Dancin' With Myself.........

“There’s nothing to lose and there’s nothing to prove”
“Let’s sink another drink… Cause it’ll give me time to think….”

(Covered by Nouvele Vague- Grey’s Anatomy Soundtrack- gotta love that reimagined version with all the tap dancey background.)

On the advent of “shadow dancing” as a popular pastime in the delta….

“It was a party of note,” (which is the way my buddy Ronny begins most of his “good old days” stories) -when my friends Anna and Godfrey had their camp warming party in the bush. They had invited Simon and I, and I of course invited that weekends guests, and they had quite a few friends on their new island camp as well. In total there were about a dozen of us.

We made our way out “that side” in the afternoon, crossing the river late in the day. I had made a lemon flavored baked good (Simon’s analysis: heavy.) and the wine was flowing freely. I pitched my tent in what I hoped was a low traffic area for nighttime hippo wandering. It still never ceases to amaze me that this is something I now consider on a regular basis.

By the time the dinner cooking commenced it was dark and yet Anna pulled off the whole cooking for a dozen people by a campfire bit as though she had all the amenities and conveniences of the kitchen of a four star restaurant. It was a delicious veggie curry (there was also braiied meat available for the carnivores such as myself in the group.) After dinner someone put on an ipod and the party began.

I’ve been to several parties in the bush, and it seems anytime there are more than about 5 people, someone gets the brilliant idea to start drinking games. I’ve mentioned before that I tend to spend time with lots of people from different cultures, and on this particular night I was grossly outnumbered by the Brits. It generally seemed like a good idea to them that we would be having races “shot gunning” beers. This particular task involves puncturing a hole in the side of a beer, covering it with one’s finger, shaking it a bit and then popping the top then chugging it down through the punctured hole upon someone shouting “go!”

The winner of this sophisticated game (did I mention that a majority of these competitors were PhD level animal researchers?) is determined by the first person to place the empty beer can on their head. Brilliant.

As I’m not a beer drinker, I got through about one of these little pleasures. I resigned myself to drinking my cider at a more reasonable pace and being the judge of the shotgun contest. Soon this got boring and so I found myself a nice open space in which to dance. I soon noticed that if I danced with my back to the full moon I would watch my shadow on the ground. I soon pointed this out to Anna, who was coaxed away from the shot-gunning and was soon immersed in dancing with her shadow as well. Our frantic movements (efforts to “out-dance” our shadows) soon gathered the attention of the group, who found this to be hilarious (more ridiculous than sucking beer out of a hole in the side of a can and then placing it on top of one’s head? I’ll let you, the reader, be the judge….). There was soon a rush to determine the greatest song for shadow dancing. This lasted for the better part of two hours; complete with nearly every genre of dance we could think of (although I think Godfrey the Irishman definitely won the Riverdance competition).

It still strikes me the strange things I find entertaining in this world through the looking glass. A few weeks later I found myself watching the washing machine at Anna and Godfrey’s Maun estate go through an entire cycle. And I wasn’t alone. Anna’s assistant Eeva sat with me through the whole thing, during which we discussed the highlights of this or that button going by, as well as exclaiming with delight when the rinse cycle would change over and bubbles would fill the window of the front loading machine. This is what happens in a world without television, my friends. Kiss your Tivo for me.