We spent a couple of days in Molomolong Lodge near the centre of Lesotho. While we were there we went horse riding for a couple of hours. At one point we started to walk up the road with no particular aim when we met two women coming towards us. We exchanged the usual 'how are you?' and when they asked 'where are you going?' we said 'don't know, where are you going?'. They said: "the Chinese shop" so we asked to go with them. It turned out to be just behind our lodge and was guarded by a man with an automatic machine gun! Inside there was just about everything including massive radios circa 1970s but we only bought a packet of biscuits, some rooibos tea and a couple of penny sweets. The women were there to buy candles as there is no electricity here.

We all left the shop together and the women asked us to walk with them. They took us up through a cultivated area: apricot trees, maize and pumpkins to where the aunt of one of the women lived in a traditional round house (Rondavel) made of straw and mud with a straw roof. It was tiny and inside there was only a single mattress on the floor (to sleep five people), a tiny stove, a hand-made radio in the shape of a modern, rectangular house (!), a pile of old brown leather suitcases, a couple of chairs and a few tin bowls. We offered her a biscuit and gave her the teabags. Patrick played them a tune on his tin whistle! They picked us fresh apricots from their tree and we ate them together. When her grandson came home from school, the boys went off to play soccer together with our ball which we subsequently gave to the boys.