After lunch, next on the agenda was an anthropological lesson on Lesotho. Apparently this trip was also meant to have an educational purpose as Sim gave us an open-air lecture that brought me back to my university days, minus being outside of course. What started off seemingly as a short talk turned into an hour-long lesson on the history and culture of Lesotho. There was also an explanation of why and how the rondavels were used (tradition, the round shape makes them easy to build as all you need is a rope to design the base) with something about animist religion thrown in as well. One aspect apparently is that you don’t kill anything such as spiders or mice in the rondavel because it might be the spirit of an ancestor visiting you. Some people own both a rondavel and a regular rectangular hut because they practiced traditional beliefs in the rondavel. All in all, it actually wasn’t as dull as one might think though later on, my Singaporean pal John would tell me that I was probably the only one who was really paying attention. It’s funny because while I was trying to listen and taken down a few notes, I eventually got swarmed by several of the kids who took my notebook, scrawled incomprehensible words and scribbles in it and even hit me up for food, which I acceded. At one point, one boy, a serious-looking guy who had run up to me while we were walking up along the trail and stuck to me, held the notebook, stared at me intensely and said “mine.” I almost had to resist the urge to grab the notebook back because it wasn’t something I could just give away, having used it several times so that it had a lot of notes and contact info. I decided if necessary, I’d just ask Sim to get it back for me at the end and so I let the boy hold on to it. This same boy also asked me for food and as a result, he received a sandwich and a candy from me, as did another kid because I wanted to spread my offering as much as possible.
This little miss took some time to write in my notebook.
The way to the top. This was after our “Lesotho lecture.”
After the end of our “lesson,” Sim, our driver and guide who now was also our professor on Lesotho, told us to hike up to the top of the mountain we were on and after we came down, he’d show us some Bushman/San rock paintings. After waiting to retrieve my notebook from the boy and after Sim had taken a look at it because he was curious too, I went up too. At this point, the trail had petered off into a steep surface strewn with large rocks and hiking up to the top was really just scrambling through the boulders and trying to find the best way up, which even included having to cross a small stream. Reaching the top, I passed everybody else who were on their way down and I had the whole top to myself. Of course I couldn’t stay too long to enjoy this solitude because I needed to rejoin the group as well. The “top” proved to be part of a plateau that led to higher peaks in the distance while the edge gave a great view overlooking the valley and village below.
Looking down onto the village, you can see how dry and treeless the area is.
Further away, there were even higher peaks, more mountains and strangely, a batch of pine trees that I’m not sure it’s indigenous.
I could see Sim, in black jacket, and some of the kids and the other guys from on top.
By the time I came back down, something that proved trickier than coming up, Sim had started showing us the San cave paintings. These were actually not far from where we had lunch and they were, unfortunately, underwhelming. There were two reddish paintings in the shape of large antelopes (eland), one that was quite faded so that its outline wasn’t too clear and had been vandalized by white scratches marked over it. I had expected something more exquisite, based on what I had seen in other tourism brochures and ads. These specific paintings had not been preserved well as the people previously did not really know and appreciate their value, hence the vandalism. An attempt had been made to protect them as a crude earthen barrier had been built around the paintings.
The San cave paintings in red had unfortunately been scratched over but their shapes are very noticeable.
The San are the first-known inhabitants of Africa but their story is a sad one that contrasts sharply with their proud historical status. They are commonly known as Bushmen, but it is impolite to refer to them as that, Sim said as it was a little derogatory. Hunter-gatherers who moved around from place to place, they spoke in clicks, “not the one or two clicks like Zulu and Xhosa,” said Sim, but continuously. Ah clicks. The Zulus and Xhosas use tongue clicks, which sound like “tock,” in their language alongside normal verbal words, and it was impossible for me to understand or replicate how smoothly they can utilize a click in the middle of words without a break. As such, it is even more astounding how people could speak entirely in clicks. Sim, being quite the expert on local anthropology, gave us a few examples such as QwaQwa which has clicks before both Qwas, as in ‘click’ Qwa ‘click’ Qwa. He also was able to speak Sesotho and conversed easily with the locals for the entire time he was with us in Lesotho. He was from South Africa but I don’t know if he wasn’t Basotho as well.
