After lunch, Isaac took them to a small house a few minutes’ walk away to meet the chief. It was an important tradition. Visitors always had to be introduced to the chief, because under the law he was responsible for anyone who spent the night in his village. They were prepared for the visit and Melissa had a shopping bag with some groceries in it to give him as a gift. Alex had expected the chief to live in one of the nicer brick houses; instead he was surprised when Isaac stopped outside a tiny two-roomed dwelling and introduced them to an old man in a scruffy brown jacket. Isaac spoke to him at length in Sesotho while they all stood around. The chief replied in a slow quiet voice, rubbing his back and chuckling as he finished. Isaac grinned and told them that he welcomed them and thanked them for what they were doing, and that he would be coming to the clinic on Monday to see if they could help him with his sore back. They all shook his hand, gave him the gift which resulted in a broad toothless smile, and went back to the hall. Alex shook his head to himself as they walked back. If someone had asked him to imagine what a visit to a Basotho chief would be like, he could not have come close to picturing the reality.
James suggested that they all have a rest. There was no clinic scheduled until the next day, and preparation for the feeding scheme’s evening meal only started at four. They moved the makeshift cubicles and equipment to one side of the hall, ready for the tables to be set up that evening.
“So, this place is a clinic in the morning, a place to eat in the evening and a bedroom at night,” said Alex, as he helped Dave carry tables and chairs to one side. “And a church on Sunday. That’s good use of a single building.”
“It’s great, isn’t it,” said Dave. “Our church raised money to buy the materials to get the slab laid and the walls up, and then we came and helped the locals build it. It took us two weeks to get most of it done. It was awesome – there aren’t a lot of men in this village, because so many of them work in South Africa. And a lot of them died of AIDS. The pastor rolled up his sleeves and got stuck in, and the boys and girls and old people all helped mix cement and lay bricks. They only got the roof on a while later. Lot of memories for me in this place.”
“Wow,” said Alex, seeing the bare concrete bricks of the hall, sometimes crooked and uneven, in a new light.
“Before that, they had their church services outside. Under that tree.”
“Pastor Tim was here too, wasn’t he, Dave?” asked Jill.
“Yup,” said Dave. “He shovelled sand and cement and carried bricks with the rest of us. He and Isaac have been buddies ever since.”
“I guess churches have to come from somewhere,” said Alex. “I never thought of it like that before.”
“Anyone want to go for a walk with me and JP?” called Melissa. “Instead of a rest? I want to explore this place.”
Alex was keen to explore a bit, and so were Jill, Mark and Brad. The others headed for their beds or mattresses on the floor. The afternoon was bright but cold, so they armoured themselves against the cold and made their way down a path heading away from the church towards the hills. On their way out, they heard a shout from behind them. Solomon, the translator who had helped Alex that morning, wanted to join them.
As they walked, Alex took deep breaths of the mountain air. He could feel the difference in the altitude; his lips and eyes were dry and his nose burnt a little. But despite the outhouses and shallow rubbish pits on every property, and the litter in the road, the air smelled clean and pure. They were higher than the road so there were no car fumes, or even the smell of the sea, like there was in Marshall Bay. People, especially children, came out of every house to look at and greet them. They walked along a dirt track towards a group of hills, standing out clear against the sky, and soon left most of the houses behind them. The further they walked, the quieter it was. The sounds of children and animals grew fainter. I love this place, thought Alex. Everything else felt so far away.
“This place makes me want to paint a picture,” said Jill. “Or write a poem.”
“Then do it,” said Melissa. “It might be hard to find paints but
I’m sure you can track down paper and a pen.”
“I think I will,” laughed Jill. “It might be full of clichés, though – rolling hills and clear blue sky.”
“You write poems?” asked Mark.
“Sometimes,” said Jill. “Last year I had to write some rhyming stuff for a freelance job I was doing, and I enjoyed it so much I did more. Mel knows because I wrote them a poem for their wedding.” “It was beautiful,” said Mel. “Best wedding present ever. Write some Lesotho poetry for us, Jill.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Mark. “That you wrote poetry.” “I don’t usually show it to anyone,” said Jill.
Alex chuckled inwardly at Mark’s reaction. He was starting to figure the guy out. Jill had said that Mark had assumed things about her, and Alex could see he still did that. In the past few days Mark had discovered that there were many things about Jill he didn’t know, and it was bothering him. As far as Alex could tell, Jill wasn’t paying Mark much attention at all. If anything, she was avoiding him. Mark couldn’t be enjoying that.
“Look,” said Jill. “Ponies!” She pointed to a rickety fence a little way from the path, in front of a round thatched hut. Three little Basotho ponies looked up as they walked past. They stopped as Brad and Solomon caught up.
“These ponies belong to my friend,” said Solomon. “Maybe we can get more ponies and you can go for a pony trek.”
“Definitely!” said JP. “We would love to go on a pony trek.”
“We can go to a village I know,” said Solomon. “On Saturday. There is no road, only a path like this.” He indicated the path they were standing on. “They have no church there. Mr James can preach.”
