Christmas Eve –
The boys are packed into the back of a pick up and driven to their homes by the Girl Guides. Some of the boys, who desperately don’t want to go home, run off and spent Christmas Eve night sleeping on the streets.
Selebeli is one of these boys. He tells me he does not want to go home as his family are insisting he be circumcised. He is 19 years old and living on the streets is the only way he can have control over what happens to his own body.
Tsebang also does not want to go home. He is beaten at home by his older brother, and although his mother cries when he arrives home, he is quickly back on the streets. Tsebang feels safer living on the streets than he does living at home with his mother. He is 13 years old.
Only six of the boys are left on Christmas Eve night on the streets of Maseru. The Girl Guides is locked.
Christmas Day –
Twenty five boys, dressed in their Christmas best, turn up for a barbeque provided by the Bana Trust. 
The boys came from far and wide to share in a Christmas meal with us.
We played games, and Palesa made new friends.
The only complaint we had was that they were feeling too full!
December 28th
I went today to town to give some fruit to the boys. They nearly fell over themselves in their rush to get to me, and snatched the fruit from me as if they were starving. It makes me wonder whether they have had any food since Christmas Day other than the fruit I have been taking them.
Into January 2009
It has been good to spend some time getting to know the boys so that they trust me and speak to me without asking for things. They are beginning to know that I am helping them and it is interesting that the nickname they have given me is “Light”.
I intend to spend the first weeks in January talking with boys, finding out their hopes and ambitions and formulating a plan for our involvement.
The Work of the Bana Trust 
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