Hello from sunny Lesotho, Africa. As I’m writing this letter to you I’m sitting in my office at the International Airport in Maseru, which is the capital city of Lesotho. It is also the city in which I live. I can see the mountains out my window and there isn’t a single cloud in the sky – it’s a gorgeous day here! I travel to the airport in a carpool with my teammates, it takes about 45 minutes for us to pick-up everyone and get to work. Here is a picture of the MAF Lesotho team:
I’m honored that you took the time to write to me and I’m delighted to answer your questions. Here we go:
How many days will you be in Africa? I am a career missionary with Mission Aviation Fellowship so really, Lesotho is my home and I go and visit my family and friends in the United States. On April 21, 2015 I will have lived here for 5 years! I expect I’ll be home for another visit in early 2016 but I do not have a date set, so honestly, I’m not really sure exactly how many days it will be. I don’t have any plans to leave Lesotho, so for the foreseeable future, Lesotho will be my home until God again says “go.”
Do you like Africa? I do! I love it here and I believe God has given me gifts that are helpful here. I firmly believe that I am living in Lesotho because God planned for me to serve Him here, at this time. While I do miss my family, my friends, In-N-Out, living by the ocean and being able to worship in English, I wouldn’t trade my life here for anything. It is a marvelous thing to know you are living in the center of God’s will for your life, I have that assurance. While life here can be challenging, I am so excited that this is the life God chose with me in mind! No matter what is happening here I have peace knowing I am exactly where God has called me to be.
What foods do you eat in Lesotho? This is a tricky question… I’ll answer it in two ways. What I eat is not generally what most Basotho eat. Lesotho is surrounded by the country of South Africa and because of this; we get many wonderful choices of foods at our grocery store. So really, I eat many of the same things you eat, but I have to make most everything from scratch. Some of my favorites are: Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, macaroni & cheese, roast chicken, pancakes (sometimes with blueberries, or even chocolate chips but they are from America), taco salad – though it is really hard to find tortilla chips! We usually have chicken, beef, pork and mutton available to us and several fruits and veggies, but not nearly as many as you have in the USA. Usually once a week for lunch I’ll eat what Basotho generally eat. The Basotho like papa, which is a corn meal “porridge” that they make very thick. They use the papa to eat with, picking up a piece and forming it into a scoop using their thumb and fingers. Then they will use the “papa scoop” to pick up some moroho (moh-ROH-ho) which translates as vegetables though generally they are green leafy veggies like spinach, cabbage, kale, and chard with some onion added in for flavor. Most Basotho will eat this as their lunchtime meal once a day, and that is the only thing they will eat for the day. If they are lucky they might also have a piece of meat too, usually chicken or very thin steak, which looks a little like carne asada. When the Basotho eat meat, they eat everything! They sometimes even eat the chicken bones. Nothing goes to waste because for many of them, they will only eat meat one time a month. A common snack at our hangar is called a “smiley” – it is half a sheep’s head that has been boiled and they eat the meat of the cheek, the tongue, the brain and even the eye. I tried it once, it wasn’t my favorite, but I didn’t eat the eye. Instead I shared it with my friend who said that was his favorite part. *whew*
How many planes have you ridden in? I have had the opportunity to take 4 flights, and I hope to make more. I love being able to hop on a flight when there is space. Lesotho is a beautiful country but it is especially beautiful from the air.
Is it easy to speak the language? Well, the Basotho find it easy. Learning a new language when you are an adult is a challenge! I am doing my best and I have learned many words and phrases but I only speak Sesotho as well as a pre-school aged child. So, no it isn’t easy, but I believe that it is usually true that the things that are most important to do are often hard, difficult and sometimes even painful. Most Basotho I meet living in the city speak English, in fact they speak English much better than I speak Sesotho! However, when you begin to speak to them about Jesus, about what they believe and why, those things are very important. I would call them “heart topics”. I believe that you cannot speak about heart topics to someone until you can speak their heart language, and here that is Sesotho, not English. To ask someone to change what they believe and to follow Jesus, I must be able to speak Sesotho and so I’m learning “butle-butle” which means little by little. You can pray God will help me to learn it better!
