While Rome Burns

On Friday, on a quest to find a new Egg Person, I was witness to a police raid on the major market nearby.  This involves dark, weathered men in blue uniforms and a sky-high view of themselves scattering fields of women trying to rescue their wares.  I think this is due to the fact that these women shouldn’t be there – they should be renting stalls within the market.  Buses and motos (and likely taxis) are also prohibited from stopping in that area as their presence creates a bottleneck. 

I think (desperately hope) that the officers just run through to scare the women – they scatter like flies and then resettle again in a few minutes.  I’ve even seen them grinning as though it’s a game. 

This particular Friday, one of the women was not quick enough to get away and lost a fish.  A police officer ran through the melee like a naked toddler trying to evade his mother and stamped on it with a gusto rarely found in mature adults, much less rifle-toting protectors of civil society.

A nearby woman ‘rescued’ the fish – whether to throw away, give back to the vendor, or for her own dinner table, I’m not sure.  It was just such a surreal situation; I wondered if I even existed in this world where police officers act like bullies in a schoolyard.  I watched this madness happening around me, clutching my bag to my chest and wondering if I could help a woman carry her bag of flour and run or whether I’d be shot in the back for it. 

I just wanted a deal on eggs.    

My previous Egg Lady is now too far away, and the ones at the nearby market refuse to entertain my timid attempts to haggle.  Before you judge me unduly – I eat an egg or two every day; I can’t afford to be spending a fortune on eggs every month, especially when my peanut and peanut butter addictions make me contemplate starting an escort service.   

On the way back to my old Egg Lady, and kicking myself in the seat of the skirt for not just giving in and buying eggs anywhere because I’m white and I can afford at least 10 000 eggs right now, I reached the point of no return.  In fact, I ran toward it with a bloodcurdling war cry.  I was going to stop and ask every. single. egg seller. in. the. vicinity. whether they could cut me a deal. 

I would do it, by George, and shame and shyness bedarned. 

The first shop at which I stopped agreed after some discussion and ‘asking management’ – an old woman in a pagne who looked disinterested with life in general, much less a cheap muzungu with an unhealthy passion for eggs. 

All that righteous gumption and nowhere to use it. 

I was just about to leave when my new Egg Man congratulated me on knowing how to haggle.

I stared at him in horror. 

No, no, no...  Can’t you see what you’ve done?!  You’ve unleashed the beast!

I already get an endorphin rush from finding deals.  How can I possibly be less cheap in the face of intermittent external positive reinforcement?

Thus, with unwilling pride and no other choice, I trundled home to face my rat.

I know I said previously that I would rather die of the bubonic plague; I lied.  I like to shoot down problems as soon as possible – before they even appear, in fact, which leads to unfortunate epithets such as cynical, pessimistic, and nuttier than trailmix – and, besides, Carrottop and Captain would not look good in beaked masks.

Upon arriving home, I carefully dragged my bags of dried and canned food to the living room.  Remembering The Cat Burglar of 2016, I left a balcony door open to prevent unnecessary screaming.  Then I proceeded to kick my rations across the floor like an enraged orangutan. 

In the darkness of the setting sun and a power cut, with the remains of packaged and canned food around me, I was forced to admit my slow descent into dementia. 

There was no rat.

There was no rat poop.

There was nothing. 

Nothing to stand between me and the fact that Butters was right – darn his messy head:  I was suffering from psychosomatic symptoms of stress.  I had itchy bumps all over, I was sleeping fitfully, I was having auditory hallucinations, and maybe Butters wasn’t away for the weekend – maybe I’d done him in for requesting one too many eggs or rolls of toilet paper. 

Resolving to search for an organizational procedure manual in the case of Manslaughter – Not Guilty, I packed up all the food again.  In a last-ditch attempt to justify myself, I slowly - very slowly - took down my clothes from my balcony door (which is useless to me except as a closet), and slowly – very slowly – opened it and peeked around. 

I’m not very sure what I was hoping to see – I loved reading Rats of Nimh as a child, and I think this adversely affected my brain development - a labyrinthine rat city?  Filled with little rats hard at work discovering the cure to humans using them as test subjects?  Monuments of Skinner and Little Albert?      

In any case, there was nothing but a load of dust and plaster.

Because I hate to admit I’m wrong even more than I hate to admit I’m crazy, I soon developed the bright idea to check the bag itself. 

At last, at long last, I was vindicated.  A seam on the side of the bag was chewed up and ripped: there had been a rat at some point.  Butters, if he were around, might have said I’d gnawed the bag myself, but the fact that he returned on Sunday night assured me that my sanity – questionable at the best of times – was still holding by an adamantium thread.       

I have now placed my food bag out of reach of marauding rats and have not been woken at midnight since. 

Though I am prepared for the return of any and all psychosomatic symptoms when we move again, I’m not crazy now and, as Carrottop gently reminds me – I need to live in the present.    

At least, at the very least, the bathroom on the third floor does not open into the kitchen.  And I will be in a room not easily accessible to rats, though I haven’t decided which yet.  If I move into the small bedroom across from the bathroom, I will be able to hear the sound of the dripping water if and when it deigns to arrive.  This will also allow Butters to have a marginally larger room with the view for which his heart so deeply longs.  On the other hand, if I take the larger room with a view, I will  not be killed first if someone breaks in,  have more light to read by and absolve myself of all water responsibilities.  As this would be selfish and cutting off my nose to spite my face, respectively, I think I’ll be opting for the small room with a view of half our neighbour’s roof. 

Another excellent feature of our new neighbourhood is that the power is regularly out between 4pm - 6:30pm. 

Having a regular schedule of power outage is both helpful to my sanity and generally rational.  People can plan and live their lives around regular power outages.  Irregular power outages, which is what Carrottop and Captain and their respective families face, is hell on earth to me.  Currently, I sit in the dark on a plastic chair eating peanut butter from a jar and playing Tetris until 6:30, but at least I know the power will come on again from 6:30pm to 9pm. 

That’s reassuring. 

Somewhat less reassuring is the presence of the girls downstairs who knock on my door to inform me they’re making foufou.  Or eating it.  Or wanting it.  Or offering it to me.  Or something. 

This was just before the Great Rat Hunt, so I was in no mood to play games in Swahili.  I wished them a bon appétit and shut the door in their faces.  Thankfully, they’re still kind to me whenever they see me despite my rudeness in not giving them foufou.  Or eating it.  Or something. 

I really can’t be bothered with such trivialities when everything seems to change around me in minutes.  For example, my church was lost in the space of a day.  New owners kicked us out with the help of police, and church regulars were forced to take everything down on Saturday and find a new venue. 

This wasn’t so bad as I wasn’t involved in any part of the move.  Takedown on Sunday night, after the English service, was another story.  I fielded uneven stairs with instruments, handfuls of Bibles, and a distinct fear that someone (most likely myself) would step on my skirt and send me flying.  While I do believe the Word of God saves, a Bible embedded in my liver is not what I mean.

So I have decided to wear jeans for as long as I have to help with the cleanup of a party venue, set up a church service, and then take it all down again every Sunday.  In the unlikely event that my sheer muzunguness doesn’t protect me from censure, I will bring a skirt or use my scarf as a wraparound.

Heaven forbid my jean-clad legs drive man and God to distress.