Wednesday 9 October 2013

Come Home, All is Forgiven!’


I have always wanted to write about local colour but Marcia has always stopped me from doing so.  She feels embarrassed and even suggested I would take the piss.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I know some weird things happen here and it is only by recording them that we can begin to understand the cultural gulf that exists between nations.  Marcia reads my blog and I think she has now decided that I am not an arrogant white racist, merely a man penning his experiences so I was delighted when this evening she relented.  I am now officially allowed to relate village gossip.

What I am about to tell you is the absolute God’s honest truth.

The next village is about 3 miles from here and sits in a commanding position on the top of one of the two escarpments overlooking the mouth of the river Kwanza.

Three or four months ago, a foreign company with business there decided to donate a big generator to the village.  They employed one of the local youths, taught him how to change the oil and swap all the filters; fuel, oil and air, every 200 hours and provided him enough money each month to not only service the generator but to keep its tank full of diesel. 

For three months, the community enjoyed uninterrupted power.  Those who could afford to do so, went out and bought fridges; the more extravagant, satellite TV systems.

The village Co-ordinator and the elders did not like this.  They were outraged that a foreign company would come in and employ a young lad who, because of his youth and poor family connections had no standing in the community and not only place him in charge of the electricity supply, entrust him with all that money.

So they decided they would have to kill him.

Naturally, they couldn’t march into his humble abode and slash him to death on his cot with machetes.  Of course they could not drill him through the head with a round from an AK 47.  Why?  Simply because this poor boy’s death should be unattributable.  In our enlightened society, murder is against the law.

But we live in a village and anyone who has lived in a village knows that two people can keep a secret only if one of them is dead.  So the boy heard that these Elders were planning to kill him using Voodoo.  They wanted to ‘Feiteçar’ him.  They may all be Christians here and belong either to the Catholic or Universal Church but they really believe in the power of the occult and marvel at the lack of fear for my own soul I demonstrate every time I beat up a Seventh Day Adventist or Jehovah’s Witness who turning up on my doorstep clutching inane publications, does not immediately respond to a fervent, ‘Fuck Off!’

This boy, though, was taking no chances so he fucked off pretty sharpish and responsibility for the village’s power supply fell to the Elders.

A week later, for the first time in months, the generator stopped.  Naturally, it was both night time and a weekend so nothing happened until Monday.

The company sent an engineer down who serviced and refuelled the generator and it started.  Two minutes later it stopped again.  The engineer tinkered around some more, started the generator and two minutes later it stopped again.  This went on for an hour and eventually the engineer gave up.  There was nothing wrong with the generator as far as he could ascertain.  The poor bastard was stumped and did what any honest engineer would do under the circumstances.  He packed his tools up and went home.

Naturally, half the village had turned out to watch the expert engineer at work.  Seeing him fail and knowing everything in their new fridges had spoiled and they weren’t going to be watching the soaps for a third night one of them muttered, ‘Não podiam feiteçar o rapaz’.  You should not have hexed the boy.  This sentiment rippled through the assembled masses and then fed through the dark village.  No blame attached to the engineer.  He was just some poor white guy, what does he know about magic?

The word on the street is that having heard he was about to be hexed, the kid hexed the generator before pushing off.  Now no-one is allowed to touch the generator and an all points bulletin has been issued begging the kid to come back and get the generator running again.

When he does come back, I want to be there for two reasons.  One, to understand how he managed to skilfully disable a generator well enough to confound a professional engineer and two, to see the Elders eat shit when he starts it.

24 comments:

  1. Brilliant. I can't wait to hear the follow up to this story. I do, however, feel a little reluctant to believe that evil spirits are working. More like one clever person. I do wonder how one poor little village chap could disable the gennie and an engineer couldn't fix it. I might even have to have a re think about the supernatural. Please let us know if he does get it to work again.

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  2. Yes, don't leave us dangling in the cold on this one. I can see your toe from here in the comment box, and that was nothing compared to the resuscitation (we hope) of the generator.

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    1. As soon as I hear anything new I will let you know. The toe is slowly improving. It had me worried for a while because the rotting, for want of a better word, had reached my foot.

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  3. Service it every 200 hours - assuming it is running 24 hours a day, that would be once every 8 days. Doing it weekly would be a good way to remember. That must be costing the business a fair about of $$ or kwanzas. Back to the failure of generator... is it possible that the young lad escaped to a near by village. He told them his tale of woe. Those Elders became jealous of the free electricity that they missed out on. So, they hatched a cunning plan and late one moonless night put turnips into the fuel tank. That would explain why it runs for a little while. You see turnips float in diesel. It will start then the turnips get sucked down and block the fuel pipe after running for a bout - oh 2 minutes. Now they other Elders are waiting for the first village to throw the generator in the trash (side of the street). They can then pick it up and make use of it.

    Their plan will fall apart when they realise no one is paying for the fuel or filters. They then will complain to the first village and demand compensation for the defective generator or they will burn the whole village down. The first village will then turn on the business that donated it for causing all this trouble. They will sabotage the business driving them away. Damn foreign companies - how dare they come here and interfere they do not understand the African way and are so patronising.

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    1. How do you get something the size of a turnip through the filler cap?

      You're barking mad, has anyone ever told you that?

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  4. Never a dull moment in your life, Tom. I hope we get to see how this plays out.

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    1. Yesterday was pretty dull, Apart from the gossip, that is.

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  5. Yoghurt Knitter here.

