Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Bothered me yet…

Tuesday, August 10, 2010 1:34 PM (entry for Sunday, August 8, 2010)

So after a day of being introduced to a taste of nature reserves and game drives, I awoke Sunday morning just in time to get ready for Mass. After hearing me go on and on about the beautiful choir at the Mass Friday night, my roommate had actually asked if she could come along to the Setswana Mass as she thought it would be a nice cultural experience. Not one to tell people they can't come to Mass with me (isn't it somewhere in Canon Law that you can't refuse a request to come to Mass?), I was excited for her to come along, as well as to hear the Setswana choir again.


As we made our way to the Cathedral for the 10 AM Mass, I asked her how familiar she was with the Mass. Having done some work with Catholic Relief Services in India, she stated that the nuns were constantly trying to convince their volunteers to come to Mass with them. I love nuns. In any case, I was glad to know that the Mass wouldn't be completely foreign to her, but was soon about to realize that it would be slightly foreign for both of us.


Now granted, the Mass is the Mass. The Holy Eucharist is the Holy Eucharist. And Jesus is, well, Jesus! In any case, I say foreign because unlike other Masses I had attended in other languages, I really couldn't pick out too many words from the Setswana (I mean, it is a bit different than, say, Italian or Spanish). Add on top of that the fact that I couldn't look up the readings for the day since I had no internet access, and I was prepared to do a lot of "contemplative prayer" during portions of this Mass.

However, about 3 minutes before Mass started, who should sit next to us than, you guessed it, Vincent the Electrical Engineer! (What, you guessed the Pope? Well, someone hasn't been reading their blog lately!) He immediately came to our aide, pointing out lyrics to hymns in Setswana (the pronunciation of which I am sure I butchered just about as bad as the melody, as I knew neither), and handing to me his English Missal. What a guy! So as the Mass progressed, I tried to give updates on what was going one while trying to read the readings for the 19th Sunday.


About two hours later, it was all said and done. Two hours because, well, you see, the people here, if they have an opportunity to sing at a break in the action, so to speak, the sing…and they don't know the phrase "Verses 1 and 2". They sing the WHOLE song, which is beautiful, but takes at least 4-5 minutes, more if they choose to sing the chorus multiple times at the end…which they did a lot. Don't get me wrong, it was wonderful, angelic singing, which we would find out later was award-winning, but it took up time. Further, the homily took a while, as I'm sure it takes longer to say things in Setswana than English. Regardless, I appreciated being able to pick up on the couple English phrases thrown in here and there, concluding that the homily had something to do with the World Cup, passports, and being faithful…and I also took full advantage of the jokes that Father told, choosing to smirk and chuckle when the rest of the people there did, pretending I knew what was funny and why. All this, coupled with the announcements at the end (which were essentially a free for all that included three separate speakers, a lengthy explanation of the choir's recent award-winning competition, and an impromptu performance by the aforementioned choir) which took about 20 minutes total, and yep, you've got yourself a 2 hour Mass…easily.


Fortunately the rest of the day was pretty laid back, kind of. I came home, at some lunch, and headed out in search of an internet connection with which to do work. I stopped at a place down the road called "News Café" after reading that they had free wireless….


Note to waitresses at places with free wireless. If your wireless is not currently working, please don't take a customer's drink order. And if you do, and you then find out that the wireless is not working, please give them the chance to cancel said order instead of bringing them the drink and asking them if they want to order some food. And when they tell you they are not sure if they are staying because the wireless situation is sketchy at the moment, please don't say "But if the wireless starts to work, then you will order something to eat?" It leaves the customer unhappy, and less likely to return there again, especially if you charge 50% more than a place less than a mile away.


So in any case, after a wonderful experience at News Café, I decided to mosey a bit further on down the road, take a sidestreet, and head for the Equatorial Café, where you work on the wireless network instead of the wireless network working on you. I sat in a chair, ordered my first ever (yes that's right, first ever…) cappuccino (so I normally drink regular coffee), and sat and enjoyed the good old WWW for about 3ish hours. Granted, I ordered my obligatory second drink after a while, but nobody bothered me for a food order, nobody took an order knowing the wireless wasn't working. Heck, the lady even watched my laptop for me while I ran to the restroom down about four shops length from the coffee house (trust me, that was the fastest to and from trip to the bathroom I've ever taken…I just didn't wanna be rude and say (umm, no thanks I'll take it with me because I'm afraid you really won't watch it well and it will be stolen. In any case, whatever viruses she loaded on here haven't bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet CC number Mastercard 7364655488876675 Expiration Date June 2014 Security Code 233 bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet bothered me yet )


Truly though, doing work on the Internet was SO slow. Three hours got me about 10 pdf articles on measles and HIV. I am starting to think that maybe I can get in on a lot of papers being done here just by offering to do literature searches once I get home. Surely they'd like someone who can use internet that is about 800 times faster.

Finally, I was stupid Sunday night. I decided that, no I don't need to take a taxi, or try to figure out the Combi system…I'll walk home from the mall, through the sidestreets, at night, in a foreign country, with no cell phone on my person and a new netbook in my backpack. I was sure I knew they way, and indeed I did, but truly I don't think I need to make the walk from the mall to the main road that leads to the house again anytime soon.

However, once I got onto the main road, the walk was just that…a walk. It was dark though it was only 8 at night, the air was cold. My hands were starting to get a bit cracked like they do every winter in the States. Every so often I could smell a fire burning, and even when I couldn't smell that the air had that smell of Texas winter. As I walked home at one point my subconscious thought was "Hey I feel like putting up a Christmas tree at home tonight!" As soon as that thought hit my consciousness though, I realized I was about as far from being home for Christmas (both chronologically and geographically) as possible. Isn't it strange how your senses can trick you into being in a place from which you are so drastically removed? Or even more so, isn't it strange how we can physically remove ourselves from a place so drastically that we somehow arrive at a sensory experience that takes our minds back there, even just for a split second?

Weird…

1 comment:

  1. I would encourage those taxi rides home instead of walking through dark alleys. We love you and please be safe over there!!!

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