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!)