The sky isn't folding under you

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was once lying in a flowerbed one afternoon staring up to the sky. A friend stopped by and somewhat baffled, asked him "what are you doing here?" "Exactly!" Schopenhauer replied brightening up at the prospect of intelligent conversation "What are we doing here?"
What we are 'doing here' is a debate we've all had at some time or other (usually under the influence of alcohol) but I had an interesting debate about it with my friend Thomas when I was still at uni. I was reminded of this when I got an email from him telling me about his travails in trying to turn the English to the bible. I met Thomas quite by chance once day in the Uni cafeteria. I had been approached by two guys with leaflets who wanted to know if I was a Christian and if I had a few minutes so spare. We sat in the cafeteria and we talked for a few minutes and then they had to leave. As I stood outside getting ready to go back to the hall I was approached by two other guys.
"I'm sorry we couldn't help overhearing your conversation in the cafeteria" One said "We were sitting next to your table. Do you mind if we talk to you for a few minutes?" So back in we went.
They started asking me what bible the other guys had tried to offer me. "Was it the recovery version?" Thomas-for that was his name- asked "Some people are leading others astray because they follow a wrong version of the bible"
I listened with growing interest- warring bible factions! This was getting exciting. It was like The matrix but with bibles. With this in mind it became a bit difficult to take things seriously but we did become friends afterwards. I did find it a bit amusing that there were groups of Christians going around campus undermining the other Christian groups.
In an unrelated development I recently read Eleven minutes by Paulo Coelho which I absolutely hated. However I still made it all the way to the end because I hate leaving books half-read even awful books like this one. It's one of those books which-as Mark Twain said- once you put it down, you can't pick it up. However the back of the book did offer some amusement. It purported to show the predicament of our heroine Maria (who leaves Brazil for Swirtzeland and ends up working as a prostitute in a high-class bar) It seems she has to choose between sex for the pleasure of sex itself (referred to here as 'the path of darkness') and sex in the context of love. What a dilemma! She has to choose between sex and...erm, sex! My heart bleeds for her- I think we can all agree that it isn't an easy decision to make.
Anyway up next I plan to read A clockwork Orange in French which should be a weird experience. It's called Orange mecanique which at least is a direct translation. Usually the French get cheeky when translating the titles of English films and for some reason often turn the title into a question. Thus Airplane becomes Y'a-t-il un pilote dans l'avion? (is there a pilot in this plane?)sometimes they just want aim for maximum obviousness so Home alone becomes maman, J'ai rate l'avion (mum, I missed the plane)
Anyway I went for a football game at the stadium the other day. It was the biggest game on Rwanda's football calendar- Rayon Sport vs APR. I got the cheapest seats possible partly because I'm stingy but mainly because I wanted to stand with the real vocal fans- the ones with the flags and the whistles and the ones who were doing the singing. The atmosphere was electric and I was deaf within the first ten minutes. I was amused by the use of mini-umbrellas as a kind of hat worn around the head with a strap that goes around your forehead- a good idea because it threatened to rain all afternoon. However I was more intrigued by the chanting and how something which sounds catchy and appropriate as a football chant in Kinyarwanda is instantly rendered rather less so in English. For example when the referee controversially allowed an APR goal to stand, the fans behind me started singing and this is what they sang:
FERWAFA
this is a problem
and it concerns you
Now obviously in English it doesn't sound like a conventional football chant but it was catchy as hell in Kinyarwanda and I was singing it on my way back home. The rest of the chants were more ordinary- "we are fed up" and "the referee is an idiot" were two crowd favourites. APR won the game 3-1 but by the time the second half started, the sky above my head was thick with thousands of bugs attracted by the giant stadium lights. It was a vertitable insect utopia as buterflies, grasshoppers, moths and God knows what else engaged in a merry dance- so thick above our heads that they blotted out the night sky. When we left the game, there were so many fans on the road that you could only move at a shuffling pace. I felt strangely elated caught up in this human traffic. Even the Rayon fans were in good spirits despite the walloping they had received.
Random thoughts:
-Apparently Uganda is going to plant a forest and name it after Queen Elizabeth. How does that work? She pops by for a few days and she gets a bloody forest named after her? However I suspect the forest will have more charisma than her majesty. Harsh but fair.
-It is so good to have the BBC world service on FM. I couldn't get it in Arusha which was very frustrating but now it's my night-time companion again. How I wish I could also get Five live...
-My friend Leo believes marriage and relationships are the means by which women secretly control the world and it is the duty of every man to cheat as much as possible. Not exactly a common position for a guy doing a degree in pure maths at Uni.