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Description
Early one summer morning, on a Saturday, in January of 1992 (southern hemisphere, Angola), a young adult, male, meerkat who was not from around the area was panhandling for money around the cafe'. The linsang couple who owned the cafe' didn't consider it a problem until the meerkat stranger began pestering customers for a paw-out at the front door of the cafe'. When the male linsang, one of the owners of the cafe', asked the meerkat to move on to some other part of the village, he noticed the meerkat replied in English with some Afrikaan, but didn't seem to understand Portuguese.
The cafe' owner then told the meerkat in English, "Me customers you run off. Please, down the street. There, you can you do what you do?".
"Oh. Yea. Sure", the meerkat timidly replied, then made his way diagonally across the street to the CFB Railway passenger station.
That branch of the CFB Railway is two and a half foot, narrow gauge rail line, with most trains pulled by Garrett, articulating locomotives;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=itJBnR…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjd3I9…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCyOfv…
When the meerkat entered the station, a mongoose came to the ticket counter and asked in the usual curtious way, "Que eu possa ser útil para você?" (May I be helpful to you?).
"I don't know what it is you say", the meerkat replied.
"Oh. How can I be of help for you? Where is it you wish to travel?", The mongoose restated his question.
"I am trying to get to Tanzania so I can locate my uncle", the meerkat replied.
"Our trains. They do not go to Tanzania. The nearest to Tanzania you can ride will be Kuvango. From there, you will need to make other travel arrangements", the mongoose informed the meerkat.
The meerkat then mentioned, "For the moment, I have no money...How can you help me?".
The mongoose then rememered something, even though it was a Saturday, then offered a solution, "The freight depot, just across the tracks. They are inventorying shipments today and helpers they still need...And they will pay you, with cash".
The meerkat could clearly see from the passenger station, animals in the freight depot, across the tracks, who were busy checking and moving packages and crates...some freight parcels which were earlier received, and some in preparation to be loaded aboard boxcars on the siding to await a train to pick them up.
"I can not do that", the meerkat replied.
"A passenger train, going northbound. It will be here at twenty minutes after eleven. Now it is twenty five before eight. To earn money for a ticket, you have plenty of time", the mongoose insisted, and also noticed the meerkat had five toes each foot instead of the normal four...but that was not important.
"It just looks so hard", the meerkat retorted.
"You see here, young meerkat", the mongoose protested. "You will not ride a train for free. I try to help you. The freight depot, helpers they still need".
"But...but...I have bad luck right now. You can not help me?" the meerkat asked.
"Young meerkat, I must ask you to leave", the mongoose finally said. "I try to help you. You do nothing".
"But but but", the meerkat began.
"You must leave. There is no buts. A but here is a bunta, you ass. Go. Leave now", the mongoose told the meerkat.
The meerkat then left the passenger station and made his way to the west end of the village. There, he went to the metal fabrication shop, but not in the lobby area where customers normally go...He wandered into the shop floor area where the animals there were busy, working that Saturday, catching up on an overdue order.
A jackal approached him and asked, "Você está procurando trabalho hoje?" (You are searching for work today?).
"What you are saying, I do not understand you", the meerkat replied.
The jackal didn't know English very well, so a civet came and spoke with the meerkat.
"Is it a job you try to find here today?", the civet asked.
"Oh no", the meerkat answered. "I just need some money".
Those animals who overheard and knew English busted out laughing. And when those animals who didn't know English heard it explained in Portuguese, and they too busted out laughing.
"If in the case you mom never tell you, and you dad never tell you, you work for you money. I will tell you, you do", the civet told the meerkat.
"Sim. He be right. The way you think it be, it be not", a genet further told the meerkat.
Sanchez Genet, who was also working there that day, told the the meerkat, "We work, so can you. The freight warehouse, they need workers today. Some of my friends, they are working there now".
Then the business owner, a caracal cat, came over and asked, "O suricato. O que é que ele quer?" (The meerkat. What does he want?)
Sanchez Genet, along with the civet and the other genet told their boss what the meerkat had just said to them.
"Ele fala inglês. Nao português" (He speaks English. Not Portuguese), the civet further added.
"What is your name, meerkat?", the caracal cat asked in a more refined manner of English.
"Pancho, Sir", the meerkat answered.
Then the caracal cat told the meerkat, "Alright, Pancho sir. We don't paw out money for nothing around here. If you get money here, you earn it here. Understand?...I'm asking you now to leave this property and don't come back...If I see you back, I will have the constable here, and you can spend a night in the zoo".
Pancho Meerkat got the message very clearly and left, then walked across the wide, dirt street to the gas station...in which he was promptly run off from when he began panhandling from some of their customers there.
Pancho then crossed the side street to Sy Aardwolf's automotive shop and junkyard.
Like the other animals Pancho encountered in the village, Sy greeted him in Angolan dialect Portuguese, beginning with a cheerful, "Ola...", then heard Pancho respond in English that he didn't understand him.
"Hello. What is it that you need today?", Sy then asked Pancho in English.
"Some money for a train ticket if you have it to spare", Pancho answered.
Sy thought a moment, then invited Pancho, "My office, come on in, please. Let us talk".
"I guess so", Pancho answered as he took Sy up on his offer.
