I’m hiking in the remote mountain Kingdom of Lesotho (Le-sue-toe), a small mountainous country within the borders of South Africa. Approximately 2 million people live here, it’s one of the poorest countries in the world, and most of the people here are subsistent farmers, meaning they farm the land the old fashioned way, by hand, for food and basic needs. It gives a true sense to the meaning Organic.
The view is stunning as I come into a valley with lush green everywhere. The valley floor is filled with an assortment of recently planted fields budding with corn or wheat. The mountain sides sore steeply into a plateau at the top. The view is kinda like being in the base of the Grand Canyon other than the entire mountain is covered in a short fine grass which appears, from a distance, like moss growing on the sides.
The perimeter of the valley floor is dotted with small round one room homes, made out of a combination of clay, dirt, cow dung, and other materials. They are all painted a light tan color. This is a traditional home for a local.
We hike a gentle sloop into the mountain side passing kids frolicking in the dirt, a few workers tending to their crops, passing several homes, on our way to some cave homes where natives thousands of years ago once lived. One of the cave walls has ancient paintings estimated to be several thousand years old. (Lesotho has more cave art than anywhere else in the world) The basic images have faded over the centuries, what appears like a cow and maybe some sort of logs stacked to make a fire. I can’t even imagine what the meaning is behind such basic art or why they put it here. Was it for decoration, rituals, or some other meaning. True cave men once lived here.
Exploring the cave a small stone stands out. I realize I’ve found something. At first I think it’s an arrow head. Picking it up I realize I’ve found an old knife blade. It’s a couple centimeters long has been honed to where one edge is sharp, the tip is broken off, and there is a notch on one end where a handle of some sort would be attached. The hiking guide says a few other stone tools have been found here over the years and that I have a real find. I’m giddy with joy and pocket my find as the best souvenir I could ever obtain.
Returning to the local village I learn while there is a local currency most commerce is done on a barter system outside the couple cities which exist. Locals trade, goods, wares, labor etc with their neighbors for what they need. They use a primitive but simple method of raising a colored flag on a stick above their home to signify what they have to trade. A red flag means they have meat, green they have vegetables, blue they have medicine, white they have corn based beer, and yellow they have a pineapple beer. I head for a hut which has both a white and yellow flag. Beer….
Well until I taste it. This doesn’t look like beer at all. It’s a light tan color with specs of darker brown throughout, served in a dirty plastic cup. Glad I’ve had my shots. There is no smell of discernible nature. The texture is kinda like milk. Nervously, I’m surprised as I sip the pineapple beer the front of my tongue is delighted with a mild sweet pineapple flavor. As it goes down this sweet taste is followed by a strong raw corn taste, almost bitter on the back of my tongue as it goes down. It’s complex good and bad at the same time. I now try a gulp to discern if I want more. Maybe, let’s try the corn beer. Wondering how they make beer out of corn, I sip a small amount and my taste buds revolt. It taste like they ground up or blended the corn husk and stalk into a liquid and are calling it beer. Uck, I’ll stick with the pineapple and look forward to getting back to the hostel for a real beer later tonight.
I finish the day visiting a local school where children walk up to two hours one way to attend class. In the winter here it’s bitter cold and these kids really do walk barefoot in snow uphill both ways. Hundreds of kids attend this small school. Most kids don’t attend regularly as they also have to help the family attend to the farm. So typically one kid will go while one stays home and then they switch days of who works and who goes to class. I learn sometime in the teen years as a coming of age ritual young boys are sent into the mountains for a brutal six months survival test to fend on their own in the process becoming hardened mountain men.
I leave for the day delighted by the natural beauty, with images of cavemen, and realize
while these people have very little they have a decent quality of life, albeit simple, they are a happy well adjusted society. My own heritage derives from a time when once they worked such simple basic life of subsitence.
