Story #2

This story, or ancedote as you might like to call it, is like Story #1 in a lot of ways, but it happens to be true. Like the first story, the moral is: if you can't be big and strong, be clever. I also heard it from Moses, who knows the main character in the story.

Back in the days when Namibia was a South African protectorate (Southwest Africa), South Africa was fighting a guerilla war with Angola in the northern parts of the country. Up until the early '90s what is now the village of Tsintsabis was a South African Defense Force base complete with an airstrip. It's not uncommon, even today, to find bullets and casings from AK-47s lying around in the bush. The Boers (white South Africans) who lived in the area were either soldiers or farmers, hard-bitten folks who could almost universally be described as being 'bosbevok,' an adjective alluding to a certain mentality a person develops after being out in the bush for too long. Though there were some friendly, fair, and judicious whites in the area, life in the bush under apartheid turned many into cynical, sadistic, and stubborn Conrad caricatures. As such, they often didn't treat their black countrymen very well. They were in the midst of a war against northern Namibian tribes like the Ovambo and the Kavango and were used to being pestered by Bushmen who raided their cattle and trapped on their farms. They had formed an uncomfortable reliance on the Bushmen, whose legendary tracking skills they were coercing into service to flush their enemies from the bush, but they still had the nasty habit of beating them up for fun.

It was in these days that Moses' friend had stopped beside a gravel road to relieve himself. He was squatting in the bushes when he heard a truck coming. Knowing full well that it was a truck full of soldiers who would beat him if they saw any evidence he had been relieving himself beside the road, he pulled up his pants and tossed his hat on top of the turd he had left steaming on the ground. As he stood, the truck came into view and a few soldiers hopped out. "Bushman, what are you doing?" they yelled. "And what do you have under your hat?" Nervously, he responded that he had just caught a parrot and that he was keeping it under his hat. The Boers were excited at the news because they liked to keep parrots as pets. Not wanting to miss this opportunity, one of the Boers approached Moses' friend aggressively and yelled at him, "Go away, now, or I'll beat you! Get out of here!" Without hesitation, Moses' friend took off running into the bush without looking back. The Boer stood next to the hat and squatted quietly with his hands spread as if he were about to strangle a chicken. Slowly, he put one hand on top of the hat and moved the other into position beside it near the ground. He listened for a second and then in one quick motion, he lifted the hat and grabbed what, unfortunately, was not a parrot. SQUISH.

Supposedly, a true story. Again, if you're not big or fast or strong, it helps to be clever.

Story #1

I was just looking through some blog entries I left unfinished while I was in Namibia. Some of them I may never finish, but there are some I want to see through despite being back in the US. This is one of them. It’s a story Moses told me, which I like, but which has implications beyond simply being entertaining.

Moses - my closest friend from Tsintsabis - is a born storyteller. No matter what language he's speaking - English, Afrikaans, Hei//om - you can tell when he's spinning a good yarn. Everyone around him is transfixed, their eyes glued to him as the story builds, waiting for the punchline because they know it's coming and it's going to be good. He narrates, impersonates, and intonates, winding the story tighter and tighter. Inevitably he delivers his punch line, be it a crucial impersonation, quotation, one-liner, or actual punch line, and the group cracks. The tension built by his story breaks and people's expressions melt from concentrated looks of expectation to easy smiles and laughter.

One of my favorite stories Moses told me is about the Tortoise and the Ostrich, and it goes a little something like this:

One day the Ostrich and the Tortoise were sitting in the middle of the village chatting. As usual, the Ostrich was bragging about his beautiful feathers, his long slender neck, and his strong white legs. "My legs are sooo beautiful and strong," the Ostrich cooed. "I'm really fast, you know." The Tortoise usually dealt well with the Ostrich's bragging, but today he wasn't really in the mood for it. He felt like bringing the Ostrich down a few notches. "Yeah, your legs are great, but you're really not that fast. I bet I could beat you in a race," challenged the Tortoise. "Ha, I'll race you any day of the week. Your legs are so stubby and your shell is so heavy... I didn't even know you could run," replied the Ostrich. The Tortoise frowned. "Ok, let's do it. Tomorrow we'll race 10 km and - mark my words - I'll beat you. Every kilometer just shout 'Are you there Tortoise?' and I'll be right there beside you. You'll see." "Ha, ok, guess I'll see you tomorrow," said the Ostrich as he pranced off to his hut.

