Notable Conversations.

Conversations over slaughtered cow are usually notable. It’s a bold statement, I know, and though I risk being too general, I feel I should error on this side. My conversation of note was after returning to Semonkong. My tour around town started with the farm staff for the Mission. They all live just behind my place. These are the guys who get me to milk cows, who I play football (soccer) with during the summer, and who most often make fun of me when they see me acting outrageous—this means when I act typically Foreign (more on that later).

This day I noticed the whole group of guys hangin’ out back so I headed back to say hi and check on them. Everybody was standing around a cow on its back being skinned. Since moving to Lesotho I have been desensitized to the slaughter of animals. The sight doesn’t bother me though the smells can still give me a twinge of regret for coming closer. I came by just to say hi and ended up staying for a bit just because of the randomness of their conversation. It ran from talk about the cow being fat (the skin was thick and soft they all noted and felt—even I had to try it out). We all talked about our favorite way to cook beef which means I talked about the different parts of the cow having different textures and they all thinking I was telling them a story. To continue story time I was asked where we get meat in the States to which I described the commercial structure of a supermarket.

A younger guy whose been working there a while and I’ve come to know, asked me to continue to explain the way guys get a girl in the US. It was only later that I was able to reflect on how humorous that was to explain to a group of farmers this far out and how random that we did it over a dead cow. I’m pretty sure this tops my explanation of how satellites work with a farmer in the middle of no where, Semonkong.
I’ve determined for fact that Peace Corps volunteers live their job every moment of every day they are in service. If it wasn’t for the randomness of these numerous conversations that occur, I wouldn’t be able to count the times I have had a chance to share with someone an aspect of my own world in the US