“Sounds great,” said JP. “We can take some of the Bibles we brought.”
Solomon seemed very pleased. He and Brad walked ahead with JP and Melissa. Jill followed them, leaving Alex at the rear with Mark.
When the others were a little way ahead, Mark cleared his throat.
“Alex,” he said. “Can we talk for a moment?”
“Sure,” said Alex. “What’s up?”
“Did Jill tell you about … us? That we were together?”
“Yes, she did,” said Alex. He couldn’t tell if Mark was glad to hear that or not.
“I’m finding this very difficult,” said Mark.
“You’re finding what difficult?”
“Everything is different since you appeared,” said Mark. “Jill and I were getting closer again; I was sure of it. I want to know where I stand.”
“Dude,” said Alex. “She’s the only one who can tell you that.”
“What about you?” Mark stopped and looked at Alex straight in the eye. “Where do you stand?”
“Me?” said Alex. “Are you serious? Look, Jill and I got to know each other when we were seventeen. I thought she was amazing. She thought I was a stuck-up jock, which I probably was. She turned me down, more than once. I have zero reason to believe anything has changed, except perhaps that now I am even more unworthy of her than ever.”
Mark stood still, in stunned silence.
Alex continued. “If you want my honest opinion, Mark, she’s just not that into you. But you don’t need to worry about me. Jill is not in my league, okay? She’s a gem, and one day some perfect missionary pastor guy is going to come down from heaven and sweep her off her feet. It sure as hell isn’t me. I don’t think it’s you, either, but hey. You can hope. I can’t.”
Alex stood facing Mark, surprised at what had come out of his own mouth. He hadn’t been pining for Jill for the last five years, but he had kept the memory of her close. He had been drawn to her when he couldn’t face anyone else, and the old attraction was still there. But this disease was in the picture now, and it was something he would never wish on Jill, even if she did change her mind about him one day. Getting romantic with Jill was something that the seventeen-year-old Alex had hoped for – but that door had closed in his face. He had little reason to think that anything might have changed in the last few days, no matter what Mark thought.
Mark stood silent, his arms folded. For a moment they continued to face each other. “She is a gem,” said Mark, at last. “I couldn’t believe it when she agreed to go out with me. Worst day of my life when she broke it off.”
“Sorry, man,” said Alex. “But you can chill about competition from me.” He turned away and strode quickly after the group, leaving Mark behind. He had no desire to be the sounding board for Mark’s romantic woes. Poor oke, he thought. At least Alex had her friendship. Mark was out in the cold. Literally.
Alex and Mark avoided each other after their conversation. Instead, Alex talked to Solomon for a while, and listened with fascination to the story of his life. He came from a mountain village further into the interior, and at the age of six had gone out with his brothers to be a shepherd. For much of his childhood he had lived in small huts out on the pastures with the sheep, and until he was eight had not had any schooling at all. He had learned to read and speak English when a group of British missionaries had come to live with the group of shepherds, and had stayed for two years, educating them and introducing them to Christianity. He had shown great aptitude, and one of the missionaries had arranged for him to leave the mountains and attend a school in Maseru when he was twelve. He had spent three years going to school there until the missionaries he had been living with had gone back to the USA. He had moved to this village three years before at the age of fifteen after meeting Pastor Isaac, and made a small living taking tourists around the villages on pony treks and walking tours. But his passion was to be an evangelist, to travel around his country preaching to the remote villages. Pastor Isaac was teaching him what he could, and his dream was to study at a Bible College in Maseru or even in South Africa to be better equipped to preach and teach.
What a life this young guy had led already, thought Alex. He was eighteen, and except for the three years at school he had been working to support himself since he was six. When Alex was eighteen he had been in Matric, figuring out calculus and chemistry, reading Shakespeare and playing rugby. Solomon earned every mouthful of food he ate. He was clearly very bright and ambitious – but ambitious to be a travelling preacher! Solomon didn’t know that Alex wasn’t a Christian. He had of course assumed that as a member of the team from the church he was there for the same reason the rest of them were. Alex didn’t try to explain. He listened to Solomon speak about his love for God and how he had been wonderfully saved, and how he longed for the people in the mountains to know God as he did. His face shone as he spoke; his enthusiasm and hope palpable. When Alex asked him if he had ever wanted to have a different career, he said that he knew that he could be a preacher, and without preachers, people would never know and never learn what he had. So, he was going to be a preacher. It was marvellously clear to Solomon. How he was going to get to college, he did not know.
“I think I need to go to college,” he said, as they neared the village again. “If God thinks so too, he will make a way for me. For now, I pray, and I learn from Pastor Isaac what I can. That is enough for me.”
“I hope it works out for you, Solomon,” said Alex. “You deserve it.”
Solomon looked at Alex quizzically. “That is a strange thing to say, Doctor Alex. I do not deserve anything. If I go to college, it is for God’s glory!”
“Of course,” said Alex, feeling a little like a fraud. “And I’m not a doctor yet!”