Phase III and Port Elizabeth

After three months of being at site, and two months of teaching, all my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers who I came with in October, reconvened in our original training village Makola, in the Berea district of Lesotho. It was just for a week, but we finally all got to see each other again. Luckily, modern technology and the wireless Edge network are able to keep us in relative constant contact, but it’s a completely different experience seeing each other back in our original environment.

We all came ready, packed for a week of village life with our host families, and then for another week of vacations off to Swaziland, Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth, South Africa. As I got off the bus stop and saw my training village, I started recognizing so many children and people. Sadly, after three months I forgot the difficult names I already didn’t know when I stayed there. Somehow I bumped into my host sister Mapeku, and immediately our faces lit up with excessive smiles. We got home, where my host mother ‘M’e Matabelo made a delicious meat meal for me. I’ve been cooking a lot (as you can tell by my FoodBlog/FaceBook) and I forgot how great it was to have meals prepared for you. Although the week was just more workshops, and informative lessons, it was hard to pay attention because of the looming ideas of what the first vacation would be like.

On the last night before leaving for vacation, my host mother made the most spectacular meal. She knew that I appreciated really fancy looking meals, and delicious ones at that. She made homemade bread for me, I reclaimed my title as Ntate Peanut Butter, and we just had a great night filled of food and talking. Living in Fobane, I live alone on the school compound. I have a neighbor, but she never became my formal host mother as other volunteers have it. It never really bothered me, I liked my independence and alone time, but somehow having that sense of unconditional mothering and love was a great refresher and lifted my mood intensely. Now I make it a habit to call my host mother at least once every other week. I call me real mom about once a week but we whatsapp about everyday.

I left on vacation with Laura, Mike, Kyle, and Mike’s girlfriend who is extremely cool and named Celena. We drove to Port Elizabeth in our rental car, and by we I mean Kyle drove the entire way. I was the navigator, and the iPhone maps app was quite handy. On our way to get our rental car, we found a Wal-Mart sort of store. It was insane; I almost forgot how much stuff could be found in the “real” world. Lesotho is just 4 hours away from this 1st world haven, but somehow it lacks all of the amazing infrastructure and booming economy that is South Africa. We arrived to Port Elizabeth, and our hostel was near a McDonalds. The first McDonald’s I had seen in 5 months. I don’t, or rarely eat McDonalds, but I desperately needed chicken nuggets, ice cream, crispy chicken sandwich, burgers, etc. I had a large part of the menu in that week. Its surprising that anything that is slightly American, we pounce on immediately, almost treasuring it as a sense of home, even if it was something we disliked before.

On vacation we went for a safari at Addo Elephant Park, and saw a variety of interesting animals. Zebras, Elephants, no lions unfortunately. The whole week in Port Elizabeth was rainy, but it allowed us to just relax and be American, something that surprisingly takes a lot of energy to suppress while living in village. I forgot the comforts of just seeing a movie in theatres, walking around a mall, speaking English everywhere, and being allowed to walk outside at night. The biggest change from my village pace of life was the convenience and diversity of food that we ate in Port Elizabeth was excellent.

It was my job, as expected, to find all the delicious food places during vacation. We had intensely amazing Mexican food, where I order a very spicy, cheesy, shredded beef chimichanga. The meat was more tender than Chipotle’s famous Baracoa. In a very nice grocery store, I even found pecan pies, donuts, and kinder chocolates. A buffet that served Chinese food, pizzas, pastas, steaks, ice cream, waffles, etc. We had some of the freshest sushi known to mankind, and that is where I probably dropped the most cash. Our final meal, I enjoyed a delicious, large portion of pork belly steak with sweet potato gnocchi. Appetizer was steak tartar and dessert was a fried chocolate Lindt truffle. It had been about 5 months at that point since I had seen an actual menu with options of things.

At the hotels in Lesotho, the menu is pretty bare, and usually many things are absent. You can get your standard grilled cheese with tomato, or bacon, a burger (substandard) and pizza (no tomato sauce). They have had banana splits on the menus probably for years before I arrived, but never served it.

It is very unimaginable to see how Lesotho, being landlocked in South Africa, was unable to ascertain any of these modern comforts, conveniences, and benefits. But when I returned from vacation, I simply relaxed at my home, and realized why everyone is still so happy here. Because life is simple, it’s easy, and there really aren’t too many things to worry you. Basotho are happy with eating papa and cabbage, they are happy being able to know everyone in their hometown, and I also am happy with where I am. Although, where I am does desperately need at least one sushi restaurant.