Our Day in the DRC: Fun and Games for All

So, after meeting the mayor and exploring our relic of a hotel, we woke up the next day ready to see as much as possible that day before moving on. Adventures awaited.

Given the, er, "patchy" tourist infrastructure available in the newly-liberated UN protectorate of Goma, David and I found we basically had to rent a car, complete with driver and guide, to get out of the city and see the area at all.

We thus passed a lovely morning with Jacques and Alain, visiting the beautiful lakes, the refugee camps, an orphanage, and the ruins left behind after the eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in 2002. This last was pretty impressive to see, as the thick lava leveled whole swaths of the town before hardening in place, leaving wide black tracks across old-town Goma. The rippled black rivers now double as a nature-made road network, but I think for driving comfort I would prefer some of the worst that Ethiopia has to offer.

For the sake of my father the geologist, we also went up to the monitoring stations where volcanologists monitor a series of indicators to predict seismic activity. They told us about each of these in excruciating detail while I privately remembered why it is that I have no interest in following in my dad's rocky footsteps. (I plucked up a couple of weirdly bubbled rocks from the ground for him though.)

Freed at last and escaping in haste to our car, I started to ask David what he wanted me to translate, but he stopped me short - "Don't bother."

Interestingly, we learned (among other things) that the other volcano, not to be outdone by its twin, is ALSO now set to erupt. They predict the event as happening "not this week but possibly next", and they think lava's going to flow away from Goma this time. So that's nice.

After the volcano and the orphanage, we drove out to the refugee camps. Unlike the carnage of the lava flows, which despite their destruction had moved far too slowly to kill anyone and which have not registered as a painful tragedy in local memory, this was a scene of legitimate misery, and David and I shied away from going in. Something about wandering around to gawk at displaced, tormented families in their ad-hoc UNHCR shelters seems a bit .. insensitive.

Our final sight-seeing stop consisted of the amazing lakes that surround Goma, made more unusual by the fact that enough lava flowed into them in 2002 to leave behind considerable methane deposits. (Go ask my dad if you want to know why or how.) The local population, come to the shore to collect the methany water, found us more than interesting entertainment, and while I gawked at misty Lake Kivu, they gawked at me.

The locals weren't the only ones to mark our arrival with interest, however, and before long we were joined by two men, one in civilian and one in military attire. Wanting to see our papers, they requested we walk over to their ramshackle shed of a police-post set up at one side of the rocky shore.

We have often been stopped like this, especially in zones with high UN/military presence, and neither one of us was particularly alarmed. Not until we got inside and produced our papers did I realize there would be a problem.

Casting aside David's passport, the civilian, at pains to convey his importance, flipped through mine from the first page to the last with a critical eye and an idleness which made made me suspect he had nothing better to do. I pointed out both the visa, obtained at the embassy in Kigoma, and my valid entry stamp - dated only the day before - but neither of these things seemed to mollify him. After scruntinizing them both, he launched an impressively creative series of attempts to declare one or both illegitimate.

First the bureaucrat pointed out the date listed on the visa, the date of application, as a "false entry". Then he insisted that since my visa gave "une seule entrée", it was only for one day. Monsieur reached a new level of the ridiculous when he declared that the official signature validating my entry stamp was actually someone scribbling on it, rendering it void. After all these attempts fizzled out into nothing, he began to interrogate me more closely on why we were there, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at my claim that we were only tourists. "If you're tourists," he pressed with knowing skepticism, "what are you doing in Congo??"

It's kind of a hard question to answer, if you think about it.

I said something to the effect of seeing the volcano, and the lakes, et cetera. It sounded pathetic even to me.

Monsieur Bureaucrat went back to the one-day point. I pointed out the words on the visa that granted "un séjour", or "one stay", prompting a new discussion quibbling over exactly how long "un séjour" signified. Awkwardly, although the stamped visa actually stated "un mois", a month, the quality was so poor it was hard to make out the "mois." Mr. Bureaucrat seized upon this point, prepared to take it as far as possible. (By the bye, he had still not so much as glanced at David's papers.) Gaining momentum from his conviction, he made a great show of squinting at the stamp and declaring it completely illegible, which unfortunately wasn't far from the truth.

Alain the driver, who had come to appoint himself something of a personal bodyguard for me over the course of the morning, chose this moment to reveal his shining armour and began to argue loudly that my papers were completely valid, as they were, and the hold-up ridiculous, as it was. Unfortunately this did not have the best of effects on Mr. Bureaucrat, who got angrier in turn and began to claim that I was also missing a whole extra set of papers, some mysterious "carte de séjour". I began to sweat and looked over at David, who, incomprehensibly, looked calm, disinterested, even a little bored. I had the impression he was perhaps mentally charting out the details of our travel through Guinnea-Bissau.

I looked back at the bureaucrat who, thwarted by Alain and the lack of support from the other three or four police/military (who knew?) hanging around the tiny room, gave up on my passport and idly picked up David's.

It was then that he got his big break.

It seems that the official at the border, in stamping David's entry date, had carelessly allowed the date to fall mostly on the "sortie" [exit] line as opposed to "entrée". While the mistake was fairly obvious to everyone in the shack, the fact remained that David had never officially been stamped into the D.R.C.

An excited flurry possessed Monsieur, and he eagerly went back to my passport to see if mine had shared David's stamping fate. No luck there, though; while mine too had been carelessly done, the date was amost entirely on "entrée". Disappointed but not defeated, he resumed his case with David's and began busting out the big guns. Soon the words "investigation" and "chef de police" began to fly menacingly around the room. It abruptly occurred to me in a horribly hilarious realization that I actually had the personal cell phone members of both the Mayor and the Commandant de Police de Goma. Jacques pulled out his portable to call his boss at the tour company, only to be quickly snapped at to Put that phone away! No calls!!

Oh my god, I thought, this isn't America. We don't get a phone call.

Inspection of David's passport resumed, and the discovery of his proper Rwandan exit stamp at bordering Gisenye on the same day as his Congolese stamp (incidentally, also the same day we claimed to have entered) seemed to bolster our case. We both left Rwanda on the 30th, and one of us entered Congo on the 30th; how could the other have left Congo that same day without ever entering it? Pointing this fact out with deliberate, crystal logic Alain began to grow more energetic in his defense. Finally pinned down, Monsieur snarled back at Alain, finger pointed dangerously, "Tu m'ennerves - [you're pissing me off] TU M'ENNERVES!! Il faut pas commencer d'abord par m'ennerver!! [You had better not start by pissing me off!]"

All was quiet. Monsieur very seriously telephoned his boss for back-up. Then Alain and Jacques were ushered out, and David and I were left alone with Monsieur Bureaucrat and the first soldier. The tension seemed to ease, and Monsieur even began to joke with me a little, asking what souvenirs we'd bought in DRC. Still terrified, I admitted David had bought a mask. Monsieur then glided to the question of asking what souvenirs we'd brought with us from America. Upon hearing that we didn't really carry souvenirs from home as we were tourists, he pointed to my $7 plastic Target watch and said it was quite a nice watch. I was shocked. Even on the day of purchase the thing hadn't been much to look at, and after three months of life with me in Africa it neither looked nor smelled too pleasant. When I pointed to it in disbelief, he asked if maybe I wanted to give it to him as a keepsake. You know, to remember me by.

A normal bribe I would have been ready for, but this??
French is not my most eloquent language, and I stammered back, "But Monsieur.. it smells."

He then shifted tack, pointing to the soldier and describing how the man was hungry. He began to elaborate on this point with some emotion, asking what I had that I could give the plump, hungry soldier, while I wondered privately what a Target watch could do for someone's hunger. Put on the spot, I confessed I had some biscuits in the car. The soldier said he would happily accept a biscuit.

But what about for me?? the bureaucrat persisted. Me, I don't like biscuits.

I had kept up a running translation of all this to David, who volunteered at this point that he had an egg in the car. Monsieur brightened. An egg? He seemed to like eggs very much. An egg? I gaped. What?? Quoi???

David offered the egg to him cheerfully. I was distraught - he had purchased four eggs fresh that morning, one for each of us, and I had already scarfed mine down. Whose egg was he giving away?? He answered it was his own, but he was prepared to go without. Monsieur was exeuberant, and accepted the offer with kingly grace, declaring why don't we all go and fetch the egg from the car. Allons ensemble chercher l'oeuf. Don't forget the biscuit! the soldier interjected. And the biscuit! Monsieur assented.

So, we all trooped outside and met up with the soldier/policemen/Alain/Jacques cluster. Not knowing where to begin, I said to Jacques, "The monsieur wants an egg."

"What?" Jacques was understandably confused. "Un quoi??"

"David's egg," I went on, feeling ridiculously as though I were trapped in a scene from Catch-22.

Alain, however, was decidedly stubborn about unlocking the car for the egg-fetching, so we ended up standing around on the rocks waiting for the bureaucrat's boss to arrive while the population stared at us and I stared, this time, miserably at the ground. I tried to look as forlorn as possible, wondering if we'd be able to use crowd appeal to get free. At some point during this time another of the police bureaucrats, this one in a Muslim cap, sidled up to David to ask him, "So, do you have 1500 francs for me??"

