every now and then, point in this direction or that, guiding me first out of the city and then deep into the countryside. I was ready for whatever was ahead of me. Or more precisely, I didn’t care what was ahead of me. My heart was beating fast; my mind full of stupid questions to ask her: ‘Where are you from?’, ‘What music do you listen to?’, ‘What do your parents do?’, ‘What are your favourite colours?’. But in reality I knew that the get-to-know-you-questions from my teenage years wouldn’t work, and as we drove deeper into the night I began to realise just how little actual dating I had really done.
Muddy punched in the knobs on the old radio and found a station that was playing country music. There aren’t many things in this life that are certain, but that’s one of them – a country music station anywhere in the world. Strangely, I didn’t mind.
‘Muddy … why do they call you Muddy?’ I asked her.
Nobody wears safety belts in Africa, and she had her feet up on the dashboard, leaning towards me and humming along to Kenny Rogers as he sang a duet about not falling in lovewith dreamers.
‘They call me Muddy, because the men I know would rather drink muddy waters,’ she finally answered with a sigh, signalling with her hand that we should make a left off the main road onto a gravel track.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked her as the Land Rover’s wheels hit the dirt road, creating a monotonous grinding noise that jarred heavily against the calm of country music – I’m not much of a blues man but drinking muddy waters didn’t sound pleasant.
Instead of answering she asked me to slow down as we were approaching her gate, which a watchman opened as soon as she leaned her head outside the car window. She pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket and threw it at him as we crawled past.
Does everybody in this country live like a prisoner? I wondered as two huge Alsatian guard dogs came careering around the corner of the small house that now stood in front of us, barking furiously. It was as if the wealthy, the middle class, the farmers, the poor and even the criminals were all imprisoned in their own little worlds.
Climbing down from the Land Rover, Muddy calmed the dogs down before sending them back to the watchman. When he had them under control I opened my door and stepped out into her yard, watching as she unlocked security door after security door until finally we were inside her place and she turned on the lights.
The first thing that struck me was how simple everything was. The wooden furniture was spaced out in the sitting room so that it looked more like a low-class barroom. But she’dmade it work, brightening the room up with paintings of little stick figures and wooden carvings. Her place reminded me of Joshua’s in a strange way – even though, unlike Joshua’s, it was clear that she lived there.
Muddy invited me into the kitchen – again very spare – and opened a cabinet that contained several bottles of expensive liquor. ‘You know moonshine?’ she asked me.
I nodded.
‘Try this,’ she said, reaching behind the glass bottles and producing a plastic container, ‘it’s African moonshine.’
She poured me a shot of clear liquid, and I grabbed it, ready to down it. ‘You’d better sip it,’ she advised, and as soon as it touched my tongue I knew why – it was almost pure alcohol.
‘What is it called?’ I asked her.
‘Changaa,’
she said.
Then, leaving me to my thoughts, Muddy went to change. She returned from the bathroom in what looked to me a like a dress-sized dashiki. Her dreads were down, so that when she sat at the kitchen counter, one hand cupped under her chin and the other shifting her shot glass back and forth, they dangled in front of her. She looked up at me – her eyes burrowing into mine – and I looked down at my hands. Cupping the shot glass they looked huge, and suddenly I felt like I was back at the airport all over
Muddy punched in the knobs on the old radio and found a station that was playing country music. There aren’t many things in this life that are certain, but that’s one of them – a country music station anywhere in the world. Strangely, I didn’t mind.
‘Muddy … why do they call you Muddy?’ I asked her.
Nobody wears safety belts in Africa, and she had her feet up on the dashboard, leaning towards me and humming along to Kenny Rogers as he sang a duet about not falling in lovewith dreamers.
‘They call me Muddy, because the men I know would rather drink muddy waters,’ she finally answered with a sigh, signalling with her hand that we should make a left off the main road onto a gravel track.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked her as the Land Rover’s wheels hit the dirt road, creating a monotonous grinding noise that jarred heavily against the calm of country music – I’m not much of a blues man but drinking muddy waters didn’t sound pleasant.
Instead of answering she asked me to slow down as we were approaching her gate, which a watchman opened as soon as she leaned her head outside the car window. She pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket and threw it at him as we crawled past.
Does everybody in this country live like a prisoner? I wondered as two huge Alsatian guard dogs came careering around the corner of the small house that now stood in front of us, barking furiously. It was as if the wealthy, the middle class, the farmers, the poor and even the criminals were all imprisoned in their own little worlds.
Climbing down from the Land Rover, Muddy calmed the dogs down before sending them back to the watchman. When he had them under control I opened my door and stepped out into her yard, watching as she unlocked security door after security door until finally we were inside her place and she turned on the lights.
The first thing that struck me was how simple everything was. The wooden furniture was spaced out in the sitting room so that it looked more like a low-class barroom. But she’dmade it work, brightening the room up with paintings of little stick figures and wooden carvings. Her place reminded me of Joshua’s in a strange way – even though, unlike Joshua’s, it was clear that she lived there.
Muddy invited me into the kitchen – again very spare – and opened a cabinet that contained several bottles of expensive liquor. ‘You know moonshine?’ she asked me.
I nodded.
‘Try this,’ she said, reaching behind the glass bottles and producing a plastic container, ‘it’s African moonshine.’
She poured me a shot of clear liquid, and I grabbed it, ready to down it. ‘You’d better sip it,’ she advised, and as soon as it touched my tongue I knew why – it was almost pure alcohol.
‘What is it called?’ I asked her.
‘Changaa,’
she said.
Then, leaving me to my thoughts, Muddy went to change. She returned from the bathroom in what looked to me a like a dress-sized dashiki. Her dreads were down, so that when she sat at the kitchen counter, one hand cupped under her chin and the other shifting her shot glass back and forth, they dangled in front of her. She looked up at me – her eyes burrowing into mine – and I looked down at my hands. Cupping the shot glass they looked huge, and suddenly I felt like I was back at the airport all over
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