When I'm not sure how to address kids I come across

Because sometimes it's hard to distinguish between genders!

http://www.humanstumbling.com/post/140028999035/close-enough

15 January 2016: Meetup with the duQlings

Earlier this week, I escaped my village to meet up with Hanna and Melinda, the new PCVs in Quthing district, whom I refer to fondly as the duQlings. After a few days in Quthing town, I can see myself not having to be dependent on Mohale’s Hoek for pizza, friends, and wifi. In the morning, I took the taxi all the way up to Upper Moyeni where my first stop was the bank. I signed up for text alerts for my bank account [update: this never happened] and asked to get a PIN for online banking. They took my phone number and passport scan and said they’d get back to me when their machine that prints PINs is working again [update: this never happened either]. My next stop was the post office where I bought stamps for postcards. My third stop was at the Orange River Lodge to inquire about pizzas. Confirmed: the rumors are true- they do make pizzas there. Then I traipsed down the switchback road to drop my stuff at the hotel in Lower Moyeni where our relatively new VRC (volunteer resource center) is. I settled into a small couch, logged on to the wifi, and tinkered around with my 2 grants on PC’s grant website.

Then Hanna, and shortly Melinda, showed up, joining me on the couches for some good old fashioned human (maybe “American human” is a better description) contact, which they admitted was lacking in their villages. Ahhh I remembered first moving to site a year ago and how awfully boring it all was.

We soon 4+1ed it to the Orange River Lodge to get some long-awaited pizzas. We were met by an unusually stylish and energetic guy at the front desk with flawless English, who was quite excited to chat with us. There was some kind of agriculture conference at the hotel, so it was packed with people. Without fail, as we sat in the lobby waiting for our pizzas to be ready, every person who passed by at least said hi to us. In the US, would you go out of your way to have a conversation with three random strangers? Nope. But in Lesotho, when you see three white girls sitting there, apparently you do just that. After a long wait, we finally got our glorious pizzas, packed with more cheese and meat than I’d seen in quite a long time. After we ate, super stuffed, we headed back down to Lower Moyeni and did some grocery shopping, then got into Hanna’s taxi to her village, about 45 minutes from town. Her taxi driver was super cool, and we asked him where to find “Quthing, my natural habitat” shirts that we had seen several people wearing around town. On his way down the main road, he pulled off next to a tin shack, yelled some stuff out the window, then turned back to us saying that they’d have the shirts for us tomorrow. Ask and you shall receive!

On the way to Hanna’s, there was a drunk old man who was saying ridiculous things. At one point, when the sliding door wouldn’t open, he said (in English), very matter of factly, “we are going to die.” No we won’t, I thought. This van is packed with at least 12 bottles of soda and several huge, 300-count bags of what looked like old, stale biscuits. If we couldn’t climb out the sunroof, we could survive off this food for at least a few days before having to cannibalize other passengers. We arrived at Hanna’s house and we ate our leftover pizza as Melinda told us about her year living in New Zealand and her multiple trips to Nepal and Mount Everest base camp with her wilderness-rescue uncle.  Hanna, it turns out, has lived in Sweden almost her whole life (with one American parent and one Swedish parent), which was also very interesting to hear about. Hanna’s puppy Leli (short for lelinyane, which means any kind of baby animal) was super cute, tiny, hyper, and spoiled. We had fun playing with her as she squirmed around. The next morning, Melinda and I headed back to town. After getting some soft serve and hot makoenyas (fried bread balls), we taxied to Mount Moorosi. There, we parted ways as she got on a taxi to her village and I got on a taxi to mine.

Even though there is a grand whopping total of 3 PCVs in the entire district (compare this with Mohale’s Hoek, which has at least 13), I think it’s a great little group. Here’s hoping for more fun meet-ups to come!

9 January 2016: Unexpected Moments / Dog Update

                It’s often the chance encounters in the day that make them worthwhile. In the past 2 days, I’ve had 3 such moments.

1)      I was walking back from the shop when I saw an oldish man on a horse next to a man and a woman spreading something out on grain sacs to, I assume, dry in the sun. I decided to wander over, mostly to see what was drying. In Sesotho: “You want some sorghum?” the woman asked. “No, I’m just looking,” I replied. I looked up at the man on the horse, “Lumela, ntate” (Hello, father). He greeted me back, repeating, “Lumela, ntate.” Ignoring the fact that I was again called a man (but at the same time wondering why people are STILL mistaking me- it’s not that hard, people), I continued to talk to the sorghum-spreading  ‘me. The sorghum-spreading man interrupted and corrected the horse man, “No, this is ausi (sister) Senate,” and proceeded to tell him all about me- I live in the village across the valley, I teach at the secondary school, etc. It made me proud that this dude is so eager to defend my identity and this just proves how integrated I’ve become here.

2   2)    I walked up the water tap hill to sit under its luscious tree to read a French book about a herd boy that my friend Jen got from the Morija museum. Then, this woman I’ve never met came up to me, greeted me, and was surprised that I knew Sesotho (as is always the case with people I’m just meeting). Turns out, she’s related to my host family, lives in SA, and is just visiting her family and her childhood home. She took a photo of me, her newly-found relative, hugged me (strange for a Mosotho- they’re not usually huggers), and after we exchanged complaints about the insane heat, she went about her way. Never even met me, but once she knew I was “related,” she immediately treated me as such.

3    3) Today my oldest ausi Palesa was taking a day off from her summer job of cutting wood for some reason or another, and I taught her how to play 2 card games- war and speed. She actually beat me at speed a few times after she got the hang of it. Then she came back after cooking papa and asked for my tennis ball. She showed me how to play this game called “chicha” where you bounce the tennis ball under and between your legs while chanting this song. Even my ‘me joined in to play. Even though I really didn’t know what I was doing, it was really fun, and there were laughs all around as time after time I messed up the sequence of bounces or didn’t catch the ball after a bounce. Eventually I was just embracing the fact that I was hopeless at it and just improvised the whole thing. She says I should practice more. Yes ma’am.

Dog update: The Bo Bo got so big that I had to cut the dog house door bigger so that it didn’t have to crouch down so far to get inside. It even walked with me to the shop yesterday without a leash. I think it can get around the village on its own now, so I don’t have to bother keeping it within a 3 foot radius from me with a leash. Though it does like to follow me everywhere- even trying to come into the latrine with me. Nope, sorry dog. You can pee wherever you want. This is my own space. Then it started playing fetch (sort of) with an old animal jaw bone yesterday, and was even chasing the tennis ball when Palesa or I let it bounce away. What started as a low-maintenance dog has become an even lower-maintenance dog and even likes to play dog games. Woo! And PC would be proud, as I am creating a non-spoiled, “sustainable” pet. They love that word, sustainable. As a true Basotho dog, my dog eats papa, eggs, and leftovers. Because I don’t plan to take it back with me after I’m done here, I think its transition to either a new volunteer or to my host family will be quite smooth.

*New mailing address*

Don't send stuff to the PC office anymore. Please send it to:

Julie Fisher

Quthing Secondary School

PO Box 254

Mount Moorosi 750

Lesotho

Southern Africa (optional)

If you're feeling inspired, just know I still love letters! Send me one and I'll send you a cool postcard from Madagascar!

To keep y'all occupied

while I work on some recent posts and an important announcement, here's a photo of a space invader and my Texas flag. After all, it is Texas Independence Day. Is it appropriate to go outside and yell "REMEMBER THE ALAMOOOO!" ?