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 )