Living for Disco

You might not expect it, but Namibia is a country that has picked up on the appeal of pies, and has turned it into an art form. Even the cheapo, Petrol-station-takeaway-warmed-up-in-a-cabinet pie that I would normally avoid at all costs at home is streets ahead of your bog standard UK-chip-shop effort in terms of quality and taste. I’m becoming addicted.

My favourite pie so far is the pepper steak flavour, which actually has proper bits of steak in it, in a yummy, neither bland nor greasy pepper sauce. And it is all encased in NICE pastry, that isn’t soggy, or stodgy, or too crumbly, or too dry, or all the other unfortunate things that happen to pastry when people don’t care about how it turns out, and that take all the enjoyment out of pie eating. Occasionally the filling does spill out of the back, but there’s usually just enough pastry left with which to scoop it all up. Perfection.

I’m planning on making a list of all the places where I know you can buy a pie, so that I can strategically plan any lunch hours that I find myself in town. I’m fed up with chip butties and kabanosit sausages.

If you’re lucky, sometimes you’ll pass by one of the mobile pie-men in the street, although they don’t seem to frequent this neighbourhood. They’re a bit like the gimmicky old-fashioned ice cream sellers that they have in Hyde Park, who trundle along with those hand carts with bells on, except that these guys don’t wear straw boaters. Or sell ice cream. Only pies.

Man. Now I’m hungry.

One of the things I like most about my office is that when I arrive at 8am, or thereabouts, the two people I share my space with are sitting and reading the paper. I usually join them.

I get my daily Namibian from the guy who stands at the traffic lights at the bottom of Sam Nujoma Drive. I’m sure he thinks I’m completely crazy. I bowl up on my ancient purple bicycle, give him a couple of dollars, we exchange smiles and hellos, and then I’m off, trundling up the hill, paper neatly tucked into the rack on the back.

I usually find that a nice interlude sat perusing the news is healthy, and it stops me dripping sweat all over my grant application forms.

Today though, there are four pages of grim stories. There’s a picture of the feet and gun of the Deputy Minister’s driver, who publicly shot himself in the head yesterday. There’s a nice wee story about a skeleton that’s been found tied to a tree on a farm in Khomas; it’s believed he/she was tortured. The other news is that murder victim Juanita, who thankfully has been reunited with her severed head after a couple of weeks of strenuous searching, was killed by a blow to the back of the skull. Her family had to identify her head, which was ‘partially decomposed’. Can you imagine?

So, I’m feeling rather miserable about the state of the world today. Perhaps I’ll go back to remaining ignorant of goings on.

I am connected again. Finally, I can find out what’s going on in the world. I can give myself a bit of time to read about the fact that US casualties in the Iraq war have topped 2000 (still no headlines about Iraqi casualties), and that Israel have been bombing the Gaza strip again.

Even though the news is dispiriting, it feels soooo good to be in touch. I’ve felt as if there’s been a giant hole in my brain, and I’ve had to fill it with rubbish (crap chick lit – don’t bother to read Playing Away. Possibly the worst book I have ever read, but when you’re desperate….). As a consequence, I’ve been feeling remarkably stupid and ill-informed, although the Namibian has some really interesting articles in it on a Friday (one about researchers baiting giant squid with mashed up squid gonads which was particularly good), and thoughtfully gives you a run down of the week’s suicides and murders. Most people who commit suicide here seem to hang themselves, usually from trees.

My favourite article, though, is the news from Tessa Jowell that London Council Tax payers, who already pay out ridiculously hefty sums for the privilege of living in our illustrious capital, are going to have to fork out for the Olympics IF it runs over budget. If? Ha ha ha ha. I had a hunch that projects such as these habitually come in at staggeringly more than the original project cost – the Millenium Dome being a particular favourite - and so I looked some of them up.

Wonder what the chances are for the Olympics?

While the rest of the world is coping with a mass outbreak of bird flu, in Namibia we remain blissfully carefree. A large article in the Namibian newspaper caught my eye last week, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the news that the government is not worried that the disease will ravage the country’s poultry population and then move on to decimate the humans. I’m convinced that this is partly because in Namibia chicken is regarded as a vegetable, and so would be likely to remain unaffected.

Instead, we have to deal with an outbreak of rabies in the capital. An unprecedented number of foaming and staggering dogs have been brought in to various veterinary establishments over the last few days. Not surprisingly, the city went into panic mode. A widespread rabies epidemic would be completely disastrous - there are more dogs in Windhoek than there are people, (and I’m sure that they are all trained to bark wildly at people on bicycles). That’s without considering the baboons, and all the wee animals like cats, mongooses (mongeese?) and squirrels.

