The Weather is Here...

south africa just got hit by its first cold snap of the year. temperatures below zero with highs all across the country below 10 degrees celsius. but more on that later.

in the meantime here are two more speedbumps i've hit on the miscommunication highway here. the doctor asked me if i had ulcers in my stomach. i thought she was asking if i had "asses" in my stomach.

also when i was trying to describe the golden gate bridge and the visibility being reduced by fog, seko didn't understand why i couldn't see the bridge because of a thick "fuck".

on a new subject; lamposts here, every morning, have the day's headlines in them to encourage you to buy a newspaper from one of the people selling them at every intersection around town. they're usually pretty sensationalist, misleading or, in today's case, plain weird. "OUR BATTLE WITH EVIL CAT" where to start?

i guess metaphorically, we all battle our own "evil cat" every day. i recently overcame evil cat in the form of tonsillitis just in time for the recent cold snap. the cold snap has brought snow all over mountains all over south africa. some not too far from here. last weekend, despite the tonsillitis, i battled through the pain to end it with gaylene.

rewind: weeks ago, i wrote about this amazing girl i'd met, joelene annaline. good times, ice skating, etc. but then she stopped calling me and i went back online and found gaylene. gaylene is a 29 year-old half-indian girl who's all of 4'-10" and has spent most of the last decade being an au pere everywhere but in south africa. usa, italy, france, london,... she was also a little shy at first and, as the result of her travels, wasn't very familiar with the area. we picnicked at midmar dam on saturday and then had dinner in durban on sunday. gaylene was good company but i was the one starting the conversations and the one cracking wise.

despite the physical attraction, sparks never flew and, last saturday, i ended it at an ice cream parlor in the mall. one unexpected detail was that gaylene found the breakup unexpected. another thing that was unexpected was that joelene emailed me during my brief stint with gaylene. it turns out, believe it or not, that my cellphone had chosen not to receive her text messages and she'd interpreted my withdrawal as withdrawal. these coming week or months will see me trying to put the pieces back together with joelene and, if successful, seeing parts of africa untouched by the average tourist.

i hope you're all winning your battle with evil cat.