Race

I've started to falter in posting every day or every other day. I suppose the inevitable has happened, things aren't new anymore. My "great" insights about life have transformed into thinking about what I need to buy at the Shoprite, and work hasn't been taking me anywhere new, so posting for the sake of posting has seemed pointless.

But this weekend, I realized that I haven't written much about the whole race thing. And it only came up for me in just the past few days.

It's definitely not like South Africa here, mostly, obviously, because the Basotho are all one race, unlike in SA. But that doesn't meant that the South African situation hasn't had a strong impact here in Lesotho. I've found out through a friend that a lot of Basotho people have been surprised by my friendliness and willingness to be hospitable to them, since I'm white. The phrase "Becky's not like most white people we've met," has been uttered a number of times. I've found this really shocking actually since race issues never come up for me. (I have no doubt that the academic out there reading this will tell me that's because I live a life of white privilege, that I live in a closed community, etc, etc, so race issues don't have the opportunity to come up. Regardless, my time here up until the past week, has been void of racial issues - meaning, I've never once thought that I shouldn't befriend someone because of their race.) So I wonder now, who are these other white people that my Basotho friends are interacting with. Are they South African? American? European? I'm going to have to investigate further because, and maybe this is supremely naive of me, I don't fee like the people I interact in the States would behave any differently than I am here - namely being friendly without prejudice.

This whole topic actually makes me really uncomfortable to write about because I feel like I'm not allowed to say anything one way or the other about race, since I'm white. Even writing that makes me think I'm saying something wrong. But the fact of the matter is that people here have been assuming that I'm racist just because I'm white...which is racist itself, right? I'm just glad that the message that's been getting back to me is that I'm "cool".

In other news, I found this great 8 or 9 km loop to going running on from my house. By great, I mean that there's a sidewalk or path for most of the way. Almost all the dogs I run past are behind fences, and I only have to run past one correctional facility. If I ever get behind the wheel of a car, I'll actually try to clock the mileage, and maybe I can extend it to 10km and run the Beach2Beacon when I get home....

It just started to pour. And I was planning to talk a walk to get some maize. Bummer.