I'm standing over the stove in the main kitchen, cooking dinner and talking to some of my housemates. My roommate squeezes in between me and the counter to open one of the cupboards.
Immediately after opening, she slams the door shut and walks away.
"Cockroach?" I say.
"Yeah." She replies. "It crawled away right after I opened it, though."
"Good thing it didn't fall in my food!" I keep on making dinner.
Part of living in a country like South Africa means getting used to a lot of things--most of them bugs. Take another example:
Last night, I"m sitting at the dining room table with a bunch of other flatmates, eating dinner. A few girls are in the kitchen, singing and dancing to the radio, calling each other names, and impersonating each other. General chaos ensues, as per usual.
One of the girls comes in and sits at the table with me, telling a story about how she went on a date with her professor. The others sitting next to me are discussing their "Nicole Richie Food Intake Plan" to starve themselves skinny. Still nothing atypical.
In the backyard, a two-room tent is blowing wildly in the wind, to the point that it seems to be meeting its last stand, Custer-style. I'm not sure who it belongs to or why it's there, but questioning it only occurs to me for a fleeting second.
A girl walks from down the hallway, kicking something as she goes. When asked what she's kicking, she nonchalantly replies that it's a cockroach. As I stand up on the bench to avoid touching it (all the while eating my food), one of our male housemates disinterestedly grabs a lamp and shines it on the cockroach to help her as he continues to eat.
While this was going on, I suddenly stopped and looked around me. To be honest, the entire scene was quite amazingly ridiculous; the best part about it, however, was that it was a normal Wednesday night. Though living in this house can be frustrating at times, I must say that most of the time, I love it. I can say with certainty that I will miss it. So, true story: Kimberley House provides you with a plethora of life experiences and stories.
|
