The sounds of a village.

Without a doubt one of my favorite parts about living in Ha Selomo is the noise that engulfs the village around sunset every day. For me, more than any other time, this is when the village comes alive. When the heat of the day has passed, families emerge from their rondavals to savor the last few hours of daylight before the mountains finally cast their ominous shadows across the foothills. If I were ever to attempt to save of moment or memory of Lesotho, this would be it... I would bottle the sounds.

Across every hill in the distance, herd boys gather their cattle, and sheep from a day of foraging for grass in an all too dry and rocky landscape. The result of their slow passage home to the village, is a cacophony of bells that rings from every conceivable direction. It is my mothers favorite form of music, and it is quickly becoming mine.

Children pour out of rondavals everywhere... And their chatter can be heard all over the village, ever so slightly punctuated by the occasional call of a mother. And as always, where there are children, I hear my own name being beckoned, "Me' Limpho! Me' Limpho!" in the hopes of eliciting yet another smile and wave from where I sit, writing by my garden.

Now a tractor rumbles by. They are few and far between in Ha Selomo. But the maize is high in the fields this time of year, and I know that the family that owns the local Mill frequently sells out the services of their tractor to plow a fields too large to hoe by hand. For those not rich enough, however, there is the ever-present, "Thump. Thump." as a hoe meets the unwilling ground. This sound is particularly omnipresent this time of year, when villagers spend the better part of every day baking in the unrelenting sun while attempting to control their fields. It never ceases to amaze me the sheer determination and endless work required to glean some meager amount food from such rocky and mountainous terrain.

And as always with village life, there are the women. When I think of the "life force" of the village, I know it must be the women. A simple walk around Ha Selomo never fails to reveal a woman singing her way through hours of washing clothes or hauling water with a bucket balanced atop her head and a baby strapped to her back. They usher children, bargain at the shopong, cook papa and samp in large wrought iron kettles over fires in family courtyards, laugh and chat, and set off to tackle the next on a never ending list of chores that make life here in Ha Selomo possible.

I'm in love with the sounds of an African village.