Quicker on his feet than I, David chose instead to recite the Bismillah, the opening verse of the Qu'ran, in which the reciter begs the lord to help him stay on the straight and narrow path. Shortly thereafter, the Muslim left David alone.

The noisy arrival of the awaited chief was cause for much excitement, and we all trooped back into the shack with our growing bevy of police/military men. The boisterously jovial big-fish-in-small-pond generously shook hands with everyone present before seating himself grandly in the shack's only chair. Passports were produced, pages pawed through, stamps examined, and at the end of it the chief came to the same conclusion as the rest of us: it had been badly stamped. What do you know.

Monsieur le Chef benevolently dismissed the issue as pas de problème, and our passports were returned to us. Everyone in the shack was suddenly patting someone else on the back; we were all best friends now. Spreading his arms wide and smiling broadly, Monsieur le Chef declared immortally to us, "Vous voyez, [you see], le Congo, c'est le pays d'hospitalité! [Congo is the country of hospitality!]"

Yes. Clearly.

Monsieur le Bureaucrat was, this time, all smiles and sunshine, and I was happy to play along as our conversation moved us closer to the door. "We have to be careful, you know," he began, "but of course! one never knows," I picked up the slack, "especially now, after the war," he continued, "you really have to be careful," I completed understandingly, and we all shook hands again and walked out smiling.

I began to book it as casually as possible for the car with Alain. We got there, we got in, we shut (and I locked) the doors. Allons-y, I said, let's go, let's go...

It wasn't quite over yet, though... one final shake-down remained. Monsieur le Bureaucrat had followed us with the hungry pot-bellied soldier to the car and, tapping on my locked window, he returned to the issue of the biscuits. I was stubborn and suddenly forgot great expanses of my French. What biscuit? who said anything about a biscuit? I have no idea what you're saying. David and Jacques safely in the car, I said goodbye with much politeness to the would-be biscuit-stealers, and we drove off.

We didn't start laughing until we got a good distance away, but once we did it was hard to stop. Then David started us all up again by declaring suddenly from the backseat: "You know what? I'M GONNA EAT MY EGG !"

Frozen in Time

Our hotel in Goma was nothing less than a seriously interesting place, but not thanks to any great care on the part of the owners - more thanks to the lack thereof. Though you could see at first glance that the Hôtel des Grands Lacs had once been quite an impressive establishment, the decades of civil war and rebellion had not been kind to it. The prices did not quite match reality, and normally I would have been ornery about spending as much as we had to for a double room, but the place was so trashed it was worth it.


Within a few minutes of wandering around I discovered tattered history, the likes of which was wholly museum-worthy. A decrepit but grand conference room offered tattered 70s-era armchairs under old framed tourist promotion posters of the Zaire Mobuto once terrorized, and the ballroom/bar next door took the comfort up a notch with worn plush-velvet couches along each wall. A man, likely an employee, was camped out for the night on one of them; though there seemed to be plenty of people associated with the hotel, I got the distinct impression that we were the only guests.


Going a bit farther down the hall led me to a once-magnificent courtyard overgrown with roses. I felt something akin to what the first underwater excavators of the Titanic must have felt upon swimming through the wide, empty rooms crusted with age. (I began taking pictures like mad.)




Getting a bit bolder and intensely curious about what this hotel had seen in its day, I began poking my nose into more private corners, actively searching now for any clue that would tell me how old the rambling resort was. At one end I discovered a long-empty swimming pool, at another a stripped beauty salon; holes along the peeling walls of each corridor belied the one-time presence of fine wood paneling. It was not until I really began to pry, however, that I discovered the jackpot - the walled-in land behind the employees' (servants'?) quarters had become a proper dump. Piles of rotting furniture, an old wooden trunk that reminded David of his grandmother's, a huge set of once-mounted horns, the secret hiding place of all the toilet seats I've been missing, and - the treasure - a pre-electric adding machine that dated at least from the forties, and probably considerably before.

Gaze at it in all its pre-modern glory...

I was ecstatic. Just as I had both hoped and expected, Hôtel des Grands Lacs had lived through Independence.


After questioning both the Maitre d' Monsieur Lola and the Belgian at the tourist desk, David and I began to reconstruct what must have happened to the place. We found out the hotel dated from 1948, built of Belgian construction probably as a posh colonial hangout for the friends of white settlers and governmental VIPs back in the good old days when Congo was still Belgium's heart of darkness. The beauty salon, the rose garden, the adding machine all fit in perfectly with the white expat lifestyle of 1950s Congo.

Then with Independence in 1961, the white guests would have been chased away by the frightening concept of an independent African president, soon to be followed by the owners themselves with the much more legitimately alarming presidency of Mobuto. "Zaïrianisation" likely would have resulted in governmental seizure of the hotel anyway for its own use or distribution to well-connected friends, though the lack of renovations or even upkeep much past the sixties suggests that apparently the tourism industry during the period wasn't at its height. Then with civil war would have come refugees and possibly owner abandonment, explaining why so much 70s-era furniture had been dumped out back but never replaced. Refugees would have had their own, and would have used the furniture and wood paneling only as firewood.

Which brings us more or less up to date, and explains my spacious hotel room with its stained walls, minimal furniture and a bathroom out of 1960. Since peace, a wealthy Rwandan has apparently acquired the place through connections with the government, and stirrings of lackadaisical construction (and re-construction) have begun on the grounds. A pile of tan brick surrounds the gutted pool, and cans of plaster, spackle and paint sit idly in the hallway. Who knows, perhaps the Hôtel des Grands Lacs is headed for glory once more... though I think I like it best as it is.

We're not in Kansas anymore

So.. the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an interesting place. (Even the nation's many detractors can't deny that.) Accused of hosting Africa's "Third World War" by certain news sources and of harboring a Who's Who of murdering psychopathic and occasionally genocidal armies by, well, pretty much everyone, it's got a lot going on. And even more to see!

Or, at least, this was our attitude when we stumbled upon the DRC embassy in Kigoma, TZ. 90 minutes and fifty bucks apiece later, and we had official visas! ...And I left specific instructions with a trusted friend to start watching the news if I failed to email her with news of my whereabouts within a week.

We crossed from Gisenye in western Rwanda into the yet-traumatized town of Goma. While Goma is pretty much a UN protectorate now, it hasn't had the best luck with humans or nature in the recent past, and aside from genocide refugees and the LRA it suffered an eruption from one of its two volcanoes just a few years ago. Apparently the twin is now set to erupt too, "sometime this month". What with all the peace and security here, it was getting a bit boring.. nothing like a little lava to spice things up.

Crossing onto the somewhat-paved road, I noticed right away that the first roundabout was painted vivid fuchsia and turquoise. In Africa, where towns and territories are battlegrounds for a series of cell-network hegemons, this indicated that we were officially in Zain territory. I got excited - as it happened, we had just purchased Zain credit in Tanzania on our almost-functional Sudanese cell phone with the assurance that it would work in both Burundi and Rwanda. It did not in either - neither one had Zain coverage. Here, however, as declared in several languages by the fuchsia frescoes, Zain was king! I pointed out the relevance excitedly to David, who got similarly excited for a brief moment, before we both remembered that we don't actually have anyone to call.

He suggested we just make up a random number, call it and say "SALUT!", but ultimately we didn't. (We're boring like that.)


Goma seems either blessed or afflicted with an abundance of old planes that fly extremely low over the city - we heard four within our first hour of walking around, and more as we sat in a small restaurant waiting for lunch. Each one startled me with its sudden overwhelming roar, prompting me to joke playfully to David, "Jeez, I feel like we're about to be bombed!"

It occurred to me after that perhaps that wasn't entirely a remote possibility.

("You mean since we're in a war zone?" David added.)

As I was processing this thought, there was a sudden bustle among the three restaurant personnel lounging behind us, and they all leapt up as a policeman and two men in fancy suits walked in. Both men (we speculated from the patriotic DRC flag pins on their lapels) seemed to be fancy politicians, and said "Bonjour" quite magnanimously to us as they passed. As yet another plane roared by overhead, I wondered how the presence of these suits and their bodyguard affected my chances of getting bombed.

A few minutes later, my ego was gratified in its fantasies of sharing the restaurant with someone "d'importance" when I heard the biggest (both in stature and magnanimosity) suit flip open his Motorola Razor phone and declare in bold tones, "Bonjour Monsieur le Président..."

Shame does not figure high on the list of when it comes to talking to strangers, and if I don't meet my death by curiosity it'll be a bit of a surprise to my mother. I couldn't help myself. David busted out a business card and the two of us __ over to their table to find out who they were under the pretense of me asking their autograph.
They were more than happy to oblige. Monsieur le Grand Suit was, as we found out, Monsieur le Maire de Goma, the Mayor; his suited cohort was the Deputy Mayor, and their policeman was no bodyguard but the Commandant de la Police himself. The three seemed to be having lunch to celebrate and discuss what I think (my French eavesdropping abilities are exceptionally poor, which on this occasion was no less than tragic) was the unexpected capture of an important rebel. While relatively secure in itself, Goma is unfortunately situated vis-a-vis what David aptly calls "the trash can of Africa". Between the lingering genocidaires from Rwanda and the LRA religious psychopaths from Uganda, I imagine there's a variety of interesting personages to attraper, as the mayor gloated to Monsieur le Président.

