Semongkong

If you ask anyone in Lesotho, "Where should I visit on my day off?" they would say, "Semongkong."  Semongkong definitely lives up to its reputation, although in reality, you're actually seeing the waterfall called Maletsunyane Falls - but who can pronounce that? You see this calm river going through rolling hills, and then "BAM!" the earth majestically parts and a beautiful waterfall appears.

Semongkong has a couple of things you can do, which I got really confused about prior to going there, so to clarify:

The Donkey and the Duck Restaurant at the Semongkong Lodge

*Semongkong Lodge is generally where people stay if they plan on doing an overnight trip. However, it's actually quite a distance to the actual waterfall, depending on what you want to do:

1) Drive to the view point: 

The view point is beautiful, but you can't actually get down to the waterfall or stand on top of it. On the way to Semongkong lodge, there's an obvious bridge right before you get to the town of Semongkong, but instead of crossing it, you make a right onto a dirt road and drive about 20 minutes to the view point. It's not that obvious that it's the view point, but there is a dirt path to the left where 4wd cars can take.

View from the viewpoint

2) Hike down to the bottom of Maletsunyane Falls (4hrs including a lunch and snack break):

This is a hike that we took a guide with us because we made a day trip and didn't want to get stuck somewhere. R110, so pretty decent. But in reality, it was pretty straight forward. You go in the direction the road leads you out of the Semongkong Lodge, into a village, past the village (this part is flat), and continue following the road that cows/donkeys/horses take, and then you'll see a huge valley on your left. I suppose if you've never seen it before, it'd be hard to tell that's the place you go down. And when I say down, I mean really, really down. Some places were so steep, the guide had to hold AV's hand and support her down to prevent her from slipping (granted, she had running shoes on).  Still, it was quite steep. 

Guide and I at the point where you make a left into the canyon

Heading down! Quite steep!

It's quite an amazing view initially, but then you'll make a turn, and "BAM!" the Maletsunyane Falls appears. So you actually just see a beautiful canyon for the first part of the hike down. When we actually got down there, we just sat there and ate our PB&J sandwiches and listened to the fall roar. Kind of felt bad our guide didn't have food, so I gave him an orange. o_O  

First time AV and I got to see Maletsunyane Falls!

Maletsunyane Falls

I felt like the way up was way easier, despite the heavy grade, it was still much easier going up than essentially sliding down.  

Apparently the alternative is you can take a pony or a car to the point where you actually start hiking down, which probably would've cut down on the time.

3) Hike to the top of the falls/abseiling (aka repelling):

This is essentially the same initial route as hiking to the bottom of the falls, but you make a left turn earlier prior to the sheep barn. Oh yeah, it's weird when you hike to the bottom of the Maletsunaye Fall, feel victorious because it was so difficult, and then see little sheep on the other side of the river just chomping along on the grass and walking without giving a hoot about how steep it is. Anyhow, the sheep barn houses those master hiker sheep at night. 

This is generally the route to go abseiling. I don't know why people don't just say repelling. But this is supposed to be the Guinness World Record highest abseiling place in the world at ~230m!

This is actually at the bottom of the falls, but the abseiling is from the upper left.

4) Overnight pony trekking:

This entails taking horses and riding them to some distant town and staying in one of the traditional houses. I don't know the details because haven't done it yet - but hopefully someday!

5) Somehow getting to this other fall:

Yeah, really don't know details on this one. Don't even know the name of the falls...

*Pictures courtesy of AV

Mokhotlong

View point on drive to Mokhotlong

This week, I'll be in the outreach clinic in Mokhotlong (pronounced Mohhhotlong, where the hhh sounds like someone about to spit), an eastern district of Lesotho.

The trip here today was pretty crazy...crazy as in a good demonstration of what schedule means in Africa. So the week before, a driver found me and told me he was gonna be my driver to Mokhotlong, so we set up a time for him to pick me up at 8am. Long and behold it was 8:30 AM and still nobody so I called him, and he tells me he's no longer the driver, and it's someone else. So I called driver 2 who tells me he'll come pick me up at 10 ish.  I should have known that meant 10 30, which was when finally showed up. But there were 2 other ppl in the car! Apparently we had to go back to the coe to drop someone off. ..then on our way at 1045 right? Wrong! We were going to pick up pizza.  And while waiting for pizza, they wanted to do some shopping. Finally we were on our way....but wait, had to pick up a pharmacist. So in the end, leaving at 8am actually meant leaving at 1130 or 12. Oh...and on the way we stopped at 2 clinics and transferred yeast to some other car. Yeah. No idea why yeast.

