botswanan reflections: dreadlocked humour

so we just came back from a trip to botswana with our good friends dreadlock mike (i call him that because his name is mike and he has, well, you know…) and nancy the twin (name is nancy and…) and friends and both of these incidents happened on either side of the botswanan trip, but they are related and quite funny so i thort i’d share…

the beautiful val and i fly up to the kwazulu of natal to connect with d mike and nancy tt and the plan is to drive to joburg, sleep over and then drive up to botswana together, meeting their friends on the way…

so as we are leaving kzn we stop at a pharmacy so tbv can buy some adrenalin to protect her from the deathly effects of being stung by bees and her and d mike are in the pharmacy while nancy and i head off to the atms to draw money (why do they call it drawing money cos clearly no drawing takes place?) and when we join up again, tbv has a story

the one old bat (no, really) behind the counter is looking at d mike and turns to val, who is waiting to pay, and says something about ‘wo, look at that hair of mankiness’ and so val responds, ‘that’s my friend’ and so the lady (in possibly a top ten of the all-time finest back-pedals) reresponds with, “oh i’m sure he must be a nice guy, but imagine making love to that hair” – this is like a 60yr plus lady – VERY funny…

then botswana happens and on the last nite as we feast on the most amazing (and cheap, from a place called all days on the way up to the bots) fillet, dreadlock mike manages to snap off and swallow one of his teeth (one of the two false teeth he has either side of his two main top row teeth) and so with dreadlocks and now missing tooth, when he does the mike redneck shoulder-raising laugh it is truly a sight to behold

we arrive back in durban on the fri nite and sat morning we head to the spca for a good breakfast (yes, yes, that sentence could be a blog in itself but this particular spca in kloof is like spca city so there is a restaurant and craft market and kareoke lady and a bunch of other stuff happening and they have a cheap slow tea garden vibe so we stopped for breakfast before the flight out)

d mike goes to the counter to order and the lady behind the counter looks at him and says, “how many girlfriends do you have?” [much funnier story when d mike tells it in accent] and he responds by showing her his wedding ring and says, “no, no, i’m married so there is just the one lady in my life” and she looks at him again and says, “no, i am pretty sure i saw you on Cheaters” and so d mike returns to our table with a very emphatic, “i need to get that tooth fixed!”

on a sad note, my hair was not quite long enuff for the dreadlocking of it by mike, so waiting will have to occur…

dreading the marriage

or marrying the dreaded?

i am leaving in an hour or so for the airport to head for durban where on sat i will be marrying dreadlocked mike and nancy the twin (just in case there is any confusion about the nicknames i have given these two, mike has dreads and nancy is a twin… smooth.)

and i am so super amped – i have written my marriage licence test but i have yet to get the results and so i am not allowed to do the legal stuff for this wedding [which i am uber happy about cos imagine screwing that up – “hi guys, so by the way, you aren’t really married, i used a blue pen and not a black one, oops”] and this is my second time preaching at a wedding (with another one coming later this year for kleinbigfrans and michelleofprettynormalsize)

my first wedding was a young afrikaans couple who were fairly new to our church and asked me if i would do the preach and the first words out of my mouth were ‘can i preach barefoot’ [i preach at our sun evening enGAGE service barefoot normally and it was more of a joke than a serious question cos it was an afrikaans wedding and all and so i knew there was no way that] and they said yes and i couldn’t believe it, but decided to anyways and worked it into my preach (and they have been commenting very flattering stuff on my facebook statuses this week so i take it it all went pretty well)

and so when dreadlocked mike and nancy the drama student (and twin!) asked me i knew it was just a formality to ask whether i could preach barefoot and so when mike said “no” i was a little perturbed (cos after my first wedding i was ‘right, that’s going to be my thing, i will always preach barefoot at weddings!’) and surprised but they’re my friends and it’s their wedding and preaching with shoes on at their wedding was a thousand times more favourable than being barefoot in cape town while their wedding took place

mike phoned me the other nite to say they’d been discussing things and part of the vibe was they wanted to be them and they wanted me to be me and so i should preach barefoot and when i semi objected cos i really wanted nancy to be happy and have the wedding she always wanted mike almost commanded me to go commando, um i mean barefoot (that’s different hey? commando in the foot department? better.) and so i just might [but if not i will definitely be wearing my marvin the martian cartoon shoes with my black suit]

but the main point is i am so much looking forward to this wedding (yes, the title was just to hook you in to read it and look, here you are) and more importantly this marriage because of everything that it means – because mike and nancy are two of my favourite people in the world and i am really hoping a couple that we will be connected with for a decent period at some point in our lives and i am hoping for soon – and because marriage between the right people (and i really think these two are the right people) is incredible

what an opportunity to celebrate with two friends the start (or continuation) of a most amazing journey and to stand up with a group of friends and family and say “we have you on this. we have your backs. rely on us. use us. call on us. cry on our shoulders. borrow from us. invite us over” because as amazing as marriage is, it is not easy – well, sometimes, a lot of the time in fact, it really is, but you have two people each with their own crap and sin and issues and attitudes and morning or late evening personas and now they are sharing a space together always – and it is important to have a community of people who love you and will commit themselves to speak into the marriage, to leave space for it to grow, to ride shotgun for it when times are rough, to fight for it when those inside are feeling weak and tired or stressed out, to celebrate it regularly, and to draw strength from it…

here’s to mike and nancy and the start of a beautiful marriagetionship…