I found this sign staring at me as I closed the door in a ladies restroom at the shopping mall in Maseru. I could not resist taking out my camera.

The other day, Sister Bernadette, my Principal told me,

“The boys in grade 3 and up to grade 7, are walking to the clinic to get circumcised this morning.”

“What, they just walk to the clinic, have the circumcision and walk back?” I asked.

“Yes,” she smiled. “They are very proud and happy to go.”

“Do their parents go with them?”

“No. Maybe a teacher will go with them,” she said, like this was a school field trip.

I know the walk to the clinic, as I do it every day for exercise, and it’s a steep uphill walk coming home. Sister said the kids walk back to school after the circumcision.

 

Another Strange Sign, which I found amusing, at the gym in Maseru.

 

 

“Members, with foul smelling body odours will be requested to leave the club immediately.”

I can imagine staff sniffing club members, and requesting them to leave because they smell.

Here are two funny names of businesses as I pass them in the taxi to town:

 

 

• “The Road Krill Grill,” a restaurant on the way to Maseru.
•  “The Vatican Car Wash” next to “Vatican Fast Food and Chips.” They seem to have a thriving business

 Inconsistencies, and things I’m finding difficult to get used to culturally.

• Transportation and Time

I’ve told Sheleng, my twenty-one-year old, taxi driver, to please call me when he’s close to my village, as it’s too cold to wait on the dirt road for an hour or so. One day he’s there at 6:30 a.m, the next day at 7:30.

He promised to do that, and when I didn’t hear from him, I called him to ask where he was.

I heard him say something like, “I come back.” I waited and waited, and since his English isn’t good, and my Sesotho isn’t good either, I got Mary (my host mother) to call him. She got off the phone, and couldn’t tell me where he was.

I heard a taxi, and ran to the road, but it wasn’t Sheleng; it was the other driver that stops a million times, trying to cram in as many passengers as possible; I hate riding in his taxi. I was desperate, so I got inside, and then Sheleng called me, and said he was in the next town, one hour ahead of my village. Why couldn’t he have told me that in the first place, instead of making me believe he was on his way.

• The Basotho have no concept of time.

“I’m going to church now, and then I come get you.” Mary says. I look at my watch and it’s 7:40 a.m.

What time are you coming back so I know when to get ready?”

“I come back at 8,” she says.

“You can ‘t come back at 8. That’s twenty minutes from now.

“I come back at 9,” she then says.

It was 10:40, by the time she returned.

• A Catholic religious radio station in my taxi in Lesotho.

Taxis always have their radios blaring either religious stations, accordion music and a man shouting words rather than singing, reggae, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, uncensored rap with specific words that would be bleeped out on American radio stations, and church choirs.

Here’s what I heard the other day from a female preacher. By the way, the preachers here sound so angry, like they are telling you off. Most of them are speaking Sesotho, but this one switched from Sesotho to English, and here’s what she said.

“You try to be the good submissive wife, but your husband gets the 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th wife, so why bother?”

I have to say, I’m learning new things every day, which is why life is exciting when you’re out of your comfort zone.

 

A friend asked me to explain what my life is like in my rural village in Lesotho, “The Mountain Kingdom” in southern Africa, so I figured I would start with my weekend routine first.

It’s nothing like Orange County, California, that’s for sure, but here’s what I do to keep myself as “happy and healthy” as possible.

Saturdays, are my “luxury” days, and I usually wake up at 5 a.m., when the rooster alarm won’t shut up.

I reach for my desk, tapping the surface until I find the switch for my solar lamp. Now I can see the kettle, turn on the propane tank and boil water to wash my face, and make a cup of coffee. It’s cold inside my rondavel, so I get dressed as fast as possible, but I cannot see a damn thing inside my closet. I flash the solar lamp inside the narrow space; grab my jeans, several layers of clothing, and a scarf.

The water is boiling, so I wash my face in a plastic basin, and add a sprinkle of the medicinal herbs the village healer gave me to protect me from the evil spirits.

While the coffee is brewing, I listen to BBC radio, and make sure I know what’s going on in the world, including of course the latest Tweet by Donald Trump.

Saturday mornings are always stressful in my village. How come? Because I never know when the taxi is going to show up. Please don’t think that taxi, means luxury, no, it’s the van that carries 22 people instead of 15, and you end up with passengers sitting on your lap, and you’re stuck with buckets, propane tanks, and live chickens for two hours.

The taxi shows up when it feels like it; anywhere between 6:15 and 7:30. I turn off my radio, and listen for the Toyota van climbing the hill in first gear. My hearing is nothing like the rural Basotho. They can hear a conversation from across the mountain, and they can also see in the dark; two things I lack.

I leave my door open, and I’m freezing, but it’s better than standing on the dirt road for one hour, asking each stranger, “Is the taxi coming?” and hearing the same answer, “Yes, it’s coming,” which actually means, “No.” I’ve now learned that when the Basotho say, “Yes,” to a question, it means, “No.” Why? I have no idea, but I no longer ask.

Well, things are a little better now since I’ve been in my village for four months. I know the driver, Sheleng. He’s about twenty-one, and I have his phone number. In my basic Sesotho, I text him, “Want to go to Maseru today. Call me.” He doesn’t call, so I call him. “What time are you here?”

“Coming, coming,” he says, without telling me when. In Lesotho, “coming” could mean in one hour.

