After a rather depressing week with rain, rain and more rain and a disheartening trip to the immigration and labour offices, I was glad to see Friday come around and therefore also fireworks night in Arusha.
It was hosted by one of the international schools here and was sort of a Guy Fawkes night thing, although a little early. There were lots of activities for children, a bar, lots of food stalls and a stage for some live music and dancing plus a DJ for some good tunes throughout the evening.
Kala had invited me along and I was most grateful to get out of the house and have a few laughs! She had warned me that the fireworks of course would not be as impressive as in London, but I was actually surprised by it. It was on for 20 minutes and had a great finale! And luckily the rain stayed away for a few hours!
The place closed at 10pm, so we got back in the car with the three girls in the back (Kala’s two daughters and their nanny). As we were working out the ultimate playlist for the drive back, the car started shaking crazily and it was clear we had a puncture! Eeek. By then it had started drizzling again and we were in the middle of nowhere on a very dark and quite busy stretch of road.
Kala and I were determined to show proper girl power and not ask anyone for help. The two older girls were holding our phones as torches whilst we put those triangle thingies out and put music on in the car! My mind had to think right back to when I was 18 and my dad taught me how to change a tyre! I think, I did him proud… 🙂
After a good half an hour of trying to get the jack to work, we realised it was actually a little broken, so we were very grateful that a kind guy stopped and lent us his jack. But we took off the punctured tyre ourselves and popped the reserve on! There were a few high fives and a bit of dancing in the road before we, very dirty and wet, got back in the car and drove home!
Safely back, cue celebrations with some coffee tequila liquor for Kala and me… weird combo, but it wasn’t bad considering I don’t like tequila or coffee… so all in all a fun night and and a real boost to my mood.
The week ahead will be determined by another visit to the labour office on Monday… but I fear that it will be another week of ‘nothing’ – as more rain is forecast (it is the ‘short rains’ season), so need to start thinking about a plan B, C and D very quickly…
Enjoy your weekend, everyone, and the extra hour of sleep you’ll get tonight. No summer time here, so the time difference between you and me will be an extra hour… so I’ll be 2 hours ahead of mainland Europe and 3 hours ahead of the UK.
BETINA IN AFRICA 