Our receptionist was born and raised a true princess. She moved through life at only one speed: regally slow. This proved true even when bullets hissed by our office window.
It was my brother-in-law’s first week on our project in Africa. We were on a conference call with the New York team. Outside our second story office on the university campus, students were protesting. The army was sent in to disperse them. We peered out the window from time to time, but nothing seemed to be happening. Then in an instant, the protest turned into a riot.
The two sides clashed in the parking lot below our office window. The students screamed and charged. The army began to fire their automatic weapons into the air to disperse the crowd. We dove for cover under the conference table as bullets whined by us from the parking lot below.
Except for our princess receptionist. As minor royalty from a tribe in western Uganda she was utterly unflappable. Amidst the volleys of rifle fire, screaming students, and cowering colleagues, she calmly sashayed across the office in her regally slow way to fix a cup of tea. As you do.
My brother-in-law stared at me wide-eyed under the table as the percussion of the guns continued. I assured him there was nothing to worry about and joked that this only happened every other week. In truth I was petrified. We had forgotten all about the people from New York on the conference line. Then their voices came on:
“What the hell is that noise, Chuck?” they asked.
“Weapons fire” I replied, trying to sound ho-hum. “I suppose we’re going to have reschedule the call”.
At which point, the New York team began to scroll through their Blackberry’s (remember those?) and mumbled stuff like “I suppose I could do next Tuesday, does that work for you?”
“Ah, guys” I said, no longer hiding behind a façade of calm, “we’re actually in the middle of a riot here. We’ll reschedule later”. I hung up. Our receptionist added more sugar to her tea. Then sipped it for taste.
Finally during a break in the chaos we saw a safe opening for us all to leave the office. But before doing so, the princess glided over to the hallway mirror to adjust her hair. And then washed up her tea cup.
[If you know others who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]
[Apologies for a lack of blog post last week! Sometimes Mondays are too much even for us at Words for the Weary!]
Image Credit: Best African Proverbs
