After a week’s worth of doctor’s visits and more than $1,000 worth of supplies, I’ve finally managed to book my flight to Nairobi. It’s an emotional moment, less for the unparalleled possibilities of six months in Africa than the irrefutable fact that my bank account has dwindled down to just a couple of hundred bucks. How I’ve reached this point is worth no small degree of speculation; how I can high-tail it in the other direction is, of course, of somewhat more pressing import. I’ve shared the good news of my impending departure with friends in Jerusalem, though I’ve kept to myself the less-savory truth that I’ll be learning what it means to live in Africa on an African budget. I meet an American one night at a café in Nachalat Shiv'a, a tall, ruddy
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