The meeting was jovial all around; I was enchanted to discover their respectably important identity, and they were enchanted at the rare opportunity to show off their respectable importance to Westerners. David was enchanted to hand out his business card. The Deputy Mayor was enchanted to very impressively interpret between English-speaking David and the French-speaking Mayor ('Il est professeur aux Etats-Unis!' 'Ohhh, professeur..'). The Mayor was enchanted that I knew right away he was the most important, the Chief of Police less so; the former was in fact so enchanted, however, that he eagerly reached for the journal I held out to him, requesting his autograph, and wrote his entire contact information - complete with both cell and work numbers - right into the book. Determined to follow the big fish's example, the Deputy Mayor then took my notebook and proudly wrote all his digits, finally giving it to the Police Commandant to finish off my V.I.P. address book. It occurred me that perhaps I did not properly explain "autograph" in French. True to our respectableness, however, we all acted as though handing out all your personal cell phone number to anyone who asked, no matter who they were or how dirty, was the most normal thing to do, and shook hands again all around as another plane zoomed overhead.

Leaving the restaurant, both a little stunned, David turns to me and says cheerfully: "Hey, now we have someone to call!"

..Though it probably wouldn't be the best idea to prank the Mayor.

Le Pays de Mille Collines

Such a short time in such a lovely place.. but as David says, there's never enough time.

Scenery: Bienvenue au Pays de Mille Collines...
This is one of the most breathtakingly beautiful countries I've ever seen. Truly the "country of a thousand hills" - likely many more - Rwanda is also heavily populated, creating a landscape of rolling, vividly green terraced hills, bands of bright red earth separating plots dotted with jungle palm trees. Surprisingly, there are remarkably few donkeys and other beasts of burden here, a fact David noticed first - instead, people use bicycles piled high with all manner of unbelievable loads. (One bicycle-cargo company here brags quite aptly, "Any road, any load!") Unsurprisingly, we did occasionally see these fearless bicyclists hanging gamely onto the back of truck bumpers as a way of getting up the long hills.
A long history of volcanic activity means that the earth itself literally sparkles in many places with the glitter of rocks created during eruptions. (Ask my dad for more detail on that.)

Strangest sight seen: Driving through mountains on our way to Gisenye, David and I caught a flash of white outside the window - two snow-white rabbits, nestled in a natural crevice of an otherwise sheer rock cliff-face. Neither of us could figure out what they could possibly be doing there. All theories invited.

Food: We ate pretty well in Rwanda, enjoying a mix of foreign specialties in the capital and African buffets outside it. The local food seems to be pretty hearty, based on cassava/ maize, potatos, fried breads like chapati, and rice. Local dishes usually include a bit of boned meat too, most often chicken, beef, or pork. Around the lakes, though, you can get a pretty tasty tilapia, as I did in Kigali.
Worst meal eaten: David and I found ourselves wandering around the usually-bustling capital on Sunday morning, surrounded by Bible-toting churchgoers and closed storefronts, starving and desperate for food. We probably shouldn't complain about the breakfast we did eventually find, but it wasn't anything special. Sort of like a plate of blah.
Best thing eaten: In the border town of Gisenye, David and I tried our luck with a hotel buffet serving a series of hearty, basic dishes and a choice of meats. It was absolutely delicious. Tender cooked vegetables on a heap of brown rice, mashed cassava with a savoury sauce poured on top, steamed pumpkin cooked still on the rind, and (the absolute tastiest and zealously defended against David's unconscionable poaching attempts) fried plantains. SO good, and so hearty.

Strangest Event: This odd prize is gonna have to go to that time in Kigali when, after an interesting but natural conversational evolution about beaches, David offered to put his feet in the creamer.

New Words Learned: Given that Rwanda is apparently NO LONGER A FRANCOPHONE COUNTRY, ahem, my entry for this is gonna have to be: NOT MUCH.

I did, however, have a good time exploring the various local-language words for hiccup.

Quote: There are a few French-speaking areas left in the country, particularly near the Congolese border. Getting a ride to a hotel here, we discovered a pretty significant discrepancy in the price as understood by locals and the price I was charged at reception. The taxidriver seemed to be confused about it, so I explained to him a bit cynically, "I think we got the muzungu [white person] price." The taxi-driver began to laugh. "Because you're muzungus..!" he chortled gleefully in French, really enjoying himself. Having already had to pay him an outrageous fare, I was a touch nettled and replied with a hint of sarcasm, "Yeah, traveling in Africa as a muzungu is really charming." This just set him off even more with a belly laugh that was infectious, and against all pride I found myself laughing along with him, no longer cranky about the artificial elevated prices or the great joke he found it. We shook hands warmly. I suppose il faut avoir un ici...

New Hygienic Lows: I amaze myself with how I continue to descend to depths I never before imagined. One of my odd little particularities is (or used to be) that if a bit of food dropped off the fork onto the table on the way to my mouth, I wouldn't eat it. I suspect David has privately been keeping a bet for how long it would take me to crack on this since the first day in D.C. when he was amazed to discover it. 95 days in, and - you get hungry sometimes! - I'm willing to eat off the table.
Of course, combined with the fact that I'm getting dirtier, gaining weight, and now losing my hair, this is perhaps just indicative of the general tendency: I really am turning into a bona-fide pig. Hey, pigs are smart. It ain't so bad.
Amazingly, I'm still brushing off random men who discover David and I aren't married. Who are these people? We've established they can't smell, can they even see??

Best experience: The Kigali Genocide Memorial Center was one of the most incredible museums I have ever visited. Considering the scope and the political nature of the tragedy, it was also remarkably tastefully done.

Worst experience: The memorial was also really hard. Aside from the horrifying and unbelievable figures related to everything that happened and the suffering endured by so many people, it was embarrassing to learn that the amount of soldiers immediately sent by the international community to protect and evacuate the foreigners would have been enough to stop the massacre.
At least, though, I don't have the shame of seeing huge photographs of my country's armed vehicles formally and protectively escorting the genocidaires - still holding their guns and bloodied machetes - safely into the DRC. Where they would proceed to recreate their terrorist government over a virtual country-in-exile of 800,000 petrified and traumatized Hutu refugees.
No, that shame belongs to another nation.

Could I live here? No.
But I would come back to visit in a second.

Never Again = A la prochaine...

In the international community, "Rwanda" seems to be practically synonymous with "genocide in Africa". And to some Americans, for whom Africa is simply too foreign, too distant, and too poor to ever visit, "Rwanda" will never mean anything else.

Determined not to have this attitude, I had agreed with myself not to show up in Kigali as a belated spectator of misery, interested only in the one event to get Rwanda significant international media coverage in the past fifty years. I kept my mind open to instead spectate the many other interesting things I imagined the country would have to offer, whatever they were.

I was (as usual?) more than a little naive.

15 years really isn't such a long time, especially when you're talking about the mass murder of a million people. In a small country of under 8 million people, that's nearly 15% of the entire population. Plus hundreds of thousands more permanently disabled, children orphaned, women raped by men known to be HIV+. Two-thirds of the population displaced, either families fleeing from the genocidaires or the genocidaires fleeing from the RPF; parents searching for their children and children running for their lives. Schools and hospitals targeted. Tutsi running to join the protection of the rebel army and innocent Hutus, fearing race-based reprisal, running away. For anyone over the age of about ten years old, this is an event whose effect on your life could hardly be overestimated, even if you didn't lose your entire family.

And you feel it. Even if you ignore the huge white billboards in every town and village about the "jenoside", or the frequent cemeteries by the roadside in which all the graves seem to be recent and simultaneous, even if you ignore the pink-clad teams of convicted genocidaires involved in public works projects in the countryside, you feel the memory of it. Yes, there is a lot of worthwhile things to see in Rwanda - this is one of the most strikingly beautiful landscapes I've ever seen - and no culture should be defined by one event. But despite coming overland from culturally-similar Burundi, I was foolish to expect the same atmosphere: reading the newspaper headlines, talking to locals in the capital of Kigali or by the Congolese border, even just opening your eyes and looking around: you do feel the difference.

Rwanda has not recovered. And why should it have? You don't just implode so completely the entire existence of a country and then sweep it under the rug. If only "Never Again" actually meant "jamais encore" instead of "A la prochaine.."

On ne parle PAS francais ici...

A few years ago, Rwandan president Paul Kagame (leader of the RPF, the rebel group that stormed the country in May 1994 to stop the massacre) responded to the French charge of genocide leveled against him by declaring his country's national language to be English instead of French.

