Through the window

The sun blazed a confident neon orange beyond the bus windows, inspiring a pink glow across the sky. And then it set. And then once it set I had this strange sensation that I still had on my sunglasses, because everything around me felt dim. 

News flash: Not only does the City never sleep, it never gets all that dark either. 

But Malawi does. Malawi relies on that bloated sun to bookend the day and when it sets well then that's a wrap. Then it's time to pack it in at the outdoor market, time to trek on home, time to take stock of the chapters in between. 

The bus ride up North yesterday was easy. The bus came an hour late but we made up time on the straightaways (and maybe on the mountain hugging winding parts, too). I sat next to a Malawian woman in lime green fabric stenciled with this interlocking heart pattern but also fixed into the pattern at regular intervals was print about Jesus. She had a small and scrunched face and a toothy smile that made her age nebulous. To compromise I'd say she was 40. She didn't speak English and my Tumbuka game is weak but we communicated through nods and smiles, and by following each others' gazes so as to narrow in on the same site. In the window seat, she took her role of opening and closing the thin sliding window pane seriously; and each time* she made an adjustment, and the power of the inward gushing wind changed, she'd look at me for confirmation. Perfect, I'd smile, it had become a little stuffy. 

Twice, the bus pulled off the Tarmac (see prior post entitled, Tarmac**), onto the sandy red earth. When it did, men selling food would flank the sides and towards the thin sliding windows they'd raise their trays of goods above their heads: lollipops and chips and oranges and onions. Onions still with the roots attached. That's what the Malawian woman in lime green bought. She opened the window wide -there was no wind as the bus was still- and dangled her hand out and down and then through the opening she exchanged her 200 Kwacha for two bunches of red rooted onions. And a lollipop. She bought one of those too.  

Tomorrow, we visit the first of the villages. We're here with a purpose, after all...

Thanks for reading,

Rebecca

*and there was at least a dozen times 

**i think I recall there being a prior post entitled tarmac