Latest news with #Lesotho
The Herald
2 days ago
- Climate
- The Herald
Cold, wet weather to grip SA this week as schools reopen
On Wednesday partly cloudy conditions with cool temperatures are expected to dominate over the central parts into the eastern parts of the country, with isolated showers and rain expected over the eastern parts of the Northern Cape, the Free State and the southern areas of the North West. Thursday The partly cloudy conditions are still expected to dominate over most parts of the country on Thursday, with cold to cool conditions expected but warm in the extreme northern parts covering areas over the northern parts of Limpopo into the lowveld of Mpumalanga. There will be a 30% chance of rain and showers for the North West, the Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and into KwaZulu-Natal. Friday Thobela said Friday will bring isolated showers and rain over most parts of the southwestern areas as a cold front slips south of the country, with a 30% chance of showers and rain over the Western Cape as well as the southern parts of the Free State. Cold temperatures are expected over the escarpments of Lesotho into the extreme eastern parts of the Eastern Cape. Saturday Very cold conditions are expected on Saturday over the southwestern interior with windy conditions and a 30% chance of showers and rain along the south coast. Possible light snow is forecast for the eastern half of the Western Cape into the extreme southwestern parts of the Eastern Cape, with windy conditions expected along the coast into the central interior, covering areas around the Northern Cape into the Free State and the western parts of the North West. Sunday 'On Sunday, cold temperatures will persist, especially over the eastern half of the Eastern Cape, resulting in light snow over the Drakensberg Mountains that lead to the Lesotho mountains, with a 30% chance of showers and rain expected into the afternoon. Thobela said the conditions are expected over most parts of the eastern half of the Eastern Cape with a 30% chance of showers and rain over most parts of the western areas of KwaZulu-Natal into the escarpment of Mpumalanga. TimesLIVE
The Guardian
3 days ago
- The Guardian
Mary Russell obituary
My mother, Mary Russell, who has died aged 88, was a teacher, travel writer, broadcaster and storyteller. She journeyed to more than 50 countries and shared her experiences of them in print, radio and in person. After teaching in primary and secondary schools in London and Oxford during the 1960s and 70s, Mary started writing about travel for the Guardian on a freelance basis in 1980, while she was studying for an MA in peace studies at the University of Bradford. The following year she went to Lesotho in southern Africa and wrote a series on solo female travellers for the Guardian women's page. She was then invited to edit a nonfiction book, Survival, South Atlantic (1983), by two wildlife photographers, Cindy Buxton and Annie Price, who had become caught up in the Falklands war. The publishers, HarperCollins, subsequently asked what else she would like to do, and so she set about writing The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt: Women Travellers and Their World (1986), which looked at the experiences of intrepid female travellers throughout the ages. Three other books followed: Please Don't Call it Soviet Georgia (1991), an account of her travels across Georgia just before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Journeys of a Lifetime (2002), a travelogue bringing together many of her trips, and My Home Is Your Home: A Journey Round Syria (2011). Born in Dublin, Mary was the last of the four children of Evelyn (nee Smyth), and Michael Russell, a civil servant. She was educated at Our Lady's Bower secondary school in Athlone and then University College Dublin, where she studied in the mid-50s. Travelling back from an au pair job in Italy in 1960, she stopped off in London, where she met a writer called Ian Rodger. They married in 1960, after which they moved to Brill in Buckinghamshire and had three children, Deirdre, Russell and me. It was after a period of child-rearing and teaching that she began writing features for the Irish Times and for Irish radio, before hooking up with the Guardian. After Ian died of motor neurone disease in 1984, she took herself away to France the following summer, travelling with a tent on the back of her bike, and then caught a ferry to Algeria, continuing down into the Sahara to spend time with the Saharawi, a desert people displaced by warfare in the region. This, and other subsequent journeys, fed into the book Journeys of a Lifetime, and she continued to write well into old age. In addition, she was an election observer in Bosnia (1990), South Africa (1994) and Kyrgyzstan (2005). A keen musician, Mary sang, played the guitar, piano and electronic keyboards, taught herself the penny whistle and the accordion in her 40s, and learned the saxophone in her 60s, performing with the Blow the Dust orchestra in Dublin. She is survived by her three children, grandchildren Eta, Isabella, Charlie and Elizabeth, and a great-granddaughter, Lila.
