Sample Letter to start a Pen-Pal Relationship with USA Class
On file in WorldWise Schools – Peace Corps Lesotho – PCV Files. Modify for your uses.
(Date)
PO Box 172
MountMoorosi 750
LESOTHO
AFRICA
(E-mail: ; cell tel 011-266 58 59 98 76)
Khotsong! Dear Kids in Ms. Van Haren’s 5th – 7th Grade Class:
How are you all doing? This letter comes to you from southern Africa. Africa is a whole continent, not a country. It has 52 countries in it, and all of them are very different from one another – just like North America is a continent, and Canada is a very different country than the US; and the US is a very different country than Mexico. Africa is so big that you could fit THREE United States inside it.
The name of the country where I’ll be living for the next two years is Lesotho. It’s pronounced “less-OO’-2”, and the language is Sesotho, pronounced “sess-OO-2”. Before I came here, I wasn’t sure where Lesotho was either, and I couldn’t pronounce it correctly.
Lesotho – the MountainKingdom
In case you think African countries have tigers and lions and elephants, Lesotho has none of these. It has high mountains, like Colorado or parts of California, immense valleys, and in the winter it even has snow. It’s called “the mountain kingdom”. It has a young king, who wears a suit and tie, drives around Lesotho in a limousine and always has a police escort.
If you look on the map, you’ll see that Lesotho is completely surrounded on all sides by South Africa. South Africa is the richest country in Africa, with big highways, sky scrapers, McDonalds, and fancy places to buy music, fashions, and food. South Africa also has thousands of poor people, who sometimes live in shacks with only a piece of tin for a roof. It has an amazing and dynamic history, which I hope you’ll get to learn more about.
Lesotho’s History
In the olden days, Lesotho was a bigger land, and the San people roamed it, not claiming their own land, but following their cattle. The Basotho people eventually ended up here; and they too valued cattle. For instance, when they married, the groom had to pay a “bride price” (lebohla) with cattle, and both sets of parents argued over the price for a long time before they would agree to marry off their daughter.
In time, the Boers (white South Africans) fought the Basotho people in several wars in the late 1800’s, and in a series of agreements, the size of Lesotho was reduced. It’s not unlike what white people did to American Indians. But that’s briefly how Lesotho came to be a very small country inside a very big one.
Lesotho Today
Unlike South Africa, Lesotho is very poor. It only has two highways. Starting from the capital city, Maseru, one goes curves north and east, and one goes south and east. They don’t meet up, because there are some very big mountains in the eastern part of the country.
Where I Live
I have a little hut, called a rondaval, with a thatched straw roof. It only has one room, and no electricity. There’s an outhouse that I use for my toilet. I’m just a 5 minute walk off the main South Road, so I can hear busses, vans, and taxis go by. But it’s not like traffic where you live. People walk on the highway and kids play games and ball in the road when.
So few vehicles go by that everyone, including me, looks up from what they are doing when they hear one.
How I Travel
There are almost no private cars. So if I want to go to the next town, Moyeni, I have to take a bus or a large van, called a Sprinter or Kombi. In the US a Kombi would hold 15 people, but here they pack about 20-25 people in it. There’s actually a law that says no more than 15 people can be standing in a Sprinter. So that means there’s a fat lady on your right, that you have to sit forward so the man on your left can squeeze in, and you end up with somebody’s baby on your lap. It’s hard to watch your groceries or whatever you’re carrying, because they get pushed to some corner where you can’t even see them, but so far I’ve been lucky. Everything’s always still there when I get off. On the top of the Sprinter are suitcases, canisters of gas (which we need to run our stoves), and sometimes a bleating goat or two on its way to market.
If You Lived Here . . .
If you lived here, you’d probably miss TV and music and video games. But I think you’d like running wild. Kids here play outdoors all day, with the big mountains looking down on them. They can jump from rock to rock on the river bed, play games like jump rope, jacks, or cards, and walk to town and back. Adults expect them to look after themselves. They also expect them to pump water in the early mornings, start the outdoor fires under big black pots to help cook breakfast, watch their little sisters and brothers, and help wash clothes in the river.
Herd Boys
Herd boys are really cool. They are called “molisana” (pronounced “moh-dee-sah-nah”). They start watching the cows and goats and donkeys when they are little, maybe even just 4 years old, usually with an older brother. By the time they’re your age, they know how to help the animals find grass. They might take them to the mountain pastures every day, and come home with them at night, or, as the grass becomes scarcer, they might take their blanket, their herd boy stick, some sacks of corn meal and matches, and head for the mountains. They might be away from home as long as a month or two.
I thought it might be a lonely life, but a boy named Tankiso told me that herd boys hang out with other herd boys, swim in the river, play tag and hide and seek, and at night sleep in caves and make fires and cook together. When they get lonely or bored, they sing songs.If I’m hiking, I might hear someone singing from far up in the hills.
There are an estimated 60,000 herd boys in Lesotho. Just 7 years ago, the government made education free, so herd boys who had never been to school started going to school. That means in a class of 2nd graders, there might be one really tall kid, who’d otherwise be in the 8th grade – or in a high school class taught by a 22-year old teacher, there might be one tall boy who is 23 years old and bigger than the teacher. They are happy to get to go to school free.
Learn More About Africa & Lesotho!
I’m going to enclose (or send soon) a list of names of kids here in Lesotho. I hope you will choose a Sesotho name, and use it to write to your Sesotho pen pal. I also have a Powerpoint slide show[1] of Lesotho and kids’ games, and I hope your teacherwill receive a copy of it to show you.
Otherwise, please get on the Internet and see if you can find photos of kids in South Africa and Lesotho, as well as neighboring Botswana and Namibia. What can you find out about these countries?
Can you find their capital cities? What do you think it means that Lesotho has no sea ports and has big mountains? Geography of a country determines whether it’s rich or poor, which products it needs and which ones it can sell to other countries. It also determines its history, like whether it has natural defenses (mountains) that help it keep from being invaded or not.
Lesotho sells one thing very important to South Africa. Can you guess what it is[2]?
Soon you’ll write a letter to a pen-pal in Lesotho, and I’ll be happy to deliver it. However, all the classes here have 60-75 kids in them, so you might have to write 2 or 3 letters so that everyone will get one!
I am very happy to be writing to you. Feel free to ask me questions.
Take care. Khotso, pula, nala!
(Madeline Uraneck – April 2007)
My Sesotho name is “’M’e Lerato.” (‘M’e means “Madame.” Lerato means “love”).
‘M’e = older lady
Ndate = older man
Aussi = unmarried girl
Abouti = unmarried boy
Khotso! (Greetings – how you can start your letter) or Lumela (hello – pronounced “doo-mella)
Khotso, pula, nala = a Basotho greeting = it means “Peace, rain, prosperity.” You can end your letter with this phrase.
1
[1] Peace Corps Volunteers: PPt Slide Show on file on Peace Corps Lesotho Web Page /PCV Files / WW Schools/ Slides 1-88. Download.
[2]Lesotho imports WATER to South Africa. South Africans built two huge dams, Mohale Dam and Katse Dam, and the water flows from the dams through huge pipes, across many miles. However, since Lesotho started selling its water, its own rivers have much less water, and are sometimes almost dry.