Alice's Tea Party

The last Tuesday in October saw a short, fierce earthquake in the wee hours of the morning.  I was having trouble sleeping due to strange dreams (some involving not finding my crush – even my dreams are realistic), and the earthquake barely registered.  I clearly remember thinking I wonder if there’s water...  No, no water, and then turning over and going back to sleep.  Nothing seemed affected in my room or in the kitchen, so I really thought it was a dream.

Until our short devotion at work the next morning outlining the many ways God could kill us if He so wished.

Not only could Lake Kivu explode (due to vast reservoirs of carbon dioxide that could erupt due to volcanic or tectonic activity and suffocate everything living around it), but entire homes could be washed away in the fierce rain/hail storms and earthquakes that happen every so often.   

As if there isn’t enough to worry about.

I say this purely from an intellectual perspective – hearing news from other parts of the country through my colleagues, the radio (forced on me by Butters' desperate attempt at integration and French immersion), and knowing that this part of the world is dangerous. 

Personally, I still feel safe, even though I’ve been the victim of two near-robberies:  first, the Lesser Ipod Theft of 2016, and now the Minor Cookie Abduction Attempt.  I’d just been shopping for my monthly  cookies  groceries and was hiding them from anyone who could possibly feel like they were somehow connected to me and could take what they wanted; thus my grocery bag was inside my threadbare satchel.  N2O, angel that she is, warned me to be careful of it.  As I had already been worried that the bag was sticking out a little, I decided to carry it in the cradle of my arms – the only way cookies should be held, really.  A slender youth – well-dressed, with a baseball cap, singing - tried to yank it out of my clutches, failed, and kept walking – still singing. 

What, exactly, does one do in this situation?

 Scream Stop, kind-of thief!  ?

If I hadn’t been holding on to my bag with the desperate strength of the terminally snacking, he would have been many packets of chocolate cookies richer.  I had a vision of Kangana Ranaut on the dark streets of Paris in Queen, clutching her bag and keening on the ground until her would-be thief gave up. 

There have been two other attempted thefts of which I’m aware, which is why I no longer carry a backpack; nothing was stolen except perhaps a pen, so I don’t count those.

Later, when thanking N2O for her foresight, we discussed my  stupidity  courage in the face of thefts, earthquakes, nearby gunfire, etc.  When I explained my theory that fear needs a face, a bankable previous experience on which to build, she understood perfectly. 

“One of my friends was taking care of his baby sibling in the hospital during the earthquake in Bukavu in 2008,” she said.  “They were on the third floor when the earthquake struck and my friend grabbed the baby, the attached IV drip, and booked it down the stairs.  The child asked inquiringly, Are you scared, [brother]?”

As another reminder of what friends are for, N2O worriedly stated that I looked ill the day after the earthquake.  I explained that I was fine, but she persisted.  Finally, I asked her what, precisely, I looked like.  She mused for a bit.  “You know diarrhea?”

This is not going to end well. 

“You look like someone who’s had diarrhea.”

Golly. 

I'm glad we have more fun during our language study (though she was laughing her head off during that last exchange).  We’d been discussing sambaza, the small fish she’d bought from the market that day, when she suddenly grabbed a few plastic bottles from her shack and said she wanted to show me something. 

She flung them out in all directions and said, “There.  That’s sambaza.”

I eyed her askance.  Jesus had turned water into wine, and I knew she believed in God's power with the stolid conviction of someone who’s been given no other option, but this was ridiculous.

“That,” she continued, pointing into the shack ripe with the smell of fresh fish, “That is sambazaa!  You can sambaza the sambazaa – but you can’t eat sambaza.”

Alrighty then.

Later that day, she proudly showed me her new signature: “See!  I do it like you now!”

I looked into our sign-in book – there, clearly displayed by her name, were the letters A-S-S.

I blinked.  ASS, who’d arrived at work at 0700h, did not change.

“Um.  What, exactly, do I do?”

“You don’t use your signature, remember?!”

I did.  We’d discussed that I only used my initials to sign in rather than my full signature – which I preferred to use only for official documents.  Somehow this translated to her signing in as ASS, when I would have sworn she didn’t have those two final letters in her name at all.

Because she teaches me Swahili and fields unwanted visitors and I love her a little bit, I didn't pinch the bridge of my nose and just give up like I deeply wanted to; we developed a new signature in the next few minutes.  An unwanted visitor she was unable to save me from showed up the very next day – an old neighbour whom I’d unwittingly waved at the day before. 

I was visiting our old quartier for a combined birthday dinner with BFG, Carrottop, and Butters when I’d passed two guards on my street who used to wave at me and talk to me about the dust and mud rather than hitting on me or asking me for money, food, or another job.  Between us stood this neighbour.  I hadn’t even really processed his presence, and even now I’m wondering if he was really there or if my memory was planted by his explanation. 

