The other day I set off to Mogobane to attend the disability support group’s meeting. The meeting was to start at 9 a.m., and since Mogobane is maybe 10 miles away, I figured I could head out and catch the 8:15 bus to the junction, then the combi from there and arrive probably way too early, but that would be fine.
I got to the junction quickly enough and was able to buy a couple magwinya while I was waiting. These are yummy freshly deep fried balls of flour and yeast that during our pre-service training we all spent a lot of time eating and thinking of ways to improve them with yummy fillings. Yet slowly, I get that just having this warm yummy ball of fat fried dough was good enough. And there, my lucky stars, came the combi up the road to drop off passengers, make the turn around and pick us up and head out. Life is so good sometimes but you just don’t realize it till it is as simple as a warm ball of dough and a ride.
But just a minute. The combi driver has gone off to chat up the magwinya seller, the Orange airtime seller and a guy behind a shed who had a bag of something that all four of them started to look at. I stood with a few people waiting for the combi on the other side of the road, watching this and figuring, well he should get a short break, he has probably been driving the last 2 or so hours straight. Gotta stretch the legs. So we waited.
Buses along the main route came and went, dumping people off who walked over to the combi stop and joined us. Some of them caught hitches going down the road further than I needed to go, some of them just headed out walking down the road. That should have been my first clue. But I stood there thinking, “heh, it’s 8:30, I have time.” So I stood there and marveled at the variety of birds that seemed to be hanging out at the combi stop with us. There were these small light brown ones with neat speckles. Bigger ones with striking red breasts. There was a black one that on closer examination (well not real close) appeared to have this psychedelic bluish sheen. THAT was cool. I am not a bird watcher, so frankly I can’t even describe what the other one’s look like. I just know that was a lot of variety for such a small spot. Time passed. At one point the 4 little brown birds all started talking at once, then just as suddenly stopped. I looked at the guy next to me and he shrugged. There wasn’t anything that appeared to cause them to go off like that. No lions, other birds, people moving suddenly or anything. Maybe it was just a really good tiny brown bird joke.
More time passed. More people got off another bus on the main road and walked past us down the road or got hitches. The combi driver was looking quite content on the other side of the road. As I continued to commit to standing there, I realized I was stuck standing there because time passed and I would be late if I walked. Plus, it was probably a 4 mile walk. Now it was 9 am. The driver had grown roots that had wrapped around the chair he was sitting on. Shit. Now I am just annoyed, so I set off on my walk. This is Botswana, and better getting to a meeting late than not at all. And no way this guy is now going to get my 3 Pula after a blatant disregard for good business sense. Besides, if I left it would guarantee by the Laws of Murphy that he would suddenly jump into the combi and drive. I took one for the common good.
It was a pleasant walk, after all. The beauty of winter here is that the sun is shining and it is not too hot or too cold if you are moving, which I was, quite quickly, down the road. I expected that almost immediately the combi driver would take off and thereby pass me, but believe it or not, during my lovely 40 minute walk, he never came down the road. Whatever was in that bag must have been very worthwhile. Or maybe he is a magwinya freak like me and was waiting for the next hot batch. Or next three hot batches.
Along my walk I passed a road crew using machetes to cut the grass down on the side of the road. Some of them were more seriously dedicated to this task than others. There was a guy leaning over the hood of the truck that had transported them and their machetes to the site, reading a newspaper. The truck said “animal control” on the side of it. I was thinking if this is how they control for snakes in the grass it definitely explains the lack of zeal by at least one of the workers. Let hibernating snakes lie, I say.
A bit further up the road I saw someone with a wheelbarrow full of wood. People go into the hills and fields to collect wood for building their cooking fires. The women carry huge bunches of this wood on their heads, so this wheelbarrow must be driven by a man, I figured, which turned out to be the case. And I could hear him loud and clear talking up a storm about something. There was no one else in sight. Except me of course. Luckily I know how to work with people with mental illness: be polite, be agreeable, and keep moving. When I reached him he was smiling at me and pointing towards something – all I could see was houses, trees, dirt, rocks and some water running along on the other side of the gully he was looking ready to try to cross with the wheelbarrow. Hmmm. Dumela rra, o tsogile jang? Ee rra. Walking, walking, waving goodbye, smiling. When I got a bit further along I looked back and someone had come to speak to him from the other side of the gully. So maybe he wasn’t insane but had been yelling for this guy and was telling me that his good for nothing son hadn’t shown up to help get the wood. That would make anyone act deranged, after all the work he had gone through to collect it. And he really was quite friendly to me.
Ah, this fresh air is wonderful! The view of the surrounding hills and Mogobane is really lovely and oh, there is the damn with the town’s water all stored up. Otse has a pathetic little damn – more like a pond really, but this one looks like a small lake. Nice. It’s good I know people here in case Otse runs out of water. Ah, I can see the community center, another 15 minutes and I will be there. Wait. Is that a bull up there starting a stampede across the bridge I need to cross? Still no combi.
The meeting was just getting started as I arrived at about 9:40 after practicing my Setswana on a group of mules just outside the community center. The support group members were all sitting on plastic chairs up against a sunny wall out of the wind. It is too cold inside to meet. They were kind enough to periodically translate things for me as they went along and I sometimes got the gist of some things if I paid superhuman attention and knew what the topic was. I was stymied for about 10 minutes when the woman next to me started talking about money and holding a large pill container and rattling it about. I kept hearing “270 pula” then “170 pula.” Is she saying that the price of these pills has gone from 170 to 270 pula? How is that possible, how can these poor people afford that? I thought they had good medical care here? This poor woman. And it looked like the pills were to kill microbacterial organisms. A person really needs those, when they need those. What is she going to do?! Translation: she is the group treasurer and was reporting that they had 270 pula but now have 170 because they had to pay for something related to the garden plot. The pill container was the kitty, so to speak. Ohhhhh….I am glad for her but that really isn’t very much money for this group, less than $40. We decided that at each meeting anyone who could would contribute some change to the treasury and if they did that every week they should have enough over the course of the year to pay the land board for the land taxes on the garden property.
Okay, I’m in. Here’s the 3 Pula I didn’t give that combi driver and when I come back to the meeting next week, I may just plan to do the 4 mile walk each way and then can give them 6. Minus the one I will need for magwinya to fortify me for the hike.
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