Upon entering the office, which had automotive parts laying about on it's dirt stained concrete floor, Sy requested to Pancho, "Don't mess with anything on the desk", referring to a spread of tools laid out on a shop towel on the desk.
In Sy Aardwolf's office, Sy sat at his old, ragged, solid wood desk (the one with the tools on it) which was mostly bare of it's varnish and it's green linoleum top laminate separating on the edges. Pancho took a seat on an old, metal, fold-up chair that had it's share of dings in it and a few worn coats of different colour paint.
After they introduced their selves, Sy opened the conversation, "So it is somewhere you must travel...When money I give, it is for those in need, not for everyone who extends the paw".
"I need to go north to see my uncle. And I have no money to ride the train", Pancho replied.
"Have not you seeked any work for today?", Sy asked.
Pancho paused a moment, then answered, "I have not found work".
Sy mentioned, "The train that will take you north, it will be here at twenty past eleven. It is now - uh", looking up at a clock, "fifteen past eight".
"That is a few hours from now", Pancho replied.
Sy then concluded, "To find someone in this village by now who is in need of a worker today, then to earn enough to board the train, it will push it close".
Sy Aardwolf and Pancho Meerkat conversed in the office a while longer. Through the conversation, Sy learned that Pancho was from Namibia, and had grown up in a meerkat colony...Sy had before heard about those partial subterranean, communal colonies being 'sort of a meerkat thing' in Namibia. Sy had also learned that Pancho had been banished from the colony where he was born and raised, and was now traveling north to look up one of his uncles who was also banished as an outcast from the colony a few years earlier, and had since then went to Tanzania.
"Did you walk here? Ride?", Sy asked Pancho.
"Yesterday in the evening, after I crossed the border, I sneaked a ride in an open boxcar aboard a northbound freight train in Cuangar", Pancho answered. "And the train got me here last night".
"The railroad company. With that they would not be very happy", Sy replied.
On through the conversation, Pancho told of letters his family recieved from his uncle, telling of a warthog friend his uncle met in Tanzania.
Sy Aardwolf, also being the pastor of the Community Worship Center, spoke with Pancho for a while also about spiritiual matters...what many would call religion.
"Oh Sy. Você tem um cliente, eu vejo" (Oh Sy. You have a customer, I see), a female aardwolf mentioned at the doorway of the office.
"Está tudo bem. Entra, Zella. Esta é Pancho Suricato" (It is all right. Come in, Zella. This is Pancho Meerkat), Sy Aardwolf said to her, then said to Pancho, "This is Zella, my wife".
"Ola. Estou feliz em conhecê voce" (Hello. I am happy to know you), Zella greeted Pancho.
"Oh, Zella. Português ele não fala. Pancho veio de Namíbia" (Oh, Zella. Portuguese he does not speak. Pancho came from Namibia), Sy told Zella.
"Oh oh. Happy I am to get to know you, Pancho", Zella then said to Pancho.
"The pleasure is mine likewise", Pancho replied.
"Our cubs, Deja and Hiraldo. Them I wish you could meet", Zella said to Pancho.
"Então é. Deja. Ela é casada. Ela é um adulto. Eu não diria que ela ainda é um filhote" (So is. Deja. She is married. She is an adult. I would not say she is still a cub), Sy said to Zella.
"Sim sim. Eu sei disso. Mas Deja ainda é nosso filhote" (Yes Yes. I know that. But Deja is still our cub), Zella insisted.
"Tudo bem, tudo bem" (Okay, okay), Sy conceded to Zella.
"Deja is our wonderful daughter", Sy told Pancho. "She is nineteen in the years. She is out from the house, and to a wonderful son-in-law she be married".
"Our son, Hiraldo, he is away getting parts now. He will be the age of fourteen in two months", Zella said to Pancho.
"So he's still a cub...Thirteen", Pancho mentioned.
"Pancho, to meet him, you would like very much", Zella added.
"Sim. No entanto, o trem estará aqui antes Hiraldo retorna de Pocolo" (Yes. However, the train will be here before Hiraldo returns from Pocolo), Sy reminded Zella.
Sy then told Pancho, "Hiraldo had to drive the truck to go to Pocolo. He has to get a tire, also parts we need here. It will be in a few hours before he returns. By then, you will be along your way and aboard the train".
'A cub as young as thirteen taking a truck out to make a parts run...to a town hours away via mountain roads', Pancho thought to himself...That wasn't a common occurrence where Pancho was from.
Well, anyway, Pancho did get to know Sy and Zella.
Zella hearing her husband mention about a train, she asked Sy, "Pancho está deixando a bordo do trem esta manhã?" (Pancho is leaving aboard the train this morning?).
Sy promptly replied to Zella, "Oh. Eu mencionei sobre o trem. Sim" (Oh. I mentioned about the train. Yes).
Sy then briefly gave an explanation to Zella, in Portuguese, which Pancho was able to pick up on that it was about Pancho's situation. Then Sy and Zella talked it over for a minute or two, which Pancho didn't comprehend as the conversation was still in Portuguese. Zella then asked Pancho, in their slightly broken English, a few questions about his situation...after which Sy and Zella assured Pancho they would help him with some cash and with getting him a train ticket.
