erin.

As some of you may have noticed, I am back in America now.  I do not know yet what this means for the blog.  However, for those who are interested, I’ll be filling you in on some of my travels over the coming weeks.  Also, now that I have access to speedy internet, I can share more photos and even some video- both of these tend to be a bit too heavy for African connections.  So stay tuned.

I had only one night in Bujumbura (Burundi). Bed was tempting. I was filthy, exhausted, and had eaten only a few tiny bananas all day. But I was determined to rally. I caffeinated myself and took a chilly shower and hit the town to see a play at the French Cultural Center.

As soon as the curtain went up, I forgot how road weary and hungry I was. The show was a comedy…about ethnicity. And people were laughing. A lot.

Since Burundi’s independence in 1962, there have been two incidences that are widely regarded as ethnic genocide. Between mid-1994 and mid-1996, at least 100,000 people were killed in clashes fueled by tribal hatred.

And so, I was amazed, that with such a historical backdrop, people in Bujumbura went to the theater that night and laughed. They laughed at stereotypes and confronted the realness and absurdity of their prejudices. Afterwards, people milled about, smoking cigarettes, debating, and drinking late into the night.

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The same performance would have been ruled as unacceptable in Rwanda, where I was only a day later. There are many impressive and disturbing memorials for the 1994 Rwandan genocide around the country, but the discourse is comparatively controlled. The government has outlawed open discussion of ethincity, saying “We are all Rwandans.”

Historically, this is accurate. The Kigali genocide memorial museum stresses that the two groups have always shared a common language and historically intermarriage has been common. Colonial rulers, in 1932, first made strict distinctions between Hutu and Tutsi while issuing ID cards. Those with ten or more cows were considered Tutsi, and those with less, Hutu. With ethnicity politicized, it set the backdrop for genocide. In 1994, the killing of an estimated 800,000 Rwandans took just 100 days.

The Rwandan government insists that its current approach is intended to help the healing. By outlawing ethnicity, Hutu and Tutsi can become irrelevant elements of Rwandan politics. And yet, some say it has gone too far. There are laws that stipulate that crimes of “divisionism” (including speaking too provocatively about ethnicity) can result in a jail sentence. Some have suggested that the ruling party uses such laws to quash dissent. The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed concern over intimidation and harassment of journalists with divisionism charges, which even led to the suspension of BBC broadcasts in the country in 2009, deemed “unacceptable speech.”

It is difficult to tell how a healing process happens in an environment in which discussion of the painful past is limited. It is a complicated process that one young Kigali shopkeeper told me is sometimes stifled by the need to project an image that everything is completely fine now- the image of harmony and forgiveness that Rwanda strives hard to have.

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I do not mean to oversimplify issues that are really quite complex.  I am interested in learning more about the history and the present in both Rwanda and Burundi.  I just thought I would share a few thoughts and impressions from my days there- your own thoughts are welcome.

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On the wall of the Kigali Genocide Memorial Museum:

“If you knew me and you really knew yourself, you would not have killed me.” -Felicien Ntagengwa, genocide survivor

The staff at the Burundian consolate in Kigoma must not get many visitors.  My request for travel and safety information and a visa is met with curiosity- Who am I?  Why do I want to go to Burundi?  Why will I travel without a husband?  Do I want one?  Those maters (mostly) settled, debate ignites.  What route should I take?  What is the going rate for a transit visa?  How many hours can I stay in Burundi with said visa?  It takes  a second visit to sort out the business of my onward journey.  A water crossing direct to Bujumbura (my original plan) is deemed impossible, so I’m told to board a bus at 6am for the border.  The $20 visa can only be purchased in US dollars, and the office cannot provide change for a larger bill.  So, after leaving the office, I get a $20 bill in order to pay at the border.

I rise before dawn the next day and hire an overpriced car to the bus park.  I should say the overpriced car, because at that hour there was only one.  And I had to wake him up.  When I arrive, the dirt lot is completely abandoned save a handful of empty vehicles and a mad man.  I wait.  No Burundi bus.  Finally, two hours later, the skeleton of a van clatters into the lot.  This, I’m told, is my chariot.  The interior is stripped of any features that may have originally made the vehicle attractive or comfortable.  I stake out a spot in the back corner on the series of metal poles and plywood that in better days could have been called seats.  I wait.  By 9:30, the driver has collected enough people (more than enough in my book) to begin.  We take off, the engine straining at first, then settling into a comfortable putter.  We coast and climb- mostly climb- the misty hills east of Lake Tanganyika.  We take on a few more passengers.  One climbs into my row through the trunk.  There is something sharp digging into my side.  I will have a bruise.

Soon, the tarmac ends, replaced by thick, red mud.  Several times, the tires spin and strain, the van fishtailing before regaining its hold on the slippery earth.  The view is spectacular.

At some point, I doze off for a few minutes.  For some reasons, chaotic public transport sometimes lulls me asleep.  I wake to find the man next to me has closed in– his arm draped around the back of my “seat,” his luggage and body slowly creeping into my precious space.  I begin the battle to regain my turf, pushing back, adjusting, making myself as large as possible.  Slowly but surely, he retreats and, though still squished, I retake my tiny transport territory.

The Tanzanian border post is an office on an otherwise abandoned hillside.  I unfold and regain feelign in my limbs.  In the small office, I had over my passport to an official who asks me my profession.  When I tell him I have been a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda, a man who has been traveling with me lights up.  He worked with a PCV in Burundi during the ’90s.  This man, D., takes me under his wing.  We hire bicycles to carry us through the mountain forest of no man’s land to the Burundian border guard.  There, I am glad to have D’s help.

