Now that I'm back at school after winter break, I feel like I'll take teaching over sitting in my house, but not over anything else. It seems so blah compared to the awesome vacation I just came back from.
The ends of my sleeves will never be free from chalk. #teacherproblems
The orphanage gave me a big ol bag of potatoes before I went on vacation, which are now starting to get weird and sprouty. This combined with the fact that I didn't have time to shop in town before the taxi left means that my diet is mostly going to have to be potatoes for the foreseeable future. Game on.
I'd like to take this opportunity to make a shout out to my new best friend and snuggle buddy during the cold winter nights: my hot water bottle. Here's to you, lil steamy.
The only time I nap is when the dog naps.
Burning through data like my phone has a hole in its pocket...
This making up school on a Sunday thing is so pointless. Maybe a quarter of the students showed up. And we're not even having lunch!
It used to be too cold to bathe regularly. Now it's warming up but my tap is dry. Guess I'll have to keep living the dirty pirate life.
Hahah I just learned the Sesotho word for dingleberry: khoefa. Do what you will with this fun tidbit, readers.
I'm seeing it with fellow PCVs and glimpsing it with others on facebook. What's up with boys growing hobo beards once they get out into the world after college? Their mom isn't around to tell them they look like a hobo, I guess.
Ugh is there any way I can block anything to do with Donald Trump from my Facebook/Twitter/any other source of incoming information? I mean, I know his hair is running for president and everything, but I don't need to be reminded of this every second I open the Internet. I am glad I'm out of the U.S. and the direct line of political madness fire during this whole campaigning period; It could be a lot worse.
"If Trump gets elected president, there will be hell toupee."
I'm being offered babies I don't want. On the other side, when people see me walking with my dog, WITHOUT FAIL, they (jokingly? As a compliment?) say, "mphe eona," which means "please give it to me." I see now that babies must be in high supply and dogs in high demand. If only I could start a dog/baby stock market. Until the baby bubble bursts; then we're all screwed.
It's amazing how a long, hot shower makes you feel like a real person again.
On the latest episode of Adventures In Androgyny: This dude in the taxi rank was making small talk with me, then asked me if I was a "man or a girl." Being asked some version of this question a lot, I decided not to tell him and made him guess. He couldn't decide. He's probably still standing there scratching his head.
When each person greets this old guy in my taxi as "Ntate" he kinda goes off on them, like, "no, it's ntate moholo [grandfather]" and proceeds to say that he is 82 years old and deserves this more respectful title.
Why do the bo'me complain about the taxi being hot, but don't bother to take off their sweatshirts and coats?
10 months in and this marks the first time I've cooked meat in my house: a chicken liver for the Bo Bo.
Hair progress- from 1 cm in October to 9 cm now. Ponytail, I'm coming for you.
Hah my ausi (15 years old) just came into my house to ask a homework question, and she was kind of squirming around. I asked if she was ok and she said "I am suffering from poop!"
My principal told me to ask my family for help doing my laundry. I told her I don't need help, then she hounds me some more like how often do you do your laundry? Exactly how many weeks? Where do you get your water? You know you don't even have to pay them when they help you. Zomg. Passive aggressive to the max. Fine, I'll wash my dusty pants. Jeez. But the next day they're just gonna look like this again.
No less than three students, on different occasions, reached out and touched my arm hair today. I guess they find it fascinating because no Mosotho has any.
I found a tick the size of a fat bean on my dog today. I crushed it and it exploded with blood. Gross.
The cold weather is officially gone. Hallelujah. I can tell because there is a fly in my house. I'd much rather have flies than cold, though, so it's fine.
I just ran for the first time since I hurt my foot many months ago. My foot held up fine, being wrapped in tape and all, but the rest of my body was like gaaahhhhh. I'm so out of shape cardio wise.
You know it's just gonna be one of those days when it takes almost a whole box of matches to catch your trash on fire.
I'm at the orphanage talking to the director about current events and whatnot, and she is telling me about some crazy explosion in a Chinese fireworks factory because they were unsafely storing large amounts of sodium chloride. "Are you sure it wasn't a table salt factory?" I ask. "Well it was sodium something..." she replies.
I had so much laundry, I decided to go do it by the stream for unlimited water. It's like a ten minute walk, so not really convenient to carry the clothes, buckets, and detergent to, but my clothes are super duper clean. I didn't even get bothered by too many people. Then I decided to go full Basotho and carry back my clean clothes on my head. For the win.
This one 'me called over to me "Lumela, ausi Palesa!" (Hello, sister Palesa!). That's my oldest ausi's name, not mine. I know sometimes siblings get mixed up and called by the other name because they may look alike, but there's really no excuse here. And that's not even the first time this has happened either.
So that's my second Form B who dropped out of school because she got married...
The hills are aliiiivvveeeee with the sight of peach blossoms
Basotho raise their hands using the forearm only, with the elbow on the table, and with their hand turned backward.
This is the kind of thing that pisses me off the most. I don't teach until after break today, so I showed up in time to go to class. Then when I gathered my stuff to go to form B, the other teachers were like "where are you going?" From break onward, it turns out,,the kids are practicing for cultural day. I didn't even need to show up. Ach.
The entire taxi ride from Quthing to Mohale's Hoek, I helped this 'me rack up mad points on the Vodacom trivia texts. If she wins the grand prize, I better get some of that.
This taxi = subwoofer on wheels.
Strangely, I have gotten quite a bit of practice hauling 2kg bags of cheetos up large hills for other people.
Life skills today was 1/4 teaching about balanced meals, 1/4 taking suggestions of recipes the students wanted me to teach them, 1/4 helping with math homework, and 1/4 the girls attempting to braid my hair (but it wouldn't do anything because it's "too slippery"). The girl with a witch doctor father offered me M20 for a snippet. I might take her up on that.
Oh man it's gonna be really weird to go back to the U.S. and buy a thing of only a dozen eggs after here buying 2 flats (60 eggs) at a time. They're not pasteurized or anything and they don't really go bad, so I can get away with doing that.
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