As soon as I
started my countdown I started making a list of things I need to do when I go
back to America. I don’t actually plan
on doing all these things but it definitely helps motivate me. To share a few:
-Eat Mexican
food
-Eat Italian
food
-Eat Cicero’s
Pizza (a Bay Area thing)
-Make an apple
pie (yes, I can do that now)
-Eat Cheesecake
(can you see a pattern?)
-Eat Coldstones
Ice cream
And to humor my
readers I decided to make two more lists:
Things I will miss about Lesotho:
Outhouses: Yes,
that’s right, I will miss outhouses.
Yes, sometimes they are smelly, and sometimes they have spiders, but
they are so hassle free! There’s
something about doing your business and not worrying about the smell, or
flushing twice, or it clogging up. And
where in a flushing toilet you can’t dispose certain items, an outhouse doesn’t
discriminate.
Blankets: I can
never use a blanket with out thinking of Lesotho. And I will genuinely miss wrapping one around
my waist and going about my day. I
suggest you try it for yourself. The Basotho women say that blankets keep your ovaries warm...or if you are pregnant your baby.
Getting little
kids to do all your errands: I’m a lazy person and in Lesotho I can do just
that. If I don’t want to leave my house
to buy something from the shop I could send a kid to do it. If I don’t feel like leaving my chair in the
staff room to make tea, I call a student to do it. If I don’t feel like going to class I could
ask a student to write the notes on the board for me (I don’t do this very
often). Yes, I will miss getting someone
to do things for me.
Things I will not miss about Lesotho
The question:
how long does it take to drive to America?
Where do I start
with this one…literacy levels in Lesotho can be quite appalling sometimes. I have been asked this question many times
and this is how the conversation proceeds:
Me: um…well…it took me 16 hours on an
airplane to get here.
Mosotho: WOW!
But how long would it take if we drive?
Me: That’s not possible since there is an
ocean…uh, a lot of water, separating Lesotho from America. You can’t drive over it, you have to fly.
Mosotho: But how long would it take IF we
did drive?
Me: *few moments of frustrated silence*
Maybe a few days. Let’s say 5 days.
Rulers: Basotho
are some of the neatest people I have met.
Let me correct that: THE neatest people I have met. They clean their houses everyday, move every
piece of furniture to get every speck of dust, polish their floors, weed their
lawns, sweep the dirt outside, to create a clean environment. And with the limited technology they use (no
vacuum cleaners or lawn mowers) it takes a lot of time. This neatness translates in to the
classroom. The students will only use
blue or black pen and if they start writing in blue they refuse to switch
colors if their pen runs out. Drawings
are always done in pencil. After much
effort my students will write notes in pencil if their pen is not working but
only after asking me. And they insist on
using rulers to make sure every line is perfectly straight. This can get very annoying, waiting for 40
students to draw straight lines and since not everyone has a ruler waiting for
half the class to finish with theirs and pass it to the other half of the class to begin
drawing their lines. I was teaching
electronic configuration (how electrons are arranged in an atom) for my Form As
and they insisted on using a compass to draw perfect circles for each orbital. That class took forever.
Papa: I’ve
talked about this carbohydrate before and I will not miss eating this everyday. But on that note…
Maize: I’m a bit
tired of this plant, growing everywhere, eaten by everyone. And I thought the US was being taken over by
corn.
Pumping water:
As great as my arms are starting to look it’s a pain to have to plan ahead with
your water. I can’t just decide to take
a bath because I need to make sure I have enough water in my bucket, and I need
to wait half an hour for the water to heat up.
I am very much looking forward to opening a faucet and for water to just
come out.