Otherwise, the drive here was beautiful! Rolling hills of multiple different colors of green, brown, yellow, orange, gray.  Some of the hills were brutal with hairpin turns requiring us to slow to 20 kph.

We also stopped by the Leribe and Botha Bothe clinics. All the clinics have a similar layout and beautiful building. 

Botha Bothe Baylor Outreach Clinic, which looks exactly like Mokhotlong's (without the beautiful flowers).

I was a little worried about going out to the country, not sure what the hotel will be like, but it's actually quite nice.   Has everything, just no wifi (Yay for data and reception). Even get the added benefit of TV which I usually don't have. So here goes a week of watching random TV shows and news and game shows where half of the time they speak in English and half of the time it's sesotho  (I think). Also it appears the channels alternate English and sesotho shows.

My hotel room: Senque

Inside hotel room - it was nice, even had an extra bed where I can throw my clothing onto, and a TV of which I can't understand half of what they are saying.

Restaurant at the hotel - it's quite nice!

View from my hotel of the endless mountains. Also note traditional Lesotho house on left.

Given no day light savings and early sunrise and early sunset, I'm hoping I can get in a habit of rising early to get some exercise. But somehow I don't think it's gonna work out....not a morning person.

When I asked people how they liked Mokhotlong, people kept on saying it is peaceful.  I'm pretty sure now that it's an euphemism for boring, which is what the pharmacist I came with outright said. I suppose this will be a good opportunity to reflect on God's creation and how amazing it all is.  

View on my way to the hidden lake (see below)

Random lake I ran into on my run/hike/exploration of Mokhotlong.

Kome Caves

We went to Kome caves this past weekend:

The drive was fairly NOT straight forward, but fortunately we didn't make any wrong turns, just that Google sent us down a rough terrain and we had to find a new route. We ended up getting some instructions from local village kids who directed us.

Also had to take some dirt road on the way there, and tested my driving skills (first time driving on left side of the road).

Kome Caves

Material these caves are made from - clay

The caves themselves looked surprisingly artificial.  It looked plastic!  But actually they used wood as a scaffold and put clay over it to make it look like little cave huts. 

Inside the largest cave

The tour guide provided some interesting history. The most interesting was how the caves were a refuge to hide against cannibals. Apparently toward the east were some cannibals and there is a place called the gap of traditional dress, which was so named because that's where the cannibals hang all the traditional dress of the girls they ate. And the bottle caps twinkle in the breeze.  Another landmark is the mountain of trapping. That was named for the place where cannibals set traps for their prey. When we asked why they eat humans and not animals, the tour guide said it's because humans are slower. O_o

Kome caves are named for the first person who discovered them. Mr. Kome was flying away from a war when he discovered the caves in 1824.  The cave houses built there are still the same houses built then. And now the ppl living there are descendants of the lion, leopard, and cat clans while the kids are in the 6th generation.

National plant of Lesotho - Spiral Aloe

There is also a hill named the hill of drowsiness.  That's because Mr. Kome is a traditional medicine man and he put traditional medicine there so that when enemies reached that cave, they would fall asleep and when they woke up, they forgot where they were going and only where they were from.  So they just return to where they came from.

Afterwards, we went to Teyateyaneng (TY for short), where we saw traditional weaving take place. Apparently each of these large blankets take 4 weeks to make!  The ladies take one threat at a time and place it one on top of each other. These are really expensive, so I only got osme coasters for souvenir. 

Hiking with the Hash House Harriers to Lion head Mountain

Start of our hike:

Can you see the lion head profile?

Yay! Top of the lion head!

Looking out into Maseru (Lesotho capital)

Little kids amused by the photos LK took.

Back to the school where I was ceremoniously initiated into the Hash House Harriers!  Involved some drinking....of water.

Baylor COE

Baylor Clinic of Excellence:

This is where I'll be working for the next year!  Isn't it a beauty?

Visitor Doctor's Office (you can find me here!)

Classroom

This is the Queen Mamohato Hospital next door - it's so beautiful and new! It even has a helicopter pad, but unfortunately no helicopter yet because it's built with the intention of expanding in the next 10 years.

View from the clinic

Look how beautiful this clinic is!

Speaker from Beautiful Dream Society told real stories of human trafficking victims.  If it's too good to be true, it's not true. 

Buying a car, getting a work permit

What a pain it is to buy a car. My coworker LK is trying to buy a car from another coworker, everyone agrees to the transaction, but the actual change of ownership involves getting a bijillion documents  (certified passport, letter with witnesses and lawyer stamps, etc), going places, getting in line at each, being told you don't have the right documents, getting in line again, and getting redirected...and maybe repeat another 5 times. 

