Living for Disco

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.