Afternoon Visit

I was lounging in the late afternoon sun. It was almost 4:30 pm, cool enough to sit in the sun and only sweat a little. I had been sequestered in my house most of the day and decided I needed at least a few hours of vitamin "Sun".
I had just taken a bafa, I had planned to bath the day before but forgot to move the bafa with the sun so it was shadowed and cold when I went for it. I had almost lost hope for this day too but at the last minute the clouds broke and warmed the shower enough.
I always leave my hair down after a shower and let it dry naturally. I figure in a day or two it will go into a permanent ponytail until I shower again. I love how in africa my hair has grown longer and developed a bit of a wave to it. I even love its two toned color, sun bleached tips and brown top. There is an interesting fade that goes along with it. Who would have thought Africa would be the place where my hair was healthiest? I guess less washing and forgein products makes all the difference.

So I was sitting on the porch, feeling fresh and clean, enoying the sun, listening to the plink plink plink of some men playing bao across the street. Bao is the game of Malawi, it is a wooden board with two rows of scooped out bowls and a two bowls at each end to hold marbles. The objective to the capture or 'eat' all the marbles in your opponents front row.
I was reading the last few chapters of Paul Theroux's To The Ends Of The Earth, when I heard the dry grass rattle at my gate. I turn my head quick enough to catch a glimpse of a black and white, rather healthy looking cat somersault through a gap in my grass and the post of my gate. Starled or threatened by something beyond my gate, (Most likely a Malawian, or a dog) the cat flipped through my gate but for anyone who knows cats, knows they cannot stand to have their backs to any sort of threatening presence. So in mid air this cat executed what could be described as a roundoff and landed staring through the hole in the gate it had just passed through.

For about a minute I remain unnoticed by the cat.
Finally I shift and the cat fixes me with its slitted yellow eyes in a fairly accusing manner, as if I was trying to sneak up behind him in his own personal safe place. Cats. He glances back through the hole in the gate. Then all very suddenly and rapidly the cat springs at my fence, sinking its front claws into the grass. Standing on its hind legs, it glances through the hole beside it, releases my fence, then pounces through the hole.

I returned to the last chapters of To The Ends Of The Earth