At the shack, I must buy my visa.  Prepared, I hand over my $20 bill.  I am informed that, due to a tiny ink spot on one corner, the bill is not acceptable.  No other currency is acceptable, and if you have a bigger bill?  No change.  An argument ensues when the official, once agreeing to take other currency, refuses to provide me with a receipt in said other currency.  Clearly, whatever I do, someone is getting his payday.  D steps in and sorts it out, paying for my visa in (too much) Burundian currency.  When we drive away in a station wagon, I’m still angry.

But the journey calms me.  At the next village, D. buys bananas to share, and I offer my peanut butter.  D. tells his story- it is a story of Burundi, of war, of perseverence.  We talk of the promise of development and the cruelty of the region’s politics.  When the next muffler-less car is full, it takes off, roaring with each shift, winding through hills, in and out of the clouds at high speed.  We race through villages, all with political party flags lining the road.  We descend from the hills and trace the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, the sun setting over Congo on the opposite shore.

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In one of the weirder twists of the universe, D’s story does not end there.  He set me up with Burundian currency, a cheap hotel, and friends to show me Bujumbura when we got to the city in the evening.  We exchanged e-mail addresses, and I promised to track down the PCV he worked with during the 1990s.  I did this a few weeks ago, and the two are back in touch after 18 years.  D. and I have also kept in contact, exchanging some ideas about development projects in East Africa.  Yesterday, I sent an e-mail that  mentioned I am still traveling, currently in Morocco.  I got a quick response asking, “Where are you precisely?  I am in Morocco too, in Marrakech.”  What?!  Well, it just happens I’m in Marrakech.  So this afternoon, I will meet D. for a pot of sugary mint tea.

I just finished reading Cat’s Cradle, and am tempted to wonder if D. is in my karass, a concept that’s part of the book’s fictional religion.  “If you find your life tangled up with somebody else’s life for no very logical reasons…that person may be a member of your karass.”  A karass is a sort of life team that works together, ignoring national, institutional, occuptional, familial, and class boundaries, “as free-form as an amoeba,” writes Vonnegut.

Fabulous, no?

It took us about a week to determine that the train was in fact running but, after a months-long strike, it was booked through December. This threw a wrench in the works. Getting to Gombe is logistically a little challenging – you can only get there by boat, you can’t take a boat out and back in the same day, water taxis only leave in the am – so we began to fear: “We’re never gonna make it.”

We were in Zanzibar when we figured all of this out, but we already had a ferry ticket back to Dar. So, we booked a flight from Dar to Kigoma. We would fly out Tuesday, stay one night in Kigoma, take the morning water taxi to Gombe, and all would be well.

On Tuesday we showed up at the airport, and were told the computers were down. They said they would check us in by hand, go have a seat and they’d work their way around the room. This seemed sketch. And it was. Eventually they told us – the flight was cancelled, due to “an equipment problem”. At this point, a young father began to lose it – the same thing had happened to him on Sunday. Apparently, this airline had been having a lot of problems with this route. We thought, “We’re never gonna make it.”

Surprisingly (to me anyway), we were all piled onto a shuttle and taken to a (very fancy, by our standards) hotel on the outskirts of Dar, where we also received three free meals (bonus!). We were put in a room with a kitchen, dining room, living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a television, and air conditioning! The hotel had a bar, pool table, restaurant, salon, gym, stores, bank, and a pool. While Erin napped, I gave giving swimming lessons to locals on the roof.

It was great to have a nice room, but we were concerned about whether our flight would actually leave on Wednesday, and that even if it did, we would miss Wednesday’s water taxi. That meant we’d have to hire a private boat at a cost of $200. We weren’t happy about it, but this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had read Jane Goodall’s first book earlier in the trip and not getting to Gombe just wasn’t an option. So I hit the bank.

We were supposed to meet the shuttle at 6am. We waited and waited, trying not to think “We’re never gonna make it.” It showed up well after 7 and we headed back to the airport. The plane took off late, but we were on our way.

The plane had two rows of two. Erin and I were across the aisle from each other. The man I was sitting next to was very short, had a round belly, and wore a suit that was too big for him (and a wedding ring). He spoke with an accent, and so quietly, that I had to lean in hear him and kept having to ask him to repeat himself. I’d been up since 5am and knew at times I was nodding and saying yes when I had no idea what he was saying.

Then he said something I did understand – did I want to be a citizen of Kigoma? Ay yi. I said I’d never been, was excited to see it, and pretended to fall sleep. I could feel him watching me, and the moment my eyes opened he touched my arm: “Why are you being so tired?” More with the talk, and now he’s asking if I might like a husband. My second proposal. This called for the headphones. Again, he touched my arm. “You are thinking about my application?”?!? I told him, “Oh, I am not accepting applications” and settled in to my ipod.

Meanwhile, Erin’s sitting next to a very smartly dressed young guy with an iPhone (!) and they are chatting away. (At one point he gave Erin his phone. I asked what she was watching. “I don’t know, it’s a show? How I Met Your Mother?”) At one point I hear, “Really. Do you ever take passengers??” We met at the bathroom and she informed me that she’d found us a free ride to Gombe! Sharif worked at the park, in Natural Resource management, and would be taking the research boat out to the park that afternoon.

While we waited for our luggage, Sharif hooked us up with a taxi and traded numbers with Erin so we could meet up later. (As for baggage claim: the bags were wheeled to a large window in a small waiting room, and slid across a maybe 3’ x 3’ Murphy-bed-style wooden platform, chained to the top of the window.) We had lunch in Kigoma, checked out hotels for Friday night, and bought water for Gombe. Erin also went to the Burundian consulate as she was trying to plot out the next part of her trip.

