Kama jana

Only 12 days left in the village. It feels kama jana (like yesterday) that I arrived with my suitcase of impractical items. Time flies when you're having to continually think of new recipes that involve only three vegetables and some out of date stock cubes.

Last month I learnt how to make bread. Only two of my loaves have resembled small bricks and I'm feeling confident about my chances of being a professional baker when I get home if the NHS won't have me. I am going to miss many things I've come to love in Nyangao. Having a cleaning lady tidy up after my baking disasters especially. I'll miss our security guard who sits outside the kitchen window at night even though it's guaranteed he'll be asleep before I am.  Instead of traffic, police sirens and the odd drunkard singing "Eye of the Tiger", I'm used to waking up to chickens and dogs scuffling in the garden or the giant monitor lizard clawing in the roof or the neighbours houseboy sweeping their garden.

I'll miss our Friday night tradition of going to the Old Trafford for a chip omelette and a semi-cold Pepsi (electricity permitting), coming home with change from £1.50. The beaten up plastic chairs and Formica covered tables that are carried out to the roadside when they see us coming. Listening to the same CD of Bongo Flava 'toons' clashing with the Muslim call to prayer and enjoying the sudden pitch black of a power cut and the milky way shining overhead.

Our Friday night hotspot

At the market I've embraced buying the same selection of vegetables, my own doing as I haven't been inclined to sample the piles of dried fish or a piece of meat freshly hacked off the rump of a cow/pig/goat. I like that the flour shop is next to the bean shop which is close to the egg shop across from the man selling milk and juice. But I won't miss being watched at as I walk past. It's tiring pretending I don't hear the whispers or feel the stares.

Why don't people wear Obama shirts, Obama belts or use Obama brollies back home? Everyone loves an Obama lollipop...

I suppose I'll have to get used to sorting out the rubbish again and not just throwing it in the pit or watching James burn it in the garden.  Tea bags not tea leaves, hot showers instead of cold, make-up not au naturale, toilet paper and not my hand...only kidding.

A scenic spot

I won't miss the salty tap water, local transport, or having feet that never get clean.  Goodbye mosquito bites, scabs and scars. Hello not needing to use a surge protector, mosquito net or a dose of antibiotics after a dodgy looking piece of chicken. I'll happily say farewell to fried chips, fried cassava, fried bananas, fried bean balls, fried rice dumplings and fried pork scraps...well, maybe not the fried pork scraps, they are pretty darn delicious.

Fried pork scraps aka Kitimoto

It will be strange not having to keep one eye on the ground, sandy and uneven, with randomly located crevices, creatures and cow dung. Or checking door frames for geckos - more than one has met his untimely death by decapitation. Skimming the rice water for floating insects, picking bugs from the flour and flicking ants off the cake. But I can't wait for anonymity, blending in, being invisible. Not being asked for money, presents, my trainers or my clothes.

The Tanzanian obsession with the mobile phone still gets me. Everyone has one, two or three different numbers, usually in a multi-sim handset. A call never goes unanswered even if it is the relative you really don't want to speak to or you're in the middle of a very important meeting. If I ever deign to not answer a call from someone there is guaranteed to be some fierce words the next time I see the person I ignored. The cultural norm of protracted greetings has extended into the phone conversation. More than once I've answered a call from a colleague only to be none the wiser afterwards as to its purpose.

Colleague: What's your news?

Me: I'm fine. What's your news?

Colleague: I'm fine

Me: (Pause slightly, expecting there to be a reason for the call) Are you at work?

Colleague: I am leaving now

Me: Sorry you're working. And I'm sorry it's raining a lot.

Colleague: Thank you. Have a good night.

Me: And you

Colleague: OK

Whilst greetings are paramount to making a good impression, please's and thank-you's are not. Nor, apparently, is saying goodbye. At the end of an evening people will get up and leave without a farewell and last month a colleague at the hospital left their job and their home without telling a single person.

There's a lot to be said for the simple life. No TV, radio, restaurants, cinemas, trains, traffic, fashion police or indeed any real police of any kind. Where making solar-eclipse viewing devices, Yahtzee tournaments, and scouring the sky at 9.30pm, 45° south for the International Space Station are highlights of the week.

"I think I can see the sun!"

 

Most of all I will miss the people. The funny people, the happy people, the odd people, the nuns, my colleagues, my neighbours, my housemates. A wise person once told me it doesn't matter where you go in life, it is always the people that you remember. He was probably right. I only hope I forget that crazy guy who follows you around the village with a broken camera dangling around his neck.

Sister Columba, my favourite nun

Dedicated to James A. Davies - who left the village for the final time May 21st 2014.

James (R), unknown boy (L)