Living for Disco

Every day the Namibian publishes a ‘Top Ten’ list for the edification of its audience.

Last week’s highlight: Top ten countries by number of pigs.

I’m assuming this is from some regular worldwide pig census, probably carried out by undercover CIA agents investigating the threat of a real life Animal Farm event. In any case, China’s sties ahead with almost half a billion porkers, and the US drags itself, wheezing, into second place with 60 million. I’ve always had rather a fondness for char siu buns. Go China!

This week (I know it’s only Monday, but I’m not sure how they can top this): Famous people and their allergies. Did you know that Iggy Pop is allergic to milk?

The road to enlightenment is paved with such treasures of trivia and inconsequential gobbets of insight. Trust me.

I feel more serene already.

Hmmm. Since yesterday, someone has told me that Windhoek had more than six days of rain last year. Well, I have some facts. Last year, in January, which is supposedly the rainy season, Windhoek received a scant, but fairly standard 67.8 mm of rain. The average annual rainfall in Windhoek is 360mm. A week ago, the rainfall for January had reached almost 300mm. Yesterday, so much rain fell on the city that the sluice gates of the Avis Dam opened up automatically – an extraordinarily unusual event – and released a wild, angry river complete with jumping fish and whole trees into the dry river bed that runs through the west of the city.

It was phenomenal to watch. I went up there last night, along with many people for whom the sight of a river is about as common as a white Christmas. There was almost a carnival atmosphere; the place was full of kids and dogs. I’m surprised there wasn’t a hot dog stand.

My boyfriend (not sure how to refer to him really – Lover? Paramour? Love interest? Personal Slave? Hmmm… Will have to give this some consideration) experienced a flash flood out at his farm yesterday. I saw the pictures. That’s a lot of water. He discovered scary, carnivorous, duck-devouring tortoises in a small pond out the back of the house the other day, but now the tortoises have been released into the wild, and from here on in we will be hearing tales of mysterious disappearing water fowl across the region. It’s like something out of a horror-disaster movie. For ducks.

There doesn’t seem to be any kind of scheme to manage all this water. I know that it’s an unusual occurrence, but surely, in a country so short on water, this abundance should prompt a flurry of conservation. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case. The water that is released is simply lost, and by the time the rain stops – and when it does, we won’t see any more until the end of the year - we will all be sitting here again, worrying about the dropping water levels in the dams that supply the city’s drinking water.

Mind you, judging from a recent headline in the Namibian, it’s not the dropping water levels in the dams that we should be worrying about. It’s the rising floaters.

It seems to be raining a bit here at the moment.

Last year, apparently, Windhoek had six days of rain. This year so far we’ve had nineteen straight, and there’s no sign of it letting up. The city is a maze of little rivers. Cars driving along the roads look like jet-ski joyriders, throwing walls of water five feet up in the air as they pass by. Rain here isn’t nice, delicate pitter-pattery rain. Oh no. It decapitates garden flowers, and strips the paint from cars*.

I’m sitting in an office that has only two small windows. The light is a 40 watt bulb, and it’s practically dark outside thanks to the thick layers of cloud bunching up over the city, waiting until everyone is lulled into a false sense of security by a five minute hiatus before they drop a ton of water onto the rooftops in the space of 2.4 seconds.

Namibia has an ad campaign that promises ‘300 days of sunshine’. Egypt had one too, for the Red Sea coast. It said something like “The land of eternal sunshine”, and promised year-round opportunities for pale British folk to turn themselves into scrofulous lobsters. If you’ve ever been to the Red Sea in December you’ll know that it’s about as tropical as Great Yarmouth. I had to cut short a snorkelling expedition in Ras Mohammed National Park because they were all showing symptoms of hypothermia. Anyway, I digress. 300 days of sunshine probably isn’t far wrong, although at the moment, it doesn’t feel that way.

Anyway, the thing that concerns me right now is that I’m wearing flip flops, a t-shirt and a skirt, and it’s pissing it down outside in a manner that would put Wales to shame.

I’m going to get very, very wet, and quite cold on my way home.

*Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very good thing. Rainfall in Namibia is extremely limited, and access to water is a major problem.

Yesterday I took Boris for a walk. People have been telling me I should do this ever since I decided that our relationship was secure enough that I could start introducing him to my friends. They are all concerned that he never seems to escape the confines of the house and ‘garden’, and must frolic fatly amongst the flowers that line the concrete driveway. I think they also see his mournful, hopeful eyes, and think that all he really wants is a chance to see the outside world, briefly, before he keels over from excitement.

So, yesterday evening, when it became apparent that the heavens were not going to open, I clipped on a borrowed lead, and dragged him out of the gate. We stopped to chat to David, the security guard next door, who asked me where I was taking the dog. As Boris wound the lead tightly around my ankles in confusion, I responded that I was going to take him for a walk. I’m not sure how much of the sentence he managed to catch, as I had to twirl around several times while talking to ensure the continuation of the flow of blood to my feet.

‘You are not afraid of the guns?’
‘No’, I said. I mean, I am, obviously afraid of men with guns, but I would be surprised if any jumped out at me in broad daylight on a quiet residential street. ‘Should I be?’
‘Well, sometimes it can be dangerous, but I think maybe if they see you have a dog, they will be scared.’

We looked doubtfully at the dog, as he lay, belly up, little legs waving hopefully, his eyes imploring us to stroke his stomach.

I bid David goodbye, dragged Boris from his prone position, and resolutely set off, convinced that I was going to have to drag him the whole way. I had underestimated him. He set off down the road at speed, almost yanking my shoulder out of its socket. As we sped down the hill, a million neighbourhood dogs howled in our wake.

I can just tell that dog walking is going to be a challenge.

Oh yea! Here ye, here ye!

Today, it be the day of my birth, some 32 billion years ago, in a murky pond full of amoebas just waiting to evolve into me. That’s how old I am. I am starting to realize that I can no longer really describe myself as a girl. I am definitely now a grown up woman [gasp!], at least in size and age, if not in psychological maturity, as I’m sure the amoebas will agree, as they await their turn, and look on enviously from their sulphurous pool.

Unfortunately for me, I can also be described as a spinster, a word that I always think makes women sound vaguely like a dusty jar of gherkins that Auntie Maud brought for Christmas in 1964 and which, after the first couple of nibbles, nobody has ever felt like extracting from the morass of cobwebs attaching it firmly to the shelf. I don’t feel like a spinster though, so that’s ok. [brushes cobweb off sleeve].

Anyway, my birthday has been lovely so far, thanks to the delivery of fresh coffee and mango that greeted me when I woke up this morning. I hope that it will continue to be so.

I think I’m going to like being 32 in Namibia, just as long as nobody decorates my birthday cake with mopane worms.