The Week in Photos: Spring, Safe-home Arrivals, M&E, and Outreach

A lot happens around TTL in one week. Babies make great strides toward recovery...the Outreach Team brings life-saving care to families in rural villages...and we work to understand how we can continue to meet the needs of the children of Lesotho. I thought I'd share a bit about our week through a few photos.

Reitumetse arrived at the safe-home late last week. Understandably, it takes babies a little time to adjust to the safe-home...being away from home, their mama, and everything they've known is certainly confusing.

Add on top of that feeling pretty sick and tired and Reitumetse's first few days consisted of a lot of watching the other babies crawl around and trying to figure out how exactly this place works.

Spring weather and the chance to enjoy the fresh air makes for some happy babies. 

Although peach blossoms can be pretty memorizing, it turns out the big truck at the construction site across the street is even more so. 

Thankfully, I was able to get Seabonga's big brown eyes to look at me for just a second to get this photo.

Nine month old Tlotlisang arrived last week, as well.

There's something about her that reminds me of a baby bird.

Her little body feels so skinny, bony, and frail, but she's very happy and alert nonetheless.

No matter which direction she's facing, she needs to know what's going on behind her.

Of course, flipping yourself upside down is the easiest way to accomplish that task.

We met this man, the grandfather of one of our former clients, while out in rural village with our monitoring and evaluation team; TTL recently embarked on a massive effort to evaluate the effectiveness of our services and understand client outcomes.

When we approached, this man was perched outside his rondaval slowly weaving blades of grass and thatch into a long, thin rope. 

He continued to expertly weave his rope as he told of his experiences working with TTL and how thankful he is that his grandchild is now healthy.

I love this photo because it illustrates how traveling the rough roads of Lesotho often feels...like teetering on the edge of the world...with the sky so close you feel as if you could touch it.

Yes, that's the same little Reitumetse from above. 

Just a few days of good meals and a little bit of time to adjust and we were graced with that beautiful smile.

And of course, nothing brings out those smiles faster than 'dijo' - food - at snack time.

A good tickle brings out the smiles pretty quickly too.

Renang, who has been in the safe-home for about a month, improves each day.

His laugh is something I look forward to hearing each day.

The week concluded with an outreach trip to one of the most remote areas in which we work.

Because these villages are so isolated and hard to reach we seem to have a lot of clients in this area; families often don't seem to have access to the resources and services they need.

Mark, a medical student volunteer, provided some helpful insight into the fact that this little guy's condition - his malnutrition is so severe that his body cannot fight off the persistent cough that has been racking his body for the past few months. We brought him into the safe-home to aid in his recovery.