The last diary from Lesotho, written during the last weekend of
my six weeks residence on Roma campus and at IEMS. I should not forget
to remember to inform Chris that the club for disintegrating academics,
a.k.a. club voor aftakelende intellectuelen, is actually popularly known
as "The White Elephant". It's the only bar I have seen here so far with
real leather club chairs, pseudo conversations between visiting professors
and other scum of the earth, like me and Chris. Students you won't see
here. The monetary economist however, is here every day, some time in the
afternoon you may find him walking there, still staggering from yesterday's
abuse. he appears to be the shame of the campus. Everybody knows about
it, nobody wants to know him. Anyway, I don't think Basotho are great socializers
with foreigners.
Meanwhile I have started to prepare my farewell. I returned the Short
History of Lesotho to Mariet van der Heyden. Quite a good book, with sharp
observations e.g. on the attitude of donors and aid organizations. This
morning I went for a walk about through the village of Roma, divided between
the Holy Church buildings and the regular folks. It was a nice green walk.
For a moment I thought I had been pick pocketed by a girl imploring me
physically to buy a ring for R 250. But then I found I left my money in
my short pants. Oops. On the way back I visited the Book Center, where
I bought some post cards. No book for me.
Yesterday I came home with a headache and laid down immediately.
Was this headache caused by the "reckless driving" on the field trip,
or more a result of my own constitution? Anyway, this field trip finally
gave me a chance to see a bit more of the country than the road between
Roma and Maseru. We wanted to report on soil erosion in the district of
Mafeteng, just south of Maseru. Maseru is notorious for erosion, and for
its fighting spirit. I saw quite few a donga's (wet and broken lands caused
by erosion) but no fighting. However, I saw some of the destruction of
september '98. And Moloko, who is from here, told me the burnin' and a
lootin' was heaviest of all here. Although he wasn't there at the time.
Our two researchers Bonang and Tsepang had been working for two days to
make an appointment with the District of Agriculture. But when we arrived
the lady whom Bonang had been talking with had just disappeared. And it
turned out she had not informed her boss about our coming. The boss had
a very simple explanation: "She's mad". She had all the information we
could desire, having worked here for 20 years. He knew nothing, being only
an administrator. But he was kind enough to make an appointment for us
with the proper person in the next district, Mohale's Hoek. We then tried
to phone the others who had driven to a nearby village, only to discover
that their cell phone didn't work. Then we spent our time observing a pitso,
an assembly where inhabitants came to report how many cows they possessed.
A maximum of two was allowed in the town of Mafeteng! We had an interesting
interview with a 75 year old Enforcement Officer, who apparently briefed
us on cattle grazing and soil erosion. "No problem" was the only thing
I understood. Then I went to buy cookies in the supermarket that produced
some loud turbo house sounds and we sat down waiting. Surprisingly the
combi showed up after half an hour. And they had interviewed in a nearby
village Chief Ramona and others.
So we were ready to move on to Mohale's Hoek. But then the driver protested:
no permission to go to another district, not enough petrol. Boreng had
already pointed out that the man was not happy to drive people who did
not belong to his department, so I seriously tried not to explode. I explained
that a field trip is something you can prepare, but also something that
forces you to be flexible and to improvise. Anyway, I decided to phone
IEMS anyway. And of course the Head was not available. I thought of acting
out the conversation giving me permission, but I didn't. Finally I got
Ransford, who asked me to phone back in 5 minutes. I asked HIM to phone
ME back. Next I discovered we had no network, so we returned to the place
where I had previously phoned. Only SA networks available. Then we went
to a public phone, looked up the number in the directory, bought a card
and phoned Ransford. "Go, go, go" he shouted. Of course, well done.
All this goes to demonstrate that problems encountered should be a
challenge to solve them. All too often participants come up with some technical
problem, which immediately stops them from doing anything. No paper to
copy, no transport, phone doesn't work, the man was not in, etc. Of course
money is often an obstacle, but it's also a matter of mentality. Anyway,
I intend to earmark the contribution Chris and me are making from our lodging
budget (some R 4.500), for operational costs of the program makers. NOT
for hardware investments.
It's only fair to explore here a bit the media culture of Lesotho.
Interviews are very scarce, both on the radio and in printed press. What
you hear is monologues. What you get when you ask a question is an exposure.
Maybe that is a reason why many people, especially officials, always point
elsewhere when approached for information. They don't feel able or authorized
to make an official speech. However, when you ask people in the street
or in the field, they are mostly quite happy to give statements or stories.
Another good reason not to focus on officials, like some participants do,
but rather go out to meet regular people!
By the way, speaking about phones. The guest house phone still does
not work. I was told two weeks ago that a fax had gone out to Philips in
Bloemfontein...
Jo