A sign of life....

First tings first!... Yes, we're still alive. And we finally moved to Lesotho.
A lot of our stuff is still packed. We are also still working hard to find out some things like, or where to find e.g.
... the best way to get water when there is not a drop at the water point in the village;
... or how best to get the annoying red dust outside the house without despairing;
.... and how to successfully get the dirt off the boys from just one day without using a wire brush;
... or currently very important for us: to find a reasonably stable internet connection on our premises in order to keep in touch with family and friends. Sometimes you see us dancing allover the place with the mobile phone in our hands just to have a little bit reception. Another time sitting on the top of the mountain, like many other locals, and then you get into conversation and the connection with the phone moves into the background, until you say goodbye and then everything starts all over again, with the search for the network ... yes yes ... just today's problems. For this reason we are unfortunately also very behind to bring you here on the blog on the latest state.
To keep you a little up to date, we have a little vacation report from our base team leader who visited us at the end of last year. She had written it for us. And since we are in Pretoria right now and can use a good internet connection, it is also easy for us to put it online. So have fun reading.

Yours Chrissi and family

Life in Lesotho is:
Sweeping, fetching water and washing feet
(by BärbelDoering)

Over Christmas and New Year's Eve I was in Lesotho to escape the local winter in Germany and to help the Schmidt family move. It was worth it. This will not be a proper travelogue. I'm too full with pictures that swirl in me, not necessarily confused, but also not properly sorted. Here are a few snippets that will hopefully make you happy and perhaps also a bit of desire for a wonderful country and its people.

Sweep: The red earth is beautiful ... outside ... but it doesn't stay there. The wind sweeps them everywhere, through every crack. Especially when it has not rained for a long time and the wind drives the dust through the valley. You have dust everywhere, yes, even on yourself. At least once a day the house has to be swept (if you are new, even more often, because you are not used to the dust ... after three days I gave up and only swept in the morning and evening). But I have learned to appreciate the grass brooms of the Basotho, handmade, shapely, functional. They also work wonderfully in Germany.

Get some water: Chrissi manages to push the wheelbarrow with water containers from the water point uphill to the house. I can't even lift it. We can't all balance objects on our heads yet. Most of the time I limited myself to 2x 5 litres when carrying the water canisters. I was always glad if there was any water at all at our water point. In practical terms, I have learned what it means to know that water is precious. Never before have I been so careful to consume so little. Even after our hot German summer last year - only here did I really waited on rain: watch the clouds - and after the rain quickly go to the well so that you don't have to go back to the neighbouring village. Or to the river, which is still comfortable for us with car, tank and pump. Meanwhile the rain tanks are ready for operation and even a washing machine is connected.

Wash your feet: For the first three days, I thought I could handle it, to come to church or eat somehow with clean feet. Then I gave up and looked forward to the moment on the evening that I had clean feet for a short time, after the following action: fetch water ( warm up if desired), sweep the hut, bucket shower (standing in the bucket with a water), wipe the hut with the used water and then go to bed..When you wake up, the new dust greets you again.

And yet - I enjoyed it:
- Living in a Rondavel
- at night "have to get out" because the starry sky is so incredibly beautiful that you may not be tired at all
- Christmas with picnic at the river and barbecue over an open fire
- Prayer with relaxed quadrilingualism (English, German, Sesotho, Dutch)
- Singing in the Sunday service, of which I did not understand a word, but which simply took me with it into the praise of our great God.
- breathtaking scenery
- the joy that my three sentences Sesotho were understood
- eat together again and again, laugh, work, pray, share life, simply be together
- the sound when after a rainy night the river down in the valley can be heard up at our house
- watch how the roof of a Rondavel is covered
- strangers who start a conversation with their hands and feet
- agave flowers
- unlike Pretoria, feel secure and be able to move around freely

Oh, yeah, "by the way," we have of course still made the move ... on Lesotho side always watched by a bunch of curious kids.

...just see for yourself:

Thank you to God for all. Preservation, for the many help that there were no difficulties at the border (and I am from the cleaning at least on South African side largely could press).

It was all worth the trip.

yours Bärbel