New experiences

Sometime around 2 a.m a couple of days ago i'm lying in bed pondering the meaning of life and other such weighty issues when the wall i'm staring at seems to move sideways. My first thought is that i'm really asleep and this is some sort of surreal dream. However, a crash from upstairs and the faint sound of a baby's cries from somewhere in the building convince me that i'm awake.

Some of you will already have guessed what became apparent to me as the seconds ticked by; Yes folks, i'd just experienced my first earthquake. I briefly wondered what the prudent thing to do would be then decided that as my apartment was on the first floor, I could easily jump off the balcony should things take a turn for the worse.

As i lay there listening to the neighbours soothing the baby back to sleep, I decided that judging from all the footage i'd seen on tv, this must be a relatively slight tremor. It only lasted about 20 seconds but by the end i'd concluded that not only is Africa extremely fortunate but perhaps the relative absence of a fear of sudden and cataclysmic natural disasters has contributed to our quintessentially laid back attitude to life. With that on my mind, I drifted back into my favourite dream (more on that some other time).