My last nigth with Chris

Another perfect sunset, silhouettes and a haze of dust across the sky, it felt like we were walking in a dream. I don’t know why that afternoon was so different, but for some unexplained reason Chris and I walked for a whole hour before we were asked for money, and in the second hour only two people had asked us. It was a relief and we both felt a sense of peace just in being left alone for once.

Our walk led us to the hospital, and we walked straight in without seeing a single guard. The hospital was quite small, though a little decrepit it was clean, we only saw one nurse the whole time we were there. I assumed that visiting hours were over, but it was early enough for the patients to still be awake. It was not like the hospital in Ghana, reeking of desperation and disorder, it was calm there and quiet. The corridors were lined with glass windows and we could stare right in to the bed rooms. We only saw two people who seemed to be in pretty bad shape, one hooked up to a drip and the other so thin it brought flashes of David Edem to mind. Most of the patients were Himba people; it was quite a sight to see them in their cow-skin and heavy steal adornments, their thick clay coating and their matted dread locks, lying on crisp white sheets in hard cold rooms. Many of the Himba people had pulled their sheets to the floor and were lying beside the bed, perhaps a soft mattress takes as much getting used to as the hard floor did for us?

Afterward Chris and I sat and had a beer and a piece of BBQ-ed steak. We talked about travel and love and our hopes and dreams. I really like Chris. He is gentle and sentimental, passionate and brave and has a thirst for knowledge and people that is almost child-like. Even though we had only spent a week together, we had become very close. Travelling does that. When you have no one else but each other to rely on, when no one else understands you except each other, when you have to trust that person to protect you and keep you safe. I was feeling sentimental and sad. I had a feeling that it was going to be my last night with Chris. We had achieved what we had gone north to do – to see the Himba people. Chris wanted to head further north still to the Epupa waterfall, I needed to move on and say goodbye to Namibia, I still had Victoria Falls and Ethiopia and only a month left of my whole trip. Chris and I hadn’t actually talked about going separate ways, and I had a lump so large in my throat thinking about it that I couldn’t bare to bring it up with him then.

A man approached us and asked us for money. We tried to explain to him that fifty people or more a day ask us for money and we couldn’t possible say yes to everyone. He said he understood what we were saying and sat beside us and told us that Africans, particularly the Himba people, think that all white people are rich and that is why they get angry when we don’t give them money. We had a half hour long conversation where I actually thought he understood our point of view. But then he asked us again for money and exasperated we got up and left him there.

The next morning I woke up to a phone call from my partner. She told me she had been out the night before and slept with someone. My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking, even though we had an overseas arrangement actually meant it was ok to do so. But I thought about what Colin had been saying about sex the night before, and I was thinking about all the people I had met in Africa who thought sex meant nothing – it was something that all animals do, humans included, like eating and sleeping. And then my heart quietened down and my hands were steady again. We’d been apart for three months at that stage, it was starting to feel like three years.

It was a bad start to my day. I had had a troubled sleep, not knowing if I would stay with Chris or leave him that day. Not knowing how I would get out of that town, not really knowing where I was going next. I was feeling the same deep sadness as when I left Jo’Burg, thinking I would never see the friends I had made there again, and now I was thinking I will probably never see Chris again either. It made me feel nauseous. Decision making has never, and will never, been my forte.

I watched Chris go through his regular morning rituals that I found so endearing. The first thing he always did when he wakes up was rip the curtains open and declare with glee “the sun is shining!” like it wasn’t shining the day before, or the day before that, or every morning since he’d arrived in Africa. When he has his first sip of Earl Grey tea he always smacks his lips together and sighs “ah! That’s good!” like he has never tasted tea before.

When I told Chris that I was leaving that day he went into the bathroom and stayed there for what seemed like an awfully long time. He later told me that he was crying in there.

He watched me packed my bags (and couldn’t believe that I didn’t fold any of my clothes). He walked me to the start of the highway so that I could hitch-hike east, in the direction of Victoria Falls. The sun was hot and I was fighting back tears. We hugged and took a couple of photos and then it was time for him to go and try and get his ride North. As he walked away I let a single tear free.

About twenty feet away he stopped and turned back around.

“Friends for life?” he called to me.

“Friends for life!” I called back.

Twenty more feet after that he turned back around and blew me a kiss. Then he kept walking and once again I was on my own.