I want to go to there

The PR director for the International Crane Foundation is going to South Africa for 18 months to manage a wildlife reserve as a volunteer. She knows I've been there, and we were talking about where exactly she'd be. It felt strange - beautiful - spitting out old place names I haven't said in more than a year. "Oh, by the Drakensberg?" Those are the mountains that inspired Tolkien's Misty Mountains. "The Giant's Castle? Howick? Yes, I know the place." Lesotho is close by. I miss Lesotho with an odd ferocity for a place I only spent a few days in. I question my motives for loving it - if I didn't hate the words, I would probably unthinkingly call it "remote," "exotic," or even worse, "cute." But also, "very poor," but also, "little crime, little rape, overbrimming with trust," which meant that after 6 months in Cape Town, the contrast was both astounding and welcome. At the end of our talk, A says, "My door is open, if you're ever up that way and need a place to stay."

So the rest of today I've been daydreaming about finding someone who will pay me to go back and write about efforts to save the wattled cranes amid the government's efforts to redistribute land to people who were cheated of it during apartheid. Poverty of persons versus poverty of cranepersons. Someone with more credentials may already be writing that story, though. And I think I'd probably need more than a 2-week paid vacation (which I haven't even earned yet) to do it.

I've been hit with lots of random South Africa thoughts lately. It's not at all languishing, but I keep having dreams that I'm back in Cape Town, in the newsroom or loitering with other intern types at our favorite haunts. Or weird flashes of memory in the middle of conversations or interviews or drives.

I also started reading through my paper journal from that time period again, realized I didn't record anywhere near enough while I was there, except for about a week in March when I hopped on a bus and explored beyond and dutifully filled pages and pages and pages.

E.g.

March 1, 2009: Morning in Lesotho is lovely. Contrasting light. That one tongue of green extending out into nowhere...in Lesotho, it looks always like it will rain, but then does not. "It is raining that side," they say, nodding toward the next valley over. Wealth is kept in animals. Flies on the door. Scrawny pups. Aranda blankets, the fashion name in blankets.

Sick again, sniffly nose and flush. Downing rooibos. J says, "Your accent is total good." Dumela. "You are total young." And I walk through villages in a way that makes me NOT followed by dozens of kids looking for handouts. Like I know where I am going. Galloped on horse through fields and plains. Fast! Fear, and breathing heavily. But I see how it could be easy. Tea with no sugar/milk is "like medicine," he says. Dinner is peas and full-fat milk. Lunch is porridge and milk. Of course I am hungry now. Shooting star in the lonely sky left of the Milky Way and its dust cloud. Bad sputtering candles from China. Alexandre will be Prime Minister of Lesotho and fix hunger by asking the World Food Project for more food. Or a priest. Why do men in the United States always get new wives? he asks.

March 2, 2009: J & I chat in the kitchen while candles sputter and fizz last night. I like the sound. Earlier, A asks why Bush fights Iraq. And are Saddam's wife and small ones death? I do not know, I reply, surprised at my ignorance. And what are the exports of my country? The kids are in school today, others lie in the grass talking slowly. No hurry. Lots of time. Horses neigh in the background. The cat follows me. I read men's magazines. Orange and black fuzzy birds, and one black with a tail draping like coattails.

Pap and beans for lunch. Then a walk? If I eat pap long enough, any other food will seem like a treat...It is unusually nice for March. Male donkeys braying and braying. The maps here still say, "Orange Free State."

But mostly:

March 8, 2009: The Southeaster makes a rare March appearance to say goodbye to me. Grit in my eyes, not daring to wear a dress, almost falling into traffic - this is my Cape Town.

July 10, 2009: Memories that hit you. The newsroom. Tony's gawky tall shamble, often seeming to be looking down. Craig, hands in pockets. He could almost be kicking a can. Tash always with a mug of something. How much more attention could be paid just to people walking?

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

I have this crazy idea that maybe I could move to Lesotho and start an NGO

I met Pinki near Molumong when I was walking home from buying a can of beans. She was doing her schoolwork in front of her family's rondavel. She asked me to write down her address and send her a letter when I left. & I did. I also mailed photos to several people (there's not much internet access in the Kingdom) who had asked me for copies of portraits I had taken. But Pinki sent me a reply!

e.g.

"There at Lesotho is winter now. My mother is planting SunFlower around her house."

"There is a flower here called Red Rose. It look like this (picture). If you want to eat it can eat it. Can you please send me a tulip for me."

"My father is die so my family are sad. Could you please help me to give me money and phone only I am going to give you many Flower and that is called climber my mother is planting it."

"come to Lesotho I am going to give you many flower." (picture of celery plant)

"have a nice day & month & year. Be Well."

I was in Lesotho for fewer than five days and I am determined I will go back for longer at some point.