Camptown Visit

Today was our first visit to our local "Camptown". To date, I still do not really understand what is understood by the word "Camptown" other than what I have experienced today. The six of us in Language Class stood by the roadside for about 20' waiting for a "bese" to take us to TY - in vain. At long last a "bese" drove by and saw all of us (white) standing by the roadside and he turned his bus around and we all loaded in. It was a perfect count and I am sure that he was happy to have filled his "bese" and be on his way.

We arrived in TY and were told to go right to Vodacom to fix/buy phones. I had decided that I did not want to wait for the others to fix/purchase their phones since mine was simply a question of making the data come to the fore (their issue, not mine). But it turned out that there were very few phones to purchase and even fewer to fix so we literally were wasting our time at Vodacom. Me' insisted that we stay together as a group. That made me a bit irritated as I had quite a few errands to run and had not anticipated that we had to stay together as a group - especially with a Me' who was making decisions for us. But I let it go and followed as directed. I even added a bit of laughter and spice to the situation when I brought out my language manual and started practicing my Sesotho.

We all headed to Pep where we bought all of our little toiletries and the like. It felt really good to scratch these off of the list. I will say that those of us who did, in fact, buy all of our little needs had pulled money from our US bank accounts as the PC had not come close to providing us with the cash that we needed to purchase airtime as well as washrags, mirrors, ear cleaners, etc.

This is the first time that the PC has required phones for PCVs due to the unrest in Maseru, but not surprisingly, there were only 4 phones available for purchase, so most of our Vodacom time was a wash. Soon thereafter Me' received a phone call. We could not understand a word of what transpired but Me' instructed me to take over. It was pretty clear that she had been invited to join the other BoMe' and had wanted to venture off in her own right. As soon as she was gone, we dispersed as anticipated: those who wanted to go for pizza ventured off, and I - who was salivating for a salad - headed right to the BMI (Blue Mountain Inn) to eat and to check on the Internet services. Little did I expect to run in to four of the current PCV's in the bar. This is where they hide and do their Internet work. It felt sort of special to know that I was the first to penetrate their space. I ventured around, stopped at the Internet cafe to post my first FB post since I have been here and made sure that I was able to communicate well with those back home.

I did not want to forget to pick up Me's allergy medicine and I searched high and low for a ball for Mulifi (not easy to find, but I finally found one). I was alone and started to venture back to the task rank when I ran into a couple of colleagues. Jen decided to join me to go buy a bottle of wine for our host PCV and we headed right to the taxi rank as instructed. No one was there. We waited and waited and finally I called M'e. For the life of me, I could NOT understand her. Finally Keegan came on and told us to come back to BMI (that was a hell of a walk). En route we ran into Betty who was also looking to buy a bottle of wine for her host PCV. We finally made it back to the BMI where we found all of our colleagues savoring libations. We should have known. After enjoying my first ever Maluti beer, we all crammed in a "bese" to head back home. Dinner with my favorite Lesotho family consisted of Bread and Beans (thank God I had a salad at lunch), and I was told to settle into bed, which I always do with delight.