He calls me right as he’s arriving, and I dash out of my rondavel with my heavy backpack with laptop, radio, solar lamp and all the electrical cords and adaptors, ready for their weekly boost of electricity. I also have a gym bag and stuff to wash for my weekly shower.

Sheleng must feel sorry for me, as he now reserves the front seat, next to him, and I feel slightly embarrassed that I get the VIP seat. On the way to Maseru, his cell phone rings a thousand times, and his wife, who is about twenty, wants to speak to me in English. “How are you, ‘M’e Sonia?” she asks.

As we approach town, I climb out of the taxi, and stick my thumb out to catch a 4+1. (Those are taxis that carry 3 people in the back seat, and one in the front.) I usually end up stuck in the back seat with my stuff piled high on my lap, sandwiched between two large Basotho women.

Thankfully it takes no more than ten minutes to get to the gym, and the fare is only 44 cents. Any 4+1 taxi in town costs 6.5 Rand or 44 cents.

Now I’m happy. I can workout for two hours, and get a shower. I so miss my 24-hour fitness, but this gym has a ton of equipment, and it’s usually empty.

Vincent is the personal trainer here, and the first time I met him he said, “You show that there is still hope to be fit when you’re old.” At first I wasn’t sure if this was a compliment or not. I told him my age, 58, and I guess it’s because there are very few 50+ Basotho women who work out.

After the wonderful shower, I head over to Pioneer Mall, where I get my weekly chicken salad, and espresso with hot milk. That’s where I park my electronics for 4-5 hours, to charge. I know the manager, Wanda, of the coffee shop, and she allows me to leave everything there, while I do my grocery shopping.

I love “Pick and Pay.” They have everything you could wish for, from Feta cheese, to great coffee, to nuts and seeds and granola, and yoghurt.

I don’t own a fridge, but I have become brave as far as eating frozen fish, meat, and yoghurt, without refrigeration. I end up buying these items on Saturday, cooking them right away, and storing them in a container on my cold floor for 3 days. So far, I haven’t been ill, but I buy small portions of protein, and mix them with rice and lentils, or pasta and tomatoes and onions. I feel like a bear in winter, stuffing himself for the first 2-3 days, before hibernating until the next shopping spree.

Anyway, I’m always happy after my workout, and cannot wait until gym day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

When you live in a rural village in Lesotho, southern Africa, you soon realize that everyone knows your business, and that you have no privacy.

In the morning, I peek out my door to see if there are any bo-‘m’e, bo-ntate or bana (women, men or kids) sitting on Mary’s (my host mother) porch, chatting, singing or shouting, as that’s how most people communicate in my village. Mary’s radio is tuned in to her favorite religious station, and I have no idea how her visitors can hear one another speak. Many people stop by for a chit-chat, and sometimes I see a stranger, leaning against the bricks in her yard, scanning daily life in the neighborhood.

When I think the road is clear, I dash out with my pee bucket and make sure it’s on my left side when I pass Mary’s porch, as I don’t want Mary to see how full it is. I’m scared the village will gossip about how much I pee during the night, even though I dump bleach and dirty dishwater into my pee bucket to rinse it out.

Oh dear, a woman is walking towards me. Now I have to greet her. Greeting people is important to the Basotho culture; they are insulted if you don’t stop and ask them,

“How did you sleep last night?”

“Very well thank you, and you?”

“Oh, I slept harmoniously well (hamonate) thank you,”

“Thank you ‘M’e.”

All this conversation with my pee bucket in hand, trying to hide it while smiling, is something I don’t think I can get used to.

My latrine is 50 metres from my rondavel, and faces the main road. People know exactly when I enter, and when I exit my latrine. I have a lock on my latrine’s metal door which makes a hammering sound whenever I unlatch it. Even the horse turns his head to look at me when I use it. For some reason I haven’t seen any Basotho use their latrines in my village. Am I the only one who needs to pee? My ‘M’e even asked me one day if I had a (mathata) problem, because I visited my latrine twice in one morning.

When I walk around my village, I see kids run to the side of the road and pull down their pants and squat. I’ve even seen men, including my taxi driver, stop the car and pee on the side of the road.

People know everything about me in my village. Even my ‘M’e said, “I know you drink a lot of coffee.” How does she know? Perhaps from the wet coffee filters full of ground coffee that I throw in the trash, or the fact that I use my latrine. They also know I drink red wine, as they see the empty box when I burn my trash.

I hate burning my trash as I’m worried that I’ll start a brush fire, and I’m concerned about breathing the toxic fumes from burning plastic bags, containers and metal cans. I tear my grocery and bank receipts into tiny pieces before burning them. I know children, and sometimes adults go through my trash, as they collect items they can use.

When I received my package from the U.S., everything was wrapped in cardboard and beautiful packaging. The kids love to keep boxes, tissue paper, yoghurt containers, empty wine boxes, and create dollhouses, and make “pretend” beds and furniture out of anything they find in the trash.

When Karabelo, Mary’s eleven-year-old granddaughter, showed me where and how to burn my trash for the first time, she squatted next to the flames. With her bare hands, she removed objects that she wanted to keep. The tips of her toes were less than an inch from the flames, but this did not bother her.

People want to come inside my rondavel. I have a laptop, books, an exercise ball and a nice duvet cover with pillows. My host mother warned me not to let anyone inside, except for her, and her granddaughter, because once I allow one person inside, the whole village will stop by to “see” what I have in my room.

I guess I have to redefine privacy, and realize that it will be non-existent for the next two years I’m serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lesotho.

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