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at, The Lion Den .  She had joked with Tim that someone had obviously left out the ‘ s ’ from Lion’s when they painted the sign and he had said that even if they had spelled it correctly, it wasn’t a great choice of name for a cosy B&B.  She laughed to herself as she remembered their conversation and wished he was with her now.  It always felt like home whenever they were together, even when they weren’t speaking. 
    She locked the door to her room, took out the key and jammed a chair under the door handle; it was a nice place but she was still a woman travelling alone and who knew what lions might be lurking in the den.  Better to be safe than sorry Tim would say and she had learned the hard way to believe him.  She got under her mosquito net and lay back on the bed, setting her phone to wake her up at ten, a late start but it was going to be a long day.
     

Chapter 9
     
     
    “Wake up Timmy”
    Tim rubbed his eyes. “Wha…?”
    “Wake up.”  Asefa’s voice boomed in his aching head.  For a moment he thought he had woken up in his own bed and that Sarah would be next to him, but Asefa was not in England…?  Waking up in a strange place never sat well with him and never seemed to get any easier.  He looked around to see he was in the sparsely decorated spare bedroom of the Development Institute guesthouse, the residential section of their Dire Dawa office compound.  How many beers had they drunk last night? 
    “OK, OK you fucker – I’m awake. What time is it?”
    “Five-thirty. You want to go to this copper mine and do some work or stay in bed and have me fan you with palm leaves?  This is not Wolverhampton County Council and we are not on flexi-time woman.  In Africa we start early to beat the Sun; but I know you grey boys back in London don’t have to worry about that.  Ha.  Here drink your coffee man and get dressed.”
    Asefa handed him a sweet and strong Ethiopian coffee and some bread, which he took and gnawed on like a sleepy child.  “OK I’ll be ready in ten.  I’ll meet you at the car.”
    Asefa was definitely a morning person.  So was he, but a seven A.M. not a five A.M. morning person.  Like most women he’d known, Sarah was not a morning person.  Tim would get up at the weekend and have some alone time before throwing a cup of tea and a bacon roll into the bedroom, like a couple of edible grenades to wake a sleeping dragon.
    Tim threw on his clothes and well-worn hiking boots, stuffed his water bottles and the rest of his gear into his pack and brushed his teeth, being careful not to get any tap water in his mouth.  Does fluoride on a toothbrush kill waterborne diseases if you brush long enough?  Today wouldn’t be the day to try it out; a thousand feet down a copper mine and not a bathroom in sight.  He didn’t think the miners would be too pleased if he soiled their tunnels fitted with improvised and barely functioning ventilation. 
    He walked out to the cream Landcruiser and got in next to Asefa.  
    “Not too much off-roading Asefa.  And I get to pick the music.”
    “No, driver decides and driver wants Zangaliwah!” Asefa laughed and put on his Cameroonian tunes.  Well, when in Rome, he thought.   
    He had met Asefa in Sudan ten years earlier.  They’d shared a compound working for the International Committee for Migration.  Asefa was the gregarious Cameroonian who kept everyone’s spirits up, often with spirits created in his improvised moonshine kit.  His homebrew wasn’t bad and the Sudanese government’s ban on alcohol made it all the more drinkable.  It was a great time – he’d been young, he loved the work, he was out there meeting people, meeting women, making a difference.  The organization was on a shoestring budget, which meant little oversight and maximum flexibility to do the type of work you wanted; without the endless report writing big money brings.  He’d taken the poorest village in the area and turned it into the