Now that it’s finally FINALLY warmish
(70s during the day), I’ve taken to sitting outside my house to read/write/give
my ausi my kindle to practice reading Dr. Dolittle. Now my oldest ausi is
alternately cutting my neighbor’s hair with a razor/scissors and sawing wood to
for cauldron-pot cooking in the yard.
I’m
a bit calmer now after thinking that my principal is starting to not want me
around. I had a quiet day at home, away from my senioritis-fueled students,
where the biggest thing I did was go to the tap and do some laundry. Yesterday
I went to the orphanage for English lessons and I went through a reading
comprehension section in an old exam for the grade 7 girls to practice with.
Phew, they need a lot more work. With the younger ones, they’re showing actual
improvement with reading, so that’s more encouraging to see.
After
that, I had lunch at the director’s house, then on the way back I was somehow
surrounded by a crowd of kids as I was having a conversation in Sesotho with
one of the house fathers. Apparently the kids didn’t have any idea that I could
speak Sesotho as well as I could. They were grilling me with questions, and
they even made me write Sesotho words in the dirt with a stick to prove that I
could write it as well. I had to pat myself on the back, because they told me I
was very good at Sesotho. Woo!
Then
my new British friend Andrew and I walked to a neighboring village called Ha
Masiu, where for a good bit of the trek we walked beside my old student
Tsepang, who’s not at school this year, but hopes to go back next year with an
Econet (cell phone company) scholarship. He says that this year they’re
sponsoring about 20 kids at my school. Now he’s a herdboy, with 60 something
sheep and 8 dogs, who stay up at the cattle post in the mountains for 6 months before they come
down to shear the sheep. Then they wait around 2 months for the wool to grow
back enough to combat the cold, then go back up into the mountains again.
When
we finally got to Ha Masiu, we came across a joala (homemade sorghum beer)
shack with some pretty drunk women inside. Andrew wanted to taste the beer, so
for 2 Rand, they handed us a pitcher with a few swigs of joala in it. I’ve had
it several times, so I’m used to the taste/texture, but Andrew said it was like
drinking salad dressing. After asking several people for directions, we found a
cool little cave with a herdboy hut just outside. My dog was having a field day
chasing all the baby goats (whose butts were painted red to distinguish them
from other herds) around, which the herdboy was not so happy about. As we
walked back, we had an offer from a guy to drive us back to the orphanage “in a few minutes.” We told the guy
we would walk because a) “a few minutes” usually means “a few hours,” and b)
the guy looked kinda drunk.
I
made it back just before sunset (I wouldn’t dare stay out after dark. My ‘me
would be too worried about me.), watched a few episodes of Fargo, and crashed
Then I woke up around midnight because of some thumping famu bass from my
across-the-trash-valley neighbors. I went to investigate and saw a bunch of
strange dogs outside, so I decided not to koko (knock knock) and tell them to
keep it down because I didn’t want to barge in on what was probably just a
bunch of drunk herdboys. Earplugs once again save the day.
The cave/hut
View of the valley
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