"Eu coloquei a jarra de café na área de reparo. E colocado sobre a mesa de ferramenta" (I put the coffee pot in the repair area. It is placed on the tool table), Zella informed Sy.
"Tudo bem. Obrigado" (OK. Thank you), Sy replied.
"We all hope everything goes good for you", Zella said to Pancho as she started on her way back to the house, which is next door to the shop.
"Well...Thank you", Pancho replied.
Sy and Pancho talked until it was about nine o'clock, which at that time Sy was preparing to give Pancho that amount of cash he and Zella agreed on.
"The last time you have eaten, when was that", Sy asked Pancho.
"Yesterday in the evening. Back in Cuangar. A monkey pawed me some money to get something a while before I hopped a ride aboard the freight train", Pancho answered.
Sy mentioned that he himself did not take the time to have breakfast that morning before opening the shop, then offered to take Pancho to the cafe' to get something to eat. After Pancho thanked Sy and accepted his offer, Sy took a small amount of money from a metal cash box in a draw of his desk and gave Pancho the amount of cash he and Zella had agreed on. Sy then put the rest in his wallet...the kind that clips onto the underlying fur hairs.
Just before they left the office, Sy noticed Pancho still holding the money Sy had given him in his paw.
"Have you a clip wallet?", Sy asked.
"No I do not", Pancho replied.
"Something here I have. I will give it to you", Sy said as he pulled an old belt and pouch from a shelf and gave it to Pancho.
"It is yours now. It came out of a junked car here", Sy said as he pawed it over to Pancho.
"Thank you very much", Pancho said to Sy as he fastened the belt around his waist and placed his money in the pouch.
Sy then had Fusko, an Angolan slender mongoose who works for him, tend the shop until he got back, then Sy and Pancho headed over to the cafe'...Although the village is somewhat spread out, it isn't very big, so Sy and Pancho walked down the dirt street to where they had to go.
Upon their arrival to the cafe' a waitress, Rosie Hippo, remembered seeing Pancho earlier that morning, then went and told the linsang couple who owns the cafe'. Within moments, the male linsang approached Sy and Pancho, as his wife watched.
"This morning, Me ask you to go away. Me need to get the constable here?", the male linsang retorted to Pancho.
"É bom. O suricato é com eu ... Se é bom com você" (It is good. The meerkat is with me...If it is good with you), Sy told the linsang.
"Bom então. Se ele comporte" (Good then. If he behaves), the linsang agreed.
"Ele ira comporte" (He will behave), Sy affirmed.
Then the linsang said to Pancho, "You good here then. But you do not beg for money here...That is good?".
"That's good", Pancho agreed.
Sy and Pancho soon placed their order, then enjoyed a late breakfast (after 9:00 am) and relaxed over a few coffee refills...However, what the qurrel was that one of the cafe' owners earlier had with Pancho, Sy didn't bother to make it any of his business....The comment from the male linsang 'but you do not beg for money here' probably told Sy enough.
It was well past ten o'clock when Sy paid the tab, left a tip for Rosie, and he and Pancho went over to the CFB Railway passenger station to purchase the train ticket...It would be about an hour when the northbound train arrives.
Upon entering the passenger station, the mongoose in charge there told Pancho, "Go away. No one rides a train for free. I try to help you and you do nothing".
"Ele está comigo" (He is with me), Sy told the mongoose.
"Sy. Ele tem nao dinheiro. Ele quer passeio a bordo de um trem de graça" (Sy. He has no money. He wants to ride aboard a train for free), the mongoose retorted.
"Ele tem dinheiro que eu dei a ele" (He has money I gave to him), Sy assured the mongoose.
"Ele poderia ter trabalhado para que o dinheiro. Eu disse a ele onde" (He could have earned it. I told him where), the mongoose further retorted.
"Ele me disse que não consegue encontrar trabalho hoje" (He told me he can not find work today), Sy replied.
"Ha ha", the mongoose laughed, then told Sy, "Ele disse uma mentira para você. O armazém. Eles precisavam de ajuda toda a manhã. Eu disse isso a ele. E ele diga que o trabalho parece muito difícil" (He told a lie to you. The warehouse. They needed help all morning. I told him that. And he says that the work seems too difficult).
Even though Pancho didn't know Portuguese, he had some idea what Sy and the mongoose were discussing.
And it was begining to become clear to Sy Aardwolf why Pancho Meerkat may have been outcasted from that meerkat colony where he was from in Namibia...And probably that his uncle was outcasted for the same reasons.
"Agradeço-lhe por me dizer essa coisa. Obrigado" (Thank you for telling me this thing. Thank you), Sy told the mongoose.
Sy then questioned Pancho, and upon getting the truth from him, took Pancho aside and gave him a good, stern lecture about laziness, freeloading, slothfulness, and lying...And it was not a fluffy, little, 'feel good' sermon either.
When Sy was done lecturing Pancho, he and Pancho went to the counter and purchased a train ticket to Kuvango, which the mongoose said would be the closest point that branch line ran to the direction of Pancho Meerkat's intended destination.
At eleven o'clock, the animals who were working that morning at the freight warehouse were given a twenty minute break. Among them were Bron Meerkat and his two older sons Moze, then going on age 13, and Jorad, then going on age 9. They had gotten a ride that morning with Sanchez Genet on his way to the metal fabrication shop. During the break, Bron, Moze and Jorad noticed Sy Aardwolf at passenger station across the tracks and came over to see him.
