The 5th of July party

The following blog post was written on the evening of 5 July. Due to technological restrictions it will be posted at a later date.

Yesterday the U.S. Ambassador hosted a wonderful and fancy party for American independence day….but we were busy (actually we didn’t get invited). So, we went to the BBQ that the embassy had planned for today. It was a typical summer BBQ like you would have in the U.S., complete with hot dogs, coke, Frisbees, puppies, and lots of kids running around…only in this case it was a typical winter BBQ.

We started off by singing the national anthem accompanied by a guitar and squeeze box (although some people needed the printed out copies of words that were handed around).

Many Americans living in Lesotho were in attendance. It was nice to mingle with people and learn how they ended up in Lesotho. We met CDC employees, doctors working for AIDS clinics, workers at the embassy, Peace Corps volunteers, and more.

Several of us ended up participating in a volleyball game that helped us stay warm, while others stayed under the tent with the heat lamps. I am not sure if it is a Lesotho tradition to overfill volleyballs so that it causes pain when you hit it, but it caused us to continuously try to set the ball to avoid creating bruises associated with bumping the ball on our forearms.

Overall, the party turned out to be quite nice. The people that choose to come to Lesotho to work consist of a wide variety of people, many with young kids, and it was interesting to hear the many different reasons for being here in the Mountain Kingdom.