Anyways coming back to the San and their cave paintings; these were quite famous and could be found across much of South Africa as well as parts of Botswana and Namibia. Done by smearing a kind of pigment made up of materials such as animal fat, fluids and plant juices onto cave walls, the paintings featured a lot of human figures and animals, especially the eland, a giant antelope that the San hunted and respected a lot. Earlier, Sim had told us how the San hunted with bows and arrows tipped with poison. Because you wouldn’t want to eat poisoned meat, the San only made their toxins strong enough to weaken and daze, not kill, their prey after being hit with their arrows. After this, the prey would actually continue moving on but gradually it would slow down, enough for the San to move in and kill it with knives or some other weapons, I presume. What was sad about the San were that they hardly existed in South Africa, having either been killed in clashes with Zulus and Europeans or died in European settler concentration and labor camps. Most San live in Namibia and Botswana but the number in South Africa is negligible, about 10,000. Their click-based language and their nomadic lifestyle made them barely human, in the eyes of Europeans, and a guide on another trip told us shockingly how in Namibia, it was even legal to “hunt” them up until the mid-20th century (1936 as the UNHCR says). Even now, San in other countries such as Botswana face a lot of hardships to maintain their lifestyle.
After viewing the rock paintings, we headed back to the village below, taking a different route from the one we had used to get up. This time we walked along a trail roughly parallel to the ground, passing several small caves along the mountainside. The kids, some of whom were as young as 3, followed us and because I took my time taking photos along the way, I ended up having to walk behind them and consequently I almost got lost coming into the village. More kids showed up and kind of pointed me to the path back to the school and one time a guy working on his land also told me where my group had gone. He also asked me if I smoked, gesturing that he wanted a cigarette but I don’t so I didn’t give him one. Sometimes people can be obnoxious or mildly threatening when they ask you for things and you don’t give them but not in this case as the guy didn’t seem to mind. Along the way, as I passed more huts and cows grazing in the yards whilst trying to avoid stepping onto manure, curious women and kids stared at me and I felt a little uncomfortable being the presumed center of attention as the idiot tourist lagging behind his group. By the time I reached the school where the group was, a little football scrimmage had broken out which went on for a while until Sim told us it was time for a drink.
We passed some caves on the way back down to the village.
Walking at the back of the group with the kids.
We were going to a shebeen, a village “bar” which in this village, is usually a hut with home-brewed liquor for sale. In South Africa, townships also had shebeens though in their case, it was more formal. Because the people are poor and cannot afford signs, they advertised their “wares” by flying a flag on a pole, Sim told us. The color of the flag denotes what kind of beer they’re selling. The shebeen we went to flew a yellow flag, which meant they were selling pineapple beer which we drank as a group by passing around a bucket of the whitish liquid. It went down alright and had a nice fruity flavor. After the drinks, we then ate some beef which someone else in a neighboring hut cooked for us. Having drunk home-made beer, it was time for the real thing. Cans of the nation’s beer Maluti, which is also the country’s name for the Drakensberg mountains, was brought out. Sold nowhere else but in Lesotho, several guys bought but I demurred, wanting to hold on to my cash. I did manage to get a little taste of it as John offered me a sip. Afterwards one of the guys who had bought a can told me it wasn’t too special. After the drinking, Sim took us to the Two Sisters, the neighborhood convenience store. More like a tuckshop than a 7-11, the store offered cellphone airtime, “scones,” “Russian boiled eggs” and “drink,” their handwritten blue sign outside advertised. It was a little brick structure that was linked to two adjacent shacks that had blue galvanize walls. A little further down the road was the “bus terminal” where a lone kombi (minitaxi) that already had some passengers waited to be full before leaving. I didn’t buy anything so I missed out on my chance to get Lesotho currency as a keepsake, something which I ever so slightly regret. By this time, it was mid-afternoon and we needed to leave as the border post closed at 4.30 p.m. Before we could start driving up the road to the pass, we had to wait at the bottom as a van struggled to ascend, its wheels raising a high cloud of dust as it tried to power up the winding, dusty road. Finally the van made it over and we started to drive. Having had no problems coming down when we came into the village in the morning, our van could barely go up and Sim told us we had to get out and walk it. Because three of us were in the last row, by the time we reached the door, Sim told us we could stay which we did. During this time, I could see cows grazing contentedly on the slope above the side of the road, even one at a steep angle not too far from us.
A rondavel, left, and the village shop.
The nation’s beer, left, and a horse munching on grass. Every single horse I saw had its head down grazing.
This van struggled to make it up, only succeeding after some stopping and starting.
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The rest of the guys walk up to our van because it initially couldn’t drive up the road while cows were grazing on the slope above us. After we cleared this road, it was only a short drive to the border post and then, we were out of Lesotho.
My Take 