Welcome back to Mayotte
Yesterday, we arrived back in Mayotte, greeted by the baking heat as we stepped from the airplane staircase to the shuttle that would drive us 70 meters to the baggage hanger where heat of another sort awaited us, that of a poorly ventilated, dark barn stuffed with people who do not share my Western views on masking natural body odors.
The good news was that we came home to a clean, unbroken-in-to house with unruined furniture. No, not because Aïcha had the roof repaired as she promised to do but because we had wonderful housesitters looking after things for us. Fortunately they were here to empty the buckets.
At 5:35 am,
mana_trini woke me to tell me it was raining and we should move to the bedroom to sleep. I was on the verge of protesting when the roof began to leak over the bed. I couldn't get to sleep once we moved inside because it was too hot--yes, at 5:30 in the morning--and because I could hear water hitting the deck in new places where the roof hadn't necessarily leaked before.
I encouraged
mana_trini to email the landlady today and tell her that if her b-in-l doesn't repair the roof by Monday, we are calling a professional to do the job and will pay him the rent money in return. I've had enough of false promises.
Welcome home indeed.
On a postive note, the vacation was wonderful and I will write glowingly about it later on.