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I too am geographically challenged
Why can’t you just love me?
We recently saved a little tortoise and now he is at home with us.
Tommy I named him. Because… well, I’m lazy and uncreative at my core.
A tortoise, as it turns out, is a remarkably easy pet to have. Completely undemanding and quite reserved.
Found out my neighbour has a tortoise so I asked her for advice and she said that they do nothing. Nothing! Their tortoise lives off whatever is in the garden and only occasionally makes an appearance. He has been in this state in their garden for years she tells me.
This, of course, is totally unacceptable. He is not meeting expectations.
The first few days he seemed determined to break out of our garden. I fretted that perhaps he was a she, and there were abandoned eggs somewhere, but established that Tommy is indeed a male (whatever they may identify as).
The ever intrepid Mandova, almost as excited about Tommy as I was, secured the premises and had all kinds of ideas re. his care.
We have both had our hearts broken at Tommy’s complete lack of interest in our endeavors and outpourings of affection.
I spent many days checking on him, picking him up, crooning to him, scratching his back lovingly, buying a grocery store of tempting veggies and greens to feed him. He wants none of it. Or me.
I brought him in every night out of the cold (although truth be told, the house is a fridge and we would all be better off sleeping in the garden).
Should we make a place for him on the bed I asked my long suffering lovely man, who already has to wind himself around several inconsiderate animals to kip.
Doesn’t he wee on you every time you pick him up was his only comment. Well yes, I said, but I’m sure that’s his sign of affection. He’ll be house trained in no time.
In truth, Tommy, remarkably fast, does everything he can, to hide from me.
How long before he knows his name and comes when I call I asked my lovely man. He probably does know your voice already and is trying to ignore you replied my not so lovely man. He thinks you are a pain he continued, leave the chap alone, he’s a wild animal and wants to hibernate. You keep on getting Mandova to find him and then you wake him up to give him unwanted love and food.
Alfie, I reminded him, was a wild animal once, and he is now domesticated and loving. Alfie, he replied, is a complete mommy’s boy and wouldn’t survive two minutes in the wild.
And that, people, is how I like it. I have high hopes for Tommy’s turn around come summer.
I am not beyond forcing him to love me.
Say that again?
My lovely man is a bit hard of hearing.
The entire household seems to be, because certainly no one listens to me, including all the animals.
I am often reminded of a dear fellow that I worked with who informed me ‘ Rosie, your voice is pitched like a dog whistle, none of us have a chance.’
I digress.
On a recent morning walk, we were approached by some fellows who had saved a tortoise that was (slowly we presume), dodging the traffic. Precious little thing. Because this is Africa, we had to pay them and I carried the dear little thing triumphantly home.
I have always had a fondness for tortoises, and this little guy has now come into our lives! That’s how it happens with animals isn’t it?
I am likely to be lambasted because perhaps he’s exotic and we should not be looking after him. But I love him already. We’ll figure out for sure what the right thing to do is. Better in the garden than the traffic surely?
Let’s call him Tommy I suggested to my lovely man. How do you know he’s he, he asked. My sister, I advised him, said that male shells are more rounded, and female shells are flatter.
Oh, he said, how on earth would she know that, should I Google it too?
She’s quite smart I said, but yes, you can Google it.
What should I ask Google he asked me.
Ask Google ‘ How do I sex a tortoise’ I suggested.
There are no results, he advised somberly, for ‘ How do I text a tortoise’ , I think we are doing it wrong.
Don’t you just love him? I’m sure he does it on purpose to entertain me. He’s the best.
Tommy, it turns out, prefers the pronoun ‘ they ‘ .
Yes.. I identify as…
We are enjoying a few days at the magnificent Victoria Falls.
I know, so lucky.
Our resort offers a shuttle service into town. They don’t encourage you to walk too far around here because of the wild animals. Having said that, the locals walk everywhere. Out of necessity one presumes.
Anyway, after our boozy lunch (always), we caught the shuttle back.
There was a very attractive lady on the shuttle with us and then we stopped again and picked up Casanova. Himself.