Upon seeing Bron and his sons, Sy Aardwolf pointed Bron out to Pancho and said to him, "See that meerkat who walks with a limp? I know him. His family is in my congregation where I am pastor. He has bad hips, but any work he can do he still trys to find...And his sons, they too help their family...You should have been working with them this morning".
Sy introduced Pancho to Bron, Moze and Jorad, then explained how he was helping Pancho with his situation he was in. Once everyone and Pancho got acquainted, Sy and the other animals got to conversing about various things while waiting to see Pancho off aboard the train...which was now due to arrive in about ten minutes.
It wasn't long before Moze saw Pancho heading across the street.
"Pai, olha onde Pancho esta indo" (Dad, look where Pancho is going), Moze told his dad.
"Sy", Bron called out, then pointed Pancho out to him.
Pancho was headed straight for a store which was beside the tracks directly across the street from the passenger station...The sign on the store read 'Perto o Trilhos - Licor e Vinho' (Near the Tracks - Liquor and Wine).
"Nao nao nao", Sy retorted as he headed out of the passenger station and across the street after Pancho.
Pancho figured with the money he had left over after the purchase of the train ticket, he could get a little something to sip on aboard the train along the way. Before Sy caught up with Pancho, Pancho entered the liquor store.
"Uh, you speak English?" Pancho asked the genet behind the counter.
"Sim. English I do speak", the genet replied. "Your pleasure, what will it be?".
Pancho looked over the selection which was behind the counter along the wall.
"That Bacardi", Pancho said as he chose a half pint of Bacardi Gold.
Sy walked in as the genet placed Pancho's choice on the counter.
"Pregador Sy Aardwolf? Você? Dentro aqui?" (Preacher Sy Aardwolf? You? In here?), the genet asked, knowing Sy does not drink booze.
"Kagiso. O dinheiro que ele tem, isto foi dado a ele. E não para ser gasto dessa forma" (Kagiso. The money he has, it was given to him. And not to be spent this way", Sy Aardwolf exclaimed to the genet, then explained the situation.
"This. It is not for you", Kagiso Genet told Pancho as he promptly took the small bottle of rum back and placed it back on the shelf.
"The money I help you with. It was not earned by you. You do not spend it that way", Sy reprimanded Pancho on the way back out of the liquor store to return to the passenger station.
By the time Sy and Pancho got back to the station, the distant approach of the train could already be heard. It was also by that time, Bron, Moze and Jorad had already crossed back over the tracks to the freight warehouse as their break time was over and it was time for them, and the other animals they were working with that day, to get back to work.
The whistle of the narrow gauge, Garret, articulating locomotive sounded and the bell clanged as it approached the street crossing. Within moments, the Garret locomotive pulled it's passenger coaches to a stop at the station. Each of the four coaches were a home made, wood frame, coach body with corrugated tin roof, built on an old flatbed car chassis. Two of the coaches had clapboard exterior, and two had corrugated tin exterior. One clapboard body coach had inward opening, wood shutters in place of glass in the windows...And the other three had wood framed, glass, slider windows. All coaches were painted tan with a dark brown, wide stripe along each side.
Sy Aardwolf instructed the mongoose in charge of the station, "Este suricato. Certifique-se de que ele chega em Kuvango. Ele não está a deixar o trem até que esta chega a Kuvango. Depois que ele chega a Kuvango, ele vai para onde ele quer." (This meerkat. Make sure that he arrives in Kuvango. He is not to leave the train until it reaches Kuvango. After he reaches Kuvango, he goes where he wants.).
As Pancho boarded the train, the mongoose passed the same instructions on to a bat eared fox who was the train's conductor. After the conductor acknowledged understanding the instructions, he led Pancho from the corrugated tin body coach where he had boarded the train, and into the following clapboarded coach with the glass slider windows...There were no diaphragms between the coaches. Going from coach to coach, you stepped along overlapping footplates. And there were two levels of slack chain on each side, fastened between the coaches to serve as safety grab rails while going between coaches.
Not long after Pancho took a seat on one of the coach's non-upholstered wood benches, near an open slider window, the conductor called to the locomotive operator, "Todos estão a bordo" (All are on board).
The operator, a bonobo, sounded the whistle, released the brakes and applied the throttle of the locomotive as the firebox attendant, a pangolin, clanged the bell...The train was now pulling away from the station on it's way north with Pancho Meerkat further on his way to his destination where he planed to locate his uncle and warthog friend.
The last Sy Aardwolf heard of the departing train was the distant sound of the whistle as the train approached the two road crossings on it's way up the mountain grade to the highlands going north away from the village.
Sy Aardwolf then returned to his shop and junkyard to conduct the rest of his business day.

In case you wonder what the signs in Sy Aardwolf's shop say;

The grey sign, "To place an order for tires and parts, payment in advance is necessary".
The yellow sign, "?Steal parts from the junk yard?...You have a trip to the zoo".
The wooden sign on the rope, "No cussing here...We ask that you take it else where".

It is in Angola, so the signs are in Portuguese.

