"Letter" #4

At the end of the letter Alex made a plea for financial support to set up a beach restaurant. There was only one place in Ruarwe serving food; a small mud-brick establishment on the outskirts of the village, so to have another one wasn't a bad idea, especially in light of what happened one morning when we turned up for breakfast to find ourselves left hungry and disappointed. In spite of having made an arrangement on the previous day, nothing had been prepared. As we entered the dim interior we were met by the proprietor with a smiling face and a limp handshake. We sat down and waited for our order of omelettes, scones, boiled pumpkin leaves and tea to arrive. In Africa it was normal to wait for things, so after a while when our order hadn’t arrived we decided to hang on a bit longer. At that time Alex’s sister was employed as cook. She seemed passive and gentle natured. I new she had worked for a while at one of the lodges cooking for white people, so I felt fairly confident that when the food did arrive it would be good. To distract myself from the hard chair I was sitting on I looked at advert pages torn from magazines decorating the walls. Alex decided to go and find out what was happening in the kitchen, stooping his head through the low, narrow doorway, he darkening room momentarily, as he disappeared outside. I could hear some kind of discussion going on, and though curious I decided to stay put. When Alex came back looking frustrated and a bit annoyed, he said: “they haven’t made a fire yet.”