The Road less Travelled

The road was long and empty.
The wind kneaded the grass and unhooked the leaves from the trees. A pleasant wind, soft against my sweaty skin.
The sun baked the Tanzanian terrain as I walked, cursing my footwear choice as my Havaiana caught another stone.
A grumbling punctuated the silence. I turned to see a local ‘dala dala’ careening down the road, swerving to avoid potholes before screeching to a stop three inches from my nose.
The driver jumped down and took my backpack from me before I could move. In one smooth motion, he tossed it up onto the roof and hoisted me up into the back, thirty pairs of dark eyes staring back at me.
I squeezed in between two white robed men with toothy golden smiles. Across from me, a woman wrapped in bright sarongs held a dark cherub in her lap, and two young girls with gummy eyes and glistening skin stroked the fabric of my dress. One ran her hand down my leg, giggling at the spikes.
Six more people squeezed in at the next stop, followed by four crates of octopus, tentacles hanging over the sides.
‘Cosy,’ I commented to myself.
One of the newcomers folded next to the tentacles looked up. ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Just up the road. You?’
The man smiled. A string of pearls in a face of coal. ‘Just up the road.’
We rode in silence. ‘Are you visiting someone?’ He asked me.
‘No. You?’
He bobbed his head. ‘My wife. I have not seen her in very long time. She work here, but not me. I work in Moshi. For the mountain.’ He puts his fingertips in the shape of a peak.
‘Kilimanjaro!’ I exclaimed. ‘I’m going there! I want to climb it, but I’m not sure I’d make it.’
The man smiles. ‘But you here, young white girl, all alone, and look now!’ He gestures around. ‘All the way here, to the most beautiful place on earth. I say no, not much you cannot do.’
I looked at the man, his earnest eyes and big hands. ‘Thank you.’
He smiled a quiet smile as the dala dala screeched to its final stop, and everyone moved at once.