I haven't been running for a while because normally I run around the local football stadium (where it is relatively private), but the last time I did so, my keys were stolen. (Long, irritating story, I had to make a big fuss and confront the thief to get them back and it left a bad taste in my mouth.) Today I needed out, so I decided to get back up on the horse. I strapped on my old tennis shoes and started jogging unenthusiastically - but as far as Sampson was concerned, we'd just won the lottery.
Then the first song came on my cheap MP3 player and it was N'kosi Sikeleli. This is South Africa's national anthem and a song which... I can't explain. Uplifts me utterly. Always. Makes me want to lift my hands and shout. I was surprised this morning hearing it. I looked out over at the disorderly lot beside me, trashy and weedy, its dust rising up into the sunrise, and suddenly I felt like I'd won the lottery too. God bless Africa, is what the words mean. I don't know how it happened, but before I was born, some of my soul got mixed up in the same stuff that produced this song.
Jacqui pulled me aside a few days ago and said that Belusha's tumor is growing again. Fast, noticeably. She's losing a lot of weight and is in pain, which will only worsen. They've been so happy at Maforga these past months and Jacqui had made plans to build them a little house of their own there. I'd been asking whether Belusha could start school next term; she will be 6 years old.
But now Jacqui is stockpiling pain meds, morphine, for Belusha's palliative care. "I talked to a doctor in South Africa," she explained. "She said this kind of tumor is very aggressive, mostly affects children. There's not much that could be done no matter where she lived."
Though, of course, it never would have been allowed to grow so advanced in a developed country.
"I don't know how long it will be," Jacqui said. "But I wanted to tell you so you can begin to prepare yourself."
After my run today, I came back, showered, and went out to feed our friendly family fowl. Tony had left a nasty piece of pseudo-pizza from Shoprite in our fridge, so after feeding them their normal maize-feed, I threw in the pizza in to see what they'd do. The duck loved it; it was gone in a minute.
Then I threw in an egg-shell, and I couldn't believe what happened: Mafigo (duck) snatched it up and all the other chickens began to chase him in a circle around the coop. It was a like a derby. Dirt was flying, there were some deranged leaps over the water pan, a lot of squawking, Mbhava (chicken) would get it, then Branca (chicken) would make a bold move and steal it, on and on. Three full minutes I was squatting beside them, transfixed by the frenzy, until I realized my fried egg was burning on the stove, so I don't know who ended up with it. The whole thing seemed weird, cannibalistic. They must have a serious calcium deficiency.
Lois is in Zim right now, since a week ago Saturday. She is retrieving the sewing machine part and her daughter, Christabelle, whom she will bring back to live with us. It will be nice to have a child around, especially one I'm not ultimately responsible for. Lois was meant to leave on Friday last week, but that afternoon, I came home and found her sobbing in the living room instead. She'd walked to the busy bus stand and, on the way, a beggar (a mentally ill homeless man, what is called a maloco, or crazy person) asked her for money. She gave him some and he asked for more. When she refused, he began to slap her in the face and head. She fell over and he kept hitting her on the ground until police ran over and pulled him off. Some kind women walked her home. She couldn't stop crying for hours.
Tomorrow morning Sara and I are heading out of town, driving about 6 hours up to Caia and then to a rural village called Sena, two communities that lay along the Zambezi River, that notorious local celebrity, always flooding and causing big news. I'll meet with health activists in Caia while Sara checks on a preschool in Sena. We'll be staying for a week in a tent in the bush. I need that. Time with my BFF, out of the city, waking up to roosters and goats (though we do that here too), outdoor showering, outdoor peeing, outdoor eating. I just need away for a bit. We'll bring the cribbage board, Out of the Silent Planet to read aloud, and I'll stand in the chilly dark and soak up the night sky.
Late in the night I pay
the unrest I owe
to the life that has never lived
and cannot live now.
What the world could be
is my good dream
and my agony when, dreaming it,
I lie awake and turn
and look into the dark.
I think of a luxury
in the sturdiness and grace
of necessary things, not
in frivolity. That would heal
the earth, and heal men.
But the end, too, is part
of the pattern, the last
labor of the heart:
to learn to lie still,
one with the earth
again, and let the world go.
(Wendell Berry)
N'kosi Sikeleli Afrika.
the pizza
Joel watched this woman crossing another Mozzie river, the Luanha.
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