Blissful Oblivion

For the last five weeks, I have been so insulated from what has been happening in the rest of the world. There is no TV, no radio, and definitely no internet. World War III could have started and I am living in Lubwe in blissful oblivion. Okay, that is not true; the one national newspaper they sell at the market would probably report it, although the paper normally makes it here a day late.

There is satellite TV at the guesthouse, but the account hasn’t been paid in months and service has been suspended. When I turn it on, I only get to watch the TV Guide channel and, occasionally, BTV (Botswana TV). So the other day, I was bored and started to flip through the menu on the TV Guide channel. And what do you know, I can read news from the wired services! I go through the half dozen categories with about ten items of news in each and devour each and every story.

Now, whenever there is power during my time off, I turn on the TV to read the news. I follow the neck-and-neck race between Clinton and Obama, read about the tattered economy of neighboring Zimbabwe while Mugabe declares his confidence in winning the upcoming election, and am extremely relieved to find out that Britney can now see her children and Paris is still living it up in Vegas. It feels so surreal to be reading about the shenanigans of Hollywood celebrities in a part of the world where those “news” couldn’t be more irrelevant.