Immediately he started harassing her for her details. Including phone number and room number.
Amazing.
So, when we arrived, we hung around a bit to escort her, as necessary, because of this unwanted and somewhat aggressive attention.
Later, when we were having a sundowner, we saw this young lady again and she thanked us for the help.
She was with her friends by now. (She made a point of telling us, perhaps she thought we would chase them off too).
Where are you from they asked us.
This question is almost as loaded as ‘what is your surname’. I am always confused by both and tend to ramble a bit.
Luckily my lovely man stepped in and explained that we were local. Zimbabwean.
Immediately we were regarded with deep suspicion. Which is normal. My lovely man never gets asked by a Zimbabwean if he is Zimbabwean. I braced myself for the inevitable.
She doesn’t sound like a Zimbabwean they stated, as expected, moving away slightly. She sounds like an South African. Also, they continued, it’s her hair. Very Pretoria. The one guy actually waving his hands around his head.
No good deed…
Nice though, he said as an afterthought.
Yes, I said, I lived in SA for a long time, I guess I picked up an accent.
Not being able to resist rambling, I further explained that, at one point, I even married into the Afrikaans tribe, but I wasn’t accepted. Voted out. The weakest link stuff.
They all nodded… Knowingly.
My lovely man just sighed and ordered another beer. Don’t start with the surnames please he muttered.
Travelling light
Is it just me, or has travel become a pain?
Because this is Africa, the rules are a moving target that are never quite fully disclosed. Sometimes your vaccination 💉 certificate is required, often not. Sometimes there is an interrogation around how many booster jabs have been had and how long ago. Mostly, nobody cares.
Also, because this is Africa, there is someone having a beer 🍻 at the airport. 6:30am. We don’t judge.
One thing that irks me with air travel, is the request to remove your shoes. I always forget this and wear difficult to remove shoes.
I have also had to surrender my tweezers at the scanner.
I will be boasting a uni brow in a few days.
Another irksome thing is the different baggage allowance based on destination. These, presumably, are based on union negotiations as to how much weight the baggage handler is prepared to lift. But as a result, one must plan around the lowest weight allowed on a staggered trip.
I can tell you for nothing that Cape Town need to gym it up.
Why would they not rather give you a total allowance and then a max per bag? To standardise worldwide?
Who knows?
I am, of recent, bucking the system and hoping no one weighs my hand luggage.
Because I have to carry my office with me when I travel, and I REALLY like working with multiple screens, I invested in some portable screens.
They are great, but not light.
My laptop bag weighs more than my suitcase.
If a plane I’m on goes down and they can’t figure out why, you can enlighten them. I am, far from light.
I know you have to carry your office with you when you travel darling, but I observe that I am the one actually hauling this bag around, my lovely man mentioned.
Yes darling, make sure you don’t indicate how heavy it actually is, or they may arrest you.
You actually can’t make it up
Surely not?
You do go on a bit…
I have a friend who can be a nag.
Look in the mirror I hear you think.
Still, this guy is something else. If he gets an idea in his head, it becomes fixed… and good Lord he can go on about it.
One of the awesome things in Mozambique is the bread. Particularly the bread rolls. Pão (along with vinho), is one of the few Portuguese words I have learnt. Survival I call it.
The bread is not made with preservatives, so it doesn’t last too long. It doesn’t need to, it’s necessary to eat it immediately. It’s not at all good for you of course, but who cares!
At one point I planned to go on a road trip with a friend (not the nagger), and stay at a coastal resort in central Mozambique. My nagger friend is full of advice. One of his pearls was that under no circumstances should we eat bread as padkos along the route. (Everywhere you go in Mozambique takes an age because the roads are mostly dreadful and there are many police stops along the way asking for refresco). Padkos is necessary.
Eating bread along the way will make you apathetic he implored, you need to eat stuff like nuts and fruit and drink lots of water. You need to stay alert, it’s a long way and the roads are so bad.
I relayed this input to my travel buddy and she immediately objected. But Rosie, she said, you make the most awesome rolls, I was looking forward to our padkos. This is true. I have few (zero), culinary skills, but I do make a good sandwich.
