Africa
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
I have been back from Africa for 6 weeks and I am still dreaming of the places and the people that I had the fortune to encounter. I have had some time to reflect on my life and its direction and on the impact that living in Kenya had upon my life's philosophy. I proved so many things to myself while in Africa. I proved that I can walk next to a rhino, I can jump off a bridge and fall for 333 feet, I can white-water raft on grade 5 rapids, I can scuba dive without any more fear, I can travel completely alone in Uganda and see gorillas, I can make wonderful friends and share life and adventures with 25 strangers for 3 weeks, I can compete intellectually in an organization like the UN, I can overcome some of my fear of death, I can make it in Africa if I really want to, I can travel around Nairobi all by myself with my whole paper life (passport, plane ticket, money) in my bag, I can be completely open to new people and new things, I am capable of many things. But my biggest realization has been that I am ready to face my fears about staying in one place and having a real relationship. Honestly, these things I did in Africa never scared me as much as opening my heart and risking being hurt again. If a relationship happens, it will be a great addition, and if it doesn't, I am still happy with my life and the people in it and will continue to make my own unique path and try to live every day as if it's the last. I have found out that living life every day as if it's your last does not mean doing extreme sports constantly (as I thought before), but it's about much quieter things, like appreciating the people around you and telling them so and cultivating relationships with partners, friends, families, neighbors, and co-workers. I wouldn't change going to Africa and now being broke for anything. It was the greatest experience of my life so far.
Here's my good-bye speech to Africa and some thoughts on development and the UN in general:
I think my brain is full to the rim with Africa. No more vivid images. I can't take it. No more bright colors; red earth, blue sky, green mountains. No more goats, cows and chickens in the road and everywhere else. No more babies slung on the mother's backs. No more sing-song languages that I listen to the harmony of. No more singing and dancing everywhere you turn. No more death buses. No more smelly pit latrines with no toilet paper. No more bananas, mangoes, pawpaws, passionfruits, avocados, berries, pineapples, lemons, oranges, limes; all fresh, delicious, available and prepared anyway you like at anytime. No more chapati and cassava. No more brightly colored kangas, kikois, and kitenges and poor men in dress slacks, dirty oxfords, and non-matching jackets riding bicycles. No more out-of-place and out-of-context American and European clothing; everything from Swedish football teams to air-brushed models, from Pittsburgh Penguins jackets to t-shirts that curiously say 'dairy case.' No more crazy names on businesses, matatus, and buses; like Super-Jet Nightclub, African Prince, Executive Beauty Salon, Joke Investments, Thank God Textiles and General Merchandise, Money is Life Gen. Merchandise, Niesche's Silicon Valley Cafe, Fair Price Fast Food's Ltd., The Bar and Butchery, Cape Cod Primary School whose motto is 'no pains, no gains', Beverly Hills Hotel, Taata Baby--Hope for the Best.
No more funny English misspellings -- my personal favorite -- would you like a Coke or Diet Cock with that Ethiopian food? No more red mud, red dust caked and ingrained into shoes and pants. No more crazy Matatu rides with rap/dance music blaring and standing up on the outside. No more immediate mistrust of a stranger speaking to you (What is their angle? There is always one sooner or later.) No more horrible slums. No more extreme poverty. No more endless, endless vistas. No more beautiful cloudscapes. No more emptying of the purse and pockets of only the barest essentials in case it's stolen or snatched. No more being at home in absolute chaos. No more elaborate bargaining and bartering for goods. No more exotic and beautiful animals, birds, insects, plants and food. No more straw-thatched round huts. No more tribes. No more crazy, crazy roads full of breaks and potholes. No more being a rock star, having everyone stare at whatever you do. No more pungent odors of sweat, urine, wood-smoke, diesel fumes, meat smells, and heat all mixed together. No more immediate marriage proposals. No more malaria-medication induced dreams. No more gas and water being sold out of trucks. No more food and small items shoved into your face at bus stops. No more women balancing 30 lbs of sticks, grass, bananas, etc on their heads and walking for miles. No more everyone wearing flip-flops. No more wonderful mazes of marketplace.
No more seeing people struggle so very hard for so very little. No more seeing sick babies that could be easily cured with modern medicine and having it break your heart a little more. A little more broken than the last time you saw a little kid running around barefoot over a pile of garbage with tattered, filthy clothes on, or saw a teenager sniffing glue, sleeping on the round-about and begging for money, or saw a mentally-ill nude woman shouting and running down a street in Western Kenya with no one helping, or saw a slum house with no water and electricity with old carton labels for wallpaper, or hearing about past tribal atrocities in Rwanda, Congo, Sudan, Kenya, Uganda......And you have no idea how to help and where to start. And now, you have no idea whether you even should help; if it's your place, if it's your tourism dollars that perpetuate an economy without high-profile, highly-skilled jobs that create a middle-class and with absolutely no good jobs available after a college education.
You wonder if your naivete about international aid and development has proved to be just that. Now you think that (except for medical aid) the answer to the extreme poverty and unbalanced economies lies within Africa and Africans not within project management and "sustainable development." Who knows what African development would look like if the West weren't trying to create it in its cookie-cutter consumer and democratic image, satisfying its never-ending capitalist money hunger, and sending workers who want to live out an explorer or colonialist fantasy???? What do people become when you throw ideas and money at them and then leave when the project is over???? Cynical, dependent and mistrustful. When highly-educated, liberal people like me and many others I've met in Africa reject the UN because of its inefficiencies, misappropriations and ineffectiveness and those that remain grow fat on large salaries, politics and exclusive dinner parties, what becomes of it???? Evolutionary exclusion and irrelevant demise. I am afraid this is the future of the UN.
Before I left Nairobi for good and after returning from Uganda, I went flying with my friend Roman and photographed Nairobi from the air, had a dinner party, packed (which meant an extra bag for my new African things) and spent my last day with my very good friend Gordon. I left Africa on a Tuesday at about 10 pm on a KLM flight and 5 minutes in sighed a sigh of relief because it wasn't shot down. About a week before I left, British Airways canceled flights to Kenya because of a terrorist threat, which meant land-to-air missles trying to shoot one down. I thought that was a very fitting way to leave, scared to death one last time, like a parting gift Africa was giving me and saying, 'don't forget what I'm really like and don't romanticize me to your friends.' I heard some more very scary stories about whites living in Nairobi, the kind that give you goose-bumps and continue to hear stories from my friends who are still there. And I'm thinking, maybe leaving isn't such a bad thing after all. Here are some shots of Nairobi from the air and of me and my friends:
As I was flying away from Africa in the night, I started to cry and this is what I wrote:
Why am I crying? Crying to leave Africa, to leave it and my friends behind, the kind of friends who decide to give Africa a try. I'm so undecided and changed. How to go back to an orderly life? A life with paved roads, convenience stores, to everything familiar. Is that life too small for me? Why did I have to find out? Why did I push my limits to a point where I can't go back? I guess I wanted to see what would happen. Well, things have happened and I am more confused than ever. How to even share my experience, the sights, the smells, the people, the atmosphere of Nairobi and other East African countries? I won't miss the fear but I will miss everything else about it very, very, very much. It has been a wonderful experience and I am very lucky.
I think I have answered some of these questions that I asked myself. No, life is not too small for me here and I can come back to this life. I don't want to live in Africa, I want to make a difference in my own community with other Americans. I have tried to share the experience through this weblog and thanks for reading it. I tried so hard to write well and recreate so many things accurately becaue I knew I had an audience. Thanks for all of the good feedback too, that kept me writing when I thought there was no point.
Monday, May 19, 2003
It is Monday May 19th and I am leaving Africa tomorrow. I have a good-bye speech to Africa but I would like to tell you about my solo trip to Uganda from May 11th to the 18th. Don't let this post date fool you, I am writing this from the future and another continent but I did write my journal entries about Uganda and leaving Africa prior to my actual departure. I did do something really stupid inbetween my last post and leaving for Uganda on that Sunday evening. The rest of that week in Nairobi was spent finishing up business-- like buying my plane ticket, giving pictures to friends, changing money into US dollars for Uganda, buying bus tickets out of Kenya, etc. It just so happened that I had everything very valuable on my person at the same time while going to downtown Nairobi (don't forget it's Nairobbery) to buy my Akamba bus ticket for Sunday night. I had my passport, $600 US dollars, my credit cards, my UN id, and my plane ticket to the States in my backpack while walking around downtown not exactly sure where the bus ticket office was. I am so stubborn; I should have taken a taxi home and dropped everything off and then went downtown but that would have cost an obscene amount of money (okay, like $10 but I was counting dollars at this point.) Nothing happened of course, I asked for directions, bought some kangas, bought my bus ticket, and then I looked around for the Matatu home. It could have been disastrous but I liked the thrill.
