A snapshot of life from Lusaka, Zambia

I'm at the hotel gym. I have it all to myself and I'm enjoying a brisk walk on the treadmill. On the big, fancy television there is Gladiator, the soundless version, as I am unable to reach the remote. I turn my eyes towards the smaller screen in the corner. It is emitting slightly more sound. A Zambian morning program seems to be on.

Picture this:

There are two massive, sky-blue, fake-suede armchairs with a couple of throw rugs that appear to have a Zebra-motif, symmetrically positioned over the seats and the backs. Behind the chairs, on the back wall of the 'set', is a grainy blow up of a 20 000 kwacha bill, an amount of money equal to $4 USD. On the chairs sit a man and a woman. There are newspapers and a glass bowl of what appear to be avocados on a wooden coffee table placed directly in front of the chairs. 

It appears that the woman is the host of the program. She keeps nodding her head as the man talks. She is wearing something that to me seems a prom dress, the short kind. The garment is pink, has immense puffy sleeves and a little pink lace on the collar. The picture is cut so that you cannot see her shoes, but you are painfully aware of the fact that she has not shaved her legs in a while. She has, however, obviously gotten her hair/wig done in the recent past and it sits atop her pretty nodding head like a helmet, not a hair out of place.      

The man keeps talking to the camera and to the woman. He is very serious, bald, and middle aged. He is wearing a brown plaid jacket, the like of which I have never before laid eyes on, a white shirt,light brown pants, and a tie that matches the jacket in the browns, but not in the pattern, as it has diamond shapes on it. He is in all possible shades of chocolate, and somewhat clashes with the zebra-motif and the chairs.

And, as if this scene is not enough to knock me off the treadmill, the camera cuts to the bowl of avocados. There are three of them, two on the bottom, and one positioned on top of the two. I stare at the screen in disbelief - directly behind the bowl in the picture is the man's crotch. He is sitting with his legs parted and appears to have grown a pair of green testicles and an odd shaped penis with a little black dot right on the tip.

I practically wet myself.    

Never been to Africa

Without lying or exaggerating this is what some of my South African friends say, because they have perhaps never left South Africa, or only ever visited places like Namibia, Swaziland, or Lesotho. Namibia is the northwestern neighbor of South Africa, Swaziland is pretty much encompassed by SA on the east coast, and Lesotho is a country completely within the borders of South Africa.

But what does it mean? How am I to understand this, since I thought I already was in Africa? I mean the name of the country has the word Africa in it?!?!

So naturally I couldn't let this lie.

I'll try to shed some light on this issue and perhaps also finally explain it to myself. Or just ask more questions, and get multiple debates going while wine is flowing. 

According to my friends they are in South Africa, which is only linked to Africa by default, by the geographic location only. 

"Yee- yees?" I would say, thinking these people must have already had too much to drink. 

According to my friends they are not in Africa, because Africa has lions, elephants, zebra, mud huts, and guys with spears. No mock Tuscan mock villages, like the one we are forced to live in, no Montecasino, no Soweto, and no Cape Town. Apparently we live in the west, as opposed to Africa. Now, I never knew that these were direct opposites, but I have now been set straight. If I was being mean I would make a jab at the baggage the word 'European' has in this country. Just read Alan Paton's 'Cry the Beloved Country', and gauge the full meaning of the term in apartheid SA. But I won't get into that now.

Upon meeting one of our best SA friends for the first time, he made a comment that I will never forget. I thought it was an awesome response at the time, and it put a lot of my fears about coming here to rest, but I am only now starting to fully understand the various implications of that comment. On being lectured to by an Italian regarding what carpaccio entailed our friend retorted that he was "from Africa, not the deep dark Africa." 

Now I am left to wonder why it is so hard to be proud of this glorious continent, why is Africa only to be synonymous with a stereotypical image, and why are so many Africans themselves advocates of this kind of thinking? Not judging, just asking. Granted, Africa has its issues with wars and famines, and the unfortunately high concentration of dictators, but it also has unparalleled beauty, huge modern cities, cool, original people, multiplicity of interesting cultures, and, well, the animals of course. Why is it that being 'western' is something to strive after? For an American my home country, which all Finns maintain is in Northern Europe and completely westernized, must seem like belonging to a different category entirely with our location on the arctic circle, our long border with Russia, and our ubiquitous nudity linked to a tiny hothouse, lovingly referred to as the sauna. 

When did all the signifiers come to signify so much more than than simple geographical location? When did Africa become a loaded word, and one which even Africans themselves have a hard time stomaching? 

Elaboration anyone? Until I lose myself completely.

You-know-what chronicles. Yes. Yet again.

Guess what my time has been spent on today. 

I'll give you a clue: 

If it wasn't for the people coming over tomorrow night for a braai I would happily drown.

I'm pretty certain most of you guessed right.

Drumroll please......

 

Indeed, I have been invading a territory I loathe and hope to clear out of as soon as possible. 

I have been cleaning my house.

This is an SMS I received at 9:10PM Tuesday night, when the maid was scheduled to come 7AM the next morning:

Im not coming 2 moro u must look 4 smeonels who can work with ur list but me i cnt

Nuff said for now. At least she let me know. The battle with the agency continues. However, I would just like to publicly make clear that this time I did not fire the maid, I was willing to make an effort and try to make it work. This time she quit.

How many calories does cleaning your house vigorously burn? Perhaps I am entitled to some nice glasses (read: bottles) of wine... Who am I kidding?!?! I always feel entitled.

Getting some exercise in the beautiful Pretoria

I just participated in a marathon.

Really I did.

Well, actually it really was a marathon, the Deloitte Pretoria Marathon 2009 to be exact, but what I had signed up for (in the drunken stupor of last weekend's braai) was to walk the first leg of the race, i.e. the first 10 kilometers. I and my friends managed to do this in 1 hour and 45 minutes, which I consider an achievement and will cherish the medal I received for all eternity. Actually I think I'll be wearing it for the next couple of weeks. It's red and gold, so it goes with a lot of my outfits.  

I didn't even really get out of breath, which was the real achievement. The five of us, all women, had a lot fun chatting as we walked and the kilometers just disappeared. Very cool. And at the finish line awaited the photo-happy hubby snapping pictures of the sweaty me like there was no tomorrow (perhaps he was thrown by the sudden motivation in me to do something like a 10k race, he still seems rather baffled) to show the future generations and probably everyone on facebook that yes, occasionally, I do take up something that does not involve alcohol in any way. 

However, the real cool thing about this race was not the sweating, the incriminating photos, honking angry motorists (to whom we waved with smiles on our faces), smiling metro policemen, the snap-happy hubby, or the guy who ran the 10 kilometers in sloppies (flip flops), but the chance to walk in the beautiful neighborhoods of Pretoria. I hadn't realized how long it has been since I have had the opportunity to just walk around, peer into other people's houses and yards, and enjoy the streets lined with jacaranda trees. I wish they had been in bloom. That would have totally made my day. 

As we finished and the man whose face I'll always think of with a camera in front or near it was running around "getting all the angles", we gathered a bunch of leaflets for other races. I'm really looking forward to more of these with the same excellent company at my side, as well as to seeing more of South Africa in this most organic of ways - moving my two quirky-sneaker clad feet. 

Points to SA for getting me off my behind!