That afternoon, we met Sharif in town and hitched a ride to the research boat. Once we were on there were probably 12 of us though we could have fit a few more. We met Sharif’s boss, Noelli, who sounded like she had worked in most of the parks in Tanzania over the course of her career.

When we rounded one spit of land, the breeze picked up a bit and there was some spray. Out came the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refugees) tarp, to protect the people on that side of the boat. (There was a notable UN presence in Kigoma given its closeness to both Congo and Burundi. Between the UN and the missionaries, Kigoma was the one place people didn’t automatically assume we were tourists. In fact, you occasionally heard “bonjour madame” which was new.)

We passed a few fishing villages on our way out, and lots of baboons along the shore. As we motored along, it became clear where the park began – the point at which sparse, deforested land turns into a sea of green, wild, forest. Gombe is the smallest park in TZ, and sits on the second deepest lake in the world, Tanganyika. You can only get there via water, and it’s the only park you can be in outside a vehicle. Beginning with Jane Goodall, it has been a center for research on chimp and also baboon behavior; there are troops of both monkeys that are habituated to humans. Apparently, for the size of its chimp population, it should be 3-4 times as large as it is.

We arrived at the park and checked in while baboons wandered the grounds and pounded on the roof above our heads. As I stood in the doorway of registration, I could see fruit being thrown from the roof and then, suddenly, a stream of urine poured right in front of me.

We settled into our room, then had dinner during which they played a documentary about the chimps I had been reading about the whole trip – Flo, Figan, Faben, Fifi, and Flint. I was pretty stinkin’ excited for our hike.

Given the baboons, I was excited that our room had its own bathroom – an open room with a sink, toilet, and shower head which dripped on your head while you went. I managed it with a headlamp in the middle of the night, then crawled back under my mosquito net. I was almost asleep when I saw a large black something run along the edge of my bed. I told myself to relax, it was outside the net, etc. and managed to fall back asleep … until I woke up to it running across my arm and onto my pillow. (It was a black beetle-looking thing, about the length of my index finger and twice the width.) I am very proud of myself for freaking out in silence. (Imagine the Elaine dance from Seinfeld, more frenetic, while sitting, under a mosquito net.) With the headlamp back on I removed everything from the bed, shook it out, remade it, and really tucked in the mosquito net around all 4 sides.

The next morning we had snacks in our room and then headed off to meet our guide, who turned out to be a sub named Elisha. He was a university student, three months into his internship. We hiked on a trail for a short while, then headed off into the forest. Elisha had a walkie talkie and was in communication with the trackers, whose job it is to track the chips. There are also researchers out in the forest, continuing Jane Goodall’s research on chimp behavior, and park staff that manage and protect resources, etc.

Not long after we left the trail, Elisha asked Erin if she saw the chimps.

Elisha: Erin, do you see the chimps?

Erin: No, where?

Elisha: Erin, do you have eyes?!?

Megan: Erin, did he just make fun of you?

Erin: Yes, I believe he did.

Megan: I knew I liked him!

Then, we saw them. Two chimps walked by, maybe 10 yards away. It was Ferdinand, the current alpha chimp of the F family, and another. I was simply spellbound. I couldn’t pick up the camera or do anything but look at Erin and say, “Who gets to DO this?!?”

Not long after that, we came across Pax sitting high in a tree, looking like Rodin’s The Thinker, and then Schwinn and her 6-9 month old baby, fishing for termites. I had learned from Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man that chimps not only use tools, but make them, and we saw it firsthand. First Schwinn picked a small branch from the forest, peeled the leaves off it, and bit the end off. Then she sat in front of the termite mound and used her index finger to dig a small hole in it. Finally, she would feed the twig into the hole, wait until she felt termites nibbling the end, and then remove it and … voila, a tasty snack!

Schwinn’s baby was just comfortable being out of contact with his/her mother. S/he was exploring and climbing on nearby trees and branches, but never strayed out of reach. If mom moved too far away, the baby would whimper until Schwinn reached back and grabbed him/her. I could have watched them all day, but after about half an hour, they moved on, so we did too. It’s so interesting because you know they see you, but they really don’t seem to see you. Some noises made Schwinn look around alertly, but we seemed to be a tree or rock – simply not worth noticing.

Next we came across the G family, hanging out in a tree.

We saw chimps swinging, grooming each other, making a nest (a bed, they make a new one every night), and playing though it looked a bit like fighting, particularly when one young chimp fell out of the tree. We heard pant-hoots, greetings that sounded more like screaming to us, and watched a baby playfully kick his distracted mother in the head while spinning on a branch.

At one point there was some excitement and all of the chimps headed down the slope, so we took off after them. On our way down, I turned to say something to Erin and gasped – coming up right behind her was a chimp and a baby! “Erin!”

She turned, looked, and did exactly what Elisha told us to do if a chimp was running at us or seemed about to attack us: she “became a partner with a tree.” I wish I’d been quick enough to get a picture of Erin hugging that tree! (Elisha told us Erin was in no danger; a mother with a baby is only concerned with keeping her child safe, she would not attack.)

We followed the chimps to another tree, where we got to see the 11-year old twins Glitter and Golden and their younger brother Gremlin. (Chimp twins are rare.) I told Elisha that, like Gremlin, Erin was a follower of twins and we compared Kiswahili and Uganda words for the first- and second-born twins and various followers of twins. (Erin’s Ugandan name, Akello, means the follower of twins, and apparently translates to something like the one who brought the twins.)

Because human disease can infect chimpanzees, visitors are only to spend one hour with the chimps, and to get no closer than 30 meters. So, we headed off to see a waterfall and to visit Jane’s Peak – the point where she spent most of her first year, surveying the park and tracking the chimps’ movements.