Going to Uganda alone for a week is one of my biggest accomplishments in Africa. I wouldn't recommend traveling alone in Africa to the novice traveller, even the novice African traveller, but it was my last personal hurdle. And guess what? There is nothing to be afraid of. People help you out, things work out, and you meet more people this way. I sat on a thirteen-hour rattling, bumping night bus to Kampala from Nairobi. The woman next to me takes this route all the time as she lives in Nairobi for a job with her son and her husband and daughter live in Kampala. I did get some sleep and you know some people actually go out of their way to say welcome, you are welcome in Africa. Like the guy sitting behind me, "you are welcome here." When is the last time I said that to a foreigner? I had to do the border crossing at Busia all by myself, but I just followed the crowd from the bus and had been through countless ones before anyway. There's the departure card, the exit stamp, the walk or drive through no-man's land, the arrival card, the entry stamp or visa, and then back on the bus or back in the car. You can be very sure that I kept my eye on the bus and got back on as soon as possible before it drove away. These borders can be very nerve-wracking. No one speaks, the border police hold all of the power, they could keep you for whatever reason, luckily I never had any problems.
As soon as I crossed the border into Uganda, I noticed some differences from Kenya. Things are actually regulated. For example, all of the bicycle taxis in Busia (on the Ugandan side) were wearing hot pink cuban-style shirts with numbers signifying some sort of registration and licensing process. Novel. The hot pink was especially amusing but makes sense in Africa. Can you see bus drivers wearing hot pink in the States? I also changed some money with guys actually wearing coats saying money-changers. AND our bus was stopped twice and searched to make sure that no one was carrying contraband, like alcohol or cigarettes. This was all done in an orderly, governmental, regulatory sort of way. Nothing was found and we were on our way. Maybe there was bribing involved, but I didn't see it. The first place we stopped was selling chicken and goat for breakfast by the side of the road. LIve goats and chickens all around, probably for the next day's sales. I do not find meat particularly appetizing first thing in a day but my friend said Ugandans love it. And then she said they are bigger and love to eat, which I took as a stereotyping comment, but she did marry a Ugandan so who knows.
I arrived in Kampala about 10 am. It being low tourist season, I was not too worried about obtaining my gorilla tracking permit for Wednesday. I had emailed the Ugandan Wildlife Authority the week before about the availability of permits and I had actually received a response saying to stop by the office. I had my letter and my $275 dollars in cash, which I was ready to get rid of. I shared a car taxi with my friend to the UWA office and went inside. They happily sold me the permit for the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in 2 days and told me where to get my bus ticket to Butogota, the closest town. Luckily, the white-water-rafting company Adrift has an office right there and I also booked my first white water rafting trip for that Saturday on the Nile. I then took a motorcycle taxi to the Bus Park to book my next 12-hour bus ride to western Uganda for the next day. Taking a motorcycle taxi with a huge backpack and a small one is a very interesting balancing act. He carried the small one on his front and I balanced my bag on the back bumper and it never quite fit. Needless to say, the other motorcycle taxi guys laughed and waved when they saw us flying by. No helmets necessary. Don't worry about falling off, it only happens once in a while. We passed some sort of parade protesting pornography and everyone had hoods on; it was kind of disturbing. The closer we got to the bus park the more crowded the streets became, we were in the heart of the local business center. People, bicycles, motorcycles, vans, cars, animals all trying to get to one place or another in a great cacophony of noise, dust, and honking. I loved being there in the middle of it on my motorcycle taxi with the wind in my hair. I was verging on exhausted at this point, but needed to book my ticket. I wandered into the park looking for my company and people actually had coats on saying they worked there. I followed one man purporting to be from the Traveller's Choice bus company into an open courtyard and up two flights of stairs. This was my first dodgy experience, my inner danger voice cried out; I had everything I owned with me and I was following some guy to some "office" without a name on the door and I was by myself. No worries though, it was the office of the company and I booked with one guy and paid another sitting 2 meters away. Job redundancy? I later learned that I should have bargained the price down a bit but I did not feel that hard bargaining was something that I should be doing when I was by myself. Overall, on the whole trip I probably could have saved $25 if I had bargained more but I did not want to be a difficult customer. On the bus back, I did pay the lower price.
Not knowing where to catch the matatu (here called taxis, and taxis called special hires. I know, very confusing. I kept saying matatu taxi), I caught another motorcycle taxi to the hostel of choice (and the only one the taxi guys knew--"blue mango" no "red chile's" no "backpacker's" yes) Backpacker's and collapsed for 2 hours in my dormitory bed. I met an American named Jason and we took a matatu taxi into town as I needed to change more money and he was bored. Kampala is one of my favorite African cities. It is hilly and small, people are extremely friendly and I passed a very lovely afternoon in a great craft market where the sellers actually left you alone long enough to look at things. I got a t-shirt proclaiming myself as a mzungu (rich, white person) because all over East Africa you hear that like background music, mzungu-give me money, mzungu, mzungu, mzungu. AND we actually walked around after dark!!! I have only done that in Malindi and Kampala. Malindi was extremely small and Muslim but Kampala is a real city that you can walk around at night without too much fear. Jason was the first American I met travelling solo in Africa and we had plenty to talk about. We almost had parallel trip lives and had been in Africa the same amount of time. He was as crazy as I am; he left Backpacker's to go camping in Kibale Forest to see the chimpanzees. I wonder where he is now? That's what happens on the road, chance meetings and you take people for what they are and what they say because you won't ever see them again. So, you enjoy the moment for what it is and let it pass unmolested. I went to bed early after dinner in the hostel as I had to catch the bus at 6:30 am. Africa is dark from 6:30 pm to 6:30 am every day all year long. I mean, I still wouldn't walk by myself at 3 am in Kampala but I wouldn't do that here either, well maybe I would now. My fear factor is pretty low now. Not too much scares me. Africa did do that for me.
I made it to the bus by 6:30 am and bought breakfast from the people coming onto the bus and selling things. You can buy just about anything at 7 am in an African bus park. Everyone was buying big loaves of white bread, which I didn't quite understand. I almost bought one because I was so hungry until I saw the lady with the samosas. I had been warned about these buses in Uganda; they go, go, go for 12 hours and don't stop for bathroom or food breaks. It stops to let people on and off and you can buy food from the vendors shoving cardboard boxes of biscuits and drinks at the windows but it takes off without any notice usually leaving the moneytaker behind who literally runs and jumps on. My seatmate bought a bottle of water, which always looks so nice and cold, and it was recycled in the worst way. People will take old water bottles, slowly burn a hole in the bottom to put bad water in (like runoff or river water) and reseal it like a new bottle. She said you can tell by looking at the bottom and it is common on the bus routes. Luckily, I did not buy any before she told me. So, I didn't drink anything the whole day, just a bit of water to keep hydrated, this would probably be one of the worst places in the world to be sick or have digestional problems. You just can't, there's nowhere to go. Well, you could and maybe you would get your own seat. I literally sat in one place for 12 hours. I was also surprised at the things that everyone threw right out the windows onto the roadsides; plastic bags, water bottles, skewers from BBQ'd meat, anything and everything. These things can be deadly when the bus is going 80 kph.
I was on the bus for the entire route and saw many people getting on and off and shared my seat with several of them. Some wouldn't sit next to a white person but some do and are very friendly. Most are shocked and some amused and smiling to see a white girl by herself on a bus full of Africans. You should have seen some of the faces at the rural roadside stops. I would just smile and usually get one back. Crazy mzungu. I met a very nice intelligent guy whom I felt comfortable enough with to ask one of my biggest questions about Africa. How do people live together in a civil society after so much bloodshed among neighbors, literally people you know killing and torturing other people that you know? Villages are different in Africa; everyone knows each other, everyone sits outside their house after working, everyone stops 20 times a day to chat with friends and relatives, when the blood flows it is someone you know wielding the machete. Uganda especially has a painful history, President Ida Amin had 500,000 people killed in the 70's, but the same things are currently going on in Somalia, Congo, Northern Uganda, Sudan, Ivory Coast..... While I was visiting Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army (a political/religious group rebelling against the government) in the North captured 40 teen-age schoolchildren and killed 4 of them. And this was not an uncommon occurrence. Neighbors killing or imprisoning neighbors for religious, economic, social, tribal and political reasons. We Americans cannot even imagine this happening in our neighborhoods. Nor should we; it is a horribly sad way to live. Uganda is now recovering quite well economically and socially, 'well' being a relative term. He said people reconcile the violence in three ways: 1. They break the cycle of violence by not teaching their children to hate another group of people. 2. They accept the rulings of war tribunals, accept the time that their neighbors spend in jail or money paid in fines and accept them back into the village. I mean truly accept. 3. The cycle of violence continues with hate and vengeance. What he said makes sense of course, but I cannot imagine how hard that would be. I have never had members of my family or any of my friends killed out of hate and I hope to never feel that anger or vengefulness. I can't even comprehend such things but obviously life goes on somehow. These things are sewn into the fabric of everyday living.
So, I had some good conversations on the bus and spent the time looking out of the window, thinking, reading my book, listening to my CD player, playing solitaire. One of my seatmates taught me a new card game. I think she was making up rules as she went, I teased her and she thought that was really funny. She was on her way to start college in Kampala. She was really sad to be leaving her family and scared about her new life. I tried to be reassuring. I met one kid who tried to steal my ticket stub. the money guy came around every so often to check everyone's. The young kid obviously did not have money for the bus and wanted to show my stub. Normally, I would've helped him out but being a stranger in a strange land I did not want to take the chance of being kicked off in the middle of rural Uganda. Although, I'm sure that would've worked out just fine too. Oh, the clouds. I didn't think the clouds could get any whiter, puffier, and larger but they did. It was beautiful. Speeding down a Ugandan highway, sitting on a Ugandan bus, listening to Jack Johnson and staring at beautiful endless blue skies dotted with puffy white clouds and rolling lush green hills that go on forever, that is my idea of heaven. I was so happy to be there. I love cloudscapes.
What I don't love is travelling through extremely mountainous terrain on an old, beat-up bus (it is not this Traveller's Choice) going down a windy road with no guard rails of any kind and staring out the window at a 2000 foot drop about 5 feet away from the tires. I sat on the wrong side, although it didn't matter, there were plenty of sheer cliff-like drops on both sides. I am very, very serious about this. Mountain gorillas mean mountains not safari plains, as I quickly realized. The road was graded in the wrong direction, no one worries about weighting these buses properly, it's the rainy season and I'm sure the tires have seen this road a few too many times. I did hear that the drivers on these routes know the roads extremely well and they don't put the maniacs on these ones but I was very scared nonetheless. I was sweating and of course no one else on the bus cared one bit. I guess they are used to it.
I did arrive safely in Butogota, the town about 20 kilometers away from the park and where I was staying. I had to catch a private transport to the campsite and it was getting dark fast. (However, the first thing I did was find a toilet. By toilet, I mean open pit latrine.) The locals there make a killing off of us tourists there. I really think the UWA should organize something a bit more affordable. It cost me $12 dollars to take a 12 hour, 350 km bus from Kampala and $15 dollars to go 20 more. Which is not a bad overall price for the trip, but it's the principle. Like when I get charged twice as much for the matatu ride in Nairobi. It's only 12 cents but I am a passenger like everyone else and should pay the same price. Everyone else in my truck got to ride for free since I paid such an exorbinant price. (There is a small village called Bwindi near the park.) There was an old man with a cane and I felt bad about taking the front seat with him climbing in the back so I offered to share it with him. I think he thought I was hitting on him, apparently I made some sort of social faux pas. I had to ask him to remove his arm from the seat back. The driver hit on me too on the way back (I arranged for the driver to come back the next day.) I am sorry but I don't think I could make it there being a second wife cutting down banana trees with a baby on my back cooking over a fire and gathering water all day long. Can you see that? On the truck ride back to Butogota we picked up a million banana bunches and some more people. I didn't think the '78 Nissan pickup could handle it. There was a baby with us in the front and it had the measles and would probably die. If only she had had a vaccine (I felt lucky that I had had my MMR booster before coming.) That's the kind of thing that breaks your heart. You know the capability to prevent some suffering exists and yet it's not reaching some people. Why?
Uganda has so many bananas. Banana trees everywhere. Did you know that they only grow one bunch? That explains why I saw people cutting them down so nonchalantly but they grow back like weeds. I tried a wonderful plaintain dish with red beans; they tasted like potatoes. All varieties of bananas too, I had no idea there were so many kinds. At the campsite, I was the only tourist staying there. There was some sort of park ranger customer service training going on so there were other people there but no tourists. I quickly ate my food, took a shower, and went to sleep exhausted again. I was a bit nostalgic for my overland tour and traveling buddies because the places I were staying were exactly like somewhere we would've stayed and camped. I wondered who I would be tracking with tomorrow.
Apparently, no one. Usually, the park allows 2 groups of 6 tourists daily to see two different groups of habituated mountain gorillas for one hour. However, I was the only tourist in the entire 330 square kilometer park on this day. And the little shpiel about my hike was witnessed by the 25 park rangers in training. If you can't do the hike, you don't get a refund. If you get sick, you do get a refund. (You can't go near them if you are sick, they might catch it.) If you track all day long and don't see them, you do get a refund. The two professional trackers were already in the forest looking for the Mubare Group and would radio my guide when they were close. I received a walking stick and off we went. Okay, I am not the most physically fit person and this hike was serious. Luckily, it was overcast because that made it much cooler. Here's what I climbed and me and my guides (I look like a giant):
So, it was me, my guide Stephen, my porter Bernard, 2 trackers already in the mountains, and 3 Ugandan army soldiers with machine guns that set off into the jungle. I almost didn't make it on the climb. After what seemed like forever and my many questions of how many more ups and downs, we stood on the top of a very large mountain, although certainly not the largest one around. I seriously considered turning back as we were merely at the entrance to the park and at the beginning of the tracking part. Oy vai. I knew I had the energy to get somewhere but the energy necessary to come back might fail me. Stephen assured me that we went down again (and I'm thinking that means come back up again) and the gorillas would be nearby. So, down we went and stopped at a flat piece of trail to radio ahead to the trackers. Stephen couldn't get them on the radio so Bernard (the porter carrying my bag for about $4) RAN ahead to see if they were where Stephen thought they would be. I couldn't believe he ran, but they kept telling me that they are mountain people and used to walking all over the hills. So I rested and about 20 minutes later Bernard returned with the news that the gorillas were just ahead. Then, I got really excited and asked if he had actually seen them and he said yes and looked at me as if I had asked a stupid question. It just seemed so unreal to me that I would be viewing gorillas soon. We came down into a small clearing and met up with the trackers. Only a few people are allowed to go see them, the tourists, the guide, and one tracker and you are only allowed to carry your cameras. They try to keep it as least instrusive as possible. Can you spot the gorilla? The light is so low in the jungle and flashes are prohibited, this is my only digital shot. My print film did produce only 2 or 3 good photos and I even used 800 speed. The one on the right is a gorilla bed.
I am standing there getting my camera ready and someone taps my shoulder and points to a spot about 10 ft away and there is the male silverback and a female sitting and munching away on some fruit. I was stunned. As soon as he realized that I, the white stranger, had spotted him, he took off into the ravine and she followed. They were so graceful, although they do snap branches and crush undergrowth along the way. I swear, the gorillas had been sitting there for about 2 hours with the trackers and local research student just waiting and hanging out. They are very social creatures and I think they wait for the social visit of familiar faces and new strangers. The trackers go and find them every day about the same time. They have their familiar haunts and the trackers know where to go based on their history and where they were yesterday. Tracking can be difficult if the gorillas don't want to be found. People have looked all day and not found them, but usually the trackers spot them and wait with them until the tourists arrive.
Gorillas are strange creatures. So powerful yet gentle. Their bodies are awkward looking, big pot-bellies and long arms. Dark, thick, black fur all over except for the silver hair on the backs of mature males. The male weighs about 800-1000 pounds and are as big as a refrigerator. They walk on all fours with their hands curled but sit on their butts with their big belly protruding and eating fruit with their hands. They swing from the trees and then sit on the ground. So fast, they moved away from us and were immediately hidden in the jungle. We went crashing after them, the tracker cutting undergrowth with a machete so we could get through. I saw a female beating her chest in the trees just like King Kong does in the movie. Beautiful faces with dark brown eyes. I looked directly into the eyes of a female and it was eerie. She was as curious about me as I was about her. You can just sense a deeper understanding present in the gorilla that most animals don't have. Looking into the eyes of a deer or a porcupine does not produce the same feeling. The male gorilla can snap a good-sized tree in half yet allows people to view him and his troop everyday. Altogether, I saw one silverback male, 7 females, and 2 or 3 babies. The babies were adorable. The male made sure he knew where everyone was and moved around quite a bit. He was so scary to me but they don't hurt people. Only single males without troops usually attack humans and then only if the human is in his territory. They can easily kill a human with one blow. I was told to drop to the ground on all fours if the male or a female came near to check me out. Luckily, that did not happen. I held Stephen's hand the whole time. I did hear stories about babies climbing on tourists; I guess you would just stand still and let the baby move on.
