See You On the Dark Side of the Moon…

 Dar es Salaam, Friday, December 22, 2006, 2:19pm

In Zanzibar yesterday I stopped by a travel agent and said I wanted to stay at a hotel in Dar in the $50 range so they set me up at the $70 a night Peacock Hotel, overlooking the Mnazi Mmoja Grounds, a pitch of green in the middle of a stucco and concrete jungle. Either Africans don’t follow directions very well, there is a communication breakdown more often than not, or they are doing their own thing to serve their own needs, which is most likely the case as I’m sure this man got a commission for sending me to this hotel.

As you can probably tell, I am a bit jaded now and not as rosy and positive about all aspects of Africa. I think it is just one of the many phases a mazungu living in Africa goes through. There is a big difference between the time you spend in small towns and villages in Africa versus spending time in African cities. The African city makes the white traveler weary, weathered, and wise; granted this comes about as a result of getting ripped off or literally “taken for a ride” on more than one occasion. Sometimes however, when you are on your own, faced with a language barrier, and disoriented in a strange land, you have to suck up your pride, open up your wallet, and trust that the rip-off artist behind the wheel will get you to where you need to go. On a positive note however, it does not take long to distinguish between the face and tonal intonations of a hustler and the face and voice of an honest man.

Spending time in Dar, I can understand Bob Marley’s song “Concrete Jungle” better than ever. Although he was not talking about Dar, I’m sure it could be replaced with any poor African city where people are hustling, struggling, and fighting for not a piece of the pie, but rather a few crumbs of it, and inevitably in this struggle you find crime, disease, and poverty. Dar is no exception.

When I opened the curtains of my room at the Peacock Hotel this morning in Dar es Salaam (Slum), the multi-national billboard advertisements of Sony, Coca-Cola, Hitachi, and more, were silhouetted against a gray Seattle-sky. A light rain was falling but the Africans below my window were not dressed in typical Northwest Northface raingear, but rather kangas, football jerseys, burkas, work attire, and other colorful African garb.

The Peacock could pass for any American Hotel, and I will go so far as to say it is worth the $70 a night for peace of mind, air condition, and a room where I don’t need to sleep beneath a mosquito net. They are in the process of placing a fancy reflective glass on the outside of the hotel to make it look like a slice of Las Vegas in Dar, however, they are just covering up the shitty, dirty, weather-worn crumbling, façade; a clever play and a small investment to pay to charge more for their rooms and make them seem more international and glamorous. This morning I asked to see if the price was negotiable if I were to spend another night and they were quick to point out I was already getting a deal as the regular going price is $72. I did not have the energy today to argue, bargain, or find another place to stay.

I had a leisurely morning, like so many others in Africa, but awoke later than I had planned around 9:30. I had plans of getting up earlier and finding another hotel but my alarm did not go off, so I had a typically shitty breakfast of runny eggs, beans, and chopped up hot-dog which they call sausage, and then walked around for several hours. If I saw three white people in that time it was a lot. It was darkest Africa at its most theatrical and liveliest, and I was in the thick of it.

I strolled through the Kisutu Market which is around the corner from the Peacock Hotel and then made my way to the Kariakoo Market, which was one massive mass of African buyers and sellers for blocks and blocks. The actual market, which was a large, open-air structure housed by a wooden and tin-roof, contained everything from small fish to fruits, vegetables, herbs, and much, much more. The outlying blocks surrounding this enclosed open-air market were made up of store front after store front of the same shit under a different name. It appeared as if I was walking through the shoe district, followed by the car brakes district, the bra district, the electronics district, and more as entire blocks would be selling the same thing. In some storefronts, the front would be crowded seven people deep fighting over God-knows what. It was a sea of black movement with one white dot carrying a back-pack, meandering aimlessly, trying to move throughout it in the rhythm of the African, while trying to look confident, like I had purpose, and like I knew where I was going. I followed the African lead whether it was the pace at which I was walked or when to cross the street. This is also a good policy to follow as sometimes you are lost in your own mind and forget that traffic moves in the opposite direction you are used to.

The streets were muddy from the previous night’s rain and dirty, and people yelled of deals and bargains and of the latest goods on megaphones, storefronts cranked music with heavy bass, men on street corners had sheets thrown out on the ground with displays of shoes and clothes, people laughed and people yelled, cripples lay on the ground in crumbled masses begging for money, people laid in doorways, on cars, and sights, sounds, and scents swirled around me, threatening to overtake my senses. The scents of garbage and food filled the air and occasionally I would catch a whiff walking past a woman in a Kanga and think, she could probably use a “maintenance wipe.” This was true of the woman serving me at breakfast this morning as well. She would come over and ask me if I needed anything while I was trying to put a fork-full of runny eggs in my mouth, and I would catch this scent and want to throw up. I thought to myself, there is a good chance she has made Ugali in her shorts. I’m not a critic, just an observer, and I am more than sympathetic to these issues as I had a rather comical incident in the Serengeti that I failed to report. Perhaps I will get to that one later.

For the most part I did not get bothered this morning but rather received only a few strange looks running the gamut from; what is that muzungu doing in these parts, to – that mother-fucker probably sold my descendants into slavery. There was one or two woman that if looks could kill, I would certainly be laying on the sidewalk right now, my insides splayed opened for all of Africa to see what happens to the descendants of slave traders. That thought would not have entered my mind if it were not for an incident in Zanzibar; more on that later.

When I left the girls yesterday in front of the Flamenco Guest House in Stone Town, Zanzibar, I drove away feeling rather sad, and by the end of the night, when I was sitting in my hotel room alone watching the Discovery Channel, I felt as if I had a broken heart. I did not even realize it but we were traveling together for nine days and became fast friends. By day 2 or 3 we had all dropped our shyness and were comfortable enough to be talking explicitly about sex and bowel movements. These two polite and dainty Dutch girls had quickly shed their soft and womanly skins, turning into foul-mouth sailors with the minds of men. Let me tell you; when you are traveling on your own to an archipelago, these fine soulful natures are just the type of traveling companions you need. In the nine day stretch I spent with these girls I probably laughed more than any other period of my two months in Africa.

You get to know people very fast when a foreigner traveling in third-world countries and the topic of bowel movements become as common of topics as what is for dinner and local African politics. In a place where food hygiene is questionable at best, it brings bowel movements to the forefront. It was also nice being able to discuss these topics with medical students so they could prescribe the proper medicines when needed.

So many people come in and out of your life when you are traveling, and even with the best intentions, when you get home, time, distance, and routine can make those relationships crumble and fade like so many of the weathered facades of Stone Town, Zanzibar. I have a feeling with my two Dutch “ho’s,” as I affectionately referred to them, we will be friends for life, at least I hope so. I have plans to go visit them in Amsterdam and them to Seattle. Susan may even do a residency in Seattle or Vancouver, which would be ideal because I fell in love with Vancouver this fall and it would be great to have a friend there.

Last night I ate dinner in the restaurant of the hotel which was a rather depressing scene. There were just a few of us scattered about a large room which was clad in Christmas decorations of red, green, and tinsel, but there was just something off about it. It felt more like a Chinese restaurant that lacks any specific décor, and yet they try their best to be seasonal, especially around Christmas, perhaps by placing some tinsel on a gong or the patron taking orders wearing a Santa Claus hat. There is also something especially depressing and lonely about Christmas music in a foreign country. Although I can do without Christmas music in general, it can be very comforting when in the confines of your family home, but hearing “Silent Night” in a restaurant in the middle of Dar es Salaam, not so comforting; more like comically depressing.

I did overhear a young girl say something about Seattle so I introduced myself and we had dinner together. She had been in Africa a month and climbed Kilimanjaro and in Seattle, worked as a nanny. She mentioned how she had taken the ferry that day and what a nightmare the scene was. It wound up costing her $60 and it took her two and a half hours and I paid the same to fly and made it from Zanzibar to Dar in 14 minutes in a Piper airplane. Incidentally, 75% of the people on board were from Seattle, but this was no great incident considering the Piper only sat four people, but the couple who was on the plane lives only a few blocks away from me in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle.

Towards the end of dinner, another girl overheard us talking and she had grown up in Seattle but now lived in Brooklyn. She was over here on business, working for an NGO. She talked me into a nightcap of Johnny Walker Red Label at the rooftop bar, even though I just wanted to climb into bed. I am generally not one to turn down a drink, however, and I did not want to break my track-record on account of exhausted apathy.

I wish I had written more in Zanzibar because now, in my mind, the nine days seem to have melded into three days; one in Stone Town, one in Kendwa, and another in Stone Town. In reality, it was two, two-day stints in Stone Town book-ending five days in Kendwa. The days in Kendwa seem to melt in mind into beach time, beers, bikinis, playing guitar at the beach at sunset, reading in hammocks beneath palm trees, white sands, and the cool, refreshing turqoise and coral-blue waters of the Indian Ocean.

I suppose the first distinguishable thing that comes to mind is a beach party on Saturday night. People came from all over for the Kendwa Rocks beach party. The place was filled with tourists and locals, and some tourists with their eyes on locals. Apparently these African beach boys get laid quite a lot by women coming to the island for sex from a real, live, African boy. There are sex trades and tours all over; why not African boys? Many of these women are stupid enough to not even wear condoms which the beach boys will casually tell you, and the beach boys will also tell you what nationalities they like to fuck most (Scandinavians), which ones they like the least (Germans and British), and what type of sex each nationality prefers. I watched an older, somewhat attractive if not haggard Italian woman pick up a different beach boy almost every night. It became a game actually as each of us placed a bet on which one she would leave with that night. I suppose this sort of sexual play is a distant cousin, or an African variation on the fun and always exciting game called Russian Roulette.

I started my night on Saturday with a few Rum drinks which I parlayed into many Kilimanjaro, Tusker, and Safari beers, occasionally mixing up the segue of beers with Sambuca shots, compliments of the Kiwi I met on the ferry and whom I had shared a Shisha with in Stone Town. Even by just spotting him on the ferry, I knew he was a drinker.

The night found me drunk enough to be giving it my all on the dance floor, which is a very rare occasion, found only at a few bars and parties throughout Seattle per year. Our four-some turned to a two-some as Susan and the Kiwi disappeared to hook up somewhere. There were plenty of other people we were hanging with however, including a great crew of Swedish people I had met who had been doing volunteer work throughout Uganda.

Having had my fill of dancing and the meat market, I asked Judith if she wanted to smoke a joint down on the beach with me and I would play guitar. We smoked a joint, which turned into another, however there was not much guitar playing done in-between the uncontrollable boughts of laughter. Judith does not smoke very much and did not think it was doing much; granted, she is from Amsterdam and the weed I got from Rasta-Roger at the Scuba Shop was more like seedy Mexican dirt weed than what can be found throughout the cafes of Amsterdam – not to mention the world-renown “B.C. bud” that flows from the north into the United States. She did not think it was working; that is until she left the beach to get us some more beers whereby it hit her like a ton of African mud-bricks.

While we were on the beach, people would stop by and talk for a minute, and maybe I played a little guitar, but then they would move on. At one point some African came up to me and ripped me a new asshole. The situation is hazy, but I think he asked me where I was from, and with that he came at me out of left field about how I enslaved his people. He was probably mid-twenties, drunk, and angry as all hell. I was drunk enough to take it lightly and said, “Wait, rafiki (friend), let’s talk about this!” and I laughed it off in the spirit of drunken camaraderie. He was having none of it, however.

“Ahhh fuck you!” he said in his African accent, and stormed off. Is that discrimination? Reverse-discrimination? Whatever the fuck it was, it was the first taste of it that I had received in Africa. As I have said, I have received a few less than friendly looks, but this was the first open diatribe I had been on the receiving end of.

The next day was a waste as I was incredibly hung-over; at least I thought I was. Judith and I were both hurting something fierce as we had drank for several hours after Susan and the Kiwi disappeared. I made a few appearances that day at the beach, but slept for most of it in the hot, humid, still-air of my palm-thatched banda.

I made a strong enough recovery that night to have a few drinks and play some guitar with a few people as the sun set, but I went to bed around mid-night that night and woke up at probably 2am to cold sweats. I was shivering and shaking and put on a fleece, wool socks, and a wool hat – and it was probably 85 degrees in my room. I had a high temperature that night as something was trying to work its way through my body. Judith was equally sick so perhaps we drank something not too good or that angry African put something in our drinks. Several other people were sick as well with various symptoms, so perhaps it was just food from the beach BBQ that night. I was up almost the entire night however and was almost sure I had come down with malaria. Sometimes the symptoms come and go, but I didn’t have a severe headache so I just have to be mindful of the symptoms state-side.

Every day and every night I ate at one of several beach restaurants, each consisting of pretty similar food at similar prices. Mostly I ate with Susan and Judith, but towards the end we also met a 29-year-old Portuguese fellow who at one time had worked in human resources for a large consulting firm managing international projects, and now was a Safari tour operator for Spanish and Portuguese clients. When he talked, he had this Al Pacino/Scarface thing going on between his lip and nose and there was a quiet cynicism about him. I think this can work for or against a person, but for Ricardo, it worked for him and I found it quiet funny.

After the night of the temperature, Ricardo and Jessica, a Canadian girl living in Arusha, busted my Konyagi cherry. Konyagi is a local drink that you mix with Sprite or bitter-lemon. It was just the buzz I needed to pull me out of a day spent in a feverish haze.

I believe it was that night that a group of British young ”adults” showed up at Kendwa Rocks. This was Sunday night because they arrived around 10pm on Saturday night and thought every night went off like the once-a-month Kendwa Rocks beach party. The truth of the matter is that Kendwa Rocks is generally a pretty mellow, rasta-run establishment.

Youth is wasted on the youth. So on Sunday night these British girls and their troglodyte boyfriends showed up dressed to the nines, as they say, ready to party. Everyone was hungover and they hit the bar running and hard. They ordered several bottles of Konyagi not knowing what it was, and one of the larger meat-heads who was a parody of himself, cracked open the bottle and began to chug it. Konyagi straight up is something awful and he nearly spit it out and threw it up. Then there was a big commotion about them returning the bottles, not knowing you had to mix them, etc. Later, they somehow procured a giant bag of some liquor that they were all passing around.

The Dutch girls and I were saying how this group was sharing one large, mutated brain cell and clearly not enough oxygen was getting to all parts of the system. It was only maybe 8:30pm when the first girl fell flat on her face. Just as when you pass a bad car wreck, it became almost impossible to look away and I would change my seat to either side of the table depending on where they moved throughout the bar. At one point, one of the girls was on the bar dancing and, as I’ve said, this is a pretty mellow place. They became a spectacle for the entire bar to watch, free entertainment. I felt sorry for the largest meat-head because I am almost sure he will never find someone to love in his life as much as himself. Mixed in with that compassion was also surprise at the fact that nature and evolution had not yet stamped out this young boyish-man from the face of the planet. I guess you don’t necessarily need brains when you have brawn, and most likely daddy’s money.

