I’d travelled to do some volunteering with a colleague. I was invited back a while later under my own company to do more work, and a third trip occurred later on. Based on the MapAction experience we were able to extract all the locations of different agencies and based on type and service make a map on Google Earth. There was to be another angle which was to identify how many children needed what help – so called case loads. I never was able to see it through but the plan for looking for demand for services and showing where current supply was to be a great tool for all people helping OVCs.
I could focus more on this, but there are plenty of places to look at the work done by Sentebale and Letsema, and since my assistance in Lesotho both programmes have moved on a long way. I prefer to focus in on the last trip I did where I had the chance to get out and see more of Lesotho than just the capital.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Maseru. On my first trip I stayed in The Lancer’s Inn, a motel very close to the main street, Kingsway. While the reception and dining area were your average brick buildings, the guestrooms were all rondavels. The beds were covered in layers and layers of sheets, blankets and spreads, including a cowhide. I soon was grateful as on the first evening the temperature dropped to -9 degrees. I had to have the heat pump on full; first time I had used one of those things in Africa to heat up the room instead of air condition and cool it. My colleague, Chris, and I had five layers of clothing on for breakfast. But hour by hour, with the sun out, the temperature rose and a layer came off. By 2pm the thermometer was reading 26 degrees and we were just in t shirts. But then it dropped like a stone again and the clothes came back on.
Our rondavels at the hotel – and Chris in mid morning clothing layers
When I Went To 