As the last village I would visit in the first training series we would go out to Ha Seng. This is a village about 15 kilometers north of Semonkong town but yet it takes us about two hours to travel the rough furrowed road. The area is beautiful out that way with long vistas of the surrounding valleys and mountain sides.

This village had one of the best attendance records yet. The group of farmers, mothers and fathers all gathered in one of the two old school houses. It was surely a throw back to their time in the same spot. By the look of the building it was probably that old. I was in utter shock to think kids were trying to learn math, Sesotho, English, and science in this kind of place. Not even in the third world should there not be enough seating for the kids such that seniority determined who sat on the cardboard in front of the benches. Sitting on a bench wasn’t much of an upgrade. The nails from the boards hammered together were pounded down and the whole bench was propped up with pieces of block; not even a whole block. The windows were great if Lesotho was overly hot all year long but on this day holes in the wall let us know just how cold it was outside. Horizontal rain flew in on the westerly side poke-a-dotting the kids’ back-packs. If they weren’t already empty because the school can’t afford books or the kids, school supplies, someone may have saved them to a dryer place.

I was struck stiff when I looked over and saw how someone had placed a piece of the kids’ cardboard under my back-pack. Kids must sit on the dusty dung floor but my pack wasn’t allowed to get dirty. There is clearly something wrong here!

There are a series of pictures I have posted online and I will provide a link so people may see what some kids have as their learning environment. What a disappointment and yet the ministry officials all get a brand new Lexus. Yes, I’m upset!