My Day Off

As I said last time, driving here is far more tiring than I had appreciated. Following our fabulous weekend trip, I shared driving down to Arusha and back for a clinic on Monday. There were the usual black-smoking, crawling lorries, but also sections of the road where I could swear the tarmac causes the car to aquaplane – most unnerving. Also there is the ever-present threat of being stopped by police looking for a contribution to their pockets. I always stick to the speed limit and maintain a forward stare (conveniently masked by dark glasses). I hope to exude an air of imperiousness or invisibility – either would do.

Anyhow, with more cross-country driving on Tuesday I decided that my personal batteries were now low and it was time to rest, so I took Wednesday off.

With a slightly more leisurely start to the day, I decided to wear one of my many dresses (courtesy of retail therapy) as this was a holiday. It felt good, until I got into town and realised that I stuck out like a sore thumb. Not only was I a Mazungu, I was also a smartly dressed one – not a back-packer - so suddenly I was fair game for people to hoik their prices and hassle me to buy stuff. Not my idea of a relaxing day off. So I skipped off to the cafe before going home.

The courtyard was cooler and groups of people sat around. I ordered my coffee and cake (chocolate cake – yummy!) and got out my book... and then realised that perhaps that wasn’t relaxing either. Sitting doing nothing, now that was more like it. Which meant that for the next half hour I just gazed happily at the people around me, consuming my goodies or simply being blank. Lovely

I knew I needed a haircut, and called in at the barber’s (yes, I’m not sure if he cuts girls’ hair, I’ve only seen him use the clippers on Jeremy’s locks: 120 seconds of whizzing and it’s done...) Anyway he was on holiday so that was that. Still contemplating hair I called in at the little shop close to us, that advertises “stylish cuts”. I asked the girl lounging in the chair how much it would cost and she said 2kTZS (that is about one euro). I left thinking that maybe she had undersold herself and the pricing didn’t really instill me with confidence. We shall see.

This Sunday is The Kilimanjaro Marathon – an event that has suddenly inspired vast quantities of people to take to the road jogging. Surely they are not all going to enter? I will be going along to watch as by all accounts it is a great day out, but I hope there will be no need for offering first aid.

And it seems that the Tanzanian Electricity Workers (God bless their cotton socks) are also in holiday mood as the electricity has been off since some time last night and it is now late in the afternoon on a Friday (and you know that it never comes on again before 9 p.m.) Perhaps, when they decide to reconnect us, we will be doing the Electricity Happy Jog this weekend?