Out of Africa
I had a great treat this week: the opportunity to talk to Cupcake for two hours via IM. I only call him Cupcake when I’m teasing him, of course. His name in his native Xhosa language looks for all the world like Cupcake, to me, but it isn’t. With groups and people outside his native Zimbabwe, he uses an entirely different name. And, he moved from Zimbabwe to South Africa with his parents about forty years ago, as an infant.
On top of which, I can think of no less appropriate name for my six-feet three-inches friend, who is probably 270 pounds of pure muscle, a man’s man, and the blackest skin I’ve ever seen. I don’t have the balls to call him Cupcake seriously.
His mother currently resides in Zimbabwe and received a COVID19 injection, the first of two, recently. My great friend says there is no information from the South African government about when the country might begin getting vaccines from China. I reassured him that, to the best of my knowledge, the Chinese-developed vaccine is quite good. It relies on an older but proven technology, and explained how the vaccine enters the cells and spurs creation of antibodies. My friend is no Cupcake-come-lately, and is quite bright. He understands that an easily-transported vaccine with no super-cooled storage requirement and a very good level of effectiveness is a great solution for his adopted country.
I didn’t try to explain how to assemble a messenger RNA vaccine because I made a fool of myself fairly often before a vaccine creation molecular biologist beat me bloody enough times until his lessons sunk in. The detail level of my explanation is around the sophistication of “Fall down, go boom.” He understood that difficulty in transport and storage requirements mean that only developed Western countries will get access to the new style of vaccines. I sent him papers I had written on the various types of vaccines.
Cupcake is an entrepreneur and an accountant. I have been mentoring him for more than a decade. We established a small joint venture in South Africa to offer affordable sophisticated business consulting services to small and medium businesses, and achieved some limited success. There are still two or more South Africas, one white, one black, one of mixed race, one South Asian, and within those cultures are tribes, just like in most countries. He has worked with and for all groups in South Africa and for years he guided me in obtaining work in the Sub-Saharan region. We established a small research center to serve us; the JV paid Cupcake to run it. I introduced him to several prospective Western clients and to my network of solo consultancies around the world that worked collaboratively. He provided invaluable advice on such things as operating environment for aircraft, how tariffs were assessed and collected (versus what the regulations claimed), what ports to use, and the relationships among the various remnants of European colonialism on the continent. I wrote our JV’s proposals and did the financial modeling; he found the best hand to put it in. A valued professional colleague as much as a friend.
I gave him information on Vitamin D formation and how the best place for someone with COVID19 was outdoors. We talked about our families; my youngest daughter and he are also friends and of a similar age. His youngest son has what sounds to me like an Autism Spectrum Disorder. He’s been receiving specialized care for well over a decade, and I’ve reassured him that from my perspective he’s found a good team of care-givers. We tossed around a few business ideas and how to pursue them. My friend is usually the one who surfaces the ideas, at least nowadays.
For two full hours I was filled with the joy of friendship, and never once thought about the fact that I’m dying.