Well, I knew better than to believe that. Sorry, Monsieur Kagame, but no matter how charismatic or powerful a leader you are, you can't change a country's language just like that. Declaring something to be so does not make it so.

So, I arrived in Rwanda, long upheld to be the classic Francophone country in East Africa, fresh from a weekend in Paris and a few days in Burundi and ready to Bonjour my way to social popularity. I was "the big guns", as David put it; it would be my francais and my charme that would book our bus tickets and slice hotel prices in half. I was ready.

Let's just say I was, perhaps, a bit unnecessarily eager.

From the very first taxi-driver in Kigali to the various bystanders we asked for directions, we ran into some issues. Blank stares met my carefully formed questions, and I became increasingly flustered that perhaps my French was even worse than I'd feared. Finally, it was explained to us: "Il ne parle pas francais."

I was shocked. "Well then what language does he speak if not French??"
The answer - stated as though it should be obvious - was heartily satisfying to David but would have horrified any good Francais: "English..!"

Well done, Mister Kagame...

Au RE-voir, Burundi...

AND NOW, with a grand total of 2.5 days within its geographical borders, I will now attempt the impossible - to conceptualize the entire nation of Burundi with an articulate and exhaustive summary of my experiences!!!!!

Well, at least I can't possibly do quite as poorly as certain others have.

Music: A Saitama bamboo drummer named Yahi became one of my closest friends on Sado, and he introduced me to a type of music I came to love and associate vaguely with parts of Africa I'd never seen: ZOUK. Jacky Rapon and Viviane N'dour were his favorites and, after I compiled a cd of their work as a present to him, they became mine too. I had been thinking I wouldn't find this Francophone music until we got to West Africa, but within a few minutes of entering the country, our bus driver flipped on the radio, and who did I hear but Jacky Rapon??! I think the sight (or sound) of a white girl excitedly singing along with the music was the last thing our fellow passengers expected to hear.
I couldn't quite determine Jacky's homeland - the general impression is that he's from Cote d'Ivoire - but his music and zouk in general is cerainly popular in Burundi.

Food: It is fantastic to be back in a francophone country..fresh bread, anyone? I don't trust myself to elaborate much on the national cuisine, though, other than to assure you (as Nick Ray can) that delicious eats of several European cultures can readily be found (for a price) in the capital.
Best thing eaten: Magnificent goat-cheese-and-other-goodies pizza in a small restaurant on a back street of 'Buj'.
Worst thing eaten: This wasn't really so much terrible to taste as a terrible disappointment: expecting only the best from a French patisserie, David and I tucked in to two fluffy pastries on our second afternoon. They were a bit, uh, dry. And spongy. Not quite up to our sky-high hopes, I'm afraid.

Best Picture Taken: For reasons of my own which will be clear to certain among the readership, I was terribly excited about the life and potentially coffee-related activities of le President de Burundi. Who, incidentally, lived in a drab grey building right next to our hotel. Impossible but true, confirmed by the single bored guard sitting in a folding chair by the gate... the "Présidence Nationale" is more or less a Motel 7.
I invite you to disagree.. but only after you see the evidence yourself. WHICH, due to a joint photographic spy-mission reminiscent of the camera-unfriendly Sudan, undertaken as David and I casually sauntered along the side road, I CAN PROVIDE.AM I WRONG???

New Words Learned: It's bizarre how just being in a linguistic culture will make that language return to you in sporadic bits and pieces. In Djibouti, I had spent two days cranky about not being able to remember the French word for lots of random things - like elbow. What the heck is it? I tormented myself. Eight years of work and then in a few short years, down the drain... for what use is a language when you can't even say the word 'elbow'??
While crossing a street on our way to the market here, without any prompting or decent explanation, it came to me like a shot: coude. Elbow, in French, is coude.

On another linguistic note, Burundians have taken the same liberties with French as Djiboutians, and regularly "tutoyer" complete strangers instead of using the accepted formal "vous". The overall impression is one of casual friendliness, and I admit I like it. (Though I had to stop myself from stiffly vous-ing everyone.) It reminds me a little of the Texan "hey y'all" to complete strangers, as opposed to the traditional Northern greeting: stony silence.

Quote: This is not meant to be representative of Burundi as a nation or Burundians as a people, but I enjoyed the conversation nonetheless - checking my passport at the border, the official was surprised to realize how young I was. Remarking on my age, he asked whether I was married. The resulting conversation went something like:
"Are you married?"
"No, I'm not."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm too young!"
"What???"
"Yes."
"Don't you want to have a family?"
"I do have a family. They live in Pennsylvania."
[laughter]
"Then what are you doing in Burundi?"
"I want to see the world!"
[more laughter]
"So you have come to Burundi."
"Yes."
"To see the world."
"Yes. I am very excited to see Burundi."
[handing me my passport, more laughter] "Well, bon voyage..."

New Hygienic Lows: It was here that, after three months of dedicated bottled-water tooth-brushing, I finally got lazy and gave it up. That's right, I washed out both my toothbrush and the inside of my mouth with the potentially parasitic water of the tap. Since I surely must have been exposed to something by now, my rationalizing hope is that I've built up a wee bit of a tolerance to Africa. Let come what parasites may.

Could I live here? It would be interesting and enjoyable to live here, and I would be within coffee-dating distance of the President himself, but the NGO culture would probably get to me pretty soon. Plus, how would I ever afford it??

Worst experience: Far from unique to Burundi, but sort of disheartening every time it happens: we met with a bait-and-switch scam attempt from our taxidriver. Oh well. He's the anomaly, right?

Best experience: Oddly enough, despite my usual queasy reluctance about bus-rides, I would have to say that some of our best hours in Burundi were spent in the delightful bus-ride north from the Tanzanian border. The smooth tarmac ran right alongside the gorgeous narrow lake that separates Burundi and peace from the DRC and fun, and it was from this vantage point that David and I first glimpsed the mysterious Congolese mountains, over the water and through the mist, warmed by a setting sun. We had a good crew with us, too, relaxed passengers, a lovely fresh breeze, and a backdrop of great African music. I stuck my foot out the window only to yelp embarassingly when the driver and his friend plotted a sly tickle-attack on it from his window, but they bought us bananas a bit later to make up for it. It felt so much lower-pressure than Tanzania, the air was fresher, the music was better, and we floated fluidly in and out of casual conversation with locals given that we actually had a language in common with them. It was really, truly lovely.

Désolée, Burundi.. I'm going to have to come back here.

"Not Much to See HERE..."

When planning a trip to a country you've never seen, it's understandably difficult to decide how much time to set aside.
In such cases, most people rely on a trusted travel guide company - say, Lonely Planet - to figure out what a country has to see.
Outside the typical tourist circuit of Europe and Japan, however, such L.P.-dependent travelers are in for a nasty shock.

In introducing Burundi, self-proclaimed travel writer Nick Ray ("A Londoner of sorts" by his own characterization) assures you not to bother too much about the place. After accepting payment for writing the authoritative chapter on Burundi (a chapter which, incidentally, consists of six pages), he can think of only three things to see in the entire place. "Choose from the Southernmost source of the Nile, the ancient forest of Parc National de la Kiriba, or the spot where Stanley was reputed to have uttered those timeless words, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?'" (Incidentally, this last isn't even true - most sources agree that the two men met instead outside Kigoma in neighboring Tanzania.) Concluding the chapter, Mr. Ray declares "Yes, you've guessed it, there's not a lot to see..."

Never having been there ourselves, David and I naively trusted Nick Ray (the Londoner of sorts) and only planned two days to see the "not much" that there was to see. Of the six small pages, four were devoted to the capital of Bujumbura, an NGO hangout due to the war in neighboring DRC, so we planned just a quick stop there on our way to Rwanda.

Unfortunately, Mr. Nick's idea of interesting traveler must-do's in Burundi, as we soon realized, was to blow a lot of Lonely Planet dollars at the capital's high-end hotels and bars, and head down to the neighboring inland beaches at its lake to get drunk and talk a lot of trash about the adventures he'd had. It's abundantly obvious that he spent most of his time with the high-flying expat community, adopting their stunningly clever nickname for the capital, 'Buj'. You can almost hear the pretentious high-English drawl sauntering off the page as he place-drops a posh NGO-hangout as his "Author's pick", sneering "A must anytime you're passing through Buj." Only the most expensive hotels and restaurants are even listed, and he wrote more about the capital's bars and nightclubs than he did about the three things he could think of to do here - the Source du Nil, the Parc National or the false Stanley-Livingstone spot - combined. To learn about these three spots, tourists must turn to the one-page "Around Bujumbura" section to find a three-sentence paragraph on each with absolutely no practicalities (such as hotels, transportation, or facilities), just a string of vomitrociously cutesy quips about how they're the best Burundi has to offer. The lack of practical or first-hand information, combined with his final sentence about the Source du Nil - "There are some security question marks until peace is fully established in the country" renders it glaringly obvious that Mr. Ray never bothered to go anywhere outside the capital.

