Desperate times call for desperate measures - Part II

I inadvertently met another online dating buddy last night.

 

Until this point there had been no significant progress on the internet dating front. I’ve been chatting to a couple of guys on and off, including one who we will refer to as Electric.

 

Electric mentioned that he was going to the launch of the new Parlotones cd last night. With C and I being the devout Parlotones fans that we are, we had already booked our tickets for the event about three weeks ago. Electric and I made no concrete plans to meet, and I was pretty much hoping that I wouldn’t bump into him, because then I was going to have to explain the entire scenario to C and in my nicotine-deprived state, I don’t have patience for such conversations.

 

We arrived at Partyhouse (seriously…. why would they choose such a kak venue for a CD launch???) and there were hundreds of people. I breathed a sigh of relief realising the likeliness of bumping into and then recognising someone I’ve only seen one or two photos of was relatively minimal.

 

By the time we arrived, the venue was packed and C and I had a fantastic view of the tops of people’s heads and not much else. So when the band took a 15 minute break we dashed to the front to get closer to Khan, the talented front man. After a few minutes, a group of people moved in front of us and I looked up and immediately realised it was Electric. I waited for a look of recognition to cross his face… but nothing.

 

My reaction to this was to leap behind C so that she was blocking his view of me and I could avoid the situation. Of course, bearing in mind, that C had absolutely no idea what was going on, she began to find it a bit weird that I refused to budge from behind her, so I had to explain the whole scenario to her. Luckily a few minutes later, Electric and his friends moved further back and I forgot about the encounter and enjoyed the rest of the show.

 

On our way out, C and I noticed that The Parlotones had set up some tables and were autographing CDs and posters for a long queue of adoring supporters. C and I, in a bid to retain our non-groupie status carried on walking towards the exit when Electric suddenly appeared in front of us and asked… “Are you Mozi?” (except he used my actual name). I smiled, nodded and asked if he was waiting for an autograph. He said he was and offered to take my CD and get them to autograph it too. Afterwards, he gave me my CD back and we said our fairly awkward goodbyes.

 

Not thinking much of the situation, I logged back onto the dating site this morning to find a message from Electric, sent at 1am. Basically he said that he recognised me straight away but was too shy and nervous to come over and say hi. He said he eventually realised he had nothing to lose and plucked up the courage right before I walked out the door. He wants to meet up again.

 

I’m a little torn. Electric definitely isn’t the type of guy I’d usually be interested in. Nothing rock ‘n roll about him (other than his love of the Parlotones) – but he certainly seems to be decent, interesting, honest and a gentleman.

 

Is it time to move away from the old cliché that all girls love bad boys?

Goodbye my love

I’ve quit smoking.

 

It’s been nearly 42 hours.

 

So far so good… except I think I went through a bit of a nicotine withdrawal episode last night. I kept on waking up feeling like I couldn’t breathe (which is weird because it’s the exact opposite effect I was hoping for). I did, however, wake up for the first time in four years without a sore throat this morning.

 

I’m trying to fill the gaping void left in my life with water, bubblegum and gym. Somehow, this has all been quite fulfilling so far, but let me not kid myself, it’s only been 42 hours.

MsMozi in Mombasa

Mombasa - Day 1

 

So things didn't get off to a particularly good start. Arrived at OR Tambo filled with apprehension over the ridiculously late flight to Nairobi (00h40), only to discover the flight had been delayed until 02h30 (bearing in mind it was now only 22h00). Dreading the four and a half our wait, I located my hosts and was relieved to discover we had entrance passes to the business class lounge.

 

After the hours passed with much red wine, a motion sickness pill and conversation with my hosts, it was eventually time to board. I actually don’t remember anything at all from about 20 minutes after popping the motion sickness drugs until landing in Nairobi as a result of the zonking out effect of meds + alcohol.

 

We landed at about 08h15, which was troubling as we had to make a connection to Mombasa at 08h30. Thankfully, Nairobi airport runs like a finely-tuned machine and we were through immigration in about two seconds, to find our luggage already on the conveyer belt. We dashed across the road to the domestic terminal and managed to catch our flight in time. Can you imagine that ever happening at OR Tambo?

 

After a short flight we landed at Mombasa airport and found our shuttle to the Serena waiting for us under the blue sky, with a little table set out with champagne, juices and beer and red roses for all the girls – noo-noo!

 

The 45 minute drive to the Mombasa Serena took us through the town in our fabulously air-conditioned bus. Most of Mombasa is fairly slum-like, but so authentically African with goats running across the main road and bars with names like ‘The Silent Joy’. We arrived at the hotel to traditional dancers and fresh coconut juice.

