I just popped over here to have a look at Wandering Lawman’s new blog. He’s in Sierra Leone, working on a war crimes case that is ongoing there at the moment.
The writing is great, and the content promises to be fascinating stuff. I recommend!
I feel the need for something stodgy for lunch, to soak up the booze still sloshing around my system. It is very hot, and I need to stop sweating liquid that smells like the inside of a mouldy wine cellar.
I flag down a cab and head into town. The taxi driver grunts at me, his teeth firmly clamped onto a piece of plastic. His hands are huge on the tiny rally style steering wheel that so many taxi drivers here seem to favour, even though the cars are usually lacking in door handles, or are held together with masking tape. The air is full of noisy kwaito music, and a glitter ball, attached with a rubber band to the rear view mirror, bounces shafts of sunlight around the inside of the car.
I get out on Independence Avenue, and walk the rest of the way to the cafe. On the way, I pass an office that I must have passed a hundred times - it belongs to a company called SWA Safaris. Today, something about it catches my eye.
There is a stuffed zebra in the shop window. A real zebra, its front legs reared up as if it is fighting an invisible assailant, and a wild look in its glassy eye. It’s huge and takes up the best part of the window display, which is otherwise uninspiring.
I stand and stare at it for a moment. I can’t imagine how I have managed never to notice this before. I close my eyes a few times, but it is still there whenever I open them. I keep looking around to see if anyone else has noticed it, so that I can point and waggle my eyebrows in amazement. No-one is taking any notice.
In the end, for lack of anything to do but stand and gawp halfwittedly, I leave the zebra, and wander off to find some food.