Description
Early one summer morning, on a Saturday, in January of 1992 (southern hemisphere, Angola), a young adult, male, meerkat who was not from around the area was panhandling for money around the cafe'. The linsang couple who owned the cafe' didn't consider it a problem until the meerkat stranger began pestering customers for a paw-out at the front door of the cafe'. When the male linsang, one of the owners of the cafe', asked the meerkat to move on to some other part of the village, he noticed the meerkat replied in English with some Afrikaan, but didn't seem to understand Portuguese.
The cafe' owner then told the meerkat in English, "Me customers you run off. Please, down the street. There, you can you do what you do?".
"Oh. Yea. Sure", the meerkat timidly replied, then made his way diagonally across the street to the CFB Railway passenger station.
That branch of the CFB Railway is two and a half foot, narrow gauge rail line, with most trains pulled by Garrett, articulating locomotives;
www.youtube.com/watch?v=itJBnR…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjd3I9…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCyOfv…
When the meerkat entered the station, a mongoose came to the ticket counter and asked in the usual curtious way, "Que eu possa ser útil para você?" (May I be helpful to you?).
"I don't know what it is you say", the meerkat replied.
"Oh. How can I be of help for you? Where is it you wish to travel?", The mongoose restated his question.
"I am trying to get to Tanzania so I can locate my uncle", the meerkat replied.
"Our trains. They do not go to Tanzania. The nearest to Tanzania you can ride will be Kuvango. From there, you will need to make other travel arrangements", the mongoose informed the meerkat.
The meerkat then mentioned, "For the moment, I have no money...How can you help me?".
The mongoose then rememered something, even though it was a Saturday, then offered a solution, "The freight depot, just across the tracks. They are inventorying shipments today and helpers they still need...And they will pay you, with cash".
The meerkat could clearly see from the passenger station, animals in the freight depot, across the tracks, who were busy checking and moving packages and crates...some freight parcels which were earlier received, and some in preparation to be loaded aboard boxcars on the siding to await a train to pick them up.
"I can not do that", the meerkat replied.
"A passenger train, going northbound. It will be here at twenty minutes after eleven. Now it is twenty five before eight. To earn money for a ticket, you have plenty of time", the mongoose insisted, and also noticed the meerkat had five toes each foot instead of the normal four...but that was not important.
"It just looks so hard", the meerkat retorted.
"You see here, young meerkat", the mongoose protested. "You will not ride a train for free. I try to help you. The freight depot, helpers they still need".
"But...but...I have bad luck right now. You can not help me?" the meerkat asked.
"Young meerkat, I must ask you to leave", the mongoose finally said. "I try to help you. You do nothing".
"But but but", the meerkat began.
"You must leave. There is no buts. A but here is a bunta, you ass. Go. Leave now", the mongoose told the meerkat.
The meerkat then left the passenger station and made his way to the west end of the village. There, he went to the metal fabrication shop, but not in the lobby area where customers normally go...He wandered into the shop floor area where the animals there were busy, working that Saturday, catching up on an overdue order.
A jackal approached him and asked, "Você está procurando trabalho hoje?" (You are searching for work today?).
"What you are saying, I do not understand you", the meerkat replied.
The jackal didn't know English very well, so a civet came and spoke with the meerkat.
"Is it a job you try to find here today?", the civet asked.
"Oh no", the meerkat answered. "I just need some money".
Those animals who overheard and knew English busted out laughing. And when those animals who didn't know English heard it explained in Portuguese, and they too busted out laughing.
"If in the case you mom never tell you, and you dad never tell you, you work for you money. I will tell you, you do", the civet told the meerkat.
"Sim. He be right. The way you think it be, it be not", a genet further told the meerkat.
Sanchez Genet, who was also working there that day, told the the meerkat, "We work, so can you. The freight warehouse, they need workers today. Some of my friends, they are working there now".
Then the business owner, a caracal cat, came over and asked, "O suricato. O que é que ele quer?" (The meerkat. What does he want?)
Sanchez Genet, along with the civet and the other genet told their boss what the meerkat had just said to them.
"Ele fala inglês. Nao português" (He speaks English. Not Portuguese), the civet further added.
"What is your name, meerkat?", the caracal cat asked in a more refined manner of English.
"Pancho, Sir", the meerkat answered.
Then the caracal cat told the meerkat, "Alright, Pancho sir. We don't paw out money for nothing around here. If you get money here, you earn it here. Understand?...I'm asking you now to leave this property and don't come back...If I see you back, I will have the constable here, and you can spend a night in the zoo".
Pancho Meerkat got the message very clearly and left, then walked across the wide, dirt street to the gas station...in which he was promptly run off from when he began panhandling from some of their customers there.
Pancho then crossed the side street to Sy Aardwolf's automotive shop and junkyard.
Like the other animals Pancho encountered in the village, Sy greeted him in Angolan dialect Portuguese, beginning with a cheerful, "Ola...", then heard Pancho respond in English that he didn't understand him.
"Hello. What is it that you need today?", Sy then asked Pancho in English.
"Some money for a train ticket if you have it to spare", Pancho answered.
Sy thought a moment, then invited Pancho, "My office, come on in, please. Let us talk".
"I guess so", Pancho answered as he took Sy up on his offer.
