Lamborghinis in Rwanda

Cast of characters:

  • Jessica F. – Longtime friend and former roommate in Madison, WI.
  • Random men in suits.
  • Me

Historical context:

  • I visited Rwanda in October 2012.
  • I would never park somewhere where I might get a ticket.
  • I have no particular affinity towards Lamborghinis.

Last night’s dream:

It was a bright and sunny day in Rwanda.  I was not in any particular city; just in a big bustling city in Rwanda.  I was standing on a frontage road/street that ran alongside a main road.  There were men everywhere dressed in conservative, drab suits, walking here and there at a quick pace.  The curbs were crumbling.  The stores were accurate… open-front stores with the goods set out on display on the sidewalks.  There was a big box of black shoes in front of one store.  All of a sudden I was in a car, driving up and down the frontage road, looking for a place to park.  I couldn’t find a legal place to park anywhere.  When I’d get to a T in the road, I’d turn around in a parking lot and go back to the other end of the street.  Back and forth, back and forth.  I finally called Jessica F. on my cell phone while I was driving.  I told her that I couldn’t find a place to park.  She told me to come back to the East end of the street, and when I got there, I could see that she had a place to park in a parking lot.  She was with four guys in suits in a maroon Lamborghini.  The Lamborghini was actually an old, 1980s, dull-looking, 4-door sedan, but in my dream, it was a Lamborghini.  I couldn’t believe that Jessica was in a Lamborghini!  Though the parking lot was empty except for the Lamborghini, I couldn’t park there for some reason.

Mexican Chickens and Semi Trucks

Cast of characters:

  • Max – A good friend and former colleague who lives in Burma.  I haven’t seen him in about 5.5 years.
  • Unknown semi driver
  • Me

Historical context:

  • Jessica F. and I went to Ixtapa, Mexico, eight or so years ago and visited a glass-blowing workshop a way out of town.  We took a public bus to the middle of nowhere, at which point we walked along a dusty highway in the desert to get to the glass-blowing workshop.  Many semi trucks passed us along the way, and they invariably all had a button that they could push when they passed us that whistled a little cat call at us.
  • Semis of all sorts scare the crap out of me.
  • I love Mexico.

Last night’s dream:

There I was, standing in the middle of the Mexican desert… hot and dusty with a bright blue sky and silence filling the air.  I was looking for a pottery studio, walked around for a bit, and found it.  I purchased a set of six pottery chickens that nested inside one another, just like Russian nesting dolls.  The chickens had big round bellies with small head and tails.  They were all painted identically in bright red with floral decorations on their sides in purple, green, and white.  I took all six of my ceramic chickens to the highway and proceeded to line them along the white dotted line in the middle of the highway heading East.  I lined the chickens up from biggest to smallest, all about eight inches apart from one other.  After the chickens were properly lined up, I left the road.

Flash to me standing in a dusty parking lot next to a semi with Max.  The driver was in the truck, and the motor was running.  I explained to Max that I had a present for him but that we’d have to get in the truck to drive to go see it.  Max and I jumped into the truck; I sat in the middle next to the Mexican driver, and Max sat in the passenger seat.  We slowly drove North toward the highway where I lined up the chickens.  When we reached the intersection with the highway, I could see that my chickens were still lined up in the middle of the road and that no one had run them over yet.  I specifically told the driver that he could not turn right into the first line but rather that he must turn into the far lane.  As he turned right into the far lane of the highway, I told Max to quickly roll down his window, stick his head out, and look down.  The driver drove slowly past the chickens so that Max could see them lined up in the middle of the road.  After we passed them, Max and I sat cheering in the cab of the truck.

That’s it! 😀