We followed the troop along a ravine for about 100 yards through water, mud and thick jungle brush. I was so excited I didn't really notice anything but the gorillas. Some would stop and we would stop and look and then they would move on. I stepped on some ground I thought was solid but it was mud and my whole foot went in. The terrain was very steep and then suddenly the troop came to rest in flat place with tall trees. Everything was wet, the smell was wonderful. The four of us stood in the middle and just watched. The gorillas were all around us. It was truly amazing. The male would sit and look at us, stand up, move to a new spot and then sit and watch. While we were watching him, the tracker pointed out a female about 5 ft away that no one had seen. I was excited and scared; my adrenaline was pumping. The researcher was whispering their names to me. There's so and so. AND the gorillas were talking to us in low grunts and long rumbles. The tracker and Stephen would grunt back in the same tone and length. The gorillas were asking if everything was cool and the trackers were assuring them that we were friendly. As we were moving, we made the same noises. The male was very vigilant and staring into his eyes was difficult; I felt like I would be challenging him if I did but maybe I was being rude because I just glanced. I don't know proper gorilla etiquette. I could only stay 1 hour and then sadly we had to leave. It was a great experience. There are only 650 mountain gorillas left in Africa. You can also view them in Rwanda and DRC (Congo.) I was so close to the Congo I could actually see it. Rwanda was about 100 km (60 miles) away.
I walked back to the others and we hiked a bit, ate lunch and then tackled the rest of the hike back to the main road. It was hard coming back down in all of that mud. My hiking boots, which had ripped in Tanzania, were on their last legs and didn't have any tread (I traded them for water and tea with the camp clerk to give to his sister.) Stephen knew that the rain was coming and did it ever. I heard and saw it 20 minutes before it reached us. The rain was hitting the jungle and the leaves of all those banana trees and it sounded like a river running by. By the time we had reached the main road, it was almost upon us. I could actually see a wall of rain approaching, like a solid thing; it was wild. I was almost immediately soaked by the downpour. In the rainy season, it rains like that every day for at least 1 hour but can be sunny otherwise. We traveled by car back to the park headquarters and I received my official Gorilla Tracking certificate. I had actually made pretty good time on my trek. I walked back to my campsite and relaxed until my ride back to Butogota arrived.
As a side note about being so close to huge wild animals: I give these animals, such as rhinos, giraffes, elephants, buffalo, and gorillas, a healthy respect which my guides seem to interpret as an irrational fear of animals that can snap me like a twig, trample me, or gore me with a 3 m (5 ft) horn. Oh, they're gentle, peaceful animals. Sure, they are fine 99% of the time, but there's always that one time when something goes wrong. The plane crashes, the boat goes down, the bus flies off the cliff, or the gorilla freaks. Maybe I should stop thinking that I am so special, stop assuming that a freak accident can happen to an ordinary person like me and live comfortable in the knowledge that the statistics are on my side. 36 Ugandans, 1 American killed when bus slides over cliff due to heavy rain. That won't ever be me. (I've always wondered about the 1 nationality in these disaster articles. Who are they? Are they traveling alone? Where are they going? Are they internationally married?) I should just accept my old age and senility now and be done with it. But, be careful what you wish for, no?
Back in Butogota, I believe I experienced one of Dante's levels of hell in a motel room. I watched the sun set over a small, sleepy town looking west toward Congo and made small talk with the manager. I was a bit conspicuous and paranoid being the only white person in town. I could vanish without a trace. I ordered a dinner of spaghetti bolongaise that had bones in it (gross) and went to bed. I had to wake up at 4:30 am the next day to catch a bus back to Kampala. I fell asleep at 8:30 and woke up at midnight. Malaria medication, being alone, the heat, an irrational fear of the noises on the roof that were probably monkeys, mosquitoes buzzing around my ears that I couldn't see to kill (a truly maddening noise), having to wake up at 4:30 and not miss my death bus, lack of sleep, obsessing over a personal problem, a sore body after climbing a small mountain, and sitting on 2 12-hour buses in 3 days all conspired to make a personal hell for me out of an ordinary motel room in Butogota, Uganda. Only a small, luggage size padlock separated me from the bad things in the world. Talk about paranoia. You hear all of these horrible stories about Africa that always come back to haunt you in the middle of the night when you are by yourself in the middle of absolute nowhere. It lasted about 4 hours and it took a day to recover myself. Remembering my CD player and a Dave Matthews Band CD were what saved me from complete madness. Thank goodness I packed it. I had almost as much as I could take of Africa that night.
Naturally, nothing happened to me except the mental damage I inflicted upon myself. I had tea in the morning and caught my bus. I made my way back to Kampala on my 3rd 12-hour bus ride and met several interesting people and enjoyed the beautiful landscape. Again, I didn't pee for 12 hours. I did find a big black ant, about 1/2 inch, baked into my chapati bread. Nice. I speculated whether he climbed into the batter or fell into the hot pan. Remember, even though I felt like throwing up, there was nowhere to do it. I took the matatu back to Backpacker's as a dirty, dusty, exhausted, traveling woman. (Everyone is always surprised when a Mzungu alights a bus and doesn't want a taxi!) Henrik, my new Swedish friend, was still at the hostel and I was happy to talk with him. Before turning in early, I met another American named Jason traveling alone and we agreed to go to town the next day. The hostel had the best homemade carrot cake that night, which I treated myself to for making it back in one piece.
I slept in for the first time on my whole Ugandan experience and had a lazy morning at the hostel and afternoon in town. I ate at the best local restaurant called the Pot of Africa. I had cassava for the first time, which is starchy and I really liked it. I also tried some other new foods that were kind of tasteless. Most eateries have the ubiquitous greasy take-away items with mystery meats. I love them; they are delicious and usually overfried so they're safe. Have I ever mentioned that Africans always wash their hands before eating? There is always a sink somewhere out in the open and this place was no different. I saw the Ugandan parliament building and went to a bookstore. That evening, the power went out in the hostel so a few of us went to the movies. I saw About Schmidt, which is good, and if you've seen it there is a Tanzanian child named Udu or something that the main character sponsors through Save the Children. I thought it very odd that I was seeing the movie in Africa and have seen countless poor children standing outside of huts just like in Udu's picture. After the movie, as I was waiting for the other movie to let out with 2 of our party, I watched a club having a talent night from a balcony. Every group was a rap group and they sounded damn good. There was one girl in particular who was really talented. We went back home slightly early as Jason and I had to get up early to go white-water rafting on the Nile.
One of the origins of the Nile River is Lake Victoria in Uganda and it is a beautiful river. It is swift-moving with some of the best white water in the world as I soon found out. Never having been rafting before I decided to start on the highest grade of rapids one can do, grade 5; there were grade 6's on the Nile but apparently you can't do those without getting killed. It was so exciting. We started out early and the company picked us up and drove about an hour to the river. I was almost tired of trying new things at this point; getting scared about the experience, the threat of bodily harm, the thrill of something new, the uncertainty, the excitement, the adrenaline. I had been experiencing these same feelings so often over the past 6 months with each new feat or experience that it almost became predictable. I knew then that it was time to take a rest and go back to a comfortable life or risk losing my childlike discovery of the world and new things. So many signs were pointing me in the direction of home. Anyway, back to the rafting. The day that I went was also the publicity day for a group trying to stop the fighting in the North. There was a blind man, a man with polio, a girl missing a leg, and a man without use of his legs going rafting. They were all wearing t-shirts with funny mottos that I can't remember right now. Now, if these people can do the rafting anyone can. With the group came the press, I was interviewed for a Ugandan national TV newsmagazine that would be airing the next week. Anyone catch it?
Before the raft trip started, we watched someone do the new bungi jump. It was a paltry 44 meters (132 ft) and not nearly in as beautiful or momentous a spot (mine was 111 meters or 333 ft.) We were split into groups and started our trip with some training like the commands and how to hold on. Our guide also made us fall out of the boat and pull ourselves back in. I was scared but it was fantastic. The water was about as big as you can get. On our first rapid, the Danish guy across from me got sucked out of the boat and went under for a few seconds. Then I was really scared. He forgot to turn over and breathe. He said he didn't know when he came up, the water was twirling him around. Luckily, that did not happen to me although it might have been fun. Our second rapid was a small waterfall, Bujagali Falls, about 2 meters or 6 ft. This rapid is close to a campground and everyone comes down to the water to see if your boat will flip. It was quite fun. There were always locals at the water's edge thinking we are crazy for going in the white water. Little boys swimming, people bathing in the buff or washing clothes, the little kids always wave, I even saw a river taxi. We did 8 rapids before having lunch on an island in the middle of the river. By then, I was feeling more confident. When you go through a big rapid like that, the rush is great. The bumping of the boat, the noise of the water, the spray in your face, our guide shouting things to us - paddle left, paddle harder, get down, backpaddle right. Get down meant get down into a crouch in the boat, face outwards, keep your paddle level and don't hit anyone with it, hang on, and listen for the next shouted instruction. We always went through a rapid beforehand, she would warn us of a get down command coming up. I'm wearing a red shirt in these photos.
