two items relating to previous travels

1. I found these old blobs I wrote after leaving Lesotho. I guess I have been very piecemeal about sharing stories from abroad. So here's some stuff, since the original purpose of this blog was to streamline the whole anecdote-sharing process.

"M. complains in Malube-lube that there is too much electricity in this, the 'remote' part of Lesotho. He wants to start a lodge somewhere you cannot see even 5 tiny lights in the distance. The electricity here is solar. Kids charge their phones at shops. A girl asks me to buy her a phone, but I cannot(?). Wherever you travel, these days, people (who are not hungry) tell you not to give handouts. To reduce the culture of begging, we say. 'A hand out is not a hand up.'

...What is a Lesotho? Remoteness, "Real Africa," proof that you care enough to get close to people? We say, look at this cute village with cute animals and cute candles and etc, etc. Meanwhile, they want electricity and a dam is coming to provide that. And money (mishandled) from South Africa for the water. 20% of Durban now, and hopefully 80% of all S.Africa by 20__. I want to research what it would do to the ecology. Rudy insists nothing but good will come of it for all parties. Alexandre, who says he will be the prime minister some day (or maybe a priest, or maybe a teacher), wants to bring farm machinery to the mountainside cornfields, and feed the people. He asks about America, and when I say Madison is okay but not great, he says, 'You have roads and lights.' What I mean is, Lesotho does not want to be cute."

2. The best single quote from the book that kept me company in that particular two weeks of my life.

"The woman's figure is naked from the waist up, moving forward, just about to break free of focus. The tanned body willful, laughing, because she has woven the roots of two small muddy plants into her blond hair, so it appears as if mullein and rosemary are growing out of the plastered earth on her head. There's a wet muck across her smiling mouth, and on her lean shoulders and arms. It is as if her energy and sensuality have been drawn from the air surrounding her. We look at this picture and imagine also the person with the camera, walking backwards at the same pace as the subject so that she remains in focus. We can guess the relationship between the unseen photographer and this laughing, muddy woman, weeds around the fingers of her hand gesturing to him in intimate argumentative pleasure. This person who is barely Anna." - Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero