“I need a break”, I snapped, about an hour ago. I had had it. I gave myself a five minute time-out. I laid in my tent to pout and read about “Jock”.
We went to the Themba Hospital this morning, I blogged on that at lunch. Linnea helped put the blogs on our hard drive, OLGA, and we, the one lonely man, headed into town with my wife and five other young women, for my favorite past-time, shopping (yay!). We went to the mall in Nelspruit, found the internet cafe, and spent 80 Rand for the two of us to go online for 1.5hrs. That is eleven dollars and 40 cents, to post some blogs and catch up with whatever happens in that weird world of email. (we are discussing our personal lack of wireless capability)
We then shopped for sneakers, because my toes are coming out of the sides, and my fat flat feet are not getting any support- which makes my knees and ankles ache (speaking of that, we played speedball about 10 days ago, and I got Josh’s knee on my shin, and it hurt like the DICKENS. Linnea thought I was being overdramatic as I limped for a few days, but now that the bruising has had time to work its way through my Arnold-like calves, she thinks we need to treat my leg a little better- good bone bruise-ha! maybe it is a fracture, that will teach her, I am not a wimp!). I lusted at the sneakers I wanted, then loved the ones we could afford. The difference in price was 600 Rand. The ones I got were cool enough, and hopefully are as sturdy as they look.
Then I went for a haircut. The “Fatboy Barber Shop”. There is a place I would fit in, I thought, though I pictured it being a large african man giving fades. I told Linnea I was not going to pay more than 10 USD for a friggin hair cut, and she said “this is the mall”. If it was going to cost me money, to get my hair cut, I would just do it myself. Crap, my mom still cuts my hair when I am home, and she does a heck of a job, even with the trick lighting in the basement and her 5 dollar glasses. She is leaving more and more strays, but as long as her fingers can still hold scissors, she will be my main beautician. (though she might have to start trimming my eyebrows pretty soon…and the hair growing out the tip of my nose).
I followed the directions (from the mall map) in my head to the “Fatboy”, and from a distance, it looked like a ‘Hard Rock Cafe’. I wondered if it were a barber shop for children, and I felt lost as I peered in before asking any questions. Someone was getting a haircut and I could not tell if it were a woman or a teenage boy, so my questions went unanswered. As I walked in, with the longest hair I have had since hiking the Appalachian Trail, the helpful and very observant woman (bottle blonde and bleach white) asked if I wanted a hair cut. My head slowly processed the question and checked off a list of smart answers as I looked at the fatigue in her eyes, and after spending six months with this many women, I realized the best response this time would be honesty (honesty is not always the best policy, whoever invented that phrase obviously spent a lot of time alone), so I answered….”yeah”.
I sat in the chair and made eye contact with myself, then immediately looked away, because I was in no mood for confrontation with the man in the mirror. The woman told me to relax, I laughed and said “ok”, the worry lines in my forehead (like Sequoia’s) are simply etched there. She asked what I wanted done, I said “short”. I explained what we were doing (here, in South Africa) and how much of a pain a haircut is, and she smiled and said she would cut it the way she would like to, and if I don’t like that, then she would cut it the way I wanted. She told me how tired she is, and a story of a kid with bone cancer that had his wishes fulfilled through some organization down here: he wanted to visit his aunt in France, and he was flown north. Because this organization doesn’t have enough money, his parents stayed behind, and he visited his aunt and then he died the next day, and now there is no money to reunite him with his parents. The woman told me how she cried when she heard the story, how helpless she feels about all the pain in the world. I agreed and often have no idea how I am supposed to feel as we face suffering day in and day out.
She finished the haircut and I looked in the mirror and felt good about myself for the first time in a long time and realized what a STUD Linnea married and how proud she must be of me. Then I returned to reality and said “thank you”, 60 Rand for the haircut, and I gave her 10 more for her work and headed down the hall, worried that the team was waiting for me.
I met Linnea in the bookstore, she had a handful of books and a cup of coffee for me. She had the book I have been wanting to read, about a bull terrier named ‘Jock’. This dog is a legend in the area and there is a statue of him, it says in the tourist brochure- which made me aware of the book, and I have seen a pub named after him.
As I travel with this pack of females, it seems I resort to hiding in my tent and reading male authors. There must be some rhythm or subject matter, I am not sure what it is actually, but a guy needs to be fed testosterone by another guy. Women seem to motivate us somehow, and somewhere along the way a guy is motivated simply because he desires to be alone, have a little quiet. Solomon compared a nagging wife to dripping water, and a guy will do what it takes for some peace and quiet. Women have a way of draining our masculinity, even as we try to prove we have ‘it’. It takes another guy to recharge a guy, and in these travels with women, I can’t even get away to have a beer with the guy I know best, but don’t like best, me.
As I write this, I hope that Rusty raises the support he needs to join our team, for the final months, in Thailand. I met Rusty in Cusco, and he is one of the few guys I know who describes distances in terms of how many football fields it covers. We had a tour guide tell us we had a 700 meter hike to a waterfall, and would we rather walk or drive? The girls asked how far that was and Rusty quickly answered, “About 7 football fields”. Jesus, PLEASE bring Rusty out here!
As I write this, I am sitting at a table, trying to find alone time, in the presence of 12 people. I had started typing this in a funk (not the african type), and am still in that rut.
I had stormed to the tent, after hoping for a bowl of cereal and being told the cereal was for breakfast. Not for me to eat now. I stood there and realized they were serious, that was how the food was planned. I was hungry and moody (why is a couple of hours at the mall, even productive ones, so draining?) and Linnea was struggling with a propane lamp. I could hear her and knew she wanted help, but I would need to read the directions and could not do that, as I was starving, and the noise! But I made the fatal mistake of trying anyway, because I had low blood sugar and had no logic. I opened the box to read the directions, and Linnea let me know I had broken the box. That was it….
Off to read about Jock.
