"What is the name of this bus, ntate?"
" 'ndovodovo.' "
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know. It's not Sesotho, its Xhosa." (thinking, then in all seriousness) "I think it means 'this bus is not good.' "
"Really? The name of our bus is 'this bus is not good?'"
"yes."
This is how I met Ndovodovo, the "new" bus on the St. Rodrigue-Maseru line. I was in a bit of a shock upon arriving in the Maseru bus station after 6 weeks of travel, with my sister from America and new fellow Darcy in tow, to find that the familiar bus to St. Rod's was not there. It wasn't out of the ordinary, really. There are allegedly 2 buses per day that go to and from the city to our village on a rumored schedule, but it's not uncommon to arrive at the appointed place at the mentioned time of departure and not see the bus. It just requires some research. Often, there will be some vaguely familiar faces milling about or girls in school uniforms, and provided that we have enough English and/or Sesotho in common, we can figure out what's happening: for example, 'one bus is broken and so the other will be here in three hours because it is coming from the village now,' or 'the bus left inexplicably early so we're all (30) piling into a minibus taxi we've hired - you in?'
These two buses ("Mphatlalatsane" meaning 'morning star' and "Laduma" meaning 'thunder') are the sole public transport to and from the city and our village area. It's a long trip, about 3-6 hours depending on uphill or downhill and the circumstances (if everyone has bought 50 kg. bags of maize meal in Maseru that they have to load and unload, it'll be a while). The origins of the buses are unknown, but their taxonomy points to a time when diesel engines and all metal frameworks roamed the earth. They look like what may have carried American children to school - in rural Mississippi - in the 1940's. The owners of these buses (for they are privately owned and operated) are just as old and cantankerous, and villagers complain that they refuse to service them until something is horribly wrong. They are notorious for having mechanical problems and schedule inconsistencies, mystifying even Basotho, much less the poor white girls just trying to go to town to use the internet and buy oatmeal.
â¦
"'Me,' I have to write a report for Grinnell, and I want to know, what does 'ndovodovo' mean?"
"⦠It's like⦠something which is soft."
â¦
The buses really are undependable. They often "get sick" as I am told. When riding in Ndovodovo, we passed the spot on the road where Laduma was reportedly "consulting a doctor," sat broken down on the way to Maseru . The buses can even "die," which is how I came to meet Ndovodovo. Tragically, Mpatlalatsane died while I was away on break. Mechanically speaking, the ancient overdue motor gave way, but I can't help feeling like a big heart just stopped beating. I feel like a person has passed away and left me to grieve their absence. I really loved that bus. It had character. It was a character in my Lesotho life. It was, in fact, the first bus I took hours after arriving in Lesotho. Running across the street to catch it before it lurched away, I squeezed between people and babies and sacks and fell into one of the wooden seats which someone gave up for me. I let my 36 hours in airports wash over me, my bleary eyes registering the sinking ceiling and the leering Mosotho boys. My hair got stuck on some loose tape holding something together. I tried to drink from my water bottle, but the unpaved road meant that I spilled on my neighbor, and it was the first time I was sharply scolded in Sesotho. Some female voices from behind the wall of people shouted, "Ntate Bryan, o kai?!" and that was how I first met St. Rodrigue students. I'm sad that future fellows will not get to know this bus the way I did. Mpatlalatsane, robabla ka khotso. Rest in peace.
â¦
"Nkhuba, what does Ndovondovo mean?"
"I don't know. Basotho they are calling it nomyan e kholo hempe. "
"What does that mean?"
"Big bad big."
â¦
How can I love these buses, you ask? I think it's something about community. I've always loved the democratizing power of public transport. The bus is one of the few places in Lesotho where we can almost blend in, one of the huddled masses bouncing up and down on the unpaved roads made by farmers and donkeys, not the black tar of the man and his transit authority. A pair of scraggly Grinnellians has been seen on those buses for almost 10 years now, so the usual passengers are almost accustomed to our presence. Boarding the bus can feel like the opening credits of "Cheers," as everyone knows our names, despite the fact that we have never personally met most of them. And when the bus has to stop and unload in order to make it up a steep hill, we shuffle off and shuffle back on with everyone else. I've read on that bus, eaten, journaled. Written quarterly reports. Laughed and cried. Even slept. It's as much my place as anyone else's. It may be smelly and dilapidated and overcrowded and unreliable, but it's a place that almost feels like home.
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"You know where Ndovodovo comes from? It was in a song a while back, and the man who sang it had a - what do you call it? Afro. So it refers to his afro. It means something like a sponge."
â¦
The buses are one of our few links to the outside world beyond the mountains of St. Rodrigue. They represent a portal, if you will, to emails from friends and family, processed dairy, and re-runs of the Daily Show International Edition. This can be invaluable in the face of the varying levels of isolation in which we live. It's good that we have a few hours on the bus to adjust to the culture shock of going between the village and the big city. Our BoGrinnell house, St. Rodrigue Mission, and Lesotho itself are all self-contained worlds. They each have so much contained inside that it's easy to forget what small worlds they are.
It's also easy to forget how small the average Basotho world view is, something I have personally encountered while teaching Geography to first year students at St. Rodrigue High School. It's really nice to teach something that's not English, because the information seems more straight-forward and "teachable." As with English, however, the starting level has been staggeringly low. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed by the irony of teaching about ocean waves and currents to girls who have never seen the ocean and probably won't. They live in a landlocked country, and they could never pay to travel that far, so trying to convince them that the water in the ocean "moves" is a bit absurd. I mostly feel like a raving idiot talking about things like "time zones" and "rainforests," which make little sense if you haven't grown up around a TV tuned to PBS.
The top three realizations for my Geography class this year have been:
#3 - It is not the same time in all places in the world. When it is morning in Lesotho, it is night in America.
#2 - The ocean is salty (see above).
#1 - ⦠get ready for it⦠the world is round!
Yes! Imagine my surprise (and that of my students) the day I walked into a class with a globe: the girls said, "What's that?" What, you mean this, the three-dimensional representation of our world called a globe? Blank stares. It's like a map� Oh God, has someone told you yet that our planet is round like this?
As far as I could tell, I was the person with that distinct honor (and further mystery about what actually goes on next door at St. Rodrigue Primary School). I do mean honor. It is a privilege to share such special learning moments with them, and I love every second of it. I don't mean to give the impression that St. Rodrigue girls are completely naive and clueless; they know more about soil erosion than I will ever know, and they taught me more than I taught them in the unit about Lesotho's vegetation.
Together, we are learning about our homes. It just so happens that the view of home that I have to offer is a bit wider than theirs . As my sister astutely put it after her visit, "I feel like a good metaphor for life is riding on [the bus]. There are no road markers on the way from Maseru to Mpatana, so one is forced to measure the trip by the people getting on and off the bus." Lucky for us, it's a long trip.
