the b side

There's a list of things that I've sort of... omitted from the stories I tell here, in emails, in letters, and over the phone. I do this for only one reason: to keep mom and dad from freaking out. But I have less than 2 weeks remaining now and there are some truly fabulous gems that I feel possess entertaining qualities. Mostly they're funny and well-worth sharing for a smile. So here they are - the tales that the parents don't want to hear (you can stop now and never be the wiser, mama).

There have been two coup attempts in Lesotho. One when we first arrived in June of 2007 and one at the end of April this year. Neither were particularly serious or successful but I'm still quite thankful that Lesotho never makes national news. I can hear mom's voice on the phone if she'd seen the phrase "civil unrest in Lesotho" on the evening news. Good thing we don't rank with CNN. When we arrived in Maseru at 3am that very first night, we were greeted by army men with automatic weapons asking our bus driver why we were out past the 6 pm curfew. I myself had a similar thought, but it went more like: "What the #$%* am I doing here?" A few weeks later, a PC vehicle was stopped at road block and the car hijacked by ex-military men with guns. No injuries to any of the staff in the car, but all were rightfully shaken up. The more recent upheaval was less stressful, though for the Prime Minister who was the target of an assassination attempt probably less so. Still, we were at our COS conference in Maseru at the time and couldn't help noting the pattern - political unrest greets us as we arrive with 21 PCT's and also makes an appearance at our farewell when we're down to 15 PCV's. Does calling that funny solidify my lack of sensitivity?

More recently, I was heading up to Semongkong for my final trip to my second-favorite place in Lesotho. I found a lift up with Malineo as she was transporting 6 school kids for a field trip that weekend (6 school kids, one nun to supervise, a woman from the wool/mohair group to sell items at the lodge, a PCV... and a friggin' pigeon in a peach tree). So the three women smooshed into the cab and the lowly 6 children and Casey into the bed of the truck. It's a pickup from the 1980's but it has a cap on the bed making it perfectly legal as far as PC rules are concerned. Anyway, as we came into Semongkong we topped our last peak and started down. I was facing backwards but noticed an increasing worrisome speed followed by rocks flying out from our tires and a veering that made the cliff to our left rather precarious. (Ask me how many guardrails there are in Lesotho and I'll laugh in your face). Our brakes had gone out - which I only confirmed after we reached the bottom of the mountain (safely) and the boys had stopped screaming and making the sign of the cross over their hearts. You know it's bad when adolescent Basotho boys are praying.

There was the time that 4 boys, aged 16-19 (and heights all under 5"7'), decided Amber and I looked like an easy way to make some cash walking down a busy 4-lane road in Maseru. Amber is 6" even and I'm not exactly petite, so why they thought we appeared vulnerable is beyond me. Also, there was no way I was letting go of my bag when one demanded and grabbed it - my THIRD camera in Lesotho - which I'd owned for less than 3 weeks - was inside along with my passport and some cash. The best part of this story isn't me kicking said attacker in the kneecap (I couldn't punch else I'd lose my grip on said precious bag) or that we were less than 500 meters from the American Embassy (this would prove to be very unfortunate for the boys), but that when the short lad went at Amber she grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, yelling: "What are you doing?!?!" Michigan girls are not easy score, boys. We did far more damage than they could have anticipated, right up to chasing them down and turning them over to the Embassy guards.

(You can stop reading at any time, mama.)

There's the outbreak of rabies in Semongkong dogs, the two times in SA that the group I was with was almost robbed but safety in numbers prevailed (again), the cop in Mozambique that we bribed to escape a traffic violation (turned out he was a fake cop after all that -- so irritating), that time in Joburg I flagged down a complete stranger and begged him to take me to my GRE testing site for any price after searching for the building for over an hour on foot, the first case of MDR-TB that appeared in Lesotho last year, the transportation riots a year ago that left a bus driver dead, and the day hike I took that landed me near a boys initiation school (or so I thought) leaving me no choice but to jump off a steep - though not vertical - cliff and run faster than I knew possible down a mountain until I felt safe enough to turn around... and realize I was mistaken. If you knew why crossing paths with such a group was so bad, you'd understand why I tumbled down a mountain to avoid one. And you'd tell me never to hike alone in Lesotho.

Of course, the journey isn't over just yet -- so maybe I'll have even more stories for mom and dad when they pick me up at the airport. Sparing any encounters with drunk bus drivers who drive off the road or sad tsotsi's with dull knives.