Catching up with old friends

 Here I am safe and sound in a place similar to Hephzibah but not Hephzibah. Guess there can be more than one city that will be renamed Hephzibah. 

I eventually made it through immigration not because someone took exception to letting an on-holiday journalist into the country but because several plane loads of people arrived at once and there were long queues.

A kind immigration dada let me fill in a form I missed seeing I needed at his desk without making me go to the back of the queue. He also commented on my journalist visa. "You are a journalist," he said with what could have been an admiring tone in his voice.

"Oh no sir," I protested. "Not for the next two weeks. I am on holiday." He seemed to enjoy the joke.

I eventually found my old friend Mossee  outside the building. Only people leaving or arriving on planes are allowed inside the building.  She was wondering if she had missed me. 

We went to catch an Ola which is like an Uber but cheaper. Mossee did not like the look of the car the driver pulled up in. She thought it was a bit bent out of shape. There is no doubt it had been bent out of shape in various places and then bent back in. I wondered if we should drive with someone who possibly could have a penchant to smashing up his vehicle. However,  the car was probably driven by others who might have done the damage. So we gave him the benefit of the doubt and arrived home without any incidents. 

I sat down to a hearty breakfast of chicken curry,  rice, cucumber and  dahl cooked by Mossee's daughter Chame.  I certainly will not need lunch. There was nearly one small astronomical mishap when I noticed a heart shaped something that indeed was a heart. I managed to swallow it down with some rice and dahl with never a nauseus turn of the stomach. For some people chicken feet, hearts and necks are a delicacy but not for this Canterbury farm girl.

I have a lovely large bedroom while the other three in the household share a smaller room. It has a lovely balcony. I do enjoy a sit on a balcony although it is a bit hot for that at present.

The bedroom is complete with a welcome basket of goodies and a large salwar top that Mossee managed to find. 

It is only 11am but feels like mid afternoon which it is at the ends of the earth. Later we will venture out to the mall and see what other super large outfits we can buy to fit me. Friday is market day so we will also go there and buy some guava and ladies finger. 

Seeing the crows cawing melancholically, mother cow wandering wherever she pleases, and hearing the noise of the traffic are like being reacquainted with an old friend.