Picture of the Bar at Kalima Camp. (where I live)
Getting too serious.
Over the past couple of weeks, you may have noticed that the humour and life was trickling rather than gushing, and to be honest That is how I have been feeling. The good news is the light has been relit the weight lifted and the bottom well and truly kicked.
Last night I had invited some friends round for a barbeque, I call it a barbeque and not a braai as it would normally be called in Africa, because it was pissing down with rain. A phenomenon normally associated with English outdoor cooking rather than African. Luckily about an hour before my guests were due to arrive the skies cleared the sun burst out from behind it’s grey sarong and the day was transformed.
Anyway we had a splendid evening chatting, eating and drinking with the backdrop of the dam, the trees and the wonderful variation of grasses that grow so abundantly around the dam.(and burn so ferociously when they dry up in July) At about eight we became aware that we were all having to raise our voices to be heard over the background noise that had been slowly but steadily being building up.
Frogs, there must have been thousands of them, they start with a gentle ping, which is answered by another’s ping, then their mates join, until the din that ensues drowns out virtually all other sound. And it is such a high pitched ping it goes right through you. You know the level of sound just before pain where the sound makes your ears ring. Well last night it was at that level, it was incredible. We went to see if we could find them but to no avail, and that game was cut short anyway when we stumbled across a rather large snake that we did not hang around to identify but from its girth I would imagine was a cobra. We decided that wandering around in the dark in long grass near a lake whilst half pissed was probably not the cleverest of things to do, so we went back to the bar and continued our conversations at a slightly louder level. My guests left at about eleven and I was left to the clearing up to the accompaniment of ten thousand pinging frogs.
Fortunately they had all gone horse, or were too busy doing other things to go ping by the time I got to bed, so It was just the sound of the crickets and the nightjars to gently lull me into sleep.
This morning I woke late as the sun was not blazing in through my bedroom window as it normally does at five thirty so I laid in till six. (luxury) I had to go to town to meet a local silversmith who I had commissioned to make a silver bangle for me. He made the first to my design and after a couple of minor adjustment he came up with the piece I was happy with. Great, so I asked him to make another five all exactly the same. It had taken him two weeks and he rang me earlier this week to say he had completed them all and would bring them over to me. He duly arrived and brought from his pocket a piece of paper wrapping the said articles and he unwrapped it in front of me. I was speechless. You may recall me mentioning the African curved ball a little while ago. What he bought along that day is living proof that it is alive and well and operating in Lusaka.
From the first piece that he made, I was baffled when I tried to work out what the resemblance could possibly be to these lumps of scrap metal he held in his hand before me now. Now I am a patient, calm and well mannered person normally, but this gentleman really did push my patience this day. I looked at him, showed him the piece that he, himself had made but two weeks previously, and asked him if he could spot any slight differences. Spookily enough he could and after about ten minutes more talking he finally conceded that he had made a mistake. I corrected him, that what he had made in fact was a total load of crap and that he really ought to go back to his bush workshop. Empty his pipe of the strange substances that he had been smoking for the previous two weeks and start again.
He had rung yesterday to ask me to meet him this morning at nine. I rang before leaving just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten our meeting and that he had got the new bangles. He assured me that all was fine and that he was there already waiting.
I arrived and he was his normal jolly self and he produced from his pocket a screwed up piece of paper containing what I was hoping would be five perfect copies of the one he had previously made for me. Well we were getting closer. He had three, they weren’t perfect but they would do, you have to allow a bit for these arty types I suppose. I asked him where the other two were, and he promised me faithfully they would be ready by Wednesday this week. We will just have to wait and see. My worry is that these are presents for the whole family, and I fly back to the UK for a couple of weeks on Saturday.
I am just hoping above hope that we do not see the sudden resurgence of the dreaded African Curved Ball.
Denzil Bark.
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