Letter to Teacup

Darling Teacup.

I finally arrived in West Africa most fortunately unfortunately to teach.

It is as hot as Hades with perpetual power outages. 

The food for the most, actually exclusively, is local and includes the most vulgar chicken something, a chicken of a particular hardiness, cooked in a spinach type vegetable.

This is served with something called pounded yam. Pounded yam looks like pap but is in fact a tuber of some sort pounded to a pulp, then cooked to resemble pap, but it isn’t. 

You eat it with your fingers (pounded yam) and dip it in the chicken and “spinach”.

Eat it is actually misleading because you are not supposed to chew it. 

You simply swallow a dollop without chewing. Its taste is bitter and quite unpalatable.

It rolls down your throat in a solid bump and encourages gag reflex.

My attitude to food and tastebuds along with my sensibilities have been damaged beyond redemption I'm afraid. 

The perpetual power outages result in the lecture room, which is in a Christian Ministry compound, turning into an oven for constant periods throughout the day. 

In my purgatory of blistering heat and vulgar diet, I am reminded of the Voortrekkers and their tenacity sans technology, which is a constant source of inner strength, if they could pioneer, then so can I. 

I have discovered the reason for a bucket and bowl placed in a perfectly sound (though grubby) bath. 

I could not for a while fathom the logic of the locals placing a plastic bucket and plastic bowl in the bath of a R1500 a night Hotel.

The bucket and bowl it seems is for you to wash yourself down with, in the event you don't want to mess up your hairdo.

The fact that I am substantively follicly challenged, makes this gesture naturally redundant, however, as a consequence of this little attention to detail and obvious kind consideration I am left with no bath plug (or plug for handbasin) which is a source of some personal confusion.

Not to mention unfamiliar ablution technique. 

Other than a stomach that is causing some consternation, the unbearable heat, the incessant power outages, absent without leave delegates, no soap, no toilet roll, towels, bath and basin plugs, suicidal motorists driving on the wrong side of the road, animals, pedestrians and over R1500 a night rooms before meals, I am in a fine but positive mess. 

I must admit I am suffering a bit of an identity crises alternating between the Scarlet Pimpernel and Alice in Wonderland. 

Right now I'm both, which makes for interesting observation methinks (were I to be on a therapists couch).

Did I mention there is no coffee or tea in the rooms but a kettle? The kettle I am sagely advised is for if I want to boil water for something? My question as to what exactly I would need to boil water for, has as of yet, not been answered.

The kettle is a DeLonghi though and quite nice to look at. 

Coffee is available in the restaurant downstairs at approximately R15 a cup and comes with exactly two teaspoons of Nescafe Classic served straight from a tiny 30g tin with two sugar cubes and a sachet of powdered milk sufficient for a half litre of milk. 

Of course as you know I only use a drop of milk so someone is hoarding quantities of the stuff after I’m done with each cup.

My return flight is booked via a local airline so I should be back by tomorrow night. 

To the chagrin of my hosts I have steadfastly refused to fly their chosen Airlines because I feel the Airline has a more than shady safety record, which you may not necessarily know yourself. (Three crashes last year with significant loss of life). 

Suffice it to say I am now booked on a flight with an Airline I know absolutely nothing about thereby choosing the bliss of ignorance over common sense. 

The unrest which cost over 300 lives here a few days ago has largely occurred I am assured far from where I am. I have nothing to fear. 

This is good. 

While I may return (or may not) in one piece, be assured and prepared, I might very well be presented as an alcoholic basket case with a severe case of diarrhoea.

I think under the circumstances in the interest of self preservation it would be wholly appropriate to send the shuttle service to collect me and not you.

Please turn on the Jacuzzi and our electric blanket. Also, please take an aged steak from the deep freeze.

Leave the lights low, Dstv set to the Crime Channel and the air-conditioning set at 22° with a note to remind me, never, ever, ever to complain about our country again.

Pimpernel in Wonderland.