Want to know what it’s like to be on a 5-hour bus trip with 20 Africans? I just have one word…noisy.
If there’s no “house music”, (the local music here, kind of like a mix between reggae and techno) there’s yelling, singing, or just flat out noise. Now don’t get me wrong, I love these people, they are just born with natural caffeine injected into their bloodstream. After 3 hours of sleep on Sunday morning they are STILL dancing at breakfast, I’m like “how do you have this energy?!?” They replied, “it’s in our blood.”
Good enough.
This weekend I traveled to Bobete, Lesotho with a group of co-workers and coaches for our Test Your Team Event. Bobete was tucked away high in the mountains of Lesotho, out in the middle of nowhere. They said it would take 3 hours to get there, really? I think they mean 5 ½, going 10 mph uphill. There were parts of the journey where I seriously questioned whether the van was going to make it, and also my sanity with the blasting of the music the whole way. A couple times the driver literally asked everyone to get out of the van and walk up the hill because it was too heavy. Haha, only in Africa. The roads, more like dirt paths, were long and windy up and down the mountainside; it was best not to look out the window. A couple Hail Mary’s were whispered under my breath haha, but really.
The Test Your Team Event (in a nutshell) is a soccer tournament where Kick4Life invites local schools/teams to participate in the tournament, while also being able to participate in our HIV curriculum and have the option to get tested for HIV. So needless to say, there was a lot going on. I was running around all day taking pictures, refereeing, and on snack patrol.
To describe the landscape will not do it justice, hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves. To check out more of my pictures, visit the Kick4Life Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/kick4life. (And make sure to “like” us!!!) The landscape consisted of overlapping mountains, and blooming peace trees with delicate pink flowers—it was beautiful. Throughout the drive we passed village after village, and I could not stop noticing all the yellow and turquoise hut doors, or colorful Besotho blankets hanging on clotheslines. People here always seem to incorporate color in a world of desolation, it matches well with their friendly and warm disposition.
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| The Football Pitch |
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| Dancing, always incorporated! |
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| "AYOBA"-We are together |
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| duckings :) |
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| "Find the Ball"--one of the our HIV Curriculum activities |
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| Game Winning Celebration |
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| The Gang!! |
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| The Long and Winding Road |
TTFN:
Peace, Love, and Color!!
Oh! This reminds me of my months I spent in Guatemala... Crazy bus driving on tiny little mountain roads and the crazy-colorful houses and fabrics. I'm sure it's completely different, but a good reminder for me all the same. Enjoy it as muuuuch as you can.. especially the different perspective they have on life. They have nothing and yet, something Americans--who seemingly have everything--definitely don't have. It's a different kind of contentedness and happiness. Whew. Long-winded a wee bit. All I meant to really say is that I'm loving your updates! :)
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