Upon entering the office, which had automotive parts laying about on it's dirt stained concrete floor, Sy requested to Pancho, "Don't mess with anything on the desk", referring to a spread of tools laid out on a shop towel on the desk.
In Sy Aardwolf's office, Sy sat at his old, ragged, solid wood desk (the one with the tools on it) which was mostly bare of it's varnish and it's green linoleum top laminate separating on the edges. Pancho took a seat on an old, metal, fold-up chair that had it's share of dings in it and a few worn coats of different colour paint.
After they introduced their selves, Sy opened the conversation, "So it is somewhere you must travel...When money I give, it is for those in need, not for everyone who extends the paw".
"I need to go north to see my uncle. And I have no money to ride the train", Pancho replied.
"Have not you seeked any work for today?", Sy asked.
Pancho paused a moment, then answered, "I have not found work".
Sy mentioned, "The train that will take you north, it will be here at twenty past eleven. It is now - uh", looking up at a clock, "fifteen past eight".
"That is a few hours from now", Pancho replied.
Sy then concluded, "To find someone in this village by now who is in need of a worker today, then to earn enough to board the train, it will push it close".
Sy Aardwolf and Pancho Meerkat conversed in the office a while longer. Through the conversation, Sy learned that Pancho was from Namibia, and had grown up in a meerkat colony...Sy had before heard about those partial subterranean, communal colonies being 'sort of a meerkat thing' in Namibia. Sy had also learned that Pancho had been banished from the colony where he was born and raised, and was now traveling north to look up one of his uncles who was also banished as an outcast from the colony a few years earlier, and had since then went to Tanzania.
"Did you walk here? Ride?", Sy asked Pancho.
"Yesterday in the evening, after I crossed the border, I sneaked a ride in an open boxcar aboard a northbound freight train in Cuangar", Pancho answered. "And the train got me here last night".
"The railroad company. With that they would not be very happy", Sy replied.
On through the conversation, Pancho told of letters his family recieved from his uncle, telling of a warthog friend his uncle met in Tanzania.
Sy Aardwolf, also being the pastor of the Community Worship Center, spoke with Pancho for a while also about spiritiual matters...what many would call religion.
"Oh Sy. Você tem um cliente, eu vejo" (Oh Sy. You have a customer, I see), a female aardwolf mentioned at the doorway of the office.
"Está tudo bem. Entra, Zella. Esta é Pancho Suricato" (It is all right. Come in, Zella. This is Pancho Meerkat), Sy Aardwolf said to her, then said to Pancho, "This is Zella, my wife".
"Ola. Estou feliz em conhecê voce" (Hello. I am happy to know you), Zella greeted Pancho.
"Oh, Zella. Português ele não fala. Pancho veio de Namíbia" (Oh, Zella. Portuguese he does not speak. Pancho came from Namibia), Sy told Zella.
"Oh oh. Happy I am to get to know you, Pancho", Zella then said to Pancho.
"The pleasure is mine likewise", Pancho replied.
"Our cubs, Deja and Hiraldo. Them I wish you could meet", Zella said to Pancho.
"Então é. Deja. Ela é casada. Ela é um adulto. Eu não diria que ela ainda é um filhote" (So is. Deja. She is married. She is an adult. I would not say she is still a cub), Sy said to Zella.
"Sim sim. Eu sei disso. Mas Deja ainda é nosso filhote" (Yes Yes. I know that. But Deja is still our cub), Zella insisted.
"Tudo bem, tudo bem" (Okay, okay), Sy conceded to Zella.
"Deja is our wonderful daughter", Sy told Pancho. "She is nineteen in the years. She is out from the house, and to a wonderful son-in-law she be married".
"Our son, Hiraldo, he is away getting parts now. He will be the age of fourteen in two months", Zella said to Pancho.
"So he's still a cub...Thirteen", Pancho mentioned.
"Pancho, to meet him, you would like very much", Zella added.
"Sim. No entanto, o trem estará aqui antes Hiraldo retorna de Pocolo" (Yes. However, the train will be here before Hiraldo returns from Pocolo), Sy reminded Zella.
Sy then told Pancho, "Hiraldo had to drive the truck to go to Pocolo. He has to get a tire, also parts we need here. It will be in a few hours before he returns. By then, you will be along your way and aboard the train".
'A cub as young as thirteen taking a truck out to make a parts run...to a town hours away via mountain roads', Pancho thought to himself...That wasn't a common occurrence where Pancho was from.
Well, anyway, Pancho did get to know Sy and Zella.
Zella hearing her husband mention about a train, she asked Sy, "Pancho está deixando a bordo do trem esta manhã?" (Pancho is leaving aboard the train this morning?).
Sy promptly replied to Zella, "Oh. Eu mencionei sobre o trem. Sim" (Oh. I mentioned about the train. Yes).
Sy then briefly gave an explanation to Zella, in Portuguese, which Pancho was able to pick up on that it was about Pancho's situation. Then Sy and Zella talked it over for a minute or two, which Pancho didn't comprehend as the conversation was still in Portuguese. Zella then asked Pancho, in their slightly broken English, a few questions about his situation...after which Sy and Zella assured Pancho they would help him with some cash and with getting him a train ticket.