    I cant see what the company got out of this, unless they used it as an add campaign or a tax right off...? hmmm I don't get it.

    is it like nestle *want to spit on the floor even typing their name* going up the amazon river to get to tribes before any one else and get the tribe hooked on their products? Can you believe they even own buxton water. I refused to buy that in a service station on a motorway and asked for any company but that one. the sales clerk couldn't get to grips with it. or we were so far north she didn't under stand my accent. I don't know which

    How is the toe? I am fascinated that a snake bit you and you didn't go to the hospital. we have people calling for an ambulance over here if their TV doesn't work!

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    1. The company is developing what once was common land, I guess they wanted to keep the natives sweet.

      The toe is improving, albeit very slowly. I hate hospitals.

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  6. Belloc's wonderful lines 'Always keep ahold of Nurse, for fear of finding something worse' seem to fit for so many occasions.

    A late Uncle of mine was responsible for planning all train traffic throughout the UK (starting from Crewe and spreading to all quarters). The job had started out as being complicated, but he'd eventually got everything running smoothly, with no two trains on the same piece of track at the same time. Time came for him to retire, and BR employed two engineering graduates to replace him. He 'trained' them for a month, them left them to themselves to enjoy his peaceful retirement. It was only a few weeks later that he was recalled, as the two new boys were completely dumbfounded. He negotiated a new higher salary, and stayed on for another year!

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    1. I wouldn't have been able to get my head round that job either!

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  7. Gee I hope there is no back lash for you from publishing village gossip on your blog. No hex. I always worry about blogging about what I say on my blog, as a teacher in case it cones back to bite.

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    1. I don't think any of the villagers here has an internet connection and none can read English. I suppose as a teacher in a well developed country you can't really blog, complete with photos, about the latest wet T-shirt competition you won!

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  8. Brilliant...I bet the elders don't feel so clever now...and I bet their standing never revives....

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    1. Their power is strangely absolute, it's all to do with powerful tradition. The Co-ordinator here is only a Sergeant in the Army but, when it comes to village matters, he outranks a Colonel. He is a nasty piece of work and we hate each other. I make a point of calling him Sergeant just to rub it in that I outranked him in the military. Very petty I know but the expression on his face is always immensely satisfying.

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  9. I demonstrate every time I beat up a Seventh Day Adventist or Jehovah’s Witness who turning up on my doorstep clutching inane publications, does not immediately respond to a fervent, ‘Fuck Off!’

    Damn! I envy you! Those same shits here call the cops when I just cuss their asses out while they stand on my porch. Of course death threats are frowned upon here especially when the Jehovah Witness, Seventh day, or Mormon has a relative on the county council.

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    1. I thought in the US it was perfectly legal to shoot trespassers off your lawn?

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    2. Depends upon the state, Tom, and the sex of the gunslinger. As a woman, if i shoot a trespasser, i have more people automatically figuring 'self-defence.' If i were a man, more would think 'testosterone', and i'd have more explaining to do. In some places, you can't count it as trespassing unless the person crosses the threshhold of your dwelling. I remember a number of men telling me that if i were to shoot someone in self-defence, be sure the person falls inside the doorway.

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  10. Oh my god, Tom. You had me there at the edge of my seat with suspense (suspension). I expected you found a dead body (the boy's) being the spanner in the works. Many questions come to mind. Not least what the hell are you doing there? I am sure Marcia wouldn't be averse to some civilization. Still, I suppose decaying toes are hard to come by in countries where they keep you in electricity at a flick of a switch.

    Don't underestimate voodoo. I shan't name names, mainly because the person is now dead (natural causes), but she was one hell of a stickler with those pins right into the heart of her victim's likeness. It didn't work. However, the father of an aunt of mine, was revered in his village. Don't ask. I think even you'd find it hard to stomach his powers.

    Anyway, my guess is: Someone poured sugar in with the diesel. Remember?
    U

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    1. I doubt the lad permanently screwed the gennie.

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  11. Hmmm, here in Houston (4th largest city in the US), a theology teacher at my kids' Catholic high school (in my defense, this school was the best choice in a bad lot), told my daughter's class that if they even touched a Ouija board or a "voodoo doll," the devil could get into them. My daughter was incredulous when several of her classmates believed this and spent the rest of the day amusing herself by touching them with her hands (which had touched a Ouija board once or twice) and with the little "voodoo doll" keychain on her bookbag, declaring, "Oh no! You're in trouble now!"

    As for Jehovah's Witnesses, we get a fair number of them in our neighborhood, which is why we keep our gate locked. However, my daughter's friend once mistakenly opened the door when one rang. When the JW asked this girl if she could tell her about Jesus, the teenaged girl said, "OK, sure." The woman, the girl said, became visibly flustered, confessed that she had never gotten this far before, turned and (after handing the girl a pamphlet) fled.

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    1. Houston is the fourth largest city in the US? I never knew that. Some guy tried to shoot me in Houston once while I was using a pay phone. He held the gun sideways and called me a bitch. I don't think he was a real Texan because he missed. Oh, and he was black.

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    2. Yup -- and rapidly on way to becoming third largest (surpassing Chicago).

      Sorry for your experience here. Houstonian assholes come in all colors. And really, the crimes here can be scary-crazy. I come from New York. When someone in New York mugs you, they want to grab the money and run. Understandable, right? In Houston, they will throw you into the trunk of your car and drive around (there are a couple of car-jackings a month in the city) which, of course, significantly raises the chance that they will end up hurting or killing you. And I had never heard of "home invasions" (basically, they break into the house BECAUSE they know you are home, thinking they will get more cash) before I came here; where I come from, burglars don't want any confrontation with you ....

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