If the security situation really was terrible, and there really was nothing to see, then such a statement would be understandable. However, David and I learned more from two extremely well-informed, trilingually-fluent and articulate guides in a ten-minute visit to the Tourist Information Bureau (dissed in the book as a non-entity, corresponding to the non-existence of the national tourism industry) than Mr. Ray ever discovered. Near as I can tell, there are no security issues whatsoever, and the country is practically a UN preserve. But perhaps that wasn't quite safe enough for this Londoner of sorts to risk his yellow hide on the extremely well-paved roads to see Burundi's famed tambourinaire drummers, or the tourist-friendly pygmy tribes in the North, or the stunning waterfalls in the southeast... none of which David or I was able to see, either, because we'd only allotted two days for the entire country.

Perhaps we should have just checked the concluding sentence for the country as a sign of what to expect from Mr. Ray, who has the necessary lack of shame to actually list "Being in Burundi" as one of the four national "highlights":
"Sipping a cold beer on the shores of the lake, Ethiopian peacekeepers to your left, local surfers to your right," this intrepid explorer and eloquent writer decides to himself, "maybe Burundi is not so bad after all."

Thanks, Nick. Definitely gonna keep my eye out for your name on future tourist publications.

Introducing...

This morning I woke up to David bouncing around in his pajamas, clapping his hands and singing with great energy his most hated song, known to us only as.. the Jambo Song.

This is an idiotic and highly repetitive tune created chiefly for the delight of simple-minded tourists and played, to David’s eternal chagrin, continually on loop along certain parts of the Swahili coast. As near as we can tell, the lyrics consist entirely of the words “Jambo”, “Karibu”, and “Hakuna matata”.


Of course, I have to take his word for all this, as I have – infuriatingly, to him – only heard the Jambo Song once, at Fort Jesus in Mombasa, and its catchy childish spirit did not for whatever reason lodge in my memory at all.

It is perhaps because of David’s extremely well-respected reputation as an incisive, talented and controversial scholar among both the peers of his field and his legitimately worshipful students that I have chosen to introduce him with this particular image, clapping and singing, to those of my own acquaintance – that is, those readers deprived enough to know this man only through my writings. Their loss, truly, for half the adventure on this marvelous trip comes from David himself.


The first thing to know about David is that he is fascinating. He’s got stories to shock and delight from five continents, as well as a mind like a sponge for information. So many times on this trip, trapped in a dusty bus for half a day, I have said something along the lines of “So tell the entire history of Iran for the past hundred years” and he can actually do it. And will, too, without complaints! I’ve learned more in the past three months than I did my entire freshman year. The best part is, he’s completely unpretentious about it, hedging immediately if he isn’t absolutely sure on some remote fact, and he makes it interesting by adding personal details along the way.

The second thing I would have to say about the prof, and this has probably saved my life a dozen times, is that he is quintessentially capable. David knows how to recognize and avoid tinderbox situations long before they ignite, he’s flexible and open-minded enough to roll with traveling in all its unpredictable glory, and he has a sixth sense for sniffing out scams. And even when we do get into a sticky pickle, he can talk his way out of anything in three different languages.

Most of the time, it’s all I can do to watch and learn.

Even if the above traits have played a much more critical role in the success of this trip, my favorite thing about David is, frankly, that he’s fun. I’m usually pretty needy for alone time and social diversity, but was amazed to realize somewhere in Ethiopia how long it had been since I’d hung out with anyone else, and how much I hadn’t noticed. David’s like that – you can spend two hours or two months talking with him and not get bored. He has a quick sense of humor, a good listening ear, and a lot of buoyant optimism that can get you through the most frustrating bureaucratic red tape. He’s also not above bouncing around our hotel room at 6:30 a.m. singing because we’ve been having a spectacular trip for three months, and are (insha’allah) going to continue having a spectacular trip for four.


Unfortunately, the aforementioned playful side means that David is not above inflicting certain petty cruelties on me, his hassled and long-suffering traveling companion. Living together for this long, we’ve become more than familiar with each other’s little vulnerabilities, and David knows well that the threat of going to the same restaurant twice, putting his feet on my pillow (keep in mind they look like mine), or, god forbid, giving me a sweat-hug - gah! - will make me capitulate pretty quickly.

Thus the need for MAT, Mutually Assured Torture, so I am doing my best to pick up the Jambo Song from him. Despite not knowing it at all, now that it’s been stuck in his head for ten days I’ve had ample opportunity to listen to it (or his rendition of it), and think I could reproduce it at will. I intend to bust it out at just the moment when it finally fades from his uppermost consciousness to lie dormant below the surface, waiting only for a well-timed “JAMBO!!” from me to revive it in force. I’m really looking forward to that moment, though it will probably earn me a faceful of his vile sweat towel.

And just as he’s getting over his first fits of rage at the unexpected comeback of this Swahili tormentor, I plan to remind him that really, it’s only thanks to him that I know the song at all.

On our way again..

Tanzania, the first country at whose borders we showed up completely without a visa, was by far the easiest, least painful crossing. We didn't even have to unload our bags from the bus, but just rode across the 5km no man's land (literally) separating the two countries while I pestered David with the maturity of a five-year-old, asking "WHAT COUNTRY ARE WE IN NOW? WHAT COUNTRY?"

It was delightful fun for at least one of us.

People: Tanzanians are pretty friendly, and the young men are no exception. They say "JAMBO!" to you out of nowhere, from across the street maybe, and then it's rude if you don't say "JAMBO!" back, and then they say "MAMBO???", crossing the street, and then you have to respond "PO-E" back, and by then they're at your side and you're already in conversation and they have a basis to pursue it, since you obviously have so much in common - you can both say jambo.

Most of the time, though, people are pretty awesomely laid-back. (It helps if they think you're seriously involved someone named Friedrich.)

Favorite conversation: I met a couple rastafarians while wandering around Arusha. I have not always seen eye-to-eye with such types considering I think little of marijuana and less of their [kind-of-a-dictator] messiah, but I actually hit it off with these particular dudes such that they invited me to come smoke pot with them. I confessed I would have to abstain, giving asthma as an excuse. Oh, that! the inviting dude joked, and, busting out his inhalor, confessed he was asthmatic as well. He then endeavored to convince me that smoking actually healed his asthma, and that I should really try it.

... Rrrrrrright.

Food:
It’s hard for me to distinguish Tanzanian food from Kenyan food; the Swahili coast definitely has its own cuisine, but I didn’t notice a significant change between Mombasa and Tanga. The only distinction I noticed among different coastal cuisines is that of Zanzibar Island, which makes its own fantastic and unique curries.
We also heartily enjoyed the fruit market, something we found in Kenya as well but which I forgot to rave about – pineapple, passionfruit, apples, oranges, bananas, plantains, mangos, plums, figs, all displayed in rows upon rows for our choosing in markets or along the roadside, and all deliciously ripe. Don’t even get me started on the juices…
Worst thing eaten: David and I took a little lazily to patronizing the South African burger chain of Steers, and upon the fervent urging of another foreigner both tried out the chocolate cake. Heck, we even ordered two full pieces, figuring neither one of us was going to want to share the indulgence.
It's probably safe to say, don't ever trust the British for food recommendations. We're talking about the people who brought us blood pudding here.
Best eaten: Wandering hungrily around the quiet Muslim district of Tanzania’s capital after a late Saturday night arrival, we found almost everything closed. It occurred to David that we had arrived during celebrations for the prophet’s birthday, and we began to feel a bit of desperation in our hunger as we walked down street after dark street. Following our noses, we finally found a tiny family-run hole-in-the-wall populated exclusively by family members who all welcomed us with great cordiality, and served me the best Indian dish of my life. It was just what they were all eating as well, some kind of yellow soup with potatoes, samosa pieces, something crispy, something bread-ish, and vegetables. No way I could ever reproduce it.
Greedily inquiring the name of this fantastic dish, ready to mentally note that ish for use in Southeast Asian restaurants for the rest of my life, I was told it was just “mixed”. Many Tanzanians have since confirmed this, and “mixed” is apparently just a quotidian Dar es Salaam meal that everyone knows and eats, and no one has ever bothered to export elsewhere. DRAT.

Strangest Sight Seen: Walking along, I happened to notice that the man next to me was wearing cut-out plastic gasoline containers for shoes. Scanning upwards, the outfit only got better. Wearing a series of tin-cans around his neck, he also carried in one hand a long pole tied with a dozen more. Each cut-out tin can inexplicably contained an old light-bulb.

I'm not sure if the spectacle was made more or less comprehensible by the large sign he carried on his pole, which read: MINISTRY OF ELIMINATING DARKNESS.

New Hygienic Lows:
Ants got into our little food bag in Dar es Salaam, necessitating the immediate disposal of half a loaf of bread, and a bag of animal crackers that dated from Ethiopia. No great loss there, but I admit I examined my beloved bag of muesli with a bit of nervousness. Upon finding ‘only’ two ants crawling around inside, I seriously considered eating it anyway, ants and all.

“Seriously considered” as in, “almost did”. And, er, “might have”… of a bit of it.

