This sunset over Kariba marked the real end of my time in Zambia. My remaining week in Lusaka would be spent selling my car and bike, getting the subletters moved in, scrambling to finish up some work, and saying inadequate goodbyes to the people that have made this place meaningful.
The time went faster than I could have imagined, leaving a blur of sensory memories that form a new part of who I am. Lusaka is burned into me as afternoons with slanting golden light and the smell of burning wood and plastic, men leaning out of minibuses shouting “Mutendere,” the first sip of Mosi after frisbee, the sickly sweetness of roadside sugarcane and the perfection of in-season mangoes, the crisp nights so similar to early fall nights in the Northeast that they left me profoundly emotionally disoriented.
I’ll remember women carrying heavy jugs of water down hot dusty roads, and astonishingly friendly people, and greedy cops, and surreal, never-ending dancing nights falling in love with the eyes of a girl I’d never met before in a place I would never come again, and stars so sharp and bright they defy description, and lumps of nshima, and tense but ultimately victorious negotiations with landlords, and vivid sunsets, and pyramids of flagstones sold by the side of the road, and the word “Boss,” and unhealthy alcohol consumption matched only by unethical red meat consumption, and frustration at the unabashedly bad car mechanics balanced by marvel at the unbelievably good bicycle mechanics, and an office whose beauty surprised me every single day.
But, mostly, I’ll remember the friends, and the adventures we had; I don’t have the words, yet, to describe the deep impact you have had on me. But, to steal a line from Kerouac, One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple. MH