Letsatsi

Every once in awhile I visit a friend who has running water and electricity.  We cook a fabulous meal (because that's what she does), usually lose track of time and end up staying up until 11 o'clock catching up and complaining about students, teachers, and our lives.  For those of you who read my previous post you know that my usual bedtime is 9pm.  The thing is that when I can't see how dark it is outside, I have no idea of what time it is.  My internal clock is no longer dependent on what time the clock says but rather at what position the sun is in.  So when there's a bright, electric light above my head, I have no idea what time it is.
It's not that I don't have access to a clock; I have a cell phone and a watch.  It's just that, unlike America where there's some indication of time on every wall you see, Lesotho is less concerned with the exact minutes but the overall hour or time of day.  One of my teachers even told me that Basotho have three hours in their day: morning, afternoon, and evening.  Other than school, there are no exact times for things.  You ask a taxi driver if he will be leaving soon and that translates in to sometime in the next few hours.
For me this new earthly (or shall I say solar) clock wakes me up at 5 am on the dot in summer and that in winter 6:30 is still way too early to wake up.  It tells me that it's time to cook dinner or that I should take my clothes off the line about now or that I should head home from town.  I no longer depend on my phone for the exact minute of everyday but rather the general sense of the day.
That being said when you can't see the sun things come to a stand still.  The best way to put how Basotho view the night is that "it's not that it's not safe at night but that you just don't know what can happen."  For the most part people don't wander around at night. The camp towns are deserted, and the only people walking around the villages are the drunks (always male).  One of my friends had a school event that extended in to the night.  It was too dangerous for the students to walk home with out any light so the party extended until the wee hours of dawn.  This also meant that all the teachers were chaperoning the party the whole night (needless to say my friend was not too happy to lose a whole night's sleep).  In my case my school often takes class trips and by the time we hit the road it's getting dark.  So we drop of kids on the side of the road by their village so that (hopefully) they will reach home safely.
My favorite part of the day are sun sets.  Every single one in Lesotho is gorgeous and unique.  So to end this post I wanted to share a few of my favorite sunset photos (I'm usually too lazy/cold to wake up to the sun rises).

 The first sun set I took a picture of in Lesotho.  It's a January sunset.  The sen sets behind my house so this is what my backyard looks like.

 The two sun rises I was up for.  The first one is a March sunrise and the second one is an August sunrise.

This one's a March sunset.  The corn crops were growing and were this luch shade of green.

One of my favorite sunsets I have seen in Lesotho.  It was just as the sun was setting and sky had this beautiful golden color.

Peach blossems mark the beginning of Spring here.  But they're there for a week or two and then they're gone.  But while they're here Lesotho is this beautiful pink color.