As I was staring at him in absolute blankness – with the horrible certainty that I knew him from somewhere – he explained, “You waved at me!  Remember, yesterday?”  He mimed my exuberant wave and I fought the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose and give up again. 

No.  I was waving at people who don’t hit on me.  You might have been in the way.  I was in no way encouraging you to try and find me at me place of work.  Which he’d remembered from some long-ago conversation when I’d tried to get rid of him by mentioning a neighbouring building.

I processed all this in the few seconds I stared at his earnestly bespectacled face outside my office.  I could have done the right thing - could have clearly said, Sorry – I was waving at someone behind you.  I truly didn’t even notice you there. 

Instead, I smiled weakly and exchanged phone numbers with him while he tried to ask me out on a date and I tried to pretend I didn't understand what he was asking.  Now he sends me texts at night - always signing his name in quotation marks, which adds to the feeling of surreal creepiness.

This is “ John ” 

I’m in bed and taking the opportunity before I close my eyes to wish you good night  “ John ”

I received this last while trying to fill water in the darkness of a power cut, almost dropping my phone in a bucket of water when it started buzzing in my mouth (where I was holding it as a flashlight). 

Ichthyosaur.  

My blissfully single Gujju friend, who thankfully doesn’t have my number, saw me outside the grocery store and asked why I don’t call him.

“Oh, you know – you’re busy, I’m busy...”  ...and not interested at all...

“No, I’m puhree!”  he said happily, in a classic North Indian accent.

I stared at him, this nice man who hadn't taken the graceful exit I offered. 

Shopping, in general, is always an experience.  When I asked for small change for a $100 bill, the foreign owner of the store shrieked maths down at the hapless guard who’d apparently gotten something wrong.  Oblivious to this, my cashier asked if Skin White soap was what I usually used. 

Fighting my natural inclination to get between an unnecessarily shouting person and his victim, I focused my ferocious anxiety on my new purchase.  It was yet another expensive bar of soap that would probably make my entire face one giant pimple, but it at least had the decency to advertise No pimples! and I had literally nothing left to lose. 

“No, I’ve never used it before.  Do you think it’s good?” I fretted.

“No, no, it’s probably fine,” she said, examining both me and the soap carefully.

Only later did I wonder if she thought the soap was the reason for my being brown.  As though I’d started out black and slowly became Indian through regular use of Skin White.  She was probably around my colour, so I have no idea why this could have interested her, but fashion is a heavy burden – particularly for non-white women who never will be and yet are convinced it is beautiful.

On the weekend, I dressed for our church's monthly hospital visit to the sound of retching.  The hills, if they were ever alive, soon promised to be less so.  We usually had people climbing the walls of our building to scrape and bang things and stare into my window, but retching was a new feature.  I held my too-sensitive gag reflex literally by the throat and waited for it to stop. 

Did he have to climb up here to vomit?  I mean, really.  I understand that work is important, but if you’re vomiting down onto your clientele and colleagues, maybe it’s time to stay home and pop an anti-malarial.     

At the end of it all, as though to punctuate it, was the final, honking blast of a viciously blown nose.

I knew that sound - from Canada geese, my father and, more recently, from Butters. 

I threw open my bedroom door to find Butters weakly slumped in the Gateway to Cholera.  “It’s you!  I thought it was someone outside!  Are you okay?”  Great, now BFG and Carrottop will never let me babysit, was an actual fleeting through my brain.  They are in Kenya, need no more reasons for stress leave, and do not see me as any sort of babysitter, but I think this comes from growing up as a big sister.

In his usual chipper fashion, he said he was great and that he felt much better now that he’d vomited and ruined my morning.  I fought the urge to mother him and went about my daily duties as usual.

The next day, I discussed the role of women with couch-makers in Pastor’s house – the head couch-maker (manager?  artisan?) was horrified that Pastor would change his toddler’s diapers.  “I cannot do it!  No!  While my wife is doing nothing?!  I cannot!” he shrieked theatrically in English as he energetically hammered a frame.  I was deeply proud that Pastor would help his wife until I remembered that this is kind of a job requirement. This is the kind of conversation that men like Pastor – who think feminism is vastly overrated because they lead and care for their wives in an appropriate way - miss:  “Even the Bible says that women should serve men!  Maybe it's because he's a pastor," he mused. 

That he's considerate?

Possibly.  

Meanwhile, his apprentice was making moon eyes at me and wondering if this was the last time we’d see each other in Swahili. 

When Pastor’s wife served them foufou and lenga-lenga, I poured water so they could wash their hands to eat. 

“I never thought I’d be served by a muzungu,” murmured the apprentice in apparent ecstasy. 

I didn’t have the heart to point out that I was brown and that my history was closer to his than a white person's. 

Remember, we’re all mad here...