We got back to the hotel by midafternoon, hot, dirty, and smelly. That’s how I was when I got locked in our bathroom. Really locked in. As in Erin had to go get help! After showering and snacking, we hung out in front of the hotel, reading and hanging out with Elisha. (I decided to pass Jane’s book along to Elisha as a gift.) As we were sitting there, a woman came walking out of the hotel with a plateful of food. (There’s a strict no food outside rule.) Out of the corner of my eye I see a baboon streaking across the grounds towards her. In a flash, Elisha is on his feet, yelling and stomping his feet, picking up a big rock, and sprinting to cut off the baboon. Meanwhile, the woman’s face does nothing. He tells her she cannot have food outside and she just keeps saying, “You mean I can’t each on the beach?”

When Elisha returns he tells us more about the baboons, and the havoc they can wreak. Like the chimps, these baboons have been habituated to people, and if they see food they will grab it. Actually, if they see an open door they’ll go through it. All of the housing at Gombe involves keys, and it’s because of the baboons. He said they will walk down the row of staff housing and try the handle on every single door. If you forgot to lock the door, you’re screwed. He said they won’t just eat your food, they’re like drunken frat boys – they’ll trash the place.

While we were having dinner, our guardian angel Sharif appeared again. I had to bully him into letting me buy him a beer, to thank him for all his help. Of course then he bought one for Erin. It was great to see him again and to get to tell him all about our day at Gombe. Once again he had a gift for us – a ride back to Kigoma on another (free) research boat the next morning!

Elisha also had a surprise for me. He took me to see Jane’s old houses, which we had talked about on the hike. Upon arriving at the second house, there was Dr. Anton and suddenly we were IN the house, talking to him about the work currently going on at Gombe! I felt a little awkward, the tourist being foisted on this famous researcher, but he did not act that way at all. He was welcoming, very quiet and kind, and clearly passionate about his work.

At one point he pointed at the wall with a simple but beautiful hand-drawn picture of David Graybeard (the first chimp to tolerate Jane’s presence) and a bookshelf of Jane’s books and said, “When Jane’s here she sleeps back there, and where the kitchen is, that used to be Grub’s cage.” I was in Jane Goodall’s house! “Grub’s cage” refers to Jane’s son, but this will take some explanation. Chimps are only habituated to human adults; they actually see human children as prey. (They are not herbivores; particularly in the dry season, they will kill small baboons and other animals for meat.) Therefore, you can only visit Gombe if you are 15 or older. So, when Jane’s son was born, at Gombe, the way they kept him safe while they were working was to leave him in a cage.

After a few minutes with Dr. Anton we headed back to the beach, where Elisha built us a campfire to end the night by. We talked about how people tell stories at campfires at which point Elisha asked us to tell the story of our trip to Gombe. Basically we told the “We thought we were never gonna make it!’” story, which Elisha seemed to enjoy. His giggling at my plane proposal can still make me giggle myself. It was at about this point that I realized the guard on the beach was also listening in, laughing at our story. He then began asking Erin questions about Uganda, and the conversation turned to how Uganda was the same as/different from Tanzania, and the issues both countries are facing (e.g. corruption).

We were up early the next morning, to catch the research boat back to Kigoma. On this morning we woke up to a scorpion in our room. A small one (as in the smaller they are the more poisonous) that Erin shepherded outside under a lid. Meanwhile, our duffel had been open on the floor since we got there, so I was imagining the black beetle and the scorpion’s families in there. Luckily, I was traveling with Erin, who said: “They’ll never survive the cold of the cargo hold”!

The first hour of our ride back to Kigoma was uneventful. But then it started to rain. Out came the UNHCR tarp, which we basically held in place as a roof, trying to fit the luggage underneath. When we got in there was water under the floorboards. Now it was sloshing over the top of them. At one point we stopped, a piece of cotton was ripped out of the cement tool bucket and used on the engine before we took off again. The rain got worse, and the wind picked up, so there was some chop. A well-dressed man at the front of the boat signaled that it was time to take out the lifejackets.

Erin had been hoping to have an adventure on a boat on her way to Burundi. As the Tanzanians put on their life jackets, zipped them up, and secured the belts, I told Erin this might be her adventure on a boat! The water was now washing over our feet. I could see a bailer in the cement bucket. I thought about getting out from under our tent and bailing, but didn’t want to shame the men in their smart clothes into doing it themselves! One man was concerned that I was not wearing a life jacket, but there weren’t enough. And, as confident swimmers, we weren’t worried about the idea of going over. We were concerned about the bilharzia (snails in the water) and the thought of losing all our stuff (our pictures!) to the bottom of the 2^nd deepest lake in the world.

Needless to say, we made it, quite wet, but just fine. We met a friend of Sharif’s who told us that Sharif wouldn’t be able to meet us in Kigoma L but who offered to drop us off in town J. We spent most of the day eating, finding a place to stay, and getting information on Burundi for Erin. We decided to spend our last night together having drinks by the lake.

We found a fancy hotel that was just what the doctor ordered. We had drinks and hung out with a bunch of US and British volunteers who were working for a few months in a village a few hours away. They were on their way to Gombe, we were still on our Gombe high, so we got to get them excited for what they had in store. Eventually we all headed off our separate ways for dinner. I was very excited to find a place that said they served palak paneer…only to find out 10 minutes after I’d ordered it that it was finished. L

We spent the night packing, deciding what Erin really needed to take with her and what I should shove in the duffel. A few hours later the alarm was going off, so that Erin could catch her bus to Burundi. We walked out to find a taxi, and she was gone.

