Wait 'til Next Year...

In Africa, no matter who you are, no matter what you do for work, you ALWAYS have free time. You could be a student, a teacher, a shop owner, an electrician, a police officer, a barber- you could be the president of the country and you’d still have to come up with random things to do to keep you occupied during all that free time of yours. Many of the people in my village drink green tea with family and friends. It takes half an hour to make four shot glasses full of tea: a great time-waster. One time-wasting technique with which I am more familiar is napping. At all hours of the day you can find people around village stretched out on benches or lawn chairs under a tree catching a few z’s before it’s time to drink more tea. Then of course, there’s my favorite time-waster: Going over to the white guy’s house and sitting in his courtyard in complete silence while he fidgets awkwardly and wonders if he’s supposed to say something.

Well, I don’t particularly care for tea, and it’s always too darn hot to nap during the day even in the shade. And, needless to say, I’m not a big fan of the awkward silence. So a few months back, I sat down and came up with a list of ways to spend all of my free time and keep myself from going crazy with boredom. At the top of the list was this:

I need to work on that tan.

Oops... already out of paint...

Papa knows what he's talking about.

Number One.

It only took me a few weeks and a handful of trips to the “big city” for supplies, so it actually didn’t end up being that effective as a method of wasting time, but it was a lot of fun to work on nonetheless. Since I started the project, the amount of traffic in and around my house has gone up quite a bit. I had one man wearing a Yankee’s cap come by to admire my handiwork. Despite my efforts to explain, his confused look told me the irony of the situation was lost on him. The neighborhood kids have started drawing with chalk all over the walls to my courtyard- “Hey, I hear that weird white guy draws on his house. Let’s go!!” And at least half of the villagers in Bomborokuy now claim that the Red Sox as their favorite team. Red Sox Nation just went international. It’s been fun.