September 28th 2002

Well, my vacation away from work is on. It really is a time to do some painting at the house, work in the garden, go to a cultural fest, and then attend a conference. After I get back I am planning on going back to work, hopefully the electricity will be back on and reliable.

I know I told everyone about how I have electricity but let me now revise that to say that I sometime have electricity, which to me is still wonderful. It is surprising just how important some electricity is some time but not all the time. So I guess the week started out on Sunday, which for some reason I am not sure the electricity went out for the whole city, and maybe even more from in the middle of the night till that afternoon. On Monday I went to the school knowing that the electricity was on at my house only to find the breaker box was messed up, no class that morning. By that afternoon one of the students eager to learn (or really just play solitaire) had somehow flipped many of the breakers down so much of the building did not have electricity but the computer room did so we had class that afternoon. Tuesday morning right before class the electricity for the school compound went out and was out till Wednesday morning. I had class Wednesday morning and that after noon! Wednesday night a storm came in. No power for the whole city till about 7:00 PM that night. Friday while the electricity came and went I did not have class because apparently some people were planning on starting the holiday early (why not?). I am not supposed if the weeklong holiday even last longer than that too. Actually I am going to count on it, because chances are it does. I can tell you though that the phones are seemingly stable here. Well the landlines more so than the cell phones. Apparently though up until about three years ago the phones were basically just as bad as the electricity if not worse.

So just to reinforce things that is kind of the attitude here, let’s knock off early and show up late. Seriously, I was even talking to someone the other day and they said something to the extent,” There is a meeting of all the school officials for Lesotho in the capital city. I am planning on showing up around on time because I want to sit around and socialize with my friends before anything really gets started” It really is amazing and no one here really seems to mind that someone says “I will be by on Tuesday to do the work you requested but does not show up until Friday” That around here is still keeping your word. But while it is okay to be late I still have yet to find someone to be so casual with being early which to some extent is fine I guess. Meetings here kind of are assigned to a day and not a time. One of my friends holding a meeting on a certain day that he was told to be at after being there a while and a few people showed up and he asked one something like, “when does the meeting start?” And the Basotho kind of looked back at him like he was silly replying like he should know, “when everyone gets here.” So, yeah, that is how it kind of is here.

My garden is coming along. I have planted quite of few seedlings and am wanting them to grow. The sun though has been scorching them during the day and I feel like a day of clouds could be absolutely wonderful for them. I have planted tomatoes and pepper seedlings, two kinds of lettuce, American style spinach, carrots ( I don't think they will grow), onions and moroho. Other things I have growing from a resident before me is parsley, green beans, moroho (which is a mixture of some kind of spinach but not American spinach, Swiss chard, radish, and cabbage), an apricot tree and some kind of berries which no one really knows the English for so I guess I have to wait and see. Supposedly I have a couple of pumpkins growing in one of my seedbeds according to the night watchman. I am planning though on maybe even growing some strawberries, salad onions, corn, and probably planting some more stuff before planting season is up.

I have been having troubles so hard with my computer. Maybe I will fix it but I am not sure what the problem is. I am not going to bore you with details but I may or may not have pictures to email after the cultural fest but it is my plan to at least try. So maybe next week you can see some Africans in traditional African dress (or in some cases not in it) hehe.

jeff