Katse Dam

Today we traveled to another country, one that is completely surrounded by South Africa on all sides, the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho. When handing my passport to the man at the border, he just looks at all the pages, reading each one before stamping with a smile. We head toward the mountains and Victor’s wife keeps telling me that we are going to go to the very top but I do not believe her until we start to climb the long and winding road. Each view keeps getting more and more magnificent and we laugh at the signs that say “slow traffic keep left” because we are the only ones on the road. Our goal is the Katse Dam, 8600 feet above sea level. I learn along the way that South Africa buys much of its water from Lesotho and in particular this dam. Along the way we see so many people living in the mountains in traditional huts and as we wave to them they wave back and I think of how content they are with so little, but they are rich because they are surrounded by the beautiful mountains. At last we reach the dam and we are crestfallen when the man at the gate will not let us in because we did not know we needed an appointment. We are told to wait for the manager’s car and we might be let in. After 20 minutes we convince the manger to let us drive and look out over the dam and I am so happy that we waited and made our case. The view is breathtaking and not for anyone afraid of heights. Happy that we reached our destination, we drive back down the mountain, slowly making our way back to South Africa and Unicom High School for school again on Monday.