 

I got to meet most of the rest of the journos (13 in the group in total) and on the way to my room walked past a total hottie, which left me hoping in some fantastic twist of fate, he’d be part of our group.

The room is beautiful, huge with a view of the ocean… if I can look past the pale overweight Germans in the way.

 

The group reconvened a few minutes later to do a hotel inspection and discovered that the hottie was indeed part of the group. The hotel inspection went on forever and ever and afterwards we sat down to a much needed lunch.

 

We had the rest of the afternoon to do our own thing so I opted for a swim in the warm, crystal-clear ocean and a snooze on a deck chair by the pool.

 

Then came dinner with some of the Serena big guns. Incredible – five courses of lobster, prawns, calamari steaks, darwas and red wine. Hottie was unfortunately way on the other side of the table. Afterwards we hit the main bar for coffee and a bit of a boogie which brings me up to this moment.

 

Tomorrow I’m hitting Mombasa town with a few of the boys including Hottie. Then we’re changing hotels to Mnarani in Kilifi – should be great!

 

Mombasa – Day 2

 

Woohoo! Just finished watching the bokke annihilate the English. This was made sweeter by the presence of several pommies in the hotel. Love it.

 

Well another beautiful day dawned in Mombasa. I accidentally lost track of time during breakfast and missed the trip into town. So I opted for another day spent lying by the pool, sipping on pina coladas…. Is this seriously work??? Burnt myself to a bit of a crisp but I’ll hopefully recover in the next day or two.

 

After lunch we moved onto the Mnarani hotel and enjoyed the 45min transfer along Kenya’s potholed road surrounded by lush forests and open green plains dotted with giant baobabs.

The Mnarani isn’t quite the same standard as the Serena, but still extremely comfortable and affordable (if I was paying). It also has an enormous infinity pool overlooking the Kilifi lagoon.

 

We headed out on a dhow sunset cruise, sailing through Kilifi creek with the goosebump inducing cry of the fish eagle as our sound track.

 

At about halfway, I discovered the problem with Kenya’s local beer – Tusker. It comes in 500ml bottles. Since I had already polished off one during the shuttle to the hotel, and another on the dhow, my bladder was suddenly stretched to 1 litre – with no relief in sight. For the last 40 mins I couldn’t think… .couldn’t speak.. and was made to feel only slightly better by another guy in our group who was suffering from the same affliction.

 

After docking and a hasty – virtually walking on water – dash to the loo, we sat down to a seafood braai on the beach, entertained by local acrobats and followed by sensational rugga.

 

That’s about it for today – tomorrow we’re venturing off to Malindi!

Mombasa – Day 3

 

So it’s the final day of the trip and it’s been unbelievable. I wish I could stay for another week – three days is just far too short. I will be back though without a doubt.

 

Today after breakfast we headed off on a tour around the area. We started off at a deaf school for the local community. We then went to the falcon sanctuary which really didn’t impress me. They had these beautiful raptors tied to poles so that they couldn’t fly away. None were injured, so its obviously just a tourist ploy with no plans to reintroduce them into the wild.

We then drove on towards Malindi. En route we saw several cars stopped ahead of us and sea of people. Turns out there were two robbers shot dead by the police lying on the side of the road. Most of the people on the bus saw the actual bodies, both with bullet holes in the foreheads. I didn’t want to look. Apparently it’s quite normal for the Kenyan police to shoot suspected criminals execution style since they have so little faith in the judicial system.

 

We then saw a fairly crap craft market before visiting the Gedi Ruines. The ruines are what’s left of an 11^th century city. Rumour has it that the entire civilization was wiped out in the 17^th century by the Zimbi tribe of cannibals who literally ate their way through Africa.

 

After that it was finally time to return to the hotel. I just chilled out for the rest of the evening, ate dinner and watch Maasai dancers.

 

So it’s almost time to say goodbye to beautiful Kenya. Leaving at 04h30 tomorrow morning to get to the airport in time.

 

So Kenya – kwaheri I will be back!!!!

Jambo!

Tonight… or more correctly, in the ridiculously early hours of tomorrow morning (00h40) I will be departing for Kenya.

 

This is definitely one of those moments when I looooove being a journo (or a deputy editor) – I’m going to spending a night at the Serena in Mombasa, before heading a little further up north to a coastal village called Kilifi for the remainder of the stay. It’s one of those perfect work trips, where they haven’t crammed in a million hotel inspections and conferences and instead we’re being left to scuba dive, snorkel, receive spa treatments and wander around town.

