We are hanging out at the Slow Lounge in OR Thambo airport in Jozie (slang for Johannesburg).  The trip has been incredibly free of unexpected interruptions, problems or delays.  It has been one of the smoothest trips if my life.   It was an emotional rollercoaster, an education, and a trip down memory lane.  There is too much to summarize here.  Maybe I'll do a wrap up later.  I don't know that my writing skills are up to the task to capture what this meant to me. Thanks to my adventuresome wife, Frances who was all in on the trip and has seen a lot of things in the last month.  It was so fulfilling to share this part of my life with her.  She now knows why Cosmos are my favorite flowers.  She knows who 'Ntate Lira is after 30 years of hearing the story about his attempt to give me R10 all those years ago.  She knows what it's like to stand by the school and look out at the deep gorge of the Lesobeng River as the sun sets.  Sh...

A long time friend who went to Africa with me in 1982 has never left except for a few postings by the State Department on other continents.  Years ago he bought a dilapidated farm because it was cheap and he has no knowledge of farming. In the meantime he's turned it into an oasis.  He is completely off the South African utility grid.  He has 5 wells and excess solar power.  He raises cattle and has done very well. He was telling us stories of his days in the State Department which were extremely entertaining.  One in particular is noteworthy.  President Obama was flying into on country, maybe Malawi, and the stairs used to descend from Air Force One were somehow not available.  There was the prospect that POTUS would land and not be able to disembark from the plane.  He was given the job of solving the problem.  Which he did.  It takes a special knowledge and live of how things work in this part of the world to be able to pu...

The ride out of the Maloti Mountains was long, slow and beautiful.  Surprisingly, we didn't pick up any riders as no one was hitchhiking that day.  We saw large flocks of Merino Sheep and Angora Goats, which are very cute by the way. We didn't know where we were going to stop for the night.  I was trying to plan to meet with a former student of mine.  Dr. Mokone 'Musi was my student for 2 years at the junior high school level.  I learned about his position as a professor of developmental studies at the National University of Lesotho from the Headmaster at my old school in Lesobeng.  He was such gentle and intelligent young man, I am not at all surprised at how well he has done.  He was so good at maths, that I was surprised that he had not pursued a technical career path, but the one he chose is probably more important to the future progress of Lesotho and I am very proud of him for that.  But, I'll came back to the story of our lunch after tellin...

The most highly anticipated stop of the month long trip was a return to the school where I taught at Lesobeng.  In my day it was junior high and now it is a high school.  Before coming, I could tell from Google Earth that new buildings had been built at the site.  I was hopeful that things were thriving. When I first came to my school, I left the Hilton Hotel in the capital city of Maseru at about 8 AM.  I put my personal belongings into a Toyota Land Cruiser that had been hired to drive me to the sight.  The distance was approximately 100 miles.  I arrived at my school at 8PM.  We made one stop along the way. Fortunately, the roads are improved a great deal in Lesotho these days.  The Chinese are investing heavily in all of Africa and they have built ma y roads.  We we drove in this time, while we made many stops, the first 75 miles were a breeze.  We made the turn of the paved road at Montsanyane and the remaining 25 miles ...

The drive down from Bloemfontein to Maseru was a quick one.  The roads were great and the traffic was light.  After driving the other Karoo it was nice to see green.  There were acres of row crops.  The view down to Ladybrand was stunning. We arrived at the border crossing and things were a bit hectic.   There was no clear instruction as to what to do. We stood in a line to get an exit stamp, but they closed that window when we were the next ones up.  Everyone ran over to a different building and we ended up at the back of the new line.  Still, I've spent longer in line at the Atlanta airport. We got stamped and drove across the bridge to Lesotho.  Once on the Lesotho side, we stayed in our car and drove across easily.  It was only five minutes up to the hotel.  We are staying at the old Hilton.  I spent my first night in Lesotho. This hotel in 1982, 41+ years ago. Today a friend who was my roomie that first time drove Frances ...

