Stateside - the sequel

Well – I’m back.
Physically, anyhow. Mentally I’m still stuggling. I think that’s mostly the pre-Christmas thing, and it’s rapidly becoming worse as I enter panic flat spin over Christmas gifts.
Yes I could have shopped for everyone in Africa, and no, I could not possibly have brought it all back with me.
As it was, I had three very heavy and overloaded suitcases, and three items to carry on to the plane, with a fourth bag tucked inside.
Yikes.
It was a disaster at the airport.
Actually, it was a disaster all day. I managed to shove all three suitcases and the carry-ons down my apartment stairs, and load up my little Renault. It occurred to me that a lot of people can pack everything they own into their car. I am not one of those people, obviously, because I know damn well how much more crap I have at home.
No sooner had I left the electrified fence of my complex for one last time, when a tire blew. I’ve actually never had a flat in my life – and have only vague ideas about how I would change a tire. I’m pretty sure it happened on Who’s the Boss, with hilarious results, but having neither Angela or Tony nearby, and not keen on learning a new skill at the side of the road in Johannesburg, I flipped on the hazard lights, and drove very very slowly to the office.
It was kind of like being in a parade – everyone stopped and stared, pointing and gesturing. I smiled serenely at them, nodding, and acting as though driving on the rims was perfectly normal.
By the time I reached the parking lot at work, the rubber was hanging in shreds, and the wheel was practically off. But, my luggage and I made it – so no problemo.
True to form, no one in the office batted an eyelid as I walked in. Actually, not many people were even there. Guessing correctly that absolutely no thought had been put into how I was going to get to the airport, I inquired about a taxi. I was handed a couple of phone numbers, and spoke to the companies – one of which “doesn’t go to the airport anymore” and the other of which had no cabs available that day.
Hmmmmm.
OK.
Pretty typical.
Any other ideas? Nope. Also pretty typical.
I picked up the phone to call my client. It might be in poor taste to ask your client for a ride to the airport, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and she, at least, would be happy to help.
Thankfully, another woman in the office, overhearing my predicament, offered to help, and managed to get me a lift to the airport.
I had more than six hours before my flight left, but I wasn’t in any mood to hang around anymore, and left immediately, stopping by the client’s quickly to say goodbye.
There were about a million people at the airport. A million plus me, trying to push a badly overloaded trolley through the crowds.
The woman at the baggage weighing station looked at me with not an ounce of sympathy, and pointed me in the direction of the “excess baggage” area. I took one look at the crowd I’d have to push the cart through, and just left it. An airport worker half-heartedly tried to convince me to take my belongings with me, but I assumed an air of importance, and brushed him aside.
1,000 rand for an extra bag seemed a reasonable price to pay, and I checked in as fast as possible, giddy with relief when the three suitcases disappeared down the conveyer belt. I headed to the lounge to wait.
Two glasses of wine, one bag of peanuts, and three magazines later, I made my way to the gate, and boarded the plane. Again, I was met with looks of disdain as I explained to the flight attendant that I needed to fit not one, but three pieces of luggage somewhere in the crevices of the cabin. Thankfully, not everyone was being as stupid as me, and there was actually some extra space for my stuff.
I’ll spare you the details of the 8 hour flight to Senegal, and the remaining 10 hour flight to New York. Suffice to say, I watched every movie they had. I think I watched Hairspray twice. Something about John Travolta in a dress made me giggle. Maybe it was the altitude.
Now an expert at the “way too much luggage” game, I rocked the baggage claim at JFK, and found a cab with a trunk big enough for all my shit.
I only had one more obstacle to go in order to get everything into my sister’s apartment: the stairs at the bottom of her building. Poor Gus the doorman – he didn’t know what to do. Trained to be helpful at all costs, he was helpless in the face of the barrage of luggage. Nevertheless, he gallantly held the door open on each of my five trips up and down the stairs. Good man.
I was now officially stateside, jetlagged, and dying to meet my new nephew.

Stateside

Well - just because I'm back on this side of the Atlantic, doesn't mean that I don't owe you a few posts that didn't make it.
I have a few written that just need posting - and gosh darn it - that's what I'm gonna do.

Here's another word of the day:
Sac a papier. Say it mean, with a French accent.
Meaning: paper sac.
But apparently, according to my French buddies on safari, in France, you can actually use it as an obscenity. As in "You ignorant pig dog. Sac a papier - I should run you through with this sword." Or something.

Deadlines

Hello, and yes, I am fully aware that my last blog post is gathering much dust. As Christmas madness, the return trip home, oh yes - and work - all loom, I'm endeavouring to finish the blogs of the Botswana trip, the doom-signifying prevalence of men in capri pants, and fun things to do with 5kg of scuba weights in a plane. Patience.
Here - enjoy a picture of my nephew talking to me on the phone as you wait.
Isn't he clever?

