TIA - Tuesday

　
Today the reality is impossible to ignore.
TIT.IA!
This is Tuesday. In Africa!

Sweat films my entire body as I race to the post office before teaching at Sangilo.
Being Malawi, I am not in a cool shorts/tank top combo, but stifling jeans and a T-shirt (no knees or shoulders aloud…).
Dripping, I arrive a the post office, 1:00pm on the dot! Just when it opens!
Should open anytime….
Anytime now…
20 min later, it does.
Now late for my lesson!
Race double time to school, arrive at 2:00pm on the dot.
No one around….
Hmmm….
Francisco comes to say hi and gives me the scoop the headmaster did not. They decided to take one extra day holiday.
Ahhh…. But of course!
Ok, no worries, back I go.
Dodge herd of cattle grazing/ loitering in the middle of the tarmac road.
Please don’t trample/stab meeeee!!
Legs aching, come up behind a girl my age, straining away on a decrepit one gear bicycle not seen in Europe since before WWI. Shoes worn through, baby hanging lopsided from her back.
My legs are fine, actually.
Arrive in Uliwa to Shania Twain blaring through the restaurant speakers. Swiftly this is changed to Akon’s ‘Africa’.
Carcasses dangling enticingly from roadside stalls.  Nothing in the dusty market but shrivelled old men of green peppers.
Children shout out Akon’s lyrics from the steps of the shop.

TIA.
Love it or hate it.
I choose to smile, have a nice warm and mushy mandazi (donut), and take it all in.
*Gaze at mandazi in my hand with a satisfied air, and take my first bite.
Hmmmm….
Or it could be a cold, 3 day old mandazi, mixed with clay rather than flour.
Hehehe

TIA!

PS. After I finished writing this I carried on my way home to Chilumba, and nearly had my arm sliced open by a woman carrying a knife on her head! Seriously! I have seen women carry all kinds of amazing things on their heads (they seem to defy the laws of balance and gravity quite regularly actually!), but a 10 inch Knife!? Poking out casually into the path for any old cyclist to trim their arms off on?
Pah hahahahaha