Superstar

I have found out I am the Angelina Jolie of the Ha-Senekane area. I know this is quite the lofty compliment to bestow upon myself but I don’t know how else to express the odd celebrity status I have acquired since my being here. Along with this is the lack of personal boundaries I have been experiencing lately. While I am no Angelina Jolie, I do have some recent experiences to back up the my presumptive statement.
I have mentioned this before, and if not I’m mentioning it now. There is a certain desperation that the Basotho have to get to America, even though many do not know its location on the map or why they want to go to America, they just know they want to go. One heavily sought out way to get a ticket is to marry an American. This being said I have 2 “abuti” vying for my hand in marriage currently. Believe me it will go nowhere not strictly because they are Basotho (which does play a certain role mainly because I am only here for two years and it would be unwise to start any type of relationship because of the reputation it would cause me to have in village), but I don’t even think they like me all that much, they just want to use me so they can watch movies on my computer and have me teach them how to use the internet. I’m not sure how to take this. Initially I am relieved but then again a little hurt. Don’t they at least think I am a little pretty? Anyways, it is not something I am all that caught up in. This, however, is example of celebrity number one: people wanting to befriend/marry you in order to reap superficial benefits.
Moving on to example two: becoming a spectacle. So on Sunday, I had put the day aside (well more of lack of anything else to do) to do some cleaning at my house. So in my eccentric way I was enjoying scrubbing my toilet whilst I blared and sang “I Wish I Could Go Back To College” from the 2004 Tony Award Winner for Best New Musical, Avenue Q. I’m no Patti Lupone so I get quite embarrassed when people sneak up on me while I am singing. As luck would have it, right as I am really getting into the song I hear a “kuku” (that’s Sesotho for “knock, knock”) and I’m like “great, I’m into my elbows with soap foam and someone is knocking at my door to ask for sweets.” Not quite. I go to answer my door (which I am surprised I heard them with how loud I was being) and it is one of the farm assistants, with, what looked like 2 of his sons. These sons are like 5 and 2, so no worries about marriage. Their father just simply promised them that on Sunday he would take them to see the white woman that lived on the clinic and he was just following up on that promise. This along with the fact that whenever I walk around town I hear kids and adults yelling “Lumela Nthabiseng!!” (hello Nthabiseng (my Sesotho name)). Most of the time I don’t even see the people yelling they just yell and I wave in whatever direction the sound is coming from. So this is why I feel like I might be a bit of a spectacle.
This is my favorite example, and shows just how popular I am here. Everyday in attempt at some sort of exercise I walk for an hour from my village to the next. One day while I was walking one of the girls I know that goes to the high school asked for me to come speak to her while I was walking past (she was on her lunch break). I spoke briefly with her an then went to talk with one of the teachers there. While I was talking with her a circle of children, like 5 deep began to surround me ever where I went. I felt like Mother Teresa, only the children weren’t asking me to heal their illnesses or soul but wanted candy and money. Still it was pretty surreal and still whenever I walk past the school with out attempting to enter I get dozens of waves and hellos shouted at me from the campus. I am quite popular, first time ever.
This last example shows the entrenchment on my personal boundaries, and for me it is a little embarrassing, so bear with me. And let me preface this by explaining that Africa is having it’s own little revenge on my bowels currently and me and my toilet are becoming fast friends. Having to deal with this puts me in the bathroom quite often and during the day when I am home I often keep my front door open to let in fresh air and to help warm up my house because it is basically a cement box and can get kind of cold. So on Saturday it (I’m hoping you just get what “it” is) crept up on me and I rushed to the bathroom, and didn’t have time to shut my front door. While I am in the bathroom I hear that infamous “kuku.” I’m thinking “can I not at least go to the bathroom in peace????” and God, naturally, answers “nope.” I, as kindly as I can, yell back “ema hanyane” (Sesotho for “wait a minute”). I hear a more urgent “kuku” and I yell back a more forceful “ema!!” this goes on for a couple of more minutes, after which I hurry out of the bathroom to see what the hell is so damn urgent that I absolutely must leave what I was in the middle of. I go to the door and see a young boy and I think to myself “if this kid asks for sweets, I’m going to lose it.” Thankfully for both him and myself he was not in need of sweets, but a chicken rather. Since the clinic is also a farm they sell chickens to slaughter and eat (emphasis on the slaughtering part). And this boy was merely wandering where he could procure himself a chicken. Well I just sent him in the direction of the farm, relieved that was all he wanted.
I’m sure Angelina Jolie doesn’t have to experience the majority of these things back in their lofty mansion in Hollywood, but I can begin to sympathize with the amount of attention they receive. While I don’t quite receive that amount of attention, the amount I do get is rather annoying, everyone in the village knows exactly what I am doing, who I talk to, where I go, if I am doing something wrong, and so forth. Basically if Ha-Senekane had it’s own little version of People magazine the front page would read something along the lines of “This week Ausi Nthabi goes for a hike in pants!!!” But I knew about this when I signed up, so I really should not complain.
In other news, and a quick follow up on last week’s entry, the cow that they sold turned out to indeed be rotten when they sold it and some of the people who bought it were not able to cook it because it was rotten or got sick because they ate it. I really hate to do this, but I get a lot, so I don’t really feel that bad but, I TOLD YOU SO! Well that being taken care of, have a great week and shoot me a line if you have any news!!