Living for Disco

Now I remember why I gave up being a tour leader. It never stops, and is punctuated by long periods of intense boredom.

I got into bed last night, and was asked that loaded question:

“Miss, do you have children?”
No.
“What are you waiting for?”
Well, the right man would be useful…
“You don’t have one?”
Er…
“Have one of mine – I have two!” Gales of laughter.

I went outside to make a phone call. Half way through, I noticed that boys were pouring from their room, clad only in boxer shorts, and standing around in the car park. On closer inspection, one of them appeared to be lying by the dustbin clutching his stomach. I went over to inspect, and regretted it. Projectile vomiting at bedtime is not my idea of a fun night. He was carted off to the clinic*, while the poor kid on clean-up duty retched his way back to bed. I wiped the sick spatters off my feet and went to bed.

This morning, at 5am, all of the girls woke up, as if controlled by an orbiting spaceship bent on global domination, and began showering and singing. My first sentence of the day, which is usually a cheery good morning, became “Sweet Jesus. It’s too. Fucking. Early. Breakfast is not for another TWO AND A HALF HOURS. Go back to sleep.”

They’re sweet kids, who have great voices, and no prospects. Most of them will be lucky if they ever get a job. Statistically, four of the twenty will die of AIDS. I’m hoping they’ll have got the message that they themselves are trying to convey with this tour, and that this won’t be their fate but I don’t know. Sometimes I find myself wondering whether they really know or want to know anything about HIV and AIDS, or whether they joined the group because that’s the only thing in Kamanjab that there is to do, apart from drink and have sex. At least they will have been exposed to the information though, which is more than can be said for alot of people.

None of them has ever seen the sea before. I pointed out some seagulls to one boy, who said in a voice I reserve only for giraffes, “I’ve heard of seagulls. But only until now I have not seen one with my own eyes”.

The same could be said of jellyfish. I ran up and down the jetty, waving my arms and shouting “Don’t touch the jellyfish! Don’t touch the jellyfish!”, like a madwoman.

“Miss, what is it?” [prod]
“It’s a jellyfish, I said don’t touch it.”
“Why not?” [prod]
“It will sting you. Stop touching it.”
“What…?” [prod]
“It’s poisonous. What part of don’t touch the jellyfish don’t you understand?”
Repeat several times, and you have a rough approximation of my lunch hour.

And from tomorrow, for four days, I’m solely responsible for all of them. God help us all.

*My boss told me this morning that they didn’t have to spend long at the hospital. There was only one other patient in at the time – a girl who’d been raped. She was four years old. Sometimes I wonder about the human race.

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