enduring laughter

This morning I got up, went through my normal routine of washing my face and teeth, applying a little make-up, getting dressed, eating breakfast while reading a book and then finally walked out the door, just like every other day. I walked to the main tar road to wait for a ride that an hour later, still has not arrived. As I walked down the road and then waited, I endured the same thing that I do every day: Scrutiny, people laughing at me, pointing their fingers at what I’m wearing, asking me if they can have my belt or my earrings or money, talking about me in Sepedi because they know I don’t understand it. I got on a taxi and the driver asked me and this lady how we were. We answered. He clearly didn’t want her answer, just mine so he asked me again, as if I hadn’t responded the first time. I answered again and he just laughed. He laughed his old man, weathered skin face at me. That’s when I decided that if a movie were to be made about my life as a PCV, there would definitely be a montage of laughing faces, some toothless, some vicious, others innocent but all of them laughing. Because that’s what happens every day that I’m here: I’m laughed at.