We had a nice, one night stay in. Beaufort West, a hard scrabble town in the middle of the Great Karoo desert.  We stayed at a charming guest house, Villa Contessa, hosted by Edith.  She has a very artistic nature and has created a unique space that is welcoming and comfortable. While we've been eating mostly vegetarian for a while, we were told that 3 Sheep restaurant on the second floor of the CalTex gas station was a can't miss for authentic Karoo lamb.  We were glad to take the recommendation.  Never have I had such tender and flavorful lamb. We left early the next morning and had 2 glorious hours of smooth, traffic free roads.  We did hit construction later in the day, but made it to Maseru by 1500.

We're definitely out of our element here.  This is a very posh beach community on the Atlantic side of Cape Town.  Table Mountain National Park abuts our neighborhood.  There are stunning views of the coastline.  Off shore, cargo ships bypassing the Suez Canal have been passing constantly since we arrived.  It quite impressive to see this amount of global shipping in action. Today we visited the Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden, one of the world's most prominent garden.  It was built on land donated by Cecil Rhodes who bought it so that he wouldn't get any unwanted neighbors beside his farm. Some of the plants are so rare and valuable to collectors that there have been nighttime heists, a la Ocean's Eleven, resulting in theft.  The most prizes plants are not micro chipped and protected by drones and laser sensors. Cape Town has long been the most progress city in South Africa, and things are much more integrated here than in some areas.  We listenes ...

This town was the 4th town founded by the Dutch East India Trading Company in the Cape Colony.  One of the primary purposes of the colony was to resupply Dutch trading ships going around the Cape of Good Hope.  The colony moved back and forth from Dutch to British control as the Dutch Golden era began to fade and the British Empire emerged.  The Dutch farmers in towns like Graaf-Reinet resented British prohibitions against slavery and taxes.  Ultimately, the set off on the Great Trek and travelled further inland, crossing over the Orange and Vaal rivers, founding the Orange Free State and Transvaal.  There were of course wars, Boer War, Xhosa Wars, the Zulu were defeated. So today in a post Apartheid South Africa we can rent our own little prison cell and stay in a charming Dutch Colonial bungalow that feels like a jailhouse. Even the keys look like jailer keys and Jesus is protected by razor wire. This type of security was here during Apartheid as well.  A...

It wasn't a lot of mileage to cover from Underberg in Kaw Zulu Natal to Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape Province, but I'm one worn out driver at this point.  It was about 240 miles and took about 6.5 hours.  Some of the route was pretty good.  Much of it was covered with beachball sized potholes.  In addition to the potholes a driver has to deal with goats, sheep, cattle and pedistrians on the roadway.  It's a bit like dodging laser fire from the alien fighters in the classic video game, Galaga. A few miles past the city of Umthatha,  we first too a rural highway which turned to washed out gravel for the last 12 miles.  It was slow, but less tiring than the constant weaving and bobing around obstacles and slow moving traffic on the larger roads. Transkei is very different than Kwa Zulz Natal (KZN).  The area has received less rain and is brown.  Gone are the large, corporate and price farms, mostly owned by white South Africans....

On 2 February, Groundhog Day, I returned to Lesotho for the first time since leaving in 1985.  Hard to believe that it's been 39 years. We hired a car to drive us up Sani Pass.  The pass is named for the San, aka these days the Kalahari Bushmen, who used it as a trading route with the Zulu who lived at the base of the mountain range in the eastern cape. Our driver was an ardent conservationist who pointed out various plant and animals along the route up the pass.  He was very opposed to the plans of the South African government to build a paved road up the pass.  The have already paved a low section of the road, introducing non native plants and grasses which are competing with indigenous flora which provides food for antelope, baboons and birds. It took about 60 minutes to cover the 6 or so miles up the roughest sections.  We did stop numerous times to view and photograph wildlife and scenery. I experienced a warm glow as we reached the top and I sa...