June 15,
Nothing can prepare you for this. I have been thinking about this night for a very long time, and no image, no thought, no notion whatsoever compares with reality. Today we moved to our training villiages, and began six weeks of living with a Basotho family. In my case, I am staying in the villiage of Ha Sole with seven other trainees. I am the guest of the Mofoti family, a whirlwind of extended relatives and children. The family matriarch is ‘M’e Macaswele, an older woman whose house I am living in. I have two rooms to myself, which is more than we were told to expect. I’m still tring to figure the dynamics of this place out, but it seems like the Mofoti’s are well off for this village.
I won’t try to write a narrative of the day, but instead mention some of the more memorable events of a day full of them.
– The long bus ride from to Ha Sole from the training center. Much of it was along a single lane dirt road over terrain that would challenge a 4×4, to say nothing of a 22 person Combi. It’s a small miracle nobody was violently ill during the trip.
– Arriving at the village and forming two lines, one of PCTs and one of Basotho, staring at each other. It’s hard to say which of the two groups was more excited. When the trainers finally arrived to assign us to families, it was done like a game of Red Rover, with mother and PCT meeting in the middle between the two lines.
– Meeting the whole Mofoti family and recieving my Mosotho name. For the next six weeks, and possibly longer, I am Paballo Mofoti. I keep forgetting the name at innoportune times, much to the amusement of the Mofoti children.
– The Children. Within a few minutes of arriving at my new home, I was getting the tour of the family area by several of my new brothers and sisters. Not long after being shown the family cows, I was sitting in the doorway watching the kids show me how to use my new cell phone. Oh what brave new world.
It’s been a very long day, so I think that’s all for now. One last note though- it has been palpable the whole day that this is a day I will remember for the rest of my life. I can only imagine what the morning will bring.
June 20,
“You’re not in Kansas anymore” moment no. 126: Sitting in a tin latrine with a leaky roof in the middle of a thunderstorm and realizing that with lightning in literally every direction, a metal box on top of an exposed hill is probably not where you want to be.
There is nothing like the awful power and beauty of a winter thunderstorm to remind us that in the end we really are just a bunch of land-bound apes cowering in our caves.
I’ve been in Ha Sole for nearly a week now, though it seems like much longer. With the end of the week has come a short time to catch our breath – we were given the afternoon off to wash our clothes, and tomorrow to go grocery shopping in Maseru. With any luck, I’ll be able to stop in at the internet cafe and update the blog.
The village itself has been amazing. Living and eating with the Mofoti family has been rewarding and challenging in equal measure, and it has started to really hit home that Lesotho is where I will be for the next two years. I am happy to say this is easy for me to imagine, as this feels like a place I can and will call home. Sure, there are petty physical discomforts (OK, maybe there are a few of those) but the people and the places feel as welcome and opening as anywhere I have been.
Training continues, its intensity unabated. Ke ithuta bua Seotho butle haholo, I learn Sesotho very slowly, is a phrase I learned very quickly. The language teachers are very patient with me. Speaking Sesotho, or what passes for my Sesotho at the moment, at home is eye opening. After trying to explain a simple task (I am going to the store to buy kerosene) for 15 minutes, writing here is surreal. As Gregory Roberts writes: “We can’t really know what a pleasure it is to run in our own language until we are forced to stumble in someone else’s.” I hope that in two years I will be running in Sesotho, but for now I’ll settle for a steady walk.
It’s hard to believe we’ve only been in-country for two weeks. I haven’t recieved any letters yet, but I’ve sent out six or so to various people, and am hoping to expand that number a bit. If you have any interest please write. News from the states is holy writ here.
Oh, and as an aside: “You’re not in Kansas anymore” moment no. 127: The post office was sold out of M 2.00 stamps, so some of you are going to start getting letters covered in 11 M 0.20 butterfly stamps. Let no one say life does not have a sense of humor.
