East Africa and Beyond

I arrived in Zanzibar angrily, having felt duped and hoodwinked at every turn in Dar es Salaam. The taxi driver from the Dar bus station to the city center charged 2000 more T shillings than the one I’d gotten for the reverse trip, the hotel said they’d lost my single booking, but they could give me a double room (for a higher rate), and when I instead went to the port to get a ferry to the island of Zanzibar, I was greeted by a host of hustlers waiting for a hit. They pointed me toward the 4:00 ferry office. It was already 3:45. The man staffing the desk disinterestedly told me that the ferry was full for the day. I could go in the morning or, “if you can pay a little more you can take the plane.”

The twenty-minute flight turned out to be only about $20 more than the one and a half hour ferry trip, so after unsuccessfully inquiring about the next day’s ferries and accommodation for the evening, I said I’d fly. The man behind the desk made a call, assured me the plane would be waiting at the airport, and slowly moved out from behind his desk. I followed him across the street to a cab, we both got in, and the driver began speeding toward the airport. The engine was throbbing erratically, causing the driver to throw the cab into neutral and rev the gas every few miles. He shot for a tight passage between a high curb and stopped SUV, and slammed the brakes right before crashing. The SUV driver yelled; they argued for a minute in Swahili. The taxi driver gestured madly and charged down a side road that soon turned to potholes and continuous rut.

My ferry/flight hustler even encouraged him to slow down. Then, on the right, a car-wide dirt path led up a small high to a sidewalk. We charged up it, along the side walk, and then down another trail back to the main road. Then, right outside the airport, we stopped for gas. Lack of gas, apparently, had precipitated the engine revving. How, I’m not sure.

At the airport I grabbed my bags out and paid the taxi driver. Again, my ferry/flight man said, “the plane is waiting for you.” My bags quickly passed through security and, as I arrived at the single gate, the flight company representative stood next to me and pointed to my plane, taxiing down the runway. A high taxi charge, a lost hotel reservation, a ferry I’d thought I could make, and an exaggerated suggestion that I could make a 4:30 flight. While the Coastal Flights representative explained, quite calmly, that I could get on the 5:30 flight, I’d lost any calm and could only growl, “So many fucking liars.”

From there though, things got much easier. I’d been on a bus for the first three-quarters of the day, so I hadn’t eaten. I bought a box of chocolate chip cookies from the airport store and waited comfortably. When the plane returned we loaded immediately. We being the Indian woman on my right, the English couple sitting facing us, and the pilot and 5th passenger at their backs. I’d never flown in a six-person plane before. Our luggage was behind me. Our small bags went quite literally under the hood. The pilot turned around to say, “All right folks, be sure to buckle your safety belts. It’s about twenty minutes to Zanzibar,” and with that we rolled out on to the runway and took off. I watched the instruments on the pilot’s panel and read one of the stickers, “this plane not intended for icing conditions.” Pretty safe on that score.

And then we were above Dar es Salaam. We looped Westward over the city before heading directly away from the setting sun and over the Indian Ocean. The island was soon visible, and as we flew over the deep blue punctuated with lighter sandbars and dark reefs, I looked down to realize we were passing the ferry I’d missed. The plane landed with a wobble and a hop, as if it was too light to stay long on the runway, and I was soon in a taxi heading toward a hostel I’d booked in Stone Town.

Zanzibar has been a tropical center of commerce, intrigue, and strategic military positioning for several centuries. Because of comparably hospitable winds, Indian Ocean trade was fully kicking a half millennium before the Atlantic trade got rolling. Zanzibar has been central to spice trading among Arabs, Bantu from Central Africa, Indians, and Chinese. It was a key port in the slave trade, and was once the center of the Omani Empire. The British took it late in the 19th century, and the Soviets used it as a strategic outpost during the Cold War.

