Glimmers of Potential - Part II

On Wednesday, I was followed part of the way home by a cute guy who wasn’t quite as tall as my shoulder.  I tried to give him vague answers to his prying and was unwillingly impressed when he kept up with my roadrunner pace.  When I pretended I only knew English; he manfully soldiered on.  

“Okay!  You’re good!  Good!”

*people-pleaser given the best of all gifts*  “I... am?  R-really?”

“I mean, beautiful!  You are beautiful!”

*hopes dashed again*  “Right, yeah.”

We eventually progressed to French because I slip into it naturally (and then proceed to drown in it) now and he confessed that he was very happy – whether to see me or whether to get some exercise, I have no idea. 

The next day, a bejewelled, paan-sucking Indian man (who also didn’t quite reach my shoulder) came to see me at my place of work. 

You don’t think these two events are related.

You are wrong. 

I had been in the middle of a Swahili/English exchange when we were interrupted by an exorcism of a demon in the cleaning lady.  The Indian knocked while we were in the throes of it.

I had previously assumed that she was just, you know, ill.  So I vaguely prayed, possibly only gently shooing away a few germs.  A man of the cloth came in, grabbed her by the temples and commanded the Devil and all his demons to let her go while I fought against the natural widening of my eyes, the receptionist snickered, and the visiting Indian tried to ask if I was Indian too. 

In the middle of the madness, unable to escape the  shack  office in which I was trapped, I tried to ignore the Indian and pretend I was part of the exorcism because it seemed the lesser of the two evils.

When Satan and his dark hordes had presumably excused themselves, I had to step out and face this man, who spoke Hindi, Swahili, and very little English or French.  Since I have apparently forgotten all my Hindi except song lyrics, we stood around awkwardly staring at nothing while I tried to convince him that I could still understand it. 

When he finally capitulated, I wished he hadn’t.

“I saw you walking yesterday and I stopped my car, but you were walking so fast.”

I do that to avoid this situation in which we now find ourselves.

“Where do you live?”

“[Vague area].”

“Do you walk every day?”

“Yes.”

“You shouldn’t.  There is black magic here.”

Great – Indian superstition and Central African sorcery – a match made on shaadi.com  “Ha-ha, I don’t believe in that kind of stuff--“

“You should.  I have been here 10 years – I know.”

Well, if your goal was to make this conversation creepier...
“That's why I sent my man to walk with you yesterday.”
...Congratulations, you've just leveled up. 

“Anyway, I have a bakery in [vague area].  Are you married?”

“Ah.  No.  Is your family here?”

This may seem like a non-sequitur, but I had been to that bakery before and spoken to the clerk, who (aside from impressing me by knowing the year of India’s independence) informed me that Indians owned the bakery and the lady of the house was in India to give birth.

“No.”  *shy smile* “I’m celibataire.” 

My receptionist fulfilled the solemn duty of all friends everywhere and snickered.

Loudly.    

I glared at her as he continued, “My family is in India.”

I will admit that’s a nice French word to know.  Especially if a woman who is possibly your wife is giving birth to your child in India while you creep on a  nice  not actively evil Malayalee Christian in Central Africa.

I want to give him the benefit of the doubt – perhaps he owns another bakery, perhaps the woman I’d heard about was not his wife, perhaps he wasn't even hitting on me.  However, this was still a weird situation, he was neither cute nor a billionaire, his teeth were red, and this was not happening to me.

“Give me your number.”

“No.”

“Take my number.”

“Okay.”

“But I don’t want it just to stay on that paper!  Call me.”

“Ha-ha-ha.  Ho-ho-ho.  Well. Bye now.”

“Drop by the bakery and take what you want; don’t worry about the cost...”

“Hey baby, how you doin’...”

is absolutely not what I said.  (Someone will need to revive my mother or send an ambulance to our address.)

However, I will admit that it will be harder to survive without bread knowing that I can have free bread. 

Well, possibly free.  I imagine there is some hidden cost involved.  Fine print is a real killer.

***

I should have known that day would be difficult when there was a lizard waiting for me outside my bedroom door first thing in the morning.   

Bleary-eyed because it was dawn (my stove requires a substantial period of  foreplay  warm up to function) after a long night of various attempts to fill my water buckets (which will likely be a symptom in my PTSD upon returning to Canada), I stared at him and willed him to writhe away like they usually do.

After a few minutes, I realised he was dead.

Good.  So perish the enemies of the house of Kermit. 

I continued about my morning ablutions, desperately trying not to create a lizard pancake and hoping against hope that our glorious phoenix of a house helper would dispose of the corpse appropriately – possibly a hanging on a small gallows as a warning to the others.  I was going to leave a funny note for the Phoenix, but decided against it as he low-key hates me (as evidenced by a half-a-page-long monologue in the Swahili of a largely uneducated person that ended with ...$10 – I don’t know if he’s hired contract killers for that amount or whether he needs it to save his dying aunt).  As it stands, he may have just cut the dead lizard up into small pieces and strewn it on my (unmade) bed.

On second thought, he’s too professional for that – maybe just the tail.

***

Our coordinators are demanding that we know at least three numbers of our company by heart to contact in case of emergency. 

It used to be one, then it was two, and now it’s three.

As of yet, I don’t think my organization has realised that I usually forget to look both ways before crossing the street. 

'Three numbers' is actually misleading because each number involves, like, 10-12 more numbers.  It’s all just too much. 

Besides, I`ve heard conversations between my in-office colleagues and our on-the-ground counterparts in villages – they sound as if they're communicating via two tins and a string in the midst of the Battle of Stalingrad:  HOW MANY RAPES?  NO, NO, NOT ‘DO YOU VAPE.’  I SAID, HOW MANY RAPES?   

Anyway, if I try to remember these ‘three’ numbers, I’ll forget Bible verses!  Or Swahili vocabulary!  Or the plus-que-parfait subjunctive!  Now you tell me which is more valid when I’m trapped up a tree with a friendly gibbon – cell phone numbers or Psalm 94: 17-19? 


Part I