While the women prepare these crafts, they drink a homemade brew of beer that they prepare. This beer is strong, and takes weeks to make, but the women traditionally drink it while they work because it motivates their work. I asked our tour guide, Dineo, who has been with for the past week now if I could buy the cup the lady was drinking out of as a memo of the experience. She let me!!! I basically got the cup for $3.00 and was stoked!! It smells so strongly of beer and she signed the front, so believingly I will get it home safe to share with others.
Then as I was standing there, the woman who I had purchased the cup from asked if I wanted her to carve my name into the pot she was just making and have it delivered to me in 5 days. HOLY COW YESS!!! So in a handful of days, I will have a one of a kind, Lesotho homemade vessel and a beer glass both signed. Together they cost me about $7.00 - Booyyaahhh !
She is working on the vessel below. She began with dirt that she crushed to powder, dried clay she powdered, and water - that's it. In total, this process took her 30 minutes and stands about 10" tall. It will her name on one side, and mine on the other with the date.
How cool :)
Afterwards, we set off for another big hike as a group. We are to climb Thabo Bosiu which is a rather famous mountain for the country of South Africa. A guy by the name of Moshoeshoe (pronounced mo-shway-shway) was a great leader for the country back in the 1800's. He was a lear like no other who instead of using fighting as a tactic for his enemies, he used love and peace to unite even the most aggressive groups of people. After having issues with some of the places he lived before, Moshoeshoe decided that he needed to move his people to a more safe location to keep them out of harms way. After researching the area,he decided he would move to the mountain of Thabo Bosiu because there were only 6 points of entry along it entirely. This allowed Moshoeshoe to have plenty of protection for him and his people.
Along the way however, a group of cannibals had been tracking Moshoeshoe and his people and were planning an attack.at some point along the transition to T.B mountain, Moshoeshoe's father was abducted and eaten by the cannibals. This was an opportunity for Moshoeshoe to explode with anger and retaliate violently against the cannibals, but instead Moshoeshoe sent the cannibal tribe a group of cattle to teach them that they could eat animals of this world and be satisfied. How the group developed into a cannibalistic society is unsure, but it is believed that because of a lack of animals around, they adapted and became purely cannibals.
This offering of peace from Moshoeshoe proved to be an intelligent move which brought about peace and forgiveness between the people. The cow is a very sacred and honored animal and this offering expressed open arms to the people. The tribe eventually joined with Moshoeshoe's tribe and became part of his people which was yet another sign of his great leadership abilities.
Ok so this hike was awesome. Short ... enough ... but really neat. When we got to the top, we had a chance to see the grave of Moshoeshoe which was honestly a large pile of rocks. Wandering near were some beautiful horses, one of which reminded me of my old family horse Chutney. He was such a beautiful animal :)
Overall the walk was great and I enjoyed the view. What do you think about the view?
Did I mention how sweet the town looks from up here? I didnt have a chance to shoot it with the iPad, but I got a sketch here for ya to give you a broad idea of what it looks like ...
- With all my thanks :)
Location:Between Morija and Maseru
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