It was a sad weekend for Lesotho and for the American expat community in particular. In addition to the widely mourned and publicized murder of a Peace Corps volunteer on Friday, we lost a second victim to gunshot wounds the following night in an attempted hijacking.
Ntate Pohleili was one of the superstar dads at the American school. This was obvious to anyone who knows his two incredible children. But he became a true hero my class when he allowed us to visit his bread factory during our study of baking. It might not seem like much but a viewing of trucks unloading massive sacks of flour, a perilous walk through a maze of conveyer belts and a peek through a gargantuan room-sized oven can be unforgettable to a four-year-old.
For me that trip marked the end of a string of ridiculous, hilarious, often disastrous field trips in my two years teaching there. It was certainly the most dangerous. Ntate Pohleili was extremely wary about 21 3 and 4 year olds touring all manner of hot, sharp and limb stealing machinery but we arranged to go with his 5th grade daughter's class and we assigned each big kid a little guy. Those 5th graders took their jobs seriously, not simply holding their buddy's hand, but holding both. Nonetheless, I remember thinking that this would never be allowed back home, probably for good reason, and only weeks before my departure, it made me sad about leaving.
Sending love and thoughts from the Congo to Lesotho to the Peace Corps Community, the American school and the Pohleili family.
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