Hello from Lesotho! A definite chill in the air as I write tonight from our perch in the Maluti Mountains. We even heard on the radio of a threat of snow showers for the high mountains over Easter weekend. No snow, but April is a definite cooling do~ month. The Lesotho lowlands will be balmy a while longer. We have surprising tall colors in play right now. Poplars and cottonwoods, oaks and maples, all gifts from the British decades back, taking their turns here and across South Africa as the seasons change. In the night sky, Orion's Belt and the Southern Cross are prominent. With shorter days, Lynn and I are more aware of a great swath of the night sky filled with the Milky Way. There are way fewer thunderstorms in April, but warm air off of the Indian ocean can still cross Kwazulu Natal, in South Africa, and trigger electrical sound and light shows when the warm fronts collide with our mountain air.

Everybody in Peace Corps Lesotho has good things to say about our new country director. We must be the last people to still not have met her. We rarely venture into Maseru, since we have busy lives here at our Farmer Training Centre,. Director Christine has a visit scheduled in Qacha's Nek May 2nd, so we'll get to introduce ourselves soon!

We're both surprised at how much we've enjoyed our new class of students. They're bright and eager to learn and very responsible about their "duties" here at the FTC. They help out in the kitchen, milk the cows, manage their garden plots, mow the grass, collect eighty eggs a day and help keep our school looking like the University of Lesotho at Qacha's Nek. It's not the U. of L., but we aim high! In between they are punctual for their classes and would never dream of being. disrespectful of their teachers. I have one slow boy about 18 who somehow got into our program, but should not be here, He's a sweet kid, but unable to succeed in his coursework. Recently I had to forbid him to use the woodshop power tools because he's a danger to himself. The very next day he sneaked into the shop, after class, and promptly cut the tip of his finger off on a jointer. God help me! I rushed him to our local hospital where one of our Nigerian doctors immediately went to work on the injury. Very professionally he stitched the boy up and we got pain killers and antibiotics from the hospital pharmacy. Total bill: ten maluti (about $1.25!) This price included multiple return visits to dress the wound. The boy has been looking pretty depressed since and it's bothered me, too. Twenty five years ago when I was just starting my furniture making career, I lost the tip of my finger on the same machine when a piece of cherry unexpectedly shattered. It hurt! And I know what Tobang a going through...

I'm currently reading a book, Living Poor, by Moritz Thomsen, a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador years ago. His struggles remind me that this experience is only partly about development work Day in and out the extraordinary people we work with ratchet our lives up and down. I can't think of anything in my life that's touched me so deeply as living with the least well off on this planet and sharing the dailiness of their small, poignant lives.. Only in the Peace Corps...

All best wishes 'from Qacha's Nek,

Eric Thomson and Lynn Forbes