I believe that it is to my benefit that I did end up tossing it. (I admit, the decision coincided with the discovery of further ant activity.)


Best Run-in with Authority: We didn't say anything about being in a hurry to get back from the Masasani Peninsula to the city center in Dar, but our taxidriver nonethelses couldn't be bothered with stopping at red lights. As our car sailed through one red light at a good clip, a traffic policeman foolishly strode out into the center of the street to intercept us. The taxidriver, nonplussed, simply swerved around him and stepped on it.
Shocked, I twisted around in my seat in time to see the policeman glare after our car a moment before deciding we weren’t worth it, and walking back to his curb.

New Words Learned: Yet little progress on the Kiswahili.. but one phrase I definitely know by heart. Every time I hiccup, I explain to the resulting starers "kwi-kwi", and every single time they laugh and say back, "poli-poli" or "poli-sana". I think this means "take it easy", but for all I know they're really saying, "What a freak.."

Quote:
I met a few British kids at the Dar YMCA who were in Tanzania for two months of environmental volunteer work, and we passed part of an evening comparing our experiences. Hearing their complaints about the mosquito action, I eagerly launched into a detailed explanation of my personal jihad and my perfected battle tactics. The girl, a hilarious Malaysian Scotswoman named Brenda, was totally into it and on the point of busting out a pencil to write it down, but the English guy just looked at me with a blank look and told me, “I think you’ve been in Africa too long.”

Worst experience: Struggling with my increasingly longish hair (it's almost to my shoulders now!!) in the wretched humidity of the Swahili Coast, but entreated by certain people not to cut it, I finally found a solution - go local! In what should have been a fun half-hour braiding session and what was instead three hours of pure torture as three separate women yanked on each strand of my hair to get it to stick to the others, I was made aware of the differences between my hair and Zanzibari hair. Several times the braids covering one part of my sore scalp would be yanked out and then re-done. It was pretty bad, but I told myself it was worth it to have my hair out of my face.

Fast-forward to two weeks later, and the entire back half of the once-lovely hairdo has already fallen out. It of course doesn't help that I lost about 30% of my hair in the braiding process - the sensation that they were yanking it out was not, as I had assumed, only a sensation - and in places my braids were not so much attached to my scalp as "resting" on it. Such a strange feeling to touch the back of my head and every time I pulled my hand away, there was a fistful of hair in it.

Well, I may have gone to extreme lengths to avoid cutting my hair, but I nonetheless have a lot less than I used to. Irony not lost. But hey, people have been telling me to thin my hair for years! And my curly mop can take it.

Best experience: David and I set aside Zanzibar Island as a break, and it was absolutely delicious. Travelling up to the beach village of Nungwe, we spent two days lolling on white-sand beaches or wading in waves of the lightest blue

We sipped delicious passionfruit juice while relaxing in the shade. I ascended to new architectural complexity in my sandcastles. I made friends with a local cat who in turn made a bed out of my hat. And, best of all, David woke me up at three in the morning so I could go outside and see a sight I have wanted to see my entire life: the Southern Cross, high in the sky.



It was amazing.

ARRETEE!!

April 1, 2009

GOMA, REPUBLIQUE DEMOCRATIQUE DU CONGO: At roughly 13:15 yesterday, two wanted American trespassers with legitimate visas badly stamped by the border commander were stopped by provincial police and interrogated. Goma Police HQ has confirmed that they are indeed guilty of not having the unnecessary Sejour de Visitation for tourists who don't have visas, as well as of not noticing that the border control stamped them out of the Congo instead of stamping them in.

Serious charges indeed, and the deputy maritime police chief assures us that the two foreign criminals will not get off lightly. Punishment may include the fine of one (1) hard-boiled egg.

Stay with us for developments.

An Evening Guest

Having become more than familiar with the nightly pest of mosquitos, I've become something of a conoisseur of mosquito netting. My discerning eye goes beyond simply checking for holes or tears, but judges whether the set-up actually provides an impenitrable barrier from all flying guests from the top to the bottom.
A key part of this impenitrability is that the net is hung properly, not draped over a space that may already contain mosquitos, and walking into my Stone Town hotel room on Zanzibar Island, I instantly saw a problem. The lovely four-poster bed had a cube-shaped mosquito net drapped around it reaching down to the floor, but left (for how long???) completely open on one side.

Huh, I thought, looking at the wide-open-and-likely-already-contaminated space inside my bed, it really wouldn't be that big a trick for something - say, a malarial mosquito - to fly in there.

Prophetic words.


10:00 p.m.: I am currently sitting on my four-poster bed, protectively enclosed inside my cavernous mosquito netting. There are at least three mosquitos and one bird in here with me.

Admittedly, the bird currently has the lion's share of my attention.

He's a small brown sparrow, he's very frightened, and I've spent the greater part of an hour this evening trying to catch him or otherwise get him out of any one of the three large wide-open windows in our room, without success.

I actually believed, until about five minutes ago, that I had finally succeeded in this endeavor through a clever plan involving my bed, the curtain, and most of my mosquito net.
I settled down to enjoy my mosquitoy bed for the night.

Then we heard a sudden frantic flapping of wings, and realized he was actually under my bed, inside the floor-length netting. In a twinkling he was flapping and clawing his way up the inside of the netting in a desperate bid for freedom, only to end up in the main [enclosed] part of my bed. He landed finally on part of the bedpost. I've taken his picture but don't really know what else to do. If I leave the netting open for him the mosquitos will come in. It's kind of late, and I'd like to go to bed. I don't really mind him in here, and in fact it's kind of a relief because at least in here he's safe from the whirring ceiling fan above us that has threatened to slice his high-flying feathery body to bits all evening.


10:30 p.m.: After spending the last half hour in calm acceptance that I would be bedding down with a bird, it occurred to me that birds have to eat a lot. And frequently. And that my bird-bedmate might be hungry. If I kept him trapped overnight, how hungry would he be in the morning?

Then I wondered how long he had already been trapped inside our wide-open-window prison of a room.

Then I began to worry whether there was a nest of baby sparrows somewhere, waiting hungrily for him or her, potentially at the brink of starvation (how often do baby birds need to eat??).

I renewed with horrified zeal my trapping efforts.

Armed with a wastebasket, I chased the terrified bird in slow pursuit around the inside of my four-poster-bed-tent. I relied heavily on the same tactics I would use for a spider, though the bird's three-dimensional flight plan definitely increased the challenge involved. Small bird, small flying space, big trash can... it was only a matter of time.

Once safely netted inside the wastebasket with a mosquito-netting lid, I maneuvered the whole thing around the edge of my bed until it was next to the window. The next bit was tricky. Pushing the whole thing physically beyond the windowsill, I gave a quick tug at the netting - swish, and voila- the bird was free to fly.

Which it didn't.
The wastebasket actually seemed to be quite comfortable.
I was not a very accomodating host, however, and rapped the trash can a couple times until it finally flew out the window. SUCCESS!!! I congratulated myself. I AM A CHAMPION OF BIRDERS!!

I then settled back down (a third time) for a good night's sleep.


11:00 p.m.: Not ten minutes after the Great Liberation, I heard a familiar flapping of wings outside. Perhaps offended by the graceless manner in which I booted him outside, my bird has come back. He is currently perched on the windowsill. I think he wants back in here. I kind of want to bang my head against the wall, but frankly.. I'm just going go to sleep. Bonne nuit, birdbrain..

Porky the Pig and [the limits of] the Tailors' Talents

One of the most amazing institutions of quotidian African life has to be the Street Tailor.

This man (or woman) sets himself up by a curb or along one of the myriad alleyways of the town market, perched behind his trusty sewing machine. He might be an accessory to a larger clothing shop, or part of an informal fraternity of tailors all lined up along the same alleyway. He might have a table piled high with spare cloth next to him and more bolts behind to paw through, or simply one cardboard box of mending scraps at his feet. He might be an old man, a young woman, or even an adolescent boy. One quality, however, is invariable: he is good, and he is fast.

Long desiring to add a pocket to my favorite Shari'a-friendly skirt to make it travel-friendly as well, I finally accepted David's urging and visited one of these venerable masters of the cloth in Gedarref, Sudan. The fifteen-minute experience ranks among the most successful errands of my life, and I wear that skirt almost every other day.

It was with no hesitation, therefore, that I sought out the services of the talented tailors in Mombasa when I accidentally ripped my favorite brown pants. (I had perhaps enjoyed Ethiopian fare a bit TOO heartily; my wardrobe has become noticeably tighter. The pants in question were ripped in four places, all in that high-risk derriere area.) No matter though; a few Kenyan shillings and a quick patch put them back together again.

... Until four days and one country later when, in an Arusha hotel room, I abruptly fell on my rear. It seems not even the best efforts of Africa's seamstresses could stave off forever the consequences of indulging one too many times in chickpea-butter shiro, and the loud rip that trumpeted from the seat of my pants rendered explanation to David entirely unnecessarily. (Though he did inquire as to how I had so suddenly come to be sitting on the floor). The nickname "Kenya-kimbo" revealed itself to me as possessing new relevance for my present state, and by the time I finished laughing, I had already resolved upon the only rational course of action. From my ignoble sprawl on the floor, still chortling, I declared to David,
"Looks like Porker needs to lose some weight!"