 

And as excited as I am about the trip – for some reason everyone has chosen this coming weekend as the one to embark on enjoyable adventures around Jozi.

 

Events I’m missing out on include:

 

1) The Ron’s birthday

2) Joburg Day

3) A wedding – BMXer asked me to go with him as his partner. I’m certain this would have been the night that he looked at me and realised I’m the one he’s been waiting for his entire life.

4) The Supersport United / Pirates game which everyone at work is attending as a teambuilder

 

But I’m sure none of you want to here my moaning about a free trip to Kenya, so I’ll stop.

 

So until the 17^th – Kwaheri!

A Perfect World

Last night I got to enjoy one of my favourite traditions – ‘The Deck Chat’ with The Ron. This ritual can only be performed in spring and summer – with alcoholic beverage in hand, gazing out at the twinkling lights of Jozi’s northern suburbs from the pool deck at The Ron’s Sandton complex.

 

During last night’s Deck Chat, we got onto the subject of The Ron’s 27^th birthday, which is this weekend. The Ron has decided that he’s not celebrating at all, because he feels he hasn’t achieved anything notable since his birthday last year. I pointed out that this isn’t entirely true – for one he’s found a wonderful girl who’s on the verge of moving in with him. Secondly, he finally bought his dream car, a Golf 5 somethingorother.

 

Essentially, The Ron was most concerned about not having found a new career path… his current job, which he’s absolutely brilliant at, unfortunately has a ceiling which he’s already reached. On top of that, it’s the kinda job you can’t really do past the age of 35 and that’s at a push.

 

This made me think about human nature – why is it that we always fixate on the one thing that’s missing from our lives, and ignore everything else that’s going swimmingly?

 

I’m just as guilty – career-wise, things are going brilliantly, my friends and family are all happy and healthy and I’m about to head off on a free trip to the Kenyan coast for a few days of frolicking in the ocean. Yet I ignore all of this and instead completely obsess over the absence of a significant other in my life.

 

The Ron pointed out that this phenomenon was best described in The Matrix, by the supercool Agent Smith when he said:

 

“Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world, where none suffered; where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Some believed that we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world, but I believe that as a species, human beings define their reality through misery and suffering.”

 

But I guess this isn’t necessary a bad thing… if we focused only on the positive, we wouldn’t bother with self-improvement. It’s just weird to think that we’re constantly striving to reach a state of perfection that we’ll never find - and even if we somehow managed to, we’d remain unsatisfied.

Salsa nights

So on Friday evening, an old friend, who I haven’t seen in about 10 years, invited me to join him and his mates at a new salsa club in Rosebank. I figured, why not? I mean… I’ve been for like three salsa lessons! In fact, I’d probably be so inspiringly co-ordinated on the dance floor that people would start forming a circle around me, clapping their hands in crazed enthusiasm like they do in the movies!

 

This wasn’t quite how things panned out…

 

A few minutes after I arrived, a suave-looking Latino hopped up onto a raised area, and announced that he’d go through a quick basic salsa lesson before they really kicked things off. He began doing the super easy, back – forward – together – step. I looked across at my mate, smirked and shook my head knowingly while mouthing – “how easy….” I stopped paying attention for approximately 30 seconds – and by the time the teacher shifted back into focus, him, as well as the entire crowd were twirling each other across the dance floor while simultaneously executing perfect dips along with grinding hip action.

 

It all went downhill from there. I was so bad that my mate wouldn’t even let me onto the dance floor – he dragged me off to a dark corner in the back of the club to practice. After a few hours, he decided it was time to let me loose on the dance floor – and within 10 seconds I had bashed into and tripped up half of the club’s clientele and I was dragged back into the dark corner.

 

But now I’m determined to become the salsa queen! The people in that club were unbelievably good – I felt like I had walked in on the party scene in Dirty Dancing. Hot hot hot…

 

So my new goal is to be able to go back to the salsa club with my head held high within the next three months!

I'm psychic.

So guess what! Two of my predictions came true!!!

 

First of all, I’m ecstatic to say that I’m now Deputy Editor of the magazine I write for. Super chuffed and promptly changed my email signature and ordered new business cards. It just sounds so much nicer than journalist.

 

Secondly – I now have a man… sure he may be inflatable, but beggars can’t be choosers. A colleague brought him to work for me today because I’m using him as a prop for my friend’s bachelorettes party in two weeks time. He’s fantastic – his name is Frank, he’s a little short, but has perfectly styled dark hair and doesn’t mind sitting in the office butt naked all day. And he floats. I really think he might be the one.