This last weekend started out early, with a 5:30 a.m. meeting time at the Otse Disability Support Group’s office to do our property clean up event. I must admit I got there around 6. There were already a handful of women working when I arrived and we ultimately had about 25 people spend some time working during the morning. A far cry from what they were estimating as potential attendees. They really had no idea, but had told a few churches and lots of other people, so maybe thought everyone would come. I am glad they didn’t as it would have gotten a bit congested.
We could have used more men though. The chair’s son came and was a hard worker, going after the plants with the large needle like stickers on them. Later in the morning, when the main group was mostly finished, a couple more young fellows came and helped finish hauling away piles of rocks that we had gathered. We didn’t finish the entire yard, but got enough of it done so the group can start planning and digging for garden beds.
We sat in the shade and drank juice and ate cookies and apples while the chair thanked everyone for helping. I had made the mistake of telling them fat cakes would be coming, but when they didn’t show, the chair called our only member with a car and he took me to the fat cake lady, who had plenty of fat cakes, but apparently no intention of bringing them to us. On the up side, I had told her “co-worker” that I had wanted 100 delivered, now I was able to get away with buying just 40 and all our workers were quite happy with two “magwinya” piece.
The contractor has been working on the ramp, new doors, burglar bars and will be installing the electrical outlets so we can have electricity run to the building. The chair is supposed to bring me a bill from the water utilities so we can pay it and they can start digging to install the water pipe so there is water.
Our contact at the grant giver’s office was out last week helping me move some of the various bids forward so we can finish this project and spend all the money by the end of December. I won’t even go in to all the reasons why we are waiting to the last minute other than to say it is everyone’s fault. And to add that anyone who knows me must know that it is driving me crazy to have things go up to the wire cause that just ain’t my style. So I am learning to roll with the punches, go with the flow, swear like a sailor (yeah, already had that one down) etc.
There is now interesting added pressure because the delegation from the European Union will be visiting to see how their money was spent and will probably visit both this and the Mogobane site on December 8th. Luckily I will miss it as I will be in Germany. But the folks at the local granting agency office are very interested in making everything just right.
This might mean adding a few more items to the work order for this building, but she has to get back to me on whether we have to take it out to bid of if the current contractor can just add the items on. It comes to 2,000 USD of extra work and the headache of getting bids for just those items, in time, from competent bidders is one that will make my head just pop off my neck, I swear it.
After the cleanup, I went home and took a nap. It was hot and I had to go to a wedding in Mogobane around 1. I planned to be late because things are that way and I had yet another thing to do after the wedding, so wanted to pace myself. When I woke from my nap I realized that it was probably only about my 2nd or 3rd nap since I have been in Africa. Something is very wrong here. I am going to add “weekend napping” to my PC reporting form as a goal. It is certainly measurable and would be a clear indicator that I am not overworking if I am taking enough of them. Note to self.
I put on my nice long dress from the States and headed to Mogobane. Lucked out with the bus and a hitch right into Mogobane to the wedding site. When I landed, I became the only white person within miles, but most obviously at the wedding. I knew the bride and a few people who were there from the disability group, but not the 380 other people there. I was led to sit at the head table. Turns out even though I only was an hour late, they had all already eaten and were just hanging out listening to loud music. They must have been hungry, because normally it isn’t so.
I sat with my friend and her new husband for awhile. Then we all stood up and danced our way out of the tent around the immediate vicinity, singing a number of wedding related songs (which I really need to the get words for). One basically went, “I march forward and then I stop.” Not sure if that is a traditional wedding song or just used to march us forward and then stop. But then again, life and marriages can be a lot about moving forward and then stopping. Moving forward and then stopping. So maybe it IS a good wedding song.
Then the wedding party left us to take photos. I sat with a couple of older men I knew from the group, just watching what was going on. Mostly nothing, interspersed with something, and once or twice with bits of more obvious mayhem. (Sounds an awful lot like a weather report. Which, by the way, can be as useless here as at home.)
The majority of the men sat under a tree drinking the homemade brew. No one offered me any and no women sat there so I figured it wasn’t for me. Women were cleaning up from the huge cooking fest (there were at least 400 people there – at least 150 of them children under 15), and the kids were just running around like crazy.
So I decided to start taking their pictures. It became a mob scene but kept me busy with something to do. I would take 5 to 10 photos of which ever kids had gathered around, and then show them to the kids on the little screen. I would have to hold on tight to my camera as they all wanted to grab it. The photos would show a progression of kids noticing me and coming into view, with all kinds of combinations of ages and facial expressions.
It was really way too fun for an almost total stranger to have at a wedding. At one point the strangest thing happened and if my camera had been on video I could have caught it, but all I could do was just watch and wonder. For some reason a large group of people, mostly kids but some adults, just started running behind a tent and towards the ridge behind the house that looked down over the valley. The stream of people racing suddenly for an unknown reason was a bit unsettling. I walked over to see what was what, and it turned out it wasn’t anything. Someone must have said something that caused someone to run, and then others to follow, but no one really knew why.
At least they weren’t completely like lemmings and no one jumped off the side, but it could have been a real disaster because the kids ran under the tent wires holding the tent up and some of them didn’t see the wire and ran into it. One 5 year old girl got it the worst and it looked like it hit her in the neck (that’s what she was rubbing) as well as the top of her head. I knelt with her until she was feeling okay, and others wiped off the blood and said soothing things. The whole thing scared the bejebezus out of me.
Then we took more photos. At one point a young child started touch my veiny hands, which in the heat showed even more the blue veins popping up. I told them it was “madi” which is both the word for money and for blood, and tried to show them on one of their hands the darker part where their madi was. Challenging on dark skin and young, nonveiny, hands. Then we all had our hands there for comparison purposes and I took some photos of just my big old hand and all these tiny little ones. It was pretty cool. These kids do my heart good and they are so easy to interact with, without having to talk. The younger ones were simply delightful.
I left about 5:30 to walk to the main road and head home before dark. On my way a boy of maybe 10 or so chased ahead to catch up with me and ask me for money. He wasn’t one of the kids at the wedding, but from the other side of town as I was walking through. My problem is I understand when they ask for money and can say no, but if they say something unrelated to this or more complex, I don’t have a good response.
Well this kid must have said something that he deemed very worthy of an appropriate response, because when I didn’t give it to him he went off on me. I think he was yelling at me that I was either fickle, or a pickle, but he said it like a swear word he had learned somewhere he wasn’t supposed to be learning things. I frankly didn’t have an answer. I think showing him my hands and my blue veins wouldn’t have been enough, so I just kept walking.
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