Home in Lesotho

I arrive in Lesotho a little less than a week ago and in many profound ways I feel like I have come home. Lesotho is a tiny africa kingdom that is entirely land locked my South Africa. It is desperatly poor ( I don't know all the stats but trust me it is) and is my first taste of a propper third world country; but is beauty is unfathemable. Grassy plain stretch out on either side of until they collide with stiff mountains pentraiting the pale blue sky. It is winter here in Lesotho and the 53 children who I am working with run about in mismatched sweaters, mostly with holes in them. I have a hard time call the children, children, because to me they are little people. They don't play the role of children. They are who they are. They are complex souls. Some of whom have been raped, beaten, kept in the barn like a sheep or a pig, starved and many are HIV postive. But I am so impressed with there independence. They get up in the morning and run and fetch their little plastic wash bins where they all bath themselves. Then they dress themselves and the rest of the day is open to whatever adventure they can imagine.
They have a "village" that they took me to yesterday. The little place that looks like ancient ruins of a sort, where the children have collected food, drink, and furniture from the local dumps. Its quite extrordinary to see. They go to "school", "work" and "bed" all created out of their collective imaginations. One little boy dug himself a hole and covered it with some wood and now calls it home. We went for over a dried river bed and ended up at the house where I am staying. We sat on the steps and they sang somes and did little dances until in one flash of a moment they all decided it was time to go and took me by the hand "come one aousi Dominique. lets go!"

They have taken a particular liking to my tattoo and they go and fetch pens for me to draw tattoes on them. So now there are about 10 african children running around sporting anchors on their writsts.

About three days ago I went into town on an errand with one of the house mothers. We went to the local hospital because her son needed an x-ray. We sat and waited for the X-ray for a good half an hour and then finally got it. Then we say and waited for the Doctor to look at in another part of the building and then we waited to pay for the meds and then we waited to actually get the meds. Alot of waiting and alot of moving around but seeing as this was my first time in a Lesotho hospital I didn't mind. Most of the people stared at me and a few of the better english speakers plopped down next to me to tell me all about themselves. One woman even let me hold her baby.

Most of the lesotho people wrap themselves in big heavy blankets to keep the cold out and there for all there figures look the same triangular shape. It is interesting to sit in a place and know that nearly a third of its people are HIV positive. Is that person dieing from aid? That woman in the wheel chair with no shoes on. Who looks as if her body couldn't handle another breath. Is it Aids for some other horrible disease that has its grasp on her young body. Nearly everone I meet, some in there family has just died.
I was helping the old woman who does the washing, her face looks like the inside of a folded palm and her teeth are not more than brown decaying stumps fit for a compose heap, and was telling me as if it was nothing that her son had just died. I get the sence that people die here all the time and it is just the way things are.