christmastime in maun

I’m sitting in my office three days before Christmas. Everyone else is gone – and mostly long gone at that. But it’s ok, because it allows me to sing along with Frank and Dino and Sammy if I feel like it. I’m listening to Christmas with the Rat Pack, after all, since the shimmery heat and rain and careening termites outside don’t really evoke much holiday spirit for me.

For the past week or so I’ve been trying (off and on) to write some sort of profound (or at least thoughtful) holiday letter. Tomorrow I’m leaving for the Cape, the beach, the winelands – an African holiday full of things that most people probably don’t consider to be particularly African. I’m tired. I need a break. And so I’m going to the city and I’m going to see movies and eat sushi. Not terribly profound, but nice.

My traveling companions arrived here in Maun yesterday. They are my second family – my two older Zimbabwean sisters and their husbands. And they are a reminder of how fortunate I am. This might sound funny, but few of the expats I know living here seem to have black African friends. When I first described my relationship with my sis Daisy to a Canadian friend of mine living here, she said, “How did you get to have that kind of close relationship with her?” Her tone of voice suggested that she was asking about an expedition to the moon. How ever did I end up there.

But here I am. And as much as I wouldn’t mind a good old fashioned Colorado blizzard, the sun and my sis are not such a bad substitute. So, happy holidays, everybody, and sing away:

Here comes Giraffe! Here comes Giraffe! Right down Giraffe Lane!

Here Comes Santa Claus
from the Christmas Song Generator.

Get your own song :

life is a comedy

It’s hot here. I mean, pouring-sweat-while-sitting-on-the-couch-in-front-of-a-fan kind of hot. Which of course also means that we can’t seem to have the electricity and the water working at the same time. It’s become a game of sorts…which is one is going to crap out first today? Should I go for a run at 6am while it’s only mildly scorching with no guarantee of a shower when I get back? Do I dare pour the yellowy liquid in the basin that passes for an emergency water supply over my head? Where is the shovel so I can go out in the yard and go to the bathroom? And what exactly causes the myriad of agitated red bites of all sizes all over me (a triangle of spots on my right forearm, a swollen welt on my waistline, an angry crimson knot on my hip bone) when the fan dies in the middle of the night? I have five friends coming thru next week. Now that is going to be fun. Larry, my boss and housemate, went to public works in town to ask about the water problems. It went a little something like this:

“Our water keeps going out.”
“Oh….well, where do you pay your water bill?”
[pause. We’ve never paid a water bill. Not because we’re deadbeats, but because, well, we’ve never gotten a water bill. Larry's been in the house for 2 1/2 years and still, no water bill.]
“I don’t know, my landlord pays it. We live in Disaneng ward.”
“Ah, that one, the borehole is trouble, well not the borehole but the engine. And if they fix the engine there will be no problem.”
[pause]
[pause]

At this point Larry came home and we broke out the whiskey. He mumbled something about duct tape. I said, if I could reasonably believe they’d ever HAD any duct tape, I’d think there was a good chance the engine might actually get fixed. But anyway, as Mark Twain said, whiskey is for drinkin’ and water is for fightin’ over. This has perhaps never been more true than it is here and now.

But the game goes on when I get to work. Last week, after having been here for six months, I got an office. Full of previous occupants’ junk, but still, an office. Then it took ten days to get some hanging file folders so I could get organized. After me asking three or four times, our secretary just delivered about six of them. Six used hanging file folders. I wanted to laugh, but I controlled myself. Then yesterday my computer locked me out of the internet. ACCESS DENIED for no apparent reason. My laptop no longer reads the power source when it’s plugged in, unless I balance it on its side like a teetering architectural absurdity. The guys at the computer shop in town (I know, I laughed out loud too) say they’ve fixed it. So I’m off to town, hoping my laptop bears no relationship to that troublesome borehole engine. At least for now.