Sleeping on Safari

So many things to blog about, so little time.
The problem with camping in the wilds of Botswana, is that you don’t have access to your laptop when blog-worthy things happen. Then you get back to civilization, have a sandwich, and it starts seeming less vitally important to get this stuff down. Not to mention, that your office is super-chilled to -20 degrees Celsius (perhaps in an attempt to remind you of home?), and your fingers literally are too cold to type.

That being said, you really must know about this:
We went camping in Botswana on an honest-to-goodness safari.
There are many things that you should know before you attempt such a thing. The footprints of animals that come through your camp at night (explained in last blog) is one of them.
Here is another.

When you are trying to fall asleep in the middle of Botswana in a little canvas tent, thinking about how your guide said that lions see tents as big things like rocks, instead of yummy things, like canvas-wrapped dinner, and you hear a couple of twigs crack to your left, then another one not as far to the left, and then you hear a very low rumbly sound, kind of like you might imagine a lion would make if it is purring, and then you hear the cook’s voice whisper urgently from his tent to the guide “Gideon, Gideon a lion is coming to eat us (items in italics are my translation from Tswana language) –-- you would do well to lie very still, and think calm thoughts so that the lion cannot smell your fear, and suddenly make an evolutionary leap and figure out the whole canvas tent thing.
You would also do well to refrain from waking up your slumbering partner, for fear he will wake with a start, sit up, mutter something, and attract the lion’s attention.

You will be surprised how relieved you will be in the morning to find out that it was only a large elephant and a hyena in your camp, instead of a lion.

Really, you should take earplugs. Lions tend to roar, and they do this every half hour or so. Especially after they’ve killed something, or want to talk to their lion buddies a couple of kilometers in the other direction. If you don’t take ear plugs, you will quickly learn the difference between one lion roaring to his buddies, and 32 lionesses doing their group roar to celebrate elephant for dinner. Once you start trusting that the lions won’t attempt to unzip your canvas tent, then the sound of lions roaring all night gradually becomes less exciting, and more annoying.

Don’t even get me started on the noises hippos make.

Safari Update

Just spent a week camping in the wilds of Botswana. Awesome trip. Awesome group of people. Awesome animal sightings.
And, more importantly, some seriously funny blog posts.
Gotta do laundry first though.
Stay tuned.
Here's a teaser to keep you interested:
You know it's a good time when you wake up every morning and check to see what wild animals came through your campsite overnight and left tracks.
Big paws with no claw marks are lions.
Smaller paw marks with claw marks are jackals.
Big round lily-pad things are elephants.
Cool.

Just for a laugh....

Walk into downtown Joburg and ask "Which way to Soweeeeto?"
If they don't kill you first, I guarantee they'll die of laughter.

How to make a buck in South Africa

If South Africa were a more litigious society, there are some things a lawyer might find particularly enticing about life in this part of the world. Particularly lucrative, shall we say.

Elevators that trap pregnant women between the ground and the first floor (yes – like Europe, they call the floor above the ground floor the first floor). Screeching to a series of halts, and plummets, the elevator grinds to a halt about a foot above the intended landing area, forcing said pregnant woman to crawl out, and send an all-staff email in warning.

Gross negligence by locksmiths who, instead of cutting a simple door key properly, cock it up so that one’s parents are trapped outside one’s apartment for 5 hours, unable to get in, and unable to contact you on your mobile, because you have wisely left the mobile on the dining room table with a note for them explaining you thought it better that they have the mobile for the day to avoid being trapped in the apartment complex with no link to the outside world. (For more reading on this subject, see post #2 “The importance of a blackberry”). (Now that, Alanis Morrisette, is actually ironic.)

Gross ridiculous gaping holes in main roads, marked by a single pylon, if you’re lucky, causing unnecessary swerving, and lots of accidents.

Manslaughter in the second degree by anyone and everyone who smokes in this country – which actually is anyone and everyone (possibly even said pregnant woman’s fetus, for all I know) – since smoking anywhere and everywhere is pretty much a-ok.

Ill-placed hills of sand in the middle of major roads, with not even a pylon, resulting in more swerving, cussing, and general bad temper.

Complete lack of street lights, reflective paint on street signs and highway information boards, and cows in the middle of highways, causing premature death due to stress trying to read the signs and find one’s way back from the Pilanesberg after dark because one just “had to go and see the elephants again”. After one white-knuckle ride home, you’d think one would have learned. But you would be wrong-o.

Probably quite inadvisable lack of cabs* or cab chits after work functions involving beer from 8am until way way way after dark, resulting in three, count’em, three, vehicles being written off after encounters with aforementioned sand hills, gaping holes, and probably a couple of cows too.

*Although – here’s a great idea that is actually happening in Joburg: You’re drunk. You don’t want to drive, but you also don’t want to leave your car – because you are in South Africa. You don’t drive – you call: Toot n’Scoot. Some dude answers your call, drives over on a collapsible scooter. He puts the scooter in your trunk, and drives you and your car home. Then he pulls out his scooter, and off he goes, like the shining scooter knight that he is. Brilliant.