Friday Night

I ended up having a delightfully odd evening. The last day of the conference was pretty good with some good sessions - and a great lunch, complete with some traditional dancing, which I'll post pictures of in my next posting. On the way home I ended up with another really friendly taxi driver. Apparently Zambia has the nicest, most honest taxi drivers in the world - I've posted elsewhere about some of my adventures with taxis in the Middle East and India. Here every taxi driver was very friendly and they all charged exactly the same amount - 30,000 kwacha ($6) - for the ride from the hotel to the conference centre, even later in the evening. My driver's name was Andrew and he was from an Islamic tribe, and wore a very distinctive hat. He was quiet until I asked him about the Zambian national football team, and then he completely opened up (the secret to getting on the good side of taxi drivers around the world) - we discussed the replacement of the Zambian coach and the steady growth of the team, and their recent match with Chile. I'll try and post a picture of him, although the Internet is being painfully slow tonight. When I returned to the hotel it was too early to eat at the restaurant (at least for the buffet, which is great - especially Friday night, when it is Indian night) so I plopped down at the bar, ordered a Castle Lager (an eminently wonderful Zambian beer, which may now be my all-time favorite beer) and wrote in my journal. It was one of those inexplicably great moments when you can't quite figure out why you're so happy. I just sat there writing in my journal and drank a second Castle - and feeling that all was right with the world. Eventually a two man house band showed up and began to play this eclectic collection of songs - for example, here are four in a row: the theme from The Godfather, George Michaels' Careless Whisper, Can't Stop Loving You, and A Whiter Shade of Pale. Later they played Fernando by Abba, which would have clearly made my friend Sandy Zale smile. So, I emailed Sandy, Andy Burkhardt, Erik Eskilsen, Mike Lange and Steve Wehmeyer (the Gentlemen of Excellence of chicken wing eating fame) to share the Abba news - which resulted in a return email from Sandy discussing the role of Abba as a redemptive force in the world (one of his constant theories). After a while I walked over to the Jacaranda restaurant itself and, despite the temptations of the Indian buffet, ordered a meal off the menu that I had been considering all week - chicken with a mushroom and tarragon sauce - it was amazing. I finished it up, stopping just short of licking the plate, and then had vanilla ice cream and a cafe latte - and finished writing in my journal. All in all, a lovely evening.