I didn't even get sunburnt. Most people were lathering on sunscreen, and I did use a bit on my face, but I was so used to the equatorial African sun by now that even being on a river for 8 hours didn't faze my skin. I found that amazing as I am such a pale person. My tan was not nearly what a normal person's would have been after 6 months in Africa but it was the most tan I have ever been in my life. After lunch, we had long stretches of flat river and 4 more rapids. Even though I had huge blisters, and I mean huge from my bum hiking boots, you can be sure that I put my feet into the right positions to hang on for the rapid with the 4 meter or 12 foot waterfall. Our guide hyped this one up quite a bit and I was nervous to go over it. Jason helped me on the boat ride, he had been rafting many times before, and his comment 'that's as big as they ever get' early on helped me immensely. I thought well, if that's as big as it gets I can handle it. We ended up going over the waterfall backwards, which was interesting. The guy in the front of the boat nearly got sucked into the waterfall but Jason pulled him back by his t-shirt with one hand while holding onto his paddle and the raft with the other. That rapid was the worst. I skipped the last one, it was a choice. We got out of the boat and surveyed it. I felt that I had done enough that day and didn't want to press my white-water rafting luck. I watched my group and then changed my clothes. There was a cooler of free beer on the way back to Kampala and I had a few. Everyone was so hyped up and having fun on the bus.
The sunset was magnificent also. I knew that I didn't have many left in Africa and I enjoyed it to the fullest. We made our way back to the hostel drunk, ate dinner, talked with Henrik, and went to bed exhausted and happy. I had to get up at 5:30 am the next morning to catch my 12-hour day bus back to Nairobi. I took my last motorcycle taxi to the Akamba bus station. The bus ride was one of the bumpiest and noisiest I have ever been on, I literally thought it would break in two pieces, the floor under my feet was shifting in 2 different directions. It was a beautiful ride through the lush green hills and tea plantations down to Lake Victoria and through the mountains to Nairobi, uneventful, the girl next to me didn't talk the whole time. I saw my last glimpse of the beautiful, expansive Great Rift Valley just before Nairobi, took some photos, and drank in the impossibly big landscape. I called David, my taxi guy, to pick me up and saw him for the last time that evening. I was leaving Nairobi in exactly 2 days and had very mixed feelings about it.
Wednesday, May 07, 2003
(Warning: my host and therefore my site will be down for upgrading from May 9th to May 16th.)
My last weeks in Nairobi have been busy. I have been writing my journal, which no one probably reads anyway, and getting ready for the UN-HABITAT General Council. Saying good-bye to friends who are leaving, hello to some who have returned, having dinners, going out on the Nairobi town and readying myself for my Uganda trip to see gorillas before returning to the States near the end of the month. As my friend Regan predicted, I am neither sick nor tired of traveling and planning. I wish I had the money to stay and travel longer. This is my last week of work as an intern and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Africa. Here are some photos of the General Council happening now. There are some good parties too.
The long rains are here; they surprised me when I returned to Nairobi, when I left it was beautiful. It is very, very wet and rainy all over Kenya. There is flooding and mud everywhere. Many people have lost their homes. One million residents of Nairobi, including myself, were without water for 3 days this week because of a problem with a dam. Ironic that the water shortage affects UN staff during the GC, whose motto is “Water is life, sanitation is dignity.” You should have heard the complaining by staff; water everywhere and not a drop to shower in. Most people have water tanks here and don’t depend on the city water, so I did have water to brush my teeth with and use the toilet. The UN complex did have water and I was here most of the time so I hardly noticed. We did have a large tree fall down at the house, luckily right into the driveway and not on top of my bedroom.
Last Sunday, I went to a Quaker church service in Kangami (one of Nairobi's slums.) The askaris, Obed and Wycliffe, at my house have been asking me to go and as my time is almost up I agreed. It was very early, 7:30 am, and raining when we left. Two matatus later we arrived at the church in time to see my friend Obed, who is a pastor there, perform a baptism. The service was 3 hours long, there were about 80 people, and it was very interesting. I had to get up and introduce myself as a visitor and Wycliffe translated into Swahili for me. There were testimonials at the beginning as to how God has impacted some people's lives and to thank members of the church for good deeds. Most of the service was in Swahili of course, but Kenyan Swahili intersperses English words. The singing was wonderful, all acapella; this church was very basic. Some of the little kids sat on my lap and kept me warm. It was very cold in the wood and sheet metal roof church but after the sun comes out it's 80 degrees again. Layers, layers, layers. The church took a special offering for new church benches to accommodate the growing congregation and asked me to say a prayer and lead the blessing for the offering. The preacher said "Now, Robin will lead us in a prayer...." And me, who hadn't really been paying attention and thinking about other things, thought "Robin will do what?!" I was mortified; I am not an organized religious person and have never led a prayer before in my life. I tried to wing it and keep it short. I found it very funny in an ironic way but had to be serious. I felt like a charlatan but I couldn't refuse the honor. I just went to be friendly and supportive not to find God. And everyone was so nice to me. After the service, I walked to Wycliffe's house for tea (I love Kenyan tea, it is delicious) and lunch. I am so honored that he invited me into his home but I felt like I was taking food out of the mouths of babes. He has to support a large family on a small salary and he is offering me food. But, it is very, very rude to refuse. His family is below:
Tuesday, May 06, 2003
(Warning: my host and therefore my site will be down for upgrading from May 9th to May 16th.)
Trip Installment #5:(Final)
On the last official day of the trip, the 21st day, I barely woke up on time to go on my early morning microflight around Victoria Falls. Glynis had to wake me 15 minutes after I shut my alarm off. Oh, it would have been so nice to sleep in but I guess one of the natural wonders of the world is worth getting to. We had to cross back over to the Zambian side. A microflight is a hanglider with a small motor and you are just kind of hanging out in the open. My pilot said, “Welcome to my motorbike” in a South African accent. The 15-minute flight made a circle around the falls and it was lovely. There are so many rainbows at Vic Falls and I love rainbows. The Falls are a magnificent sight from 1500 feet. It is a wide (1.5 k or 3 miles) but narrow gorge and then the river curves into deep, sharp “S” turns; different from Niagara Falls, which is an open basin. We returned to the airport low along the Zambezi to spot hippo and elephant. I much prefer this type of flying to a commercial jet; you feel weightless.
After all 6 of us completed our flights and with it being only 9 am, we decided to take a walk on the Zambian side of the Falls. When the river is high (as it was), the Zambian side is the better vantagepoint. It cost $10 to walk in the park (of course), but it was so fun. You walk right near the falls and become completely, completely soaked. Everything gets wet, even your passport, even if you protect it, which you have to carry to get back into Zimbabwe. We opted not to rent rain gear or buy thongs (flip-flops), but we did put our camera equipment into a plastic bag that someone happened to be carrying. Good thing too, I had my digital camera out and I’m lucky it still works. There was a long narrow bridge that was the initiation to the sheets of mist and then the soaking continued until you came back across the bridge. I couldn’t see anything. We played like little kids in the rain, you just couldn’t help feeling like a kid jumping through mud puddles. The Falls are beautiful from a place where you can see the rushing water, hear the roar, feel the mist, smell the damp earth, and taste the raindrops.
After seeing the Falls (and that bridge is the one I jumped from), we walked back to the town of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and ate at Wimpy’s. Again. I then went back to the campsite and relaxed near the pool. After much contemplation and money sorting, I also booked my BUNGI jump. See, at this point on the trip, I had not taken enough US dollars out of my bank account in Malawi, the last safe place to do it. You cannot use a credit card in Zimbabwe at all, you will be charged one US dollar to the official bank exchange rate of 70 Zim dollars or worse one US dollar to one Zim dollar. The black market exchange rate is 1200 Zim to 1 US. I could have been arrested for changing money in the back room of the tour booking office. The economic and political realities of Zimbabwe are pretty harsh. Britain, European Union, and the US refuse to officially recognize President Mugabe’s dirty election win last year. The economy keeps getting worse and the government is highly corrupt. The opposition party keeps protesting and getting beat up and arrested. So, long story short, I didn’t have many US dollars but I really wanted to do the bungi jump, so I bartered some of my goods, like film, sunscreen, vodka, kikoi's, etc with Emma and Darren. I had to make Josh buy my last meal in Zimbabwe, as I also ran out of local currency. Anyway, that night we went out to dinner at Spur’s, a South African chain that looks like an American restaurant. It was in a hotel that looks like a Las Vegas casino. That is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. The blind people are out front begging for money but the foreigners can gamble right inside. There is also a gas shortage in Zimbabwe. Cars are just lined up at the gas stations although you can get gas on the black market. We had it, taxis had it, and you just don’t ask where it comes from. After the casino/hotel, we went to a really dodgy bar called the Explorer that had really cheap drinks and dancing. It was fun but I went home early as I had to bungi jump the next morning. A drunken Dan, who apparently wanted to scare everyone by shaking him or her awake, did awaken me at 4 am. My roommates on the other hand did not make it in the room before dawn.