News.com.au
3 days ago
- Sport
- News.com.au
Lesotho's jockeys saddle up for mountain horse racing
Swathed in vibrant woollen blankets against the biting winter chill, jockeys -- some no more than boys -- thundered down a dusty track carved between the undulating hills of the tiny kingdom of Lesotho. Spectators lining the ridges cheered on the riders as their horses sprinted down one of Africa's highest tracks, more than 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) above sea level. Horse racing in Lesotho, a country ringed by South Africa, is not just a sport, it is a cultural carnival where wagers are the real blood sport. This weekend's edition in the village of Semonkong in central Lesotho carried extra weight; it was the premium fixture of the season and timed to mark King Letsie III's birthday. Preparations started before the crowd arrived, with the horses, also wrapped in blankets and balaclavas to keep warm, walked to the arena in song and dance, then brushed and fitted with weather-worn saddles for their races. - Being 'focused' - For many jockeys the track is a rare escape. The country of around 2.3 million people ranks among the world's poorest, its rich mineral wealth overshadowed by sky-high youth unemployment and a troubling rate of suicide. The textile-dependent economy faces further gloom, with fresh uncertainty following tariffs announced by the administration of US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year mocked Lesotho as a place "nobody has ever heard of". The unspoken rule is that you have to forget all your problems or you will fall, jockey Tsaenh Masosa told AFP. "You have to be focused," said the 21-year-old hotel employee, layered in white, pink and blue jackets. Races stretch between 800 and 1,200 metres across a rugged mountain terrain that tests both the rider and horse. Winners pocket up to 1,500 loti ($85) per race, a significant payday in Lesotho, where more than 36 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. At the trackside, most bets are simple showdowns -- punters backing one horse to outrun another, rather than the overall race winner. There are no tickets or betting slips, just fistfuls of cash, tense stares and quick payouts as money changes hands the moment one horse edges out another at the finish line. - Horses over football - Horses first arrived in Lesotho with European settlers in the 19th century, and over generations, crossbreeding gave rise to the sturdy Basotho pony -- mid-sized, tough and known for its endurance. These ponies, along with cross-breeds and thoroughbreds from neighbouring South Africa, now make up the racing stock. But beyond the track, horses remain part of daily life. In the mountains, they are still used to herd sheep and goats, or to reach remote villages where no roads go. That deep connection runs through the culture. "All the people from Semonkong prefer horse racing to football," said 39-year-old maintenance worker Andreas Motlatsi Mojaje. On the dusty oval, Masosa is still chasing his first win. He has raced seven times, coming closest with a second-place finish, but that has not dulled his hunger. "I like fast horses, it makes me enjoy," he said with a smile.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Lesotho's jockeys saddle up for mountain horse racing
Swathed in vibrant woollen blankets against the biting winter chill, jockeys -- some no more than boys -- thundered down a dusty track carved between the undulating hills of the tiny kingdom of Lesotho. Spectators lining the ridges cheered on the riders as their horses sprinted down one of Africa's highest tracks, more than 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) above sea level. Horse racing in Lesotho, a country ringed by South Africa, is not just a sport, it is a cultural carnival where wagers are the real blood sport. This weekend's edition in the village of Semonkong in central Lesotho carried extra weight; it was the premium fixture of the season and timed to mark King Letsie III's birthday. Preparations started before the crowd arrived, with the horses, also wrapped in blankets and balaclavas to keep warm, walked to the arena in song and dance, then brushed and fitted with weather-worn saddles for their races. - Being 'focused' - For many jockeys the track is a rare escape. The country of around 2.3 million people ranks among the world's poorest, its rich mineral wealth overshadowed by sky-high youth unemployment and a troubling rate of suicide. The textile-dependent economy faces further gloom, with fresh uncertainty following tariffs announced by the administration of US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year