We were told our driver would know where to go, so he dropped LK off at the transport office, but after a long wait in line, the person wrote down the following places she needed to go before she could come to this office:

1) Lra  (government complex + form)
2) Interpol  (police headquarters )    certify letter with 2 witness
3) Roadworthy  (foso testing station)   car inspection
4) CID (pitso ground)
5) Traffic office (maseru)

Well, if it looks like gibberish to you, it's gibberish to me too. 

When I asked what we needed to get our workers permit, JB (seasoned doctor here) said we needed to get our documents sent in by the driver, and then after 3 weeks do the following:

1) Pick up file in one room of a building,
2) Pay in another room
3) Back to first room
4) Then lady with type writer will type something
5) Go to the police to pay for card
6) Cross street to white trailer to take photo and print card.

It's like the amazing race!.. but not so amazing. Anyhow, no more complaining about getting orientation stuff done at Baylor!

Ladybird and the stamp fiasco

First trip to South Africa! - to Ladybird for their farmer's market and for CY's haircut!  Oh...what an unexpected adventure!

Today we followed another car of expats to Ladybird, South Africa because CY was getting a haircut from special asian-hair-cutting people in Ladybird that are non-existent in Lesotho - well, in addition to checking out their farmer's market, meet with other expat friends to eat at Living Water, and check out a Chinese store. 

However, when we got to Ladybird, which might have been 30 min from the Lesotho-South Africa border, CY realized we only got one stamp, not the two stamps required.  And these immigration/border stamps were so important, that we called someone at the COE to tell us what to do, and they said not to try to cross back to Lesotho or we'll get arrested.  So apparently, when you reach the border and exit Lesotho to the no-man's land, you have to get an exit stamp. Then when you cross from no-man's-land to South Africa, you have to get an entrance stamp.  But we totally missed the entrance stamp because for both, you have to park your car, physically come out, line up, and get a stamp. So one of the influential/head bosses at the clinic had to drive to the clinic, meet us, and explain to the police men what was going on, so we could get our SA-entrance stamp.  Although we had made it in time for CY's haircut appointment, by the end of this stamp fiasco, the haircut salon had closed, so we just had time to go to Living Water.

The Living Water farmer's market, really was more like a one-room selling fair.  It had some cool stuff, but I wouldn't really call it a farmer's market. But the restaurant itself was really cool.  When you go in, it feels just like someone's home. And the food was delicious!  I had their long-cooked chicken pot pie (yup! worth the wait!).  

Quiche, milk tarts, and apple tarts at the Living Water "farmer's market"

Living Water restaurant - love the ambiance!

Chicken pot pie, onion marmalade, and salade

Afterwards, not sure if it's because it was because it was a Friday night, but crossing the border required another hour-long wait in line, and then maybe another hour to get all those stamps.  What a pain!  Man, probably gonna be a while before we try to cross the border again. 

Arrived in lesotho!

After 36 hrs of 4 planes, 3 countries, finally arrived in Lesotho! (Houston-->dc-->accra, ghana-->Johannesburg overnight--> maseru, lesotho). By a stroke of luck, i got placed in business class from dc to Johannesburg bc plane was overbooked. Yay! Miles of leg room, flat bed, 4 course meals...my chair even had a massage option! Probably first and last. Haha.

Annoying thing happened in jo-burg tho- I was told I could only have 1 bag and not the two they had checked in Houston....what?! Why?! I had taken my bags all this way already! Ah well....should be used to this unexpected shelling out of money by now.

View of Lesotho from the plane

Airport. The minivan is a "Combie" - Lesotho version of a very compact bus and crazy drivers

View from outside the Lesotho Mashoeshoe Airport

Thank God I arrived safely in Lesotho though and had no issues finding the person picking me up. Funny when I asked how he recognized me, he said he just knows the BIPAI ppl now.  Haha.

So he took me to the bipai clinic (center of excellence or coe) and met some of the clinic bosses and ppl of influence. Also got 1 minute to get on a computer to quickly send a message to family that I was alive! Woot!

BIPAI COE (center of excellence clinic)

Then we went to get some groceries for the day...but since the place I was staying wasn't really on the way to the grocery store,we got stuff before going to see the place...which was kind of a mistake bc it was definitely lacking a few things. ..like garbage cans, pots, soap, adapters....but whatever. Also cuz it was so new didn't even have the stove connected or dead bolts -which was quickly remedied. Despite all this complaining, all in all it was great :D. New, clean, has clean and hot water, gated community, guard, my own place with 2 bedrooms (come visit!!!! ;P). I was just happy to find some milk. Mmmmmm...milk!  

My house!