The next morning, after a fitful night’s sleep – considering Dan and the nervousness of my upcoming jump, I woke up at 8:30 to go to my bungi jump scheduled for 10:28. I took a taxi with 3 other very excited people, ready to jump. There were 8 of us altogether that jumped, though I was the only woman, and the rest of our group came to watch. I was number 4 to jump. I did not want to be first or last, so fourth was okay with me. This was my first jump and what a nice place to do it, off of a bridge right next to the Falls. I was nervous but not that nervous, not as nervous as I should have been. I get more nervous when I take a commercial flight. Weird, eh? I mentally prepared myself, they put the harness on while others were jumping, and then I moved into the little booth on the side of the bridge, all the while listening to the upbeat techno music they played. They put the straps on my feet, I didn’t really listen to what the guy said to me, I stared at him and was trying to listen and concentrate but it was impossible. Ben, the next to jump, watched me get ready and gave me a supportive wink. My mind was actually pretty blank, the adrenaline pumping. Then I stood up, hopped over to the edge, and they strapped the carrabeeners on my legs to the bungi cord. I guess at this point I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing, just waiting for the countdown, toes on the edge of the platform now, looking into oblivion, into the horizon, not really seeing it, waiting for 54321, only listening for the 1, hearing the numbers, 5-4-3-2-1, jump.
And jump I did, no hesitation, ready to give it all away, trusting in myself, trusting in the women and men who made the rope and the bridge and the straps and the rubber cords and the welding on the bridge to stop my fall at 111 meters, to stop me from falling into the water at terminal velocity, to stop me from dying. The fall was so fast, the earth rushing closer and then I bounced and bounced, up and down, left and right, back and forth, kept looking at the rainbow, the perfect circle of a rainbow that I had just jumped through, seeing the water and the falls, hearing the river rush below me, feeling the mist of the falls on my body and then watching the guy coming to catch me and pull me back onto the bridge. Then a slight panic. Why am I hanging under a bridge, upside-down, attached to a rope, half-way between the top and the river, half-way between life and death, the here and the beyond? I desperately wanted to be back on the bridge. Why had I jumped? What was I thinking? I felt so vulnerable hanging there upside-down; so small and the experience was so big. Hanging was much worse for me than the actual jump. It was wonderful.
I was buzzing the rest of the day although my energy level was low. Just thinking of the jump would give me a rush, in fact it still does. Glynis, who is a nurse, informed me that when you have an adrenaline rush like that, it depletes most of your energy. I stayed near the pool in the afternoon and took a nap. We all stayed near the campsite and had dinner there on this Sunday evening, which was really our last night together. About twelve people continued on the truck to Cape Town and the rest of us had already left or were leaving at various times. We watched traditional Zimbabwean dancing; this type involves high knees. I always find African tribal dancing fascinating and it is always slightly different with different sounds. There is usually one physical move that is highly prized, like the Maasai with jumping and Zimbabweans with the high knee movement.
The dinner was somber but the food was really good, everyone was tired, and I said good-bye to some people. Most of us went to bed right after dinner (have I ever mentioned that I usually eat dinner at 9 pm). The truck was leaving at 10 the next morning and I got up with my roommates to see them off. Naturally, it was sad to say good-bye. The Australians gave a traditional good-bye and the people on the truck reciprocated. I went to the market and spent the last of my local currency. I left the campsite at 1 PM and kissed my Australian tormenters/brothers good-bye. My flight through Harare back to Nairobi was uneventful; I slept the whole way, and returned to my Nairobi house at 11 PM a much happier person. Happier for going on the trip, meeting the people, seeing part of Africa and having a great time.
Sunday, May 04, 2003
(Warning: my host and therefore my site will be down for upgrading from May 9th to May 16th.)
Trip Installment #4:
Day 19 of the trip was my 28th birthday and what a great day it was. I awoke at 6 am in Lusaka to Mische knocking on my tent and asking me if I wanted coffee or tea. She returned with tea and an awful outfit that I had to wear on the truck. It was an unflattering fluorescent green dress with a duck pattern and a pair of red knee-socks with hearts on them. So we put my hair into plaits (braids) and I had a Heidi/Dorothy look happening. I received some very special birthday kisses and the news that I had to drink my age in drinks throughout the day. I did my best but I don't think I made it. I also spotted some zebras at the campsite. Mische decorated business class with balloons and gave me some gifts to open, including some jewelry that she had snatched out of my hand as I was about to buy it in Lilongwe. We drove for about 8 hours to just past Livingston, Zambia eating lunch on the truck. My outfit was really ridiculous but I made the most of it.
We arrived at our camp on the Zambezi River about 3 and prepared for the sunset river cruise with Zimbabwe on one side and Zambia on the other. We were almost at Victoria Falls, the Holy Grail of the trip and we could see the mist from the boat. These are also known as booze cruises because free alcohol is served for 4 hours; what a great thing for a birthday. We received our bad taste outfits and I laughed and laughed. Mine was another ugly dress, but I had become quite comfortable in my neon one and didn’t want to give it up. Most of the men received some type of lingerie or dress that they actually wore. Most of us women were given an ugly dress. Petra had this beautiful electric blue number with 80’s lace and Ben wore a negligee with a pair of green jockeys.
I can’t divulge everything that happened on this birthday evening, your opinion of me might be lowered or confirmed, but it was one of my best birthdays. What I remember of the cruise and the campsite bar that we went to afterwards was great. We danced on the boat, had plenty of drinks, and ate dinner. I did have a birthday cake although I didn’t eat it. Everyone sang the song and I cut the cake, very ferociously for some reason. I learned a Zimbabwean dance kind of like the twist that apparently I had no trouble with. I was literally carried over Dash’s shoulders to the bar from the boat, I guess I didn’t want to leave and he wanted to give me a birthday ride. I danced at the bar (I have photos to prove it, somebody took the liberty of snapping photos with my camera) and people were wearing life jackets and river rafting helmets and carrying oars at one point (who knows why, but it was funny). It was a fabulous time but I was in bed by 10 or 11 pm. Josh carried me to my tent, which I couldn’t identify and he had to find (they all look the same, my first night in Arusha I tried to enter the wrong tent twice), and I hurt my foot when he put me down. Still hurts actually. Poor Emma, my tent-mate, she tried to give me some water which I refused and then rudely told her to turn out her flashlight. Naturally, I don’t remember any of it and who knows what actually happened that night. Other people did stupid things that night, it wasn’t just me. For example, Damien went into the pool with his camera. All I know is it was great to be in Africa in Zambia near Victoria Falls at a bad taste party on a booze cruise on my 28th birthday.
Even though I had such an eventful evening, I was up at 6 am the next day and rearing to go on a walking rhino safari. There were bets made that I would not do the safari I had signed up for but I am a stubborn Taurus. I do not know what I was expecting out of this walking safari but it was not to be scared witless. We were broken up into two groups of 6; each with a guide and a guard. The first rhino we tracked was fine; she was an older mama who couldn’t care less if we were right next to her. The second group of rhino was different. I came within 5 meters (15 feet) of 3 very large, very fast, aggressive wild rhinos and I did not like it. It was very exhilarating but my God. My hangover started to kick in about 9 am and I was thinking what the **** am I doing walking through the bush looking at rhino with other big wild animals around, like buffalo, elephant, and hippo? I soon found out. I was crazy. After we got in the path of the 3 rhinos and had to quickly move out of the way and they trotted right by us with very large horns, I continued for more torture! We were told to walk in groups of 6 in strict single file and walked through the bush to find other game and after about 15 minutes heard a very loud rustling to our right. The guy that had the machine gun went to check it out. It was African buffalo, only the most aggressive game animal. It was just letting us know it was around and I had almost peed my pants. I was seriously scared and not enjoying myself very much. We continued for a bit more and heard the rustling again. Oh, let’s go a different way please. Only later did Tony tell us that in low scrub just like the environment we were in, buffalo would circle the prey and attack from all sides all at once. Great, and this is worth $45. So, I am feeling faint and ready to pass out from the dehydration, the heat, the sun, the excitement, and then we stumble upon 5 giraffes feeding on some trees. It was amazing to be so close and personal.
Africa is like this; scaring the pants off you one minute and awing you with its beauty the next. It makes you feel so alive; you just have to be able to let go and love it. I felt a bit better and then we saw some zebras, gazelles, more buffalo (from a distance), another rhino (in the distance), and I did enjoy the walking safari. However, when I saw our truck, I cut my walk short and lay down and met up with the group at the end point. They had a wonderful lunch on the banks of the Zambezi River while I napped in the truck and then we caught a ride over to Zimbabwe to meet the rest of the group (who were all doing different things) at our final campsite. I signed up for my Victoria Falls activities at the Worldwide Adventure office in the town of Victoria Falls, ate at Wimpy’s (an English fast food chain, not very good but the only one), and went back to the campsite to nap some more. I had a wonderful afternoon. Still a bit hung over and with a gimpy foot, we all went to a pizza dinner paid for with the remainder of the kitty. We did make it to one bar and then it was straight to bed for me.