Tanzania

Coming into the Swahili coast, the first thing you notice is the change in air. The ocean humidity, which by midday would have both David and I wringing enough sweat out of our handkerchiefs to plant an orchid in the desert, was at 10 p.m. just as soft as a velvet blanket caressing your skin. We drove through the still-lit industrial section of Mombasa, factories lining water that looked in the dark like black frosted glass.

The calm, frozen cityscape came to life the next day with all the vigour of a typical tourist town, but marked by that confluence of cultures that I came to recognize as characteristic of the Swahili coast. Indian restaurants competing with Chinese joints; the latest Bollywood tunes blasting alongside African pop; niqab'ed women sharing the streets with half-naked tourists. To what extent the mix represents a blend or a clash I leave to sociologists and others more fit to analyze, but I would safely admit I have my own suspicions about certain areas - namely Zanzibar Island off the coast of Tanzania. Though the predominantly Muslim (they claim 96%) island's fortunes are heavily tied to the industry of attracting and pleasing tourists, the acceptance of local authority does not extend much beyond this economic aspect. I will feel no surprise if something very big goes down on Zanzibar in the next ten years.

The rest of the coast, while exhibiting less startling discrepancies, is nonetheless definitively cosmopolitan. For David, this worldly "outward-looking" quality sets the Swahili coast apart from other African cultures, which sometimes seem interested in just one type of food, just one genre of music, just one lifestyle.

For me, the cultural blend is exemplified by the northern coast city of Tanga, where I donned a shirt and shorts before tentatively wading into the Indian Ocean waters along the male-dominated beach. My fears of immodesty were incontrovertibly proven invalid within the hour, however, with the arrival of two young local women old enough to know exactly what they were doing who chose to do their flirting, splashing and general co-ed water cavorting wearing much less than I. (One of them was topless.) The beach experience was followed with the best
lassi I have ever tasted, and we finished off the night outside the hotel room, watching lighted fishing boats floating on the dark waters.

It's a strange mix, but one that is wholeheartedly enjoyable. (And not because of the topless beach. But heterosexual males are of course free to disagree..)

JAMBO and Goodbye

What a wonderful country to relax in...! Kenya feels somehow more Western, and even American, than any other African country I’ve been to – even the francophone Djibouti, which feels European at times but never American. In Kenya, it’s almost like being back in the States. Cars are everywhere, as are the resulting traffic jams; signs are in English as often as they are anything else; women stride past on the sidewalks in tank tops and big sunglasses, clutching purses that could have come from Target. The monopoly on sports jerseys that soccer and Man-United enjoy just about everywhere else is smashed here by the Lakers and the Red Sox. Even the sheep actually look just like American sheep, big white fluffy things with normal short tails! I've also seen my first frighteningly overweight locals, though perhaps it doesn't do my country well to add that to the list of similarities between this country and my own. But at times I almost forgot I was in Africa at all and felt like I was right back home!
(It probably doesn’t help that pictures of the American president are just about everywhere – even more ubiquitous in shops and hotels than the, ahem, “encouraged” official photos of Kenya’s own “Beloved President Kibaki.”)

My impression is probably also unfairly colored by the fact that I’ve spent the past couple months in countries with much less of an American cultural imprint; what I notice here is not the goat wandering along the crumbling curb but the fact that he’s right next to a parked Ford (!!!).

People: VERY friendly
Kenyans are a delight to meet, a delight to talk to, and generally just delightful. They joke easily and lightheartedly, but will treat with gravity the more serious questions you ask them about their government, the political situation, or the low tourist inflow.

Going to America is a fairly popular theme among those I spoke with, and I got my fair share of romatic green-card bids. Artificial inflation to my ego aside, the male attention has at a couple points become a little inconvenient/ uncomfortable, so I have decided to truncate my singlehood indefinitely for the remainder of the trip. I have invented a delightful, charming, and attentive boyfriend to whom I am incontrovertibly faithful. I'm taking suggestions for what to call him. Wally? Niels? I've always kind of liked the name Freidrich.


Food: Swahili-Western
I didn’t notice as much of an insulated, separate diet here as I have in previous countries; eating Western food seems to be fairly common, joined with a diet of Swahili food common to the several countries along the eastern coast. A staple of this involves either ugali or fufu, a white substance made from maize (I think), rolled into balls and dipped into delicious sauces. Influence of Southeast Asian cooking is also felt, especially along the coast with curry and rice dishes.
There is a certain culinary culture around the consumption of nyama choma, cheap roasted meat that is standard fare for good hole-in-the-wall’s or street food. There is also a return to fried
breads, with chapatti – a fried pancake, samosas, tandoor – thin flat fried bread, and doughnuts/ beignets. Nothing like the Somalian breakfast crêpe, though.
Worst thing eaten: With the texture of dry chicken, softness of leather and flavour of old fish, I now understand why crocodiles are farmed for their skin and not their flesh.
Best thing eaten: At the same restaurant that served croc, I had an absolutely delicious and delicately spiced slice of – and I hate to say it – lamb.


New Hygienic Lows:
My general day-to-day state is now regularly defined by a filthiness which, if permitted to develop to much greater complexity, could legitimately be said to be award-winning.

Thankfully, however, I have the impression that I have plateaued.

At least I hope so.


Government-directed memos I’d like to write:
To the Kenyan Roads Authority: A Friendly Suggestion
PERHAPS it would be a better use of your limited resources and time to either build or fix any of the major thoroughfares connecting the largest cities of the nation, instead of pouring both in generous abundance into the conscientious construction of triple-set speedbumps on those precious few highways on which you could actually consider going over 50 kmph.
Sincerely
A Bruised Bus Passenger

New Words Learned: I’m likely going to have to combine this section with Tanzania, but for now I’ll admit that a week in Swahili-speaking territory has not produced much in the way of Kenyan fluency. So many people speak English, I have thus far just slipped through that colonial loophole, and got by with an enthusiastic JAMBO!!!
A few others worth knowing: Karibu - welcome, Ahsante - thanks, and, if you’re me, ekisuu (Borana)/ chekitha (Akambo)/ sesefu (Central Swahili) /kwi-kwi (Southern Swahili). They all mean the same thing. A prize to whomever can guess what.
Telling Phrases: I am privy to one of those singular moments made memorable by their rarity in which Disney actually got something right. It’s true. Everyone here actually does say “Hakuna matata.” (It means – sing it with me now – No worries…)

Classic quote: David and I briefly split forces in coastal Mombasa to do various errands, meaning that I ended up wandering the old tourist-shop-lined alleyways around Fort Jesus – yes, you read that right, Fort Jesus... praise God! and pass my gun.. - on my own. Hakuna matata though, cos all the (male) shopkeepers were very chipper and welcoming. I had nothing to buy, but enjoyed wandering around the shop of three friendly dudes, until I suddenly saw this amazing little trinket that I loved. The senior shopkeeper, in pricing it, told me he would give me a lower price since I was "Kenya-kimbo", using the slang term for foreigners who live in Kenya for a long time. Confused, I asked for its English translation; the men consulted in Swahili a moment before the youngest confided to me with the air of one giving me a huge compliment, "Kimbo means cooking fat!"
My shocked face set off the other two into fits of laughter, as the speaker flustered to explain something about living in Kenya and thus consuming Kenyan cooking fat. I didn't even bother to listen, and laughed along with the others. I am a walking portrait of Kenyan cooking fat! Awesome.

Worst Experience: As David has more than once noticed, I tend to have very vivid and convincing dreams. I have occasionally even allowed their false reality to blend in illogical ways with the reality of wandering around Africa, which frankly isn't always all that different. The morning after having a very strange dream in which I was inexplicably pregnant and even more inexplicably happy about it, David and I boarded a bus that proceeded to jolt us out of our senses for the next four hours. The repeated blows to my stomach soon caused an excruciating abdominal pain, giving rise to the most horrifyingly hideous feeling that I was having an immaculate miscarriage. I felt like a murderer.
Jokes about my unlikely candidacy for the next immaculate conception aside -- pregnant women reading this: please do not take local transport in Africa.

Best Experience: Our fantastic safari in Ethiopia's rift valley wasn't enough for us, so we embarked on another short jaunt through Nakuru National Park in central Kenya for some lovely rhinoceros, antelope, giraffe, zebra, and water buffalo sightings. We were sure we'd be too late to see the hippos, though, so it was with great excitement we chanced upon one lying right by the road in a shallow creek. Our clever driver idled our tiny sedan up close and we left all the doors open to allow for a speedy retreat should the hippo notice us. We then commenced the extremely dangerous and stupid endeavor of sneaking right up to where it was so I could take a picture. I got some seriously awesome pictures of its cranky little face before a French family with at least four kids showed up a bit down the road. Wanting to share our good fortune, we waved to them, indicating extreme silence with hand motions, and eagerly beckoned them over. Comprehending instantly, they began to tip-toe their way over to where we were until there were something like ten of us creeping about within about three meters of this thousand-something-pound hippo and getting closer all the time.

