18 August 2011: I woke up feeling the pressure. I had less than 24 hours to put it all together. The day was going to be a long ordeal. I made the first unanswered call to the dispatcher. Then I made my way to varsity. I knocked on Janine’s door at the international office to tell her that the contacts she gave me were incorrect.
-“Those are the only contacts we have in our system”, she said
-“OK so I’m alone, either way I don’t intend to sit through this one, I’ll represent Mozambique”
-“You should, either way it will be a lot of fun”.
So I was alone, I gave that phone number another go, still nothing. There I stood outside of the international office, seeing groups of nationals mingling in their own language. Some Tswana students were congregated outside of the library, some German students were sitting by the benches, Xhosa people were everywhere clicking and laughing. I felt like a man trapped in an island…but a bloody good swimmer. My driving force was there.
I made a call to the Cubata restaurant, saying I would be there in the evening, he said it would be best to get there at 9pm. At least we were getting somewhere with regards to the food. Shortly after I finished my lunch, the dispatcher returned my call. The dispatcher just wanted to confirm my physical and postal address, I asked her if she could confirm the arrival of the delivery for that day, she couldn’t, I could hear her shrugging her shoulders on the receiving end of the call. I was worried, in class my Advertising tutorial leader sensed tension, “You look worried”. I denied it playing the cool cucumber. I excused myself from her class to answer another call, it was that dispatcher’s superior, a Portuguese man. He had sombre news
- “The bag has not left Jo’burg, we tried to give it to passengers, we tried bribing some shot callers to have the bag checked in, none of the airlines accepted it”, he lamented
-“How come, the bag’s been in Johannesburg for 2 days, how is it that you couldn’t find a systematic solution?
- “The airlines won’t take the any unaccompanied bags”
They should have anticipated that, terror alert is at an all time high. We can’t even take a bottle over 50 ml to a plane.
-“What now?”
- “We’ll have to DHL it, it will be there tomorrow at 9 am”
-“9 am!! My exhibition has to be set up before that!”
- “That’s all we can do”
I zoned out in class for the rest of the day. I sent some futile messages to my parents and to uncle Salty. My father replied
“If the equipment only arrives at 9am:
1. Ask the organizers to set- up what you have. Show them good will.
2. You should have spoken to Sululo. Second best”
I kicked myself in the foot, I shouldn’t have dismissed the possibility of Susulo’s help. Media Ethics was my last lecture at 4:05pm, the clock was ticking and help was needed.
-“Jes you offer to help, let’s do this”
Jes may not have been Mozambican, but she was there for me.
Off we went on her Golf, 10 km to Sidnum, with Jes’s housemate Kevin as co-pilot because he knew the place. By reference the stadium faces a lake and Cubata is also a reference, being on the other side literally one block away. From the outside, it looked impersonal, with its high burglar bars and a drug fiend circling the restaurant. As soon as we got inside however, that cosy smell of chorizo and roast meat loosened us up. It had a tavern like atmosphere, visiting flags were up, I could see Italy, Angola, and the UK. I never got the manager’s name, he came over and made small talk in Portuguese, and even asked Jes if she was Mozambican too. So he only had tiger prawns straight from Mozambique going at R170 per kg. We asked for 3kg, a little over the budget but a bird in the hand is worth two in the wild. We were almost set, he brought the prawns over…in their frozen boxes.
-“Camarada, I asked to have them prepared”
-“If you want them prepared, that will cost you”, he said rubbing the tips of his fingers
-“How much?”
-“I charge exactly R170 per kg of fried prawns, so it will be double”
I was ready to swipe my card, Jes grabbed my hand and said, “wait, we need to think this through”
A box had 20 tiger prawns, 3 kg of tiger prawns was not going to cover 80 plus people, even if we only wanted them to sample it. Maybe 5kg would but that would have been way over the budget.
“We could buy fresh shrimps by the harbour and make it ourselves, it would be much cheaper”, she reiterated. Jes had valid points, we could buy prawns at retailers such as fruit and veg and Checkers at half that price saving us a lot of money. Prawns are fried in just 5 minutes, all we needed was a stove, a massive source pan filed with oil, and butter, garlic and lemon to make the sauce. The Portuguese man agreed that it would be more favourable, “It is that simple”.
I thought I had this one, but it seems like if anything was going to be done, it would be in the nick of time. We left that place to the harbour hoping to get a quote, it was 10 pm.
