time makes fools of us all

So, I have about seven weeks before I jet off to the US and put fieldwork to bed for the time being.

Naturally, this was the week I found myself amongst a mass of people with whom I have struggled to get face-time for two years. My ship comes in just as I'm about to jump port.

But I got to hang out with some fabulous people this week. I ate lunch with former President of Botswana Festus Mogae and former President of Zambia Dr Kenneth Kaunda. I chatted over tea with Justice Edwin Cameron. I shmoozed with heads of agencies whose doors have been virtually shut to me for years, literally.

How frustrating that the kinds of situations one finds at the end of fieldwork are those that would have been most staggeringly helpful at the beginning.

hyperventilation

I sat next to royalty today.

Yes, it's a small country. Even so, I almost hyperventilated.

I was at a meeting of the community advisory board of one of the institutions I study. It was the first time I attended a meeting of this group. As I was reading over the minutes of the previous meeting, I noted a particular person's name. A moment later, that person walked into the room and sat down next to me.

These things happen in Botswana.

I was careful to address him correctly. (I've heard stories of people being corrected when they fail to address certain people in the proper manner.) He was quite lovely to me. But when was the last time you sat next to someone who could, by some serious argument, be addressed as "King"?

I can't help it, it's in the air these days.

the opposite of schadenfreude

What is the opposite of schadenfreude?

Someone recently played me a song about schadenfreude from Avenue Q. (Where has that been all my life? I wonder...) I appreciate schadenfreude, which I associate for some reason with Nietzsche.

But what is its opposite?

I attended a seminar at UB yesterday given by a senior sociologist, Professor W. I had been told about her work at a braai on Sunday, so I already knew the punch-line, but I found the talk interesting nonetheless. During the post-talk schmoozing, I walked over to where Prof W was standing -- not to talk to Prof W, with whom I had interacted during the talk itself, but because I had been trying to meet the person with whom Prof W was speaking. Mis-reading my intent, Ms Q introduced me to Prof W, noting that I was working on a degree in my particular discipline at my particular institution.

Prof W: [Discipline]! [Institution]! Oh my, [turning to Ms Q, who was arranging Prof W's appointments] that's the best [discipline] programme.

Ms Q: [looking just slightly put-out] It's the best for Botswana.

[Others assembled also look slightly put-out]

I am probably vastly overdrawing the interaction. But when you consider that in this particular social field, I rank very low (if not considered an outright nuisance), it certainly has an edge of comedy. I am lunching on Thursday with Prof W and an acquaintance who is the country director of an NGO here, and I have a strong suspicion that there may be more of this opposite-of-schadenfreude in store for me.