Imagine to yourself how you would picture this big meat-head who thought he was God’s gift to women, in his muscle shirt and kanga (the kanga would keep falling to reveal his black, tight underwear which he was enjoying and seemed to think was fashionable) dancing across the bar floor, and that is EXACTLY what he was doing. He even sat down at a table of uninterested girls to try to flirt. His blonde and buxom girlfriend became jealous and sat down at a table of two other large men, who she did not realize were gay. It was probably crushing to her young and fragile ego, especially since her hulking boyfriend was hitting on someone else.  Meanwhile, she did not take her eye off the boyfriend. I was tempted to walk up and say, was that your boyfriend kissing that girl over there? There was money on the table if I did it, but I was pretty sure I would get a good beat-down from the large brainless Brit.

There was lots of dancing and girls hugging and falling all over the place, and the couples making out in the bar. They were everything that is wrong in mindless men and women, and even still, I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt that they were just young and stupid. I told the Dutch girls, that these British girls are what we call, “young, dumb, and full of cum.” Judith and Susan liked this and made me promise to make a list of all the expressions that I had taught them. “I love the English language,” Judith said. “It is so to the point.”

I almost went snorkeling that last day but bailed out at the last second, leaving Judith with a group of British folks. Instead, Susan and I went for a long walk down the beach since in five days we had barely left our beach front. I felt somewhat guilty about that since when I travel to places I like to explore, but sometimes you have to say what the fuck, and call it a day. Incidentally, when we returned from our trip, we saw the British group getting off a boat, suburned as hell and the leader of the troglodytes was puking over the side

On the final night, Ricardo, Judith, Susan and I went to the Sunset Bar for dinner where Ricardo, the Portuguese tour operator, asked the waiter what the fresh fish was.

“The fish that is fresh today. Not the fish that is in the freezer,” he said as the waiter was slow to react. “Never mind,” he followed up. “I will go ask the kitchen myself.” Ricardo has obviously been in Tanzania longer than a year and knows that to get things done in a remotely timely fashion, they must be done yourself. He returned to tell us the Kingfish was the catch of the day.

When I was 23 or 24, I was in Italy finishing school and at one point we traveled to the beach town of Rimini. We missed the bus that night and had to rent a car to get us back to Sienna. I was in the car with four other girls driving through winding mountain roads and the girl who was driving was driving like she was on the New York Thru-way. I had asked her to slow down a few times but to no avail so I put on my walkman and listened to Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” while looking up at an Italian canvas of fresco stars, trying to come to peace with the fact that we were soon to plunge over the side of a cliff.

After the Sunset Bar, we were back at the Kendwa Rocks bar and “Dark Side of the Moon” was playing in its entirety. I’m not sure the Dutch girls were digging it that much but it was a perfect ending for me. The next time I hear it, I will not think of mountain roads in Italy, but my last night in Zanzibar.

The four of us sat at a table, talking, and laughing, our energy somewhat low but in good spirits after five days at the beach. Ricardo brought out his computer to show us a picture of a five-legged elephant which turned out to be an elephant taking a piss, but it might as well have been another leg.

Off in the distance lightning flashed, momentarily illuminating distant islands of the archipelago, and a slight but steady breeze rocked the light hanging above our table. Outside the open-air, thatch-roofed bar, a few Africans pounded their drums and sang local songs around a bon-fire.

And all of this occurred beneath a blanket of stars somewhere below the heavens of the southern hemisphere. We were a bunch weary travelers; two Dutch medical students, a Portuguese Safari tour operator, and an American writer – all new friends, all temporarily displaced people, all finding their way through their own maze of life, bringing but a small piece of the journey inside the journey to an end, and the soundtrack was “Dark Side of the Moon.”

Eclipse, from Darkside of the Moon
(Waters) 2:04All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Zanzibar via Dar and the Ferry Scene From Hell…

Kewdwa, Zanzibar, 10:54am, Saturday, December 16, 2006

More of the same unpredictable African experiences when I woke up the next morning in Arusha. The Barclay’s bank machine was out of order, but luckily I had gotten up plenty early so as to avoid such a situat.

Agnela was nice enough to ride in the taxi with me in the morning so as to not get ripped off by a dollar-hungry driver, so we drove around looking for a bank machine. I finally found one but was only allowed to take out 200,000 shillings, which most of it went to Agnela to get to Freddie. For the past several days I was maxing out what I could take out at the bank machine so I was constantly behind on my cash flow. Thus, I was heading to Dar with not much money in my pocket.

Alicia talked me out of traveling with a few joints saying jail time in Tanzania might outweigh the buzz. Fair enough I thought. Had I not talked to her, I probably would have traveled with it. I felt pretty comfortable pulling it off on my own. If I was not traveling solo I might not feel so comfortable. I parted ways with the ganja Freddie had so masterfully procured for me and gave it to Alicia. Maybe she was just after my stash. As it turned out, I could have easily flown with it by packing it deep within my bags. In Zanzibar, I met a Kiwi (New Zealander) who flew from Uganda to Tanzania with it, but he had actually forgotten that it was in his bag. Hamna Sheeda (No worries) however as the place I am staying is run by a bunch of Rastafarians. The smell of ganja is as plentiful as the smell of the Indian Ocean. Not that I need to smoke, it just seems like a nice way to pass the day; laying in a hammock, playing guitar, and looking out upon the turqouise waters of Zanzibar.

My flight from Arusha to Dar first went to Zanzibar. I met a threesome of girls, two Dutch and one English girl, on their way to Zanzibar, and as we approached the island and I saw the many shadows of the reefs and turqoiuse water, I was very tempted to say fuck it, get off the plane, and skip Dar. But I had arranged to meet Tamara, a friend of a friend in Dar, and I did have her driver waiting for me. After the girls exited in Zanzibar and the plane was refueled, fourteen minutes later I was in Dar.

Dar is hotter than a witches tit. Is that an expression? Is it even relevant in this situation? How hot is a witches tit? I assume as hot as Dar. Perhaps a more appropriate analogy would be that Dar is hotter and more humid than Union Station in New York in the height of August heat. I stepped off the plane and immediately my shirt was wet. You can easily spot the mazungus, which I have learned can be anyone besides a black person, but it is usually used towards white people. There is no political correctness here in African. People call it as they see it. You are black or white, etc. None of this African American, stuff, etc. I like it better this way. I find politcal correctness has a way of dulling down everything, from experience to language.

Michael was waiting for me when I collected my bag and off we zipped through the city center of Zanzibar. The outskirts are filled with rundown concrete buildings that hint of industrialization, but only God and the Africans know what really exists inside these buildings. Although I have never been to Los Angeles, the traffic in Dar was reminiscent of what I imagine L.A. to be. Michael was not shy about getting me to my destination and used his horn liberally while cursing other drivers in Swahili. The power was also out in the city so their were no traffic lights which added to the mayhem, chaos, and general disorder.

The city streets, like any African city are teeming with people walking here and there, seemingly busy with purpose. Although it is probably nearly 100 degrees, none of the Africans wear shorts, many women are clad in black burkas (as the coastal region including the islands is very Muslim), and occassionally you will see someone walking in a fleece, and of course not a bead of sweat on their face. Meanwhile, I am soaking wet and about as uncomfortale as can be.

Dar is not the pinnacle of African architecture. The buildings downtown for the most part are lifeless concrete and stucco structures, many with balconies, and serve the purpose of shelter from crime-hawking hustlers and the equitorial sun. Almost all of the balconies are strewn with laundry and the image that comes to my mind is of tenament life in New York city around the turn of the century. Whether this is accuracte or not I can not tell as I was not around then and I am not an African in Dar.

Michael took me to Tamara’s work which is an organization called “Right to Play” and they provide adults with the skills to coach sports to kids, which also serves the purpose of keeping kids off the street. It was in a wealthier part of Dar but it was not easy to tell. Wealth is very realative. Here, wealthy might mean you have a few rooms in your house and you have a car. In the states, what seperates the wealthy from the uber-wealthy seems to be the houses in Aspen, the Hamptons, and the south of France, as well as the private lear jet to take you there. Wealth and the housing prices in this area are also driven up because the U.S. Embassy is near by – that is the new U.S. embassy. It is the largest embassy in all of East Africa and security is intense as a result of the 1998 simultaneous U.S. embassy bombings in Dar and Nairobi.

Tamara and I had a Sprite at a nearby bar and she returned to work and I to her house, via Michael of course. I took a shower at her place but it was a hopeless effort for as soon as I dried off, I was soaked again in persperation. I thought about taking a knap but I was instructed to meet Tamara at The Golden Tulip, a hotel where she was taking Yoga. She said I could swim while she took Yoga or I could join in on her Yoga class.

When we had a drink, she had written out a rough map of how to get to the Golden Tulip. It was a 45-minute walk, and being a sheltered white boy from the states, I felt very vulnerable, especially considering I had no idea where I was going. Much to my surprise however, no one bothered me with the expception of a few Taxi drivers asking if I needed a ride; quite different from Arusha. I suppose people in the area are used to seeing mazungus because the area is influxed with embassy workers.

I made my way through the streets of North Dar until I came to Ocean Road. I think a street called “Ocean Road,” anywhere in the world, is probably synonomous with wealth. The gated houses were platial in comparison to anything I had seen in Africa. In my mind, I thought of the place as a Hamptons-esque haven. A few politicians live along this road as well as the head of the U.S. Embassy. After a ten minute walk, I finally came to the Golden Tulip. Again, a bizarre pocket in the middle of Africa.

The Golden Tulip could pass for any four-star resort in the states. It was a beautiful hotel with stately and elegant decor, a mixture of modern ammenities and acrchitecture, and African art. I spent most of my time lying by the pool, which is one of these pools where there is no definition between where the concrete ends and the water begins. The pool also overlooked the Indian Ocean. I watched two African men flirt and comnpete for attention from an African woman. They all knew each other but at that point there was no telling who might get in her bathing suit bottoms that night. Both men wore gold chains and must have done something relatively successful to be staying at the Golden Tulip. There was also several honeymooners lounging on each other reading books while the sun set behind the hotel, casting its lazy, late afteroon slanted beams on the Indian Ocean. Occassionally, what I imagined to be expats working at the embassy, would show up to swim laps or join in on the all white Yoga class run by a Buddhist monk.

When Yoga was over, Tamara and I sat in the lobby waiting for her friend Salaze to pick her up. Salaze showed up in a brand new Jeep Cherokee listening to hip-hop and smoking cigarette upon cigarette. I could have easily seen her fitting in in any American city, but she was actually from Mozambique. We went from the hotel to Tamara’s work to pick up her fellow coworker and roomate who was a 26 year-old fellow from Switzerland. I had Salaze pinned for around 24. She was quite a beautiful girl but it turns out she is 38, has two children, is having an affair with the 26 year-old Swiss, and is a kept woman. I guess the father of her children bankrolls her. Not a bad gig I suppose. Whether or not he knows of her escapades is not my business, nor was I going to make it. From there we went to the Meditterano Restaurant.

The Meditterano was part of a hotel and had beautifully manicured gardens and winding pathways heading to the pool and restaurant. “Where am I?” I thought. “Had I still been in Africa the last two hours and was I still in Africa?”

The large restuarant was open air and covered by a thatched roof. We were right on the water so that the edge of the restuarant and the lapping waves of the ocean became one. As it turned out, we were joining a birthday party which consisted of three peoples’s birthday; a Frenchman who was turning 52 and looked no older than 40, a 28 year-old from Brazil, and a 2-year-old also from Brazil. It was an interesting and very international crowd, many who were working for NGOs, comprised of people from France, Germany, Holland, a Brad Pitt look-a-like from Denmark except with snaggle-teeth, Senegal, Mozambique, Switzerland, Brazil, and two of us from the States. Apparently one of the best Djs in Dar was also at the table, for whatever that is worth.

I sat next to Tamara, a girl from Switzerland, who I was sure was from Brazil due to her dark features, and across the table from me sat the 28 year-old birthday boy and two of his co-workers, a boy and a girl, both 19 and from Germany. Had I been 19 or a few years older and in Dar, I probably would have fallen for this German girl. She was adorable, innocent, mature, ambitious beyond her years, and passionate about her studies which was renewable energy.

The three of them worked in renewal energy. I learned about our eclogical footprint (I believe that is what it is called – google it) and that on average we as Americans consume four times as much energy a day as any other people in the world. I have never really thought of energy as a future problem with the exception of oil, but electricty, something we take for granted is also on the rise to become a problem. They were saying that we can not sustain the amount of energy we consume, and that our way of life with regards to energy will change in our lifetime. Was there a period of life, I thought, when life was stable? I feel like my entire life, my brief 32 years, that the state of the world has been in its greatest state of flux and transition ever. It seems like the world can go in any direction, good or bad, at any time. Probably the only stable period of history for man was simply when he was a hunter and gather, before modernity complicated things so terribly. But even then I guess there was war as tribes fought over land and animal resources.

There was twenty or more people at dinner and I think we sang happy birthday in nine different languages. Salaze was quite enjoying herself and wanted to have another nightcap but she was the driver and Tamara had to get home to work. It was already midnight and drinks began around seven so dinner took a good three-plus hours. Of course Salaze could not drive anyway, so the Swiss guy borrowed my glasses to drive home. When we got to the house Tamara and I went in but Salaze and the Swiss stayed in the car. I slept on the couch but hardly slept at all. I later heard the two of them giggling and stumbling into the house at who knows what hour. The houses seemed to be surrounded by frogs. I house-sat on a farm in New Jersey for a while and it was right next to a pond. In Spring, the sound of the frogs seemed to be definningly loud, but these Dar-frogs put those Jersey-frogs to shame.

I do not know what time I drifted into the dream-realm but it didn’t last long. At 4:30am, the prayers of the local Iman, eminating from a mosque not too far away, found its way to my ears. I layed in bed listening and thought these prayers to be at once beautiful, eiry, and apocryphyl. The sounds from the mosque come everyday at 4:30 whether in the evening or in the afternoon. I suppose, like other religions, it is a tool of mindfulness, to remind the Muslims that Allah is good. Not much more sleeping that night; just listening to the early moring sounds of Dar Es Salaam.

I woke the next morning to an empty house. Tamara left me the keys so I could come and go as I pleased. I needed to run a few errands so again, I walked from her house to the Slipway Shopping center. I had to pass through all of these back alley-ways  and side streets with children and chickens running amuck to get to the shopping center and again I felt vulnerable. These side alleys are lined with large steel gates. Almost every house in this area has these ugly steel fences and gates to keep out the undesirables.  I had shorts with several pockets and Tamara had instructed me to bring my money belt if I was taking out money but I hoped the pockets would be fine and baggy enough so that no one would notice the few hundred thousand-shillings buldge in my shorts – and mind you I am talking about money here. So I took out some money, again not as much as I wanted because I was behind on my daily limit of money withdraw,l and I went to Shop-Rite for some breakfast which included some new kind of Parmesian Doritos that I had never seen and a roll.

