Blessed and Extremely Fortunate

I was walking home from work yesterday, relaxing after another full day and taking in the various sights and sounds that accompany me on this almost two mile walk, when I passed a well-dressed woman, probably in her late 20s or early 30s (note: I am really bad at guessing ages, but she wasn’t a child or an old lady, okay?).  We exchanged greetings, this time in English and she said to me, in describing how she “was,”  “I am blessed and extremely fortunate.” Huh. Got me thinking, that one did, for some reason. Well, by golly, I am probably as close to blessed as a non-believer in organized religion can be. Oh wait, it is the God/higher power as we know him/her who does the blessing, not the religion, right? So yeah, I also feel blessed. Extremely Fortunate?  You bet.

Gave my walk home a whole new perspective.  As I walked by the goats, I felt extremely fortunate to be able to learn what a goat fart sounds like. This was a first for me (amazingly enough after all this time) and I can’t help but think that had I not been brought to greater awareness by my short conversation, I might have totally missed it. I felt blessed to have the kids call me “lekoga” and ask me for money, because really, in fact, I did have money.  My life would be so different if I wasn’t here as a PC volunteer and didn’t have the privilege granted me by being born in the USA.  I am clearly EF not to be squandering that privilege.  I am also EF to be here in Botswana for my service, no question.

As I got closer to my house, still thinking about fortune, good and bad, I heard a man yelling at someone.  It was so loud and emphatic that a young fellow came out of a nearby house to see what was going on.  Well, this is when I decided to stop and adjust my backpack and take a moment to wait for clarity, if not in fact a clear and obvious blessing.

I thought I got it when I saw an older man walking by where the other man (still unseen but clearly heard by me) was yelling. He made it by the yeller safely, so I figured I could head up that way and be safe.  As I got closer, I saw the man was yelling at his goats.  Okay, I talk to animals, but this guy was having a full on argument with about 20 of them. Seems they were supposed to get inside the gate and they weren’t fully on board.  They are goats, after all.  But I walk by this house every day and I have never seen 1) the goats put in this particular yard 2) them put into anywhere this early in the evening and 3) this guy doing it and doing it so loudly.

Anyway, now I had to greet the old guy who was walking by all this, so I stopped and greeted him properly.  He returned the greeting, said a few things I didn’t understand and then started to swing his walking stick at me buttocks. I think he was joking and wasn’t going to hit me, but I had no clue why he suddenly did this.  Was I being herded?  Did I fail to answer an unknown question? Is he a retired teacher who still believes sshitting children with a switch is how to gain compliance and teach wisdom? Blessed and extremely fortunate, I moved quickly onward.