Though Lesotho is only the size of the tiny east coast state of Maryland, it's all mountains. I live on the western side of them, and inconveniently, my girlfriend (or whatever) Ursula lives on the eastern side.
It takes me a full day on taxis, a bus and two feet to get there. Door to door, around ten hours. So, in order to hang out on a weekend I have to miss a Friday and Monday of school. We trade off doing this and end up seeing each other about once a month.
I was riding in a taxi and after the usual small talk -- Where are you going? Where do you live? What's your work? What's your name? -- the driver pulled into a gas station. Then he leaned over and asked me if he could have a piece of my hair for medicine. I'd heard this idea before: White people's hair is magic. I figured it couldn't hurt, so I gave him the go-ahead.
He took a pinch from the back and yanked. I thought he wanted a strand not a lock. That hurt! I tried to maintain a stoic look and refrained from rubbing my new and painful little bald spot.
"Sir, why are you throwing the chocolates?"
"What? What chocolates?"
"The ones that look like money," the two girls explained.
Now I remember. Yesterday, when cleaning out my cupboards, I found some chocolate coins that my friend had given me upon my visit to America last Christmas. (I had wondered where those things disappeared.) They seemed spoiled so I took them out to burn in my trash pit.
"How do you know I threw them away?" I asked.
"We saw you."
"No you didn't. I threw them away last night."
"Yes."
"No . . . Did you eat them?!"
I just showed ntate Lemphane, the Commerce and Agriculture teacher at my school, how to use my can opener, a manual one. He had never used one before.
I've been walking by Grandma Molefi's house on my way to climb rocks for over two years now. She still won't let me pass unless I first eat something with her.
That's not true. Occasionally, she has nothing to offer me, at which point she apologizes profusely and scolds Lemeko for not having cooked anything. Lemeko is her grandson, and a 10th grade student of mine. I always pick him up along the way to boulder. He likes it so much these days that in English class last week he wrote, "I used to play soccer, but now I climb rocks."
On Monday it was extremely windy. I taught my classes the word 'blustery' that day. Then Tuesday began with calm, and so came the storm: a giant charcoal bank rising on the western horizon. By noon it was pouring rain. I found myself in a dilemma at this point. Tired of winter and yearning for warmth, I wanted it all to stop. I wanted sun. But having gone through three winters in Ts'oeneng with no snow . . . maybe it will get cold enough to finally happen, I thought. The idea of playing in the snow in my village in Africa sounded cool.
It's nearly August and I am scheduled to finish my Peace Corps service in Lesotho in early December. That leaves me with around four months ahead. I've got 32 months in Lesotho already behind me. It's feeling like the home stretch, the end is around the corner. Naturally, I am becoming reflective.
One expectation I arrived here with in 2003 -- which I thought was a highly realistic hope -- was not to make a grand contribution to many lives, but rather to get to know a few individuals well and serve them as best as I could.
At one point in Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" the author stops by to visit his super rich Texan friends for Thanksgiving. Though they could have afforded better, they were dressed in faded blue jeans and scuffed cowboy boots.
When you leave to do Peace Corps in Lesotho many of your friends and relatives tell you they will visit. Few actually do. For me, my few visiting friends comprised Drew, Katie and John, who just left.
The best thing to do in Lesotho is walk through its mountains. Not drive, not ride horses, walk. For more than two years now I've dreamed of taking some friends on a hike deep in the Maloti where the villages are more thatch than tin, and even grated roads are non-existent.
Numerous cars and taxis were parked on the side of the road, and the passengers had swarmed near the river on the left. Many, many more people lined the opposite river bank, staring down, pointing. We stopped our car and got out to see what the fuss was about.
The river wasn't even flowing, but there were rock pools, and in one pool the size of a small car I saw the maroon dress and black sweater floating motionlessly. It must have been an elementary school girl, already dead, drowned. People watched as if it couldn't have been helped. I cussed to myself.