And at 10-12 US Dollars per night for an adequate room with a shared bath supplying exclusively cold water (and including breakfast in the morning), it’s a great place to study for comprehensive exams, which is something immensely important for me to fit in this summer. But, before I sign off for that – Stone Town is alleyways too narrow for cars, bright shutters opening from centuries-old stone buildings housing authentic Indian restaurants, Arabic coffee shops, local stores and tourist craft shops.

For the last two nights I’ve eaten dinner at Forodhani Gardens, a collection of outdoor stalls where the day’s catch goes directly on the grill. For three dollars two nights ago I had octopus, barracuda, and fried banana. And splurging last night got calamari, marlin, kingfish, two thick pieces of nan, and another friend banana for under $5.

Perhaps some days the island will entice… I’d like to go on a spice tour, and see the East Coast, and watch the World Cup in a bar filled with cursing, screaming, beer-guzzling Germans, but for most of the coming days here I hope to review the hundreds of pages of notes I’ve brought along, run, and eat. Work can’t be escaped forever you know, so I’ll mix it with paradise.

Comfortable in Zanzibar with very limited internet access, so updates will be infrequent.

I’ve crossed the Serengeti and traveled through Ngorongoro Crater. I’ve stood spitting-distance from giraffes, elephants, and a lion only several moments away from her kill. I’ve seen gads of baboons, impalas, wildebeests, and zebras. And I’ve even glimpsed the more elusive hyenas, crocodiles, hippopotami, black rhinos, and cheetahs (one with five young cubs). But for me it wasn’t the unadulterated thrill it might be; I seem to have a disposition against guided experiences. And crossing the Serengeti is today typically a guided experience – albeit one of the most unique, most intense, and most incredible.

Somewhere on that long, dusty and beautiful drive – Serengeti is the Maasai word for endless plain - I was asking myself how I could possible be dissatisfied with what is – despite its trendy commodification and accessibility – globally unique and singularly sought after. The predictability, the safety and the guarantees – everyone goes guided in Land Rovers with tops that flip open – involved with riding through a space with 1.5 million wildebeest, 500,000 zebra, 200,000 giraffes, and 2,000 lions, pulls some mystery, intrigue, and surprise out of the experience.

The raw deadliness of the area, however, blocks many other options. Last year two Japanese tourists fell from the top of their Land Rover. They’d climbed onto the roof for a better photo angle. They were promptly mauled by a lion and died. I didn’t jog from our hotels along the way. The wild ended only at the room door. During a lunch break in Ngorongoro Crater a monkey jumped through the roof of the vehicle next to mine, pulled a sandwich off the front seat, and hopped back out. Outside the trucks and hotels, the Serengeti is the animals’ kingdom.

Nonetheless, nonetheless, I felt handcuffed. It was like, I imagine, being in one of the best chain stores or restaurants in the world. Ruth’s Chris Steak House or Saks Fifth Avenue may be opulent and exciting for many, but their repeated predictability, in my thinking, undermines their enticements and makes them less interesting. To happen upon unexpectedness is one of travel’s central joys, and that is rare on the Serengeti.

I must add though, in terms of pure comforts the place is profound. The hotels have been designed to cater to a high-end international travel crowd, and they do so with practiced expertise. The first night in Serenera Lodge I saw the sun drop behind the plain from an outdoor patio bar while watching a new brand of local wildlife – chattering Dutch, German, and English tourists. The buffet dinner included everything that could not be found in Karagwe – a table full of appetizers abutting another flush with main courses and leading to a third brimming with desserts. Breakfast was similarly decadent and the next evening’s sweets selection included flan, coconut custard, triple chocolate cake, currant pie, and more, more, more. I regained some missing pounds.

That second night was spent in Ngorongoro Lodge, where every room has a view looking out over the edge of the crater. It is approximately 12 miles across, and was formed when a volcano the size of Mt. Kilimanjaro caved in, leaving the massive hole. It is cooler than the surrounding area – the morning thermometer read about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, and lush. The green and the smell of fertile earth was so present on the drive up to the hotel that several Pennsylvanians mentioned the smell reminded them of a specific road, driveway, or trail at home.

