Kipilefti

My friend who owns a stand in the market went to Makambako yesterday, the big trading-post town, that’s six or eight hours’ drive away, maybe more, and came back with pineapples, tangerines, oranges, some weird things that might be custard apples, cucumbers, watermelons…heaven! I went home with a pineapple, a squash, five tangerines, and a cucumber, almost running to get to my door before the rain hit. Cut up half the pineapple and ate a quarter of it standing in my back doorway, looking out at the mountains, colors dimmed by the veil of rain, listening to drops plop into the basins I put under the eaves as usual, hoping for a big storm. From the sound of it I think today I got my wish.

The heavy rain makes the cats slightly nuttier, although in a more stationary way. They sit, alert, eyes wide and dilated and ears back. Ting mews her inexorable mew, then jumps straight to my desk to the almost-top rung of the window bars, backing down again as though she’s on a ladder. Pol jumps from place to place, stock-still between movements. When I open the curtain to look outside everything’s rain-grey. I can see the bushes and tree twenty feet from my window but not much else. I wonder if the basins are full yet.