An Errand Day

Since this week was a little nuts and I haven't been out of the village for a couple of weeks, I decided to go to town and take care of a few errands today. I didn't really wake up in the mood to go, but had to go to the post office to mail off my final letters to THE Schilling Stallions, so I knew a walk would put me in a better head space. I walked down the tar road (usually I take a back way to avoid all the taxi traffic) to see if I could catch a taxi, but nothing came along. It was a beautiful morning and not many people were out and about... it was actually pretty quiet. In the distance I could hear the same brass band at the funeral... and even passed the procession on its way back from the graveyard.
When I was just past the tuck shop where everyone gathers to watch the football (soccer) games on TV, I met Mike. He was walking a little slow due to a limp, so I caught up to him, and we exchanged greetings and comments about how HOT it was even though it was early in the morning AND winter. After a minute or so a full conversation followed. He was with the Department of Housing and was coming out to Metz to walk to all the RDP (Reconstruction and Development Programme) houses being built. He wanted to make sure all the people who were responsible for the construction had shown up. It was a nice conversation. We didn't walk long before a friend of his pulled over and offered us a ride to the post office.
Mike and Richard, our driver. I told them that they shared their names with two very cool guys I know back in The States... my uncle and my dad.
On my way back to my room to pick up some last minute things for town, I ran into one of the guys working on the tar road. He wanted to know who he could talk to about a family of orphans living in Bismark, the next village over. I pointed him to Maruleng CHBC and Kodumela... told him someone at either place would know what to do... and thanked him for looking out for people in his village.
When I was in my room, I talked to Mabu, the shepherd, about the rat that has been in my room. YES YOU READ THAT RIGHT.... A RAT. For the past week a rat has been coming in a hole between my roof and the wall, crawling across one of the beams (directly above my bed!) that holds up my roof, and then escaping into a hole between his room and mine. I thought I could live with it... but then thought better. I REALLY don't want to get some paralyzing disease or have it fall on me during the night... so I was going to invest in poison. Mabu speaks very little English, I speak very little Sotho, we can all guess how the conversation went.. I used a lot of hand gestures, made my fingers into ears and showed my teeth... made a pretend tail... and finally just drew him a picture.
"Ah! Legotlo (Lay-ho-klo)! Yes, yes Mmapula!"