Of course the inevitable happened.

The hippo noticed us, and charged out of the water with a violence remarkable for an animal with such girth. The ten of us fled for our lives back towards the sedan, independently blessing the driver for leaving the doors open. I briefly panicked about whether we could fit everyone in the car. Mostly, however, I was more preoccupied with this painful moment of truth, in which I was forced to choose - in a split second, no less! - between several extremely attractive courses of action: taking advantage of such a unique opportunity to get a close-up photo of a charging hippo - !!! - or, because I am not without a bit of a cruel sense of humour, photographing instead the hilarious scene created by the scattering troupe of spectators - French people running in every direction - the ten-year-old halfway out of the park before she slowed down enough to look back.
In the end I defaulted on both magnificent photographic opportunities, and chose instead the third option: to flee with the others and save my life. But DANG, either of those photos woulda been amazing...

Could I live here? Easily. Laidback, friendly and fun, Kenyans are the kind of people you want to surround yourself with all the time. As far as living abroad goes, though, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge, and the marriage-proposal-based bids at American citizenship would probably get old. Friedrich and I would probably have to get married.

Feelin' HOT

I am continually amazed by the young, handsome, and otherwise pleasant young men here who hit on me in my current state.
This ain't modesty on my part.
Anyone who's read certain of my former blog posts should be equally amazed. I am a walking wreck from my matted, two-toned hair down to my repulsive feet. I accept and, dare I say, even embrace this current state as a temporary and highly informative dive into the depths of hygienic sin, but it does leave me with a certain amount of vague confusion when a gent makes a pass at me. Really, a flat incomprehension at their interest. Sir, are you aware that I smell? I only just manage to stop myself from blurting this question out in all seriousness. Are your olfactory senses even passably functional?

In Kenya, a lot of this has likely grown out of national friendliness, and an especially high interest just now in the United States of Obama (as Kenyans would have it). This I understand and accept. I may look like a walking fast-lane to Green-Card Heaven. But even allowing for that, how do I explain the eager young man who told me exactly how many cows he's going to give my father for me, and who (when I raised the potentially problematic issue of cattle transport to the United States) insisted that we would stay in Kenya and tend these cows together??

I have thought a great deal about this mystery (I am blessed with an abundance of free time inside buses), and can only find two possible explanations; first, that African men are simply curious about what it'd be like to date/etc a foreigner, and are willing to make a pass at any opportunity that comes along (no matter how otherwise unappealing). Perhaps, however, this theory does not give enough credit to the discerning dating tastes of the average African male (for which I admit I have little respect). Thus my second theory, based on the fact that the locals think I'm a walking cash cow. In asking me out, these chaps are perhaps in the market for a sugar momma, or at least a good time at whatever posh hotel they think I'll be staying at. (They think. HAR HAR HAR. )
Either way, I'm willing to bet that, unlike in my own country, it is not my hair, face, or the shape of my rump that has attracted their attention, but my dirty, dusty, sunburned, bug-bitten but still appreciably pale skin that is responsible.

Of course, it is also possible that my courters actually can't smell me, and not for any fault of their nose - just that my own stench isn't (yet) strong enough to be detected over their own overpowering cologne. In a competitive stink-a-thon, some of these fellas might actually beat me for discernible scent radius - but of course they wouldn't even come close for complexity of flavor.
(It's nice to be first in something.)

The Altruistic Sniper

For the my entire life, I have suffered from what I insist is just an instinctive, healthy fear of mosquitoes.
Others have occasionally scolded me for this, suggesting that the panic I feel upon discovery of a mosquito in my premises, and my successive frantic failed efforts to permanently eliminate it from existence, represent an irrational and excessive reaction. They present as evidence the opinion that one little mosquito bite isn't so bad, and it might not even bite you anyway. It's not going to kill you or anything, they say.

The fools.

Here in Africa, where mosquitoes actually can kill me, I have funneled my lifelong fear into a calculating and coldly effective agenda of mosquito extermination, sniper-style. And to PETA and other well-intentioned righteous lunatics at large, I maintain that this is self-defense, pure and simple: the mosquitoes are bloodthirsty predators, and I refuse to be prey.

In fact, I would take it a step farther, and enjoin all humankind to stand by me in what could become a global crusade against the flying evil. Think about it. They prey on all of us, yet hardly anything eats them. They spawn in the thousands, yet we're the only species on Earth that can kill them. Basically, it's up to us humans - we have a responsiblity to the rest of the planet - to control the dangerous and burgeoning population of these harbingers of doom, disease, and destruction. Eschew barriers of race, class, and sexual orientation, for mosquitoes are a pest to all!

This endeavor has made me realize I could have been quite a good sniper. I have the dedication, the patience, the concentration and occasionally the reflexes necessary for a personalized kill. I have perfected my choice of weapons, and refined my battle techniques. And in the interest of promoting mosquito extermination efforts worldwide, I will lay out all my secrets here in infinite detail for those brave enough to take up the task.

First, I arm myself with a damp, medium-sized towel. Face towel-size will do, or a small bath towel. The dampness is key, as it increases weight and therefore whipping speed, not to mention manageability. Plus, there's an added sticky factor that helps prevent their wily escape upon contact.
Second, don't forget your armor. Even if you do manage to kill them all, it would be sheer foolishness to go into battle with excessive amounts of exposed skin - unless you plan to use your own body as bait. (A valid technique, but unfortunately not one I'm terribly fond of. I just end up slapping the shit out of myself.)
The next challenge is to harden your nerves against that old panic-inducing whine that indicates you are within striking range of an as-yet-unlocated attacker. I have learned to use this same sound - infamous as psychological warfare - against my foes. In a room of total silence, even a distant mosquito will betray its movements with that terribly faint but - to the vigilant ear - just perceptible high-pitched hum.
Finally, the waiting. This is difficult, but represents the single most important step in the process, as it allows you to catch the mosquito at the only vulnerable point of its cursed life - when it's resting on something pale or white. To facilitate this situation, try removing or consolidating other furniture/ posessions to maximize white surface space in the room, and then memorize any random dark marks on the walls or ceiling. Also recognize and become familiar with treacherously soft surfaces in the room - drapes are the worst - and try to get them out of the way. Killing a mosquito on those things is almost impossible, even for the talented.

You're ready. Get your towel. Don your armor. Listen for the hum. Track the invader and wait until it lands, and then SMACK! whip that thing against the wall. It will be large enough that the required hand-eye coordination is minimal, and fast enough that even as it flies up to flee with its miserable life and bite you mercilessly while you sleep, it will be caught in the impending folds of the towel. These techniques are battle-tested; you can trust me.

My dedication and rigorous training led inevitably to what became an ultimate battle between the forces of good and evil in my hotel room one night. Armed with my trusty, slightly damp towel, I stalked a horde of assailants around a 12 square meter room for an hour and a half, resting only to flick the bodies off my towel and into the toilet. By the end, 22 of Satan's soldiers lay slain about the room. The white-tiled bathroom was the scene of a massacre, where the bodies lay in piles. Tired, scarred, but victorious, I hung up my weaponry and armor and crawled into my snug BugBivy3000, zipping myself safe from midnight retribution.
It was a good night.

The Smile of Africa

Once upon a time, I heard this corny promotion for some African nation's tourism industry. Near as I can tell, the televised ad went something along the lines of: "[Our Country's Name]... The Smile of Africa!"

Well, within fifteen minutes of traversing the gate separating the Ethiopian half of Moyale from the Kenyan half, I remembered that silly ad and thought to myself: That's gotta be Kenya.

Corny, but true. I defy anyone to come here, look about themselves for a minute or two, and tell me I'm wrong. Am I in Texas or something?? Everyone's smiling at me when we make eye contact.. for no reason.. and after Ethiopia, it's bizarre.

The wave of smiles washed over David and I like impossibly warm sunlight in winter, and we stumbled about in its rays, eyes blinking furiously, unable to properly interpret our surroundings.
For me, this confusion manifested itself in an unfortunate (and, I hope my friends will admit, uncharacteristic) rudeness to the first friendly Kenyans who fell in step with us to ask jovially, "Hey, how are ya! where ya from?" Still in Ethiopian mode, I greeted their welcoming smiles with cold suspicion and curt, one-word responses, waiting for the student sob story or the demand for a guiding fee, abruptly startled when they easily gave up interest at the obvious lack of mine. In Ethiopia, such sudden "new friends" would follow you for blocks, never letting go until fully persuaded that you weren't going to give them money, no matter how creative their rationale. (Or a pen.)

Not so here, and alarmed at how easily I terminated my first few encounters, I began to tentatively meet the gaze of some of these "friendly strangers". Could it be..? Sure enough, curious and amiable expressions met my eye, and excited welcomes met my responses. I think I'm going to like it here.

Tourism industry nothing- they're just broadcasting the national attitude! Kenya... The Smile of Africa.