First Visit to New Home

(written 12/27/09)
Whew, big day today. After spending the past few days hanging out/playing games at the PC training center, I woke up today at 6am to leave for my new home in Masite Nek. I am spending two days here, settling in, meeting people, and learning the village, before going back to Maseru for 2 final weeks of training. A group of 6 shared one van headed south from Maseru, loaded up with all our crap, plus many bags of non-perishable food (this is the one time we take a private car to site, so we stocked up a bit). Since I live pretty close to Maseru, I was the first stop, and I was in my new house by 8am. I spent the day touring Masite Nek and neighboring Basotho cultural hub Morija, unpacking, and playing darts (!!!). I’ll get back to this more, but first, the rundown on my new abode.
Masite Nek is a small village, 30k from the capital, Maseru. My host family lives on a nice sized property. I realized after calling my last property ½ an acre that I have a terrible concept of acreage, and that it was a good bit smaller than that. This, on the other hand, is probably ½ an acre or more. We are situated at the intersection of two pretty “major” roads, but the houses are set back from the road (that I live on a PAVED road is mind-boggling; that there two is doubly so). I look out from my front door onto rows and rows of peach trees, maize, beans, butternut squash, and watermelon, all surrounded by some nice flowers (sorry my flower describing skills are lacking, but they’re quite pretty). None of the crops are very big right now. I imagine it will be even more beautiful when it gets near time to harvest. There are small mountains in the not-too-far distance. In fact, I’ll be climbing one every morning to get to my school.
My home is one room, maybe 12x14’, occupying one side of an L-shaped house. Plenty of room. Good, new-looking furniture, full bed, 3-burner stove, space heater for winter. I have no running water or electricity, but the water pump is 10 feet from my door, and I’ll probably install a solar power rig. I will get a water filtration system soon (for now I am just boiling my drinking water, and might start straining it through a t-shirt cuz it looks a bit chunky). My roof is tin, meaning it’s extra hot in the summer, extra cold in the winter. The other side of the L is divided into three rooms. One room is shared by two students from my school (haven’t met them yet). One room is for another teacher from my school (met briefly, nice guy). Then, the third room! The third room is completely empty, except for what looks like a beat up bench from a school bus in one corner, and in the opposite corner, an old, filthy, glorious, honest to god, dart board. I. Am. So. Happy. About. This. Dart. Board. I thought I’d given up darts for two years, but tonight I played a few games with my Ntate (host father), who is pretty nasty at it. I won one game out of three, which should be enough to keep him wanting to play.
Earlier in the day I toured around Masite Nek and Morija with my Ntate and two people from my new school. First I was taken to the moreneng (village chief’s house) to meet the chief. We walked up to the front of this small, traditional style house to find a group of men circled around a young man speaking. I was informed we were witnessing a court case of some kind. The chief was in the circle playing the role of judge in the hearing. Sadly, I couldn’t understand much of the Sesotho, except for catching the guy saying “I did not know” something something. I later saw the local police station (very quaint) and hospital (surprisingly decent). I also saw the Morija Guest House, a nice bed and breakfast with a beautiful view, where I was treated very nicely. Note, if you come visit me, and don’t want to rough it, you can stay here, it’s pretty sweet.
This afternoon I started walking around my street, and somehow became friends with a guy named Pule, who drives a bus at my school. We stopped by the shopong (small shop), which is one minute from my house. The shopong owner is very cool, and speaks good English. I bought a soda, and he, Pule, and I talked for a while as I drank it. I was surprised to find that he has a freezer, and he sells a few frozen meats. I told him I was excited because I expected to be unable to keep meat around my house without a fridge, so now at least I can eat frozen chicken. He told me any time I buy meat at a grocery store in Maseru, I can store it in his freezer. This is huge. I am pumped. I had heard this can happen if you befriend your local shopong guy, but I figured it would take a lot of schmoozing. I think I’ll buy some ground beef and make us a couple cheeseburgers to say thanks.
So now, Jerry Springer’s Final Thought. There are a lot of forms that being happy with your site can take. Some people got placed in the middle of huge, breathtaking mountains. Some people are near a lake. Some got running water and/or electricity, or a three room house. One guy actually has everything I just listed. For me, I’ll be less than an hour from the capital, and visiting other volunteers will be pretty quick because of my location. But on a daily basis, I’m still completely in my own world (and I love being lost in my own world, heh heh). I’m walking distance from a very nice town, Morija. I live on a beautiful property, I’ll be teaching at a pretty nice, sparkling new school, I have good furniture in my house, I have a freaking dart board, and great competition in my Ntate. So, long story short, I’m very pleased.