Hello!

This is a project that Owen Powell and Alex Horne started on October 24th, 2006 (United Nations Day), and finished on October 24th, 2007. Our aim was to prove that London is the most cosmopolitan city in the world, by endeavouring to meet and chat to a citizen from every country in the world who currently lives and works in London.

*
We managed to meet people from 189 countries. According to the UN, there are 192 countries in the world, so we've proved that at the very least, London contains over 98.4% of the nations of the world!

*

We are still looking for people from three countries:

Marshall Islands; Palau; Tuvalu.

*
The final encounters during our year appear below, but to follow our story from the start please click on the links under 'How we're doing' on the left-hand side.  The countries appear in the order in which we found their representative. (Any country with an asterisk * next to it has a brief account of the interview - longer versions will appear in the future!)

*
To find out more about the project, including our self-imposed rules, then click here.

*

Follow this link if you have the urge to see us looking awkward on Channel 4 news.  Or just below you can see us when we were half-way through the project being interviewed by George Alagiah on BBC World.

*

Please email us on worldinonecity@hotmail.com if you want to get in touch, or if you know any shy Londoners who are also Tuvaluan, Palauan or Marshallese.

George Alagiah interviews us on the BBC

Wednesday, 17 October 2007

No.180: Lesotho


Full story to follow ...

Owen Powell - 17th October 2007

Refiloe is not in London entirely by choice. "In Lesotho, I was a qualified advocate - what you call a barrister. I practiced for a year and a half, it was great work. Then my partner got a job in London. We tried to make it work long distance, but it was hard. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have come."

He now works in the legal department of Camden Council, and is going to be taking a Masters next year in Compliance and Commercial Law, with a view to (one day) working back in Lesotho again. It's clear where Refiloe's heart is ("This is great!" he says at one point, "I never get the chance to talk about Lesotho like this, normally!") and he brings me up to speed with a detailed survey of Lesotho life.

Some facts about Lesotho:
1) The only country in the world that is ENTIRELY a kilometre or more above sea level.
2) One person from Lesotho is called a Mosotho (the plural is Basotho). The language is Sesotho.
3) Lesotho's motto is 'Peace, Rain, Prosperity'.
4) During the apartheid era, Lesotho (which is surrounded by South Africa) gave asylum to political activists, and provided education for those unable to receive it in South Africa.
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)