Patience is a virtue
I promised almost two years ago that David, the security guard next door, would have first dibs on my bicycle when I leave in September. I said he could buy it from me, but really I’m just going to give it to him. Anyway, since then he’s been in somewhat of a lather, asking me on frequent occasions just how long it is until I leave and the bike will be his. I give him the same answer every time. September 2007. I get various responses:
“Eish, that is a long time.”
“Oh, it is September next year not this year?”
“Oh ok. [counts months off in his head; looks dismayed] Don’t forget it is my bike!”
Usually while he says these things, he’s clinging to the handlebars and admiring the bicycle’s fine lines and extraordinary streamlining. Well, he’s admiring something anyway. He absolutely cannot wait until I leave.
So, last week I came home on the bike, and he said “So, I am going away. I will be here tomorrow, and then the next day, and then I will be away in the north for two weeks. When I come back you will give me the bike? And also you must tell me that place where you get the bike mended and their number*, and I need everything. OK, I must go now, I must open the gate for these people!”
And he’s gone before I have a chance to argue. He’s trying to wrest the bike from my posession a full six weeks before I’m actually due to give it up – that’s how excited he is about it.
I feel a bit bad that I’m going to make him wait even longer for something that has been the object of his desire for almost two full years, but I reckon it’s character building. I mean, I’m going a bit frothy at the mouth waiting for my placement to be finished – it feels so close now, I just feel a bit limboish – but I’m going to have to learn to be patient. Some might say that if I haven’t learned how to be patient by now, I’m a lost cause, but it’s never too late in my opinion.
God, is it only 11.25? Sigh.
*It’s these people. They are wonderful, and have a really interesting bicycle ambulance project going on. You might want to give them some money. They’d really like it if you did.
July 20th, 2007 at 11:41 am
I had exactly the same thing when I left Africa. Everyone wanted to buy my bike – I promised it to the handyman guy at our house and he’d check with me every week that he was still top of the list for me to sell it to!
July 20th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Glad to see you giving BEN a plug. They’re in South Africa and have links to projects in Malawi as well (quite possibly others too). It’s just one of those organisations that makes sense. I’m sure you’ve encountered others that don’t.
At least you know your bike will be in good hands.
July 20th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Maybe you should get David a big calendar and a bright red pen for making X’s over the days as they pass. Draw a bike on the day you leave. Then get one for yourself, and draw a plane and some Jaffa cakes on yours.
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:19 am
At least he is willing to pay. I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile and months before I left, my co-workers started to ask what I intended to do with my clothes. (Yes, that vast fashionable wardrobe of threadbare jeans, turtleneck shirts, and pilled-up sweaters.)
I had to keep informing them that they wore clothes where I was going and that I was pretty sure I would still need them when I left.
Carolina wanted to buy my refrigerator, which was fine, but I left before my roommate did. He gave her the fridge — and she never paid him. She owes me $100. I want it.
July 23rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
SOunds like me before christmas when I was 4
July 25th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Claire – sounds like we had the same experience! Everyone keeps trying to buy mine too – the car guards at the supermarket, random strangers on the street…
Good Woman – BEN are great aren’t they? They really do make sense.
Heather A – jaffa cakes. What a good idea! And sausages. And a pint of lager. I think the calendar might get a bit crowded.
Class factotum – hello! Yes, he is. Although he’s the exception rather than the rule! But really, I think he needs the money more than me – my potential earning capacity is far, far greater than his will ever be. As is yours, I imagine.
Moobs – yeah, me too.