Holy crap is this real life? I just got to my new site for site visit and I’m super pumped about my village. Other than just eating peanut butter sandwiches and moldy China shop carrots for the next four days, I think it’s gonna be great. We left the hotel in my principal’s car, and after that, we stopped at a shop to buy some meat. When we were trying to start up the car again to leave, the little VW wouldn’t shift out of park. My principal was kind of half-heartedly sitting in the driver’s seat trying to get it unstuck, then she went wandering around supposedly going to find someone who might have been able to help. Half an hour later, we’re still sitting in the car doing what, waiting for some miracle to shine through the clouds, strike the gear shifter, and let us get going? I then had the brilliant (and I say that sarcastically, because any normal American would have done the same thing, right?) idea to turn to the good old Google machine. Boom, found a tutorial, it worked, and we were on our way. So then we were out of park and driving out of Mohale’s Hoek toward Quthing when my principal stops the car on the side of the road, and, without saying anything to me, she, my counterpart, and this other lady we had picked up were wandering around on the hill next to the road. My principal got back in the car and we drove up to a police stop where I guess they’re supposed to check if you have your license and whatnot We go on our merry way, and I ask where the others went. She says something like “oh, we’ll get them up ahead. The police would have thought something was fishy.” She used the word “fishy.” It’s at this point I’m really confused and maybe concerned for my well-being. Right after we drive past the police stop, we find my counterpart and the random lady walking along the street, and we pick them up again. Later as we were driving, my principal explained that with her temporary registration (she had pieces of paper in her windshields instead of permanent tags), she can’t have more than two people in the car. She still had some payments to make on it or something before it would be issued license plates. Ohhh, so I wasn’t riding with a felon in the back seat after all. Phew. This tricky drop-off and pick-up situation happened again at another police stop, but the third time, I guess my principal hadn’t seen the police stop in time to do the ol’ bait and switch (am I using that phrase correctly? Either way, it sounds good here.), so the police lady made my principal get out to talk to her. They were outside for a while when my principal motioned over to me to come over to them. I got out and talked to the officer in my infantile Sesotho, which I think she found entertaining enough to let us go.
Home free, we then made it to the Quthing camptown (also called Moyeni for reasons unknown) where my principal drove me around and showed me the important things in town. She lives just before Moyeni off the main road, and her husband works in town at the ministry of water and sewage or some such business. Teachers often apply for jobs all over the country and move to the school grounds and rent housing there, going back to their homes and families on school breaks and maybe weekends. She has a room near the school in our village, but comes back to the camptown to her permanent house. Our first stop in town was the South African-run store to get some charcoal for the barbecue [called a braai here]. This store is fantastic- it has so much stuff that you can’t find anywhere else but maybe Maseru. The thing that impressed me was that they had chocolate peanut butter. Blog follower, you probably have guessed by now that I am in a semi-serious relationship with peanut butter.
We got a taxi [17 person mini bus] to Mount Moorosi, which is the tiny town between Moyeni and my village. There, we bought some more food, then got another taxi to Ha Makoae, my village. We turned off the paved road and followed a dirt/gravel/rocky road for about an hour and a half, snaking through the mountains as we followed the river. I hate the bumps, but the scenery makes up for it. I have been told that the road was much, much worse even just last year [as I am typing this up, it has been even further improved, which is really nice]. The taxi stopped on the road next to the school, and we got out and unloaded all of our food, drinks, charcoal, the grill, and all our bags. So much stuff. We wandered through the school campus, across two streams, and up the hill (which is the base of a mountain I’m jokingly trying to convince them to name Thaba Senate, as I heard the mountain has no name [I have since learned that it does have a name, with two Qs no less. Fun to say.]) We got to my rondaval and met my ‘me. My rondaval is awesome! The walls are painted yellow, and it’s a pretty good size, I’d say about 15ish feet in diameter. It has a thatched roof and ugly grandma curtains with flowers and bows (gag). I have a dresser, a big bed, 2 school desks and chairs, and a stove/oven combo. The view from my front door is unreal. The mountain tower over the valley, but they seem to wrap around it at the same time, rising high and green. It’s amazing. I hope I never get jaded by the beauty of the valley. Some of the teachers and I jerry-rigged a light bulb to plug into my ‘me’s power supply, so I have electricity! It’s just an extension cord that goes from my family’s house through their window, across the little span between the house and my rondaval, and through my window. Not the safest thing, I guess, but hey, it’s electricity; I’m not complaining. The water tap is super close too, up a little hill under a tree. I seriously lucked out with my site. I’ll talk about what I did today tomorrow morning- I’m too tired to keep writing. There are some roosters in a metal barrel outside my window that will make sure I’m up early, so there will be plenty of time to write more in the morning.
The view from my front door
To the left is my family’s house. To the right is my rondaval. Notice the janky extension cord going from their house to mine through the windows. Behind is the mountain I can’t wait to climb
My school
The view down into the river valley
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