At the shopping center I also checked my email and got a haircut from a nice gay-Indian fellow. Not a bad job if I do say so myself, but I was not enjoying his crotch rubbing on my shoulder. I tried to explain that I just wanted a buzz cut but he gave me a more fashionable cut, taking his time and being far more meticulous than any of the barbers at Rudy’s in Seattle. It was strange to be looking in the mirror at myself and seeing in the reflection Palm Trees and water behind me. He seemed to be taking his sweet-ass time and I nervously checked my watch every few minutes wondering when his artistic endeavours would pay off as I had to be ready for Michael at 11:30. I made it home on time with just enough time to pack and shower but again, showering is a useless endeavour if feeling fresh is your goal.

As with any other part of this journey, I had not planned a god-damn thing. I had this vague notion that the ferry was at 1pm so I was going on that assumption. Others, including some locals seemed to tell me it was at two. Turns out it was at 12:30 and I arrived at the ferry terminal at 12:20. We pulled into the ferry terminal and my heart sank, and I just said to myself, “Oh fuck…” You would have thought there was a sign on the top of the car that said, “Inexperienced honkey coming at you.”

Like vultures, the wild African creatures descended upon my car, each yelling something at me and telling me, “We must hurry!” Michael was of very little use. I would have thought and hoped he would have guided me through the process but he seemed confused and preoccupied. I had very little choice as to what was to come or where I was to go for as soon as the trunk of the car opened, they had lifted my giant backpack on their shoulders and started moving away from the car. I grabbed my small backpack and guitar for I figured they would have more of a chance of dissappearing with those than with a giant bag. I followed them a few yards and the leader said, “OK, give me your money and your passport. I need 35,000 shillings.”

“I’ll pay at the office,” I said. “Take me to the office.” The man seemed frustrated so I followed them down a set of stairs and through some very narrow and ever-darkening hallways. Looking at the one man in front of me with my pack as well as his friend, and another man behind me, in this dark suspicious place, I was almost sure I was going to get mugged. I finally said in as angry and forceful tone as I could, “Wait a minute. Where the fuck are you going!”

“Do not worry my friend. Just follow me and I take you to office.” I wanted to say, I’m not your friend you stupid fuck-bag and I just want to get on the fucking ferry. I thought about where my Leatherman knife was in my bag and how I would get at it if I needed to.

When we got to this small, dank, humid room in the belly of this building, a man behind the desk read a newspaper, uninterested in me or the other parasites. There were a few ferry posters on the walls so I assumed the place was OK, and to take me all the way down here and have a mock office set up was far-too an elaborate ruse for your average African just to rob me.

The man asked me for my money and my passport as I was trying to get a resident rate. On blind faith and stupidity, I handed it over and he dissappeared with one of the other men. The one guy stayed with me. I was pissed off and rather freaked out and I just watched the seconds tick away on my watch. “Where is he?!” I asked the man.

“He will be here. He is checking your status.”

Well, despite the fact that I have a resident stamp on my passport, this didn’t fly with them and they asked for another $5 for a ferry terminal fee. “You guys are fucking ripping me off.”

“No man, look,” he said and he pointed to the ticket where he had written in “$5.” It was a god-damn humid nightmare and I just wanted to get on the damn ferry so I paid it and again, one of the guys grabbed my bag and started running towards the ferry with me in pursuit.

Luckily, in my wallet I only had a few coins. All of my cash was in my money belt, which stupidly was in my bag and not on my person. We boarded the overcrowded ferry and walked up three sets of stairs to the top. He found a space for my bag (but of course there was no space for me) and dropped it down. I reached into my wallet and gave him a few coins and he said, “No man. You give me two thousand shillings.” I gave him the coins and he insisted for more. I finally opened my wallet and said, “Look! I don’t have any money left! You fucking guys cleaned me out!” He stormed off and shook his hand at me and the African onlookers resumed their business after watching this angry mazungu display.

The ferry was a rusty tin-can that I thought was supposed to take an hour-and-a-half but it took three-and-a-half hours. I also thought, this is the kind of tragedy you see below the main headlines on CNN.com; “Passenger Ferry sinks in the Indian Ocean: no survivors.”

There was maybe ten mazungus on the upper deck and the rest Africans heading to Stone Town in Zanzibar, for what I could only imagine. Bodies were strewn and contorted anywhere there was space, some on top of each other and the image that came to my mind was of a black and white photograph of a holocaust camp. I met a German police officer who was traveling with a buddy and a Russian fellow they met and were traveling with, and two Dutch girls who were medical students and had been working in Malawi for a month plus. Susan, Judith, and I became fast friends as we shared our nightmare-ish stories of the ferry terminal and agreed getting ripped off was better than staying at the ferry terminal. It was a small price to pay the devil to get out of hell. We talked of our travel plans and agreed to meet up for dinner at Fiorlorni Gardens, which is a dirty, vacant stretch of ocean front concrete during the day and transforms at night into a bustling market of hawkers selling seafood and other foods, as well as Maasi jewelry, wood carvings, paintings, and spice tour and snorkeling packages.

The ferry terminal in Zanzibar was another hellish scene. Again, as we appraoched the dock, in my mind I said, “Oh fuck.” I think this day was the most I have said fuck since I have been in Africa.

The dock was just one solid mass of people filled with taxi drivers, fly catchers trying to lead you to the hotel they work for, and many others pedaling fake services. It took a good thirty minutes to exit the ferry and I didn’t even bother to try to get a quick jump on it as the Africans have no sense of order or lines. When I did finally try to exit, an older woman pushed me out of the way. “After you,” I said. “Semahani,” which means excuse me.

Judith and Susan had to go below deck to get their bags and I could not imagine I would be off the boat before them. Police officers made one long narrow row from the gang-plank into the massive and growing crowd and when I exited, I was looking all about for their white faces amidst the sea of black, but they were not to be found. I thought, maybe they were just being nice and are now ditching me, but finally, when I was almost about to give up hope, I saw them on the gang plank.

We made our way through the crowd, deflecting offers for this and that, filled out an immigration form at the immigration office and we were set free into the wild streets of Stone Town, Zanzibar. We managed to procure a taxi for below the going rate which was I quite proud of, and the Taxi took the girls to the Flamenco hotel and myself to the Clove. Mine was $30 a night and theirs was $20. It was nice enough for African standards and served the purpose. We agreed to meet at the gardens at 7:30.

I showered and walked around for a while and had a drink at the Serena Hotel of Zanzibar. It was opulent. I watched the sunset into the sea while listening to traditional arab-influenced music, gazing around at the marbel and architecture. After one Kilimnjaro beer, I made my way to the gardens where we began the process of losing our island innocence.

Everyone is trying to sell you something, wether it is jewlery or spice tours and snorkeling trips, but I said I am just looking tonight. I would ask what their price was for fish or some trinket and laugh at them cordially and say, “My rafiki (friend), that is really expensive. I got better deals in Arusha.” Then they would ask me what I paid and I said, I want to hear your price. And the calculated chess match would begin. No purchases for me that night however.

It was a short walk back to my hotel, but dark and sketchy. The city looked much different at night and one of the street lights were out near where I was staying. There are also no cars where I was staying; only narrow winding streets like you might find in a hill-town in Tuscany. I panicked at one moment, thinking I was lost, but realized I was just one street off. I ringed the hotel buzzer and was let in, went to the roof to the refrigerator where there is a book to record what you’re drinking, all working off of the honor system. I then went to my room, arranged my mosquito netting, took a cold shower, and took a sleeping pill to ensure I would be fresh and caught up on sleep.

The next day I was meeting Judith and Susan at 1:30 so I had the morning to myself. I had a leaisurely breakfast on the rooftop terrace which looked out over the city and the ocean, read my book “North of South” for a while and headed out into the city to lose myself in the winding maze of streets. I found a few nice shops and bought myself a few things as well as some clothes. When I later met up with the girls, I told them I had found many good shops to puruse, as well three nice clothing shops. They loved that and teased me that I was just one of the girls since I had done so much shopping in such a short amount of time. It felt very familiar as some girlfriends back home tease me in the same manner, but I love it. As I said to my Tanzanian friend Peter at the orphanage, “Women; I don’t understad them, but I sure enjoy their company.”

That afternoon we found a nice place to lunch where not many tourists tread. We sat at a table with a beautiful girl from Sweden who was studying Swahili. This was her fifth time in Zanzibar as she was dating a local fellow. That is quite a long distance relationship, I said. She said there was a lot of negative things to this relationship, and I think that she was implying her family was not very happy.  She went on to say you also get a lot of positive things from having an African boyfriend. Judith held her tongue and later told us what she wanted to say was, “Yeah, like HIV.”

We parted our ways again to shower and meet up at the African House, a hotel and bar that overlooks the water and is a popular spot for expats. I had a drink with a Kiwi I had met on the boat while I waited for the girls, who, like most women, were late on account of showering, getting dressed, make up, etc. I gave them the benefit of the doubt on account of both had to shower. What I later found out, however, was that they had done some shopping on their way to the bar.

I sat with the Kiwi named Mark and a girl from Australia and we passed around a sheesha, a giant hooka with a cherry bomb of molasses soaked tobacco. Judith and Susan later joined and we ordered another sheesha and Judith said in her accent, “Oh! I like this! It is like smoking an apple pie!”

We left the African House after the sun set and after having finished our “sundowners,” which is the best, most accurate cocktailing term I know to date. We went back to the Fiorlorni Gardens to again grub on cheap, negotiable food prices and I dined on skwers of octopus, shark, tuna, clamari, and more. The bargaining game was also on.

The girls were on the prowl for bargains and they took so long, I had no other choice but to buy more things that I didn’t need. I wound up getting two very cool abstract black and white paintings of zebras and giraffes. I can not think of the artist’s name right now, but they remind me of the artist who would just dribble paint across the canvas. There was a movie a few years back about him.

I was going to call it a night and go check my email, but it seems as though it does not matter what the shop hours are. If they feel like closing shop early, then they do. Who are they going to answer to after all? A few angry tourists who could not write their blogs or check their emails? So I headed home to have a night cap on the roof and do some writing.
There was a person passed out on the roof terrace and I could not tell whether it was a man or a woman, but she finally woke up and invited me to sit with her. Her name was Fiona and she was a beautiful Scottish girl. She had been diving that day and did not equalize correctly so there was so much pressure on her ears that she had to go to the doctor and they gave her a ton of drugs and she passed out on the roof.

I love the Scottich brogue. We shared our stories of how we had come to be where we were. She has traveled all over the world and most recently was working in some African country managing some tehcnology implementation for some African goverment. She had a few great things to say that I wish I remembered and had written down, but she agreed that when you jump into things blindly, they just have a way of working themselves out, furthering my conviction that the flow is very real and universal. She agreed. We parted our ways around 1am and I had yet another restless night’s sleep, tossing and turning, and listening to the alley cats moaning, fucking, and fighting, and the prayers coming from the local mosque at 4:30am.

The next morning, another lovely, leasuirely breakfast on the roof top and reading. Judith and Susan got a taxi and were going to pick me up at 10am but I decided to venture out to check my email again. The place was merely a minute walk if that, but when I left, I was not paying attention and took a wrong turn. I kept thinking I was going to find my way out of the maze and be in some familiar place, but when I finally did make my way out, it was 10am and I was on the other side of town in a place I had never seen. I was running around, completely soaked, and finally found a taxi to take me back. I was probably 15 minutes late and told them how I had gotten lost, to which they replied, “You are just one of girls.” The Tao te Ching says you must know the masculine and the feminine and I can say I feel fairly well versed in both.

We drove an hour plus north to Kendwa. When we finally reached the turn off to Kendwa, the road was the worst one I have been on so far, and the small sedan was bottoming out with the weight of two dutch girls, one American boy, and a trunk full of four girls worth of crap. We had to walk the final distance to Kendwa Rocks, which is a hotel of sorts with many bandas, or thatch roofed huts on the beach. It costs $20 a night and you share bathrooms and toilettes, but the setting is close to paradise; big white-sand beaches, open thatch roofed bars, palm trees with hammocks connecting them, and the most beautiful, turqouise water I had ever seen. The only thing you need to get used to is the rats scurrying in the corner at night. One girl Imet later in the week, a rat got into her wallet and only ate her money and there are no back machines up here. Must be an African rat we agreed.

We got settled and decided it was as good as any a time to have a cocktail. We had our drink and I said I was going to go over to Scuba-Do, the place where I was going to get certified, let them know I was here, and then find a hammock to sleep in. Well, they had different plans and immediately put me in a “classroom” to watch a movie and then I was instructed to come back later. During the second part of the day I was already in the water with all of my equipment. We spent about an hour underwater in the shallow beach waters and when I surfaced, I experienced some major Vertigo. I thought it was perhaps because my weight belt was not distributed evenly around me but it was because I was not equalizing, that is – making the pressure in my ears equal to the pressure around me. Vertigo is crazy if you have never expereinced it before. Your world whizzes around you at light speeds and you have no sense of balance or even where the horizon is, but after a minute or two it wore off.

That night we had dinner at the Kendwa Rocks bar, met a few people from all over the world and played Taki with an Isreali fellow who is learning to be a dive master. Taki is an Isreali card game very similar to Uno. Another restless night’s sleep but no morning prayers; just a rat in the corner no doubt eating some of my Christmas gifts and a brief but heavy rain.

The next day, into the water for my first open water dive. I have to admit I sort of panicked a bit when I rolled backwards off the side of the boat and started to descend. I surfaced twice saying I was not getting enough oxygen into my lungs, but the Isreali fellow, who was my dive buddy checked my flow and said it was fine.

We began our descent down the anchor line into my first taste of the magical, uncharted, underwater world of the ocean. Again, I had a tough time equalizing. I would go down a bit, them come up, trying to pop my ear like you would on a plane, but to no avail. I finally was close to the ocean floor at ten meters and the vertigo began again. My videogame, dreamlike world of underwater began to spin again which meant I was losing the game. I was trying to make the sign that I was in trouble but I was so dizzy that I could barely bring my arm across my neck, which actually means out of air. I could tell where the surface was by the light but I could not begin to move towards it as it was spinning like an out of control scene in a movie. Willie, the Tanzanian divemaster leading this dive, grabbed me and took me to the surface until I got my bearings straight. That was the end of diving for me for that day so I had to wait the rest of the dive out on the surface. It was quite a let down, especially when every one surfaced and said how amazing it was. I like to make the most of my time however, so I made friends with the rasta-boat driver and arranged to get myself some ganja.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in and out of hammocks and the water and meeting many, many people. I had the low-down on most of the people at the place and Judith and Susan were amazed at my networking and social skills. I befriended Brits and Swedes, ensuring my status as a social butterfly which the girls found quite humorous, and in their minds, with how light and delicate butterflys are, it probably only added to my womanly status.  They love it though.