In Arusha we stopped briefly at the Cultural Center, where a Euro-expat ran a small industry in selling local crafts and artifacts. The owners of the outdoor store in the states, Cabella’s, had visited the day before and bought a 240,000 US Dollar Tanzanian stone. The group I was with was more interested in the inexpensive Maasai necklaces and artists’ prints. As the Amizade group moved into town en route to Kilimanjaro Airport I hopped out of the Land Rover, glad to once again be on my own.

21 June 06

Karagwe sits on a 4,000 foot mountain ridge in Northwest Tanzania. It is dry, breezy, and temperate – similar, said my friend John – to Palo Alto, California. Except it is not congested – a run on the dirt road out of town immediately brings uninterrupted views of valleys and mountain ridges.

I met up with a group milking cows this morning just before sunrise. The smell took me back to Pennsylvania, on Slab Road between McKinley and Johnson, where cows are gathered tightly in the shadow of a red barn.

But these cows were on the grounds of Nyakahanga Hospital – a series of buildings housing patients, offices, doctors, nurses, and guests. There is a large tent in the center of the compound now, as there is every year during the malaria outbreak. About 200 kids and mothers stay in the tent. Every few days the foam mattresses are pulled out, a new layer of straw bedding is put down, covered in canvas, and the mattresses go back on top again, stuffed side by side.

This morning I went for the first part of rounds with the head doctor, Dr. Nyirende. He emphasized the need to diagnosis here without machinery – without numerous MRI machines and the like – and bragged about wowing German doctors with his diagnostic abilities when visiting Berlin. 12 beds are in a room, sometimes two kids to a bed. A few people are on foam mattresses on the floor. Mothers stay with kids – sleeping in the same beds or on the floor next to them if the bed is already shared. And of course, extra people go to the tent. Several days later I would hear a story about Dr. Nyirende visiting a veterinary hospital in Europe – essentially staring in shock at the amount and expense of equipment dedicated primarily to pets.

As afternoon neared I visited the Amizade work site – the students have been helping with the construction of an orphanage. They were putting sealant on the rafters and finishing some digging for drainage ditches: mostly having a good time getting dirty. The local workers seemed not to fully share the load – meaning not giving the students enough responsibility. It takes a particular skill set to figure out how to most productively use heaps of unskilled labor for two weeks on a construction site. I’ve seen great management of students by local masons in Bolivia, but here the relationship was a struggle.

John and I walked into town – there’s a huge coke bottle at the only crossroads, a small opening to sell coke and snacks. Several miles outside town the electricity grid ends, a police escort is needed to drive into the bush, rebels and guns from Burundi and Rwanda may lurk, and the space is open.

To see babies with distended bellies, visit orphans pulled from sewage pits, and go on to Safari through the Serengeti clearly requires cognitive dissonance. But it is only different from our everyday dissonance in that it has to be actively addressed.

It is no mystery that there is poverty in the world, no surprise that there is suffering. The question is even old. Yet travel makes more pressing: what will be done?

By traveling through these regions, I see answers are arriving, some already in action. Dennis and Morris are brothers from Gulu, Uganda who volunteer every night to watch over the night commuters who sleep at Charity for Peace. The kids are there to avoid abduction from their rural homes. Charity for Peace is not able to provide dinner, snack, or breakfast to the children, who go straight to school from the center, but they can provide a safe spot to sleep. Dennis and Morris educate the kids about health and hygiene, sports, and responsibility.

Father Don is a Catholic Priest from Cleveland, Ohio who has traveled to Gulu for a third time to work on a book about child soldiers and to continue the awareness-raising he’s been doing in Catholic communities and throughout the Cleveland area. When he’s in Gulu he stays at St. Monica’s, a convent and girls school that, under the leadership of Sister Rosemary, has also created a safe space and opportunity for a meal for night commuters from nearby villages. They’d like to see the international community focus on Northern Uganda like it’s recently focused on the Darfur region of Sudan.

