Kipilefti

Friday afternoon, after saying goodbye to a couple friends in Makete, I went home to start preparing to leave. Emptied and cleaned my water filter (it was filtering so slowly because of algae in the top: gross!), dumped almost all the rainwater buckets out, washed all my dishes, got rid of the extra fruit by leaving it on the porch, where students asked if they could take it, cleaned my kitchen, packed. Then it was 5 P.M.

I spent the evening jumping from task to task, unable to concentrate. It was like Christmas Eve: I knew that the next morning I’d be headed to Njombe to see tons of friends and I was too excited to focus. I did read a book (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I loved) but then it was 8 P.M. and I was still at loose ends. Eventually a candle and Pride and Prejudice settled me enough to sleep, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t until 11.

My alarm went off at 5.15 and I jumped out of bed, wide awake (which never happens). I had an appointment with a small car at 6 A.M.–it was going to pick me up outside the school grounds–so I dragged my stuff out of my house and ensconced myself on a hill to watch the sun rise and wait for the car.

…Which never came. Around 7.30 I hauled my bags to the bus stand and waited. Some vehicles passed but they weren’t going all the way. At 8.45 the dala-type minibus that Jess and Bret were on arrived and I joined them, the three of us on the bench seat. Jess was banging against the ceiling and window; Bret in the middle squishing his knees against the seat in front; me falling off the end. The ride was unexceptional, although for the last two hours there were people standing in the aisle, leaning up against me. For a while a woman was sitting on my side, which was fun (and by that I mean painful). We made decent time, arriving around 2.30 after a flat tire within view of our destination. There was a birthday party going on for a health volunteer. A bunch of people went to the Kibena Club, which is an expat club in Njombe. It was actually really disorienting to be in a group of a bunch of white people, many older, who I didn’t know. I socialized for a while but wound up reading and judging a ping-pong tournament in between chapters. Arrived back at the hotel around 11 via a ride in the back of a pick-up with eight other PCVs, all but one drunk. We sang Disney songs all the way.

Back at the hotel they prepared to go out to a disco and I went to bed, woke at 6.30 from city noise. Climbed up to the roof of the hotel to look at the fog, then had breakfast, and now I’m at the Internet. Nipo.