The Tortoise walked home and called all of his relatives in for a meeting. They slowly plodded in from the fields and gathered in front of the family hut. "I need to ask you all a favor," began the Tortoise. "Tomorrow I'm racing the Ostrich and I plan on winning, but I'll need your help. I need you all to spread out over the race course and space yourselves at 1km intervals. When the Ostrich runs by and asks, 'Are you there Tortoise?' I want you to say, 'Yep Ostrich, I'm here.'"

The next morning as the sun rose over the tamboti trees, the Tortoise and the Ostrich met in the middle of the village, where the race would start and finish. "You ready for a long day?" joked the Ostrich. "Just don't get caught out there in the dark." "Oh, I'm ready," said the Tortoise "and I'll be seeing you at the finish line... Ready, set, GO!" The Ostrich bolted from the line in classic Ostrich running form with his wings spread, his neck out, and his eyes closed against the dust. The Tortoise waited for the dust to settle, then went into his hut for a drink of water. Meanwhile, the Ostrich was striding along a dirt road on the edge of town. He didn't hear the Tortoise next to him, but at the first kilometer he called out patronizingly, "Oh, Tortoise, are you there?" To his surprise, he heard "Yep, Ostrich, I'm here" so he picked up the pace. At the next kilometer, he called out curiously, "Tortoise, are you there?" Again he heard "Yep, Ostrich, I'm here." His heart was beating quickly and he was getting nervous. The race carried on like this, the Ostrich calling out, the Tortoise responding, and the Ostrich becoming more and more flustered. As the Ostrich turned the final corner into the center of the village, he opened his eyes and to his shock saw the Tortoise standing there with a satisfied grin on his face. "Well Ostrich, looks like I won." The Ostrich stood in disbelief, and in a moment of vain denial stuck his head between his legs into the sand.

THE END

What the?

I'm reading the BBC online in an attempt to reconnect to the world after spending a long time in Namibia, but I think it's just reinforcing my alienation from the media. Honestly, is this the BBC or the Onion?

The first story:

SUDAN MAN FORCED TO 'MARRY' GOAT

Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.

The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.

Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".

Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.

"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.

(Accompanying the article is a map of Sudan with the Upper Nile region hilighted, just in case you want to know exactly where the goat shagger lives.)
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And the second:

It was a German guy, so I think he was probably taking himself seriously. I found this story particularly interesting because I recently saw a Travel Channel special on these terra cotta warriors:

NEW RECRUIT JOINS TERRA COTTA ARMY

A German art student briefly fooled police by posing as one of China's terracotta warriors at the heritage site in the ancient capital, Xian.
Pablo Wendel, made up like an ancient warrior, jumped into a pit showcasing the 2,200-year-old pottery soldiers and stood motionless for several minutes.

The 26-year-old was eventually spotted by police and removed from the scene.

Unearthed in 1974, the statues are said to be one of the 20th Century's greatest archaeological finds.

The ancient clay soldiers were created to protect the nearby tomb of the legendary Emperor Qinshihuang who united China over 2,200 years ago.

Mr Wendel is reported to have entered the museum on Saturday where he changed into his outfit, jumped over a barrier and took up a position on a pedestal he had taken along.

"I got to the area where he was supposed to be, looked around and didn't see him - he looked too much like a terracotta warrior," Hong Kong newspapers quoted a security guard as saying.

As Mr Wendel's "performance art" did not harm any of the ancient relics, he was not arrested or charged but given "serious criticism", the reports said.

Mr Wendel had his costume confiscated and was sent back to the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, where he is studying.