A Reunion

By Irene Ildvedsen

It is with a unique excitement and anticipation that I turn left on the road between Maseru and Butha-Buthe - up to Leribe centre. I drive past the gate to the Leribe Craft Centre, my old gate, towards the Leribe Hotel. Right there on a low wall by the road sits Mampaka with the biggest smile on his face. We worked together 15 years ago.

It's just amazing to see each other again after six years now. Big hugs are being exchanged, and then we talk continuously about Leribe Hotel which has been taken over by a local businessman and is being renovated - very nice. We talk about our children, hers and mine, and about my old mother, known as Nkhono, and about hers and whether she is still strong. We talk about her job, about the house she has now finally begun to build and much more. Mampaka looks good, looks like herself.

Well, how joyful it is when old friends meet.

I'm on a trip to Lesotho, together with nine other Danish who have either worked in Lesotho earlier or who have other connections to the beautiful country. The journey takes place under DLN auspices. We have been on an incredibly beautiful and eventful journey through the country, have met with partner organizations, Development Peace Education (DPE) and Berea Agricultural Group (BAG), and made new acquaintances like the small organization GRO, which organizes HIV-infected women around a small workshop and store with the manufacture and sale of jewelry.

Now the journey is about to reach the end and we have three days without a program where each has arranged his or her own trip. I have gone to "my town", Leribe. Mampaka has taken time off from her job with the Canadian NGO Help Lesotho, so we have three days off in front of us this sunny afternoon in October. We must eat, talk, visit Mampaka's mother, see her children, meet with my old neighbors in Leribe Craft Centre and meet with old friends from "our" association, Lesotho Pre-school and Day Care Association (LPDCA).

I worked for LPDCA back then 15-17 years ago. Anne, who was also on the trip, arrived in Lesotho shortly after that I had left. She and I have arranged a meeting this afternoon with our respective counterparts, as the local partner was called back then - 'm'e Mampaka and' m'e Fumane. The conversation soon focuses on what it has meant for these two women to have cooperated with a Danish organization like MS and experienced Danish partners. What did this mean for the association's Preschool teachers and for the two personally?

We sit there five people in the beautiful garden at the Leribe Hotel (Anne's husband is there too) and talk.
Mampaka says with emphasis, she is convinced that a very weighty reason that she got her current job, is the knowledge of children and psychology - and not least the cultural skills - she has acquired in working with us.

Fumane agrees to her point that it is good to have skills to work in a cross-cultural context. Meanwhile, her personal situation is now so that she works as a teacher at a primary school.

Both women graduated as a teacher while working for LPDCA.

I ask the same question about the importance of cooperation with the Danes to two Preschool teachers whom I meet again. Specifically, it is a pleasure to see one person's Preschool in Levis Nek. The work here is clearly influenced by materials and works that I can see have their origins in workshops at LPDCA. They are not 15 years old and dusty, but new, and you can see they are being used. Drawings on the blackboard of flowers for the children who will soon "graduate", tell of a - maybe - Danish influence.

It's nice and reassuring to see that something has been done well. Perhaps this is what I should be happy about!

Anne met 'm'e Masebueng, who was on the board of LPDCA and still runs a Preschool with 105 children and two employees. Masebueng said there's been made an agreement of collaboration between LPDCA and the government's training program, that used to be in the summer and winter holidays. She told us, that the material which we Danes helped to develop, is still being used.

The days pass by quickly. On Day 2 we drove up to Khukhune and into the mountains to Bokoro High School. Here Mampaka's teenage daughter goes to school. She is 17 years. I think most Danish teenagers would decline with thanks to live 65 girls in the same dormitory with only a small locked cabinet for each girl's own belongings. The dormitory is locked during the day, and it will not be opened even if a mother or a guest from Denmark comes to visit. There is neither a visiting room. Fortunately, the weather is nice, so we can sit outside and talk with the big girl - she's become really good in speaking English. We talk about school, the future, girlfriends, etc. The girl surprises her mother by having a new desire for education after high school. I tell Mampaka it is good that her daughter has dreams and ideas about her future as something with possibilities - that is what education can do for people.

On the first afternoon in Leribe we went to look at the house, Mampaka is getting built. Some walls are already there, others are simply laid out, so you can see how big it gets. The last room is a garage. "For your car next time you come," says Mampaka, happy and proud. For brief moments the idea has been striking me that I may never return but with such a message, it is clear that I need to go to Lesotho again.