I realize that it has been a few weeks since the last issue of the Kalahari Khronicle, but I have been out of the country at a conference. Initially I wanted to cover the International Climate Conference in Copenhagen, but our Board said that the cost was way outside the paper’s budget. I could however, go anywhere I liked as long as I paid for it out of $220.00 a month Peace Corps living allowance. I found a very reasonably priced conference to attend although some of the details were a bit vague. It was a 7-day meeting called “Creative and Fun uses for Excess Newsprint.” For a total cost of only $4.87 US, it sounded like just what Ben Bernanke ordered.
The first red flag was that I had to travel on a Canadian passport as a Canadian citizen and the conference site was in the middle of the Somalian desert. We landed in Mogadishu and were whisked off to our “mid-town” departure site guarded by these bearded guys with AK-47’s. We were given all the water we wanted and told to drink up since there were no pit stops or oases until we got to the conference venue. Our conference souvenir was a water bottle with a picture of “Our Hero, Muammar Khaddafi.”
It turned out that our 7-day conference was three days walk through the desert to arrive, one day of conference content and three days walking back. All the attendee’s luggage was awkwardly piled high on one over-burdened camel. Some of the delegates who were more accustomed to the Sahara considered this just a stroll in the park. For myself, I couldn’t stop glancing upward to a group of vultures that kept circling our caravan. The good thing was that since it was over 105 F, I didn’t have to pee for three days.
Only 6 attendees dropped from heat prostration and three more were unaccounted for by the time we reached our destination—the Idi Amin KOA Kampsite, Conference Center and Hand-to-Hand Combat Training School. There was a big sign nailed up to a palm tree welcoming us as “Fellow Newsprint Lovers.”
We cleaned up with a bucket bath and sat down for our opening (and closing) banquet. The camel was nowhere to be found and they served some sort of meat stew, but I couldn’t identify the main ingredient. At the end of the evening, they told us that the conference agenda was slightly changed, and that after tomorrow’s proceedings we would start walking at night to avoid the heat. We would have to carry our own luggage back though, because the camel was “unavailable.”
Sleep was interrupted as I kept seeing shadows inside the tent darting like scorpions. I never did decide what they were, but in the morning, two of the delegates appeared delirious with convulsions and had to be transported by litter back to Mogadishu.
Our keynote speaker was Warlord Zazi Al-Coa Al-Uminum. His address didn’t seem to have much to do with newspapers or newsprint. It was in a Somalian dialect so I didn’t catch it all, but as best I could figure out it appeared to be his life story of growing up in poverty. Through his persistence, he rapidly rose in power and affluence. He showed some great ocean pictures, and a lot of boats. He even had a number of close-up shots of a Dutch and a German oil Supertanker.
Before we headed off on the trek back home, we were given our farewell gifts which included four coconuts, three figs, two dates and a partridge in a pear tree. I wasted the coconuts throwing them at the partridge, which was eating the dates and the figs. I did manage to connect with my last throw just after it gulped down the last fig. The guards…errr…..hospitality hosts quickly put the unconscious bird in a gunny sack murmuring something about feeding the homeless. By the way, these hosts were really interesting guys. Although somewhat heavily armed, they said that they were volunteers from AARP, and they knew a lot about America. One of them described that since the debate over healthcare was getting nasty in the States that all AARP members were required to carry surface-to-air, shoulder mounted missile launchers.
Well enough about my travels—Let get to the news.
The Kalahari Khronicle
Volume 1, Number 3
”News you can’t possibly use”
UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS AVERTED
It is no secret that many people are out of work in America. On November 18, the Gaborone Daily News tried to do its part to get people back to work by running nine separate advertisements for “Herd Boys”. Some of them ask for "hard-working and sober habits.", but others say no experience or qualifications needed to “look after cattle”. The salary is listed as P400, but it doesn't say if this amount (approximately $55) is the salary per week, per month or per year. Unfortunately no 401K or pre-paid health plan included. In any case, if you like to be out under the stars and are not opposed to frequent blasts of cow produced methane, these jobs are for you. Advancement is a real possibility as there are also several vacancies in a local piggery. I have no doubt that many of these employers would accept "Herd Girls" as well.