It was strange to spend the morning in Kigoma on my own. I visited the Baby Come and Call internet café to try to check in for my flights home and do some email, but the electricity went out twice in the course of half an hour so I gave up and headed to the airport. Because the electricity was out, security was a person going through each bag by hand. Then you walked up to a man at a desk, who looked for your name on a list, checked it off, and gave you a stub. The waiting room was full of old sofa chairs.

My flight was uneventful, as was my final night in my $100 a night hotel in Dar. I had a television with a US movie station, air conditioning, a real mattress, and a bathroom with an actual shower stall/curtain. I tried again to check in online (but this internet office could not print), had a beer at the bar, dinner at the restaurant, and was off to bed.

The flights back seemed endless, though my seatmate helped – a Brit who’d just finished at University who was just finishing a 10-week trip. She did a week of language school in Dar, volunteered for 6 weeks in a village in the center of the country, then did some traveling (which included hiking Kilimanjaro). A really cool kid, and it was great hearing about her trip/experiences. But that was a few hours and I still had time to watch two movies and finish a book! But, eventually, I was home. I landed just before midnight, on an unseasonably warm Boston night. It was wild to be in surroundings so different than the last few weeks, and to imagine Erin trying to navigate the Burundian border while I was doing laundry with a washing machine, drinking water from the tap, and watching TiVo-ed episodes of The Daily Show!

After running some errands solo (I was proud of myself for both getting very lost and for finding my way back home, via the alleys!), we headed to the bus park, to catch a dalla dalla for Jambiani – a small village on the east coast. In Zanzibar, the dalla dallas are kind of like flat bed trucks with half-sides, a roof, and wooden benches to sit on.

We knew the number of the dalla dalla we were looking for, and set off to find it. Several people approached us, asking where we were headed. One particularly persistent fellow followed us all the way to the dalla dalla. His goal? Convincing the conductor that he had delivered customers to him, and thereby get a cut (of the higher than normal prices that he would then charge us). Luckily, Erin had his number, and we paid the same fare as everyone else.

It’s hard to figure out how this system works. The dalla dalla stops often. Often, it’s not obvious why they’re stopping here. It might be to pick up/drop off people. It might be to load 15 cords of wood or 25 5-pound bags of flour, rice, and sugar onto the roof. It might be to leave a 5-gallon jug of vegetable oil at the side of the road (in, seemingly, the middle of nowhere). You can’t imagine who/how all of this is kept track of.

There seems to be no limit on passengers; they just keep squishing in. There are, apparently, rules about conductors hanging off the back of the moving vehicle – one only. So, as we entered a police checkpoint (in broad daylight), 3 or 4 of the guys would hop off, run up the shoulder of the road, and meet us on the other side.

Another thing: when a mother and baby get on, the mom hands the baby to someone, climbs in, and finds a seat. The baby is then passed, passenger to passenger, often the length of the dalla dalla. It sounds silly but it was striking – I couldn’t imagine a mother in the US handing their baby to a stranger on the MBTA; nor a random guy holding said baby for all/part of the remainder of the ride.

Maybe two hours into the 3-hour ride, a 10-year old boy in his school uniform got on. He sat between some giggly teens and older men, who were clearly goading him to, it turns out, come talk to me. Moving in a moving dalla dalla takes some doing, but he managed. “I have to talk to you about something.” (I hear giggles.) I asked him what he wanted to talk to me about and he asked for my phone number!! I stumped him with my answer: “I don’t have a phone.” He glanced at Erin then, with a look that said, “How about her?” Erin told him he was out of luck; he shrugged, smiled, and headed back to his seat.

After 3 hours, we arrived in Jambiani. We got to see a bit of the village as we delivered cargo around town. Most of the 1-story, single-room buildings seemed to be made of coral; the road was sand. The local school had a mural depicting a child in a wheelchair, promoting inclusion, which surprised me. We got off at the last stop, conveniently located in front of our hotel, the Kimte Beach Inn – a rasta place where you almost think they must be joking they’re so rasta. We stayed two nights which was very exciting, because we could do laundry. Equally exciting, our key/door was broken, so we were moved into a room with its own bathroom!

We immediately headed to the beach. And there was a lot of it. It was low tide, and the beach seemed to stretch to the horizon for miles. We saw beached boats across the horizon; people out harvesting; kids walking home from school for lunch; and people riding bikes.

We had some time before swimming would be possible, so we checked out the neighborhood. It’s strange how the beachfront is lined with all manner of hotels and resorts – from fairly cheap to (relatively) luxe – literally across the sand road from a very impoverished village. Part of me thought you’d see the benefits of tourism more obviously (though maybe my untrained eye couldn’t see it). Instead I saw it in very small children being taught to say jambo whenever they encounter a tourist.

We returned to the beach and lazed on chaise lounges made from coconut trees (note: rope made from coconut fibers, not so comf), within site of our beach bar (also made pretty much entirely from the coconut tree). When the tide came in, I walked down to put my feet in, and my brain almost couldn’t compute the sensation. The water was at least 85°.

We enjoyed our stay in Jambiani. We swam; read; treated ourselves to real drinks (with ice!); Erin tracked down a guitar and impressed the hell out of me (some covers, some originals); I watched a young boy dance African style to Deb Talan; I ate my first whole fish; we encountered our favorite sign of the trip (below); I survived a (literal) swarm of ants in our bathroom and a broken fan (I really can’t describe the difference, I couldn’t believe it); and we left with clean clothes!

From Jambiani we took two dalla dallas to Bwejuu, and then schlepped all our stuff down to the coast to find Robinson’s (as in Robinson Crusoe) Place. Our room? The second floor of a tree house! It was a splurge and it was worth it.

