From the impressions made from the fashion show, a friend named Cindy leaves her mark. She has a strong sense of style which was coordinated and erratic. There were Heineken caps sewn unto her denim boots. I saw her hair transformed. For the fashion show it was an unruly mohawk of curls while the side of head was bare.
Gaborone is not a large or eventful city. I have heard it is like a small town. That must be from the paranoid or self-involved. The fashion show did make it into local papers with many pictures. Of my friends who saw these pictures, they all remembered Cindy’s hair.
Cindy is short for Cinderella. Her Setswana last name literally means “I know no one”. She speaks openly about her internal workings, as I too often do.
I am not dating or romantically involved with Cindy. It give these minuet details to portray her better, but they cannot describe her normalcy .She is a true Motswana and enjoys a beer more than I do.
I met her today on my one afternoon off this week. We met for Sunday snack and bemoaned the previous weekend and all that led up to it. After I ate and she had half an orange juice, we were deciding how to spend the afternoon. She lives and is close with her mom. I was happy when she offered a trip to see her house and her mother. We decided to go pay a visit, Cindy would pay for the cab.
Her house is in Block 5, directly beside Block 9 for no logical reason. It is a large arrangement with flats all around the exterior, a park and connected houses in the middle. Cindy’s connected house had two cars and 4 barking dogs, which were not trusted around me.
I greeted Cindy’s Mom with my best Setswana. I completed the whole dialogue and she had a great smile on her face. I accepted one of the father’s beers and we sat in the backyard on camping chairs. Conversation followed easily and was very personal.
Particularly of our aversion to the relationships with large age and financial gaps, commonplace here as I’m sure I’ve written before.
People are not very different the world over, they have only been conditioned differently. In Cindy, there were evident vulnerabilities and worries which I recognize in many mid-20s women wherever they might live.
At one point she asked me if I knew of the problem of HIV. That 1 in 3 people are infected. I could tell she had a real concern that I might not know. I told her I was educated. I wanted very badly to ask Cindy if she was HIV positive. She talks about the future and family with a sliver of pain and longing. When she brought up this issue, it was my chance to ask. But I did not, for no other reason then to avoid be impolite.
I am sitting with my roommate Lincoln, originally from Kenya. I will ask him if it is alright to ask people this question.
His answer is not surprising. It depends on the person and you relationship to them. The best way is to ask if the person has ever considered or ever have been tested. Some will be very forthcoming and some will say why they have never been tested. Funerals are very common here in Botswana, but I have yet to hear of someone dying of AIDS. I have heard a few that have died from sickness or from illness.
At only 5:30 pm, it was time for me to leave block 5 to go home. It would be unsafe to walk the road to Mokolodi, which I often run, in the dark. I chatted and laughed with Cinderella’s mother. She warned me about African people, that they can be rough. I repeatedly responded, “Ee ma”. She offered me a ride home which I declined.
I spent the kombi and subsequent bus ride texting Meg and Jane; then returning home to eat lentils, rice and chicken prepared by Lincoln. He and I agree that half a day off is not enough. I could have done little else with my time.
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