Gym and Dinner Conversation

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

What a day! First, it remained cold as the thick, gray cloud cover remained. I almost shivered on the way to the car in the morning! Then I had to be sure that everything was ready for the Measles Partnership call, which is really the most important part of my job while I’m here. I had a couple of good updates, but I had heard nothing from the West and South blocks. Pascal got the South block report in just an hour before the call. The West block report didn’t arrive until the call the had started, and by that time, I’d been forced to send the report with no update from that region. What I didn’t realize was that most of the partners on the call would not receive my update until after the call was over. So much for the lightning fast Internet. Apparently, when it’s coming out of Africa, it can be delayed. It took almost 90 minutes for my update to reach Atlanta. That was a bit surprising, but at least I know now. From now on, I’m going to have a firm “send time” of 1 hour before the call.

The call was interesting. When I went to Robert’s office, he was not there. Leo called to patch me in, and I was still by myself. The call was getting ready to start, and there I was, alone. I couldn’t believe that Robert, after making all that noise last week about whether I’d be ready for this, would leave me to handle my first partners’ call solo. There are technical issues that I have no business discussing that would come up. Finally, Balcha, our surveillance guy, came in. At least I wasn’t by myself anymore, and he could handle all the technical questions. Robert ended up sashaying into the room about 10 minutes into the call.

The call went long by 20 minutes. It’s only supposed to be an hour, but there were some controversial issues regarding Sudan and Kenya that took a while. They’re also a little upset that more hasn’t been done with the laboratories to adopt a filter paper standard to capture viruses from outbreaks. They especially want to capture virus from the outbreak in Malawi to see if it’s a failure of program or an importation from Mozambique. Anyway, the call ended, and I was relieved. Robert said I’d done well, which I suppose is a good thing.

After work, I joined the gym that Casey and Yinka belong to, the one that David said was gay owned. Well, I would say it’s gay owned, all right! What is it about gyms and gay dance clubs that they place the same music? The gym actually was nice, which surprised me. It was smaller than gyms you’d find in the USA, but otherwise, it was quite comparable. They don’t have lockers, though, so people just leave their stuff out on the benches and hung on racks. Amazing amount of trust for a place supposedly known for theft. The equipment was what you’d expect to find any American gym, and it was in pretty good working order. Again, this seems to be a place where a lot of white people go. I also believe the gym is still gay owned. It was very funny to see one of the staff members just flame out in his short-shorts. I had more gaydar pings than anytime since I left the states too. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but I got the feeling certain men were checking me out. I suppose they clocked and wondered who this new boy was. LOL. Gay communities are the same everywhere…new “meat” in town piques a lot of interest. Won’t they be disappointed to find out I’m taken? Please. My stuff was fine, but I did lock up my valuables in my gym bag. I had a decent workout for my first day, and then waited for Eddie.

Driving on the road after dark is a different experience. Zimbabwe doesn’t use reflective paint on their roads, and their road lights are really weak sodium lamps. That makes it difficult to see on the road at night. I also found out the answer to my question about those fires at the side of the road I saw the other day. They were for keeping warm, and they are used by the homeless. It was very sad to drive home from the gym and see at almost every intersection a makeshift fire with 4-5 people huddled around it for warmth.

I was invited to a family dinner with Morris’s family. One of the children was home from his first year at the University of Cape Town. He kind of looked like a Shaft-wannabe with his lace-up shirt, earrings, and big afro. His family was shocked at how he looked, because apparently he was very conservative looking before he left. They lamented about the decline of the University of Zimbabwe, which apparently was one of the best universities in Africa at one time. Unfortunately, it’s a center of unrest, so Mugabe is slowly strangling it. They didn’t like that he was so far away, but I told them that going away to college was a good thing, and offered that I had done it.

This was a braai, or BBQ as we Americans know it. They have a braai pot where the meat goes for cooking into a fire. It was pretty good, but I’ll never understand why Africans seem to like to leave bones in with the meat that has been pulled off already. We also had sudza, which is that maize meal that Pet introduced me to earlier in the week. One of the sisters-in-law was pleasantly surprised that a white American would be civilized enough to eat sudza. The after dinner drink that Pet gave me that tastes like Kahlua is called Amarula, and it’s made from the fruit of a tree native to Zimbabwe and South Africa. It’s very good, and I wish they had it in the US.

The after dinner discussion at the men’s table (the women were sitting in the living room and chatting) surrounded economic issues. One of Morris’s brothers thinks that Zimbabwe’s economic situation is fine. He likes to wheel and deal and get what he can. He doesn’t understand that inflation eats up whatever profit he thinks he’s making by inflated prices here. He thinks that people in western countries are stupid b/c they work so hard for so little profit. He doesn’t understand why someone would spend $40K for a $2K profit. So they argued about market forces, chaos, and the status of these “bearers cheques” that really act as $5000, $10K, and $20K dollar bills. The difference is that the bearer bonds supposedly have an expiration date which makes it not legal tender. The difference is that the expiration dates on the bills are ignored! Interestingly, they brought up Enron as proof that western systems were also rife with corruption but only for people at the top. At least in Zimbabwe, the average man can get in on the graft. I had to correct some misassumptions about the Enron scandal, which they weren’t aware of. Like the fact that the employees had no choice but to buy company stock if they wanted to invest. Anyway, it was very interesting to see someone defending the status quo in Zimbabwe.

Richard called me on the way home. He was about to panic because he couldn’t reach me at the cottage. I hadn’t thought to tell him that I was going to this dinner, and I had honestly forgot until I got home. Luckily, he got through on the cell phone. He got the flowers I had sent from the Internet, which was good. He was pleased, and so was I. It was nice to get home around 10pm rather than having been in bed at least an hour by that time. I’m still having no luck finding weekend getaways, but I’ll keep trying.