I’m laying here in my bed while outside, there is a massive wind/dust storm happening. Plus it just started to rain/maybe hail. I could see a cloud of brown in the distance covering the view of Thaba Sefika in the midground, then my ntate came knocking on my door telling me to close my windows, and suddenly there are bursts of dust all around the outside of the house
This morning we had the LPI [language proficiency interview- basically to determine your language level] which was very low stress. I just sat in a room with a woman and she asked me some questions and I answered them/BSed them as best as I could. I scored advanced-low, one of only four people in our group who got anywhere in the advanced level. Woo! All the LCFs came in singing and dancing because we had all passed and had scored highly as a group. Honestly, I think I made advanced only because I knew several very specific words and was coincidentally able to use them: the lady asked me how to cook papa, so I was able to use the verb “soka,” which means to stir papa, and the noun “lesokoana” which is a specific stick only used to stir papa. She also asked me to make tortillas and I totally bombed on that question because I had no word for flat, circle, roll out, etc. Oh well. It’s really amazing that in just over two months I have learned so much. Language learning in a classroom removed from the everyday life usage of the language and the culture is so unproductive compared to immersion. My time in Morocco also proved that this is true.
Me, ‘Me Lineo, and Lee
After the LPI, I went home, halfheartedly cleaned my room, and started to sort of nap while listening to the audiobook of Mandela’s autobiography. I was thinking about how even this small time by myself was weird because I was so used to being around a bunch of people all the time. I better get used to it, though, for when I move to site. On Saturday after coming back from TY for shopping, I met up with everyone at the café/bar where we got superlatives, like in a yearbook or something. Mine was “most likely to be barefoot”—and it was pointed out to me that I was barefoot at the airport during staging. I forgot about that. I just don’t really like shoes. But I was thinking that I ain’t got nothing on Milea.
Playing cards before superlatives
Yesterday, Kyle, Chelsea, Lee, and I went to find the Walking Tree. If you have forgotten (or if I never told you…) this is a tree that we could see on the horizon wayyy off on a ridge. It sticks out because it’s the only tree over there, and it looked gigantic. We named it the Walking Tree because a few other people had gone to find it a few weeks ago and were told that it walks around at night and leaks paraffin like sap or something. After a failed attempt to find it previously, we decided that we should just take a bearing and go straight across the valleys to find it. It really didn’t look that far, but every time we went down into a valley thinking that it was on top of the next hill, it seemed to have moved to the hill after that. After the tree was pulling this illusion on us for about three hours of hiking, we decided that the tree was obviously walking away from us, hence another reason for the name Walking Tree. Tricky little thing. When we finally reached the tree, I asked the tree owner if the tree walked around at night and he just laughed at me. They must have thought it was hilarious that a dumb story that they made up made it to other people who came to the tree to investigate for themselves. Another three/four hours later, after zombie-marching our way back, we finally made it, with the guidance of some village kids, back to our houses, where I promptly collapsed on the floor because I was feeling not so great, having walked with a bad knot in my stomach the entire way back. We had run out of water pretty early on, and after 8 hours of hiking, I downed a whole bottle of water and got ready to make pancakes with the crew.
The puppies thought they might get some pancake scraps
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