It was very early on in life that I discovered I have a particular talent. Some people are good at selling things. Some are great at math. Yet others have a strange and magical aptitude for embroidering bunnies and roses onto misshapen sweaters. Me? I am great at corrupting others. It’s true. It is also something that I must confess a particular pride in. After all, being naughty and impulsive and making others join in the fun is one of life’s greatest pleasures – so long as no one is being hurt of course. Well seriously hurt anyways.Almost three weeks ago I stepped into a sleepy little town in the South African bush, only to discover that I would be living in an even tinier township which is not exactly a walking distance from town. While this is a lot of fun in a National-Geographic-cultural-experience way, it is not always conducive to the crazy side of fun. Especially when the people around me are quite religious and most of them don’t drink, or even explore their surroundings to see what’s over the next hill for that matter. Usually I find that if I get excited enough about something though it will start to spread so that at least one person in a group of 10 will take on what I’m suggesting. However, in this case my calls for fun and exploration kept meeting walls of amused resistance. My suggestion of a walk to the nearby ridge to watch the sunset was met with bemused chuckling and head shaking, but an old lady almost fainted when she heard me ask to visit a local shebeen (bar)! Well. It’s a good thing I don’t give up easy. I just realized that I’d have to approach this on a slightly different tack if I was going to get anywhere. Anything is possible if one tries hard enough though.
So what did I do? Well I decided to wait for an opportunity, like a lion in the bush. So when two middle aged ladies visited us the other day, and one was complaining of a sore throat and asking me if I knew of any good remedies, I saw a golden opportunity. I explained with my most innocent and helpful look that in Croatia whiskey is often drank for throat problems (this is actually true, and it’s worked for me before so it’s not like I was entirely making stuff up really). In any case, the little church ladies seemed suspicious but promised they would try it. A few days later they returned with a half drunk bottle of the stuff in a decidedly better mood and with no sore throats to boot. Well at least none that they could feel any more. They also now call me “Doctor”, which is just an invitation for more “medical advice” I feel. Success.
Corruption number two came with the girl with whom I’m staying. She’s my age and very sweet. She also goes to church on Sundays and never drinks. Which is great, except when it also means you are afraid to try anything new. I am always trying to convince her to do stuff – from hiking, to waterfall swimming, to visiting the neighbouring town, but no go. So I decided to buy some red wine instead and asked her how it could be bad to drink it when Jesus himself had made water in to wine, did he not? (I was kinda fishing here, since not having been raised religious I got most of my knowledge of world religions from American TV shows and from watching evangelical services on public broadcast when I first came to Canada. For a long time I used to think that when people went to church they all got slapped on the forehead and fell to the ground in convulsions while speaking in tongues). In any case, it somehow worked! Before I knew it, we were both half in the bag and she was suddenly a lot more keen to go walking around the town exploring. The only bad part was that in her drunken excitement she called every single guy she knew and kept making me talk to them. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but I think I now have 10 blind dates lined up for this coming Friday.After all this corrupting I woke up on Saturday feeling satisfied and ready for exploration. I decided to hike the nearby mountains in order to get a better view of the valley as well as get some exercise. The surrounding area features an interesting mix of plants that I’m only half familiar with, and it was quite pretty to see that some of the more exotic flowers have started to bloom. I even saw a wild deer of some sort! We had caught each other by surprise, and were frozen staring at one another from a distance of about three meters, but when I tried to take a picture of him he bolted as soon as I made the slightest move.
From the top of the mountains I could see the valley around Groblersdal spread out beneath me. The savannah transformed into lush farmland and man-made lakes. Large farm estates and game lodges and dusty dirt roads. Quite a view. It was also a gorgeous day and quite hot. Since it’s only the beginning of Spring I’m having a hard time imagining what summer is going to feel like here! I hope I get to see Summer in full swing though because I will be quite miffed to leave just as it is starting out. So yah, whatever monotheistic or polytheistic deity you believe in, start praying for me getting a decently paid job in microfinance somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Actually though, at this point, although I would love to stay here, I am quite ready to go virtually anywhere in the world that is warm and I can make enough to pay off my student loan! Given the way that my life has been for the last couple of years I know that I can be happy almost anywhere, and so I am incredibly open minded as to where I end up. The only thing that I find annoying is the fact that I somehow keep getting dragged back to Canada in the middle of winter. I have to make sure that if I get dragged back this time that it will be the absolutely last time it happens. So what I’m saying is, Africans, Californians, Hawaiians, Asia-Pacific and European friends….holla at yo girl if you hear of a microfinance, small business development or entry-level management consulting job pop-up near you. And in case I haven't mentioned it....South African spring is gorgeous! Sun and the smell of lavender everywhere.....
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