Getting to Know Lesotho

Before the Gift of 40 campaign got off to a start, not many of us knew much about Lesotho. We vaguely knew where it was, but that was about it. In the course of putting together the campaign, we stumbled upon this site, Lesotho from A to Z.

Organized in alphabetical order, it provides a lot of information about the country. A snippet - the site's first entry, 'altitude':

Lesotho's rugged terrain and its mountain ranges have always protected it against invasion. No part of Lesotho is below 1400m (3280ft) above sea level. In other words, it is the only country in the world with all its territory above 1400 metres. In still other words, it has the highest low point of any nation on Earth (Take that, Tibet!) Due to this, Lesotho is often referred to as The Kingdom in the Sky, The Roof of Africa, or The Switzerland of Africa. At times I ask myself why Switzerland is never referred to as "The Lesotho of Europe," but that's the object of another forum. At 3482m, Thabana-Ntlenyana ("Beautiful Little Mountain"), in Lesotho's Maluti Mountain Range, is the highest peak in Southern Africa.

It's obviously written by someone who loves Lesotho and takes a lot of pride from being from there. It was refreshing to read it after coming across so much material that was filled with depressing statistics and dire predictions about Lesotho.