Peng

I slept the night at Wim’s house because the tourism department bods were occupying the guest camp. In the morning I stood on the backdoor step next to this duck, whilst Mendes made panquecas (pancakes), and I took the chance to go go the office late (at 6.45am).

This duck must have seen it all. Elephants drifting past the back of the house, impala using the grass as a sanctuary / birthing lawn, and the house’s Jack Russell cannoning through the air like a supercharged and oversized brown and white battery including in the direction of one’s bed at 5.15am.

‘Cross purposes’ is my wanky management term du jour. Is it supposed to be crossed purposes, to be grammatically accurate? Cross probably more accurately reflects the emotion resulting from management interactions. In projects, we are always talking at cross/ed purposes, not doing enough to achieve a consensus way forward, and not realising when we’re falling into that trap. I think I spend much of my energy at work identifying crossed wires, with limited success at uncrossing them, and instead of using energy on this I should go to live in a cave in Tibet.

My colleague Jack messaged from the UK to ask whether where I am in Mozambique is ‘peng’. This is what all the kids are saying now and I believe it means ‘good’. I said I had missed the cut-off for regular use of peng by about ten years, but that yes, Niassa Reserve is peng. He then sent me photos of a recent trip to Malta, and I lobbed some back from Mozambique.