Saturday, January 7, 2012

Stoned Cats and Bucket Heads

Little carry over from my last post...in which I talked a little about Christmas, and the celebrating of it in Africa. Kumbe (Surprise!), Village Christmas was actually pretty phenomenal. Went to mass (for the second time in 12 hours...whatever), which was in our newly refurbished (Thanks Dad and all who contributed!) church. Three different villages came to our church for Christmas (there’s only one priest for the parish, and there are about 12 churches in the parish). But before mass I got up early to make presents! I had tried baking bread the night before, but apparently my yeast was tired, and my bread, it burned. So I woke up to bake the gift of Christmas cornbread, which I then gave to some of my friends. And it was a great day, with some songs and some celebrating and a late-nite village disco (absolutely as weird as it sounds). But it was in the middle of making Christmas Cornbread that I had a small festivus epiphany.

See, I had been talking to my friends in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas, and asking them if they felt merry yet. To a one, the answer was, ‘not yet’. And it was exactly the same here. Hard to feel merry when it is rainy and muddy and 80 degrees. It wasn’t until I started actually doing something holiday-related that I felt at all Christmassy. Which I think is true of everybody. Christmas has become this all-consuming behemoth, spewing joy left and right. Common sense would suggest that, just by wading into public in the month of December, you should end up with some cheer stuck on you, like it or not. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. I could be engulfed by carols and dressed solely in tinsel (a mildly disturbing image), and not feel a thing. But the second I started actually making merry...it felt like Christmas. And it was wonderful.

We’re gonna skip New Years. I hope you all had a great time, I hope you all were safe. If you want my stories...you have to call me. It was pretty freaking awesome, but the internet is not meant to know all things.

On to the events of my day today. It wasn’t particularly momentous, as days go. But enough little things were funny that I found them blog-worthy. Hope you agree.

Woke up a little early to go with my AIDS group to the health clinic. Why? Wanted to talk about doing a public health seminar with....my lovely girlfriend! I got on the first available bus with my friend...who we shall call Kally (which is kind of her real name). We got off at a nearby town, and were going to start walking towards the health clinic. But Kally was hungry, so we stopped for some breakfast. Unfortunately, at this point Kally realized that she had left her phone on the bus, and began to freak out. She had me call it. It didn’t ring. I tried again. Still no luck. Her son had just sent her money on that phone (using phone services for banking is really common here). She had no money for a new one. This is a woman who used to live in Dar Es Salaam, in the capital. She used to live with her friends, by discos and bars, with water and power and a job. But then she got into a bad car accident, and had to move back with her family in the village. And then she was diagnosed with HIV. And now her only connection with her old life is riding somewhere on a bus, in someone else’s pocket. She just stared off into nowhere, ignoring all my attempts at levity, maybe thinking about just how out of whack life can get. At one point she said to me, “now I’ll just get hit by a car”. I wasn’t sure if this was a joke or wishful thinking. I prepared myself to spend the rest of the day in a fruitless attempt to cheer her up. It was at that point that she found her phone. Women. And their purses. It’s like they have their own gravity.

Got back to the village, had a three hour meeting (in which I solved several word puzzles). And then my partner and I showed up at his store, and there were seedlings waiting for us! Little, beautiful pine seedlings, which we had planted back in March, and now were ready to be sold! We put them out in front of his store, and it was like moths to a flame. We had two customers in the first two minutes. The seedlings are becoming soldlings (unavoidable)! I was so excited that I decided to run home and get my camera.

I was striding home with a purpose, and given that I’m a foot taller than anyone in the village, it looked like I was riding a scooter. I was passing my neighbor’s house, and he was sitting on his porch with one of my best friends. I greeted them on my way by, and my one friend, noting my hasty gait, asked if I was in a hurry. I said I was. He asked if I was in too much of a hurry to sit down and enjoy a bowl of fresh picked peaches, while the sun set picturesquely in the distance. I said no, I was not. And I wasn’t. If Africa has taught me anything, it’s that there will always be enough work for tomorrow, but fruits and friends should never be passed upon. So I kicked back and relaxed with two of my best friends and a bowl of peaches. And what did we talk about? Me. Specifically, me leaving them.

In every sense of the word, this was inevitable. I’ve finally gotten sort of halfway good at this job. Which means it’s almost time to leave. And as the sun vanished, lighting only the tippy tops of the incoming thunderclouds, and we talked about how we would all miss one another, it seemed like someone was saying, “do you get it yet?” Yeah. I get it. I’m not ready for it, but I get it.

And then I went home and drugged the cat. Thanks for the catnip, Kucz. There’s a stoned cat lounging around my house. And he’s hungry.

Small but crucial addendum to the day: before my friend started freaking out about her not-really-lost phone, we walked into a mgahawa (a cafe). My friend wanted to get some beef soup for breakfast. However, on the way into the cafe I noticed a bucket by the side of the door. And in the bucket was the head of a cow. There was no body attached to the head. I asked Kally what the head was for, and she said, “the soup”. Then the woman running the place showed up with two bowls of soup. I respectfully declined. But, you know, good way to start the morning, right? Nice little reminder. Seize the day, chew my cud, all that. Because tomorrow the head in the bucket might be mine. Or yours. Yeah. Chew on that.

Happy New Year, my friends. Miss you all.