where the wild things are

Mozambique was beautiful. (I always want to write Moçambique instead because I think the ç is so pretty. And I loved listening to Portuguese, which involves all these pretty zhuh-zhuh-zha sounds.) We partied pretty hard on Friday night, so we spent Saturday restoring ourselves at a fabulous little cafe, taking a little driving tour of Maputo, and hanging by the pool, listening to waves crash on the beach below. Saturday evening we went out for steak, and then dropped by the train station -- gorgeous, and supposedly designed by Eiffel -- to listen to some live jazz.

We left Moçambique Sunday morning. It's a 10-hour drive, not including stops. We got back to Gabs around half past eight in the evening. I had to get up on Monday for the first day of a week-long conference on paediatric HIV. When I got home yesterday evening, I crashed in front of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for a while, took a hot bath, and slept like a log.

I got up this morning, and walked into the kitchen to make tea. When I saw broken glass on the floor my heart started racing and I began to shake: I had left my laptop in the living room before I had gone to bed. Dissertation! data! disaster! Someone must have broken in!

First, I looked to the table where I'd left my computer, and it was still there. Second, I noticed that all of the windows were intact. Third, there were -- now that I looked -- white splotches all over the floor, the table, and my computer.

Then I heard a noise...

I looked up to see a barn owl sitting in the rafters. It was staring at me from its perch high in the roof beams. It was beautiful, with such large eyes in its white face. It flew from beam to beam, and then suddenly swooped down, thumping against one of the windows in an attempt to escape. Its wingspan was enormous.

Now for the back story: An owl had gotten into the house about two weeks -- or was it only one week? -- ago. The folks from the local game reserve came out and collected it from the wine rack, where it had hidden itself. But they had taken most of the day to show up, and I didn't have time to wait. It was 6:20am, and the conference started at 8am.

I opened the living room's two sliding glass doors, retreated, and waited while the owl flew (painfully, to my ears) into one window after another: thump! retreat to rafters; thump! retreat to rafters...

Then the thumps stopped. I stepped down to the room and looked out into the early morning sky, but the owl was gone.