Visit to Mountmoorosi

This weekend we visited current volunteers to see what their lives and jobs are like. I visited Erin who has been living in Quthing in the south of Lesotho. It's in the Senqu River Valley in the highlands, so its very different from where we are in training. She is surrounded by mountains, but it's only a ten minute walk to a little town Mountmoorosi. Getting here was tricky, but not as bad as I expected. The taxi ranks are where you find buses and taxi in the cities and towns. They are packed with people and cars, and all lined with vendors selling produce, cigarettes and clothing from little metal and cardboard shacks. They make delicious donut things called fat cakes that I have can't pass up anytime I'm in a taxi rank. We took a 20 person van with 25 people in it from Maseru (the capital city), we were really packed in there, you just have to be ok with having no personal space. Mike (the other trainee I went with) and I were literally sat on for most of the trip. In a little over four hours we got to a camptown where we transferred to a smaller van that was even more crowded. I'm a little taller than the average Basotho, but apparently am too tall for some of the vans and had to duck down for the last taxi ride, luckily it was only an hour. The Basotho think that a breeze from an open window will make you sick, so they all close the windows and it gets really hot and stuffy with people coughing and sneezing. It was a constant battle for me to keep my window open, as soon as I moved my arm out of the window someone would close it. But with the window open the trip wasn't that unpleasant. The driver blasted music, but with earplugs in it was a normal volume. The entire trip took abut 6 hours, which seems to be a good distance from Maseru, I don't think I would want to be much more remote. But it was definitely worth the trip.
Mountmoorosi is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We climbed up the mountain the first day, at the top there are ruins from where a local chief went to escape the Boer invasion, and you are completely surrounded by views of other mountains and the river valley. The second day we visited the youth center that Erin has set up, it's really amazing what she has done in only a year. Her initial project of starting an aloe farm wasn't really working out, so she put her efforts into a youth center that the chief of the town had approached her about. She already has a building and has covered in murals and started a library and youth peer advisory panel. She has really made a home here and seems like she's making difference in people's lives, it was very inspiring. The trip was amazing, and a good example of how a motivated volunteer has been able to make a difference despite all the challenges. We don't find out our actual site placements for another 3 weeks, but this trip has gotten me really excited to see where I might go.