We had dinner on the beach that night and to ensure I would catch up on my overdue sleep, I popped another Ambien and off I was into the dark, heavy, dream-world of a Zanzibar night.

(spell check not working again )

Just Take Me To The Airport…

Arusha, Sunday, December 10, 2006, 7:12pm

 

 

I awoke at 5:40am to finish packing my bags and tawo minutes before six I heard the straining engine of the Toyota Landcruiser coming down the road. Freddie helped me with my bags and I made one final room check to make sure I had left nothing behind. When I returned to the car, Freddie was praying for us that we would have a good day. Freddie rules. Before we left I snapped a picture of the earliest hints of sunrise and I continued taking pictures of the unfolding heavenly drama all morning.

 

 

 

Sunrise over the Serengeti is something to behold. I did not realize the Creator had so many colors in his pallet. The morning and nights here burn golden like nothing I have ever scene before. The light is so different from what we experience in the Northwest and very different from the light in Greece, which up until now was the most impressive display of colors I had ever scene. I can’t say one is better than the other however. They are both just different.

 

 

 

The landscape of the Serengeti is prehistoric, but especially in the morning. I was half expecting us to come upon a T-Rex, a Brontosaurus, or while looking at the horizon in the distance, getting picked off by a Teradactyl. I stood through the roof observing the landscape as darkness gave way to the morning light and my faithful driver negotiated the wake of the the previous evenings rain strom, and all the while I was listening in on to the symphonic electric sounds of dawn on the Serengeti.

 

 

 

On the horizon, like two air bubbles rising to the surface, I could see two hot air balloons starting to take off. It was Mohammed, my new friend from the “Wema Bar” that I met the night before. We followed the ballons for a while as they passed right overhead and we yelled “Habari!” to him. We continued to drive around the park and finally made it to a visitor center where I nerded out for a while, walking around reading all of the historical and informational signs while Freddie tried to get me a receipt for the night before. Turns out they just wrote the last one. “How very Irish,” my British friend Sue would say. I often don’t know whether to take offense or not as I am Irish, but I have to take her word that in this case, Irish and African can be synonomous. What I interpret that to mean is things don’t always get done in a logical fashion in these parts of the world and nothing really ever turns out as planned. More times than not I have rolled with the punches, but I lost my cool in Arusha yesterday. More on that later.

 

 

 

 

As you can only describe so much of the park and it will only mean so much if you have never experienced it, I’ll paint a picture through its history and some “fun facts.” Serengeti National Park was established in 1951 and covers 14,763 square kilometers and is set on a high interior plateau that rises from 900-1800 meters above sea level. The Maasai name for the Serengeti is “Siringet,” which means land of endless space.

 

 

 

While it has many claims to fame, most notably it is home to the great Wildebeest migration, which is one of the last great migrations on earth. For approximately 3 weeks every year, over 8,000 Wildebeests are born a day. To avoid predators, they are on their feet almost immediately and running at full speed within one hour of birth. Their approximate population is 1.25 million.

 

 

 

The Serengeti is home to 28 species of hoofed animals, the greatest abundance and specie diversity of plain animals in the world. It is also home to 530 bird species as well as countless species of insects; so many in fact, that the weight of all the insects in the park far outweighs the weight of all the animals combined.

 

 

 

We drove through the Serengeti for most of the morning and crossed the border from the Serengeti into the Ngorongroro Conservation area around noon. Seemed like as good a time as any to spark one, have a beer, and crank tunes on the iPod. About two hours later we made it to our lunch spot which was the Oldivi Gorge, one of the oldest anthropological sites in the world. Some of the oldest skeletons of the first man were found here.

 

 

 

After lunch I was pretty exhausted as my buzz peaked a little early. It is almost a rookie move, but I am on vacation, therefore you are free to peak at any time – at least that is my philosophy. I was fighting to stay awake as we drove through driving rain while climbing back up the crater wall. We reached the Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge where two weeks ago Jason, Sue, and I inhaled a double gin and tonic in 4 minutes and 38 seconds. I wasn’t feeling tip top so I just sat there for a while. I thought about writing but instead closed my eyes. Freddie woke me up about fifteen or twenty minutes later and I decided that after two long days of Safari, I would treat myself to a full body massage and it was well worth the $40. Freddie dropped me off that night in Karatu and I stayed with Dr. Frank and Susan.

 

 

 

The next morning Dr. Frank was pulling out in his giant four-wheel drive ambulance which is really more the size of an RV or tractor trailer. I think it is just a big toy for the good doctor, however it serves worthy purposes. He kind of looked like a big kid pulling out in his new car as the ambulance-truck exited through the steel gates. He was transporting two patients to Arusha who had been critically injured in a bad car wreck. Several people died and one of the women he was transporting, her legs had been pinned for many hours under a truck that rolled over on her. The doctors in Karatu barely looked at her for three days, so Frank thought it was necessary to transport them to get better help. His ambulance is almost a mobile hospital, or at least a health clinic. It is an impressive beast to say the least.

 

 

 

I slept in that morning (woke up at 7:45am) and Freddie was at the house at 8:30am to take me to Lake Manyara National Park . It was quite different than the Serengeti. It was shielded on one side by the Rift Valley Mountain range and most of the time you were driving through a forest which is spattered with Palm trees. You never do actually get to the lake because the roads are now closed as a result of so many people getting stuck in the past. At some points driving through the forest it is almost deafening how loud and electric the cicadas are.

 

 

 

Lots of Giraffes, Elephants, tiny Corbis Monkeys, and I also saw a troop of about 100 plus baboons, complete with newborns riding on the mothers back. My luck continued and Freddie said, “I have-a been herya many times before but neva has I zeen so many elephants. You are a very lucky man.” Either he is full of shit and he tells everyone this or I am very lucky. I am pretty sure it is the latter as several other people shared this sentiment with regards to the abundance of wildlife I saw on each Safari. At one point during our drive, we were completely surrounded by maybe 25 elephants. It was an impressive sight, as was the sound they make as they rip up huge portions of elephant grass, which incidentally they are the only animals that feed on that type of grass – thus the name. At another point that afternoon I saw two elephants going head to head. One backed down, ripping a fairly large tree out of the ground to place in-between his opponent. They never did spare, but I did see some Cape Buffalo go head to head. You half think you are in a zoo at these national parks because the abundance of animals is mind-blowing.

 

 

 

We did some shopping that afternoon as Lake Manyara is only about a half hour away from Karatu. Freddie took me around to score me deals so as to ensure that the locals weren’t ripping off his mazungu friend. He also ran into the “gangsta boy” and insisted I buy two more joints. I said I did not need them but he said, “My goal for you iz to get to Zanzibar with ganja becauze you will have much leizure time and I want you to enjoy your time in my country.”

 

 

 

“But Freddie, how am I going to fly with ganja?”

 

 

 

“Do not worry. I will call my friend at de airport. He is alzo dealz so he will know of these mattas.”

 

 

 

“Uhm…OK…”

 

 

 

Freddie dropped me off that night around 4:30 or 5 and Frank had not yet returned home. Turns out he had to visit a priest friend who is at another orphanage and is gravely ill, so Frank transported him to a hospital in Arusha and was by his side all night. So that night it was just Susan and I. We had a chill night and we split a bottle of wine she had been saving for a special occasion (Frank doesn’t drink anymore). She did work while I wrote my last blog entry on the computer they had let me borrow for the last three weeks. They are good people, which if you were not aware, are the best kind of people.

 

This was supposed to be the end of my journey together with Freddie, but he wasn’t ready to let me go yet. He proposed that I hire the car to Arusha tomorrow, which would cost about $80 and he would also take me to Arusha National Park for free. All I would have to pay for was gas and park entrance fees. He said if he were to tell his bosses that he was taking me to the park it would be $150 plus. So the next morning, there Freddie was again, saving me money and waiting for me for yet another journey.

 

 

 

Since we had finished our shopping the day before, we drove directly from Karatu to Arusha National Park. Because of what a cesspool Arusha is, I was not thinking highly of Arusha National Park, but it turns out it is a gorgeous park nestled right at the foot of Mt. Meru and sandwiched between Meru and Kilimanjaro. For $20 beyond the $30 park fee, I went for a walking tour with an armed park ranger. I was about 25 feet from Giraffes at one point and maybe 50 feet from a herd of Cape Buffalo, which I did not feel very comfortable with. The ranger told me a lot about the landscape but at certain times we were walking in silence. We waked through fields, underbrush, a forest and wound up at a waterfall. At one point walking through the underbrush, about six warthogs ran out just feet from where we were walking and I just about nearly shat myself.

 

 

 

The waterfall we walked to was called Tululusia Waterfall. Tululusia is the sound the Kudu horn makes and the Maasi used it to alert their tribe that the Meru were on their way to attack. They blew this horn from a small mountain that they would use as a look out post. The Meru were coming from Kenya, and if you can believe this, they were fighting over grazing land for their cattle. Obviously nations fight over land and resources but it just seems so archaic to fight over grazing land for your cattle when now we are ruining nations and making enemies over oil. These grazing wars however were as recent as the 60s and 70s.

 

 

 

After the walking tour we had lunch and went for a short game drive. Arusha National Park was like driving up old logging trails in the Northwest. They were winding everywhere through the park, and the whole time you are looking right up at Mt. Meru, the second largest Mountain in Tanzania and the third largest on the continent.

 

 

 

When the safari was over, we headed into town and Freddie brought me to my hotel, the Arusha Naaz. First of all, I pictured a much nicer place. As soon as I stepped out of the car I was getting hastled by people trying to sell me shit but I just blew them off and went right into the reception. I think it says sucker on my forehead because if I am with a group of people, I am always the one they come right up to. I am foolish to make eye contact but I am learning slowly. I can’t help it; I like to study people.

 

 

 

The woman at reception was giving me a really hard time about my status as a resident. I have a resident stamp on my passport but she kept saying I needed a number. I called Ashley and India and they said the bitch was just trying to get more money out of me. I was in Arusha maybe 15 minutes and I said, fuck this shit, I’m outta here, and I asked Freddie to take me to Arusha airport, which is a small airport right outside of town. I tried to get a flight to Dar as my friend was having a BBQ there that night but no luck. I was too late.

 

 

 

I had been trying all week to get a hold of a girl I met out at the orphanage but she wasn’t answering my texts. Freddie and I were driving around looking for places and I was getting pissed and I felt bad for Freddie because he was supposed to head back to Karatu that night; but because it was late, it is too dangerous to drive that far at night here. Plus, he said he wanted to see me through my journey. I called Ashley to get Agnella’s phone number and finally realized I had the wrong number all this time. I called Agnela and her and her boyfriend Buck invited me to stay for the evening. Right behind Agnella’s house is a hall where they have parties and receptions on the weekends, so I went to bed that night to a lively chorus of music and partying.

 

The next morning, as punctual as ever, Freddie was arrived to take me to the Precision Air office; “Comfortable and reliable,” I believe is their slogan. I was there ten minutes before the office opened at 7:50am, and already the streets were teeming with people hawking crap. Freddie was supposed to be back in Karatu at 10:30 that morning, but as I stated, nothing goes as planned in Africa , and Freddie backed this statement up. He just wanted to see me relaxed and full of joy, as he says, as he read the growing frustration in my face and body language. This frustration was a result of it taking Precision Air 20 minutes to get their computers fired up, then the printer would not work. Finally, at 9am the printer begins to work and they issue me a ticket, whereby they informed me that the credit card machine does not work and all of Sunday’s flight were full. Thus is the way in Africa . I am not saying it is a bad thing; I am just saying this is what you have to be prepared for. My life in the orphanage was very structured and fairly smooth for the most part, but it is an American run institution and things in Africa work in a very African manner. If you are counting on things to run in an American fashion, well then you are just setting yourself up to get dry-thumbed. With the lack of a stable infrastructure, you can’t even count on electricity. Any jack-ass that shits all over the way of life in America, well, we should just drop them in the middle of Arusha and see what they have to say. Yes, we can be excessive, glutonous, hedonistic, and yes American politics may be a cluster-fuck, but there is a lot to be said for the basics of food, clothing, and shelter.

 

So after the Prcision Air debacle, Freddie took me back to Agnela’s and I slept until almost noon. When I woke up, Alicia was there so Agnela’s prophecy of us meeting came true. Alicia might be five-feet tall and has kind of a Joni Mitchell meets Margaret Mead thing going on. All I mean by this is that she kind of looks like a 32-year-old Joni Mitchell and she is getting her PhD in Anthropology. She was in Africa in her 20s in the Peace Corps and has been here on and off for more than three years and is fluent in Swahili. Since I have never met her before, I am not sure if she has had the hand-language thing going all her life or if it is something she has picked up from the Tanzanians, but she is very expressive with her hands when she speaks in Swahili.

 

We went to a pool in the morning that was in a Melrose-ish courtyard where apparently many UN workers live. We were going to swim, but after about three laps it turned into me watching her swim as I quickly realized how tiring swimming is. After the pool we had a bite to eat and played a little guitar as she plays guitar as well.

 

I asked her if I could just tail her that afternoon because it was either that or sitting in the house all day. I was not in the town center but even if I was, I am not sure I would walk around by myself. You just can’t go anywhere without being made, “a very good deal my friend.” It is ridiculously annoying. On top of that, I have heard so many horror stories about violent crime here, the latest being a man who was killed on a dala-dala (public mini-vans) over 600 shillings, which is probably about fifty cents. Dr. Frank also told me that when he lived there, he saw a man shot to death, and man beat to death, and heard of a story of a man who crossed another man so he killed him and fed him to his pigs.

 

Alicia is using her professor’s car while she lives here and to drive it she needs to sit on a pillow. She looks quite funny, her tiny self, sitting behind the wheel of this giant Toyota Landcruiser. I sat in the driver’s seat as she ran some errands which included meeting up with some Tanzanian friends who were doing some surveys for her. She has known them for about eight years as she worked with them when she was in the Peace Corps.

 

We eventually ended up at a friend of a friends place which was maybe a 10×10 room. It appeared that perhaps the resident had polio at one point as she was physically debilitated and required arm crutches to get around. She was very nice and offered all of us a Coke which I think she had her friend go out and get. The small, probably once peach-colored walls, were now an aged dusty-peach and there were finger prints all over the the wall, but the floor was clean and the place organized. The furniture consisted of two wooden chairs and a couch with cushions made of a warm itchy fabric and they surrounded a coffee table. Another table in the corner had a hot plate on it, and there was a china-hutch with a radio in it, some pictures, some tea-cups, and many teddy bears. There was also some balloons on the ceiling and some other festive foily-type decorations and a picture of a giant Asian baby which was serving as a type of artwork and some spaces had doilies on them. The small space had a 70s type feel with the wooden furniture and itchy multi-colored cushions.

