Linn’s Year Ablog

This week I’ll be headed to the small land-locked country of Lesotho to visit a couple newspapers and stay with two Grinnell friends for Thanksgiving. Bryan and Jenny are doing a year-long Grinnell-funded teaching program, called GrinnellCorp, at a girls school in a small town called St. Rodrigue, way up in the mountains. (Here are some photos from a Grinnell faculty trip there a few years back.) I really can’t wait to see friends and have a breather from the big city.

Lesotho's shiny new flag.

Fun fact: Lesotho just got a new flag in 2006. According to the BBC, the government wanted to replace the shield-spear-club insignia of the old flag with a traditional hat in order to represent the country’s “peace with itself and its neighbors.” Now there’s a thought!

(More importantly, this could also help Lesotho’s grade here.)

My travel plans: Leaving Joburg Monday by train to Bloemfontein, where I’ll stay overnight. Then on to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, on Tuesday, where I’ll meet my friendly guides. They’ll be the first Americans my age that I will have seen in four months. Back in early December sometime, probably Monday or Tuesday — (Happy Birthday, Dad!).

* * *

Update, 7 December

Got back to Joburg on Wednesday, after a wonderful time seeing Grinnellians in beautiful, beautiful Lesotho. It was a week of recuperating relaxation, good conversation, lots of yummy food and enough exhilarating exercise to work it off.

A village like the one where GrinnellCorps Lesotho is based -- and bright with spring greenery and blue skies, just like it is now!

And it couldn’t have come at a better time. It had been a couple months since I’d last left Joburg, and living and working here full-time was leaving me disheartened and cranky. I felt like I wasn’t being adequately adventurous, I think, and being robbed three times in three weeks didn’t help my mood either.

Anyhow, a week among friends, close to nature and away from rich-world, urban amenities — electricity, drinkable water, paved roads — left me reminded of why I’m here, resolved to travel more and rejuvenated in spirit. Bryan, Jenny and I talked politics and travel tips over candlelight, and swapped Grinnell gossip over crank-up radio tunes and tacos (yes, real tacos!). We fried up a grasshopper one morning, drank a hilltop beer one evening at sunset and killed a chicken in the yard on Thanksgiving.

All in all, it was a great week, and I knew it would be from the first moment.

“Hey you!” I shout.
“Linn?! You made it.” [Hug] ”How was the trip?”
“Oh, fine. A day and a half of buses can make you go nuts, but people were super-helpful.”
“Well, feel free to go and chill at our house.” [Pause] “Oh, but you can’t take a bath, ’cause there’s a chicken tied up in the tub.” [Chuckle]