I've been walking by Grandma Molefi's house on my way to climb rocks for over two years now. She still won't let me pass unless I first eat something with her.
That's not true. Occasionally, she has nothing to offer me, at which point she apologizes profusely and scolds Lemeko for not having cooked anything. Lemeko is her grandson, and a 10th grade student of mine. I always pick him up along the way to boulder. He likes it so much these days that in English class last week he wrote, "I used to play soccer, but now I climb rocks."
On our way back down Grandma Molefi always says to me in wonder, "You're so fat." She's looking at my forearms that have been pumped up from hanging on the boulders, and I now know that she doesn't exactly mean fat. I take it to mean buff. And I thank her.
Every friend who visits me must always meet Grandma Molefi. Last year when my mom and aunt came we brought her cookies and she has displayed the box on her wall ever since.
"Your Sesotho is getting so good," she always tells me. And then she laments about what will happen to it when I leave the village in December. When I saw her last Friday she suggested I call her from America on Lemeko's father's phone every few weeks so I don't lose it.
Then it occured to me that I'd never taken a picture with her. So I set the timer on my camera and placed it on a windowsill. Grandma Molefi directed Lemeko to lay down a maize meal bag for me to sit on, and snap.
My camera's digital, so I then showed her the image. Her laughter told me she hadn't seen herself for years.