Hello from Lesotho!

For those unfamiliar, Lesotho is a country landlocked by South Africa. Think of how the Vatican is its own country completely surrounded by Italy. Lesotho is its own country completely surrounded by South Africa.

I’m here because one of my darling besties, hailing from my very nerdy, very weird middle school days, moved here back in September. She and her family moved here to work as missionary pilots. Her husband will start flying soon, but for a couple weeks, he had to return to the States for some training. Cue my invite! Amy was looking for some company for herself, her two year old, and her infant. If you know anything about me by now, you may be keen to my love for different places, quality time with friends, and babies.

So here I am!

I knew I’d want to visit someday, but I couldn’t puzzle out when would make the most sense. To receive an explicit invitation warmed my heart to the extreme!

It is my first time to the African continent, and boy, was it a long journey. In fact, I believe this was my longest to date. I left my house at 4pm on Thursday, and we walked in the door at Amy’s at 5pm on Saturday. All told, that’s 39 hours door -to-door.

To add injury to insult, Sean came down with a cold the day before my trip, so we couldn’t get those precious hangout hours in beforehand, and we both wore masks on the way to the airport. Poor guy.

SeaTac was a breeze, and I was assigned an aisle seat (booooo), but the middle seat was empty, so at least I could spread out a bit and pee whenever I wanted! I was pretty jealous to see that most of the rows behind me held only one person, so those people got to actually lay down and sleep for most of the flight.

I, on the other hand, didn’t manage to sleep a wink. I had all these great plans! I literally mapped out a sleeping schedule that would gear me up to foil the curse that is jet lag. I bought an inflatable neck pillow for the first time in my life. I brought fancy ear plugs. I brought a buff that I planned to use as an eye mask. I went to these great lengths because I did not want to go to nights without sleep! But my body had other ideas.

On the twelve hour flight to Istanbul, I read a lot (Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes) and watched two movies (Luca and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret). Both movies were very cute.

We got dinner and breakfast, and I resisted the urge to get free wine or tea, as I read that both could impact your ability to sleep on the flight. A lot of good that did for me!

One thing that was nice, since I didn’t have a window seat, was that the seat screens had a “camera” mode that allowed to you view what a camera saw directly under the plane. This led to some pretty cool views of various mountain ranges!

After this long flight, I had an eight hour layover in Istanbul. While planning the trip, I toyed with the idea of leaving the airport, but decided it wouldn’t make sense. (The layover was 5:30pm – 1:30am, so it would be dark the whole time, I knew I would be tired, and the city is an hour from the airport.)

Instead, I wandered around and admired all the pretty Turkish treats in the shops on the first floor. I wasn’t in the mood for pure sugar, though.

I made my way upstairs in search of a napping station, since all I wanted to do was sleep. I was disheartened to find very promising looking nap pods that cost €15 per hour. I mean, really?! I know they were almost entirely empty. Why not make them €5 per hour and actually have them filled up? I would have even considered €10 per hour by the end of my layover, tired as I was.

The free nap areas had those dumb chairs that are sort of reclined with the kink at the knees. Nobody likes these chairs! They are fine for relaxing, but they are pretty awful for actually sleeping. Add to that the children in the nap area that were having a grand old time singing, counting, and causing general cacophony, and sleep was impossible.

I eventually wandered some more and bought a very lame sandwich and a very sad banana for lunch. Food was super expensive at this airport, so that was all I was willing to buy.

Afterwards, I picked an empty row of seats, put in the earplugs, donned my eye mask, tied myself to my backpack, and attempted to sleep.

I must have been at least somewhat successful, because multiple times I did that embarrassing thing where your whole body freaks out and twitches like you think you’re falling. I don’t know about you, but that only happens to me when I’m falling asleep!

I think I got close to an hour of dozing in before I woke up and spent some time video chatting and messaging with people back home.

After a couple more nap attempts, I accidentally paid ten dollars each for a tiny cheesecake, a cup of noodles, and matcha latte. Seriously, this airport was so expensive, the cup of noodles weren’t price labeled, and the barista did not mention that adding vanilla to the latte would cost $3 extra. Ugh.

Some time during the layover, a very unpleasant thing started happening. Basically, I’d get a sharp, shooting pain in the inner, upper area of my left eye. No idea what it was (or is – it’s still happening every once in a while), but it was not fun. I think it was just a sign that I really needed some sleep, but I was honestly scared I was going to get a burst blood vessel or something. This motivated me (slash forced me) to attempt some more seat sleeping.

I snuck in one more nap and some more reading time before making my way to my gate. I was disappointed to find that there was basically a whole mall, and an “airport museum,” that I missed on the other side of the terminal! I didn’t have time to dilly dally by this point, but I definitely lingered in an H&M-like clothing store and debated whether I had time to try on a pair of comfy plane pants.

For my second flight, I’d paid extra for a window seat, and I was seated next to a very lanky old South African man who wasn’t in the mood to be my friend. No extra seats on this flight. Ten hours later, I’d read more of my book, watched one movie (No Hard Feelings), and managed to nap a bit more. Dinner was some kind of pork sausage with rice, and breakfast was eggs, a bad version of spanakopita, and yogurt. Again, I resisted the alcohol and tea, and instead stuck to “sour cherry” juice and apple juice.

I did get a nice sunrise from my window!