 

The woman was very hospitable and apparently very funny as well, however I didn’t understand any of the conversation. I could understand at one point when they were talking about something serious as well as the police, but otherwise I just picked up words like, “Really?” and “Very good” and “Thank you very much.” I think they were also teasing Alicia about who this boy she had brought with her because they kept looking at me and smiling and she looked as if she might be a tad embarrassed.

 

Afterwards, we went to a grocery store and for the first time this year I heard Christmas music. Up until that point, I was not even aware that it was Christmas season. It was late afternoon on a hot day in Arusha, with slanted sunbeams shining through the store windows, and we are looking at huge, fresh pineapples and mangoes as “Silent Night” played on in the background.

 

Alicia dropped me off and headed to Kilimanjaro Airport to pick up her professor, and here I am on a Sunday night at 8:45pm in Arusha, Tanzania, typing away on an old IBM computer. In the other room I hear the familiar sounds of R2-D2 and Chewbacca fighting the ruthless and determined Empire. Outside my window the city streets are filled with the unfamiliar sounds of Swahili-speaking hawkers and hustlers, relentlessly trying to make a buck on a Sunday night in Arusha, and off in the distance brakes squeal, a bus pulls away from a bus-stop, and a brass band plays a wedding party…

 

(again, no time to spell-check!)

“I Will Just Go Find Us Some Gangsta Boys…”

Seronera Lodge, Serengeti National Park, Wednesday, December 6, 2006, 3:23pm

(Despite what you may have thought, I was not on drugs when I wrote the last entry. Dr. Frank gave me a MAC to work on while I have been here so some of these things were written over three day plus days. Thus sometimes the flow gets interrupted. So much has been happening that it is getting difficult to stay on up the events; therefore I want to just get some of these done so I can move on and catch up. No time to re-read this. Need to get to bed as Freddie is picking me at up 7am to take me to Arusha National Park)

The past few days have been pretty busy. There has been so much to do and things have been so busy that my departure just snuck up on me. Two nights ago, Edward announced to my house that I was leaving. Boas, my favorite kept going, “No! No! No!” and wrapped himself around my neck and torso so tightly that he simply looked like a growth that had become a part of me.

Last night I said my good byes and told the kids that I loved them and that I will always be thinking of them, and no matter where they are, I will always be a part of them. I also told them that the most important thing for them to do was get an education so they can help their country and then come visit me in the United States. One child said to Edward to translate to me, “How is that possible? How is that possible to make that much money?”

There were many teary eyes this morning. I was so amused and flattered that surprisingly I didn’t get too choked up. Joshua, Boas, Ester, Colette, and Marietta were bawling when I left. Marietta was this quite little child and it took me two weeks to even realize that she was in one of the houses. I didn’t spend that much time with her as she was often on her own or in the house when all the kids were out playing, so I was surprised to have that affect on her. Goodbyes lasted a long time and there were many hugs and kids wrapping their arms around my neck, arms, thighs, and waist. It is a wonder that my back has not gone out. As I am writing this from an incredible lodge in the heart of the Serengeti, looking out upon the plains, I am trying not too think of them too much because I know the tears will flow. I will really miss them and I am going to have to find a way to get back here. Last night when I was interviewing India, she said that the student teachers here are like the children’s brothers and sisters and the volunteers are like their aunts and uncles. I know now that I will always have a family in Tanzania.

As we pulled away from the orphanage, I put my iPod on random, hoping that the song that would come on would nail the mood I was in. I have been thinking about what this song would be for a while. I hit random and a song by Paris Combo came on, which is a French band and far too happy for the somber occasion. Each song that came on afterwards did not fit the mood, so finally I put, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” on by the Rolling Stones. It seemed much more apropos.

As we drove out the dirt road that had taken me to the farmhouse and back so many times over the last month, I looked back at the kids waving as they receded into the distance. I began to look through the pictures of the morning and nearly started crying seeing the looks of sorrow, anguish, and sadness on these children’s faces. I wondered if me leaving stirred some feelings of abandonment, losing their parents, or some other event that they had experience in their brief but turbulent lives.

As we made our way to Karatu to pick up supplies for the Safari, Freddie was pretty good about giving me my space to just listen to music and think, considering he is a rather amiable and gregarious fellow.

Freddie asked me if it was OK if we picked up a friend of his who works in the Serengeti. “Hamna Sheeda,” I said (no problem).

Our first stop was the bank where I got raped exchanging shillings for dollars, but oddly enough, to enter Tanzanian National Parks, you need the dollar, so I turned 360,000 shillings into $278. I had $160 left over from traveling here so it was enough to take care of the American cash transactions I needed to do. While I dealt with the bank, Freddie went off to find the friend and coworker who was supplying us with tents and camping equipment for the night.

The man behind me on line exchanged a ten dollar tip for about 12,000 shillings and I couldn’t help but feel guilty that I just exchanged this wad of shillings and for the most part, it was easy money, sitting in some cubicle all day doing some monotonous routine and getting paid very well. And here was this guy, busting his ass, sucking up to “rich” Americans to earn a measly ten-dollar tip. Is that the residual effects of Catholic guilt, or is the just an American-in-a-third-world-country guilt?

When my transaction was over, I sat there waiting patiently for Freddie to return. I was amused to see a man carry a “Zolo” bag, which coincidentally was written in the same font as “Polo.” I also found an advertisement in the bank for “Melengo Bank” quite amusing, and at the same time sad. It was a picture of a watermelon with many seeds spread out in front of it and it said, “Save money like you save seeds.” Beneath it, it read, “Let’s talk about savings.” Meanwhile, a well-dressed man sat down next to me and asked me what I thought of Bush, and I can tell he wasn’t pimping his ladies. Part of it was probably general curiosity and part of it was also an attempt to let the man talk about his political views, but we were in agreement about Bush so there was no debate to be had. He said, “He sure has made a mess in Iraq, no? His party is going to have a tough time wining the next election, no?” I wanted to say, “Never underestimate the stupidity of Americans,” but I refrained.

Freddie returned to tell me he could not find the man who was supposed to supply us with the equipment, but we could stay at a hostel in the park that was part of the ranger station. “Hamna Sheeda,” I said. I was looking forward to camping out in the Serengeti, but you have to roll with the punches when you are traveling. He was very apologetic and almost scared to break this news to me, but quite relieved at my easy-go-lucky nature.

From the bank we went to several grocery stores to buy supplies. We went to several stores because the prices were too high and Freddie was determined to “shave the budget.” Apparently everything is negotiable from Pringles, to beer, to bottled water. At one place we stopped to fill our “cool box” with ice. This turned out to be a frozen Kilimanjaro water bottle and the man who sold it to us broke the plastic with a machete and then proceeded to break up the ice with his machete. I thought Freddie bought several bottles of ice, but later when I went for my first beer, sadly there was not much ice.

Incidentally, Freddie also does not really know how to pack a cooler. The ice was on the bottom and all the cans were piled on top of it. I later rearranged it so that the cans were on the bottom and the ice was on the top, so as the ice melted, it cooled the rest of the cans and made a pool of cold water at the bottom. You always pull from the bottom of a cooler. That right there is $90,000 worth of college education boiled down to the bare essentials. Good thing $80,000 was provided by a soccer scholarship. Sometimes I would be partying with my friends in college and take a time out to thank them and their parents for letting me drink the beer I was drinking, and my friend Brendan would always be quick to point out in the cafeteria or the likes that his parents were paying for my meal.

“You Zee,” he said, “Da Chaga tribe makes up many of the business men hearya and dhey are very sharp when dhey zee white people. Dhey puzh up da prize from nothing.” So at each ramshackle shop we stopped at, Freddie would go to one place looking for food and such, and his friend would go searching for a good price for Kilimanjaro, Safari, or Tusker beers as they are my brands. Meanwhile I would sit in the car and frantically write down notes about how god-damn amusing this situation was and how fuckin’ awesome these two guys were treating me.

We were all set to depart for the Serengeti and I asked Freddie, “Hey Freddie, do people smoke marijuana around here?” knowing damn well how prevalent it was. Freddie does not drink or smoke and works for a Christian organization and Jesus is definitely his man. That’s cool, I thought. I’m down with the man as well so this is gonna work out real nice-like.

“Yez, of course,” he said. “I rememba you and Jason talking about dit. Why did you not askga? I will get uz some.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute,” I said. “Is it dangerous to get?” As if there are NARCS walking around Karatu waiting to bust pot dealers.

“Yez, it is no problem.” which is Freddie’s catch phrase. I like his style. “I will just go find some gangsta boyz. How many piezes you needa?” He is referring to joints so I tell him three cigarettes.

With that, he pulled the car over to the side of the road, jumped out of the car, and said “I will go find uz zome.” It was 10:02am.

In the meantime, his friend went to get a pack of smokes and I sat there in the car, continuing to write notes of the unfolding events.

Karatu is a bustling strip, a makeshift town that no doubt came to being as a result of travelers going from Arusha to the Serengeti. There are people everywhere in Karatu; hustling, selling jackets, fly catchers trying to get your attention (people who try to get you to go on a Safari with the company that is paying them pennies to market their tours), people selling trinkets, chickens, jewelry, woodcarvings and sandals, and the place is checkered with the red and purple Masaai. While I was sitting in the car, and man came up to me asking for something. I assumed money or a gift. I said, “Hapana Kiswahili,” which means no Swahili. He pointed to his stomach and I said, “Pole sana, buddy.” (I’m sorry).

Freddie’s friend Yasin returned to the car and we chatted about Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who after fighting for independence from British Colonialism in the 1950’s, became the first president of independent Tanzania in 1961. The more I learn about this man, the more impressed I am by his vision and foresight. Prior to his presidency, there were 124 tribes acting and speaking independently of each other in the Tanzania territory. The first thing he did was unite the nation under the umbrella of Swahili, making it the national language. He also made education one of his pillars, and worked hard to instill tolerance towards each other. As a result, a Tanzania will be quick to tell you they are one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Finally, Nyerere had the foresight to realize that its natural surroundings were one of its greatest assets and would be a source of income for the country.

Fifteen minutes from when Freddie left the car, he returned with two joints and two sleeves of “ganja” as he said, “We call it ganja hearya,” We made a final pit stop to pick up rolling papers and at 10:21am, we are hitting the road with two joints and more than enough to roll four or five more. In addition, we had; four 1.5 liter bottles of Kilimanjaro water, a six-pack of Tusker, a six-pack of Safari (as if there is any other beer to drink on Safari), two cylinders of Pringles, a six-pack of Coke and a six-pack of Sprite. We were ready to “Sap-arty.” (I am working to trademark that as we speak.) Where as just two hours ago I had a heavy heart, like the puddles of water that evaporate on the side of the road, my heavy heart had evaporated as well. Kids? What kids?

When we reach the entrance to the Ngorongoro conservation area, we pay the $40 transit and vehicle fee to drive through, and in the meantime, pick up another rider. Jospephat is a high-ranking accountant for the Serengeti National Park, as Freddie tells me. I am fine with this and a lively conversation in Swahili ensues, allowing me to zone out and put on my “Going to Africa” playlist, which I threw together quite randomly one night. The first song to play is “Thunder on the Mountain”, by Bob Dylan, off his latest album, Modern Times. It seemed like a more fitting driving song, and time to leave the sad music behind. Dylan is incredible that he can still kick it out the way he does. My journey was just beginning.

We climbed the Ngorongoro crater wall as we had just two weeks ago, and then hugged the rim for about 15-20 kilometers. We finally came down the other side of the mountain and the land opened up into a giant plateau scattered with Masaai Bomas. After traveling through there for a while, I came upon my first Giraffe. They are the strangest, most fascinating, most graceful creatures I have ever seen. They do not seem like they should be of this world and George Lucas definitely used the Giraffe as inspiration for many of the creatures in that bar scene from the first Star Wars (I actually visited that tonight, but more on that later.)

We uza da giraff as a national symbol,” Freddie said.

“They sure are strange,” I reply.

“Yeza, but dhay are alzo peazful and polite.” I guess that is similar to Freddie, but I would add amiable, accommodating, and agreeable. I thought to myself, how in hell did evolution ever produce a giraffe? Meanwhile, Zebras and Wildebeests crossed the road like deer in northern and western New Jersey.

We crossed the border of the Ngorongoro Conservation area into the Serengeti and into the midst of maybe 100,000 zebras and wildebeests, but I think this is probably a conservative guestimate as I am fortunate to be here in the midst of the great migration.

There is nothing but space when you enter the Serengeti from the Ngorognoro Conservation area. It is just one giant plain from horizon to horizon. There are mountains behind you, but all around you the plain meets the horizon, only broken by the thousands of resident animals that turn to tiny dots as they recede to the horizon.

Since Josephat was a high-ranking accountant, he seemed to know every person working on the side of the road or working to fix the roads. We passed two guys on a large construction vehicle, which was trying to even out the road, and paused for a second to chat. I don’t know what was said, but one of the guys on the vehicle pulled from behind him two beers and smiled from ear to ear as if to say, “Oh don’t worry about us working in the hot sun. We are partying.” I am assuming drinking on the job is perfectly reasonable here. Come to think of it, is in the states as well – as long as you don’t get caught.

We reached the busy Nobby Hill Gate of Serengeti National Park at 1:10pm. I walked around observing how international the crowd was and decided to grab a juice box while Freddie dealt with permits, etc. This was Josephat’s destination, so by the time we pulled out at 1:51pm, the party of four had now become three.

When we departed I noticed Yasin was drinking a beer he purchased at the snack shop so I said, “That seems like a pretty damn good idea,” and with that, I reached into the cooler and popped my first Tusker of the day. Slowly the Safari vehicle was turning into the Sa-party vehicle. “Yez, yez. A very good idea,” said Yasin.

I was listening to Phish on my iPod and popped my head up through the roof. As the plains opened up, so was Page on piano and Trey on guitar a particularly good rendition of “You Enjoy Myself” from a show at Washington’s Gorge on July 13, 2003. I happened to be in the audience at this one.

When you are out on Safari, when you see a few cars parked on the side of the road, there is definitely a roadside attraction because if there is nothing to see, you are on the move. We saw a few cars parked down a dirt road besides a large rock outcropping and without knowing anything about lions, when I saw if from off in the distance I thought this would be a good sunny place for a big cat to sit in the sun. Sure enough, a large male with a magnificent mane and a female were lying around after an afternoon romp.

“Maybe this is your lucky day,” Freddie said.

“I’ve been lucky so far,” I said to the two of them. “We’ve got friends, beer, and ganja. What else do we need?”

“Maybe some women,” Yasin added. Well put Yasin.

We moved on again, racing across the Serengeti, my head out through the roof listening to Phish’s instrumental song First Tube. I felt like Hunter S. Thompson traveling through the desert with his lawyer, except I had two Tanzanian men with me, Freddie and Yasin, and none of us were on LSD. Traveling through the open plains with my two new friends, drinking beer and cranking tunes, I was salivating from the delicious taste of freedom. Again – another cinematic moment of my life.

