falling apart
this morning, i sat out on the guard’s vacated chair on my building’s front walkway, waiting for the driver to come pick me up to go to work. to pass the time, i idly mentally chastised myself for not having a copy of my medical helivac evacuation card printed out and in my wallet so as to have it on my person at all times. last night at dinner, where i had the most delightful chicken with mushroom and cream sauce, we were talking about how messed up the mozambiquan health care system is. if a medical emergency happens (such as, for example, if something happens to that mozambiquan ferry, photographed above. and by the way, yes, those little black specs are all people. can we say disaster waiting to happen?), your best bet is really to get on that helicopter headed for south africa as fast as you can. i mean, what is the point of having purchased the darn insurance if you don’t carry it with you? stupid, stupid, stupid.
actually i was alternating between beating myself up over this and contemplating throwing up - was that chicken last night cooked well enough? i wondered if it would it be more polite to throw up over the wall and into the little flower garden or right in the middle of the front walkway where it would be less discrete, but, at least with a mop, the apartment guard would have an easier time cleaning the puke up when he came to reclaim his chair. i mean cleaning puke out of a flower bed might be really difficult as it would all mix in with the dirt and stuff.
these deep deep thoughts were interrupted by loud firecrackers exploding right behind my head. i jumped up and almost jumped over the wall into the flower garden, that, thankfully, didn’t have any puke in it. looking back, i saw that the little electrical panel that was about 3 inches from where, moments before, my head had been, now had ominous black smoke pouring out of it. within a couple more moments, it spontaneously burst into rather large flames. and i mean really large flames, the type that put you on helicopters headed for south africa. if you have an insurance card printed out, that is.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
i didn’t realize how many men hang out on my street at that hour in the morning, but rather quickly, they all congregated on my front walkway. one of them picked up some dirt from the puke-free flower garden and threw it on the fire. a woman from the third floor of a building across the street screeched down to her man to start helping. they all joined in and ran back and forth throwing dirt at the flaming electrical box until, thankfully the fire was put out. nothing may work in this country, but at least everyone pitches in in the non-workiness of it all.
at just about the same time, my driver pulled up to take me to work. i just waved him on, turned around and headed back up to my apartment, wondering if this fire meant that my air-conditioning would no longer work. i needed to lie down and writhe in food poisoning pain for a good six hours or so and would prefer to do so in a cool room rather than one baking in the african sun.
maybe tomorrow i will print out my helivac form.
the electrical box, after “the incident.” they hacked away at some concrete below it and tried to wash all the black smoke off the wall, not to much good.
the business scene in mozambique is pretty interesting. out of a population of about 20 million, about a million people are employed in the formal sector. about half of those are foreigners (a lot of south africans and indians). that leaves about 500,000 out of 20 million mozambiquans in the formal work economy. about 300,000 of these work for the government. let's just say there are lots and lots of folks walking up and down the street trying to sell everything from flip flops to electrical plugs out of their backpacks.