Saturday, May 03, 2003
(Warning: my host and therefore my site will be down for upgrading from May 9th to May 16th.)
Trip Installment #3:
Our trip continued with a long driving day through beautiful green mountains in middle and southern Tanzania to a campsite in the Iringa district called Farmhouse. There were sunflowers everywhere. I also remember trying an unidentified fruit that tasted bitter like passionfruit. As we stopped to buy charcoal (which is really wood that is mostly burnt already), I walked around a little town and watched a little kid pumping water out of a well with his feet. Many people in Africa spend a majority of their lives trying to get potable water. I bought a suspicious drink with pineapple juice and “milk” mix that was not very good.
Our campsite that night was quite high in altitude and freezing. The moon was almost full and so bright. The stars on the trip were amazing in these out of the way places. The bar was nice with low seating and everyone liked the Amarula and hot chocolate drinks. Amarula is a creamy African liqueur like Bailey’s. The shower water was heated with fires and the sinks were outside in the open. At night, the moon was bright and I didn’t need a flashlight to brush my teeth.
The cold part of our trip continued the next day while driving southwest through the rest of Tanzania to the Malawi border. We all sat in our sleeping bags and actually put some flaps down on the back of the truck. Brrrr. However, the lower we went in altitude the warmer we became as we drove into Malawi, “the heart of Africa.” We arrived at a beautiful warm camp called Chitimba about a 1-hour drive down the western side of Lake Malawi. Lake Malawi actually seems more like an ocean than a lake. Glynis and I set up our tent right on the beach and made our way to the bar. As we were all gathering at the beach bar before dinner, I saw one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. The full moon rose on the eastern side of the lake from behind the mountains. It was glorious and unexpected. AND the show happened again the next night. It was a beautiful golden moon and the night was warm and spent on the beach with good company.
Who could ask for more? After drinking a bit on the beach, Seona (pronounced Showna) and I decided to get in the canoe that was there for the use of the camp guests and have a turn on the small lake that was cut off from the big lake. She had already been out once and been soaked but I trusted her not to rock the boat again. I think I laughed the whole time we were out there for three reasons. 1. Seona is hilarious. 2. It was ridiculous. 3. We were drunk. Good times. Sleeping in the tent on the beach was very nice. The waves were loud and the moonlight was bright. The sleep party ended about 7 am when the sun heated the tent to about 100 degrees.
The next day, I decided not to go on the 10-hour hike to the Livingstonia mission and lay on the beach instead. It being Good Friday, a few of us attended a local Presbyterian church service in the late morning to repent our sins. Some stayed for the complete 3-hour service, but some like myself, snuck out early. Luckily too because those left were asked to introduce themselves and say why they were there. But, the singing was great. I shopped and relaxed the rest of the day.
In the evening, the moonrise awed me again and we hung out on the beach. The next morning, the 14th day of the trip, we drove about 6 hours down the lake to another beach called Kande (Candy). We stopped in a Malawi town called Mzuzu to replenish food and supplies. There was a very large outdoor clothes market where we shopped for the bad taste party occurring on my birthday on the Zambezi river cruise. We each picked a name to shop for and then searched for the worst possible outfit. There were plenty of choices. I chose a hot pink shell suit for Josh, though I think he would have preferred some lingerie or a dress. I also sampled some street food, there were delicious meat samosas and fried potato-like foods. We arrived at Kande Beach in the late afternoon, and because we were there 3 nights, Glynis and I chose to stay in a room with a bathroom. What luxury. I received the knob this night and for some reason we were all eager to party. We ran up quite a bar tab and Mische introduced us to several African kinds of shots, including the ostrich, giraffe, and gazelle or something. All of the shots involved a no-hands policy. The ostrich involved a ridiculous mating dance with the female doing the shot from the floor and the male doing the shot from the bar. The giraffe included a split to the floor and the gazelle a bizarre dance looking for lions. The shots were tasty, silly, and fun. Thank God I don’t have any photos of that night, although there are others out there in existence. Guess what? Most of us ended up on the beach.
The waves on the beach were as big as the ocean and it was strange to be in freshwater waves. There is a parasite in Lake Malawi called Bilharzia or something that lives in your liver but who could resist this water? I took a test this week to see if I have it. There are so many parasites and diseases in Africa that take months and years to develop. I have just learned to accept it and hope that I haven’t contracted any. I am negative for Malaria. There is a nasty strain of cerebral malaria in Malawi that attacks your brain. Ouch. But, I don’t have it. I did take my malaria medication while on the trip and will until I get back to the States, just in case.
The first day at Kande I just relaxed, swam, read, and took some photos. Some of us recovered from the night before, but almost all of us were at the bar again that night trying the local spirit called No. 1. Don’t let the name fool you; it is not No. 1 and is in fact quite harsh. The second day, I did a scuba dive around a small island just offshore. The landscape was kind of boring but the freshwater tropical fish were cool. Apparently, 80% of the tropical fish in the world’s aquariums come from Lake Malawi. My claustrophobic fear during diving is receding and I am enjoying it very much now. We went to a local dinner at the chief’s house but it was very touristy. They gave us soup and a beef stew with beans and then danced and sang. They pulled us up to dance but my guy tried to sell me a necklace halfway through. Very Africa. This night most everyone was down for the count and I fell asleep on the beach under some blankets but it got very cold and I had to go to my room. I had a head cold the next day but it wasn’t anything too bad.
On our 17th day, we left Kande Beach to drive through the capital Lilongwe. Lovely city. The wood products in Malawi are quite nice and most of us did some serious shopping for carvings, Malawi chairs, and tables. I checked my email, let my sister know I was still alive, and went to the supermarket. Amy, the other American, joined our trip at this point. It must have been hard to join a group that’s been bonding for 17 days, but we made her feel right at home. We drove to the Zambia border and had our only border problem. I guess we waited there about 2 hours while Mische haggled over Sean’s visa problem. We went to our campsite at Chipata, Zambia in the dark. It was a nice site with soft ground and hot showers. Everyone went to bed early for the first time. I was extremely tired that night. The next day we arose early, early to drive another 12 hours to our campsite at Lusaka, capital of Zambia. (We drove all the way across Zambia in 2 days.) Lusaka also looked like a very nice city and it even had stoplights. We all salivated over a modern shopping center that had a Subway (the only one I have seen here) but it was straight to camp. It was pretty cold that night but the bar had a pool table and a TV with the news (my first news for a while.) Our last group dinner at the truck was that night and we spent it huddled around the fire. I also turned in early this night BECAUSE the next day was my BIRTHDAY and there was plenty of debauchery to be anticipated.
Friday, May 02, 2003
(Warning: my host and therefore my site will be down for upgrading from May 9th to May 16th.)
Trip Installment #2:
I think that this trip saved me from the version of Africa that was consuming and destroying me. I was able to see the goodness of Africa again through different sets of eyes. It took me about 4 days to see Africa as a tourist again in that carefree way instead of as a resident with all its problems. During my first conversations with certain people, I knew I sounded like a radical, depressed social activist who had nothing but sad things to say about Africa but I had to work through some things. I picked an intelligent person to unload my angry feelings on and that helped. No one seemed to mind. These trips don't show you the real Africa; you are just seeing what the tour leader wants you to see and meeting all the Africans who want to sell you something. There are Africans who don't want to sell you anything but want to invite you into their homes and share their culture. You don't meet those kinds of people on the overland tour.
That said, the trip started from Nairobi on a beautiful Sunday morning. Some of the group had been traveling together from Rwanda and Uganda on the same truck; some had been to the Maasai Mara for a 3-day trip together; some had already known each other. It took us about 4 days to become friends and feel comfortable together. Everything about a relationship is accelerated when you spend all-day, every-day together. We arrived in Arusha and stayed at a campsite called Snake Park about 30 minutes to the west of the city center. Glynis asked if I would like to be her tent partner, and, as I didn’t have one, I agreed. And I am glad that I did; we became good friends. She showed me how to put up the tent as she had been doing it for the two previous weeks. I hate to admit this but I had been camping (true camping with a tent) only once in my life before this trip. I did not let her know that right away; I tried to act like I knew what I was doing. This first day, I was also on dishes and had no idea what to do. Glynis helped us set up the buckets and showed us what soap went where. That first night I did not join others at the bar, I figured meeting everyone was enough for one day.
The next day we dismantled our tents and headed west to the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater for a 3-day trip. Fortunately, the booking company offered us $5 upgrades to hotels for one night in the Serengeti and one in the Crater and naturally, most of us accepted. Oh, it's such a hard life. We broke up into groups of 5 or 6 for the smaller trucks taking us on the bumpy 4 or 5-hour ride. We played cards, slept and bumped along up to the rim of the Crater, stopped for photos, and continued into the Serengeti. We saw a group of Maasai kids playing soccer. The Crater is beautiful and the vistas in both places are the biggest I have ever seen.
