CBT – Bye bye!

(actually written 12/21/09)
WARNING – THIS IS A LONG ENTRY. IF YOU GET BORED READING LONG ENTRIES, READ A LITTLE BIT NOW, AND COME BACK ANOTHER TIME FOR MORE. IT’S MOSTLY A SERIES OF SHORT STORIES ANYWAY SO YOU DON’T REALLY NEED THE CONTINUITY.
I’m in my bed right now, up much later than usual, and it feels like a good time to write. It’s very dark here, but I can hear a mosquito buzzing around my ear. I already have one bite on my foot from the past 15 minutes – I hope I can find it before I fall asleep, or I might be in for a long night of getting feasted on. Though I think there would be far more than one mosquito in any other African country, and I’d be worried about malaria, so I shouldn’t complain.
I have just 2 days left in Maqhaka, before going back to the training center in Maseru. Overall this is a good thing, but while I’m eager to get on with Peace Corps, it will be pretty sad to say goodbye to my host family. They have all been wonderful. My host mother won’t stop making me food and doing my laundry by hand, even though I’m supposed to be learning to do these things on my own. The other day I told her she didn’t have to to my laundry because I’d soon be back in Maseru where I could use a washing machine. She looked so genuinely sad that I finally said “Well, if you REALLY WANT to wash my clothes, you can.” She very quickly said “Yes! I want to,” and so now I’ll be the only trainee going back to Maseru with all clean clothes (and a still unopened box of laundry detergent to boot). I will miss all the kids, too, especially my little 4 year old sister Refiloe. She is nuts, in the greatest possible sense of the word. Most days I’ll come home after training, exhausted and dripping sweat. She’ll run from the house down the hill halfway to meet me, screaming and shouting with excitement. Sometimes there’s a little jig involved. When I say hello, she’ll turn around and run away from me back up to the house, screaming even more. I just laugh, and when I get to the house, we talk in our common tongue, 4 year old Sesotho. I’m going to try to post a photo, we’ll see if it works.
I’m also going to really miss the top of the mountain where I live. If I walk about 20 minutes uphill from my house, I reach a beautiful view and some really nice breeze. Then, there is a little cave that is absolutely perfect - in the shade, strong breeze, hanging high above the entire village. It’s proven a great spot for other trainees and me to get together, but I also spent this past Sunday laying there by myself, drawing, and overall just unwinding in a way I haven’t found since I left America.
So, here’s a few quick anecdotes from CBT.
- One of my favorite people here is a guy probably around my age, who played a big role in the welcome ceremony when we first arrived in Maqhaka. He danced around a lot and wore a wizard hat. We all assumed he was drunk, and maybe he was. Anyway, for whatever reason, he has dubbed himself Ntate (Mister/Sir) Spice, or, he also will respond to the name “Barbecue” (pronounced ba-ba-CUE). Among all the jolly Basotho we meet every day, he stands out as one of the jolliest. He has a weird quirk in which, when we walk around through the village and pass by people, he frequently yells his name at them. Along the lines of, “Hello, how are you? I am good! Babacue!” This is all in Sesotho - his English is virtually non-existent. Strangely enough, I also met a guy the other day who goes by the name Ntate Carrots, and shares the same name-shouting compulsion.
- Somehow a lot of Basotho got the idea that “bye bye” means “hello.” I’m not sure where this came from. Almost every day, Adam, Shanthi (two other trainees) and I walk by certain houses, and whole groups of kids stop us by name, and shout “Abuti Mpho [that’s my name]! Bye bye!” Some adults do it too.
- Another confusing language story – on many nights when I’ve headed to my house to go to bed, the kids have said something to me that has made me stop in my tracks. They speak their child Sesotho, and they say something that sounds like “Barack Obama Not.” On multiple occasions, I’ve just burst out laughing, and struggled unsuccessfully to figure out what he has to do with anything. I ask them why Barack Obama, they look confused, and I go to bed. Then this past week in Sesotho class we learned a bit about pronoun classes, and I put it together to figure out they’re actually saying – boroko bomonate, which means sleep well. This is now my favorite phrase in Sesotho.
- This evening we had a pot luck dinner at a trainer’s house. Adam, Shanthi and I brought homemade gnocchi with a tomato/cheese sauce, which was swell. We walked home afterwards with leftovers in a big blue pot, which drew a lot of attention (not that my white skin isn’t already a huge neon sign, but this is beside the point). A group of bo-ntate (grown men) sitting on some steps asked us what it was. We said food, they asked to see, we showed them, they asked to try it. We didn’t want to give them any, lest they get greedy and want the whole thing, so I tried to quickly come up with some plausible excuse. Without thinking, I told them in Sesotho, “Uhhh, sorry, we have to bring this food to our mothers.” The funny thing is, this worked perfectly. This got me thinking what a different world I’m living in, that you get approached on the street at twilight by a group of men who want your [leftovers], and the best defense is to [say you’re giving it to your mom]. Feels like a Mad Libs to me.
Oh, also, I found out where I’ll be living and working the next two years! I’m in the Maseru district (didn’t see this coming at all, pretty cool), about 30 km from the capital, in a small village called Masite Nek. I’ll be teaching at Thuto Ke Leseli Secondary School, which is a new, government-run school, just opened in 2007. I spoke with a teacher there who told me her classes were 120 students last year, which is frightening, but I have a couple reasons to think this year they’ll be smaller. We’ll see!
Finally, Merry Christmas/Happy New Year everyone