TAN: Lazy Sunday in Dar

Not entirely lazy, but pretty near to it.
I awaken a bit after midnight to the sound of someone calling Alex Fox’s name. I think I hear Chantal’s voice a little bit later. It turns out that they had arrived at 10:45 p.m. to find nobody at the airport to greet them. Maina had thought they were to arrive on Sunday evening rather than Saturday. Chantal had remembered enough of the route to guide a taxi driver out to Micocheni. Alex called Maina to let him know that Chantal and Julie had arrived. At first, Maina didn’t believe him, but was fairly well convinced when Alex put Chantal on the phone.
Gabriel came in at 3 a.m. He crashed soon thereafter and spent the next hour or so sawing down some dense old-growth forest with his sonic snore saw. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep from three on. Finally jumped up at 5:30 a.m. for a quick shower. I got straight into making fixes to the Pixel Corps website.
Hanif was leaving for the office around 9 a.m., so I hitched a ride with him as the other folks went through their morning routines. They finally caught up with me around 12:30 p.m. I got a fair bit of the website uploaded, The connection, one of the fastest in the area, crept along for my uploads, crapping out more often than not.
We all head out for a $3.30 all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet at an Indian Restaurant around the corner. It is just a wonderfull as the meals we had there last time. After luncheon, we head back to the office for some more internet time and to do some system maintenance. Mwanga comes by to get the new 15" Powerbook that Chantal has brought for him. He seems quite excited, if a little overwhelmed. We do some installations and give him a couple of lessons before he has to go. We are to meet up with him in the morning to borrow one of his PAL Sony PD150 cameras. Originally he had nothing booked for almost the entire two and a half months that Chantal and I will be here. In the week prior to our arrival, six big production jobs have come his way, so he will not be joining us for most of the safari trips. This is a great disappointment.
We finish up our work at the office and head over to the Q Bar. Gabriel and Maina have been coming here the last couple of nights. We order up an interesting interpretation of vegetable fajitas. I have never seen fajitas with peas and carrots. It turns out to be quite good, with chapatis standing in remarkably well for tortillas. Over the couse of the evening we are joined by a number of Kenyans. First it is Maina’s girlfriend and her roommate. Another compatriot comes a bit later and we are joined, at last, my Maina’s cousin. There is a fairly good flow of conversation in spite of having unintentionally segregated our groups at opposite ends of the table.
We shoot a few rounds of pool and the others enjoy a couple more drinks, before the flight seems to catch up with Julie and Chantal. Maina’s cousin kindly offers us a lift back to Hanif’s house in Micocheni, which is just down the street where he lives. There is big excitement at the house with a new TV set to watch. We all tuck in and are lulled to sleep by the sounds of Animal Planet.