clickety clack

i have pets. drosophila. they live in the kitchen. they like to roost on the drying dishes previously known as clean. even after they changed out the refrigerator, the winged vermin remain. that first day, they call in the cleaning lady since the house is unclean, the bed without linens. the place is otherwise quite spacious and architecturally pleasing with circular and arched windows. since there is no food, one of the drivers amuses himself watching me try to grocery shop foreign brands, meal plan, and convert emalangeni into dollars all at once. i suppose i ask stupid questions. why are they called sugar beans if they aren’t sweet? where are the cheerios? did you see the feathers in the egg carton? he was a good sport about it. when i get home, the kitchen still reeks. my stomach is talking to me, so i set about the task of cooking a meal all the while dreaming of a magic bleach wand and a short fruit fly life span. at least there aren’t bed bugs like in gabon…

those first few days there are so many cultural novelties to capture my attention. my favorite: siswati is a click language! who’d’ve thunk it. murmur murmur murmur click murmur click murmur murmur click. i love it! i don’t understand the words, so i make a game of listening for the differences in mama clicks, papa clicks, baby clicks, and granny clicks. i remember learning about the !kung and their click language, but never really expected to stumble upon one up close. if i write click one more time, i’ll have my own click language. lol. and hairstyles. this one is new on me. some of the ladies wear tiers of short tracks to make full-bodied close-cropped cuts (instead of using them for long tresses). it’s cute when you leave out the royal purple highlights. what else? women wear fancy heels for daytime errands that i’d save for special events. pedestrians travel in packs and regularly tempt fate by flinging themselves into heavy traffic whenever and wherever. worse than boston! drivers nearly run people over just to make it through a green light. taximan has this annoying habit of calling me “mama”. there’s actually a drive-thru kind of deal where you can buy minutes for your cell phone. other things appear to be like gabon in that i wake up to the rooster’s incessant crowing, women and children seem to do most of the carrying (e.g. firewood, water, food, etc), women breastfeed openly, you can buy all manner of produce along the side of the road, and people “buzz” you (they hang up after two rings so you can call them back using your minutes). also like gabon, and the states for that matter, the waiting rooms are always full of women and babies. (i guess the men are working.) but here, two times already, i’ve heard those rooms erupt in the most beautiful singing, in harmony and everything, as if practiced. it kinda click makes me wanna bottle it up click and take it home with me click.