Idk why I thought I would escape the commercialism or Christmas here. It's still a thing. In the big grocery stores and in the hotel I'm at right now using the wifi, there are cheesy decorations and blaring Xmas music. I should have brought my headphones.
Everyone watch out; I'm making moonshine.
Midnight barf run: now I'm a real PCV.
"It's colder than a witch's tit in a steel bra." -Kyle
Yesterday 'me Lerato (LCF) pulled me aside and told me that she was worried that my boobs were disappearing because I exercise too much. Why is everyone so concerned about my boobs?
Also, the LCFs call me Sushi now. Score!
After a night where people got a bit too crazy- clement: "we would like to talk about what transpired......the last ten weeks."
Cray participants: "phew"
Being in another culture is like being on the outside of a giant county-wide inside joke that you're trying to break into.
After the potluck- "tasty food doesn't taste good anymore." Referring to the fried and sugary things.
Basotho nighttime legends: thaba bosiu growing at night, the tree in the horizon that walks around at night, and the latrine that turns carnivorous at night (ok that last one I made up. I'm integrating so well.)
Ginger beer through the water filter = super fail
The last day of training sessions was so painful. Lee and I straight up left to fry up some makoenyas (kind of like doughnuts) in the other room. No regrets.
Taxi name: "Don't Touch", mr. Peace, q ball, black ball, the geologist, take time to know me, facebook, Ben ten, it's me again, never mind (in dripping Halloween letters), mind your own, anaconda, get down, scream, top dogg, celebrity, toy car
"Ho titimela" = to run away to initiation school and get circumcised without your parents' permission
"Milk everywhere." "Story of my life."
Successfully got water from the tap for the first time and carried two buckets back (one at a time) without spilling everything or falling on my butt downhill. It's the little victories.
It's amazing how in my metal roofed house I could hear every rain drop. With my thatched rondaval I didn't even know it was raining this morning.
I've got a janky extension cord, a good cell signal, and the water tap within throwing distance. Posh Corps here I am.
Every time I look at these damn grandma curtains, I kind of want to gag.
Hah. I'm going on a goose chase trying to find who is supposed to give me a gas cylinder. Maybe I'll just take a nap instead. I don't need to cook, do I?
The swearing in ceremony was played on the news on TV (that alone tells you the amount of newsworthy stuff going on here). Several people have said they were recognized. We're famous!
So far, the handstands in my permanent village are nowhere near as good as those in the training village. Those girls were awesome!
I just walked maybe 1/2 hour each way up and down a muddy, rocky, path, crossing two streams, carrying a wheelbarrow with a heavy ass propane tank to the shop to get more gas. I'm pooped. Def not the posh corps life today.
My Bo-ausi discovered my exercise ball and my jump rope. They're probably gonna want to play with them every day now.
I was just woken up from a nap with sounds of running and squawking to find three boys chasing a chicken around my rodaval trying to catch it.
"Hey Thomas, those are some nifty glasses." "Yeah that's the good thing about getting old- you get to wear nifty glasses."
I just got asked to go to church by my two oldest sisters. I was like haha nope. A (probably very long) religious service in a language I barely understand? Maybe I'll go as a cultural experience one day, but I'm really not up for that right now.
Tertiary project: after trying rather unsuccessfully to filter the little particulates out of ginger beer, we thought we would start a "will-it-blend"-esque YouTube series called WILL...IT...FILTER!?!?
I made a bookshelf out of stones today. It rocks. Womp.
I had a quality dance session in the grass with a bunch of village girls. My 'me comes over and is like, "are you teaching the Basotho to dance or are they teaching you?" Definitely both.
To a little girl, maybe 3 years old, that I met yesterday: "Do you remember who I am? What's my name...who am I?"
Her response: "Lekhooa!" [white person]
Close enough...
I was playing jump rope with two of my ausis and then they started playing with my hair, then they got combs and proceeded to release the snowstorm of dandruff that had apparently been dwelling on my scalp. In any case, it was quite therapeutic, like a head massage.
Chakalaka (yes that's the real name of spicy canned vegetables) is good but the "mild and spicy" (which is a contradiction in itself) is so frikin spicy! Gahh!
TV Lesotho's new hit show, a spinoff of "between two ferns": between two abs
Stuck on a non main road bus, overstuffed, hot, huge bags in my lap, blaring famu. I have found hell.
I drank unfiltered water at Lee's site. If I die, that's probably why.
Post Xmas update: on the taxi from Mt. Moorosi to my village, I put my bag in a seat while I ran to get some groceries. Then I came back as its leaving, and someone said they put my bag on the next (empty) taxi so I had to wait and wait. But I used the time to write in my journal. Then later I got out and was trying to climb the hill to my house, but it was so slippery and I fell in the mud a few times. Two of my ausis saw and came running down to help me haha.
Ugh I'm so grimy all the time. What I wouldn't give to be at a Moroccan hammam right now...
Earlier today it was hailing (I could tell because I actually heard stuff hitting the thatched roof. You don't really hear rain on it.) and I went to the window to close it, and the outside smelled overwhelmingly of pine, even more than the smell of pine when I was walking through the pine forest. Weird.
A collection of the natural features around here: little mountains, big ol mountains, river, valleys with streams, pink mini cliffs, pine forests, big waterfall, geodes/awesome rocks,
Have fun lesotho-ing it up this year. #hashtaglesotho2015##hashtag#
-text from Lee (Walter) from the US
Yesterday I legitimately saw like a six year old drinking a beer. Then I saw another one. Apparently this is perfectly normal.
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