We spent most of that day walking the beach. A highlight was seeing a group of 5 men riding along the water on 1 motorcyle and 4 bicycles (2 of which were piled high with palm); 1 wearing a helmet, 1 a straw hat, the others wearing baseball hats. We passed a kids’ soccer game, three Masaai in mad stylish sunglasses; beached fishing traps, again made from the coconut tree; and a cow grazing on the mounds of garbage that started showing up towards the village end of the beach.

It’s interesting because there is actually a lot less garbage generated in Africa – there is very little packaging, and almost everything is reused. (Water bottles become soap dispensers at restaurants; old tires become sandals; paper and cardboard are used as fuel for the fire.) But trashcans are rare so it’s much more visible. (Though apparently things have improved recently with the outlawing of plastic shopping bags.) It’s an interesting contrast to the States, where we generate SO much garbage but really don’t see it.

That night we ate at one of the fancier dive resorts along the beach. Which gives me a chance to answer some of the questions I’ve been getting about restaurants and food. “Local” restaurants make a few staples in quantity and sell them until they are “finished.” Because it’s pre-made service is pretty quick. Truly local food is typically ugali – a starchy cornmeal firmer than mashed potatoes that is very filling – and stew or sauce (e.g. beans, vegetables, fish, or meat). Because ugali doesn’t have much (any!) flavor, you roll a piece into a ball, and dunk it in the sauce. We often had a different starch — rice or pilau (spiced rice) or potatoes or matoke (potato-like bananas) – with our stew/sauce. More touristy restaurants had things like sandwiches, panini, (debatable) pizza, and pastas. Mostly we ate at places somewhere between the two.

Typically such places have a menu. However, the menu isn’t a list of everything that’s available tonight; it’s a list of everything they’ve ever made and might have tonight. Once you find something they do have, they have to cook it from scratch. Often, over an open fire behind a screen/fence. An hour is pretty typical. Generally, though, portions were generous and the food was good – simple, but tasty. Or “excess delicious” as we liked to say after Jambiani.

Anyway, in Bwejuu we ordered two plates of pasta carbonara. And then we waited, and waited, and waited. We got out our Kiswahili phrase book and pored over it for ways to tell our waiter how deliriously hungry we were. “I have pain here [point at stomach].” “[Point] is empty.” “I am afire with hunger.” 2 hours later, it arrived. It was a very small, and mediocre plate of pasta for 2 hours and thousands of shillings. (A note about money: during Peace Corps, Erin was paid in Ugandan shillings. Which are half as strong as Tanzanian shillings. So something that costs the same was twice as expensive for her. And most things in TZ weren’t the same price, they were a lot more.)

The next morning we took a dalla dalla back to Stone Town, stopping on the way to visit Jozani National Park. This preserve is known for its red colobus monkeys, an endangered monkey only known to Zanzibar. The tour allows you to visit several families who are habituated to people, meaning you can get quite close to them, as well as the mangrove and the forest. It’s quite a success story. The locals used to kill the monkeys because they were a nuisance. Part of turning the area into a park included making sure it benefited the community as well as the monkeys. So, the park now grows acacia trees specifically to provide low-cost firewood to the local community, for example, and the monkey population has doubled.

We met Hassan, our guide, hopped on bikes, and headed off to see the monkeys. They have a reddish coat, hence their name, and the craziest hair your ever saw. Either total bedhead, or those boys who use lots of product to make it look perfectly mussed. We spent a long time at one very large tree where there must have been 15-20 monkeys, from very small babies, up through the alpha male (which is always the oldest). Their faces are so expressive, and their dexterity amazing.

While visiting one tree, we chatted with a local man who was very impressed when we were able manage the greetings in Kiswahili. Greetings are important and involve three stages.

Greeting 1: Hujambo. (If you are greeting one person; there’s another word groups.)

Response: Sijambo. (Responding only for yourself; there’s another word for groups.)

Greeting 2: Habari?

Response: Nzuli.

Greeting 3: Mambo?

Response: Poa!

If you could manage this well, people often then assumed you spoke Kiswahili. At which point I had to explain, “That’s all I got.” I learned a bit more – how to ask someone’s name and tell them mine, some food words, etc. Also: people don’t really use please (or say bless you for sneezes). Pole means sorry but it’s not so much for apologizing as for acknowledging someone else’s misfortune. For example, when I dropped my sunglasses and they fell to the floor with a crash a bystander told me, “Pole.” Pole pole however, means slow or slowly or slow down. Karibu is welcome, assante is sorry and you can throw sana on the end of either of those to mean very welcome or very sorry. People really do say hakuna matata, particularly in Zanzibar.

I also got to experience some of Erin’s “Ugandan English” which was quite fun – and useful.

After greetings, people often wanted to know where you were from.

Erin: I have been staying in Uganda. And you?

Person: Karatu.

Erin: How is Karatu?

There is also “Hmmm” which is totally context dependent. Depending on tone/inflection, it can mean “I see”, “I agree”, “I sympathize”, “Really?” or “Huh”. And “yes?” in the middle of a sentence as in “are you following/with me?”. There were a few I loved but didn’t feel I could pull off: asking how much gas the car was “drinking”; turning down a ride because we were “footing”; and asking someone to “reduce” the radio because it was too loud. Anyway…

Back to Jozani. After the monkeys we toured the mangrove, anchored by these incredible trees that sprout many arching roots – which Hassan was determined to show us, were very strong. The highlight for me were these crazy, tiny crabs. They have one tiny claw and one enormous claw. Not only that, which claw is which is the opposite on males and females.

On our nature walk we saw some blue monkeys and Hassan demonstrated how the palm tree is used to make fishing line and nets, making Erin a bracelet. As he told us about the other things we might see – a duiker, an elephant shrew, a python … he thought of a story about a time he was in the forest with a group of Italian tourists. Suddenly, they heard the red colobus monkeys making a lot of noise; Hassan thought it sounded like another troop had come along and the two were fighting. But a guide ran up to him saying no, no, it is a python. So the whole group ran to the tree, to find a python already digesting a monkey (imagine the outline of the monkey visible inside the body of the snake) and the rest of the monkeys freaking out.