"Eu coloquei a jarra de café na área de reparo. E colocado sobre a mesa de ferramenta" (I put the coffee pot in the repair area. It is placed on the tool table), Zella informed Sy.
"Tudo bem. Obrigado" (OK. Thank you), Sy replied.
"We all hope everything goes good for you", Zella said to Pancho as she started on her way back to the house, which is next door to the shop.
"Well...Thank you", Pancho replied.
Sy and Pancho talked until it was about nine o'clock, which at that time Sy was preparing to give Pancho that amount of cash he and Zella agreed on.
"The last time you have eaten, when was that", Sy asked Pancho.
"Yesterday in the evening. Back in Cuangar. A monkey pawed me some money to get something a while before I hopped a ride aboard the freight train", Pancho answered.
Sy mentioned that he himself did not take the time to have breakfast that morning before opening the shop, then offered to take Pancho to the cafe' to get something to eat. After Pancho thanked Sy and accepted his offer, Sy took a small amount of money from a metal cash box in a draw of his desk and gave Pancho the amount of cash he and Zella had agreed on. Sy then put the rest in his wallet...the kind that clips onto the underlying fur hairs.
Just before they left the office, Sy noticed Pancho still holding the money Sy had given him in his paw.
"Have you a clip wallet?", Sy asked.
"No I do not", Pancho replied.
"Something here I have. I will give it to you", Sy said as he pulled an old belt and pouch from a shelf and gave it to Pancho.
"It is yours now. It came out of a junked car here", Sy said as he pawed it over to Pancho.
"Thank you very much", Pancho said to Sy as he fastened the belt around his waist and placed his money in the pouch.
Sy then had Fusko, an Angolan slender mongoose who works for him, tend the shop until he got back, then Sy and Pancho headed over to the cafe'...Although the village is somewhat spread out, it isn't very big, so Sy and Pancho walked down the dirt street to where they had to go.
Upon their arrival to the cafe' a waitress, Rosie Hippo, remembered seeing Pancho earlier that morning, then went and told the linsang couple who owns the cafe'. Within moments, the male linsang approached Sy and Pancho, as his wife watched.
"This morning, Me ask you to go away. Me need to get the constable here?", the male linsang retorted to Pancho.
"É bom. O suricato é com eu ... Se é bom com você" (It is good. The meerkat is with me...If it is good with you), Sy told the linsang.
"Bom então. Se ele comporte" (Good then. If he behaves), the linsang agreed.
"Ele ira comporte" (He will behave), Sy affirmed.
Then the linsang said to Pancho, "You good here then. But you do not beg for money here...That is good?".
"That's good", Pancho agreed.
Sy and Pancho soon placed their order, then enjoyed a late breakfast (after 9:00 am) and relaxed over a few coffee refills...However, what the qurrel was that one of the cafe' owners earlier had with Pancho, Sy didn't bother to make it any of his business....The comment from the male linsang 'but you do not beg for money here' probably told Sy enough.
It was well past ten o'clock when Sy paid the tab, left a tip for Rosie, and he and Pancho went over to the CFB Railway passenger station to purchase the train ticket...It would be about an hour when the northbound train arrives.
Upon entering the passenger station, the mongoose in charge there told Pancho, "Go away. No one rides a train for free. I try to help you and you do nothing".
"Ele está comigo" (He is with me), Sy told the mongoose.
"Sy. Ele tem nao dinheiro. Ele quer passeio a bordo de um trem de graça" (Sy. He has no money. He wants to ride aboard a train for free), the mongoose retorted.
"Ele tem dinheiro que eu dei a ele" (He has money I gave to him), Sy assured the mongoose.
"Ele poderia ter trabalhado para que o dinheiro. Eu disse a ele onde" (He could have earned it. I told him where), the mongoose further retorted.
"Ele me disse que não consegue encontrar trabalho hoje" (He told me he can not find work today), Sy replied.
"Ha ha", the mongoose laughed, then told Sy, "Ele disse uma mentira para você. O armazém. Eles precisavam de ajuda toda a manhã. Eu disse isso a ele. E ele diga que o trabalho parece muito difícil" (He told a lie to you. The warehouse. They needed help all morning. I told him that. And he says that the work seems too difficult).
Even though Pancho didn't know Portuguese, he had some idea what Sy and the mongoose were discussing.
And it was begining to become clear to Sy Aardwolf why Pancho Meerkat may have been outcasted from that meerkat colony where he was from in Namibia...And probably that his uncle was outcasted for the same reasons.
"Agradeço-lhe por me dizer essa coisa. Obrigado" (Thank you for telling me this thing. Thank you), Sy told the mongoose.
Sy then questioned Pancho, and upon getting the truth from him, took Pancho aside and gave him a good, stern lecture about laziness, freeloading, slothfulness, and lying...And it was not a fluffy, little, 'feel good' sermon either.
When Sy was done lecturing Pancho, he and Pancho went to the counter and purchased a train ticket to Kuvango, which the mongoose said would be the closest point that branch line ran to the direction of Pancho Meerkat's intended destination.