COLORADO CONCERNS
Since we have left, it does appear that things in the State of Colorado are deteriorating rapidly judging from these two stories:
The Associated Press, on November 27 reported that a Boulder Colorado man apparently tried to steal an ATM. The alleged attempted theft of a freestanding outdoor ATM did not work however. When police arrived they found the ATM on its side, about 15 feet from where it had been taken. Surveillance photos show a man attaching the ATM to a chain on the back of a U-Haul truck, which was discovered a short distance away later that day.
Kgosi’s Komment
Obviously this Boulder man had not read the report from Kentucky in which two men tried to pull the front panel off a cash machine by running a chain from the machine to the bumper of their pickup truck. Instead of pulling off the front panel of the machine however, it pulled the bumper off the truck. Scared, they left the scene and drove home
-- with the chain still attached to the machine
-- with their bumper still attached to the chain
-- with their vehicle's license plate still attached to the bumper
QUICK THINKING
Keystone Colorado made the Summit County Daily News last week when they reported that a father was "shocked" when a local sheriff’s deputy called asking whether this man’s son was having a sex change operation. The trouble started when Wanda, a Colorado woman was caught at Keystone ski Resort trying to use the ski pass of a man named Daniel. When asked for a date of birth, she complied, but "was slow to recall," according to the report. To account for the name on the pass, the woman claimed to be in the middle of a sex change operation. When called by the sheriff’s deputies to verify that in fact, he was undergoing a sex change operation, Daniel too denied that this was true. Eventually, Wanda identified herself and was booked on charges of theft and criminal impersonation.
Kgosi’s Komment-- You have to give Wanda an A grade for creativity on the spur of the moment. She was certainly smarter than the Great Falls, Montana man, Remo Spencer, who stole several iPods and computers from the Wal-Mart store in which he worked. He was subsequently apprehended after the store security cameras filmed him posting “For Sale” notices for the same IPods and computers on his store's employee bulletin board.
FOR WOMEN ONLY—UNDIES ARE SHOCKING
According to UK tabloid the Sun, a 33-year-old Welsh housewife ended up in hospital after wearing Ann Summers brand vibrating Passion Pants to her local supermarket in Swansea. Unfortunately, she became so “aroused” that she fainted then "fell against shelves and banged her head". This prompted the attendance of the paramedics who "found the black leatherette panties still buzzing". Having disabled the underwear, they then whisked the senseless shopper to a hospital where she made a complete recovery. Staff handed her back the Passion Pants upon discharge, discreetly concealed in a plastic bag.
Kgosi’s Komment—Kgosi thought this story strange until he did a Google search for “Electric Underwear” and got 4 million, one hundred and ten thousand separate sites on the Internet. He will no longer try to resuscitate any unconscious Africans without wearing rubber soled shoes and bringing a set of jumper cables.
And finally just to assure the reader that the Khronicle is entirely gender neutral, the following story:
FOR MEN ONLY – BEACH BALLS
Ananova News Service December 2009
A Croatian man got a nasty surprise when he tried to get out of his deck chair and found his testicles had gotten stuck.
Mario Visnjic had gone swimming naked in the sea at the Valalta beach in western Croatia, reports Croatian news service 24sata.
His testicles had shrunk while in the cool sea and slipped through the wooden slats when he sat back down naked on his wooden deckchair.
But as he lay in the sun they expanded back to normal size and got stuck between the slats.
He was eventually freed after he called beach maintenance services on his mobile phone and they sent a member of the staff to cut the deck chair in half with a chainsaw.
Kgosi’s Komment—Kgosi is trying to decide if it was more difficult to sit there trapped to your deck chair and look nonchalant while talking naked on the cell phone or trying to be unconcerned when the hotel staff was coming down the middle of the deck chair toward the family jewels with a chainsaw.
Kgosi
Remember Kgosi’s African slogan of the Week:
“Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things.”
