{"id":614,"date":"2016-03-30T19:08:31","date_gmt":"2016-03-30T19:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/?p=614"},"modified":"2016-03-30T19:41:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-30T19:41:58","slug":"lesotho-as-an-enclave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-as-an-enclave\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesotho as an enclave"},"content":{"rendered":"

There aren’t many countries which are entirely surrounded by a single\u00a0other country, as Lesotho is entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. There’s also San Marino within Italy, and then there’s Vatican City within Italy too. That’s it. Three in the whole world.<\/p>\n

Nancy Wright teaches political science at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York, and she created a unique seminar titled, “Surrounded! Sovereign Enclaves and Semi-Enclaves in International Relations.” So Lesotho is covered in her course, and one of the assigned readings related to The Mountain Kingdom is my book,\u00a0The Mountain School<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I was able to participate in the class’s discussion of Lesotho earlier this month in a conference call along with my Peace Corps mate Charles Fogelman, who is currently working on a PhD\u00a0at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on\u00a0land use law in Lesotho.<\/p>\n

We all talked about the effect of Lesotho’s situation as\u00a0an enclave, how Lesotho might have developed if it weren’t, and why it is in the first place. Also, we discussed why South Africa doesn’t attempt to incorporate Lesotho today — a common debate topic during our Thursday afternoon sessions at Ngoana Jesu Secondary School while I taught there.<\/p>\n

But our discussion broadened, and Professor Wright’s students had perceptive comments and questions more specifically about issues and stories from\u00a0The Mountain School<\/em>. We talked about foreign aid, race, Chinese presence in Lesotho, textile factories, and even my fleeting obsession with listening to the rap music of 50 Cent.<\/p>\n

As a writer, I am most pleased not when a reader agrees with what I’ve written but when a reader’s comments show that what I meant to say with my words were precisely what the reader understood them to\u00a0say. Clarity is paramount. To wit, one student noted that it seemed that my overarching goal while living in Lesotho was to understand the people by living like them, as far as possible. Bingo, I thought.<\/p>\n

Then a student asked what it has been like returning to live in the U.S. after years in Lesotho trying to be immersed in that small world. In some ways I’ve found adjusting to living\u00a0in the U.S. even harder than it was adjusting to living in Lesotho, I said. How so? asked Professor Wright. I had trouble elaborating, except to say that my life in Lesotho was so focused — I woke up before the sun at 4:45 a.m. every morning to study Sesotho, and I did so with passion because it was supportive to my single goal of trying to get along and understand life in Lesotho.\u00a0I no longer have a single goal. I feel like I have millions now, and I’m not always sure which to prioritize, and this is harder. But there’s got to be more to it, I thought. I need to consider the question more. Perhaps it deserves a separate post on this blog or as an epilogue\u00a0to the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter, life in Lesotho was an enclave. It was entirely surrounded. It was darkness but for\u00a0the candle light on my table as I did Sesotho exercises from my little green grammar book.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There aren’t many countries which are entirely surrounded by a single\u00a0other country, as Lesotho is entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Africa. There’s also San Marino within Italy, and then there’s Vatican City within Italy too. That’s it. Three in the whole world. Nancy Wright teaches political science at Long Island University in Brooklyn, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8huLi-9U","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-and-the-chinese\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":0},"title":"Lesotho and the Chinese","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In\u00a0The Mountain School\u00a0I told the story of visiting a Chinese-owned shop in a neighboring village called Kolo, where a Mosotho woman got into an argument with the Chinese cashier. Chinese are really the only immigrants in Lesotho and, if I could sum up, I'd say the Basotho grudgingly patronize Chinese\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":536,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/south-africa-postal-workers-strike\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":1},"title":"South Africa postal workers strike","author":"Greg Alder","date":"November 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Never imagined I'd be affected by one of the many strikes that are constantly happening in South Africa, but now a box of my books (\"The Mountain School\") are in limbo in a warehouse somewhere, part of the \"mountain of mail\" that the South African Post Office says they're sitting\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":411,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/the-mountain-school-at-the-morija-museum-store\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":2},"title":"The Mountain School at the Morija Museum Store","author":"Greg Alder","date":"May 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"It has been a long and winding road for The Mountain School to get back home, but it has finally landed back in Lesotho at the Museum Store in Morija. 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No one I knew in the U.S. could tell\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":244,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/prince-harry-to-visit-lesotho\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":4},"title":"Prince Harry to Visit Lesotho","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Royals and celebrities alike tend to focus on one cause or charity, and Prince Harry of Wales has chosen his cause as helping children in Lesotho. Makes some sense: Lesotho was once the British Protectorate of Basutoland. The charity Prince Harry founded, along with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, is called\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Lesotho\"","block_context":{"text":"Lesotho","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tag\/lesotho\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":323,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/radio-lesotho-streaming\/","url_meta":{"origin":614,"position":5},"title":"Radio Lesotho, Streaming","author":"Greg Alder","date":"March 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Years I've been waiting for this! The Government of Lesotho is finally streaming their radio station, Radio Lesotho. It gives me the chance to listen to the language I miss so much here in California -- there are no Sesotho speakers in this part of the world. It also gives\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Click the logo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/Radio-Lesotho.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":621,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614\/revisions\/621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}