Hassan: So the Italian tourists – and you know how loud Italian tourists can be – they started yelling and stomping and making all sorts of noise.

Megan: Is that smart? I wouldn’t want to piss off a python.

Hassan: They didn’t think that, they just yelled and screamed and made so much noise … that he [the python] vomit the monkey, and then he [the python] ran away. (Another sentence I never thought I’d hear in my lifetime: “He vomit the monkey and then he ran away.”)

We spent that night in Stone Town so we could catch the early ferry back to Dar the following morning. We did some more shopping, watched kids take running leaps and flips into the harbor as the sun set, had a “local” meal while watching Man U play Chelsea, and had a so-close-but-yet-so-far walk home – one missed turn can really screw you up!

In the morning we took the ferry to Dar, settled back in to the Y, and then met a friend of the family at The Village Museum where a group put on a traditional ngoma (dance and drumming) for just the three of us. Erin and I were both forced to join the dance. I think our faces tell the story better than I can.

It was here I received a gift – an Obama kanga! These are very popular in TZ right now, as is Obama in general. We saw murals of him, his named used in store and road names, and his image on a beaded plastic necklace (picture The Simpsons’ version of Obama). When people learned that I was from the States, there were a few common reactions, but almost all of them involved our president.

Megan: I am from the US. (Or Merikani.)

• Reaction 1: Obama! (beaming)
• Reaction 2: We are very happy about Obama! You are happy about Obama? (the presumption being yes)
• Reaction 3: We are very happy about Obama. How is he doing? (with concern)
• Reaction 4: How is Obama faring? I hear that some people do not like him. (somewhat incredulously) (One person specified that “rich Republicans do not like him, yes?”)
• Reaction 5 (dressed in a very smart suit): How is Obama doing? What are they saying about the economy? What happens in the US impacts everyone around the world.

[one last guest post to come from Megan this weekend. chimps!]

We woke up before the call to prayer (in other words, ungodly early), hoping to catch the 5am bus to Dar, and then the 4pm ferry to Zanzibar (the last of the day). At 4:45, a hotel staffer walked us to the Dar Express office, but the lot was very quiet. There appeared to be only a 5:30 bus, which our book warned made catching the last ferry a little dicey. It was a fairly typical (if dated) Greyhound-like bus. There were television screens showing what music was playing, and a small screen up front that told the time and the temperature. There was no AC, but part of our fare ($25 each) was apparently a free soda during the first half of the day.

We made one stop early, probably on the outskirts of Arusha. As we waited, I watched a salesman work the bus. Imagine a large bulletin board, with rows of sunglasses, gum, and candy hanging on it, sitting on top his head, so that his wares were at our eye level. Ingenious. I came to think of such stops as popping into the grocery store on the way home from work. On our way from Karatu to Arusha we stopped so people could buy bananas and potatoes; en route to Jambiani it was a several-gallon jug of vegetable oil or a five-pound bag of rice.

It was a 9-hour ride from Arusha to Dar, with one 20-minute stop for lunch/restrooms, but it was through some beautiful, green, mountainous country. Our book told us not to get off at the bus station, to stay on until the Dar Express office, which would put us closer to the ferry. Two other women on the bus had the same plan, so we agreed to share a taxi.

We were sitting on the now empty bus (clock ticking), when the conductor got back on and said, no, this was the last stop. Great. A sea of taxi drivers were now waiting to meet the four foreigners. They swarmed us as we retrieved our luggage. One, in particular, would not get out of Erin’s face as she tried to speak privately to the conductor about “a good price” for a taxi to the ferry. He kept repositioning himself between her and him until Erin basically picked him up and moved him out of the way!

We used his information to hire a taxi and piled in. (The Brits had a ton of stuff and you could tell they’d been on the kind of trip where everything was carried and handled for them.) Our driver then told us that we’d already missed the last ferry, it left at 3. “Shall I take you to the airport?” We knew there was a ferry at 4 and demanded he take us there. The Brits were threatening to get out if they’d already missed the last ferry. More sweaty, time-wasting chaos.

Finally, we pulled out of the bus park and headed to the ferry. We stopped across a busy street from the harbor; it would take too much time to get the car through. People stopped traffic to get us across, at which point we were swarmed by touts yelling about the ferry and generally further discombobulating an already discombobulated me. We got to a set of gates, and could see the ferry, yards from the dock … steaming away. We had just missed it. As we headed to the shade to regroup, out of nowhere, just to my left, a white car surged forward and slammed into a wooden cart. I could see the passenger of the car laughing. Many came running. Erin quickly shepherded me away from the scene, saying such incidents can quickly spiral out of control into mob justice incidents. Whew.

So, we had an unplanned night in Dar. Erin sorted out tickets and we struck out for the Y, not far from Post Office Square. This is a major intersection, lined with large buildings, typical city in many respects. On one building there is an ENORMOUS television showing scenes of TZ (e.g. wildlife), and a sea of people watching it. Hordes of people line the street waiting to catch a matatu (think public buses, larger than a minivan but smaller than an MBTA bus; more like a hotel shuttle) out of the city center. There are stores and restaurants as there are in the US, but also stalls and shops set up right on the sidewalk. One of the most common, across all the places we visited, sold shoes. A person might sit with 8 pairs of highly polished men’s shoes, or with rows and rows of sneakers, sandals, crocs, and the like.

