirt.  It means a lot of jerking around in the car.  The kids ask why the road is so bumpy.  And how much longer do we have?  And say things like, “Daddy, I just hit my head.”  We drive through a number of streams along the way.  We go fast to try to clean off Rocky.  Free car wash.  The border post provides a much needed bathroom break after all that bumping.  If we’re lucky, we see baboons hanging around high on the rocks above the post.  If we’re unlucky, they chase us.  Just kidding.  Although they are quite aggressive, they do keep their distance.  We stamp our passports again, this time with temporary visas for South Africa, and continue on our way.  There is another 30 minutes of very bumpy, windy road ahead.  The lower area of the road is extremely muddy, which is so dangerous when it is raining (or just after).  Just this past week, we were slip sliding all over the place trying to drive it.  It’s awful.  Rocky very nearly got stuck and we were a little too close to sliding off the edge for comfort.  It’s still very high, even though we are way past Sani pass.  Going over would be a big problem.  We really wish they would pave this part of the road, but alas, it is unlikely.

Sani is a huge tourist attraction in this area of South Africa.  It is known as the most precipitous (highest climb in shortest distance) pass in Africa.  People pay good money to take a guided tour up and down it in one day.  If you want to spend the night at the top, you can pay a hefty tourist rate to stay at the Sani Mountain Lodge.  Because Sani is an attraction for tourists, thrill seekers, bikers and others, it is unlikely that much will be done to change the rugged appeal to the pass.  It can be annoying to pass so many touring vehicles when we are trying to get to the grocery or a doctor’s appointment.  We also know it is exactly four hours from our porch to the McDonald’s parking lot, so we’re aiming for lunch time.

We can typically accomplish Sani in about an hour.  Then it’s another two hour drive to the nearest large city, Pietermaritzburg.  That drive is absolutely stunning.  It reminds us of Tennessee or Kentucky.  Rolling hills and large dairy farms.  Lots of ponds and lakes are sprinkled around.  The road is smooth and the scenery is lovely.  We’re over the worst of it and on our way to french fries.  It feels good.

~Abby

There's A First Time For Everything

We first met Danki in 2013 on our initial visit to Mokhotlong.  We didn’t have a place to live here yet and we had only come to visit a colleague, Jayne, and survey the town.  Jayne took us around Mokhotlong, showing us where we could find some groceries and to show us what a rental house might look like.  Along our tour, we met an elderly lady who sat on her front porch and chatted with us for a while.  Sound familiar?  I blogged about her on Christmas Eve.  There were a dozen young kids around, understandably curious of the outsiders who had come to their little part of Mokhotlong.  Jonathan, Kyle, tiny Ellee, Lacy, my mom and myself were there and in our pictures, Danki was there, too.  We didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out that we moved in next door to that elderly lady, MaTopi, and she is now our neighbor.  Because Danki rents a room from MaTopi, he is also our neighbor.  He first moved to Mokhotlong in 2009.  The youngest of ten children, he was born and raised in a village until age ten.  At that point, he moved to Mokhotlong to continue his education in the better town schools.  Eventually, he began renting a room from MaTopi and started high school nearby.  He recently graduated and has since been doing odd jobs around town.  He hopes to go to college and study engineering.  He will have to work to pay his way through school.

Around Thanksgiving, he told us in conversation that he had never been to South Africa.  He said he had a passport, but it had never been used.  He wanted to see the ocean.  We asked when he turned 18, since it’s much easier to take someone across the border once they are an adult.  He said his 18th birthday was the first of January.  So, we told him we’d take him along sometime when we were going to the coast.  When we decided to fly Lacy home out of Durban, we determined it would be as good a time as any to take Danki with us as well. 

Typically when we go to Durban, we’re there for doctor’s appointments and necessary shopping.  We usually stay with friends and oftentimes don’t even make it to the beach.  For Danki, however, the beach was first priority.  Thus, I found a condo right on the beach for an absolute steal and booked it for a couple nights after Lacy’s departure.  Danki was counting down the days weeks ago.  He told us he could barely sleep last week because he was so excited.  On Sunday morning, we packed up and embarked on a trip of firsts.  We knew seeing the ocean would be a first, but it hadn’t even occurred to me exactly how many firsts he would experience during a few days in South Africa.

First ride down Sani.  First border crossing.  First passport stamp.  First monkey sighting.  First ride on a freeway.  He couldn’t believe how fast the cars were going.  First automatically opening doors.  First time in a mall.  First time ordering from a menu.  First meal at a sit-down restaurant.  First shower.  First time seeing a small dog.  First McDonalds.  First traffic jam.  First view of an airport.  First look at the ocean.  Second, third, forth, fifth shower - he’s hooked.  First night in an air-conditioned room.  First time seeing a poodle.  He roared with laughter.  All the dogs in Mokhotlong are mutt herd dogs.  A groomed poodle was just a hilarious sight to him.  We enjoyed his reaction.  First elevator.  First escalator.  He went up and down a few times just because he could.  First time to a movie theatre.  First swim in the ocean.  First swim in a pool.  I couldn't believe he knew how to swim, but he did!  First milkshake.  First parking garage.  First air hockey.  First soda fountain.  I should’ve counted the number of refills he got!  First water fountain. First drive thru.  His reaction was priceless.  He couldn’t believe there was a person behind the screen taking our order and that the food was going to magically appear out of a window.  Jono explained the headset concept.  First bumper cars.  First zebra.  First ostrich.  And I'm sure many more I'm forgetting!

While we were out, the monkeys got in and made a huge mess!  The housekeeper left the window open and this....

It’s so interesting how commonplace all these things are to me.  In fact, for us, coming to South Africa is comforting because it feels like home.  It looks more like America than anywhere else nearby, and the sights, smells and sounds are much like those from home.  It’s still different, but it’s a whole lot closer to American life than we find in Mokhotlong.  Danki, on the other hand, knows nothing of life outside of Lesotho.  Excluding a very short school trip to the capital city, he barely knows life outside of Mokhotlong.  Needless to say, he’s intrigued and maybe a bit shell shocked by life there.  And it was so fun to watch him experience it. 

I don’t know where his bright smile and kind heart will take him in life.  I hope and pray he makes wise choices.  He has the potential to have a bright and successful future.  I suspect this won't be the only trip to South Africa he takes with us.  It really couldn't have been more fun for any of us!

~Abby