Jake and I had planned on working out this morning. Leg day again. Form running, lunges, and squats. We have been using some large cinder blocks as our weights, with an iron pipe as our bar. I planned on teaching Jake overhead squats, where we would hold a cinderblock overhead with our elbows locked. This changes the whole dynamic in the body and really taxes the core. (the core is so much more than the ‘6 pack’, which is the rectus abdominus, the core actually consists of 29 muscles in the lumbo-pelvic-hip complex). I bailed out of the workout this morning. (to spend more time with Linnea, and actually do devotions together, which we have gotten a little lax on)
The alarm had gone off at 530am, and I slapped Linnea’s butt, (Linnea wears the watch, but never hears the alarm) and I asked Linnea to reset it for 630, because Jake and I were going to workout at 7. As I relaxed into another hour of sleep, I remembered the guard. The security guard needed to be let off the property at 6, and Skulky probably needed to go to the bathroom anyway.
Skulky is an eleven week old Boerbel-Rhodesian Ridgeback mix. A boerbel, as far as I can tell, is a South African mastiff very similar to a bull mastiff. Skulky is an apricot blonde with the characteristic ridge on his back of the legendary lion hunter from Rhodesia (now known as Botswana). Skulky is the reason Linnea and I like the idea of tile floors. (even though my feet are freezing). Skulky was named after a rugby star, loves to chew toes and poop in hidden places. We watch him, don’t even notice him walk away, then we find little tootsie rolls in unexpected spots.
We are house sitting for the Blacks, as they took the weekend to rest and relax in Nelspruit, South Africa, which is next to Kruger Park, 2 hours north of here. The Blacks rent (I have heard that because the king owns all the property in Swaziland, foreigners can only rent) a large house (they have six kids) with a nice yard in Manzini. Linnea and I spent more per month on our one room basement apartment back home than this property costs the Blacks. The property is surrounded by a wall topped with razor wire and at night a security guard roams the premises.
Two weeks ago, we were having a night session, when Gary’s phone rang. It was his wife, Lisa, calling to say someone had just broken in. Gary rushed out of the conference room, and a bunch of us guys followed. Adrenaline pumped my heart a bit as I was excited to pummel someone and worried that Linnea was worried. We piled into a van and Gary sped to his house (what speedbumps?), the excitement in the van was audible as no one spoke, but popping knuckles and rapid breathing filled the car.
It took a long couple minutes to pull in front of the Black residence, and when we did, I jumped out of the front seat and needed to open the side door of the van, which can’t be opened from the inside, and this time, would not be opened from the outside either. A bunch of heros we were, 8 men stuck in the van yelling to get out. There were already cops in the driveway and a crowd of people, the trespasser had already been caught by the dreaded neighborhood watch (they wear orange shirts, ride bicyles, wear helmets and carry weapons and beat the tar out of the guilty until proven innocent). (ok, a side note which I could not resist: justice here in Africa is communal and public, maybe not ‘just’. I am not sure how Swaziland does it, but in Mozambique if someone yells “thief” the whole town chases him, and he runs to the police station for protection. The crowd will actually beat a person to death on an accusation. When we were in Morrumbala, we saw three men paraded down the street to their public lashing, literally at spear point. Men with spears were driving the accused forward with the points in the men’s backs!)
Finally the van door opened and we joined the crowd, asking “what happened?” and is “everyone all right?” The trespasser was already detained, and a mix of emotions of being too late and happy not to get stabbed swirled in my mind. Lisa said thank you to everyone for coming over, and then the statement that made me raise my eyebrows (Linnea spent this morning pulling the split ends out of my eyebrows, it takes talent to grow eyebrows like this, and strength to raise them), Lisa said, in a matter of fact tone, “this happens all the time”.
We have spent two nights here, last night I managed to sleep fine, as I had grown accustomed to the sounds of the house, but the first night (how often is “all the time?”), every noise made me tense. The wind rubbing the curtains against the wall, the doors rattling, I actually had to pray away some of the fear. (like the night Jay and I passed out on the Wilderness Trail, off the Kancamagus Highway, in the White Mountains, after a major munchies attack. I think I fell asleep with a mouth full of Hostess cakes, and was scared all night that a bear could smell my breath and was coming into camp).
I fell asleep last night, after eating a bowl of coco krispies, on the couch, watching “The Producers” (what an awful movie) and woke up to catch the last 20 minutes of “Runaway Jury”. Linnea was cuddled with Skulky, and as we went to bed, the phone rang. Our friends, Rachel and Tim are due in August, and it was their baby shower yesterday. The shower was over, and the girls called Linnea.
I laid in bed and listened to Linnea’s half of the conversation. The girls asked all kinds of questions- this morning Linnea said that the questions got fired at her so fast that she was not able to ask any questions of them. I listened to Linnea try to answer, and I realized how many questions I had myself.
Questions, always questions. I had hoped we would find some answers out here, but for every vague answer I find, the questions are multiplied.
“What are we going to do after this?”
“Where are we going to live when we get home?”
“Are we going to start a family?”
“What am I learning out here?”
“Would I do this again?”
“Would we suggest this for others? for other married couples?”
My buddy, Hank, gave me advice a little while back, to get through this year and process it all afterward. Not to push too hard and burn myself out. I have always overtrained. Overtraining is when a body is not given enough of what it needs to recover from workouts and over compensate. The body needs rest and proper nutrition to fully recover. I would say I need the equivalent for my mind and my spirit.
So, for now, I will drink some coffee, play with Skulky, hang out with Linnea, and let the questions hang unanswered for another day. I trust when I really need the answers, somehow they will be there, waiting to be plucked from the sky.
