Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Petrol and Crocodiles.

Just yesterday I was reading Habari Leo, with an article about how the fuel retailers had apparently ceased their strike or go slow or whatever Face/Off they are having with the government. Only to head out and be told by the friendly, if bored, staff of at least three petrol stations that I was more likely to win the lottery than find sustenance for my car. Maggie is an efficient little Japanese work of vehicular art, but traffic coming in today consumed at least an eighth of the tank and with the drive back I am looking at the possible abdication of personal transportation in the next 24 hours.

Then today, Habari Leo tells me that British Petroleum is being targeted by EWURA? I don't know about these institutions of ours. Seriously, BP? We have quite the number of petrol retailers, none of whom are selling fuel under the pretext that they have run out, and EWURA has decided to pick a fight with one seller? One?!

As the screaming in my head threatened to manifest itself physically, I remembered something I have had to learn time and time again living in Bongo: Let. It. Go. You have to get very Zen sometimes to make it through a year here without committing homicide, because tough as life is already someone will find a way of introducing a problem that will take things to the level of the absurd. Appreciating that is the core of the Bongolandian sense of humor. If we didn't mock the scurrilous villains who derail our daily lives, we might be in the midst of a civil war with no particular destination.

So I tuned into talk radio to get my dose of heart-healthy laughter. The Clouds FM crew were up to their usual mischief, making fun of the fact that there is a crocodile living quite happily in the middle of the city in a pond in Kinondoni Block 41. No one knows from whence it came, but it has been around for about five years eating fish and getting fatter. It avoids the humans, the humans avoid it, everyone seems content. Naturally the guys have started calling each other Mamba. And just like that I am reminded of why I love living in this impossible, contrary swamp of a town. Yaani, where else in the world?

I guess I'll just have to listen to them from home tomorrow. That is, if Tanesco doesn't switch off the electricity...

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