Dan being here has been a breath of fresh air for me. He reignited the spark of academia, taking interest in what I was studying and inspiring me to go on. It sounds pathetic but that is what its been like. Mimi has been ill for the past ten days and so he would take her library card and sit with me in the main study area flipping through the books and reading through my notes his eyes giving away how enthralled he was by it all and it gave me that feeling of contentment mixed with excitment. I'd talk about the things I've studied and he'd listen attentively and when I would stop in the middle of what I was saying to see if he was joking he would grin at me and say "Go on, I'm finding this fascinating Dr Amaal!".
I introduced him to my other friends and then they'd sit enthralled as he told stories of Malawi and Sudan and they would laugh their socks off when he told them about the time in Liberia when we were swimming in the sea and how I had suddenly started scrambling towards the shore screaming my head off and how the local boys had ran up to see what was going on and how everyone was laughing hysterically when the shark i thought i had seen was nothing more than drift wood.
We talked about getting back together. We both said we wanted to. But then a long-distance friendship is fine but a long-distance relationship will be a strain. We had been through that once already. And so we left it at that. Friendship, although both of us knew we both wanted more.