Add(enough of th)is

I fluffed around in the morning, completing travel preps. I'm using this Maputo trip strategically to take some possessions in advance of the move, to be left somewhere that will be determined, depending on who I can charm.

A colleague with whom I've worked closely on the Liberia project had a final lunch with us, as he's quit to focus more on consulting work. We had Vietnamese, which always transports me to steaming bowls of pho from Hanoi street stalls both in the chilly damp winter and boiling summer.

The Uber driver who took me to the station was very aggressive. 'You were very slow', he informed me in a thick Eastern European accent. 'Is this your first time with Uber as you have good rating?' (implying that he can't understand why I haven't been panned by previous drivers)

Cheers for that, I actually took about two minutes from when you pulled up and I'm carting 40 kilos of stuff. It doesn't make me worthy of 1 star.

'Where are you going? Vietnam?' How did he know I'd been lost in a Vietnamese food haze earlier in the day?!

'Do you live in this building? Do you have a car?'

It was an interrogatory ride with a piercing suspicious stare through the rearview mirror.

I commenced the leg to Addis Ababa, where I'll change planes, after some calls with colleagues at Heathrow, getting our ducks in line for later in the week.