A HARPENDEN couple have spoken about a once-in-a-lifetime trip to a South African village to visit a child they have sponsored over the past two years.

The two-week holiday in November turned out to be a “humbling” experience for Lyn and Spencer Banks who for the first time met Malefane in the mountain village of Lesotho.

While planning the holiday Lyn, of Cowper Road, decided it would be a fantastic opportunity to combine the trip to visit the child and the school which she attends.

She said: “We have had several holidays to South Africa and I thought this would be a chance for me to give something back.

“We hadn't actually realised what they were going to do but the whole village got together, it was great.

“It was the most rewarding and humbling thing I have ever experienced. They made us feel so special.”

Lyn and Spencer have sponsored Malefane through anti-poverty charity Action Aid. Before leaving for South Africa Lyn asked her daughter, who is a teacher at Manland School in Harpenden, if it was possible for her children to write letters to the children in Lesotho.

She was inundated with not only letters but photographs, games and a banner to hang on the school wall.

Lyn added: “We were treated like royalty by people who have so little but gave us so much.

“Ninety children are taught in a small mud hut without electricity or heating.”

During the trip Lyn and her husband had the chance to follow the route that the school children take every day which she described as a breath taking walk with incredible views as the school sits at the top of a mountain.