Lesotho

SA Roadlink buses keep their windows spotlessly clean like miracle sunglasses. This way, for the two hours of sun -light and -set before the long overnight bus saga commences, you can press your nose or lens up against it and watch a million kinds of countryside go by. Farmland broken by lines of big oaky trees. Huge sweeps of sandy grass and huge sweeps of rock. Mountains, half lush and half desert, cutting up to surround you on all sides until they cut off your light. Miles stretching of tiny tin rooms, on little dirt lanes and lots all packed together, thousands upon thousands of little fires but not a single sign of people, or even animals. And finally just Orion the Hunter to the North, hanging upside by his feet in the sky. Rattling along in the bus, I have a dream where all of the stuff is falling out of his pockets – rocks, keys, money, his cell phone – and he keeps having to reach out and root around for them in the mountains below. How frustrating.
The bus gets to Bloemfontein when it’s still dark out, so I sit in the bus station coffee shop surrounded by a million different kinds of dried fruit. At sunlight I make my way to the minibus rank, pay my $7, sit outside against the wall and chew a granola bar hoping that no one of the male persuasion will talk to me. Africa doesn’t teach you much in the way of liking men, regardless of background or ethnicity. There are plenty who are decent and nice people, but most have a creepy malevolence to them of the same spirit as most of the damage they’ve wrought throughout history. I’ve never felt threatened, but the absolute supremacy of their wills over everyone’s suffering steels you in ways.
Minibus leaves at several hours long-last, after we wait for every last seat to fill up. Then I sleep to the border of Lesotho, bashing my head against the window as I go. At the border we get stamped and restamped and I take a supremely deteriorated taxi to the Maseru minibus rank, find the bus to Malealea, wait again. At the minibus rank, the old women and edgy young men sell: bananas, apples, plums, pears, Simba chips, suckers, hair picks, knives, coloured powders in baggies, tiny seeds in baggies, snack bars, rolls, cell phone minutes, earrings, Hannah Montana mirrors, nair clippers, and a lot of other things. Men tend to sell earrings and phone cards and chips, because these things are sold on boards or from boxes. Women sell the rest of the things from head baskets. They come to the windows of each of the minibuses over and over. Lunch was: one banana, two cookies, day-old fries, a granola bar.
The turnoff to Malealea was marked by a shepherd standing in the flow of his sheep, who were gently surging over the top of a hill gnawed open and red by the rain. Now we were on dirt. We ramble-bambled over with our questionable brakes, up and down a big hill in the trickle rain until I was delivered and dumped at the gate. Done. Checked in, into my own little room with my own little bathroom with it’s own magical contraption: if you wanted hot water, it turned itself on in a roar and whoosh-boiled your water right as it fell on you. Infinite hot water, as much as there was rain water and there was lots. In a village with no electricity and likely little running water – imagine that!
Next day we paddled down over the lolling hills past some fields and some sheeps and a cow or so and little huts perched along a trail on their own little hill. Down down until we reached the gorge, then back forth on the rock to see some San paintings. These were fairly well preserved, with their legs and limbs still attached, and some animals wandering around among them including fish, lions, and miscellaneous antelope. Then we went back up. Lunch was a delicious spaghetti bolegaise, and they served dessert. And it rained rained drizzled on the grass and peacock and little huts that were all about.
Next day, back to Bloemfontein, next day to Jo-burg and Gaborone. To school.