Folks, I am sending this mail from National University of Lesotho, as you can see from the Email address sefika@macs.nul.ls “.ls” is the toplevel domain for this small African kingdom completely surrounded by South Africa. It has never been a part of RSA - it is a small mountainous country that supplies most of the water for RSA. Very third world, and its fortunes are inextricably linked to South Africa.
I am staying a beautiful lodge 2 Km outside of Roma, the University town. Yesterday I climbed Thaba Bosiu - Moshoeshoe’s mountain fortress from which he defended the country - and defined its people - during the turbulent times at the beginning of this century, when the Zulu started the internecine wars between the black tribes.
I also spent a morning in one of the rural towns, ostensibly looking for Bushmen paintings around a large sandstone outcrop close by, with the help of a number of teenagers there. We found none. I learned of a bead game, very similar to nine mens morris, but it would properly be called twelve mens morris, as it is on a bigger board with more pieces. Otherwise the rules are almost identical.
The National University has a 9600 baud connection to the rest of the world, only a month old. However, none of the computers within the University are networked - this one is networked by modem within the campus. The computers are new - 486 or Pentium, but traditional networking on campus uses Novell and Microsoft.
There are three Linux installations - one next to me is broken, but maybe it is fixable …
I am headed to a Music festival in Rustlers Valley, just outside of Ficksberg, RSA, over Easter weekend, then to Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, to get new tyres for my Motorcycle, and then I may come back here.
Cheers, Andy!
PS. I have missed describing Oudshoorn, WCP, a Afrikaanse speaking stronghold whose Arts festival I forsook for the Music Festival this Weekend.
PPS. Ditto - Mossel Bay, a seaside resort, where I stayed in a stationary train at the beach.
PPPS. Ditto - The Buffalo motorcycle Rally at the other end of the Garden route. Another time, maybe.