But first the nuns! It is all a Papist plot to eliminate non-Catholics, although as I don’t think they’ve found out yet that I’m not Catholic, perhaps I’m being paranoid. Monday before last I stubbed my toe so badly that I really thought I’d broken it. I managed to walk into the only stone in a completely clear area and it hurt so much that I thought I was going to be sick. Matilda insisted on rubbing it with the same sort of stuff that Vicks is made of (!). This is a universal panacea here but unsurprisingly, it didn’t cure it and by the evening my foot was about as big as my head, purple, and I could barely even touch it. I was convinced that my toe was shattered into a million tiny pieces and that as I was too scared to go to an African hospital, I would merely let it heal badly and limp for the rest of my life.
Later on that night I told one of the nuns, who is really sweet. She is tiny and plump and reassuring and looks like a fairy godmother in a children’s book. She asked to look and then with NO WARNING just grabbed it and yanked it again and again! I was actually shouting and begging her to stop. I had tears of pain in my eyes. She was laughing in a way that I used to think was cute and now think extremely bloody sinister. I found out later that pulling the toe is a village remedy and is based on making the bones straight. Pah. Then later on the so-called medical nun gave me some pills (Amoxcyllin), which she said would be perfect for it. I looked up what they were later that night and they were sodding antibiotics! For a TOE. With no broken skin whatsoever. I have this vague feeling that you shouldn’t take too many antibiotics because it’s basically just giving superbugs the chance to work out how to become immune to them, or something…is that right? Or did I make it up? Anyway. Whatever. It’s time to start an underground atheist/agnostic cell. I might put superglue in the lock of the chapel or something.
Here is a picture of my toe. It might look as though I was exaggerating about it being the size of my head, but it was honestly really really bad. You can see the bruising! And even now after two weeks it’s still all shiny because it’s swollen.
Although I am gradually understanding more and more about Africa, I still make fabulously stupid mistakes sometimes here. One example was trying to get the school to teach more creatively, before I’d realised that the dormitory bathrooms didn’t even running water. My latest is so embarrassing that I am surprised I am relating it. I saw a seed packet in the nice posh ex-pat supermarket for a grow-your-own-meadow sort of thing. I thought oh how lovely! It was, of course, an unmitigated disaster. I had forgotten that African people do not yet have a problem with disappearing hedgerows, wildflowers, oh-where-are-the-lovely-larks-these-days etc etc. And if they do, I do not think they give a monkey’s. I had also forgotten that the children weed the flowerbeds and that if African people generally do not have a concept of English nostalgia for a countryside meadow, little African deafs are certainly not going to grasp it through sign language. I got to school on Thursday to find the still-nascent meadow lying in piles by the side of the flowerbed. I was about to be irritated and then I realised that I had no-one to blame but myself. We’ll go to the plant market and get some proper bright flowery African plants and just draw a veil over the whole sorry episode, I think.
We’ve slaughtered another cow. I had planned to be part of it this time and do some cutting, and even packed a kanga that day to cover up my clothes – but they did it really early in the morning and I missed it as I couldn’t get my lazy arse out of bed. But I was there to watch them carving it all up. My favourite moment was them squeezing the stomach to get the gas out. All of a sudden there was a really stinky whiff of cow fart. I love the idea of being able to let off a trump while happily cavorting in the next world! Particularly during my own funeral. Here are some snaps. One is of general butchery and the other is of the school errand-runner person, who has drawn-in orange eyebrows which unfortunately are not in the photo, holding some tumbo (stomach) and squeezing it out into a bucket.
A last update on Hugh, ex-warm-boyfriend. He has finally, belatedly realised that I don’t want to go out with him any more and has sent me two love letters, a terrible, terrible poem, a promise of “as many babies as you want” and some red roses to the school. I know that this sounds sweet and nice, but this someone who thought it was OK for me to be cooking his food in his house while he watched sport on TV, and who could barely manage a smile or greeting when he picked me up from the horrible sweaty crowded uncomfortable bus that I’d taken to come and see him. “I am not very demonstrative, you’ll just have to believe that I am pleased to see you even though I don’t show it”. Will I now. Oh, and used to complain because I left more than two squares of loo roll hanging down. NB I maybe left four or five – it wasn’t like that old Andrex advert with the adorable puppy romping round the house with the whole roll! There were certainly no flowers bought for me before now and frankly it’s too late. Hah.
And here is the latest lovely lovely little cute child. This is Khalili. Check out those dimples! He is really polite and always has his knee length socks at full extension. I love him. I think he thinks I am a bit creepy.
So now I have a few days off for Easter, yippee. I am very, very tired at the moment: the heat is still punishing with no sign of the rains coming. I can feel myself being a bit short-tempered at school and know that I need a break. I am going to the beach for a few days with friends tonight and then a lovely, lovely Diplomatic Wife has invited me to their posh residence for Easter itself so that the nuns can’t sacrifice me on some big Easter altar. I hope you all have a lovely break and send me lots of nice emails in your spare time. xxx
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