At eleven o'clock, the animals who were working that morning at the freight warehouse were given a twenty minute break. Among them were Bron Meerkat and his two older sons Moze, then going on age 13, and Jorad, then going on age 9. They had gotten a ride that morning with Sanchez Genet on his way to the metal fabrication shop. During the break, Bron, Moze and Jorad noticed Sy Aardwolf at passenger station across the tracks and came over to see him.
Upon seeing Bron and his sons, Sy Aardwolf pointed Bron out to Pancho and said to him, "See that meerkat who walks with a limp? I know him. His family is in my congregation where I am pastor. He has bad hips, but any work he can do he still trys to find...And his sons, they too help their family...You should have been working with them this morning".
Sy introduced Pancho to Bron, Moze and Jorad, then explained how he was helping Pancho with his situation he was in. Once everyone and Pancho got acquainted, Sy and the other animals got to conversing about various things while waiting to see Pancho off aboard the train...which was now due to arrive in about ten minutes.
It wasn't long before Moze saw Pancho heading across the street.
"Pai, olha onde Pancho esta indo" (Dad, look where Pancho is going), Moze told his dad.
"Sy", Bron called out, then pointed Pancho out to him.
Pancho was headed straight for a store which was beside the tracks directly across the street from the passenger station...The sign on the store read 'Perto o Trilhos - Licor e Vinho' (Near the Tracks - Liquor and Wine).
"Nao nao nao", Sy retorted as he headed out of the passenger station and across the street after Pancho.
Pancho figured with the money he had left over after the purchase of the train ticket, he could get a little something to sip on aboard the train along the way. Before Sy caught up with Pancho, Pancho entered the liquor store.
"Uh, you speak English?" Pancho asked the genet behind the counter.
"Sim. English I do speak", the genet replied. "Your pleasure, what will it be?".
Pancho looked over the selection which was behind the counter along the wall.
"That Bacardi", Pancho said as he chose a half pint of Bacardi Gold.
Sy walked in as the genet placed Pancho's choice on the counter.
"Pregador Sy Aardwolf? Você? Dentro aqui?" (Preacher Sy Aardwolf? You? In here?), the genet asked, knowing Sy does not drink booze.
"Kagiso. O dinheiro que ele tem, isto foi dado a ele. E não para ser gasto dessa forma" (Kagiso. The money he has, it was given to him. And not to be spent this way", Sy Aardwolf exclaimed to the genet, then explained the situation.
"This. It is not for you", Kagiso Genet told Pancho as he promptly took the small bottle of rum back and placed it back on the shelf.
"The money I help you with. It was not earned by you. You do not spend it that way", Sy reprimanded Pancho on the way back out of the liquor store to return to the passenger station.
By the time Sy and Pancho got back to the station, the distant approach of the train could already be heard. It was also by that time, Bron, Moze and Jorad had already crossed back over the tracks to the freight warehouse as their break time was over and it was time for them, and the other animals they were working with that day, to get back to work.
The whistle of the narrow gauge, Garret, articulating locomotive sounded and the bell clanged as it approached the street crossing. Within moments, the Garret locomotive pulled it's passenger coaches to a stop at the station. Each of the four coaches were a home made, wood frame, coach body with corrugated tin roof, built on an old flatbed car chassis. Two of the coaches had clapboard exterior, and two had corrugated tin exterior. One clapboard body coach had inward opening, wood shutters in place of glass in the windows...And the other three had wood framed, glass, slider windows. All coaches were painted tan with a dark brown, wide stripe along each side.
Sy Aardwolf instructed the mongoose in charge of the station, "Este suricato. Certifique-se de que ele chega em Kuvango. Ele não está a deixar o trem até que esta chega a Kuvango. Depois que ele chega a Kuvango, ele vai para onde ele quer." (This meerkat. Make sure that he arrives in Kuvango. He is not to leave the train until it reaches Kuvango. After he reaches Kuvango, he goes where he wants.).
As Pancho boarded the train, the mongoose passed the same instructions on to a bat eared fox who was the train's conductor. After the conductor acknowledged understanding the instructions, he led Pancho from the corrugated tin body coach where he had boarded the train, and into the following clapboarded coach with the glass slider windows...There were no diaphragms between the coaches. Going from coach to coach, you stepped along overlapping footplates. And there were two levels of slack chain on each side, fastened between the coaches to serve as safety grab rails while going between coaches.
Not long after Pancho took a seat on one of the coach's non-upholstered wood benches, near an open slider window, the conductor called to the locomotive operator, "Todos estão a bordo" (All are on board).
The operator, a bonobo, sounded the whistle, released the brakes and applied the throttle of the locomotive as the firebox attendant, a pangolin, clanged the bell...The train was now pulling away from the station on it's way north with Pancho Meerkat further on his way to his destination where he planed to locate his uncle and warthog friend.
The last Sy Aardwolf heard of the departing train was the distant sound of the whistle as the train approached the two road crossings on it's way up the mountain grade to the highlands going north away from the village.
Sy Aardwolf then returned to his shop and junkyard to conduct the rest of his business day.

In case you wonder what the signs in Sy Aardwolf's shop say;

The grey sign, "To place an order for tires and parts, payment in advance is necessary".
The yellow sign, "?Steal parts from the junk yard?...You have a trip to the zoo".
The wooden sign on the rope, "No cussing here...We ask that you take it else where".

It is in Angola, so the signs are in Portuguese.