6 days, 3 continents, 4 countries

The first leg has been all travel, confirming my idiocy at looking at an African map in America and simply connecting the dots. Africa is huge, the second largest continent in the world. The Democratic Republic of Congo alone is nearly as large as all of Western Europe. And the roads are rough.

I got on a plane in New York on Sunday the 4th, near 5:30pm. Exhausted from a heavy night of celebrating an uncle’s birthday (long after he’d left the party), I fell to sleep before takeoff, but was up again after only half an hour. Wired, I read through the Sunday New York Times and – unable to get cranberry juice – settled for red wine. We went up past Boston, shot out from Nova Scotia, passed under Greenland and Iceland. I finished Aiden Hartley’s The Zanzibar Chest then fell to sleep again before THWACK! – a stewardess’s cart hit the seat next to mine. I looked across the aisle and out to a European sunrise.

From Switzerland I flew south over the Mediterranean, the Sahara, The Great Rift Valley, and into Dar es Salaam. I slept, then woke to see the Alps. I slept, and peered down over a patchwork of farms. On next waking, the blue med, then islands, then continuous tan beneath a hard row of clouds, desert giving way to brown scrubby trees, a massive river cutting through the brown – the Nile – with clumps of life on either side. Finally the desert gave way to patches of green, in ever larger clumps, then covering to the horizon.

I got my visa in the Dar airport and headed toward the taxi stand. The guidebooks tell you Dar is dangerous; not to trust a soul, to be on the lookout, and to always know the location of your valuables. I gave the taxi driver the name of a hostel that I actually hadn’t been able to confirm reservations from before leaving, and told him they were expecting me. The city was dark, with minimal streetlights. Roads were dirt and dust, and businesses were only behind security fencing. The hotel did not have space. The second hotel did not have space. I saw no white people. I wondered if I would be able to get dinner. The third hotel had space, for about $12 for the night. I tipped the taxi driver generously for his extra running around (we had agreed upon a fair at the airport), and went directly to my room.

I wasn’t yet comfortable with the idea of walking through Dar, and I didn’t want to pay to ride around in a taxi. I ate trail mix in my room and went to sleep. I woke extremely early, read, and heard the Muslim call to prayer at 5 am. It dominated the city for a solid 15 minutes. After breakfast I met two Swedish guys who were also headed for the bus station. We shared a cab and I got on a bus to Arusha, Tanzania. After my day of flying it was ten hours on the bus. I kept sliding in and out of sleep, mistaking dreams for reality, and feeling fully confused. I blamed it on exhaustion, but later remembered the malaria drug I had taken the night before is associated with vivid dreams and hallucination.

Halfway through the trip, at a bathroom stop along the road, I met a Peace Corps volunteer from a bus headed the other way. We met only because we were white. That’s the whole reason she came up to me. She could have asked any other person how long our leg of the journey had been, but she chose me. In South America, I’m able to blend in. In Africa, whiteness has meaning that I’ve never before experienced.

The road passed through lush open plain, spreading across the horizon, but the mountains were quickly visible. Tanzanians were hard at work: transporting large bags of crops on the backs of 1950s –style bicycles, selling food and drink to passing buses at brief stops, running in groups after taxi cabs that arrive at the bus stations – simply to get the ticket sale.

Arusha, at under 200,000 people, is about a tenth of the size of Dar, and when I arrived I felt it would be navigable. I took a taxi to Hotel Flamingo, where singles were unavailable but – still nervous about ever looking as if I don’t know where I’m going – I chose to pay the $15 for a double. Breakfast each of those first two days came with the hotel, and each day I also skipped lunch, uncertain about the long bus rides with unpredictable bathroom access. That night I wandered Arusha a bit and had an American dinner at a place that clearly caters to the Safari crowds that come through the area (strawberry shake, fries, cheeseburger).

I fell to sleep early, and woke again at 2am. I read and exercised. The call to prayer came at 5. This was becoming a routine. At 8:30 I got the bus headed toward Nairobi, Kenya. Soon after we passed out of town I saw small groups of Masai people leading goats and cattle out into a vast green-brown valley ringed by distant mountains. Near 10:30, there was a bang, followed by rapid thwopping. We’d blown a tire. Everyone filed out into a hot, sandy landscape peppered with Acacia trees. Beyond the tire, we needed a new part. The driver and his crewman flagged a passing car and sent someone back to town.

Three Masai boys eventually showed up and headed toward me and an Australian. The Aussie began taking pictures of them, and they seemed quite interested, so a I snapped a few photos of them looking at their faces in his digital display. Later they asked – In broken English – for money for the pictures I’d taken. I asked why, and didn’t part with any cash.

An hour or so later, we filed back on the bus and were soon at the border. I got a visa, traded money, and was waiting near the empty bus when a Rav 4 with two young white women in it drove quickly up to the customs office. The Land Rover in front of them started moving backward. The blond driver honked, stopping the Safari vehicle, and jumped out of the car to dart into the office. I was profoundly jealous of their vehicle and, it appeared, the speed with which they were about to move through the border zone. They shot back out, and headed down to the visa office. I looked after them, angry for not at least having said hello.

