The lowlands are more flat, and the highlands are surrounded by mountains as far as the eye can see.
In the highlands there is an abundance of water. This means that we rarely experience droughts, and crops are able to grow extremely well all around the country. The main crops that people grow are corn, sorghum, wheat, beans, peas, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, peaches, apples and apricots. Right now, corn and peaches are in season everyone in Lesotho, including me, are eating lots of corn and peaches. In my front yard, my host family has a huge peach tree, and I eat at least three a day!
Soon, people will begin to make canned and dried peaches that will last the rest of the year. People will also start to dry out corn and grind the kernels into maize meal, which is a coarse powder. The maize meal will last all year, and people will put it in boiling water to make papa which is eaten pretty much everyday in Basotho culture.
While Lesotho does have a lot of water, it typically rains for weeks straight or not at all. This means that sometimes there are floods and sometimes there are droughts. Whenever there is a drought or flooding, crops are destroyed and people have less fresh food. People that do not live near a river or stream may have to walk several miles just to fetch water! Can you imagine carrying a bucket of water for several miles just so that you could take a shower or cook dinner?
In the highlands, crops are also destroyed by snow in the winter.