I know, I said, we just mustn’t tell him.
What if he comes to check before we leave she wailed. I know I said, there is a good chance of this, we will have to hide the rolls and show him the bloody nuts and shit.
The other irritating thing this dear friend does is call me constantly. Mainly because he knows I hate it. So, it did not end when we managed to leave and get on the road, our bread rolls safely on board, he phoned constantly to check how we were doing and what we were eating.
The other thing you need if you ever travel in Mozambique, is a strong bladder. This was prior to my she-wee days. I’m not really sure a she-wee is something one can share with a friend? Any input on this matter is appreciated.
Anyway, we didn’t have the benefit of even considering a she-wee to share and it became a crisis.
We knew of a place, you may know it…. Buffalo Lodge…. a great place to stop for coffee and a well deserved ablute.
We were desperate… desperate…. finding Buffalo Lodge was critical.
My friend phoned (again)…. how’s it going, what are you eating…..?
For the love of…..
I saw the sign to turn off and yelled and pointed Buffalo, Buffalo! If we had missed the turning it would have been the end of any dignity we were barely hanging onto.
Buffalo… I heard him say in the distance as I threw my phone down… well, I suppose that’s good, but buffalo?
The Scatterings of Africa
I’m in South Africa for a bit. Why… Well you know… There are family and friends here I miss terribly.
So, I booked myself into a little AirBnB. A number of people offer to put me up when I am here, but I am a terrible guest quite frankly. I need to work, so sometimes I ignore my host; I complain about their WiFi; I ALWAYS want to wash clothes; I ALWAYS want to shower; I absolutely want my own bathroom…. And of course, best they have a solar system see?
I’m only ever invited once.
But, I do a great boozy lunch.
There was a problem, apparently, with the first place I booked. They asked if they could move me.
So, I arrived at the next option and interrogated the lovely hostess re the problem with my first choice.
Well, she said, we are banned as an AirBnB there because some guests had a huge party and trashed the place. Now we have to fix everything and beg the complex for forgiveness.
Well! We bitched for 10 minutes about noisy, inconsiderate people.
I then reminded her that my folks were coming to stay and were bringing their dog.
We LOVE animals she advised me. So…. Another 10 minutes on the arseholes who don’t like animals and those bastards who mistreat them.
We beamed at each other happily.
Then she showed me around my little cabin and then the little cabin for my parents. Delightful.
She went on her way and only then I noticed the scatter cushions. What is it about scatter cushions that sends people bevok? I have had to find a corner to stack the 830 scatter cushions so that I can get at least one bum cheek on the sofa and lay down on my bed.
But, its my new years resolution to be kinder and not judge.
Let me know how I’m doing.
Can’t be too careful
In Mozambique, well certainly in Beira, they like to steal parts of your car and sell them back to you.
It’s a very efficient system, you can go to the market, enquire about a recently missing part and buy it back for top dollar.
The solution is to engrave (with some sort of identity number), as much as you can, and pop rivet things here and there.
As with most security, you really just want it to be easier that they steal from someone else.
In a panic, we realised my lovely man’s car was not adequately identified and secured. And, before it could be done, I had to use it to go to the parlour for a wee pedicure.
Unfortunately, at the very pleasant parlour, I have, for some years, been nominated the sadist to attend to my pedicure. Not only is there no sign of rough heels after a session, I am usually limping out on bloody stumps.
As it turns out, she is a very thoughtful sadist. She noticed me peering out the window continually to try and ensure nobody lifted a wing mirror off the car.
She indicated that she was in a better position to watch the car. Then she got everyone else in the salon who wasn’t busy, to watch the car in shifts.
Bless them! I managed to return home with the car intact. Not so much my heels.
My lovely man then had the car attended to. I had to get extra money from the company to pay the guy, he announced, I didn’t have enough. Come and look.
Everything is engraved people. And everything else is pop riveted. I think they only stopped pop riveting because they ran out he advised me.
I suspect the car is 50% heavier and the fuel efficiency halved. But hey, its safe.