lesotho

When Lerato told me that someone in Tsoeneng had a television where I could watch the semifinal between Germany and Spain I jumped at the chance. The idea of watching two European powers play World Cup soccer from an African village that had no electricity was irresistible.

I had experienced World Cup 2010 matches in a variety of places already. The opening match I spent surrounded by the 85,000 other lucky people in Johannesburg's Soccer City stadium. I watched Brazil lose to Holland from the stands of Port Elizabeth's cricket stadium, which had been set up with a giant screen down on the pitch. I listened to one Japan game on a Sesotho radio station while driving. I remember the announcer saying so many times two of the player's names as they passed each other the ball: Honda, Endo, Honda, Endo.

But watching a World Cup game in Tsoeneng, the village where I once lived, promised to be a very different viewing environment. I arrived at dusk and then it got dark, really dark. I was shocked by the blackness of the night that enveloped us. How quickly I had forgot what it is like to live where there is no electricity, especially during the weeks when there is no moon. I knew that there were a hundred village houses around me, but I no longer saw them; I couldn't even see my feet. Lerato lit the ground with his cellphone, and I followed closely behind as we walked up the hill to his neighbor's house, to the television.

In South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper the Minister of Finance, Pravin Gordhan, said that the World Cup had created 130,000 jobs. I'm not sure if that figure includes new sex workers, but the influx of mostly male foreign tourists usually means increased demand for prostitutes.

Across the border in Lesotho, however, ladies of the night seem more desperate for work than usual. One crocodile, as they're locally nicknamed, pulled some hard marketing on me the other night when I passed her corner.

Even though I was driving my cheap KIA Picanto rental car, all three of the crocodiles began to hoot as I pulled up to the stop sign at the intersection of Kingsway and Pioneer roads in Maseru. Then the one ran up to my window. That there is a real hooker, I thought as she waved at me. And then, just as I looked down to notice that the door was unlocked, she opened it. She proceeded to sit down in the passenger seat, close the door and look ahead – ready to go.

It was only 7:30 in the evening, but Maseru is a ghost town after dark. And there were no other cars on the road at that moment.

I looked at the hooker and said, “No.”

She smiled at me and replied, “Yes.”

“No,” I said. “I don't want.”

She smiled. She looked about 20 years old, and she was wearing black jeans and a green jacket. It was cold enough to see your breath that night. There was a scar on her right cheek.

“Get out,” I said.

She said, “Talking?”

I don't know what that meant, but I pointed to the door and repeated slowly, “Get out.”

Her colleagues were looking in on us, assessing the negotiations and giggling. How am I going to get this hooker out of my car?

We both sat silent for a little while until a pair of headlights approached from behind and I said to her, “The police are coming! Watch out!” But she wasn't fooled. Or she hadn't understood what I said, because she only casually turned around, and then she turned back at me and smiled again.

But she at last acknowledged that I wasn't moving the car with her in it, and the car behind us was going to lose patience soon. She opened the door and got out. I drove away to the sound of three young women laughing in the night.

 “This is Africa's time!” You see the slogan all over. The 2010 World Cup is meant not only to benefit South Africa, but the entire continent, as the first time the event has ever been held on African soil. To this end, FIFA, the organizer of the World Cup, has for the first time allowed countries neighboring the host to accommodate some of the visiting national teams.

So Zimbabwe long ago committed over $200 million to the widening of a highway to Johannesburg, plus renovating airports and hotels. Botswana built a new airport and soccer stadiums. But Lesotho is only now in the midst of revamping its national soccer stadium, Setsoto, as requested by a visiting FIFA delegation back in 2008. So the only country which is literally surrounded by South Africa and the World Cup action will also be the one entirely missing out on direct benefits.

When I got to the taxi rank for my ride down to Tsoeneng, the village I lived in for three years, a taxi driver recognized me. “Where have you been hiding yourself?” he asked. I recognized him, too. And the next thing ntate Nchebe asked is, “You're going to drive OK?”

I used to enjoy getting behind the wheel of the taxis on the Tsoeneng route, and the passengers always thought it was entertaining when I drove, too. But I told ntate Nchebe I was tired. “I traveled a long way to get here. I'm just going to ride today.”

Returning to Tsoeneng after being back in America for two years was something I had often thought about. I had received some news in America. I knew that the chief had passed away. And the owner of the village shop, Motsie, had also died. But who else will not be there? Who has since arrived? How much can a little village in Africa change in a few years?

Passengers loading into a taxi named Ntate, or Father.
The most intimidating place in Lesotho has always been the Maseru taxi rank. It's where all of the public transportation starts and ends for destinations across the country. Especially in the late afternoons, when everyone is off work or out of school, it can be packed with people on the move, taxis and buses loading or unloading, and sellers of goods. The roads and alleyways often wind and dead end, making it difficult to navigate. Stores blast music to add to the din. Men get drunk and fight. Petty criminals roam. I'd never had the courage to photograph it.

Sign says: Do not pee here. It is against the law. 

I walked up behind a group of four women and then stepped onto Caledon Road to pass them. They were walking so slowly, balancing on one foot like a flamingo each time before putting the next one down. One woman carried a large sack on her head. Another turned to me as I came up beside them and said, “We are looking for work.”

'Me Tsita, the principal of the school where I taught in my Peace Corps days, was waiting for me at the airport, along with another teacher and a couple former students. “You don't look older,” said one of the students, Mosebatho. “We thought you would look older.” None of them looked older either. But everything around us did.

From the plane, flying over the Free State province of South Africa, you see many large fields of crops with a few isolated houses in between. These are farms and farm houses. Then we cross the Caledon River, as the whites call it, or the Mohokare River, as the Basotho call it. The river is the border between South Africa and Lesotho. Now in Lesotho the fields are small and shaped like puzzle-pieces. There are many more houses than on the other side of the river, and they are in groups. These are villages surrounded by family fields. A bird's eye view of the land indicates a lot about who lives down there, and how they live.

[img_assist|nid=200|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=640|height=480]On May 31, I arrive back on the continent of Africa, after being away for over two years. My first week I’ll spend visiting old friends in Lesotho. I miss their hospitality, I miss the open valleys and the rugged mountains of the little kingdom, and I miss the taste of Sesotho on my tongue. Two years has been too long. But come June 11 the World Cup begins, and for the opening match -- South Africa vs. Mexico --