hello twenty-sixteen! (with chicken wings)

Hello 2016. Today is the first of January. Again! It’s 5pm and I have just woken up. Looking through the window, the sky is filled with gray clouds. And the air full of moisture – it’s almost chilly.

The fridge is crying empty and I need to be fed. Naturally, all supermarkets are closed and I back off to one of the few places open, S****, a burger chain, kind-of. The waiter walks me to a table and as I am sitting down, someone pokes from the other side of a wooden pane, “Hey, Loic! You’re here!”. What a surprise, those are people I had just spent the new year’s eve with! Difference is, they haven’t slept at all. I join their table as they are nibbling at chicken wings and sipping coffee. In spite of the long nap I just took, I also need food and caffeine to recover.

Is it still raining? Barely, in my opinion. I’ve handed the sketchpad to Tumelo. I notice her drawing displays a cloudy sky with rain pouring. “Rain is a blessing”, she explains.

And what else, beside rain, for 2016?

As for Priscilla, she wants it to happen this year. She wants to go to Cape Town…she wants to drink good tequila and…”Asenze imali!!” (“let’s make money”, in Zulu).

For Busisa, this will all be about meeting people. All kinds of people. I suppose, of all shades. I can’t help but remark how extended the vocabulary is here, in South Africa, to qualify skin tones: yellow bones, black berries, caramel, coffee…with some milk. I get lost.

And what to do with all this money, Priscilla? Maybe buy a house. Like this one you just drew?

Yeah, this the same old song again, of dreams and resolutions. Yet we all have to deal with uncertainty. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. How to do then? Plan for the worst and expect the best…or expect the best and prepare for the worst? Or hope for the best…Eish, it’s confusing.

That’s it: we all want best things at the end of the day. Or the year.

Happy new year to you, fellow passengers!

Youri