Also found out my rent will go towards supporting the Beautiful Gates Orphanage. Yeah! Here's their website: Beautiful Gardens

But no internet yet...and not for a few days so the first few nights I felt really lonely and homesick :'(. Made worse by the fact that I was living several miles from my coworker...so no one to hang out with. Maybe ill make some local friends, but there's a slight fear of venturing out since I'm kind of in the middle of nowhere.

Saying Bye to Friends

Still haven't totally settled in that I'll be going to Lesotho for a full year.  Maybe it's cuz we've been to so many weddings these past couple of weeks (DU, AS, TK, VE).  I've always wondered how I'll be living abroad for longer term (1 yr in global health speak really is quite short). First went to Africa (Sierra Leone) for one month, the next time two months, then the last trip was three months.  Now it's a year. Well, I'll see how I tolerate it. The last couple of days have been a lot of good byes. It's a nice reminder of all the wonderful people I was fortunate enough to meet in the last two years:

HUGS small group and remix!

Gonna miss my family:

People keep on asking me am I excited?...I don't know...it's a mixture. I used to be super excited, but now I'm mostly sad. :( So ambivalent...

New Orleans and Cozumel, Mexico

Fun times traveling with AB!

New Orleans:
It was fun getting to see old friends (DJ), and walk around the French Quarter. Walked around Royal Street with its art galleries, visited St. Louis Cathedral with its beautiful painted ceiling and reminisced about our times in St. Louis, and ate some delicious beignets at Cafe du Monde with Cafe au Lait to wash it down. Ended the day with some delicious chargrilled oysters and crawfish etouffee at Acme Oysters!

Cafe du Monde, post beignet and cafe au lait

St. Louis Cathedral

Acme chargrilled oysters...mmmmm

The next day we walked around the beautiful Garden District with its enormous houses on St. Charles and surrounding streets.  Saw famous author Ann Rice's home, where the first and last Confederate President lived, where Benjamin Button was filmed, learned about Victorian vs. Italian vs. Gothic architecture.   Then before getting on our cruise, ate some NOLA famous Muffaletta sandwiches at the Cochon Butcher.  Mmmm..nothing like fresh meat!

Where Benjamin Button was filmed; One of the many fancy St. Charles/Garden District houses

Cochon Butcher - watching pig decapitation and
eating delicious Muffuletta sandwiches (fresh pork, olive)!

Home of the one and only confederate president

Cruise was more fun than I expected!  A lot of entertainment, relaxation, and more food than I can imagine.  First night we thought we could only order one appetizer, one entree, and one dessert, and the next morning, was when we realized we could order unlimited amounts of food, so we went crazy with the appetizers.  One time, we accidentally ordered 4 entrees thinking half of them were appetizers.  Thankfully the waiter gave us an astonished look and asked us, "you do realize you ordered 4 entrees?"  That was kind of embarrassing.  Another night, I had asked to replaced the ice cream in one of my desserts with sugar-free ice cream, but the server mistakenly thought I asked for an additional order of ice cream - oh boy....

The dancing shows were really good too - it was so much at such a fast pace.  Really had new appreciation for these dancers after trying to learn the Thriller dance on the cruise. :D  Meanwhile, the adult comedy shows really were crass.  It was still pretty entertaining, but I think overall I liked the family friendly ones more.  One of the more entertaining game shows was probably the adult oriented scavenger hunt.  It was amusing to watch AB skip around holding another guy's hand...hahahaha....  I also really hope the bald guy I dragged into the show isn't too upset he got a whole bunch of kisses on his forehead by male and female strangers (long story).

We also went to an art auction, and half the time, we were guessing among ourselves what the the estimated price of the paintings were.  Learned a little about lithographs and gisees (spelling?), so we weren't too off for most of the paintings, but some we were off by 10x. O_o

Enjoying the view on the ship

Participating in a magic show!

Here's our ship! Arrived in Cozumel!

Here's our ship with pool, water slide, stage, and various other activities.
Favorites: mini golf and table tennis - although I still can't believe I lost to AB.  Sighs.

 Although we only had one day in Cozumel, it was jam packed with a lot of fun.  They had so many promotions of "excursions" we can go on, but thankfully we just went on our own to Chankanaab Park.  It was this beautiful beach with many water activities.  Although we didn't really take the time to relax - I'm bad at relaxing - we got to pet/kiss/hug dolphins and watch a sea lion show.  Even the massive downpour in the afternoon didn't bother us, we just went swimming and explored the underwater reefs and fish.

Chankanaab Park in Cozumel, Mexico

It's real!

Dancing with the dolphin

Beso!

Last day in New Orleans, we just spent the whole day in the National WWII Museum.  Didn't realize how big it was, and we ran out of time - didn't get to see the Pacific part of the museum.  But it was amazing, especially the new part where we heard individual stories about the war heroes.