-“I told him yesterday I wanted the prawns cooked for 80 people to sample, he didn’t say he only had tiger prawns, and at that price!”
-“Welcome to life! Don’t you just love it?” exhaled Jessica
-“You live and you learn”, I said
-“Don’t you think it would be fresher, if we made it ourselves on the day?”
The harbour was closed, but I got a number of a Fresh seafood supplier from a sign post. The number rang for a while then led me to a fax machine dial.
-“James’s dad sells seafood, he probably has shrimps. You guys could call him early tomorrow to get the quotes”, said Kevin
-“OK, Edgar give me the money and I will get up early and find out the prices from James’s dad, Fruit and veg and Checkers”, said Jes
-“I’ll be up by 6 tomorrow to see if I can get quote from the harbour. Make sure you keep the receipts”
- Jes replied, “Yes mommy”
-“Hehehehe, were would I be without you?”, I told her this repeatedly over this episode. The tasks were divided between us, she would run get the saucepan, garlic, lemons and run the errands to get the shrimps, I’d supply the stove, butter and stay on top of the pending materials. We all stopped by the Engen petrol station in Summerstrand for some ice cream. They say it makes you happy.
19 august 2011: D day. I set the alarm for 6:20am, got up at 5:30am, couldn’t go back to sleep. At 6, the suppliers at the harbour still weren’t picking up. I gave Jes the green light to find the best offer. 4kg for R100 per box from She was very quick on her feet. Fish and veg was . I put on my custom made capulana trousers and waist coat over a plane white T-shirt. I took a long look at the man in the mirror, I guess to gain momentum, “Good luck buddy”. I left the house at 7:30am with only two jars of salty cashew nuts in my duffle bag.
The venue was the Krall on South Campus. The represented flags were mounted on the screen of the stalls and over the banister on the upper level. A stage had been with seats for 100 people. There I saw Sid wearing an Umbhaca. Sid’s band Vudu were the opening act, I’d seen them perform their urban Jazz sounds a couple of times, they hadn’t yet disappointed.
-“I like your trousers, I’m stealing them”, she said.
My trousers were the only thematic items going for Mozambique. Botswana, Namibia, France, Malawi, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Tanzania, USA, Iran, Ethiopia, Mauritius, South Africa, Uganda, Seychelles, Nigeria, were all represented here. Most of the stalls were either set up already or close to it. The only empty ones were Uganda and Mauritius and Mozambique. I was on the phone frantically, trying to reach the only contact I had, of the case’s dispatcher. Again it just rang. I could imagine the dispatcher looking at my number on the caller ID and rolling his eyes cussing out, “Aargh f*** this guy!” . He just did not pick up the phone. Sid came over and gesticulated a watsup with your stall.
-“Don’t give me that, I’m stressing out here, my stuff’s only arriving at 9”, I said.
-“It will work out in the end, it always does”.
I don’t usually hear her saying these things, so coming from her those were some mighty encouraging words. All the stall had already been set up, even Uganda and Mauritius. The girls from the Seychelles had palm tree branches around their back screen, a coconut, a pineapple, frangipani flowers, a snail shell laid out over some topical leaves. They had their own shooters, they even brought sand. I was seated and looking at my sole cashew nuts embarrassed. It was 8:50. I felt suffocated. ‘I can’t stay here’, I thought to myself. I got up and went to the labs hoping for an e-mail from the post office notifying me of the case. There was no such thing on my inbox, just some forwards on “reasons to be proud of NMMU” to add insult to injury. 9:00am. In a haze I walked to the post-office. The lady there shook her head, “there is nothing here for you”. My heart was racing, my thoughts were ‘I’m going to be disqualified…’ I walked back to the kraal decided, I was going to forfeit the exhibition to save myself from embarrassment. Mozambique can’t deliver, in fact it is in our culture to “deixa andar” (let it be), and I am Mozambican. I was in front of the Kraal about to face the inevitable, I looked to my right and there was Janine Wagenaar with a smile accompanied by a man with a suitcase. “There you are, I told him this is something Edgar will be happy to see”. I let off the biggest sigh of relief. The package signed and delivered. It was 9:07 am. Inevitable is just a word. I began setting up my stall as I was about to represent Mozambique in this exhibition.
To be continued…
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