Swopping wives or houses, weird stuff turns up in exchanges
Durban POISON
WIFE-swopping never really made much sense to me. I have returned or exchanged a lot of dysfunctional equipment over the years, but women aren’t commodities that start off working perfectly well and then slowly fall apart or inexplicably break down the day after the warranty expires.
Actually, that’s exactly what they are. Okay, fine. They’re not commodities. The rest applies.
So I am proud to say that I never swopped any of my wives. Look, I’m not saying I wouldn’t have considered it if one of them had asked. I am nothing if not a gentleman. It’s just that when my respective marriages were approaching terminal velocity, the exchange rate was pretty bad. Not globally, obviously.
Women are like Bitcoins or diamonds. They don’t devalue. I’m talking about locally, in my neighbourhood, a suburb where women fair of face were like unicorns. I have, though, for the first time in my life, swopped something almost as valuable. My house. A year ago I visited Tofo in Mozambique at the invitation of a group of grizzled long-boarders from Cape Town. You’d know this because I wrote about it at the time but you don’t remember, do you, because all you care about is your own stupid life. Selfish is what you are.
Anyway. Let’s not make this about you. So one night, while out on the village, we met a couple of expats carousing in similar fashion. He worked on the oil rigs and she tried to keep everyone from being arrested. We all got on like a house on fire. Or there was a house on fire. The details are sketchy. Then, a couple of weeks ago, she asked on Facebook if anyone in Durban was interested in a house swop.
At the time I was lying on the couch in a semi-coma. An alpha vervet and his concubine were on the veranda watching me. Donald Trump had just come one step closer to the White House. I sighed heavily and waved my hand. While his girl waited politely at the door, the big boy walked into the kitchen on his hind legs and returned with four bananas, none of which he shared with his wife. I hadn’t spoken to anyone but waiters in a month. There seemed little reason not to do a houseswop.
The distance between Durban and Tofo as the crow flies, not that any crow in its right mind would do the trip, is 1 000km. No airline in its right mind flies from Durban to Tofo either. Tofo doesn’t even have an airstrip. A model aircraft would struggle to find 10m of unbroken tar to land on.
The flight from King Shaka to OR Tambo to Inhambane costs the same as a flight to London. This goes a long way towards explaining why there were only nine people on a 90-seater twin-prop.
The first night in Tofo was a write-off because, if you’re a traveller of any substance, you won’t remember much of your first night. You will also lose your shoes and discover unexplained bruises on your legs.
My house-swop buddies gave me a tour of their house before they left. It didn’t take long. It’s essentially a giant barn with bedrooms tacked on as an afterthought. I use the word “bedrooms” loosely. Mine is high up on a wooden platform. One must climb a ladder then cross a very narrow catwalk. There are no railings and every indication is that, at some point, I will plummet to my death. The house is so well ventilated that the bedding gets a wash every time it rains.
There is a dog that yodels and another that insists on taking your hand and showing you the garden. He doesn’t use his paw, obviously. He grips your hand in his jaws. I find it best not to resist because he is a pit bull and I have consequently been around the garden 37 times in the past two days. There is also a giant maneating pig, a leaking cat, a herd of chickens with Renamo attitudes and squadrons of mosquitoes so fat with malaria that they need a run-up just to get airborne.
The best thing about the house is that you can never lose your keys to the front door because there’s no lock. Simply doors that slide. Even if it were possible to be locked out, you’d just go around and climb through the enormous circular window which is more hole in the wall than window.
This may be why a guard comes around every night. His name is Lazarus and he’s either 60 or 105, depending on the lighting. Apparently he’s not averse to a drop or two of the local palm wine, which explains why he looks as if he’s just been raised from the dead. At a push, he might be able to fend off a one-legged child. Together, we could probably defeat an able-bodied child.
Doctors should prescribe alcohol to people who worry about their personal safety.
“Doctor, I’m very anxious about being robbed or murdered in the middle of the night.”
“Drink four shots of vodka every hour until you no longer care if you live or die.”
I was in a local bar the other night as part of my medication plan. Everyone seemed to be on the same treatment apart from this bald white man who walked in, wearing a tracksuit, and asked for a Fanta. I dropped to the floor and covered my head. Only a heavily-armed right-wing fundamentalist would go into a Mozambican bar and ask for a cooldrink. There was no gunfire so after a spontaneous nap I got back up and assumed the position.
Three South African lads edged their way up to the bar. One ordered the Mozambican chicken. His mate turned to him in alarm. “Dude? You don’t know what’s in it.” I told him the clue was in the name. They looked confused.
Then an American walked in. “I need the laabsta,” he said. The barman directed him to the lavatory. After a moment of confusion, I translated. “Yeah, that’s it,” he drawled. “The laabsta.” He needs it? Unless he has a rare medical condition requiring the ingestion of a marine crustacean three times a day, or comes from Maine, it seemed unlikely. I said nothing. Americans feel bad enough about themselves as it is. And if they don’t, they should.
The next day I went to a beach bar up the Barra peninsula to clear my name and my head. Tables were set for a children’s party and a bouncing castle had been set up. This wasn’t ideal and I was preparing to drink up and leave when a kid bounced off the castle and into a boat’s propeller. That seemed to calm things down a bit. For the kids, anyway. The adults took it as a sign that they should intensify their full mental jacket approach to the bar. Every white person in Mozambique is either drunk or hung over.
Later I got talking to a woman from New Zealand. Things were going swimmingly until I asked for help in calculating the tip on my monstrous bill. Her lip curled and her eyes narrowed. Oh dear. One of those who judge the innumerates of this world harshly. But it wasn’t that at all. Sniffily, she said she didn’t tip because “nobody tips in New Zealand”. I asked her if she knew where she was and if she’d ever heard of the Gini coefficient.
“I don’t know anyone called Gini, mate,” she barked. “Why do you think so many South Africans move to New Zealand?” I tried to make the connection, gave up, and took a wild guess. “Because they’d rather live in a white majority country?” She looked at me for five seconds, then stood up and left. I still don’t know if it was because she didn’t have an answer or thought I was an idiot. Probably a bit of both.