7.25.2008

Trippin' — South African edition

By the looks of it, I'm in a jungle. I'm following a long line of people who are traversing the tricky terrain, but especially on my radar is this young black woman with kinky hair that kind explodes from her head in all directions.

It kind of feels like I'm watching a documentary, or perhaps making one, as I listen to her talk about how much she loves the cacao bean and what kind of effect it has on her. I turn around to see her demonstrating, taking what looks like a standard black beanstalk (not what real cacao looks like) in her mouth and sucking out the insides. She becomes delirious — seriously, seriously high — and falls to the ground in a fit of ecstasy. The ground, I notice, is muddy and covered with trampled tropical leaves. Tall grass surrounds us. The young woman's eyes roll back in her head as she trips. Someone tries to help her stand — we've got to keep moving — and she simply keels over and does a straight-up faceplant into some mud and grass.

That's when I notice the bugs — giant, huge, ENORMOUS bugs, crawling over her at lightning speed, on their way to places more interesting, presumably. These bugs are everywhere in the grass. I can see them — roaches the size of lobsters, beetles the size of chihuahuas — leaping in and out of the grass and skittering over people's feet. I restrain my horror and think to myself So this is what South Africa is like.

(In all reality, wouldn't it be more likely that I was in South America, what with the cacao and the jungle? I dunno...)

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