Thaba Tseka redux

It’s now the 26th and we’re ensconced in a very nice hotel in Johannesburg.  We’ve discovered over the last 7 weeks that every now and again we need a “down” day, a day when we just don’t do anything, and today’s such a day.  One very small silver lining in the black cloud of the global financial situation is that very nice, normally very expensive, hotels have cut their prices dramatically.   We paid half price at the Peninsula Hotel in Bangkok and we’re paying half price here at the Grace Hotel.  The hotel has a very good restaurant (springbok and king clip for dinner last night), good air conditioning and fast wireless Internet connectivity.  I’m in heaven!  We’ll get back to exploring South Africa tomorrow, but today I’m not going to go too far.  Ralph went out for a little walk so he could take our dirty clothes to a laundry, but I expect he’ll be back momentarily for an afternoon of napping, reading, and maybe even going to a movie.

Ralph did a great job of recounting our visit to Thaba Tseka.  My perspective on the visit to Lesotho is a little different, of course, so, at the risk of boring you all, I would like to add a few random thoughts.

The Beauty

Our visit was right at the end of the summer, after a reasonable season of rain, so Lesotho looked stunning.  I had forgotten how beautiful it can be.  (Reminder: Double-click on any of the photos to make them larger.)

The roads

Though vastly improved over their conditions 40 years ago, the roads are still a challenge, as evidenced by some of the traffic signs we encountered.

Where planet have I come to?

Most of all, I was reminded of how disorienting it was to arrive in Thaba Tseka and then live there for 3+ years.  Many things have changed, of course, but this feeling that you’ve traveled to the end of the earth was just as present as it was in 1969.  First of all, you bump your way for 30 miles over a treacherous dirt road.  You don’t see anyone during that time except for the occasional herd boy, dressed in a blanket, ski mask, and gum boots, watching a flock of cows or sheep.  When you finally arrive, you’re in a place where everything, as my dad used to say, is just “half a bubble off”. 

 

Everyone is speaking in a code (Sesotho) that you don’t understand.  And they often speak in a tone of voice that makes you think they’re just about to start bashing each other.  They’re not unhappy; that’s just how they discuss something.  There’s no Basotho cultural taboo about staring at someone, so you’re constantly being stared at.  What’s the right response?  Do I say “Hello” or just go about my business?

You don’t understand any of the “systems”.  A good example of this was figuring out how to get coffee at the hotel.  The first morning I asked if there was coffee and the server just flicked her finger on the little packets of instant coffee on the table.  When I asked about hot water she pointed to an electric kettle that was on the floor behind a table in the dining room.  The next morning, there were no packets on the table and no kettle on the floor.  So I had to ask again.  The server just pointed to a little anteroom off the dining room where there were cups, a stack of little instant coffee packets, and a large cauldron of hot water.  I’m sure if we’d been there a third morning, there would have been a third “system” for getting coffee.

The food is strange and most of the time not very good.  (Ask Ralph how he likes papa, the staple of the Basotho diet, or steamed whole wheat bread, which was served every morning at breakfast.)  The water is suspect so you drink bottled water.  The altitude causes you to be dizzy any time you bend over and then straighten up or to be breathless when you walk up a slight incline.  The sun is so intense you can feel it burning your skin, but then you walk into the shadow and you’re cold.

Nothing really works 100% the way you expect it to.  For example, there was, as Ralph mentioned, a hotel in Thaba Tseka.  The room was, in fact, cleaner and in better repair than what I was expecting.  On the other hand, as we were unpacking a little bit, I discovered two fish filets on a plate that  had been left in a cabinet by a previous guest.  The hotel was built on a slope (of course) so there were stairs in the hall down the center of the building.  There were a total of six steps in two ranks and not one step was the same height or width as any of the others.

Everything is like that.  Unconsciously, your mind says, “Oh yeah.  I’ve experienced this before.  I know what this is about” and then bang!  Something is just a little wrong, or at least unexpected, and you’re left a little more disoriented.  This sort of thing happens, of course, any time you’re in a different culture.  I definitely felt a sort of culture shock when Ralph and I went to Lake Texoma with Robert and his family last July.  The mountains of Lesotho, though, are so different that the sense of disorientation is really profound.  Ralph said he felt like he had left Earth and was on another planet.  I have to say that, in retrospect, that’s pretty much how I felt the whole time I lived in Thaba Tseka.

Progress

I’m going to be a lot more critical in the future of academic blow-hards who lament the “Westernization” of the developing world.  It certainly appeared to me that the people of Thaba Tseka are a lot better off today than they were 40 years ago, and that’s mainly due to the fact that the road is better and there is electricity.  I am certain that if the HIV epidemic had hit in the 1970’s that most of the population of the highlands of Lesotho would have been wiped out.  The situation is bad now, to be sure.  But today there are five doctors at Paray Hospital.  Sister Annunciata said the hospital has all the antiviral med’s that it needs to care for the AIDS caseload.  People can, and are, being educated and cared for.  None of this would have been possible 40 years ago.  Building materials are cheaper (because the cost of transport has dropped so much) so people can afford to build more permanent houses.  There is more and better food available and the price of this, too, has dropped because there’s more than one place to buy a can of beans.  Which brings me to….

Shop keepers

I think the Chinese government must have exiled the worst of the surly, nasty, bad-tempered, ill-mannered Chinese to Lesotho, where they all set up shops.  At least half the small markets I went into were staffed by Chinese people who, clearly, wanted to be anywhere else in the world.  They were the nastiest people I’ve ever encountered behind a counter or desk except for the people at the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Gratification

I am so grateful that I got to go back to Thaba Tseka.  As I was talking to Ntate Phuti, the assistant principal of Paray High School, I literally got goose bumps as he told me what had become of some of my students.  Three years of my life really did make a difference to some of those kids.  My only regret is that I could not remember more of their names so that I might have learned more.