Charles is a secondary school student sponsored by Invisible Children. After school, he walks several miles to find water for bathing. After bathing, he studies as long as possible with natural light, and after that with paraffin. Despite having lost both parents and sharing a small one-room hut with another boy, he is finishing school. He is doing his work to support hope for the future in Gulu.

James is a former Merrill Lynch investment banker who, after visiting an orphanage in Kampala, Uganda, quit his London – New York job and lifestyle to volunteer full-time with the children. He’s now in his second year in Kampala. He’s balanced the books, increased revenue from sustainable sources, and developed conservation systems such as collecting rainwater for washing. The revenue from a guest house and the rain water system both serve to drive down the amount of funding needed from outside, and more substantially guarantee that the toddlers have adequate food, clothing, and bedding.

Joseph used his university degree in agriculture to improve the lot of farmers in his original home area of Kagera, Tanzania. He and his staff have taught farmers value-added production techniques, such as drying pineapple and banana, that allow for longer storage, easier shipping, and enhanced value.

Charl is a seventy-year-old Episcopal Deacon from Oil City, Pennsylvania. A few years ago she made her first trip to Africa and, aside from one visit to London when her son was stationed there, her only trip outside the United States. In the Episcopal Church Deacons are charged with being the voice and ears of the church in the world, and are taught to follow Christ’s example of service. A day before she left Tanzania Charl found out that she could help a boy in the hospital get daily access to milk for four months if she gave $20.

The children in the hospital typically get only fortified porridge, unless they or their families are able to pay the supplemental costs for milk. When the kids get milk they gain weight and grow. Charl gave $370 before she left, to sponsor several more kids. When she got home she started the Milk Fund, a program that now guarantees that all children under five will get milk as they recover at the Nyakahanga Hospital.

The Milk Fund has done much beyond that, and Charl is now on her third visit here. She says as a Deacon she does not believe the ideas were hers, but rather were divinely ordained. It is clear, from seeing the hospital here, from talking with the doctors, and from learning about other efforts like the ones listed above, that – divinely inspired or not – we all have the power to save, fortify, extend, enable, inspire, support life. That is Godly power. And we are more aware of it through traveling.

Usually our dissonance allows us to forget not only the issues that need our attention, but also the improvements that are within our grasp. Traveling through a region, staying with locals, going by bus – is enticing, alluring, exciting. It also gives life to problems and solutions on the ground. That traveling is selfish is certain, but like many selfish things it brings social benefits.

Joseph – the value-adding agriculturalist, entrepreneur and community-supporter from Kagera, Tanzania – says international visitors challenge and educate locals, just by being there, necessarily embodying a different worldview, offering an alternative. That’s why Joseph is proud that he has a Kenyan and a Ugandan on the staff of his local nonprofit organization.

Linda, a professor who annually leads American college students on a course in rural Tanzania (www.globalservicelearning.org), gives local speakers an opportunity to ask questions of the students after the students have peppered them with queries. Often, more is revealed in what Tanzanians want to know about the states than in Tanzanian answers to questions Americans think must be important.

Travel challenges perspectives. Men hold hands in East Africa – as friends. Children are fantastically happy – through seemingly unbearable struggles. Women in the region of Kagera, Tanzania are told to be silent – during childbirth. And travel reveals universals – flirtation implicit in indigenous dance in the Andes Mountains; eroticism explicit in Jamaican Independence Day parades; courting, commitment, questions about kids, family, home.

They hear from us, we learn from them. Connections are made, children are sponsored, the dissonance becomes less bearable. People go home – with friends abroad – and want to do more. Being born in a particular spot in the world shouldn’t necessarily give you two times the life expectancy of your fellow human beings on the other side of the globe. And as more of us travel we are more aware that current fact must change, more educated about ways we may all change it, and more committed to doing so.