i'm an a-hole

The week has been busy and I will post soon...

For now, here's I think my favorite photograph taken in Tanzania.

another time, another place




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Adventures in Bongo Land Part I: Baby I want you, Baby I need you...

So these past couple weeks I've been gone-- my brother came to visit, and Paul, Alex, and I decided to take the opportunity to see some of sweet, sweet Tanzania outside of Dar. (Note: "Bongo" as in the title of this post, actually means "anything having to do with Dar Es Salaam". So the title is completely wrong, considering we were everywhere but Bongo Land. But I like the way it sounds.)

My brother and I first take off for Tanga, with Dickson, one of the teachers at Bibi Jann's, and Yuda, his cousin. We are going up to visit Dickson's sister, Rehema, who I got to know when she was pregnant and came to Dar to have the baby. Tanga's to the north, and it is about a 6-hour bus-ride up. We sit in the back, and it's bumpy as hell.

Rehema, Rajabu, and Faisal

In Tanga we meet Rehema and her husband, Rajabu, who works as an accountant for the goverment (Rehema is a teacher at a nearby school). We also meet their kids, Faisal (the newborn) and Mustafa (best name ever), and walk over to Rajabu's dad's house to meet him and have a soda. This is a recurring theme of my experience here: meet someone new, they take you to other people they know and you sit at their house and have a soda. I feel like a pet pony on display sometimes, but its okay, because I like sodas.

Mustafa

*******

Then we head down to the sea. See the dhows, the Swahili wooden boats that use no nails in their construction, where guys were bringing in their day's loot of fishing. The sun is setting over the water, and we speak to the fishermen about where they live and how they like it here. As we leave, climbing back up through the woods, we pass a group of teenage boys sitting on a big fallen down tree, singing some oldies song:

"Baby I want you,
Baby I need you..."

I will never forget that moment.

Fisherman and Dhow (credit M. Christie)

Dickson, Rehema and Rajabu by the ocean (credit M. Christie)

*******

From there, Dickson lets us know that we are going to see the Amboni Caves. I had heard about these caves before (Ben had gone back in June), and so we're pretty excited. The walk down, a dirt road shaded by trees, is about as idyllic as it gets. The caves, on the other hand, are another story.

Don't get me wrong, they are cool. But their coolness is overshadowed by two main events: The first was my childhood in Tennessee, where I went camping as a Boy Scout in Cumberland Caverns. Now that place is huge and awesome. Tennessee is also right next door to Kentucky, home of Mammoth Cave, the most mammoth of all caves in the universe. Amboni is a bit small in contrast.

The second event is our tour. Our guide's a nice guy, but his degree is not in caveology. We pretty much just walk around, and he points at different rocks and tells us what each one looks like. We see a giant foot, a leopard, a big ship, the virgin mary, among other things.

Walking down to the caves

When we finish the cave, our guide asks us if we want to see "the other cave". Matthew and I shrug our shoulders and say "sure." As we walk in, our guide informs us that this cave is a little different. Same story, different characters. Once again, we walk around and he tells us what different rocks look like, but this time, they just all happen to be various parts of the male and female genitalia. And boy, we do we see it all.

Matthew and Yuda outside the "Cave of Many Pleasures"

*******

From there we head home to Rehema's and have some dinner. We eat mangoes in a completely new way: with the skin on. You just kind of go for it-- forget about peeling, you bite right on in to the damn thing.

Dickson is practically jumping out of his seat saying "we're going to the disco tonight!" again and again. So around 11PM, Dickson, Rajabu, Yuda, Matthew, and I, head into town.

The disco is pretty much your standard East African dance-club fare, I think. The lovely joint is called "HOTEL LA CASA CHICA" (for those of you who don't abla espanol that means HOTEL THE HOUSE GIRL). We have our fair share of guys dancing with themselves in front of mirrors, and entire-dance-floor interruptions to play Happy Birthday. I'm gonna miss that place.

What's notable is what followed. We leave HOTEL LA CASA CHICA around 1:30AM, and walk outside to get a cab. Rajabu welcomes us instead into some random guy's car. So we stuff 4 in the back and, before we get 2 blocks down, a big Land Rover Defender with POLISI written on the side pulls in front of us and motions for us to slow down. (Important note: there is no distinction here in Tanzania between the police and the army. That takes the anxiety level up a few notches every time you interact with an officer, cause it feels kind of like martial law)

An officer walks over and leans his head in, starts spouting off "You're not a cab! How many people are in here? What are you, a car or a train?" and the like. He finally tells Rajabu to get in the back of the cop-truck, and he would ride shotty himself with us to the station. I ask him why we couldn't jump out and get another cab. He just laughs. I'm powerless, and preparing myself for a lifetime in Tanzanian jail.

(Another important note: Jails here are hellish, worse than hell. 40 people in a tiny room, barely room to sit, gruel that hardly passes for food, no rules. Comparisons to concentration camps are possible.)

We get to the station and, after a few minutes, he lets us go. The "taxi" driver stays behind at the mercy of the officers. I'm angry as hell. I'm also relieved, and a bit enlightened. I had never realized just how much the citizenry here was completely powerless to the whims of the police. That guy could have done anything to us, anything, and we wouldn't have had a prayer.

We walk (damn right) our way back home and hit the bed for sleep. The next morning Matthew and I rise bright and early, have an incredible glass of fresh-squeezed passion fruit juice, and get ready to catch our bus up to Arusha, where we will meet Paul and Alex for safari.