Really

Posted in Mzuzu, Ridiculous by Dom on August 29th, 2008

I got a pretty sweet ride up, part way, yesterday. It was in this truck bed, tiny little truck bed, that was completely full with onions and a few baskets of tomatoes. It was awesome cause it was just such a nice day. Such a nice day to be lying on a pile of produce with my barefeet kicking in the breeze. Reminded me of why I came; for days just like that. Of course, then I sat for two hours and saw only eight cars before getting picked up. That includes a couple of busses. I just sat there waiting. Sitting on the pavement to keep warm in the cool breeze. Playing guitar on a gaurd rail pylon. Swinging at weeds with peices from a broken basket. Waiting. I did eventually get picked up it was an okay ride, nothing special. But I’m here now…

At site these past couple of weeks was nice. The weather was interesting because it only got better. When I first got back it was cold and overcast and by the time I left it was clear and warm. One of those in between days I was sitting on my ever-so-awesome porch enjoying the weather when this lady approached me. (First, let me prelude this little story with a comment. This lady did not seem to my crazy in the clinical sense at all. A bit distraut and emotional, but very sane.) She asked me if I was such-and-such, someone I have no idea of. I tell her no. I ask who this person is. I think she says her spouse. That’s not a word locals use often so I doubted it even then. I forget how she segued to the intersting part but it was something to the affect of, she was in South Africa when she found at that all this persons belongings became her. This included the Mzuzu Hotel, the nicest hotel in Mzuzu if not the north. So then she tells me that theres a man there, a worker. He does like working with whites(the kind of people), I believe are the words she used. So she says he beats and kills them. Now unfortunately I don’t remember the details, I was a bit busy refraining from laughing at the time. However she goes on to tell me that this person is Osama Bin Laden, or his friend or something. Like I said about the details…He had plastic surgery to make him look like a black man somewhere, wherever he was before he was here, but it was definitley finalized here, or so she said. Keep in mind I wasn’t ready for this conversation, I was in the middle of reading a book. I was still holding my page with my finger while she was talking. She continues, she informs me that if such-and-such(a different such-and-such) comes here, my house, to talk to me that I should protect myself. It’s not actually that person but actually Bin Laden(or his friend, I can’t remember) and he’s lying. He’s had plastic surgery don’t forget. I asked if I should contact the police. She said that would be futile, not her words, since this person was brought to the country on the presidents helicopter he would obviuosly be able to get around the police. I think she said he works hand in hand with the president. Her words. She then asked if I would help look for this first such-and-such; the one I was mistook for. He was taken to America, or the UK(she just swapped between them at random it seemed). She said he was supposedly working for the New York Fire Dept. and asked if I could therefore just check the listing of Firemen. I declined telling her that I doubted that was accessible. Before she left she told me one more anecdote. She went to the hotel; possible to confront this bad person. She then had the police called on her and was escorted off the premises and the hotel worker she was dealing with told her never to return. She speculated to me about the absurdity of the owner not being allowed on their own property, and scoffed. Then she left.

Now some peripheral comments. She asked if there were any other guys like me(white) in the area. I told her of the VSO that lived nere. She said she already talked to him, that’s how she found out about me, he’s not the one. That means she’s told this whole story to someone else. It’s been refined. Also, she almost started crying a few times. I also had to refrain from laughter the whole time, but it was especially hard a few times. And these bouts of tears and laughter on our respective parts seemed to coincide. Hers following from mine I suspected. So I felt bad. Also, I suspect she felt herself very well grounded in the physical realm of possibilties. However she neglected to still see the absurdity of it. My speculation is she probably felt this was very legit in compared with shrinking people and flying winnowing baskets. I’ll give that to her. Atleast all of what she said is theoretically possible. But really? Anyway, as an update, no mysterious persons came knocking at my door after that.

On to less dubious affairs. I have my form ones doing a project. I gave them a list of topics under two categories, community and physical science(that’s the class I teach). The former included such topics as HIV/AIDS, Teacher housing and community development, Deforestaion and Good farming practices. The latter included things like, Force, Work, Energy, Molecules, Chemicals and Acids/Bases. I put them in groups two weeks ago and make them choose a topic from each category. Now when I return on Monday I am going to start picking groups and making them give there presentations so hopefully they’ve been researching this whole time like I instructed. I told them they could present however they wanted, a lecture, song, drama, etc. I’m real real curious to see how it turns out. In the other classes I’ve just been reviewing all there material.

I’m suppose to write a fake test, a mock exam they call them specifically here. It’s suppose to be as close to the the real thing as possible. That means a lot of grading later, a bit annoying. The thing I found amusing though was that my headmaster showed me a test he’d given my form fours while I was at COS conference. He said he did this to prepare them for their mock exams. So it was a preparitory exam for a preparitory exam for a real exam. These people could design a plane, what redundancy!

In terms of COS. The conference was a good time. We played a lot of charades. I love that game. We’ve become quite good at it too. We had to choose dates. I know a lot of people have been asking. The date I am trying for is October 17. Keep your fingers crossed for me. The country director has to ask DC if it’s permissable. It’s espeically early that’s why. That’s really not much time left here. I’m gonna be busy busy busy, as bokonon might say under different circumstances.