mocked Lesotho as a place "nobody has ever heard of". The unspoken rule is that you have to forget all your problems or you will fall, jockey Tsaenh Masosa told AFP. "You have to be focused," said the 21-year-old hotel employee, layered in white, pink and blue jackets. Races stretch between 800 and 1,200 metres across a rugged mountain terrain that tests both the rider and horse. Winners pocket up to 1,500 loti ($85) per race, a significant payday in Lesotho, where more than 36 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. At the trackside, most bets are simple showdowns -- punters backing one horse to outrun another, rather than the overall race winner. There are no tickets or betting slips, just fistfuls of cash, tense stares and quick payouts as money changes hands the moment one horse edges out another at the finish line. - Horses over football - Horses first arrived in Lesotho with European settlers in the 19th century, and over generations, crossbreeding gave rise to the sturdy Basotho pony -- mid-sized, tough and known for its endurance. These ponies, along with cross-breeds and thoroughbreds from neighbouring South Africa, now make up the racing stock. But beyond the track, horses remain part of daily life. In the mountains, they are still used to herd sheep and goats, or to reach remote villages where no roads go. That deep connection runs through the culture. "All the people from Semonkong prefer horse racing to football," said 39-year-old maintenance worker Andreas Motlatsi Mojaje. On the dusty oval, Masosa is still chasing his first win. He has raced seven times, coming closest with a second-place finish, but that has not dulled his hunger. "I like fast horses, it makes me enjoy," he said with a smile. vid-ho/jhb
France 24
3 days ago
- Sport
- France 24
Lesotho's jockeys saddle up for mountain horse racing
Spectators lining the ridges cheered on the riders as their horses sprinted down one of Africa's highest tracks, more than 2,200 metres (7,200 feet) above sea level. Horse racing in Lesotho, a country ringed by South Africa, is not just a sport, it is a cultural carnival where wagers are the real blood sport. This weekend's edition in the village of Semonkong in central Lesotho carried extra weight; it was the premium fixture of the season and timed to mark King Letsie III's birthday. Preparations started before the crowd arrived, with the horses, also wrapped in blankets and balaclavas to keep warm, walked to the arena in song and dance, then brushed and fitted with weather-worn saddles for their races. Being 'focused' For many jockeys the track is a rare escape. The country of around 2.3 million people ranks among the world's poorest, its rich mineral wealth overshadowed by sky-high youth unemployment and a troubling rate of suicide. The textile-dependent economy faces further gloom, with fresh uncertainty following tariffs announced by the administration of US President Donald Trump, who earlier this year mocked Lesotho as a place "nobody has ever heard of". The unspoken rule is that you have to forget all your problems or you will fall, jockey Tsaenh Masosa told AFP. "You have to be focused," said the 21-year-old hotel employee, layered in white, pink and blue jackets. Races stretch between 800 and 1,200 metres across a rugged mountain terrain that tests both the rider and horse. Winners pocket up to 1,500 loti ($85) per race, a significant payday in Lesotho, where more than 36 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank. At the trackside, most bets are simple showdowns -- punters backing one horse to outrun another, rather than the overall race winner. There are no tickets or betting slips, just fistfuls of cash, tense stares and quick payouts as money changes hands the moment one horse edges out another at the finish line. Horses over football Horses first arrived in Lesotho with European settlers in the 19th century, and over generations, crossbreeding gave rise to the sturdy Basotho pony -- mid-sized, tough and known for its endurance. These ponies, along with cross-breeds and thoroughbreds from neighbouring South Africa, now make up the racing stock. But beyond the track, horses remain part of daily life. In the mountains, they are still used to herd sheep and goats, or to reach remote villages where no roads go. That deep connection runs through the culture. "All the people from Semonkong prefer horse racing to football," said 39-year-old maintenance worker Andreas Motlatsi Mojaje. On the dusty oval, Masosa is still chasing his first win. He has raced seven times, coming closest with a second-place finish, but that has not dulled his hunger.
