A Room with a Window

The baggage was 17.9kg, plus 5.8kg carry on- and it all followed me obediently to my destination. 

Out the window in Dar Es Salaam there is a call to prayer and someone is hammering. There is a corrugated iron rooftop littered with plastic water bottles, black plastic pipe and pieces of wood. Laundry drying on breezy balconies is being fetched in by a woman in purple scarves and voices are conversing in an unfamiliar language while food is frying. There is a blue cloud sky.

Inside as well the blue sky continues, the walls are painted with clouds, rippling waves and island oases. 

It is balmy but with the fan spinning overhead perfectly pleasant. No hot water bottles needed today.

The power drops out occasionally and well practiced generators kick in, scenting the air with diesel. I am near the coast but I may put down the mosquito net this evening, just for the romance of it; because I am in Africa.

Despite the proximity of so much that is new (or perhaps because of it) for this evening I am too sleepy to be anything other than a window adventuress.

Postscript: My flight to Zanzibar the next morning was so quick and so early that I arrived before I was scheduled to depart. Zanzibar it turns out was the place painted on my walls.

                                               Prison Island, Zanzibar