Suffering and Smiling

It’s the height of the sunny season here in Equatorial Africa, and every day’s temperature reading is giving a new definition to the term ‘global warming’ (“38^oC in Rio? ‘Big deal. Yesterday we had 41!”). The real scale-tipper though, is the amount of pedestrians padding down the streets in my town. It’s like the collapse of a termite hill. The reason for this quite literal groundswell is due what I’d like to call the Law of Unintended Consequences. See, the Governor slapped a $100 tax on motorbike commuters, the most preferred and most plentiful transport merchants in the city. But these ‘Ruff Riders’ weren’t having it, so he got cops to pick up defaulters. Why, that really riled them bikers, who got Fast and Furious on their tormentors, setting a police station ablaze and razing down the quarters with Molotov cocktails. And before you could say “Red Alert!” the Guv gave the green-light for a martial crack-down, with the permission to use “extreme prejudice”. Soon there were police officers everywhere, every alley, crook and culvert, waiting to pounce on anyone riding a two-wheel. Sadly, that backfired on the transport system, and the city woke the next morning to find the streets bereft of their favourite ‘Okada’ riders, as they are fondly known.

Now, on a typical working day, as early as 5 am, you’ll see a steady pour of nine-to-fivers trudging the sidewalk to work like a disordered Indian file of worker ants, eager to avoid the unforgiving dawn of the sun. Late sleepers are forced to use the only other means of transport – the buses, beat-up steel traps that grunt irritably when passengers hop on board, threatening to come apart any moment.. As such, the passengers don’t sit on as much as squat over the seats, rather like you would over a public toilet seat. In fact, it isn’t long before you start thinking you might be in a toilet; the ambience inside gives off a globigerina ooze of unwashed armpits, and soon the steaming heat has sweat dripping down your back, to sizzle on the iron seat between your butt-cheeks, which themselves are steadily baking like poached eggs. Fortunately, the bus-stop pulls near and the passengers are almost grateful to get off the bus unto the sidewalk, back under the bristling hot sun.

The only ones who don’t seem to be bothered of the sun are the contractor Arabs working here. A couple of them are browsing the market stalls, with one sucking away at a cigarette like it contains some coolant. His nicotine-stained fingers are scratching away interminably at his head, though; I guess the heat wave’s annoying his hair lice, the way dandruff’s powdering off his crown like nuclear fallout. I couldn’t care less – I’m getting back home and can’t stop thinking about that cold shower… When I get there, the security light outside’s on. That’s a surprise. Having constant power from the national grid here is like the sighting of a shooting star – it almost never happens. Having power at all comes in hiccups. Because of that, almost every home’s got generators. Not that they get plenty use these days: petrol’s now a dollar per litre (used to be half that a month ago, but who’s counting?).

Well, the power stays for 5 hours – another surprise – before there’s a blackout and everyone’s fated for another hot, humid, hapless night in the ‘Paradise City’. As usual. No matter. I think I’ll sleep on the roof tonight in my birthday suit and listen to some tennis commentary on the radio, y’know, try to beat the heat – on second thought, maybe not. Some NASA scientist may get the nutty idea to point the Hubble Space Telescope back to Earth, and next thing you know, I’m the latest download on U-tube (“I know you said to view the Big Dipper, sir, but this constellation right here could make astronomical history!”). Hmm. Quite the quandary. Holler if you spring any better ideas, people :-)