The Office Chronicles: Part II

On a morning when MD called my cell phone around 8am, I damaged my shoe hopping over a fence. He'd began making a habit of calling me at 8-is, to see if I was well and if I was, then I should be in the office by now. Not long before, I'd explained to both KT and MD, my role as a Community Capacity Building volunteer and the whole of my day was not supposed to be spent in an office. When I would leave the office I told KT where I was going. When I never intended on coming in, I text messaged what I was up to. She never cared either way, but should the Peace Corps or any authority figure call, I didn't want her to stand clueless. More importantly, I wanted her to feel some sort of link to me, some sort of responsibility. When MD called at 8, I wanted her to be able to interject and say "Gomolemo is at the clinic today," something that would shut MD up, strip him of (what I thought of as) self granted authority. It never happened. One of the volunteers in Good Hope said I should put up a calendar and pencil in my scheduled activities but I never did. It was mostly because I'm bullheaded. I didn't want MD to feel any sort of tangible link to me. I didn't want him to feel as if he had any authority, as if he deserved to know where I was. I would furnish no reference materials as to my whereabouts. Not for his benefit.
I'd just left the house and was near the train tracks. I was stepping over a mangled wire fence, the one everybody steps over. Its a shortcut, the clearest cut path to the main road without having to trail along the fence for an actual gated door/opening. The fence was rickety. It's made of wire, but not chain links, just threads of wire that run horizontally to block livestock from the train tracks. I was crossing the part where the wires sag from frequent (human) crossings. I usually step on it and just walk right over without having to climb in any awkward position but that's when MD called and told me to to turn around, go back to my house and leave the keys where he could find them. He had documents to type. I when I said I wasn't comfortable with that, MD got upset and abruptly hung. That's when I got my left foot tangled in the wire fence. It snagged the foamy sole of my Reebok (the snag is still there on the inner sole of my left shoe) I had to balance and pull my foot out and I stomped across the train tracks to the main road and hitched a ride to Good Hope, where I was headed for the day.
This wasn't the first time MD urgently needed the computer. The last time he needed it and told me to leave my keys where he could find them (that was his phrasing), was when I had a workshop at the far reaches of my village. I didn't leave him the key but let him use the computer when I got home at the end of the day. The urgent purpose? Revising his 6 page C.V. on a Friday night. He was looking for another job, trying to get out of council, he said because they're unorganized and sloppy.
This particular day, the day I caught my foot in the fence as MD hung up the phone, I was at an event at a Faith Based Organization (FBO) where a famous gospel singer was performing. As part of her backup singing posse, Tebbie (the gospel singer--who wore in a racy red get-up) had a midgit among other tall people. It was by far one of the bizarrest things I've ever seen in Botswana. I sat next to Julie and we've never felt as uncomfortable as when we saw the little man dance. The audience laughed; when they weren't pointing, they would applaud. The two volunteers in Good Hope walked through the crowd taking pictures, passing out fliers, busying themselves by helping implement the event. Me and Julie's only job was to sway and dance to the sounds of Tebbie and her small/medium/ large backup singers, but for us dancing boiled down to swaying like we were blown by a breeze and clapping complicitly. There were less than 50 people in the audience and so there was nowhere to hide, no way out of participating. We looked over our shoulders and glanced at our cell phones for the time and I rotated between the lazy clap-and-sway and sitting down to prepare my brief. I had to talk to MD. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers unanimously told me to keep my distance from "Peace Corps" the institution; it just makes things more complicated, they all said, but I was considering calling my Associate Peace Corps Director (APCD) to help me work things out with MD. Until then, I wrote my case to document it and organize my thoughts. I was preparing to talk it out, trying to write out the previous things that made me uneasy, how I could contribute, how we could move forward; lots of "I" statements and therapy talk, but then my phone rang. The office phone is what popped up on my cell phone screen so I ran behind a building to take the call.
