Time to say goodbye
So we had a small farewell party for Kate in the compound. Mrs Jawneh came with her daughter Nyara and newest addition Mamjanko, Arabiatou, the little girl from our compound and cluster monitor Seedy. The kids were having a great time tucking into the popcorn and biscuits while Kate and I did our best to entertain the baby. Such a chore! Marcus was official photographer. It was a lovely evening. Seedy presented Kate with a delightful outfit which was such a nice gesture even if she did look like Widow Twanky.
When Kate left Soma it took her a couple of hours to pack her house up and a couple of days to sort my house out. She declared that she couldn’t possibly leave thinking about the squalor in which I remained so we spent a very amusing few days putting systems in place in my humble abode. Never having really had systems this was a revelation for me! Stacking systems for the pans in the kitchen cupboard. Set places for everything in the drawers. Actually she spent most of the time sat in the chair directing me as to where to put everything and explaining with admirable logic why it should be that way. Also of course laughing quite a lot at the sheer randomness of the arrangement of items. We both came to the conclusion that we should never be flatmates!
Then a few weeks later in the Kombos it was time to say goodbye for real. And I was glad to see the back of her. She was like a weight around my neck! No seriously, soberly and sentimentally: - a few tears were shed I have to admit. Having spent practically every day together for almost a year it was a bit of a wrench. Definitely some memorable times, good and bad. From the playing "name that tune on the verranda", to the queen’s birthday getting hideously drunk and being put to bed with buckets, to the infamous churchills karaoke night, to the motorbike adventures and the gele gele disasters, and the nights of gin, guitar and singing at Max’s. But as Liz said in consolation that night. You have a friend for life there and I think that’s true!
I still can’t shake her off, pestering me on facebook. Are you eating properly? etc etc
