"N-e-s-s"
"Ness?" asked the squat librarian in front of me.
"John Ness."
"That's a name?" Hooboy. When the shock of exotic locales weighs on you, you can always find comfort in the fact that the ignoramuses your come across in Timbuktu are pretty much identical to the ignoramuses in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Same blank looks, different flags.
"Yep. That's my name."
"So short!" she laughed. I could have suggested that a rotund four-foot tall woman such as herself might not want to use 'short' as a term of derision. "Child abuse!" She pitied me and I smiled. It's Sunday and I'm doing research at a local newspaper. It's Kenya's Independence day, and Kenyan jets keep streaking across the skyline outside my window toward the stadium where the president is speaking. Tomorrow is a holiday, so the young people are playing music in the street, savoring the oh so rare Sunday-night-as-Saturday-night. Me? I have to stay in and wade through some seriously esoteric research. And ponder the cultural judgements of this short and stubby librarian.
It's a freaking beautiful day outside. I wish I was out at the stadium, getting my pockets picked with the rest of the mzungus. I began the morning with a coffee, moved up to 500 mL of Coke, then waited forty-five minutes for a sub lunch from a pizza place. When it comes, there's corn in it. That's the satanic bargain of English influence: great results at constitutional conventions, inevitable corn on your pizza. And pizza sub. Back to work, with some complimentary tea with smelly cream already added. Finish up with two diet cokes and I'm starting to understand the past ten years of Kenyan economic history. Kinda.
"You have a family?" asks the squat one.
"Just the one I was born with."
"So old!" So roly! So poly! "I have two children. Five and one!" Congratulations. You've earned a shrug from me. Mind if I read?
"What's that?"
"It's a Palm Pilot. It helps you organize things. It's used by people who have more to worry about than how many humans they can squeze out before they blow out a hip."
No, not really.
