Yes, contrary to very popular opinion today, I am still:

a) alive!

b) not taken up residence in the bush!

c) incredibly busy doing organizational development work (which is why I came to Africa, remember people – and yes, okay I socialized a lot on the weekend)

Thank you to all of you who have been emailing today to check on me…sorry I have been incredibly busy. Including going to work early this morning for a meeting. This earlier trip to the office seemed to tax the Saint, Tabuche more than it did me.

You see, my normal working hours are 8 to 5 whereas the government and many businesses operate 7 -3 or 7:30 – 3:30. Normally when Tabuche is taking me to work we are hitting the tail end of the traffic but not always. This is also month end…I made the mistake of going to Game City Mall Saturday morning for groceries and to withdraw money forgetting that it was month end. It turned out that I didn’t get any money (either the line up for the ATM was at least 30 people or the machines were completely out of cash). The joys of living in a country where everyone is paid only once a month and all at the same time!

This also means that those people who now have cash are using it for petrol for their cars. For about a week after month end pay the traffic on Gaborone streets increases exponentially by about 100%. By altering my time of travelling to work it seems we landed smack dab in the middle of the worst traffic  this morning and Mr. Conscientious was intent on getting me to the office on time. He knew that I have a very important meeting – I was even dressed like a lady so it must have been big!

It became very obvious this morning that patience is a virtue that Tabuche needs to work on!

It seems that I have way more of an abundance of it then the Sainted Tabuche. In fact the last ten minutes of our drive this morning was spent with me teaching him deep breathing techniques which was rather difficult as we were both laughing too hard to be serious.

Thinking that the drive home would be smoother was a wrong assumption. It appears that the deep breathing techniques were too no avail. We were stuck at a robot (traffic light) for an inordinately long period of time while the traffic cop talked to someone in a car paying no attention to the traffic building up in our direction. Before long horns were honking and grumbling in Setswana was ensuing. Tabuche didn’t honk but he certainly was grumbling. When I calmly pointed out that he was lacking in patience again tonight he was quick (like a typical man) to say that he was just supporting his fellow drivers!

Once we were under way again we encountered another traffic jam at a traffic circle that is also controlled by a traffic cop during rush hour. Every day when we go through this circle it is always a joke with Tabuche and I as he will watch the cop to see if he is allowing traffic to move in our direction or not. If it appears that the traffic will be stopped, Tabuche will circumvent being halted by taking another route. Tonight he couldn’t even do that! The traffic was backed up so far that he couldn’t even get close enough to make the left turn that would take us on our alternative route.

Of course, I had a very good laugh about it! and had fun rubbing in the fact that it was actually very scary if I possessed far more patience than the Sainted Tabuche. I certainly gave him something to think about tonight. Let’s see if the Saint is able to demonstrate patience in the morning!