we could go to the pictures, spend some money

it fell to our lot that mierneska and i would carry bags of our own feces to a laboratory around rond point score then have our blood drawn. there were many street children around here before who would pick pockets but they have been disappeared so there's not as many now. but you can tell europeans always come here because when they try to sell me groundnuts in a bottle they call them cacahuetes instead of arachides. the cab driver stops at some point and laughs and starts to make a u-turn

tu vois, il y a l'inondation

i thought there should be some minor puddle then we'd get around but the driver found out quickly from his colleagues that our destination itself was in about a meter of standing water. we got out and walked along the sidewalk and quickly saw that this was no exaggeration. the street was inundated, flooded completely. you could float a boat in all that muddy garbage-filled water. we took a detour, going around the lake. we were able to get very close to the lab, but reached the border of the lake. the lab's guard, one of the 7-foot tall fulbe people from the north, came wading up and said he'd take our bags of feces and drop them off, but we had to get blood drawn too, so he said he'd carry mierneska in his arms and i'd wade in his wake. the water was up to my knees but we got to the stairwell and were walking up to the lab.

-that's fucked up, i say
-you're fucked up?
-no, the situation
-yeah, i guess you're right. it is fucked up

two women were there in the waiting room, one with a baby lying across her lap. they were talking in ewondo but used the word inondation. the one with the baby bounced the baby and made him smile and sung to him in french

we're never going home,
mon bébé,
we're going to sleep here
because everything's flooded

we came back to the office. on the way i bought a bottle of black label and its cost was the same as a month's rent. it's ok because i'm leaving in two days and i'm not going back to the lake to buy black market euros. in the office we made pancakes and sipped green tea with mint and a bit of cream, laughing. someone has an album of Cesária Évora who sings in Cabo Verde creole, saying:

Sodade
sodade
Sodade
Dess nha terra
São Nicolau
Si bo; 'screve' me
'M ta 'screve be
Si bo 'squece me
'M ta 'squece be
Até dia
Qui bo voltá