AN AUTHOR IN THE MAKING?

I just got back from a week in South Africa (four days in Johannesburg and four days in Cape Town) – J’burg was a lot of fun, caught up with one of my girls that lives there, and went to a church service that moved my disbelieving soul deeply!! (More about that later) I also tried and tried to no avail, to locate a poet that I met in Durban in ’05 (lives in J’burg) – that was too bad, it would have been really nice to hang out. Then did quite a bit of shopping too, though I kept not calculating the price of things in my own currency so I quickly run out of money!! No matter though, opportunity only presents itself so often!

Cape Town: Oh my God!! Breathtaking!! We had really good weather the day I was there so I managed to take the tour bus around town, took the cable car to Table mountain and walked around on top of it – and so lucky was I that I was told that soon after I left the mountain the cable car didn’t run anymore because the weather conditions on the mountain got too rough (winds in Cape town can get up to a speed of 100kph – they will turn over a Double Decker bus apparently!!)

We moved on to the venue of our meeting, among the wineries and grape farms of Stellenbosch – that was quite breathtaking too, with the skyline being dominated by these hulking rocky mountain ranges, and the sun setting over them, and clouds rising up from behind them and slowly spilling over into the valley before us every evening – simply stunning!

Anyway, the meetings went very well but my colleague was more insufferable than ever – At first I tried my best to ignore his – uhm, how do I describe his statements? His conversation consists of him mentioning the places he has been and what he has done on aeroplanes and in airports as if the mere mention of these names and things makes them interesting – in fact he will usually preface these announcements with ‘you know what is interesting? The airport in Bangkok is built soo weirdly!!’ One will turn their attention to him and wait. He will be silent, satisfied with this little nugget of info. You'll think 'Yes, weird - how though?' He'll figure this in itself is informative and enlightening. He'll give a little chuckle. You realise he has nothing to add so you give up, and wait to discover for yourself one day what he meant by 'built weirdly'.

Or, one of those days we were eating Ostrich – well he was eating Ostrich (I was eating a divine vegetable dish) when he goes:

‘You know, one would never guess this was a bird!! It tastes so strange’

I’m still willing to engage in small talk at this point: ‘what do you mean?’ I ask.

He’s like ‘It tastes like enew or kangaroo’ Well, thanks for clearing that up for me! You know perfectly well that I have never been to Australia and I don’t even know what an Enew is buuut, my powers of imagination are really highly developed so, nooo problem! (I had to google Enew just now – turns out it is even spelled ‘Emu’ Hmmmm. By the way, it looks kind of like a turkey or an ostrich anyway so I don’t know why he was surprised!)

And then there are the exaggerations - sometimes downright lies – like telling our South African colleagues, with me sitting there, that all the roads out of Kampala have been dug up – so not true! And today I heard him complain – with a straight face, to our ICT guys that one can access our internal mail much faster off campus!! SO not true – I was with him and I also checked my mail on his laptop and he is totally lying!! Anyway, he is in a constant cold war with those guys because he thinks they are too incompetent and he knows better – so any cheap shots he can get in, he will! That’s another thing about him – he fights so unfairly and tries to get the upper hand by bullying others or making them look bad.

Then there are the generalisations and the absolutes: those guys have no clue what they are doing; you can trust Ugandan carpenters to mess it up every time; they always change the boarding gate numbers at the last minute, and they always send you all the way to the opposite end of the airport.. today someone brought us a 2008 calender and we all crowded round to have a look (the office is winding down so we jump on these distractions) - admitedly not the best graphics but the moment he clapped eyes on it he goes (with disgust)

'There are no graphic designers in Uganda!!' I just walked off and clamped my mouth shut..

Then the arguments: cyclic, or baseless or him vehemently disagreeing with other people’s perfectly sound arguments, and then buckling under the combined pressure of their counter arguments and slyly changing his position: ‘that’s what I have been trying say all along – you guys were not listening!’ Yes, our fault.. of course!

Finally there is stating the obvious, reading street signs or menu items aloud to fill silences, sudden bursts of singing or chortling or impersonations – also to fill silences, and general fidgeting – all the while glancing at me to judge my reactions – it came to a point when I stamped an expression of boredom on my face and left it there!

Then when I could no longer ignore him, I tried to join in all the small talk, but trying so hard not to sigh with exasperation or hold back a sarcastic comment also begun to take its toll, so finally I just took a note book out of my bag and vented in there..

Dear God, I sound so judgemental, so bitter (catty, superior, name it) – all the things I really hate to be – I have been wondering if this outpouring of bile is a result of seeing something of myself in him – they always say that the things that one hates in one self, one absolutely cannot stand in others. I am still exploring this possibility because honestly I have never felt this negatively towards another person – except perhaps a cousin of mine, who is still the only person who has ever driven me to a fist fight, such as it was…

I wonder if I am on one side of the proverbial thin line – shall I one day come to love him as obsessively as I - what – I don’t want to say hate him, coz I have no reason to hate him, and what does hating someone mean anyway? I simply can’t stand him!! I just wish he would disappear from my life…

Anyway, after that notebook was out of my handbag, I wrote and wrote and wrote.. I wrote so much that I wore out a whole pen and I got more than halfway through a good sized notebook! Maybe 50 or 60 pages! So now I am wondering if I have the makings of my first book - although I will have to change a few details otherwise I will be so busted!

Ah well, that aside. I participated in the MTN marathon with my two sisters two days ago, did the 10km route but my God – that was tough!! Our youngest sister run the whole way and my sister and I walked/run - my sister walks sooo fast, and does this sooo effortlessly, I was just left wondering what kind of sportsperson I am if I cannot walk 10 km! So today, I am going walking, gotta up the exercise!!

Otherwise quite swamped with work, end of the year, been away a whole week, and all that... So I’m off for my walk now, later..