Do you miss America? Sometimes. I miss people more than anything else. Since I am a single missionary, I miss some of the things we have to do like; going to movies, coffee places, frozen yogurt, parks, etc. We don’t really have those sorts of places here and usually it isn’t safe for me to go out alone after dark. Most homes in the city, including mine, have bars on the doors and windows for security, so some days it gets a little lonely and I feel trapped inside, but not all the time.
Have you been to South Africa? I have, many times. As I said above, Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa and Maseru is a border town. In fact, tomorrow is a national holiday in Lesotho, Moshoeshoe (moh-SHWAY-shway) Day, it’s similar to our celebration of Washington’s Birthday. Moshoeshoe was Lesotho’s very first King. I’m hoping to go visit a friend’s home in Ficksburg, RSA which is an hour’s drive away, they raise lions and they’ve just had new cubs born. I never got to play with lions until I moved to Lesotho!
Do you like ostrich? Again a tricky question… do you mean as a pet or as a meal? Ostriches can be really mean! In South Africa, there are places where they race ostriches and you can go and ride one. Pretty cool, huh? I do like ostrich meat and have eaten it several times since living here, I especially enjoy ostrich steaks. As long as we’re speaking about game meat, I have also eaten: kudu, zebra, crocodile, giraffe, wildebeest, impala, warthog… my favorite game meats so far are impala and kudu. I have a few friends who hunt and they often share their meat with me.
Have you ever been to any other country? God has blessed me and I have had the opportunity to travel to several countries both before and since I became a missionary. The countries I have visited are: Mexico, Haiti, The Philippines, Israel, Jordan, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, Kenya, England, Mozambique, Swaziland, South Africa and Lesotho.
Is it hard to find where things are in Africa? It can be. I am pretty good at doing research and finding fun new places to go, I enjoy it a lot! In fact most of my missionary friends call me the “Cruise Director” because I’m always on the hunt for new adventures for us to experience in southern Africa. I own a GPS and I have used it many, many times. Road signage isn’t always good here, and most streets in Lesotho don’t have any signs whatsoever. You just have to “know” what they are called. The longer I have lived here, the easier it has been but when I was new, it was very confusing and even frustrating trying to find places when there weren’t any signs to let you know the names of the streets. This is true for Lesotho but may not be true for all of Africa. In South Africa after the end of Apartheid, they changed the names of many streets in the major cities. When I first arrived you would see one name with a line through it and then below another name – very confusing and many times street names are not in English but in Afrikaans. I learned this the hard way. I got lost one time looking for a car repair shop on Church Street. I found Church St. and was driving along until I noticed the signs were reading Kerkstraat and not Church Street. So I turned around until I found Church Street signs and began driving again. I drove in circles for 30 minutes feeling very lost. Kerkstraat in Afrikaans is Church Street, I was on the right road and just didn’t realize it.
Have you saved any lives by telling them about God? Great question, have I saved lives? Well no, only Jesus can save a life and change a heart, but I have had the opportunity to share Jesus with several people. Some of them were hearing about Him for the first time. I have even had a few opportunities to preach in churches here in Lesotho, both in Maseru and even in the mountain villages. I do not know if what I said during those times changed anyone’s heart but I can tell you that I have personally led three people to the Lord since arriving here and I have ongoing relationships with them where I am discipling them. Most places in the world relationships are more important than time, this is very true of Lesotho. I have several friendships where the other friends aren’t yet Christians… this is why language learning is so important to me. While they know I serve Jesus they are not yet ready to let go of their culture, their beliefs and their comfort. It will take time and the more I time I spend with them, the more I hope they see Jesus in me and eventually desire a relationship with Him. This is by far the best part of my job and the reason I came to Lesotho in the first place, to know God and to make Him known.
Well, I wrote a lot! Hope you now understand a little bit more about what I do and more importantly why I do it. I’d love to be a “pen pal” for your class if you come up with more questions, please ask! Thanks again for taking the time to write me!
Love from Lesotho,
Kimberly ‘Mamosa
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