Saved by a donkey, a swimming hole, and Harvey Milk

Team LeBoHA, the hatchers of the plan to obtain a donkey for Libby's birthday. Mridula, Josh, Joe, and Carrie. Libby is one of the BU public health interns and she likes donkeys and was about to begin her birthday at midnight. She was home sleeping...
Josh and his hotel employee friend. I think he was only planning on working in Leribe for the duration of Friday business hours but we kept tempting him with hiking, donkeys, movies, and homemade pizza. Sucka!
Mirtz saying something like, "Can you deliver a donkey by midnight? No? Then this conversation is over." She's a no-nonsense kind of Bryn Mawr woman - just right for the job.
The interviews continue at the bar. It seems that everybody and their grandmother know of a donkey. The tricky part was figuring out whose lives closest and can be delivered soonest.
Bar #2, looking for a leasable donkey. This is where we found John, the man with the ass, and lots of people who wanted to be in a picture with a funny-looking American. Full of confidence and the joy of spontaneous and unlikely quests, we took John in the van and trekked down into a big farm to find the beast. Quite the businessman, John opened a pouch from his back pocket and offered us what we were sure were unfamiliar illicit, tarry substances for smoking. Turns out it was homemade roof-sealing putty, his side income gig. It looked like very strong stuff.
We woke up this little cow by accident. Neither he nor his large, horned bull friends seemed bothered by my flash. John claimed this was his sister's donkey but, as he was unable to rouse her from sleep, we never confirmed the ass's ownership.
The stars were again ridiculous, as we stumbled up out of the animal paddock with our new companion and back towards the road and waiting car. Oh, we had such hope!!
John looking quite pleased with a pocket full of cash and a big bottle of Hansa, riding "his" donkey to Libby with the intent of leading it into her room just after midnight.
When John got tired of riding I took a turn. This picture was taken from the van window just before the guys in a BMW arrived claiming to be police (with a suspect, faded ID with Sherriff's star) and claiming that ignorance of the anti-donkey-trafficking law was no excuse for our infraction. After 30 minutes of negotiating, refusing to give bribes of any of the suggested varieties to liars, the stealthy tying of the donkey to a pole and mad dash away by John, and our final calm decision to simply drive away ourselves, we headed back to the parking lot/hideout of Motebang to work on plan B.

As it turned out, Mirtz received a call from the first woman who responded to my donkey request at the Leribe Hotel, offering delivery of said donkey at around 9:30. They arrived from a couple kilometers down the road to Butha Buthe right on time and we guided the donkey to Libby who rode it in her pj's. Excellent.
Libby, the birthday girl, on her much-anticipated (by everyone but her) ride.
Lexi, Fadya and Deborah's daughter, took a short ride on the donkey just before it took a massive dump. I don't know why this part is underlined or how to fix it...Tsehlanyane Park, with the massive and gorgeous restaurant/conference center behind them. The imparting of wisdom never stops from this guy. "We shall hike into the cul de sac and there we shall find the source of the river and all that is good."
Josh didn't quite fall asleep at the bar here. Look at the floor: all inlaid stones and polished wood. Super cush.
Two South Africans and an Australian just created this incredibly beautiful and expensive conference center with lavish huts to stay in. It costs $100 a night with three meals included (drinks excluded) and is in the middle of the biggest park in Lesotho.
Phil and Josh walking through a portion of singed and tendrilly trees. There is a 3-day hike I'd love to do which goes off into the distance in this pic from Tsehlanyane all the way to Bokong, the first place we hiked two weekends ago.
Joe on the hike back from the swimming hole.



I'm not really sure how to describe the sequence of events which have nearly fully refreshed my soul this weekend, but the planning and actions which allowed for this video of my attending falling from a fleeing donkey have a lot to do with it. You have to watch closely for the black-shirted man bouncing away from the party until a dog spooks him and he topples onto the dirt road. He's ok: just a slightly sore hand that didn't stop him from driving us an hour and a half down gravel roads to the great hike in Tsehlanyane national park.

The evening events started just in time to allow for showers but prevent premature sleep. Phil drove me and Joe down to Carrie's apartment (nestled between Fadya, Deborah, and the kids' place and Libby and Mridula's) for home-made pizza, yummy bean salad, boxed wine, candles, home-made icecream sandwiches and chocolate bundt cake. Serious goodness. We moved next door to appreciate by movie projector the Phall of Phil and to settle in to watch _Milk_, which I hadn't managed to see in the States. Good lord, is it good. It felt strangely and deeply comforting to visit painful struggles I'm familiar with. I have so much context for American struggles for civil rights and justice for queers and such a short history with the things in Lesotho that make me want to cry. Familiar tears aren't nearly as exhausting.

We rode home in Phil's truck to the convent, I hung a blanket over my curtains to keep the morning light out, slept til 9:30, woke to coffee, sunshine, a good book, and the Palm Sunday singing of 50 women in blue at the church next door. So nice.