We arrived at Seronera Lodge for a late lunch a little after 3pm. Freddie left me on my own and I had plans of writing but one of the waiters had different plans. I saw him eyeing me from a far because he probably doesn’t see too many solo travelers coming through this expensive resort, so I think he was probably curious as to what my story was. Before I knew it he was sitting with me and he was telling me about his 23-year-old son at University in Dar Es Salaam who is studying philosophy and wants to become a Catholic priest. He asked me many questions about the orphanage and we discussed the need for assistance in Tanzania. He said it is not so much that you need to hand money out to people, but to just give them assistance, give them skills so they can make it on their own. “Give a man a fish and eats for a day,” I said.

“Teach a man to fish and eats for a lifetime,” he replied.

Freddie took a long time to pick me up at lunch. I am not sure what he was doing but it gave me time to write. I thought he was dropping Yasin off, but when I returned to the car, much to my surprise and joy, Yasin was still there. As I said, Freddie does not drink or smoke. I’m not afraid to drink alone, but libations are more enjoyable when shared with someone else, so I was glad to have a co-conspirator in my quest for the perfect Serengeti-buzz.

It was probably 5:00pm by the time we started our late day game drive. I may have said this at some point already, but I was not really looking forward to Safari. My mind was in Zanzibar already, but what I could not begin to comprehend was what you will see on safari, where the space will take your mind, or how much fun you can have standing through the roof of a Land Cruiser, cranking tunes, and drinking cold beers from a can. The only thing that could have made the day better was a joint. Thank God for the greatest Safari driver EVER. I had already had a few beers during the day’s drive and one or two at lunch, so it was as if the good Lord’s good-man read my mind.

“Would you like-a to smoke-a? It is a very nice les-zure time, da late afternoon game drive,” said Freddie.

Yasin thought about joining me. I saw the indecisiveness and hesitation on his face, but he decided against it so I thought, looks like I’m flying alone again. And with that, I sparked the joint and took the first drag of “ganja” in a long time. There was something so anciently familiar about it; that scent – it took me back to the first time I smoked pot up at me pool with John Rodrigues, as well as that whole era of my life – those early days of experimenting with it.

That morning, when I was packing, I had just finished off a travel size container of Q-tips. I thought about throwing it away but then I thought, this might serve some purpose so I will hold on to it. Sure enough, it is the perfect size for a lighter and two joints, or a joint and a roach. When I placed the roach in the container, out from the joint rolled two seeds. Ah yes, that was the familiar scent of adolescence. We Northwesterners are spoiled with B.C. bud as it is called and I am pretty sure it is impossible for them to grow the whacky-weed with seeds in it. For those of you that don’t smoke, you don’t want seeds in your bud.

The Serengeti at sunset is something else. Animals that are resting from the hot sun begin to stir, insects grow louder, and the colors in the western sky burn molten, casting the surroundings in light you don’t see in the Northern Hemisphere.

After a short drive, we came upon two lions who again had just finished mating and they were sitting on the side of the road, maybe eight feet from me. I was looking down at them and as we started to drive away, the male lion and I locked eyes so deeply it was as if we both gazed into each other’s soul. Later, we came upon a leopard, which is rather rare.

It is difficult to pass a judgment between the lion and the leopard, but they are both two of the most magnificent animals I have ever seen. I had no idea how big a leopard was. It was just hanging out with its mate in a giant rock outcropping called a “kopjes.” It was too far to get a picture but I got to watch it slink away through binoculars. It appeared again at the top of the outcropping, which was covered in high grass. Through the binoculars, I could see its beautiful head silhouetted against the dusk sky, its markings so clear in my viewfinder. The leopard is a majestic animal; noble, strong, cunning, and elusive. The lion is stately and grand. They are each brilliant and beautiful in their own merits.

“You are-a very lucky,” said Freddie. “Every time I am-a wit you we see-a many a rare thingz.” I’m in the flow I thought, and I’m not going to fight it.

At one point during the drive, I had my iPod on random and I was thinking about the previous blog entry I had written about music, and traveling through the spaces of our lives, and how I had missed the mark on it. I had my iPod on random and the song, “Duty Free Tequila,” came on, which is a Banned From the Mall song (the band I play in in Seattle). It was such a perfect song for the moment, mellow, fun, spacious, and contemplative, that the fact that it was playing was almost divine.

Listening to my iPod, listening to Banned From the Mall, in the middle of the Serengeti at sundown, it hit me; I realized that the spaces I had been looking for all my life, those spaces I have been searching for, those spaces in which you find truth, beauty, and the essence of who you are – by striking out on my own, jumping into the great unknown, I was now in the midst of the greatest one of my life. It was from my creative hand that I found myself in the middle of the Serengeti. From where I was physically, to what I was thinking and feeling, to what I was listening to, it was all a result of my creation. I realized I no longer have to search for those spaces because they are contained within me and I, as a creator, can give rise and birth to them. In music, in writing, in creating, in participating in life, I am the creator of my own spaces and experiences I travel through.

I touched upon it at the end of the blog entry “Creators and the Creator,” but the Creator created us to create. Buddha, Krishna, Vishnu, or Christ, the goal is not to worship, but to become. Those prophets, saviors, avatars, or whatever you want to call them, came to life to show us a way of living and becoming. Life is a state of becoming and I think it is about brining the gift you have been given, your consciousness, into line with the Greater Consciousness or the Universal Consciousness. When you are able to tap into it, there is no more struggle, rather you are going with the flow of life and being true to who you are, and in being true to who you are, you are guided to become that person by the people and experiences, the spaces you pass through. If you are in that space, in the flow, then that also means your eyes are open for the road signs that are all around us at all times.

I wrote in a Banned From the Mall song called “Stardust”, and part of it goes;

“I know to master like water, I need to let go;
flowing formless, I let myself go, I let it flow
I let it go…it’s all an illusion…

I am nothing and I am everything,
I am stardust floating in the wind…
Drifting through space,
From place to place,
A formless face,
I am space…”

I think maybe I understand those line now better than ever.

It is easy to write all of this from where I am, traveling through East Africa, having incredible experiences, meeting incredible people, seeing incredible things, removed from the realities of city life and work, but I could not have had these experiences if I had not let go and let life take me where it has. The hardest part of this journey so far was making the decision to do it, as well as the weeks of uncertainty, speculation, and fear that lead up to it. But ever since I got on that plane, things have just worked out for me.

I am not saying I have found any great secret in life or something that will release me from all pain or that my life is going to be all rosy from here on out, but I do believe in the flow, and I feel more capable of anything I set my mind to than at any other point in my life. The flow is a state of consciousness or state of the mind that I have been experimenting with since probably the day Princess Diana died. No, that experience did not shock me into the flow.

That day I was floating down the Delaware River with about twelve friends on the last day of a rafting/camping trip. At one point I jumped out of the boat and got caught in a current. I slowly drifted away from the canoe and no one really noticed but I started to panic. The current picked up and although I could just barely stand, when I would try to hold myself with my feet against a rock, the tide would over take me. I started to panic and fight like mad, but then something came over me and told me to just let go so I did; I let go and let the current take me where it would. And once I gave up the struggle, the current took me safely to the shore.

I have been trying to incorporate that into my life ever since, sometimes with resounding success and sometimes with miserable failure. It is at those moments of failure, when everything seems to be going as shitty as it possibly can, that I realize I am holding on to life too hard and trying to implement the ego’s plan as opposed to the self or the soul’s plan. This grasp, this holding on to life so tight is usually born out of fear and what I think I should be doing in light of being “successful” in society.

Driving home that night, I was standing out of the roof listening to the National, cranking “Lit Up,” and dancing and pumping my fists in the air like a mad man. There was a tremendous thundercloud over the Seronera Lodge lighting up the sky almost every second.

My quarters were rather ghetto, however. It was a hostel of sorts, that is part of the ranger station. What it really was, was a very institutional prison like structure with a bed, a very holy mosquito netting, and by that I do not mean of the Lord, and about two feet of space to walk around two sides of the bed – and for this I was charged around $30. I guess when you are in the middle of the Serengeti, you should be grateful that you have shelter at all. Freddie told me not to go outside to look at the stars or anything because sometimes the lions like to come sleep under the cars sometimes. What a tragic end to a perfect day that would be; getting picked up by a lion.

Freddie showed me to my room and left for a while so I took a “shower” and washed a half-inch of dust off me from driving through the Serengeti all day. Luckily, I had become quite adroit at the bucket bath so bathing was not too much of a challenge for me. Freddie then picked me up to take me to the Seronera Lodge for dinner.

I thought Freddie would be joining me but I guess it is not encouraged for the drivers to eat with the rest of the patrons, which was a total downer. Had I known Freddie would not be dining with me I would have taken a book, notebook, or computer with me. Luckily however, I had a pocket notebook with me. I say luckily not so much for the fact that I could write down notes, but because it was all I could do to distract myself from the “band” which consisted of a xylophone player, bongos, and a person on snare drum. They all wore tie-dyes and it seemed as if they only knew one, incessant, never-ending song.

The lodge Tanzanian government and is now owned by a man from India. It looked like it could be a 70s ski lodge and I was surrounded by a very international group of wealthy Safari-goers. The rooms cost $260 a night but the cost of Safari is staggering. It is very much a leisure activity of the wealthy class. You do not see many locals Tanzanians on Safari, despite the fact that it is dirt-cheap for a true resident. I say a true resident because I have a resident stamp in my passport because I worked here and this gives me some great discounts at hotels, etc. But if you do see Tanzanians on Safari, most likely they are piled into a bus with as many of them on it as you can possible imagine.

The dining patrons of this fine establishment on this evening consisted of honeymooners, old-timers on vacations, people on anniversary trips, grandpa taking the fam on vacation, and a family from India. I am sure this place does not get many solo travelers such as myself, but then again, I wasn’t staying here. Definitely a fine mixture of Euro-trash as well, but I’m sure they were looking at me and calling me Ameri-trash as I was dressed in a t-shirt, jeans, and trail-runners; not exactly dining attire.

When Freddie picked me up and we left, I was concerned that the fuckin’ song the band played on and on and on would haunt me all night, but it quickly escaped me as we went to the “Wema Bar.” The Wema Bar is where all the drivers sleep and drink. It was a tiny room with a wood structure around the bar that seemed to close the barmaid in behind prison bars, or as if she was a teller in a bank. The plan was to have one Tusker and leave, but one turned to three as I ran into Yasin again as well as another one of their friends named Mohammed. Yasin was probably in his mid-forties and liked me a lot for letting me transit him to the Serengeti instead of taking a public bus, and for letting him drink half my beers. (Lesson #6 for the solo-Safari traveler: pack more beer than you think you can drink because you never know who you might pick up). He told Freddie, “You take very good care of this man. He is a good man,” and took another nip off his brown-colored drink.

Mohamed, 33 although he looked 24, was an interesting character. The next morning Freddie gave me the back-story on him, but he had been working for a Safari company for several years and was a good, hard, smart worker. He was working with the only company that provides sunrise hot air balloon rides over the Serengeti. One time, his hand got caught in one of the strings and severed his finger. Instead of having to pay him workers severance, since one of the previous hot air balloon drivers (who are called pilots) had recently passed away, they decided to send him to Oakland, California for three months to train to be a pilot. Being a hot air balloon pilot around these parts I would have to imagine would be something like Maverick or Goose in Top Gun. I wonder if Mohamed has a call sign?

Anyway, Mohamed told me about the intricacies of flying a hot air balloon as well as his favorite club team, which was Chelsea, but I thought the flying part was more interesting. He had an engaging, disarming, and welcoming smile, which was good because at first it was a little strange to be the only white man around for miles and to be in the midst of all these drivers, some fairly intoxicated. What was interesting though, is that every 50 feet or so on the plains, the winds move in a different direction, so to go left, you could fly at 50 feet, to go right, you could rise up to 100 feet, etc. He said, essentially he could point to an Arcadia Tree in the distance and take me right to it. He also said had I been there a day earlier, he would have taken me up for free, which wasn’t a bad offer considering it is $459 for a one hour ride. Leave it to Freddie to introduce me to good peeps.

When it was time to leave, Yasin said, “It was a pleasure meeting you my friend. If God allows it, we will meet again.”

“I think He will allow it” I said, “At least I hope He does.”

Freddie dropped me off and as soon as he drove away I realized I was without water and rather parched. I wasn’t going to drink from the faucet so I sucked it up and had cotton mouth all night. Thanks to the good graces of Mr. and Mrs. soon–to-be David McFeely, I was armed with a well stitched mosquito netting, so I climbed beneath its Malaria power-shield and went to bed. I did not have long to sleep however, as Freddie was picking me up for a 6am game drive.

(This was started in the Serengeti, finished 12/08, 11:45pm at Dr. Frank and Susan’s place in Karatu)

Music and Consciousness

Rift Valley Children’s Orphanage, Tuesday, December 4, 2006, 9:31pm

“Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.
Sometimes we visit your country and live in your home.
Sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk along.
Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own.

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
The heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own.
Wake now discover that you are the song that the morning brings.
The heart has its seasons, its evenings, and songs of its own…”
-Eyes of the World, The Grateful Dead

(Good Lord – this one is all over the road but there is just not enough time to truly think it through and rewrite. There is also about six lines of thought running through here and I think I contradict myself several times as well. Oh well…maybe something will make sense…)

As we were driving to the farmhouse this morning to teach the kids swimming, I put on what is probably my favorite song of all time; Eyes of the World, by the Grateful Dead.

In high school I made a 90-minute mixed tape with different live versions of Eyes of the World from the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Each version was different and I would listen to it over and over on my 50-minute drive to school each day. There is something about that song for me that encapsulates the wondering beauty of youth, the joy and innocence of the search, the pain and disappointment it brings with it, and all thee while on the quest for truth, understanding, and good times.

When I listen to Eyes of the World, I see an ambitious, curious kid and his copilot (which could have been Eric Runz, John Rodrigues, Frazier Curry, or any other number of friends) driving around the back roads of Tewksbury Township in New Jersey, getting stoned and laughing, sharing our experiences, hopes, and dreams, while trying to get lost and consequently trying to find our way home – and always searching, searching, searching.

The Grateful Dead will forever be tied to the freedom of the road and the exploration of adolescents for not only me, but thousands of other kids across the United States. To be a Dead-Head meant you were a part of something and there were symbols to identify us as well. The “Steal Your Face” logo was probably the first and most successful branding of any band in history.

The Grateful Dead definitely played a role in forming who I am and it was that first mushroom trip at Nassau Coliseum at a spring tour show in 1991 that changed my life forever. The searching seed had always lay dormant within me, but this incident started me on a path of exploration that I would follow for the rest of my life. I can remember the guy who sold my experimenting-drug-buddy, John, the shrooms saying, “These are Colorado Blue-Stem and me they’re pretty strong so go easy on them.” Oh yeah sure,” we said, acting like we were old hats at the drug game. And with that we split the contents of the bag in two and wolfed down the dry, nauseating fungi.

