Thursday June 11, Wheel House, Sanga Bay (night)

The last two days have been like starting over. A homecoming. Left Mabuya this morning and caught an affable mini-bus to Salima from a solid driver named Lawrence. In Salima we were screamed at by a gang of thugs to immediately board their bus to Sanga. We opted for the bus that was, in addition to not screaming at us, offering us a lower fare. You get quickly fed up being barked at to do everything here. "Buy this!" "Sit down!" "Get on!" "Give me!" "You do this now!" All just to be hustled around for generally less than a buck. We grabbed a lunch of rice and beans for 200MK (just over a buck) at the market, and then took a dusty road , goaded by children, "Hello! Give me money!" to the place we were going to try and stay, a sun-burned white hell, claustrophobic, filthy, and hot on a dirty, heavily hassled stretch of sand, worldly white trash, vacantly occupying lawn chairs, staring in the opposite direction. There are times variety is overrated, so we grabbed some bike taxis to the other side of the bay and back home to the Wheel House. We were on the bikes as the sun was turning golden and sinking into the low hills and high grass, a cool breeze was blowing, and once I left go of the fear of bodily injury, I found myself happy to be here for the first time in a while. I recant what I said earlier about not feeling welcome; we were welcomed back enthusiastically to the Wheel House. We told stories of our travels in the last two weeks, and got many more in exchange. I recant too the bit about not being able to appreciate any of the natural beauty here, for we arrived just in time for a familiar, but not common, sundown. Peacefully pleasantly quiet and untroubled. This is a secret Africa. Part of a whole, to be sure, but so vastly different from the rest of the life out there, inaccessible to so much of itself. But I feel spirited and sporting. I push back when pushed these days and poke fun when there's fun to be poked. You pass a point where the sheer stupidity of the goings on here can't be dealt with anything but a chuckle. Haha!

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