And green, the ride to the Serengeti was green, although the Serengeti itself is brown and classic Africa. Before arriving in the park, we came upon 25 giraffes grazing on some trees. Of course, we had to drive over and disturb them but it was lovely. I had considered skipping the Serengeti plain because I had been on safari in the Maasai Mara, which is the Kenyan extension of the plain. But I am glad I didn't. The Serengeti feels limitless and looks it too. While on the afternoon game drive, we saw a family of 10 lions with 1 large male, hippos, a servile cat, a leopard kill hanging in a tree without the leopard, zebra and other game. We stood up in the safari van while going 80 kph (55 mph) and felt the harsh wind of the ancient place. It was lovely. These hotels in the middle of nowhere are amazing; they have hot showers, clean beds, fully-stocked bars and gourmet (okay, luxurious) meals. Seona received the knob that night for putting many large chunks of what she thought was feta cheese (it was floating in a large bowl of water) but which actually turned out to be butter on her salad.
The next morning's game drive showed me my first leopard. They are beautiful creatures with beautiful eyes and coats. Now I have covered all of the big game; leopard, lion, cheetah, elephant, giraffe, gazelles, buffalo, rhino, zebra, hippo, etc. We continued back to the Ngorogoro Crater via the Olduvai Gorge (actually, a European distortion of Oldupai Gorge), also called the cradle of mankind. Richard and Mary Leakey and their teams discovered very important archaeological remains here. Mary Leakey found footprints dating back 3.5 million years. Our truck happened upon a group of 50 or so vultures eating the remains of a zebra. Our driver surmised that because there weren't any large predators around a Maasai teenager had killed the zebra for practice and just left it. The vulture's beaks aren't strong enough to break the skin of the zebra and so they create a tear and then pull everything out. The sounds of eating and the angry squawking made me slightly ill.
We arrived at the hotel on the Crater's rim in time to take a shower and see the sunset. After a delicious meal (we were really roughing it), we enjoyed an acrobatic show by a Tanzanian group that was more impressive than Cirque du Soliel. I swear, they were amazing. Flipping around, juggling fire, riding unicycles, using household items as props, flipping Jack Daniel's bottle on round pegs protruding from their mouths, doing a limbo that was on fire, going through hoops, AND all the while playing the music in shifts. Damn, it was good. No photos, sorry. Sunrise the next morning over the crater and then driving down the rim for a game drive. Being in the crater was great; encircled by a large mountain rim and seeing all the game, hundreds of zebra, flamingoes, and wildebeest. We did see a rhino but he did not come very close. We drove up and out of the green crater and had lunch at a spot where the hawks will swoop down and take a chicken bone from your fingers. Apparently, they are used to lunchtime feedings there. Then it was back to the Arusha campsite.
That night, after becoming better acquainted, things became more relaxed and everyone hung out at the bar. It was that late afternoon when I watched the US marines take down a statue of Saddam on live TV (same time zone). I did not receive much news on the trip, most bars did not have a TV and the foreign news of the local papers can be scarce. I did not have access to any modern devices (except the occasional phone or Internet cafe) and when I did hear a cell phone it sounded extremely harsh. It was actually quite nice to be inside a bubble for a little while and not be tied to a computer or office. Here's a classic pose:
The next morning we visited the Snake Park at the campsite and saw the 5 crocodiles being fed. The noise and smell were rather obnoxious. They were fed (actually, thrown) a whole goat; we got to see the skull which had been cut in half for easy digestion and all of the entrails. I almost threw up and I am not that squeamish about these things. We also were able to hold snakes; which I did. I also learned that if you do receive a snake bite and it has 4 prongs, no worries. If the bite has 2 prongs, be very worried. Venomous snakes only leave 2 holes. There is a snake that Africans call the 3-step; 3 steps and you're dead. Nice. Yes, very nice to be camping and running around with all of these snakes, spiders, and critters.
After stopping in Arusha, we continued east to a campsite on the Pangani River. At least that's what my itinerary says. I am completely blanking on this place. I remember all of the other campsites but this one must not have been very memorable. Oh, wait. This was the one up in the mountains that took forever to drive to. There were beautiful waterfalls on the way and I upgraded for $1 USD to a bed in a room with Mische, Sean, and John. It was rather wet, cold and muddy. We played darts on a stone porch and Dan pretended to throw the knob into the bushes and poor Gautam believed him. Dan proceeded to pretend to find the small, wooden knob in the middle of thick underbrush after Gautam was forced to make a new one and cut his finger. That was a fun evening. A lit cigarette was flicked into my bag and burned some clothing (specifically, a bra) after Josh spooked Sean through the window of our room. Fair Enough.
The next day, 6 days into the trip, we drove to Dar Es Salaam in Tanzania. An okay city, what I saw of it, which was not much. We stopped to surf the Internet, go to the grocery store, etc. We then continued to our campsite on the beach where I finally did some laundry. This was the first of many beach sightings to come. The water was extremely hot. We camped right next to the beach and our tent almost flew over from the breeze. This campsite had a very nice pool table, we played for shooters and then went to the beach. Sounds tough, eh? We arose the next morning, some with a hangover, to go to the tropical island paradise called Zanzibar, land of spice. The high-speed ferry took 2 hours and we arrived in Stonetown about mid-day. Stonetown was only 39 degrees Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) going into winter. We didn't have to stay together at the same hotels on Zanzibar, but we did.
I opted to go on an afternoon town and spice tour. We were picked up and shown around town. We saw the old fort of the Arabs and the former slave market. For about 300 years, Arab slave traders would go into the African interior and capture people to use as slaves. They would circle whole villages and catch whoever they could, women and children included. The Africans were then transported to the island where there was a market twice a week of about 200 slaves. They sat in small basement rooms with one window for up to 3 days to see who died; men in one room and women and children in another. They were then tied to a post on market day and whipped to see if they screamed and cried. If they didn't, they fetched a higher price for not showing weakness. Which is unfortunate because most African tribal cultures prize not showing a reaction to pain. After being sold, they were shipped off to India and later the Caribbean and America in cramped quarters.
The spice tour was much more light-hearted. After being given a lunch with delicious aromatic rice and beef, we drove to a spice farm or rather spice area. Our guide showed us many, many spices that I don't remember the names of and some I do. Pepper grows on a vine and nutmeg is an odd looking little nut in the middle of a piece of fruit. We had pineapples, paw paw, coconuts, and other things cut open for us to try. It was great. We had a tasty licorice-type fruit too. A little kid climbed a very, very tall coconut tree and cut some down. The local kids followed us around looking for tips by making palm necklaces, rings, bags, shopping cones, and giving us flowers.
After the tour, we were dropped at a place called the Africa House for a sundowner. It was a beautiful sunset and worth braving the potential bomb warnings (it is a typical Westerner hang-out). If Westerners go anyplace, the US government (and then British Government) has likely issued a travel warning for it. Zanzibar in general is supposed to be a no-go place for Americans. One just has to be careful and if it's your time, then it's your time. What are you going to do, sit in your house and miss this sunset?
That evening we went to a local fish market near the water. They had tons of fresh fish, squid, calamari, etc. While others raved about their crustaceans, I was not that happy with my skewers of barracuda and whitefish, but they had very good chapati (traditional flat, pancake-like bread). After spending a very hot night sweating and sleeping in Stonetown, I went shopping the next morning to one of my new favorite stores on the planet, Memories of Zanzibar. They had the best fabrics, jewelry and shoes from India and Asia. I gave them many dollars and received very nice Thai wrap-around skirts and unique jewelry.
Later that morning, we traveled to the most northern part of the island called Nungwi; some on motor-bikes (yes, they did get hurt), some in rented cars, and others, like myself, in a rented van. We all eventually arrived at a paradise beach with rooms and beds. The water was mildly warm and the bar was nicely situated. The first night, we had a fish buffet provided by the locals and walked up the beach to THE BEST BAR ON EARTH called the Cholo Bar (Maria, you'll appreciate that.) The moon was almost full, the bar was shaped like a ship that was located on top of and pointed towards a beautiful beach, the music was outstanding, there was a chill fire-pit, there were hammocks everywhere, a beach volleyball net (which we tried to play unsuccessfully in the dark), a beach dance floor, raised bar tables made out of old, weathered boats, outdoor bathrooms made of straw, and cheap drinks. Needless to say, we enjoyed ourselves there until at least 2 in the morning (no one wears watches, so who knows what time it was). Some of us went skinny-dipping and of course we went back the next night for more of the same.
The next day I spent walking on the beach, in the water (snorkeling a bit and swimming) and at the deck of the bar. It was wonderful and relaxing. On the 10th day of the trip, we returned to Stonetown, did some shopping, caught the afternoon ferry back to mainland Tanzania (some of us more seasick than others-Damien), did some practical shopping, and returned to our campsite and tents on the beach in Dar Es Salaam to detox for a night. Zanzibar was a great time.
