Day Five

First of all, please forgive the delay in blogposts and the haphazard way in which they are being uploaded. Also, my failing memory - there's not room for the seven Swahili swear words I learned and full details of our experiences. Because of this, I'm going to skip to the evening and hope somebody else has included details of the rest of the day somewhere in this maze of a blog.

Julian Goes Missing

It seems Julian’s becoming a bit of a celebrity. Already the star of two blog entries and the author of another, one can’t help but wonder how we would feel if we were to lose such a household name. But wait! We don’t have to wonder at all. After boarding a matatu, (minibus taxi thing - you should be learning the lingo by now!) the whole group has now been dragged through the rollercoaster of emotions that is par for the course when one of your own is seemingly lost forever:

1. Denial – A relatively short stage. We sauntered off the bus and followed Nick single file, Clive counting us as we passed. He reached 11, didn’t believe we could actually be one short and counted several more times before we all, finally, accepted that Julian hadn’t made it.

2. Anger – Julian, who was clearly less than ecstatic at being left behind, was not the only one who came close to breaking something. He still owes me 2 quid for a kebab I bought him in May and I wasn’t totally confident the insurance would pay out on that one.

3. Bargaining – We did spend a decent amount of time discussing how to distribute Julian’s possessions. Andan really wanted his Yu-Gi-Oh cards but when we found out Julian was attacked by dogs, he settled for the tattered remnants of Julian’s favourite shirt.

4. Depression – I’m going to rename this one anxiety. I was standing about two hundred metres from Nick and Clive when they found out he was safe yet I quite clearly heard the collective sigh of relief.

5. Acceptance – Julian had to accept that he definitely was a bit of a mug and we, in turn, had to accept that him getting jumped out on by a man with a torch and set upon by dogs yet still finding his way home was one of the most impressive stories of the trip so far.

Paul