dear anna

Dear Anna Williams,

Once upon a time I wrote you a letter. Then I gave it to Dad to mail down in Mbale. Dad put the letter on the dashboard and set out. Much to his assumption, a greater part of the road was muddy and had already caused not a few trucks to get immovably stuck, so he decided to go around them. As you already know, the roads here are not like the roads in America. But not only are they made of dirt. When it rains, they become death traps of mud. And not only are they death traps of mud, they are mountainous death traps of mud. In other words, if you are not traveling in the exact center of the road (and sometimes not even then) then you are most likely tilting drastically sideways. So, if you are My Dad, and you are driving around several stuck lories in the road, and there is a letter on the dashboard, and the window is open, then unless the letter is stuck with glue, it will most likely not stay in the same spot. So Anna, if you get an envelope in the mail with the address written in my Dad’s handwriting and upon opening it you discover a flat piece of hardened mud that is remarkably rectangular, just know that it is not a strange souvenir from your crazy friend in Africa, but it is actually what used to be an envelope. Upon opening it, you will hopefully find a letter. Hopefully. It may not look like a letter. It may not look like anything. But trust me…it definitely was a letter at one point.

Your friend, Maria