The Road to Seronga...

Unlike the road to a friend’s house-which is never long, or so I’ve read on some embroidered pillow or refrigerator magnet somewhere, the road to Seronga is long. Kakgala, as it is in Setswana, said with emphasis on the second syllable and look of incredulity, and always the English translation of “veddy far” the r’s of the native speaker’s tongue rolling off into the inconceivable distance with much sorrowful head shaking.
This is the second time in two weeks I’ve made this journey. No matter how many books you have it always leaves plenty of time to think, because at some point, you’re on the road after dark with no light to read by. Generally by the time dusk sets in you’ve been in the car for so long that strange parts of your body are simultaneously numb and aching. You find yourself on the lookout for kangaroos, unicorns and other out of place or mythical creatures in addition to the dangerous herds of cows, goats, donkeys and other farm life that are always choosing right now to cross the road.
Tonight we had barely reached the ferry in Shakawe when the day decided to begin her evening seduction, dropping the sun from the sky like a negligee. The fiery blaze that overdramatically ensues leaves deep burgundy and purple hues painting the horizon like the eye shadow of a woman past her prime and unwilling to let the heavy concealing make-up of her youth fade away gracefully.
The line to become one of the coveted three spots available on the ferry each time it crossed the delta was long, about 12 vehicles deep. Only one ferry was running, the other sat heavy in the water docked on this side, unapologetically unavailable to the swarms of people trying to get across the water before dark. One of the most irritating things about the crossing at Shakawe is that you can see the other side quite clearly. The ride itself from loading to disembarkment is less than five minutes. The American in my mind pleads “Shit can’t we just ford this nonsense like I did in fourth grade playing Oregon Trail?” Anywhere in the US there would be a multilane bridge with stop offs to take touristy pictures spanning this insultingly short distance.
I sit in the back of the ambulance, no longer willing to be social as what little patience I had has been blundered by the drunk people that came up to try to speak English to the Lakgowa whist standing too close and leaning in. I realize that this is one of those situations that calls for the type of patience I still haven’t developed. We alight the ferry as the last embers of day give into the dark of night, and the blood red moon the likes of which I have never seen anywhere on Earth rises from the horizon opposite where the sun has set. One of the nurses I have been traveling with informs me that a moon such as this indicates a chief somewhere has died. I don’t doubt it.
A few hours later on a long dusty road I am in my new home, unsure of what to do with myself in my new surroundings. As is my tendency when traveling for extended periods of time, I want to sink into a pile of tears but decide to save that overwrought coping mechanism for another time. After unloading all the boxes into my new living room, slash bedroom slash kitchen I wander back and forth between this and my bathroom which can also double as the rest of my kitchen. The scene is one of complete disarray, but as B reminds me in response to my text sent out to announce my arrival in my new village, nearly two days after all my other compadres arrived in their villages, “I am home.”
In order to avoid weeping I pump up the Black Keys CD (thank you again, Rick) and begin using every coping mechanism I’ve ever learned to settle into this new place. I walk around in much the manner I’ve noticed my mother does when she’s cleaning, by doing a little bit of everything at once, and nothing in particular. I thought about my friend K-train, as she was moving into the apartment next to mine in Minneapolis, frantically scrubbing the cupboards in ways I would have never imagined to do, insisting that she won’t feel at home until she “gets her stink on it.” I finally know what she means. I am running around picking things up, putting them down, realizing I won’t feel good about things until I have moved nearly every item of furniture out of this room and swept and mopped and then feeling worse when I realize I have no friends here to call to help me with this task, and how to you explain to people whose language you don’t speak that you’d like to move the furniture out into the sand in order to remove the sand from your floors?
Furthermore, I knew from the last time I was here that there was at least one, perhaps more lizards living in this house that has been empty for over a month. I am, admittedly, unreasonably afraid of these little bastards. I realize that they are “friendly” and eat the bugs but I can’t get over the larium enhanced dreams and waking nightmares of the f-ers falling on me during the night, or scampering over me, or really, even coming out from behind my wardrobe for a little hello. (I’ve since hung my mosquito net and hide under it proudly in my false sense of security. If they can get behind my wardrobe, they can certainly figure out how to compromise a little bit of mesh hanging if they so well please). I have also decided that in the vein of my friend Lightning this place absolutely has to be smudged if I’m to be successful here, and am thus running around with burning sage, the very smell being close enough to marijuana to spark feelings of Ende like paranoia in my already heightened sense of discomfort with the lizards lurking everywhere (in my mind they are multiplying by the minute, and plotting their descent on me in the night like military paratroopers.)
In addition to all this fun I realize that contrary to my former insistence, I haven’t completely transcended my fear of the dark, at least not in Africa. Between the one stark florescent light buzzing overhead casting strange shadows (Jack, I totally know what you mean now and hereby do solemnly swear that I will completely willingly enter into a life committed to lamps set at flattering angles) and the lack of lighting altogether in the bathroom, I’m a bit nervous. The dark, dark, bathroom houses the only mirror in the place, one of those locker size numbers that proves useful in this context for helping me scare myself silly every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. As I don’t recognize my own reflection with my new haircut, I keep thinking some crazy Buddhist monk has invaded my home wearing a headlamp and is out to get me.
So I was, as my new friend Ronny likes to put it, “a bit delicate” (read: a wreck) as I settled in under my haphazardly hung mosquito net, listening to every bump and thump and things hitting my door to ride out one of the longest nights of my life, trying to remember, as B says, that things always look better in the morning.