I sat there stewing, and eventually hopped up to quickly walk the 50 meters toward their car. I saw them come out of the office. They were still moving fast, making no eye contact. If I spoke up they’d ignore me – the currency and food hawkers at the borders are always yelling for attention. They were in the car. “Excuse me!” Nothing. Their hands went out to pull in the doors. “Excuse me!” The blond turned, “hello.”

Quickly and incoherently, I strongly hinted that I’d love a ride. “Are you stranded?” the blond said. “Well, not exactly stranded,” I replied, “but I could really use a ride.” I grabbed my bag from the bus and ran back, hopping into the back seat. I had my laptop with me and, with all of the crime warnings about travel in the region, felt myself begin to relax for the first time.

Kate and Maile (my-lee) will remain forever angels in my mind. If there’s an afterlife, they get it. I hadn’t been sure exactly where I’d stay in Nairobi (dubbed “Nairobbery in the travel books), but Kate, who works for an international aid organization, offered that I could freshen up at her place before moving on. I eventually stayed on the daybed in the living room, and sampled a little bit of expatriate life in Nairobi, going to an Italian restaurant that night with the two of them and Kate’s roommate Sarah.

The next day I was able to leave my bags in their apartment as I explored the city. I walked through downtown, picking up the bus ticket to Kampala, Uganda for that night, finding the electrical outlet adapter I needed, buying two books and checking the internet. Very recently the city has worked to crack down on crime in the downtown section where I was and, within reason, I basically felt comfortable. I still stuck out, and I still had a few people approach me with fraudulent conversation topics in an effort to lead me away, but I would gladly return to spend time there. I grabbed a coffee at Nairobi Java House and, in a bow to British influence in the region, had a cheese pie.

Later that day I was sick a few times and, assuming I’d eaten or drunk something bad, I again fasted for the rest of the day. I had a twelve hour bus trip to Kampala that night. After saying goodbye to the Nairobi crowd I headed to the Scandinavia bus terminal. The Scandinavia bus line is among the best in the region, and essentially operates vehicles equivalent to old greyhounds, without bathrooms. The bus was an hour late arriving, but for entertainment I met an Imodium-popping Australian in the terminal who told me that it was a good time to be traveling alone, at least for him, because his girlfriend might not understand his deep need to watch all the World Cup games, the French Open, and the Formula One race set to take place in Montreal.

After about two hours, sleeping was not possible. The bus cracked and thudded over bumps and through potholes. It was too loud to talk. Dust drifted in to cake our hair and faces. When I showered in Kampala the next day the water ran brown. We were at the border crossing at dawn. Another visa. Another stamp. The road got better as we entered Uganda. I was sleeping when I woke up to gunshot in my foot. Well, I thought at first that might be the case. It was just another tire, but this one had burst directly under the seat ahead of me, leaving a 30-inch crack in the floor. We stopped, but the driver decided we’d make it to Kampala.

In the capital city I borrowed a cell phone (I should have brought my cell phone; it’s possible to unlock them and then use a local company’s card to make calls) to call Louis Otika, the father of a friend in Pittsburgh who runs the Africa Project. He arrived with his driver, and they took me to his house. He was deeply welcoming, and we talked briefly before he showed me to the hotel where I stayed around the corner. We went to lunch with Jonathan, a young American that volunteered as a key strategist for the opposition party in Uganda’s most recent election. Mr. Otika has been employed by that party for many years, and he and Jonathan joke with one another like old politicos. Jonathan’s still there to work on a book on the many absurdities and heroic efforts involved in Ugandan Democracy. I learned much about that as he and I watched the first World Cup match at Bubbles O’Leary’s, Kampala’s major expat bar.

This morning Mr. Otika gave me a ride to the post-bus to Gulu. The bus takes the mail up the road, and carries passengers as well. We were racing to be on time, in an already-hectic traffic environment, when Otika rear-ended a small bus. The bus wasn’t damaged, but the car hood was bent-up. We moved on, but soon the police pulled us over to extort a bribe. They’d seen the damage and, assuming that meant there’d been a traffic violation, they wanted to make the most of it. Otika told him he’d just banged into his gate, but couldn’t convince them to let him off free. I gave him the 20,000 Ugandan Shillings - $10 – that they were looking for.

I am now in Gulu, settled. I’ve met up with Megan Young, the other Pittsburgher spending time here this summer to raise awareness about the child soldiers in the region, and I’m fully comfortable in a room that Peter Otika has secured at a special rate. My next few postings – I think – should be much more specific to this place and the issues people are facing here. I saw many of the camps for internally displaced people (IDPs) on the way into town. (IDP is the term given to people who are fleeing a war situation but do not cross a border and are therefore technically not refugees). In any event, apologies for the stream-of-consciousness-chronological-recall, but access or opportunity to type has been quite limited. More detail on more specific issues (perhaps) to follow.