Dar

This is the first week to tackle the isolation issues. Hillary has given me her cell phone and she has gotten a new one through her office, so I now have phone contact (but no one yet to call, except Hillary, and I suspect her receptionist is growing weary of my check ins). I’ve been to an Internet café and feel connected to the world again. I have never before been pleased to get spam, but it means that someone out there is thinking I need enhancement or that I could be an important and trustworthy partner in transferring 18 million dollars from a Nigerian mining company. My existence is reaffirmed.

And I drove – on the wrong side of the road, with the stick shift on the left, and cars and trucks coming at me on the right, in a 4 x 4 truck that is so Africa. And I didn’t hit anything. I did turn on the windshield wipers every time I was planning a turn as this lever is likewise reversed with the turn signal. But I got where I needed to go and had a clean windshield to boot. Driving here is more like a video game than anything in the U.S. The Newcomer’s Guide published by a local women’s group warns, “ Beware of pedestrians, carts, cyclists, goats, cows, chickens and wild animals when driving…”