On the end of line was MD. His voice cracked and his words were staccato like a man tap dancing to the shots of a machine gun. His words rammed together; they bumped up against one another like a mouth of over crowded teeth, like a loud echo in an empty auditorium. I didn't shout back at him. All I did was enumerate the facts: My house is being used as a professional space, I said, and that's not the way its supposed to be. God forbid, if anything were stolen (a semi-frequent occurance for Peace Corps Volunteers) by someone I knew or someone coming to my house for help, I wouldn't know where to lay blame. I told him how early in the morning people report to my house for help if the office is closed. Lastly, I didn't feel comfortable with him being there while I wasn't. I didn't tell him, but the truth was that I didn't feel comfortable with MD ever being there. My counterpart was in the office, at her desk watching him on the phone yelling at me in a high pitched hysteria. Listening but silent. Not wanting to be involved. She never said anything to him during his fit or afterwards.
Although its petty, that was the official beginning of my hatred.
I did not approve of that, she said.
She was looking at the ground as she spoke about MD’s behavior that day. She spoke about it because I spoke to her about it and it was the beginning of a muted rage. A silent hatred that I would forget if only she would just like me or even half-heartedly care about anything I did or said. Our relationship had gone bitter like a tea bag left to steep too long. It went from mild, to strong, to a thick brown baste of disgust.
It was when MD came to my house at 5:45pm to use the boxy desktop computer in my sitting room that the hairline fracture broke into a thousand tiny pieces. There was a dead hum of violins so high pitched, so akin to a banshee's song that it sounded silent and the discord could only be felt. MD, Keitumetse and I sang this tune like a cacophonous choir and then we were broken shards of ourselves being swept up like broken beer bottles from the dancefloor at the end of a reckless night.
Work is over at 4:30 and MD lives in Lobatse, not next door to me but he appeared at 5:45 to use the computer. It was dusk and he wore a longish trenchcoat that billowed in the wind. I swear I'm not making this up (this and the little man really happened). All evidence pointed to a standoff. Just 2 hours ago, I was in the office and I talked to him about attending the Peace Corps counterpart workshop at my upcoming In-Service Training with KT. MD had a special way of ignoring me. It was slightly annoying but it still allowed for me to speak my piece. I was through no fault of my own that he didn't listen and so I tolerated it.
This workshop may be a good idea, I said, just to know what the Peace Corps is and to clarify my role as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
He nodded, yes, yes, okay, but he never mentioned needing the computer, only needing lunch for the following day.
You will cook me lunch tomorrow, he said said.
I’ll be busy. Maybe another time, was my reply.
But at dusk, he showed up on my porch to use the computer and I stood in my doorway. I told him he had 30 minutes. I was very clear. I had not invited him in. 30 minutes only, I said. He agreed, yes, yes that's okay; just 30 minutes. He could be finished in 30 minutes but 45 minutes later, he had forgotten the agreement and was appalled when I asked him to wrap it up.
MD argued with me. Told me I was a terrible volunteer, that I should be helping him help the community and that I was kicking him out. He was shouting. Pushing the line to see how far he could get me to go. In America, I'd never stand for this. I'd have called the police, a burly friend, a relative who'd just been released from jail. Such an option doesn't really exist in Botswana. I stayed calm because I couldn't afford to look bad but I could have bitten MD's bald little head off and spit it across the yard. I could have torn MD's skeletor shaped head off his thin neck with my teeth and spit the hollowed remains past my front yard, across the fence, and into the bush of thorns under the tree with sagging bird nests--but I didn't. Before he could even push me that far, a deux-ex-machina swept across the room and we were swallowed by darkness. The power went out for a brief 5 seconds and MD's document evaporated into the blank monitor screen. The power shuts off for a couple seconds and then comes right back on to give you a heads up that there is a scheduled black out and that's when MD said he thought it was time for him to leave. With that, he pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up to walk out of the door, leaving the door open behind him. MD had finally stepped over the line and he did it deliberately.
When Microsoft Word gave me to option to recover his documents, I deliberately deleted them because I am a petty and vindictive person. I've never claimed to be big and I was tired of his power games. That night, when the power went out, I sat in the dark at my counterpart’s house and told her she needed to do something. She shook her head in agreement and that was it. She did absolutely nothing and I knew she wouldn't do anything but I sat in the dark and was satisfied because MD was toppled off his high horse and trampled by the truth. Everyone knows the house always wins and that you can't beat the computer, but all of us in that office were now just shards of broken glass; a mess that needed cleaning up.