Birds flying high

So we came down the mountain, me, my dirty little body and my thirteen blisters, and all I wanted was a shower, but immediately, and then there was a whole bunch of people at the border (it was Sunday of a long weekend, everybody was heading home), and half of them started saying hello and being impressed that I actually have a face and not only an email address, and then there was a girl who had troubles with her visa/ID and would have needed my help and didn't quite notice that I was off duty, and my boss didn't answer his phone, and so I was not much of a help for the girl, five minutes before border closing, when I didn't even have my house keys with me, and of course the line on the congolese side was slower than a dead snail, but at least they didn't bother me with the usual „which country is this passport from” type of questions, and I had a bit of a headache and my knees hurt quite a bit and my face was burning from the wind, but.

But there and then it suddenly felt good. That yep, this is the way it usually is, and yeah, I probably look like garbage, but I will soon have a shower and will look better tomorrow (although I will move like a rusty robot), and it's absolutely normal in this life that on the Sunday of the long weekend we stand in line on the border, and on Monday we will discuss who did what, like we used to in the dorm, where „are you going home this weekend” would replace most sorts of hello.

And then I have two new colleagues (yeiiii), and other new faces, and at times I get questions I actually know the answer to, and in general, in a sneaky and unnoticed way the moment came, when there are things that I know better, or at least I've been trying to understand longer. I've asked many people many times, and nobody could really tell me, when do they stop feeling like complete aliens; now I think I maybe understand why. Because we are always very much aliens, but there are moments of clarity when we, or I, feel that I almost know what I'm doing and why, and for the rest of the time I practice being and alien, and I have actually gained quite some experience in doing so.

And then there is the dry season, so it may or may not rain once a week for a bit, and then suddenly colours and lights and smells just get out of control and shout in your face „life! Air! Nature!” and then Kata beholds that it is very good.

(I'll tell you about the mountain later. It deserves its own post.)