A Long Way from Akron

It is the sun and wind in that place that I will always remember. I was standing on the porch of the old tin-roofed building that served the area variously as general store, town hall, butcher shop, brothel, and beer-hall, looking at the dilapidated bus in which I'd been traveling across Zimbabwe for six hours. The wind swirled clouds of dust across the yard. A scrawny, half-starved African dog trotted by. In the scant shelter provided by a little group of thorn trees, a few old women sat trying to sell avocados and bananas to travelers. I was at a bus stop somewhere between Filabusi and Mbalabala on the Bulawayo Road. As far as I knew, the place had no name.