daily living

I love having clean hair. Let me just get that out of the way at the beginning. When you live in a place where all non-scummy water has to be carted in by jerrycan, you don’t want to waste water on silly things like hair washing, but after holding out nearly a week (a personal best), it feels really nice to have clean hair.

I am not one of those always prepared people. I don’t have a backpack filled with protein bars and first aid supplies at all times. I did bring a plenty-lot of granola bars to this middle of nowhere, but that was out of pure necessity. While I’m here, I’m likely to leave the compound in the morning, anticipating a full day of being out and about, carrying only a notebook and pen. I’m lucky if I remember to bring a water bottle. Even luckier if it has water in it.

My lack of Boy Scoutishness has downsides, obviously, especially on those occasions when I end up hiking for hours to see monkeys or chimpanzees or something on an empty stomach. On those occasions, I’m always grateful that I have friends who pass out bits of backpack-mashed protein bar instead of doing what I do, which is to hope that the little giftshop at the start of the trail sells some sort of crackers. (Clearly I’m thinking of Africa – actually, Nyungwe Forest in Rwanda – in this particular example; in the US the giftshop probably sells its own protein bars unless you are in a seriously remote national park.)

Most of the time, though, it turns out fine. As my friend I from the Tanzania days says, “Tell people they sell stuff in Africa.” People actually LIVE here, you see. They do, in fact, sell stuff in Africa. Lots of different stuff, including soft drinks. I have made more lunches than I want to count out of a semi-cool Fanta in a little restaurant somewhere in the mountains of Rwanda. Occasionally with a side of peanuts. Today it was in the middle of TLT and the Fanta was strawberry-flavored and I couldn’t finish it, so I gave the second half to my coworker’s little daughter who came out to greet us on the way back. (I did get a real lunch, though, later. That was actually just to tide me over for the walk back.)

Earlier, in a meeting, our hostess came around with a tray of little glasses filled with sweet black tea. I had watched her scoop spoon after spoon of sugar into the little glasses before she poured the tea. “Strong Sudanese tea,” my coworker told me. It was strong, and syrupy sweet, and very good. “Why are we drinking Lipton in bags back at the compound,” I asked, “when this tea is so much better?” Seriously.

We drank the tea under the thick branches of a tree. It was drizzling. We stayed mostly dry, but every now and again big drops of water would collect and fall onto us.