But in fact this was our first venture into the unknown world of the mind and psychedelics. It was my first taste of the mania that can be a mushroom trip; the steep and sometimes manic climb to the peak, followed by the infinite and peaceful views from the top.

This will be a very foreign concept to some, but that first trip was the first time that I can remember moving my conscious out of my mind. The only way I can explain it to someone who has never done it before, is that it can be as if you are looking out at yourself and the world from a third-person point of view. It opened my mind up to new horizons and spaces within myself that made the world a much larger and staggeringly complex place, and yet at the same time, like reducing a sauce, I was able to boil life down to its most basic element; the one source that gives life meaning.

I don’t think you necessarily have to do drugs to experience this. I think it can be experienced in many different ways like overcoming some great obstacle in life such as cancer or having a near death experience,, or challenging yourself and achieving that which at one time you thought was impossible or unachievable. Basically, the type of experience I am trying to explain is about gaining a new perspective on life that is so powerful, that once you experience it you are forever altered.

I can remember having a near emotional breakdown in the beginning of this trip. I was so overwhelmed by this new perspective I was gaining and the unfolding of life that was occurring within me. That flood of emotion later evolved into the realization that all that matters in life is love; giving it, sharing it, making it, and receiving it. I wanted to call my sister and tell her I understood what she was talking about and I wanted to call my parents and tell them I loved them, and that I was on a powerful drug right now, but I have a good head on my shoulders and that every thing is going to be fine.

Thank fucking-God someone talked me out making that call. Drunk-dialing is one thing, but ASF-dialing (ass-faced-tripping-dialing) to your parents is another. I am grateful I did not make that call because;

a.) my parents thought I was at Meg Rutter’s sweet sixteen, and
b.) I would not have been able to leave the house until I was 29.

The fact of the matter was I was sixteen or seventeen at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island, far from the safe little world I was used to, and everything that came before that moment, my entire life, was packaged into five hours of a really intense mushroom trip. There is a reason after all that the shamans of many cultures use substances such as mushrooms and peyote in rituals and ceremonies. I think God put everything on the earth for a reason and before man there was perfect balance. Perhaps these organic substances of the earth when used correctly, allow a person to enter new spaces of the mind, meaning new spaces within consciousness, and maybe just for a moment view into the mind of God and the mystery He created. I think God, the universe, the creative energy – whatever you want to call it is a living, conscious entity that was never born and will never die, and it is evolving and recreating itself at all times.

In life we are constantly moving and traveling through physical spaces and I have found that it is the people, music, and spaces we move through that opens or closes the mental, emotional, and spiritual doors within us. This will sound strange to people who were in Math club while my friends and myself were getting stoned after school and listening Phish and the Grateful Dead; but traveling through those spaces, both the journey to and from the shows, and where they took your mind during it, were some of the most vast spaces I have traveled through.

As adolescents, our individuality is not formed yet, so we attach ourselves to something greater than us, something that we can be a part of, generally institutions that gives us an identity such as being a soccer player or a Dead-head (or both), and within the security of these structures or institutions we search for our individuality.

I think of a Dead Show very much like the experience of life on a macro scale. When you were at a Dead Show, you were a part of something greater than yourself. There were all of these consciousnesses floating and drifting in this and that direction, and at certain moments we were all tuned into something. When you were “in the flow” at a Dead show, you as well as everyone around you was locked into a rhythm and vibe, and expressing that flow in your own way through dance. You were consumed and enveloped by the music, so in the moment in fact, that you were transcending it.

You followed a song in its structure, and then the musicians go into improvisational interludes, and in these improvisational spaces, when it seems the music is going in all different directions, you tend to lock into one musician and enter their space. While you are there, their space becomes yours and all of your experiences come to that moment. As an example I’ll use Scarlet > Fire (if you traded Grateful Dead bootlegs like so many of my friends, that is how you would write Scarlet Begonias segueing into Fire On the Mountain). I think a lot of life is very similar to these improvisational moments when you are traveling in your own mind and in your own space.

Now this is going to get very granular here, but bare with me. I was thinking about these thoughts coming home from the Farmhouse this morning while listening to Scarlet > Fire from the second set of a Cornell University show on May 5th, 1977. Depending on whom you talk to, this could be considered one of the Dead’s finest performances.

In between Fire On the Mountain and Scarlet Begonias, to connect the songs without stopping the play, there is an improvisational interlude that is occurring, and each musician is doing his own thing, noodling around the chords and melodies that their souls are giving life to. They all are moving forward towards something yet each in their own swirling, circular directions; six musicians doing their own thing, contained within a structure, feeding off each other while listening in on each other…

Keith Goudchax, the piano player makes his move for the other musicians to follow him and he begins to ride on a chord…Phil Lesh picks it up and drops in with a bass line. Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman, drummers who are always playing off each other, feel Phil’s bass line and bring the percussion in line with where they are all moving. Bob Weir stays steady on the rhythm and the melody of Jerry Garcia, who will probably go down in history as the most uncharismatic, charismatic leader, is guiding the song the whole way home as an air traffic controller guides a plane to a safe landing. From the formless, six musicians give form to the formless which becomes Fire On the Mountain. (I will so hear it from Jon Simmons if Keith was not the piano player at the time, but damn – they had so many overdoses, how can you keep up?)

It is consciousness that gives rise to meaning in life and I think consciousness, both on the individual and universal level works very much in the way that I described the song above. Consciousness sometimes moves on its own, but it is always a part of something greater, and when it taps into the greater whole, that from what it is a part of, it moves in the direction of the collective consciousness. When consciousness is interacting in tandem with others is when we are at our most powerful, whether moving towards the good or evil, Ghandi being an example of leading people towards the good, Hitler towards evil. Consciousness is why certain movements happen at certain times in history.

When enough people are tuned into the universal consciousness, or the Weltanschauung as the Germans call it (which means more or less world movement), consciousness becomes a matter of critical mass. I think the current Weltanschauung is moving towards a universal spirituality, but to call it spirituality is to simplify it. It is a movement inwards, whereby we begin to discover the universality and the oneness of all of creation and act in line with what that discovery means.

The final frontier is not the far reaches of the universe, but the far reaches of the interior spaces of self. We have to move in this direction; otherwise humans will destroy each other in the name of religion, power, and greed.

Consciousness is a living, interacting thing; it is organically evolving at all times. Due to the mass amount of information that is available to us, and the speed at which this information is available, consciousness is evolving at its fastest pace in human history. There are either two things that can happen; we take a giant leap forward or we take a giant step back and nuke ourselves into the stoneage.

What if the entire world, the whole of the universal consciousness, moved in one direction toward what Plato called “The Good?”

Storm Windows…

Rift Valley Children’s Orphanage, Monday, December 3, 2006, 9:02pm

The past two nights it has sounded like a party down in Campi Nairobi, the village below the orphanage; whistles blowing, drums banging, singing, and chanting. As I write this, I can hear the whistles and uniquely African sounds rising up from the valley. I was wondering what the celebration was or if it was a holiday, but it turns out they are just trying to scare the elephants away. It is a full moon tonight and except for the single glow of a campfire up in the mountains, the moon has painted the landscape in lunar shadows.

Yesterday, Lisa, Sue, and I went for a late afternoon walk because an elephant was sighted in the coffee fields and we have yet to see one except from a great distance. When we didn’t find one, Sue had to return home to receive a call from her son, so Lisa and I continued our walk in the reverse direction of what we normally do. Because of the elephants and other recently reported animals in the area we were paying a little more attention to our surroundings than normal.

We started down a cutback on a trail that opens up to a gradual descending field. I was following Lisa, chatting about who knows what, when she stopped dead in her tracks. “What is that she said?”

Down the hill a brown figure was stretched out across the path we were following. I wasn’t sure what she was talking about until I saw a head pop up from the soft edges (I didn’t have my glasses on). We immediately ruled out a Cape Buffalo (that is an animal that you do not want to encounter unless you are in a Safari vehicle) because of its size, but rather it seemed more like the size of maybe a hyena, a large jackal, or a wild dog. As we sat there debating for some time whether or not to turn around, a local man came up behind us. Lisa asked the man in Swahili, “What is that in the path?” She pointed it out and he started to run towards it; brazen, if not foolish young fellow, I thought. He ran right up to the damn thing and it looked like he was stepping on it. The figure then sat up. It turned out to be a local drunk who decided to pass out on this path, which incidentally was quite a fair distance back from the village. I wonder what he was doing out here? I’m sure the man who alerted us of the figure’s homo-sapien status thought this was no place for city-slicker mazungus.

We made our way down the hill and he slurred some gibberish at us as we stepped over him. Must have been a particularly good batch of “pombe,” which, as I mentioned before, is homemade bathtub gin with a little fertilizer or battery acid thrown in to give it a kick. This guy was spun. Pombe I have learned is incredibly addicted and once you are hooked, you are done. It fries your brain as you might imagine battery acid or fertilizer would do and there defiantly are no rehab or support programs out here.

Sunday morning around ten we headed off to the Ngorongoro Farm House as Sunday is the volunteer’s day off. On our way home that night, at the hour of the evening when shadows grow long and the countryside explodes with every shade of green you can imagine, Ashley, Lisa, and I stood in silence in the open air of the Land Cruiser truck, each locked up in our own thoughts. I listened to John Prine’s “Storm Windows” over and over for the entire half-hour, 8-kilometer trek home, trying desperately to take in the vastness of the green rolling plains; a vastness broken only by dirt roads winding towards the mountains on the horizon. During the day, it looks as if there is only one mountain range far off in the distance. It is only at this hour of the evening, when the setting sun paints the mountains in a monochromic color scheme, that you can truly gauge just how many mountains there are and how far they recede into the distance.

Driving in the open air reminded me of the opening scene in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when the author speaks of riding a motor cycle as being a part of the scene; not separate and out of touch with it like you would be in a car (incidentally, I never made it much further in that book).

As we made our way back up the hills towards the orphanage, with the tail end of the Land Cruiser swinging to and fro and the driver working hard to correct what the mud and rocks wanted us to do, I thought to myself; the driver’s here are truly artists. It is an art form the way they masterfully negotiate ruts, rivets, rocks, mud, and mini-lakes, and the way they read the sometimes seemingly impassable roads like a ship’s captain reads the currents, winds, and tides of the sea.

A new addition to the daily schedule, since school is out is out for the month of December, is to take the kids, four at a time, down to the farmhouse to teach them how to swim. One of my favorite things to do is just drive on open roads listening to music so I look forward to the daily escape and throw my iPod on random, turning up the volume as loud as it can go to drown out the Land Rover’s straining workhorse engine. This morning Phish came on and immediately it put me in a different time and a place.

They say music is the soundtrack of your life, and Phish and the Grateful Dead definitely have a powerful way of allowing me to look back through the lens of time and once again peer out at the world through the eyes of seventeen-year-old.

Those late adolescence and teen days were some of the most carefree days of my life. I did not have a care in the world – at least I should not have had a care in the world – as life was simply about freedom and exploration. But of course I had a way of making life heavy and serious, and wondering and worrying about what tomorrow might hold or how I fit into the world. If I had a dollar for every time I wrote in my journal things such as; why am I here? Why am I born into this family at this time in history? Why am I, as a consciousness, a part of this body, this person who is called Tim Shields? I think questions of such nature can be a very slippery slope for a young mind, and someone who has a mind of such nature needs to be shepherded and guided, for a mind of this nature can get one into some very dark places.

No one really knew the thoughts and questions that consumed me day in and day out, mostly because I didn’t know how to express them, so I turned inward. I think I was also an angry child, and only recently have I been able to see where that anger stems from. There is no one source; rather it is a series of external events as well as an incredibly complex concept and institution called family. But I don’t think there is anyway to make it through childhood and adolescence unscathed and without some scars, no matter who you are or how perfect the environment you grew up in was. The scars are just a natural part of growing up. It is ironic that I am writing about that from my bed in the middle of an orphanage in Tanzania.

My way to express my anger when I was a child was with a sharp tongue or fists. I was always playing with older kids so I was actually pretty tough, didn’t take shit from anyone, and got into a lot of fights. I’m sure my friends would get a laugh out of that these days. But as puberty came around, like what often happens at the Division of Motor Vehicles, I got stuck with a high number so I was waiting around for my growth spurt while kids outgrew me and my scrappy fighting style was simply outgunned by height and weight.

I remember one incident that brought this message home. Freshman year of high school, I was in the schoolyard pecking away at a kid named Phil, using whit and sarcasm to make him feel very small. He was not the brightest bulb on the tree so he was an easy target. I was probably showing off to a circle of kids, being a cocky little bastard and making them all laugh at his expense. Phil was a big kid and rumor had it he was even doing steroids. In my memory, I can’t see his face anymore, but I can see the expression on it and how uncomfortable and awkward he was in his own skin. He finally snapped and grabbed me around the neck in a chokehold until the point of nearly making me pass out. None of the kids did anything, but rather just stood there and watched.

That was one of my earliest lessons that the world outside of Pottersville, New Jersey, the sheltered white-bread country town I grew up in, was a dangerous and unpredictable place. I can see a string of those instances, a line running through my past that reinforced those lessons and ever so slowly I began to shut down on certain levels. These incidents shut down my ability to express anger because I was learning from my surroundings that it was not safe to express anger, so I turned that outwards anger in on myself. I think over time, bottled up anger slowly transforms itself into gripping depression and since late adolescence I have been in and out of its chokehold.

For all intensive purposes I was doing the same things as any other adolescent; going to school, playing soccer, getting stoned and experimenting with drugs and alcohol, listening to music, and trying to lose my virginity. But of course I was particularly adroit at finding ways to complicate my life, as I desperately searched for meaning and my place in the world. I often felt like a child who has not quite yet learned how to swim, struggling with desperation to stay a float.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to completely shake that part of me, that part of me that is forever seeking. Sadly enough, I think there was a while where I did not want to be happy, because I thought of my sadness and depression as a wellspring of content and inspiration. But the fact of the matter is, depression fuckin’ sucks, and whether you are writing music or the written word, painting, or creating any other art form, the art is generally stronger when it is coming from a good place, at least that has been my own experience in writing. In hindsight though, I can see how depression has been a necessary experience to create who I am, an invaluable learning tool that I would not trade in.

The last few years I have thought of the concept of depression almost like a shadow; it is always there behind you, and sometimes when the sun is shining it is at its strongest. I think of the feeling of depression as if you are falling down an endless hole, and as you are falling, you are looking up at that hole receding in the distance, and as you fall deeper, the hole you are looking up at becomes smaller and smaller and the light grows weaker and weaker and the surrounding darkness grows ever more consuming.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to recognize the approaching storm and the weather patterns that create these tempests. I am also learning how to give this formless mass form, and in doing so, transforming it into something of light. I think by learning how to express it and bring light and life to that darkness, it becomes weaker and weaker until it is something that is very manageable. The writer Eknath Easwaran does a good job of expressing this concept, however he talks of managing it through meditation.

