Pics of Touching Tiny Lives and Hiking in Mokhotlong

Today was our first full day in Mokhotlong. I awoke to a beautiful Lesotho sunrise and could finally take in my surroundings and explore the TTL campus. The campus consists of 3 buildings: the safe home where the kids and caregivers stay, a building with our rooms and kitchen and bathroom, and a building with a big meeting room and extra kitchen. There are also 3 Rondavels (pronounced roundavall), where more long term staff members stay. We have a small, relatively well equipped kitchen, and have the capability to machine-wash laundry. The water is warmed using energy from the solar panels on the roof, which I included a picture of. There is an ample garden, but the kids eat most of the food grown there. The whole campus is surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence, and we have guards at night. The consensus is that this is probably excessive considering that Mokhotlong is pretty safe, but I think everyone sleeps a bit easier at night knowing someone's keeping watch.
Today, we were treated very well, Rachel cooked us some delicious meals. We will cook all of our food here, but I think they're trying to ease us into it. Cooking here takes a long time, because of the altitude, and because the stoves they have are old and lose half of their heat out the sides. So, needless to say we appreciated Rachel's cooking.
Next we went to the safe home to see one of the babies who was not feeding well. No one at TTL has any medical knowledge, so they were appreciative of any insight we could offer. The girl was 1 year old and had HIV and TB. She was very lethargic and didn't look well. Tiana and I examined her and after finding she had a high fever, recommended that she be taken to the hospital. They have an area of the hospital called Casuality, which is essentially an ER. We took the girl there, and waited an hour for the doctor to show up. There is no triage system here, so we had to wait until everyone else had been seen, even though this child looked worse than anyone there. The doctor examined the baby for 3 minutes before giving her a shot of penicillin and sending us home with Tylenol. In the US, this baby would've been admitted to the hospital in a heartbeat, and many medical tests ordered. Things sure are different here..we've been keeping a close eye on the little girl, and she is perking up a bit, but still has a ways to go.
After we returned from the hospital, a local woman who lives next to TTL came by to introduce herself and invite us to a barbecue at her house to welcome us. I couldn't pronounce her Lesotho name, but she said we could call her Hilda. (I think these people try to choose a "typical" American name that'll be easy for us to remember, but I don't know anyone named Hilda and am having a very hard time remembering her name...) it turns out that Hilda is the magistrate for all of Mokhutlong and it's districts, which total around 100,000 people! She told us the most common crime in the area is livestock theft. All in all, a Lesotho barbecue is much like an American one: beer and grilled meats. I still haven't tried the mutton--yet.
After the barbecue, Lyle, one of the long-term staff members took us on a hike down along the Lesotho River. Lyle speaks fluent Sesotho (language of Lesotho), having lived here 10 years. He knows the area very well and it was great to get a tour from someone familiar with the local language and customs. The views were gorgeous, and we encountered a few young herd boys and their sheep and horses along the way. The kids go nuts when they have their picture taken, and love to see picture of themselves afterward.
After our hike I returned to find that FINALLY the Internet had been fixed. I was feeling cut off from civilization. We had a lovely curry and rice dinner that Rachel cooked for us, and with bellies full headed to our warm beds and out of the cold Mokhotlong evening air.
Lots of pics below of the TTL buildings, as well as from the hike!
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