Living for Disco

I have to post this, even though I promised myself I’d wait til tomorrow, because three posts is extravagant, especially given the fact that I have a looming deadline.  However, I thought if I post it, then I can stop giggling about it (even though it is not actually funny, but quite disturbing and wrong), and move on.

So, my favourite headline so far* from the Namibian:

Horse rapist caught in tree

And a close runner up, also from today:

Pastor steals 29 goats* to add to flock
Right.  Going now.

*The sentence for livestock theft in Namibia is a minimum of 20 years.

**There was a great one on Wednesday about a chicken thief who got handcuffed to a tree for 48 hours because the village had no police cell to keep him in, but it lost out.

I was talking my friend Tricia (hello Tricia!) last night, over dinner, about the difficulty of trying to winkle money out of people here in the name of charity, and she told me a story so ridiculous that my voice got to a pitch where usually only helium takes it, as I shouted “What?  Are you kidding me?”

She had applied to Coca-cola here for some soft drinks for an event that she was running up in Ondangwa, where she works.   Not many drinks, mind – only enough for 120 people. Considering how much Coke spends on advertising alone in this country, you’d think they wouldn’t mind providing a few measly cans for thirsty people.

Anyway, she told me, she sent them a proposal, and phoned every week for several weeks, asking after it.  Every single time, she got the response “It looks good, it looks promising. Call back next week.”

Eventually, the day before the event, she rang in desperation, and said “Listen, do you think you could tell me whether you will be able to provide any beverages for my event tomorrow?”

“Ummm,” said the coke lady.  “Let me see – how many people are coming to your event again?  300?”

Trish reminded her that it was only 120 people in total.

“OK,” said the coke lady.  “How does two litres sound?”

Trish said she just couldn’t believe it - it would have been less insulting if they’d just told her to fuck off. Anyway, she said she’s not quite sure whether she’d fully replaced the receiver before she said the word “Bitch”, but I’m sure it doesn’t really matter.

I sat in the back of a taxi this morning, quietly reading – I’m half way through Heart of Darkness - while a loud Afrikaans radio station blared adverts for Steers Burgers Wacky Wednesday, and Cymot – for all your outdoor needs.  Suddenly the driver turned the radio down and said:

“Ach, stealing, stealing, stealing is all these people do.”

“Er”, I said, surprised.

“You know, they put these big things on the roofs, for the sun, for power, and these people, they come, and they take them! Big things!”

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, and so I couldn’t really respond.  In fact, I was starting to become concerned that he was talking to an imaginary friend, and so I peered round to the front passenger seat to see if it was occupied.  There was no-one there.

“You know,” he said conversationally, looking at me in the rear view mirror.  “I read in the newspaper yesterday, one of these guys, he came in through the burglar bars, and pointed a gun and the man and wife in the bed.  He told the man, get under the bed, and then he made the wife come to the window where he raped her.  By the window! Eish.”

To be honest, at this point, I was getting a bit pissed off.  I didn’t know why this guy started this stupid conversation with me in the first place, and I certainly couldn’t imagine why he was suddenly telling me a story of rape and pillage at 8am on a sunny Friday morning.  I’d done nothing to invite it – normally I have conversations with taxi drivers about how hot it is, or whether it will rain.

“Oh. How awful,” I replied, meaning it.

“By the window!”  he repeated.  He seemed to think that the rape of the wife was particularly shocking because it was by a window.  I don’t know why.  I am still confused.

“Maybe,” he said, as if he’d just had an idea of shining brilliance, “maybe it was a low window, close to the ground.”  His hand hovered above the gear stick to indicate a point about a foot off the ground.  He then looked at it, clearly trying to work out if that was low enough.   He then raised his hand to just under the rear view mirror and examined that position too.  “If it was a tall window, eish, then it would have been impossible.”

He sat lost in thought for a couple of minutes.  I didn’t even want to think what kind of calculations and mental images were going through his slightly twisted mind.  I went back to my book, hurriedly, and pointedly, and buried myself in tales of darkness.

He turned the radio back up, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.