Packing Up and Moving On

The rest of my Lesotho horse trek was much the same as that first day. My inner thighs were tenderised meat, my quadriceps were burning from holding my own weight, my skin was chaffed or red raw from the sun and the dirt and sweat were caked to my skin. But the scenery continued to get more and more majestic, the mountains got taller, the sky got bigger, the air got fresher.

As we passed small villages the children would run alongside the horses holding their hands out for money or sweets, but they did it fairly half-heartedly, not as though they actually expected to get anything, it was said more as though it were a greeting than a request or demand.

When we stopped for lunch one day, two young shepherd boys came and sat beside us and I shared my lunch with them. The four of us sat in total silence at the side of the river. I was starting to enjoy the company of children, in Ghana it was the same, not like children in Australia, here they are polite and respectful.

On the bus on the way back across the border I sat up in the front seat beside a boy of about 7 or 8 years old. He fell asleep and his body slumped against mine, his face buried in my side… it was blissful. I sat there completely still, hoping he would stay like that for the whole trip.

Waiting for the Christian Intercape bus to go back to Johannesburg I met a preacher name Johan – a soft talker with a thick accent which meant he had to repeat everything he said three times. He bought me a coffee, which I turned into a really awkward event as accepting things from people, has always been hard for me. Eventually I took it, wishing I had acted ‘normal’ for once. He insisted on hearing about my travels and we talked a bit about family and love. He said that it was good what I was doing now but that one day I should get married “because nobody should grow old alone”. I wondered if that is what happens when you become a professional Catholic, forced to grow old alone.

I told him that I don’t think I am completely un-marry-able and he laughed.

I took my seat on the bus and peered at the book the man beside me was reading ‘Understanding the Bible’. I leaned over and read a paragraph. It explained that one of the reasons god continued to create man was to carry on his fathers business. It instructed a son that to follow in your earthly fathers business is the same as following in your heavenly fathers footsteps.

I looked around the bus, found an empty seat and moved.

At the next stop I bought a phone recharge card at the Spar supermarket and on the receipt it said:

“For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love. Psalm 33:4-5”

I think a lesson was being rammed down my throat here, and wondered if the purpose of my trip was to learn a little more tolerance.

When the bus pulled into the main station in Johannesburg I saw the exact two staff members, sitting in the exact same spot as when the bus departed a few days earlier. How cruel it felt, like time was playing games with me. For a split second I wondered if Lesotho had even existed for me, the mountains, the villages, the shoulder-shaking dancers in that little tin bar.

…….

Lisa, Ange and Lyn took me out to a lesbian night called ‘First Friday’. We sat and ate pizza and watched a very talented, very funny, very crass, drag queen from the US called Scary Mary.

I met a girl that night who told me a story I wish wasn’t true.

When she was in Sydney for the 2000 Olympic Games she was in an ice-cream shop on Bondi Beach with her family and was refused service by the owner who said “we don’t serve Aborigines”

I was in disbelief! In Bondi? In the year 2000? During the Olympics when people from all over the world were there? Lisa said to her “but you don’t even look like an Australian Aboriginal” and I figured to a racist it probably didn’t really matter.

I told her that if she ever comes back to Australia, and I wouldn’t blame her if she never does, but I would show her that not all Australians are ignorant, racist pricks.

The whole time I had spent in South Africa I was hyper-aware of race issues and inequalities, when really, I should have been this aware at home, in my own backyard.

In Rome I was refused service in a café for being/looking gay. In Turkey I had been told off by a man for drinking a beer “a woman has no pride is she drinks alcohol” he told me… prejudice and discrimination is a world-wide issue for sure. In some places it is just better hidden than in others. At least here, in South Africa, people are aware of it and talk about it, and some people, like the people I hung out with, made small gestures to actively try to bridge that gap and make amends for history.