So I finally had an excuse to travel into the serious highlands of this country. In pursuit of nutrition workshops and going away parties I left my lowland sanctuary and ventured up to the district of Thaba Tseka, in the highlands of Lesotho. I went into this experience rather blindly, thinking the bus ride up wouldn’t faze me, actually looking forward to it so I can listen to some serious music on my iPod and not do any work and finally get to be in and see some mountains, and, of course break out my serious Peace Corps gear and go on, what I approached, as an adventure of sorts. Ohh my naiveté.
On my way up I got to the bus rank at around 6:30am to get a seat on the bus then wait until 9:00am for it to leave. That part is actually not that bad; did a little reading got some taxi rank food, and talked to my fellow passengers. So once we finally started, I was thinking “Woo hoo! Let’s see some mountains.” Well about 45 minutes into the trip we hit the mountains, and since I fell asleep I thought we were about 2 hours into the trip and not just 45 minutes. And I was thinking any time now we will get to the camp town, Thaba Tseka. Nope. A solid 3 ½ hours later we hit the camp town. And this is only after swerving and climbing mountain after mountain in a questionable bus as well as smelling throw up the whole way up and being dehydrated, because I was so afraid I would have to use the bathroom I didn’t drink anything all day. So once through the camp town, I thought I had only one more hour left till I got to Mashai, where the volunteers I was visiting were at. Again, nope. A solid two hours later and me asking a fellow passenger at every stop we hit, “Is this Mashai?” and I was there. I was there nauseated and tired and thirsty and definitely not hungry. Which all of this was kind of worth it, because not only is Mashai beautiful but all the stress, lack of sleep the night before and trying ride up made for like the best night of sleep I think I have had since being in Lesotho. No joke.
So fast forward, next day all goes well with the workshop, the party was fun and I get on the bus the next morning at 7:00am no problem. Well fast forward again like 3 hours and what do you know, problem. So apparently the bus did not want to work on Sunday. It broke down half way between Thaba Tseka and the next largest village on the road. Wonderful. It is like 11am, I’m stranded in literally what is the middle of nowhere, no transport in sight. So the driver fiddles around with this thing in the bus called “the engine” and in about an hour manages to get the bus going at a speedy 10km/hr. We all file back on and for the next two hours stomach the constant stopping, slow moving bus, getting off when the bus had to go up a hill and walking up the hill so the bus can make it up the hill. So once we are finally like 5km outside of the next village over the bus breaks down for good. It is not starting up again. So again I am stranded with like 75 of my closest Basotho friends, infuriated that the driver isn’t fixing the problem. Being American, and feeling I need to take some initiative to alter my future so I am not spending the night in a broken down bus in the middle of nowhere I start asking around to see what is going on and begin weighing my options. Do I wait for the new bus they say is coming to get us or hitchhike home? The minute I saw the shiny, new looking blue truck come over the mountain we just got over, my decision was made. I wasn’t waiting anymore, I was getting my bum home because it was already 2pm, I had like 3 hours left in the road ahead and it gets dark here at 5pm. So, being a true God send, the driver picked me up, was headed to Maseru and dropped me right where I was staying for the night. Whew, right? That was the only time here that I genuinely thought I might be in some serious trouble here. And I realized, I am so happy with where my site is and thank God I knew myself well enough to tell Peace Corps to put me in the low lands. I mean to have to do that often, I would probably have no hair left because it would all fall out because of anxiety. Enough said.
I guess through all of this I kind of realized a few things about Lesotho. While Lesotho, and I am referring to the cumulative whole that is Lesotho: the people, the culture, that which governs the weather of Lesotho and any other environmental and atmospheric influences from unexplainable sources, continues to shit on me time and time again, it, at the worst possible moment, the point at which I am ready to abandon all hope that I have stored in what was going on, Lesotho somehow redeems itself. Like on Sunday, when I was ready to give up and just sit on a rock and cry, somebody comes and saves my day. And, while Lesotho is constantly redeeming itself to me, it is infuriating because it keeps stringing me along like a bad relationship. It does so many bad things to me to hurt me, break me, hell even cause me to physically bleed and when things are going the worse it does something out of the blue to save my day. I hate it, because I am always thinking everything will work out and it does, but in the most hectic, worrisome way possible. Mostly I feel I should just not attempt things and save myself the worry but like in a bad relationship you just keep going back for more because of this fickle thing called hope. So this has led me to what I tell myself all the time, “it will work out because in Africa things magically work themselves out” but this is not a good thought of mind, this can get me into almost trouble, and it seems to happen way too often. Only Lesotho would do this to someone who has volunteered their time to try to improve it. Only Lesotho.
This brings me to my next thought: karma. I am always talking about how Lesotho is its own worst enemy in so many ways, but I’m starting to think that Lesotho just has a really bad case of karma. Going back to being a volunteer here, I have already volunteered a decent chunk of time, resources and money to this place to only wake up to the Basotho wanting more and more of me, whether it is money or sweets. I don’t get their mentality about this, you can’t ask people to give you things until you drain their resources because ultimately you are screwing yourself over. Another example is that okay so after having this horrible day on the bus and I get this hitch to Maseru, which was a great hitch (and I only think that other PCV’s would understand what a great hitch is like) and generally when you get a hitch you don’t pay it is just a nice thing people do and in return generally you just buy them a Coke or something like that. But no, this guy outright charges me a rate, and of course I take it because I don’t want to be stranded but I mean that, I think will earn you some bad karma. So where I am taking this is that Lesotho, pulling the shit that it does all the time, is earning itself some massive bad karma and really Lesotho should seriously consider trying to reverse it, because let’s face it, the country as a whole is not in great shape. Yeah, so I probably shouldn’t be passing judgment on a country as a whole, but I don’t know if my perceptions are that far off from the truth. Here’s to hoping that they can reverse their karma.
So with that experience under my belt and my lessons learned, I have no plans in the future of going to Thaba Tseka, however I do hope to get to the other highland districts, Qacha’s Nek and Mokhotlong, just sans nausea and break downs, if I am lucky. Other than that, things have slowed for awhile, which I am grateful for, giving me time to work on the library and get some other things done. So I hope everyone is enjoying their summer weather and please send some Lesotho’s way, it is freakin’ cold here! Take care all and salang hantle!
No comments:
Post a Comment