And later, I got some cool views. Anybody know what these two mountains are?! This was such a fun surprise to see when I peaked out my closed window shade!

At the Johannesburg airport, I had to go through security, where they (infuriatingly) confiscated the tiny metal fork I’d brought with me and already used several times. I was seriously so beat up about it. A tiny fork?! Really?!

I wandered the shops in the airport, had a sandwich and smoothie, read some more, and finally boarded my last leg after four hours.

I was the only white-ish person on the flight (there was one other Asian guy), and the plane was a tiny one-by-two with about a dozen rows. There was some pretty bad turbulence, and the lady across from me threw white wine all over herself, the ceiling, and the seat next to her. Thank goodness it wasn’t red! Lolol.

The views on this flight were spectacular.

Only 40 minutes later, I finally arrived in Lesotho, where I was not “detained” exactly, but not “let out of the airport” either. I had to fill out a bunch of immigration and health forms, and I didn’t know the address to write on any of them. Our flight was early, and Amy was late due to a mishap with her electronic gate, so I was confused and unable to contact Amy for a good thirty minutes. I was just starting to get worried when she finally pulled up, gave an airline worker her phone number, and we were off.

It was surreal to finally be here and to see Amy after such a long journey from the other side of the world. In fact, this is the closest I’ve ever been to Seattle’s antipode. An antipode is the place that is on the exact opposite side of the world, so that if you were to drill straight down from Seattle and end up through the middle of the earth, I’m pretty close to where that place is!

The drive from the airport was pretty interesting. Lots of people were walking along the side of the road or even walking down the middle of the road. When we got to the more populated area of town, there were people selling fruits and snacks on the side of the street, but there were also guys carrying plastic bags of fruit that would just walk right up to the driver’s window (from the middle of the street) and try to sell the fruits! I guess the signal for no-thank-you is a thumbs-up, because when Amy did that, they returned the gesture and took a step back. Still pretty crazy driving!

We passed lots of sheep, goats, and cows being shepherded along in the fields flanking the road, too. Lots of little tin huts and shops and homes made out of small shipping containers.

I didn’t really take any pictures because I was overwhelmed and trying to soothe the fussy babies behind me, but here’s a church with some sunflowers growing out front.

Back at home, finally with access to a couch, I struggled to stay awake! Amy’s house has a nice big living room that doubles as a play room, and Leona, the two year old, was stoked to hang out. She tried to follow Mama outside at one point from the door on the kitchen, so to distract her, I asked if she could show me her kitchen, since I hadn’t examined it as part of the tour yet. She got so excited, ran right past me, through the kitchen (I was super confused) and then brought me to HER tiny kitchen in the living room. Bahahaha. I mean, I did say “your kitchen!”

After some fried rice and a nice shower, I had a great, long night of sleep. Thank goodness! That painful thing in my left eye kept happening until I finally went to sleep.

I got a full eight hours, on a pretty normal clock, and (natively) convinced myself I was cured of jet lag! Sunday’s big activity was church in the morning. Here are some views of the drive:

Again, I didn’t take any pictures! But church was a medium sized room with one open wall and rows of plastic chairs. Pastor Pete was a white guy from Zimbabwe (I embarrassingly asked if he was Australian), but besides his family and ours, everyone else was a local.

(Some fun facts. In Lesotho – pronounced “leh-soo-too”, the national language is Sesotho. If you are from here, you are a Masotho, and the ethnicity is Basotho. Hahaha. I think that’s so cute!)

The worship (singing) was in English except for one song in Sesotho that I attempted to join, and the sermon was in English by Pastor Pete while another member of church translated into the microphone. She struggled to find a translation for “sober” and eventually just said “sober” which garnered some giggles.

Amy and fam were super happy to find a church that was run in English (so they could understand) but also translated to Sesotho and served mostly basotho people. A great way to help integrate them and make them feel at home!

I had to stand up and introduce myself as a newcomer, and throughout the morning, a bunch of the kiddos came over to play with Leona and Teddy (the baby). Leona kept petting the hair on the other kids as they crouched down to see Teddy. It was so cute.

The rest of the day was pretty chill. We basically just came home and played all day, minus nap time, where Amy and I finally got to catch up a bit. Food consisted of yummy homemade orange rolls (like cinnamon rolls but orange flavored), pork and veggies, and leftover fried rice.

Leona and I played a lot in her kitchen, and we played a lot with this doll “Bobby.” When they got the doll and dollhouse, Leona called him Barbie because that was the only small doll she knew, so Amy and Luke changed it to Bobby, hahaha.

One of the day’s highlights was when I was bouncing around with Teddy to calm him down, and Leona pointed and said, “Stop!”

I asked, “Stop what?”

And then she said, in the cutest little voice with a big smile, “Dance.”

There commenced a freeze dance party. It was so cute and fun. Whenever I tried not to use one of my hands, she would grab my hand and make it dance again.

I made the terrible mistake of taking a thirty minute nap that turned into a 1.5 hour nap, so I slept like doo-doo on night two and woke up at 4am. Wish me better luck on sleep in the future!

Okay, I’m sorry I didn’t take many pictures the first couple days! Once I realized that, I started taking more, so there will be more to see in future posts. For now, though, I hope you enjoyed my wall of text, haha. Here’s a pretty tapestry in Amy’s living room that captures rural Lesotho life pretty well! (I want it, hahahaha.)

Khotsong/ peace!

Lizzy-wa