Now how do talk about this shit at the lunch table in your high school cafeteria?

G’s Up, Ho’s Down – Beeatch…

Rift Valley Children’s Orphanage, Saturday, December 2, 2006, 9:04am

Last night and this evening, after the kids went to bed, I sat out on the front porch and watched off in the distance a magnificent 180-degree son et lumiere. Almost every night the sky in the distance lights up in a most dramatic fashion followed by the distant rolling of thunder. The lightning is usually only relegated to one part of the sky, however last night it was flashing from one side of the horizon to the other like two telegraphs communicating it the night. It is quite a magnificent sight. In addition, last night and tonight there was a three-quarter full moon directly above me bringing darkness to almost the light of day. Tonight as I stood out in front of the house by myself, a cloud consumed the moon and everything went dark. It was rather ominous and I moved closer to the security of the house. When there is no moon, here, you can barely see your hand in front of your face.

The past few Saturdays we have had a dance party out on the back verandah which consists of Ashley’s iPod and iPod speakers blaring some of her hip-hop – or whatever that new fangled music is that the kids are listening to these days. You know; I try to expose these kids to some damn culture but they are so close-minded! I guess I can relate.

I remember in high school and college, my sisters trying to introduce me to some mellower music like Martin Sexton and John Prine and I just thought, “This is so sad. They are so old.” All I listened to at that point was the Grateful Dead and Phish, but I was always listening to that music with friends while drinking Busch Light out of a can, smoking pot out of a glass piece, and partying. Now, as I listen to music mostly on my own, at home, driving, or the likes of cooking dinner, I’m more than likely drinking a Washington Pinot Noir, a microbrew like Fat Tire or Birdgeport’s Blue Heron, or a sipping on a glass of Bushmills out of a rocks glass (what a freakin’ snob I have become), and I am generally listening to mellower, more introspective music. I suppose if music is your thing, then this is the natural progression. It could be likened to discovering Kerouac and Steinbeck in high school and gradually moving onto more obscure and relevantly modern writers.

Today, I tired to have my own damn dance party since I have been dying to get my iPod into those speakers. I started out with some Oliver Mtukudzi, who is a South African musician and renowned throughout the African continent. This choice received a fairly warm reception, although more from the adults than the kids. The kids didn’t really know how to move to it because it didn’t have the steady bass lines that they seem to innately know how to move to.

Some of the flops included moments of Ray Charles, the National, which is an Indie-band from Brooklyn (we barely got four measures into the song before they were already booing it, not that I thought they would actually like it. I just wanted to see how long they could last because I wanted to hear it), St. Germaine, and Santana. I really thought that Oye Como Va would be a home run, but I just don’t think they get guitar leads or melody. The kids seem to be into hypnotic rhythms and bass lines that they can lock into and catch a groove to. It is damn funny to watch them dance and I am tempted to get a video of Boas dancing. The music that did get at least maybe a 50-60 percent approval rating was – of course – Snoop-Dog. Somebody had to introduce these orphans to the Dawg at some point; might as well be a white bread, crazy-ass, honky-cracka-beetach from New Jersey. “Sippen on Gin and Juice…laid back…beeatch!” Hopefully no kid will walk up to India and say, “G’s up – ho’s down – beeatch!” But I think more than likely she would spit out her wine laughing.

Once again, my plans that I developed 24 hours ago have changed yet again. I will in fact, be doing my safari part of the trip starting on Wednesday and making it to Dar and Zanzibar when I get there. That part will be figured out later. Baby steps first. These changes came about as a result of running into Freddie again today, the driver who took a group of us into the Ngorongoro Crater. He’s going to take me to the Serengeti and Tarangyre National Park and save me almost $600 dollars. Freddie rules! “Yeza. I can take you there-a. Do not worry and let me take care of da detailz.” If this in fact works out, I will be relived to get the safari part of the trip out of the way because it will completely cut back on redundant travel. I am meeting Freddie tomorrow at the Ngorongoro Farm House to discuss the details and draw up an itinerary.

G’s up, ho’s down – beetach…

A Sobering Yet Exciting Thought: Four Days Left….

Rift Valley Children’s Orphanage, Saturday, December 2, 2006, 3:01am

Another restless night’s sleep.

Besides the beginning of the this trip, for the most part I have slept hard and deep, but this is night two of laying in bed tossing and turning. I try to just get comfortable and think of nothing, but ultimately my mind goes on autopilot, thinking about and planning the rest of my trip. I also can’t get the song or “Seaweed” by The Fruitbats out of my head, “Love is like a spaceship blowing up when it hits the atmosphere…”

I was somewhat shocked today to call “Safari Makers’ today and find out they are booked up until mid-December; nothing like waiting until the last minute to make your travel arrangements. I can hire a car on my own, which is what I will most likely do, but it will not be cheap. Being that Tanzania is becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination, entrance fees to national parks are going up every year. It was $200 to get into the Ngorngoro Crater, which covered the car and entrance fee; then on top of that we had to pay $120 for the car for the day. On a budget Safari, you are looking at roughly $200-$400 a day. I am thinking if I book a car for around December 18th, hopefully some straggler or commitment phobic person such as myself who waits until the last minute will jump on board and split the costs. “Do you see why I have not been able to commit in a relationship for years?” I said to Sue. “I can’t even commit to travel plans, none-the-less what I am ordering on a menu.”

“Come here darling and let’s figure this out,” she said in her British accent.

At the moment, I’m looking at four days of Safari; one day at Lake Manyara, two days in the Serengeti, and one or two days of a cultural tour which might include spending the day with a local tribe. I’ll call it a trip with one or two days in Arusha, although the more I hear about Arusha, the less time I want to spend there. I do still have my boy John Mushi there and I met another women today who lives there, so I’ll make that call when the time comes. Originally I was going to do the Safari part of the trip first and end up on Zanzibar, but instead I will be heading to Dar Es Salaam on Wednesday and spending two or three days with a friend of a friend, then heading to Zanzibar on Friday or Saturday. The tour operator at Safari Makers said to me, “You don’t have a room booked yet?” I sort of forgot about the fact that we are entering high season here but I’m not too worried about it. I’m going to spend a day or two in Stone Town, then head to the northern-most point at Kendwa and get SCUBA certified there.

I just couldn’t get my ass out of bed this morning when my Timex Ironman watch alarm went off. I let it go off three times before I got up and by that time it was 7am. Sue had already finished feeding the kids breakfast. It was only cornflakes this morning so it was the easy breakfast. Every day is getting harder and harder to get up. I feel like I am suffering from Senior-itus, or when you are leaving a job and you know you have another one lined up. I have had an incredible time here and it has been some of the most chill time of my life to just think, relax, and be, but I am ready for a little adventure. I have to compliment myself in the fact that I have been able to live in the moment here; not wrapped in the past from where I came or concerned about the unknown future into which I am headed. I think however, with the experience being so untypical of anything I have known in my life, combined with the fact that my days are fairly busy, it is not as difficult to stay in the moment as you might think. Also, I think a child’s imagination has a way of holding you in the moment like no other.

Every breakfast meal at the orphanage alternates between corn flakes with one teaspoon of brown sugar (or tablespoon depending on how generous I am feeling that morning or how rambunctious they are being), and a half-cup of water. The following day they get a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a glass of Tang. And of course they also get dawa every morning, which consists of one children’s chewable Centrum vitamin. I suppose when that is all you know, your palette doesn’t get bored, at least when you’re young. I’m sure they will learn as they grow older and their world becomes larger than the jungle gym in the schoolyard and the property lines that shield them from the outside world, that variety is the spice of life.

Edward is my student teacher who assists me in the house and deals with a lot of translating. He is a very nice fellow in his tall awkwardness. I think he is about 20 years old. I am always amazed to find out how young these guys are because they look so much older to me. Edward rarely smiles when he is dealing with the kids and is somewhat of an authoritarian when it comes to keeping them in line. Some mornings the kids will be going nuts, screaming, running around the table, dragging each other around on the filthy floor by their legs and Edward will come in and say something that starts out loud and then ends in a whisper. He also makes some clicking noise with his tongue against the back of his teeth and uses his big-ass pointer finger to say God knows what, and the kids run to the table and eat in silence. Edward apparently is somewhat of a preacher so we are all convinced he is telling the kids they are going to burn in hell with other misbehaving orphans if they do not do what he says. Before every meal he makes them close their eyes and put their hands over their faces. I have no problem with any of this as long as he can put the kids in line when I can’t.

Another time of day when the kids are nuts is bath time. They run into their room and strip off their clothes and I’m yelling, “Boas, get your towel! Mole, stop slamming the door shut! Joshua, take off your shoes and get in the bathtub! Vicente, you’re not a baby! You can take off your own shirt!”

I am actually going to really miss all of these moments, even though they are generally the most trying moments of the day. Occasionally I will say things like, “You know what Simon? I really don’t give a damn. Tell someone who cares,” and Simone just looks up at me with a blank look, trying to manipulate me as to what his agenda is dictating. Simone has this funny slack-jawed expression on his face at all times and he is always looking up at you as if in complete confusion. What I am really doing in moments like these is amusing myself because the kids don’t understand me anyway. I know that the general rule with kids is, “If you give them an inch, they take a mile,” and by God if I don’t sound like my parents, but it seems especially true with these kids. I think it is because I am a mazunga.

I have learned a most useful key phrase lately, however, when my lame attempts to be strict fail; “Fine, I’m going to get Edward. I’m getting Edward right now. Watch me,” and they all answer in a resounding and fearful, “NO!” This works almost every time. A few times I have actually had to bring him into the room when they have called my bluff and he comes in with his big feet in his orange flip-flops and his big-ass pointer finger, or slapping the back of one hand into the palm of the other and he says “Blah, blah, blah, blah!” At least that is what his Swahili sounds like to me. As a few of my friends in Seattle can attest to, I have a knack for mimicking people and I have Edward nailed. Ashley and the other volunteers love that I have his body language down and my impression of his Swahili.

Since school is over for the month and the regular schedule is over, today my assignment was to go up to India’s place and play with her kids. India’s house is probably a quarter of a mile away down and then up dirt roads with paths that cut through rows and rows of coffee fields. Normally this would be a great, leisurely walk, but for some reason lately there have been several elephants in the area. People think because of all the rain, the army ants are being forced out of their holes and attacking the animals so it is pushing some of the animals out of the forest. You can tell when there is an elephant in the vicinity because all work ceases and the kids and adults congregate at the end of a road looking towards where the elephant is and everyone is saying in excitement, “Tembo!” Imagine any scene from the TV show COPS, where bystanders look on as someone is arrested or they are pulling the wounded out of a car wreck. You gotta love American TV.

The road this morning was littered with elephant dung, broken branches, and ripped out trees. You would be amazed at the size of some of the trees they effortlessly turn rip apart. Elephants are incredibly destructive and the road looked like the aftermath of a frat-party. Apparently they were in the road last night and very close to the school as well. Sue and Lisa said they were magnificently trumpeting last night and it could be heard all up and down the valley. Bad night to be listening to my iPod.

Yesterday on her way home, India also picked up the musty bovine scent of a Cape Buffalo. Although she didn’t see it, smelling it meant it was too close for comfort. Cape Buffalo are one of the “Big 5” (Lion, Cape Buffalo, Leopard, Elephant, Rhino) and you do not want to piss one of these off. As I was leaving the office this morning I was told, “If you come across an elephant run downhill, and if you come across a Cape Buffalo, you want to drop to the ground and try to roll into some grass or underbrush because their vision is so bad. “Sweet,” I said. I was on high alert but it didn’t stop me from listening to Bob Dylan’s “Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan” album on low. I was constantly looking left and right down these rows of coffee trees waiting to see an elephant just hanging out and munching on an Acacia Tree. I did get to see one from the comforts of a car one evening just lumbering about. (Do kids these days still call them albums? Perhaps that is a term that will date me with the kids today and my kids.)

It is a strange, sobering reality that I will be leaving these kids in four days. It will be odd not to have Mole coming up to me every morning when I am half asleep, tired, and crabby, with his hands on his hips and armed with a heart-melting toothless smile and saying, “Hello Teem. Good morning. How are you? I am fine.” You just want to either hug him or strangle him because he is so damn cute and so innocently mischievous. Then there is Jane with an equally disarming smile hugging me every morning but damn is she moody, or Colette following me around and rubbing my tattoo or the hair on my arms, and saying “Tat-ew? Tat-ew?” Colette and Nicoli are twins and the newest addition to the orphanage as their aunt who was raising them passed away a week or two ago.

The other day (I wasn’t around) Mole was doing God knows what and fell from the top bunk onto the concrete floor and as a result had a big egg-like lump on his head. The following morning he was messing around at the breakfast table and I’m saying, “Mole – kula, kula,” which means eat, eat, and motioning putting a spoon-full of cornflakes in my mouth. When I turned my head for a second and turned back around he was under the table doing whatever it is he does. Moments later the table shook with a giant thud and the tears begin. I was trying my best not to laugh while consoling him. Now he has two giant lumps on his forehead that almost match each other. I wish I could post pictures on this blog but it would probably take an hour to upload over here.

I think Mole is five and when he came here in June he didn’t even speak Swahili. I forget what tribe he is from, but now he speaks Swahili and seems to be picking up English very fast as well. He is one smart little kid. Who knows where he got this, but one day he said, “I love white women, and white women love me.”

If I had to take one kid home, it would be a tough choice but it would probably be Mole or Boas (pronounced bwas-ee, or at least that is what we call him). Both are incredibly photogenic and Boas is in close competition with Mole as to who has the biggest heart-warming smile. Boas is probably four and one day we were having a dance party on the back veranda. He was wearing these tight little shorts and no shirt, doing the funniest dance moves you’ve ever seen – and was he ever into it and proud of himself. We are all convinced he is going to be a dancer or stripper in Miami if he ever makes it to the states. Every time we have a little dance party, some boy is coming into his own, discovering new ways to make his feet or body move to the rhythm or a girl is discovering her hips.

Some friends thought I was going to come home with a child like Angie-Joe or Brad, but you have to live in Tanzania at least three years to adopt a child because of the still present and very real child slave-trade. India was just telling me today how they have been sending our social workers to one family because even the parents can’t afford to support their child, they are trying to hold on to her because they are essentially treating their kid like a servant or slave. It is such a foreign concept to me to do something like that to a child, or to anyone for that matter of fact, but in areas of extreme poverty it is very real.

This evening I had cocktails up at India’s place and I interviewed her for an hour. I am going to interview her for at least a half hour for the remainder of my days to write an article about her. I have also been interviewing Dr. Frank and gave him a list of questions to answer because their stories here are so intertwined, as health and education are essential to turn any community around.