In any case, a mass free vaccination programme has been launched, and unidentified stray dogs are being picked up and destroyed. I think I’ll be ok. I’m sure that my landlords have vaccinated both of their dogs, and as yet I haven’t been attacked by a squirrel. I did have a moment of worry when on my return home one of the dogs insisted on trying to lick me to death, rather than acting like the vicious attack jack russell that it clearly is meant to be (apparently a symptom of rabies in wild animals is over-friendliness). Then I considered that it is probably not what you’d call a wild animal, and in any case it is completely normal for me to spend my evenings trying to stop the damn thing licking between my toes. I think that dogs must like the taste of stale sweat.

The same seems to be true of the inevitable dog at my new home. I’m moving in just over a week, and yesterday was introduced to Boris. I don’t like dogs much, and Boris is urrrgly. I think he’s some kind of bulldog. He’s stunted and wrinkled. He waddles, probably due to his unfeasibly large testicles (a feature I noticed in surprise after my predecessor in the apartment said “This is Boris. She’s very friendly.”)

He is indeed very friendly, and he looks like he would thoroughly enjoy getting smelly dog hair all over my sofa. Also, I don’t want balls that size anywhere near anything I have to sit on on a regular basis because, frankly, they look as if they need to explode, so he’s going to have to learn to stay outside.

Anyway, hopefully I will escape a horrible, salivating death, bird flu won’t affect the chicken population, Boris’s bollocks will manage to contain themselves, and I’ll be able to burble on about nothing in particular for the foreseeable future keep you posted on his training.

I just hope I’m better at controlling him than I am unruly teenagers.

And what a week it’s been. Jeez, I’ve never been so glad to get shot of a group of people in my entire life. Coping with 20 bored, sulky teenagers is clearly not my calling in life. The little bastards.

“Miss, you must take me one photo.”
“Miss, you must give me one dollar. I want to smoke.”
“Miss, give me two dollars. I want to buy beer.”
“Miss, let’s talk business. Give me your cellphone. I want to call my sister/brother/mother/great aunt/third cousin twice removed/dog.”
“Miss, this accomodation/food/place where we must perform is not good.”
“Miss, blah blah, whinge, demand, whinge, pout.”

It’s been a torrid week. We moved from the youth hostel in Swakop, where I was sharing a room with 10 girls, to an empty house in Karibib, where I shared floor space on a mouldy mattress with 26 assorted youths of both sexes, who all seemed intent on making as much noise as possible, having as much sex as possible, and making themselves as obnoxious as possible. My most common phrase this week has been “Look, I SAID BE QUIET. How many times do I have to say it?”

Privacy was a mere wisp of a dream. More men have seen me in my underwear this last week than in the last ten years. At one point I had to share the single outdoor shower cubicle with two of the girls. The whole thing was open on to next door’s yard, so god knows who’s seen me naked. I’m past caring.

Then there was the business with the elastoplasts. I bought a box for emergencies, and within two days, all of the kids were wandering around with flesh-coloured plasters stuck all over them.

“Miss, you must give me one plaster”.
“Why?”
“Because I have an insect bite”
“Hmm. Looks like a hickey to me.”
“What miss?”
“Nothing. Have a plaster.”

Friday was the real killer. I’d been looking on it as an experience to be grateful for, but never repeated, until Friday. We were all relaxing at lunch time, trying to get some rest, when all hell broke loose. I didn’t understand a single word of what was happening, but there were tears, and there was screaming. Two of the girls tried to hurl themselves bodily at one of the others, who had taken refuge behind a door, and was being protected by three of my colleagues. I stood, open mouthed, entirely unheeded, shouting “Hey!! Hey, what is going on? Hello?”

It transpires that one of the girls refused to give a bit of orange to one of the others, and so, as you do, the orangeless one insulted the other one’s mother. I don’t know what was said, but apparently in Damaran it was a mortal insult. They seriously tried to beat her to a pulp. These girls are hardcore. I had to threaten to call the police. Last I heard, they had to actually take the poor girl to her front door, because it all started again when they got off the bus in Kamanjab.

She completely refused to perform in the afternoon, which was a pain in the arse, because she had by far the most important part to play in the proceedings; she just sat there in tears. I spent the afternoon glaring at all and sundry, in a thoroughly black mood, ready to start beating people to a pulp myself if crossed.

Then I awoke at 2am to the sound of adolescent copulation a mere foot from my head. I can testify that the condom message appears to have got through, because I heard them use it.

The rest of my week involved sitting around in the baking heat, sweeping up broken glass from outside shebeens (a Sysephean task, that one - I had no idea there was so much broken glass in the world), and refusing to give people money.

My experience in Namibia so far is that people don’t ask for money, so it was quite a surprise to find so many people confidently approaching me this week, hand outstretched, saying “Give me one dollar”, as if the outcome was a foregone conclusion. I was so deeply pissed off with being mistaken for a mobile cash machine by the end of last week, that I’m sure my heart turned to stone. My guilt at saying no to people entirely disappeared.

I’m so glad it’s over. And I’m seriously reconsidering my desire to give birth.

Anyway, my favourite thing about the week was the troupe of baboons I saw on the way home on Saturday, perching on the electicity wires like large, ungainly birds.

They made me smile.