So I think I have about 4 weeks and I will have officially been in Lesotho for a whole year. It is kind of weird to think of, I guess. The predictable one year things have been happening, you know, acclamation to the culture, adjusting to the weather and environment, making your friends, figure out which people are going to bullshit you and which ones aren’t, you know that kind of stuff. Which, the sad part about it is that, not too much is exciting and it takes a lot to surprise me anymore. I mean assassination attempts to 1000 condoms on a taxi, I feel like not much is going to put a wrench in my day anymore.
If you have communicated with me at all in like the past month, you will know that things are going, steady and without too much disturbances and, as a result things are kind of dull. Usually no news can be interpreted as good news, but anything would be better than the constant stream of boredom. I mean moving to Africa is exciting and all in its own right, but I think, like many of my fellow volunteers I’ve hit that one year wall and things have slowly slumped in to exactly that, a slump. I mean, it is not that I feel like I have experienced all that Lesotho has to offer, but I just am at the point where nothing surprises me anymore. More than anything it annoys me. At first, when interacting with the Basotho, I was amused at how accurate the assumptions about them had been, and it surprised me. I’m so over that now. Now it is like, I just want to scream at them to get over it, grow up and start doing something to make your own situation better. Now I feel like I am past the point for sympathy for many people here, because I have been here long enough to realize that they don’t want to do any work. If there are a million reasons for something good to be done, like to have an HIV testing day, it only takes one sorry excuse to derail it, like the rain. And that is frustrating. Also, going into town, used to almost be kind of an adventure. Whenever I went in I didn’t know what I was going to encounter once I put myself at the mercy of the taxi rank or the walk from the taxi rank to the Peace Corps Office. But now, having to leave a trail of “hi mommy!” or “Lahoua, Lahoua” (Sesotho for white person) behind me is starting to wear me down. Pray for that poor Basotho who says the wrong thing on the wrong day. My blog posts are even getting boring as hell. I mean last week I blogged about Twlight, which is an indication in itself that things are going slow.
So to counteract the boredom, I’m developing new coping techniques. I read now, much more than I would have thought I would. I think this is temporary, but to get through the slump, seemingly necessary. I’m planning vacations as well. Just the thought and idea that I will get to be out of Lesotho for a while is nice (Mozambique and Swaziland, here I come!). Since there is a lack of music stores here, I have acquired a lot of new music from other volunteers, and this boredom has forced me to leave the comfort of my beloved Broadway albums and I have begun to explore the less known bluegrass and folk music as well as a few African artists. And of course the knitting, I knitted scarf in a week, something that would normally take me like 2 months.
Well I’m leaving you at that. I’m going to do my best to find better things to blog about. This one as well as the previous are sorry examples of life here. Maybe I will blog less and save the writing for truly worthwhile stories, which I think would be the best bet. Well with that, I’m out. Have a great week and wonderful day!! Salang Hantle!
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