Afterwards I spent a few hours in an internet cafe before taking a minibus towards the part of town where I would meet Diana. Lilongwe is actually a little funny in the way it is structured. Overall not very big, it still has two centres: City Centre and Old Town. City Centre is the part that has ministries, embassies, a shopping centre, airline offices and some travel agents. Old Town has the bus station, the market, most places to stay and several restaurants. Lonely Planet describes them as “City Centre is a rather sterile place whereas Old Town has soul.” The two centres are 3km apart and minibuses run between them. Kiboko Camp is located near the Old Town but I was supposed to meet Diana at her office in the City Centre. When I arrived there at 4:30 pm, she still had to work for a bit. As she works for this tour operator called “Wilderness Safaris”, I didn’t mind waiting because her office was basically part of a travel agency with interesting catalogues and brochures lying around. Unfortunately, Wilderness Safaris is an upper class tour operator specialised in mid-range to top-end safaris far beyond my budget... When Diana finished working, we were joined by one of her colleagues, Jennifer from Canada, and went to a guesthouse nearby which was operated by Wilderness Safaris. Diana had promised to go and say hi to the people currently occupying it because they were the parents of a friend of hers. It was an older British couple and they invited us for a drink. We didn’t stay for long but they were nice people and I enjoyed meeting them. Afterwards, we were joined by some more of Diana’s friends for dinner. All of them were from abroad and I was surprised to find something like this young expatriate community here. We went to a local restaurant (obviously popular amongst white foreigners) that even had vegetarian dishes and it was probably the best dinner I had in ages.

Altogether, we had a very nice evening and it was great being with “normal” people who had nothing to do with travelling. I was surprised to find myself almost envying them for their regular lives, just coming home from work, talking about their everyday issues. Their “problems” such as broken cars, dry-cleaning stuff to be picked up or stress at work sounded so familiar to me, and yet it was as if by now all this was at least a galaxy far away from me. These people could have their warm shower every morning, they could use a clean bathroom with toilet paper and never had to wear the same clothes for a week, so what did they complain about? Trying to find food and accommodation, organising my way from A to B, fighting harassment and not getting overwhelmed by feelings of helplessness and solitude, those were the problems of my everyday life and those of most people I had recently met. It was wonderful to be able to escape from all that for one evening, although at times I felt a little out of place in my filthy clothes and practical outfit compared to their “handbag-and-jewellery-city-look”. Besides, being with Diana and her friends also made me realise once more, how much I missed my own friends and similar occasions. How many times had we gone out for spontaneous dinners in Spain and yet I never thought I would consider it as something so special. Only now that I didn’t have it anymore, I suddenly understood how precious it is to have your friends around.

At the end of the evening they drove me back to Kiboko Camp around 10:30 pm. I still had to pick up my laundry that I had handed in this morning and it was still hanging on the line. Since it was pitch-dark and I only used my small headlight, I actually didn’t see that one of my shirts had fallen on the ground and thought someone had accidentally (?) taken it. I immediately prepared a notice and put it up on the board at the reception but I would luckily find out what really happened tomorrow afternoon. Yeah, that’s also a way to diminish your baggage... and reduce the anyway limited wardrobe even further!