Final Lesotho Post

This post has a lot of pictures. And the pictures are only of the people. But it is important to me to show how beautiful these people are. 

Lesotho is an extremely poor country. I would never want to take pictures as a "tourist" and expose them in a negative light. I was specifically encouraged to take pictures of the people since they do not have cameras, and I was asked to please send them back so they could be given to the people in the photos. As I said in an earlier post, I will do this as soon as I can. 

As you can see, many people waved to us...especially the children. The children would even start running after us. You can see in one picture below they are following Stacey's horse. 

If some children saw us coming from a distance we could hear them yelling and running to tell the others in their village. By the time we got there the kids were all waiting and waving. Almost all the children we met said, "bye bye! bye bye!" I do not know if they thought this meant "hi" or "hello" or maybe they were saying "bye bye" because we were riding by and leaving. But the children and most adults all greeted us with "bye bye" rather than "hello." 

These villages do not have electricity. They rise with the sun, and the day winds down after sunset. To most people living in the modern world it might feel like the people are really missing out. Where are their televisions, computers, smart phones, running water, electricity, constant connection to the world, showers, and what we think of as a clean bathroom/toilet? I wondered about this. As a group we talked about this. Who was happier? Us or them? Was that even a possible question to answer? 

Ultimately I guess you really cannot compare. Although they do not have a lot, they were the kindest and most wonderful people. A child shared his corn with me even though he did not have shoes. I said I really did not need to eat it. He insisted. He is only 10 years old. They live in a different world. But it is a good world. A much more simple world (but I do not mean that in a bad or negative way).

 So after 4 days without internet, regular running water, a shower, or my smart phone...I felt weird coming back to the real world. I found myself missing my horse, the animals, the hut, the quiet, the people, and the stars that looked like you could just pick one right out of the sky. 

I will never forget Lesotho. I hope to go back one day. There are not enough of the right words to truly describe my experience there. Nonetheless, I was with the right people at the right time, and had an unforgettable experience. 

I hope you can enjoy the pictures and maybe feel a little bit of what I felt when I was there...

:)