In the
summer of 2011, I had the opportunity to join over thirty of my fellow
Wittenberg students for a month-long service trip to Lesotho. As many before me
have said, it is an experience that is almost impossible to put into words.
Each time I reflect, my mind wanders to a different element of the experience.
The work was hard, but as we drove by fields and homes on our way to the day’s
worksite, I saw men and women–small children even–bent over at their own work.
The drive every day told the same story: to Morija, Maseru, Motsekua, Roma.
Everywhere we looked, the Basotho
were tending to their fields; feeling the strain in my muscles, therefore, was
my own personal way of honoring those who are chained to that unyielding earth
day after day in the struggle to get by.
The
plains, the skies, the mountains: everything brought me back to the people I
met there. When I sit under that great sky, surrounded by the Maluti mountains, I realize the enormity
of the universe, the seemingly infinitesimal space my being holds They bear
witness and struggle on. In the face of unimaginable suffering, kicking a
soccer ball, showing me a pair of hand-crafted wire glasses, looking up at my
face–somehow brings a smile to theirs. As I sat wrapped in a blanket under the
endless expanse of stars at the Ramabanta trade post, nestled high in the
mountains, I was shown the brilliance of each seemingly tiny light–whether
stationary in the sky or hurtling toward the earth. Each of the people,
especially the children, who I was lucky enough to meet are just like those
stars. They are so small, easily overlooked by those with a provincial mindset;
they are the faces all too often
forgotten. But the trip showed me these children, and I witnessed sights
that caught my eye and brought a knot to my throat, as a tiny hand stole over
my heart.for this moment in time. But the people I met are indeed magnanimous.
Khothatso,
my thirteen-year-old mokhotsi, (friend,)
is the owner of that hand. I got to know him and his baby brother during the
weeks we stayed at Thorns in Roma. There is so much life, so much vigor in his
tiny frame! His eyes are old and deep; they seem to hold the secrets of the
universe and wisdom far beyond their years. One evening as we walked down the
street, holding hands as I held his brother in my other arm, he rattled on
excitedly about his future, his schoolwork, and the letters we’d exchanged that
day; my mind settled on the only way I knew how to capture those eyes: un mundo en sus ojos, “a world in his
eyes.” I walked in silence, amazed. The boy clasping my hand whose face was
hunger-stricken, full of pain and beauty, smiled up at me as he gave me these
precious moments that have changed my life. The boy hugging tightly to my other
arm, with legs wrapped around my waist, is only one of the millions born dying.
So the
trip, which started out being focused on work and service, ended up being
focused on people. The other students and I were motivated each day to complete
our work to give as best as we could to the people that were moving our hearts
and changing our lives. The little voices outside the gate at Thorns, the faces
that peeped around the brick wall each time we walked by became the center of
our world there. The calls of “shoot me! Shoot me!” were ceaseless; therefore,
the picture-taking was endless. And each time one of us would capture the
flitting of these little bodies in our rectangular frames, the camera would be
torn from us by the tiny hands clamoring to see what the box would show: their
own faces. This aspect of the trip, then, aligned very well with one of our
intended tasks; we showed these children their own faces in the pictures we
took, just as we endeavored to show the Basotho
through our work tasks the power they have within to help themselves.
In
looking back, I notice that the children of Lesotho embody one of my favorite
quotes: “happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue” (Viktor E. Frankl). The
“pursuit of happiness,” a goal so widely sought after by many in the United
States, is not dependent upon the things in your possession, the degree
attached to your name, or the measure of the fame you’ve accrued. I saw
happiness in the giggles and full-belly laughs that escaped in white wisps into
the frigid morning air, in the warmth of community that held the cold at bay,
in the bond I formed with those who were on my trip. I saw happiness on the
mouths bent into grins, in the smiling eyes that glistened with an
indescribable power. I felt happiness in the squeezes of the tiny hands that
yearned to hold mine as we ran, in the excited elbow nudges from kids
successfully scrambling to take the soccer ball from my significantly
less-practiced feet. I felt the happiness in my own heart as I looked at these
faces, as I looked up at those Ramabanta stars.
This
happiness fills me even as I write this, in thinking of my past experience and
in looking forward. I have the wonderful opportunity of accompanying Dr.
Rosenberg and another set of around thirty Wittenberg students to Lesotho this
winter. I am so looking forward to spending my holidays giving back to the
people who have changed my heart and changed my life. I can’t wait to
experience the wonder, the amazement, the beauty all over again and to see a
new set of students as their minds churn, their views shift, and their lives
change. I am looking forward to the happiness that no one can buy.
Khotso, Pula, Nala.
Kali
Kali Almdale is approaching her final year at Wittenberg University, where she is pursuing degrees in Biology and English. Kali traveled to Lesotho in June of 2011.
