The day of whitewater rafting in Uganda, we made it to the hostel with plans to shower and drop our bags in the room. But there was a deck a few hundred feet over some cataracts in a wide section of the Nile, ambling along in a wide gorge with green hillsides. We didn't leave the deck for hours. Shannon had a Redd's Cider, Deepak had a Tusker Malt, I had a Nile Special Lager and we all reflected on how far away the bar exam felt.
In Tanzania, the electricity goes out every day, more or less. Getting back to my hotel one night in Stonetown, the staff handed out candles and matches to returning guests, sending us by candlelight up the dark wood staircase. Kerosene lamps or candles sit at the table of every restaurant in Zanzibar.
There is a quote on the wall, from Ernest Hemingway, at my current hostel reading: "I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy." What the wall does not tell you is that the next line in that book says "Until I remembered unfinished business." There is always a lot to be done here, and entire days are spent on travel, atms, internet, finding lodging, doing laundry.
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