Germany Diary

Sunday, 2:06 PM

Arrived safely this morning. It was nice from Blantyre to Jo’burg. Nice too from Jo’burg to Frankfurt Inter Aiport. This is where I had to walk a distance to gate A 16, a distance as if from Chilobwe to Zingwangwa to board a plane to Berlin.

By nine, I was at my hotel to be joined by six others later. As you know, I am tired and needed a hot shower and sleep. Yet that is not the case. I cannot check-in until three o’clock in the afternoon and you wonder at this service.

It’s the German way of doing things, says Christiane, our hostess. She has been to the US and was amazed with people’s willingness to help and quality of service.

Now I have just been eating at a restaurant outside the hotel. I was with my new found friend, for this period, Atiku Abubakar Akiru, from Kaduna in Northern Nigeria. I am back at the hotel, failing to connect my laptop to wireless internet and calling for more creativity into spending time and dozing on a chair. This is a test of pateince.

We have been given mobile phone cards with 10 Euores but some of us can’t call.

I can’t call, I can’t e-mail. I still don’t have a room, still haven’t had a shower 28 hours after my morning shower in Malawi. This is why I have just composed this piece of writing to be sent to you later.

I am writing and will write till I doze off. The pain in my mouth was so terrible this morning and it remains so. I have never had such pain from mouth ulcers. I can’t chew properly, can’t speak properly, my lips are dry and I have fever.

But I am well. Don’t worry about me. I will be well.