Today was good.

A student came to my office today to ask me about business. We went on to talk about other things such as American culture vs Basotho culture, HIV/AIDS and even religion. Those sound like pretty profound topics, but his English isn’t fluent so the conversation wasn’t that deep. How do you explain to someone who is raised in a very spiritual country and only has a primary school education why you don’t believe in God? I couldn’t, so I just let him tell me about his beliefs. This actually didn’t annoy me… as it usually does when some righteous ass tries to explain the evidence that proves God’ existence then becomes perplexed to learn that Persians and Arabs are not one in the same. On the contrary, I thought it was interesting to think about how Basotho were not always Christians, that sometime, long ago, Europeans brought Christianity to this part of the world, and now today they speak the word of God without question. Regardless of the topic, it was nice to have a conversation with a Masotho. On a normal day, after teaching in the mornings for 2 or 3 hours, I just hang out in my office without having much human contact outside of staff meetings, which is a different issue. This is my own fault I know, so I am going to try to chat more with my students.

I can’t gush enough about how much I love my neighbors. My neighbors right outside my front door are a married couple; the woman is the accountant my school, and the husband is an English teacher at a local High School. They are both the nicest people who make me feel at home when they have little neighborly conversations with me. I like when Ntate will call out Lintle (my Sesotho name, pronounced Dint-lay) for me to come out of my house so that he can ask me questions. These little nuances make me feel like I am a part of the community. My neighbors on the other side of me are the plumbing instructor at my school, his wife and their two children, one of which being the cutest little girl alive who yells out ‘Good Morning!” on my way to work every morning.

The Ntate who is the plumbing instructor has become a sort of ‘father-figure’ for me. He was even nice enough to let me borrow his clippers. That’s right people, I did it. I shaved my head! I have always wanted to, and what better time to do it than while in the Peace Corps. It’s an interesting cultural difference between America and Lesotho. I think that if I were to fly back to America right now with my shaved head, people would give me double takes and probably think that I’m super weird. But here, Basotho men find long hair unattractive. So in American I’m a freak, but in Lesotho I’m beautiful. My counterpart tells me that all the men will want to marry me now. Yikes. I’m sure you all are dying to see a picture… check out facebook.

Lastly, I just wanted to mention the ugly. All week the compound has been without running water, so I have to go fetch water from a tap like the village folk. Today at the tap I noticed two little boys were crouched on the ground bubbling with excitement. I peer over their shoulders to see what all the fuss about only to see they were dissecting a small bird with a kitchen knife. One of the little boys was holding the detached feet while he watched with amusement while the other boy cut the neck and started pulling out the organs one by one. Only 2 months ago I witnessed someone slaughter a chicken… this was 10 times more disturbing to watch. I had to stand there anxiously while waiting for my giant bucket to fill, unable to look away from the horror.