The Hills of Ruarwe #1

One day we went up into the hills behind Ruarwe, where planks were being sawn from newly felled trees. Starting in the morning before the sun’s heat intensified, we made our way up a steep, rocky path. Humidity and exhaustion slowed me down and I had to keep stopping. Finally, feeling dizzy and faint, I wasn’t sure if I could go on. Nausea pressed up into my chest and down into my gut. I burped, broke wind, and collapsed down with my head between my knees, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck and forehead. Alex waited patiently, but I felt he was itching to move on, and step-by-step we continued upwards. As we gained height, a view opened up behind us: in the morning stillness, with sun, cooking, burning, evaporating, we paused to look down to where the village lay nestled in trees. From the pale-magenta line of Ruarwe beach, the Lake stretched like a vast shimmering mirror to the faint serrations on the horizon, traced in mauve by the hills of Tanzania.