It’s about 6:30 am and I walked up to the pink rocks to write this, thinking that I can get away with not being bothered because it’s pretty early. Nope- on my way up here, one ‘me called out to me “U ea kae, Senate?” [Where are you going, Senate?]. Now I am in general pretty sick of being asked this question like ten times a day, so I just pretended not to hear her and continued climbing to the top of the rocks. I just want to sit here, watch the sun come up over the mountains, and write in silence, OK? Now then.
It’s been quite boring here. I’ve finished all the small projects I can do with what I can get my hands on around here, I have hiked up this mountain and to a waterfall, I have read and written, watched lots of movies, and just laid on my bed staring up at my bug net wondering what to do. (Disclosure: If you ask PC for a mosquito net, they have to give it to you, even if you are not in a malaria country, as Lesotho is not. It’s mostly for the scraps of thatch that fall from my roof and for the inevitable huge spider that will one day decide to drop on my pillow. It’s nice for flies, too.)
On Monday I was supposed to meet the other Quthing PCVs in town, but since everyone was going back from that funeral after being in the village for the weekend, and since there are only three taxis that leave my village only in the morning, they were all full. I waited around for a few more hours, and I could have gotten into the back of pickup that drove by. All the other leftover travelers jumped in, but that would have been 1) insanely uncomfortable, especially with so many other people squeezed in there, bumping around for at least an hour and a half, and 2) against PC policy because it is clearly stupid and dangerous. So I decided that today would not be the day to go to town. I just walked up the road, past my school, and to the bigger shop in my village. I bought a lot of food- basic stuff like corn flour, normal flour, oil, rice, beans, etc. I already had my big backpack with me in anticipation of buying food in town, so I thought, why not. The next day, I managed to get a taxi to Quthing to do other non-basic shopping. I went to this “internet café” which was like a little copy shop with one computer. I had brought my hard drive, so I was able to use this one computer to post some things online. After buying a bunch of food and things, I went to the taxi rank where the was a guy somehow selling ice cream that he was scooping into cones. I hadn’t seen ice cream in months, so I immediately got some and ate it on the sweltering taxi before we left the rank. Then on the way back, in the in-between town of Mount Moorosi, I bought a flat of 30 eggs, because there wasn’t an egg to be bought in my village.
The next day, I went to the waterfall and climbed down to the base of it, taking an exhilarating but very cold shower in my clothes, then laid out on some rocks to dry. It was awesome just relaxing there and having the sun bake me dry.
In other news, I realized that I need to learn how to balance a water bucket on my head like all the bo’me do here. They’re so heavy, though, especially when full; my neck is not strong enough for that.
Sushi out.
With a neighbor 
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