The Old Routine

Now I always seem to recount tales from the field but most of my time is spent pottering around Chokwe, so I’ll describe my usual day. I get up around 7, even though my alarm goes off at 5.30 fairly often in the (always vain) hope I’ll drag myself out of bed to join Marie, peace corps friend, on her morning run. I’ve only made it twice. On those occasions it was lovely - bright, calm, cool, just the swooshing of a few ladies sweeping, and feeling smug for the rest of the day. It’s just the getting out of bed. Anyway, so usually up at 7, shower, porridge with banana or fruit and yoghurt and at work for 8. Come home for lunch around 1 and sit with Aderito and his friends/sometimes other colleagues in the usual spot under the mango tree by our houses. He always eats rice and meat made by his empregada (maid – everyone has one, I share his for clothes washing, though people still come knocking on the door asking if I’ll employ them) while I eat some salady concoction or a sandwich. Finish work at 5. After fafing on the internet for a bit, race to Casamo’s general store before it shuts to jostle at the counter and shout the things I want (nearly everything’s behind the counter, you have to direct them). Although this week I’ve been going for a drink with my colleague, Carla, to practice her English and my Portuguese until she goes to school for 4 more hours to study natural resource management – phew! Marie comes round at 5.45 for tae bo or pilates (usually pilates as it’s still hot and we’re getting lazier). I’ll have dinner then and either meet someone, go and chat next door or chill out at home - reading, watching a dvd, writing emails (and occasionally blog entries!), talking on the phone if one of the 3 people who ring me rings! (thanks mum, dad and mark). And then it’s bedtime (too late to get up at 5.30) on my dreadful foamy mattress ready to drift off to the next surrealist larium-induced la la land. Last night I had a long struggle to drown a snake in a glass of water. I finally managed it only to get a load of miniscule red nails stuck in the sole of my foot that were apparently prongs of its venom. I had to go to the doctors to have them extracted and sure enough the waiting room was filled with randoms from school. How retro.

By the way I’ve been meaning to mention that James Blunt is Huge here – ubiquitous, inescapable. And oddly enough the funny posh guy from the cavaliers – met during the bizarre British Army landing - had been in the same regiment as ‘Blunty’. He would regularly entertain, tinkering on the piano and crooning, and claiming he’d soon leave for a music career. Naturally all were disbelieving and attempts he did make at getting a record deal were thwarted on account of the British public preferring cheeky everymans like t’Arctic Monkeys to posh short ex-soldiers. Then Atlantic or someone thought of America, where the little Blunt bundle would and did go down a storm! Now he’s rivalling Coca-Cola for dominance of Africa. Dreams do come true.