"I Have No Problems - No Girlfriend, No Wife"

Today the plan was to go with Johnson to Oshikango to do my shopping for the week and then to go pick-up Marvin (Johnson’s son, named after Marvin Gaye) to take pictures. Around 9am Maria and I headed over to catch a ride with Johnson. Maria was planning to meet up with Kavari, who had gone to Odipo the night before, before heading to Ondangwa. Delicious and Nangolo also came along. Before noon, we were at a shebeen called Hip Hops, next to the Portugal market. It seems that the boys come here regularly and it’s a place that I would never have come without being with the boys. We settled at a table and got a round of Windhoek Lagers. Jim, aka the Dog, one of Nangolo’s acquaintances from soccer leagues, was at the bar and joined us. He was drinking punya punya, which is a combination of a really cheap crappy red wine called Tassenberg and coke. Within five minutes of meeting him, he told me he had no problems – no girlfriend, no wife – and that he could call me and take me around. He also wanted to take a photo with me. Right then. So Delicious came with me and Jim to go next door to Portugal, which has a photo place inside. It was crazy mobbed! So we left to go down the street to another photo place. Jim, John Delicious and I took a picture in front of a cheesy screened background outside. But Jim wanted a picture of just the two of us, so we went to the plain wall in front of the bank next door to take another picture. Of course he only bought the one of me and him. I should have bought the other one, it was only N$10. Picture in hand, Jim was a happy camper. However, he was trying to get too close to me, and he was getting more and more drunk. Eventually, the boys stepped in and he ended up leaving. During the time that we were at Hip Hops, we kept hearing the same songs over and over, which is typical, but it was better music than what I’ve been hearing. Justin Timberlake, Cry Me A River and Fat Joe/Lil Wayne, Make It Rain.

By 4pm we were back in Edundja to meet Sunday (Marvin’s mother) and Marvin. Nangolo boiled potatos, Johnson made chicken and macaroni. We hung out, took photos, ate. Delicious “crunched my bones” since I don’t crunch them – I only eat the meat off the bone, many Namibians crunch on them and eat the bone too.