One thing that stands out from our walk was passing a grown man wearing a sun hat. It was a faded green and had small images of Winnie the Pooh all over it. You see such donated clothes everywhere, resulting in comical sightings such as an older man wearing a “Yearbook Staff 2007” shirt or a child wearing a Halloween costume as clothes. The only shirts that people seemed to wear because of what they said were England’s premiership teams’ soccer shirts, mainly ManU, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool. Many of the dalla dallas were similarly emblazoned and televisions were often broadcasting their games.

The next morning, we were on a ferry to Zanzibar (showing – of all things, Hotel Rwanda). I couldn’t quite believe it, because I have always secretly felt that Zanzibar and a few other places – like Kathmandu, Xanadu, Kalamazoo, and Ouagadougou (pronounced Wagadudu, the capital of Burkina Faso) – must be fictional. Zanzibar is, in fact, several islands off the coast of TZ. It joined with Tanganyika to form TZ in 1964, though it is still a somewhat independent entity, with its own president and government. (There is still some political unrest, so we avoided all rallies!) Zanzibar was more influenced by interactions with the Arab world than the rest of TZ and is a predominantly Muslim society. Its main industries are spices and tourism.

We stayed at St. Monica’s hotel, which was quite nice, and is in a historic spot – built over the old slave quarters. From there we set out to explore Stone Town, which is the birthplace of Queen’s Freddie Mercury and the capital of Zanzibar. Like the Ngorogoro Crater, it is a World Heritage Site. It is a town made up of narrow, winding alleys. I have to say that this took some getting used to; in the States, if you’re in a strange city, alleys are sketch and to be avoided. Once I got used to this difference, I really enjoyed wandering these alleys which are lined with cafes, restaurants, and shops (each selling basically the exact same things and each with a salesman sitting on the stoop trying to lure you in), all of which have these amazingly carved wooden doors that are one of the hallmarks of Zanzibar. They are gorgeous.

We had a sandwich and gelati (clearly, we were in a tourist haven!), and then headed over to Beit-El-Aljaib or the House of Wonders. Once a Sultan’s palace, it is now the National Museum of History and Culture, where we were able to see a traditionally built dhow – using no nails – and various other displays about the region. From there we did some shopping, and while looking for kangas – beautiful fabrics used in women’s fashion, which all come with a saying in Kiswahili – we happened into a shop run by a woman who’s family was visiting from, of all places, Kansas City. They were lovely, translated Erin’s new kanga for her “Nipende nione raha usini fanyie karaha – Love me nicely, don’t make problems with my heart”, and the children were adorable. When the mom told me her husband was a financial advisor in KC, the oldest boy (who was probably all of announced that he was, too.

For dinner that evening we headed to Fordhani Gardens, where we found probably 20 stands set up overlooking the harbor. The interesting thing was there were really only three types. One sold sugarcane juice; another sold pizza and chocolate covered bananas; and the third sold a wide range of kebabs (octopus, calamari, fish, mussels, chicken, beef), seafood (full lobsters, claws, crayfish) and sides (chapati which is kind of like Indian naan, potatoes, etc).

We decided to tour the options before choosing and were treated to, basically, the exact same shpiel at every stand: “I am a fisherman. I would not freeze it or sell this tomorrow like the rest of these men. I am the only one whose product is fresh.” I went with the guy who had just taken the cover off his tables, so the flies had not had much time to pounce. (Every food stand employed several people to wave paper plates over the food to keep the flies moving.) I chose octopus and mussel kebabs, and chapati. It was delish.

As my food was grilling, I chatted with the proprietor, who wanted to know where my husband was. When I told him I did not have one, he wondered if I would be happy with an African. When I said I didn’t care where he came from, he immediately offered to find me one. I laughed and told him I had to find my own, at which point he offered his 20 some odd year old self!

We ate by the water, watching kids with astounding gymnastic skills flip like crazy on the cement sidewalks. Then we decided something sweet would be nice, so we headed to the Africa House Hotel, purported to have a nice outdoor bar worth checking out. As we walked in, I did a double-take. “Erin, is that a monkey on the bar?” In fact, it was. Wearing a leash, seemingly unattached to anyone. It was picking through the toothpick jar, then chewing on a toothpick, then running down the bar to a serving table, pawing through the sugar bowl and then knocking it over, and then grabbing a pen from the bartender and playing with it. What the heck?!? We sat, and watched as a white woman placed him on her shoulder and left for a while, then returned and set him loose. He was all over the place. On the floor, on tables, in the curtains, on the couches. We asked our waiter about him, thinking what must locals think of a woman keeping a monkey as a pet? “She does not have babies, so she has a monkey.” We said this was strange and crazy; it seemed clear he agreed with us but did not want to insult his British boss.

Our brownie arrived, and we dug in, forgetting the monkey for the moment. Of course that was when he decided to visit! He came over the back of my chair, over my shoulder and down the arm of my chair, and jumped onto Erin’s chair, emerging on her far side. In a blink he was holding the spoon and licking the chocolate sauce off it, and licking the plate as well.

At first we were stunned. Then Erin grabbed him by his armpits and held him in the air, out away from her body. She seemed to be trying to decide what to do with him when she yelped, dropped the monkey (who ran off) and said, “He bit me!” Luckily, he did not break the skin. But still. No one offered us a new brownie, or to take the brownie off our bill. So I approached the bartender and spoke words I never though I would: “The monkey bit my friend.” His response? “Hakuna matata, hakuna matata. (They really do say that. Especially in Zanzibar.) She takes him for shots every week.” Me, I’m thinking any pet that needs weekly shots clearly should not be a pet. We mention that it doesn’t seem very sanitary and head off to our hotel, to pack up for our trip out to the coast the next morning.

bill before the ugandan parliament