My husband had an interesting chat with a Masai when he was out at Magadi yesterday. It went something like this.
My husband curiously opens with: 'How old are you?'
Masai: 'Thirty. How old are you?'
Husband: 'Guess!'
Masai: 'Don't know, twenties?'
My husband (seriously flattered): 'No, I'm forty!'
Masai shrugs disinterestedly. 'Oh. So how many wives do you have?'
Husband: 'One, you?'
Masai: 'Two.'
Husband: 'And how many children?'
Masai: 'Well four with wife number 1, and three with wife number 2. You?'
Husband: 'Three.'
Masai (probably thinking, 'poor devil' says) : 'Oh.'
***
Last night I put on the movie: 'The boy in the Striped Pyjamas'.
'This is seriously cheery Sunday night viewing!' My husband said as I sobbed uncontrollably on the sofa, tears rolling down my cheeks.
Later I said, 'I feel like our poor nightwatchman is a bit like a concentration camp inmate - patrolling round the house in all weathers, thin, cold and hungry - and we are like the Gestapo.'
I went out and gave the nightwatchman bread, jam and milk. He said his bicycle was broken and it would cost 1,000 shillings to fix and by the way, he was sorry he had not made any loan repayments for a while. I said, 'bring the bike to us this week and I'LL get it fixed.' Then I felt better.
We also went to see 'Salt' at the movies on Friday. A noticably emaciated Angelina Jolie certainly looked like she had done a stint on concentration camp rations. It's official - she's lost her sparkle. She looks like Michael Jackson with massive, sinuous hands and a tiny body, clothes hanging off her. Plus, the film was so packed with action sequences and obvious twists that it was too implausible from start to finish to suspend anybody's disbelief. Even the news that a 'real life' Russian spy ring has recently been uncovered in the States, could not rescue the film from the doldrums. After an hour and a half, I was almost expecting the black American actor in the helicopter to announce that he was (yet another) Russian spy?
Might try watching Leonardo Dicaprio's film 'Inception' next. I heard that the box office appeal is that the complex plot means that, challenged and now curious, you keep having to go back and watch it again and again.
