Today we had a very busy day. We first went to Thaba Bosiu, the mountain where King Moshoeshoe I started Lesotho. He joined together 16 clans. Each clan was represented by a different thing.  Like elephant; crocodile; hare; spider; wild cat; pet cat; pumpkin; cloud. There was a tradional village there and the guide showed us the differences between the clan houses.  The stone wall rondavels came from the Irish.

Traditional bushmen rondavels were made all of stone and had a low entrance. The were so low that I couldn’t get in unless I slid on my tummy in the mud. The entrance is low to make it easy to defend. Any animal or bad guy coming in has to duck its head and the bushmen can hit it with a club.

We also learnt how to play the shepherds game. It is a bit like the noughts and crosses and connect 4 games.  You have 12 pieces and you try and get 3 in a row. If you do, you can take off one of the other players pieces.

King Moshoeshoe I:

After that we did a dirt track to the Kome Caves. The caves were another overhang but in the 1800’s the people had made some walls out of mud/clay. There are three grandmothers that still live there! One is 89, one is 84 and one is 64. We were allowed to go into their houses. The biggest house had a real bed, a shelf of food and a gas cooker. But in the other houses the grandmothers slept on mats on the floor. There were some bushmen paintings on the ceiling, but because of all the smoke from the fires, they have disappeared. There were lots of children there, from Maseru, who were learning how to cook over fire. I tried to use the grinding stone, but it was hard. We also learnt that there were some cannibals that lived near by. Cannibals are people who eat other people!

On the way back to Maseru, we stopped at a weaving place. There were lots of wall hangings and we saw a guy making a floor mat. He said it would take 3 weeks to finish.