Life was American good for a couple of hours while I stuffed my gut full of turkey, stuffing, fresh greens, REAL CHEESEy potatoes, and pie. And the free Heineken beer was a nice added touch too. Though the oasis of our country director's house could not last for ever and we were ushered out of the place after a few great hours.
Actually we were hustled out of there real quick, with our PC training staff telling us that we were being late as we are all trying to get one last use of a flushing toilet. So we all hurry and pile into our chappas, taxi buses, that we're going to take us back to Namaacha, which had been in the direct sun that whole time and were still directly in the path of those intense African rays. Which heated that thing up like the charcoal on my mae's stove. And of course once we all pile into the chappa our driver is no were to be found and we have to wait, typical. We slowly start baking like the holiday turkey we just ate. I'm in the back of the chappa and sitting at a seat without a window that opens, bad move on my part. It's like being an ant underneather a magnifying glass in the sun. Like a little kid was just antagonizing me seeing how much heat I could take and that kid was simply life itself. As I sat and stood up to try and air out a little it seemed like everything I did only made me sweat more. My whole shirt was now a solid shade darker and I was dripping sweat off of every corner of my body, could only compare this amount of stagnet sweating to my few days of cutting weight during freshman year high school wrestling. Rocking a sauna suit and two pairs of sweats doing push ups at the top of the pool room bleachers.
Though our driver was finally found and we were on our way, thank the lord, with the chappa moving and every window on that thing wide open I was able to eventually catch some breeze and cool down. After getting through some holiday traffic, which I don't even think I can call it that because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, we were back in Namaacha and being dropped back off at the front of my barrio. Once I stepped off that chappa and started on my trail back to house I felt so stale and coated with a thin layer of dried sweat all over my body. Needless to say when I got home I wanted my nightly bucket bath in the worst type of way. As I am drawing up my water in my NEW BATH BUCKET I notice there is a good storm a coming up from our southwest in Swaziland. A solid thunder cloud with lots of lightning to show. I don't care, I'm feeling pretty grimey and in serious need of this bath.
So I start heading out to our roofless bathroom and my Mae stops me on the patio to tell me there is a storm coming and I should skip the bath. I tell here I'll be fast and I need it, also thinking what are the odds I'll ever get struck by lightning. I do my thing with the bucket and am hast about it. The storm is rolling in quick but I'm almost done and the rain isn't even to us yet. I'm drying off and the thunder is coming quicker and quicker after each lightning strike. With my towel in hand and getting ready to go for my shorts all of a sudden, Flash, the whole sky is lit up and then the loudest BOOM follows immediately after. I'm not struck but damn did I hit the deck. My heart is racing and high tail it outa there. Snatching my shirt and shorts on the way to runnining to the house as I attempt to wrap my towel around my waist. I hear my Mae shout, "Man Cole," and she ushers me inside once she sees me rounding the corner like I'm coming around third base heading home to beat the relay throw to the catcher. I make it in the house and she shuts the door, we go into the kitchen and shut that door too were now my two brothers, Mae, three neighbor kids, and I (still dripping and barely wrapped with my towel) are all huddled up. After a few moments we calm down and the rain begins to come down in buckets. My Mae and the children then look around and see me. Then realize what had just happen to me and they all being to burst out laughing and speaking in xingana to eachother about what just occur and trying to quote the explicits they all heard me yelling as I hurdled into the house. I begin to laugh too as I simply look at my Mae and tell her she told me so and was right. Mae always knows best.
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