Christmas!

Rwandans occasionally find me somehow androgynous.  It might be my short hair or perhaps (more likely) as one Rwandan put it, while gesturing emphatically at his own chest, “I did not know, because you do not have here.  Why?”

Well, the Tanzanian government, apparently determined to one-up its neighbor, made it official.  According to the visa that I got on my recent vacation, I am a 51 year-old man.  Not only did I get a new gender, but I got an awesome pseudonym to go along with it: Patrick Richard Guyver.  Luckily (and perhaps also a bit frighteningly) no one at customs and immigration seemed to notice this very obvious discrepancy.  But don’t worry, Mr. Dick Pat McGuyver (as we dubbed my exciting new alter ego), I didn’t do anything too questionable while using your identity.  Aside from snorkeling with the mafia, that is…

Alanna and I had been plotting, if not actively planning, our trip to Tanzania, for several months.  Finally, December 17^th rolled around.  Picture, if you will, a crowded bus stop at 5 a.m., filled with bleary-eyed passengers about to board the bus for a 30-hour jaunt to Dar Es Salaam.  Feel the dread and resignation in the air, clinging to your skin as palpably as the early morning fog.  Alanna and I visualized this for about five seconds, then decided to fly instead.  I was still braced for a long and difficult journey given that we had a layover in an airport so closely resembling Dante’s 7^th circle of hell.  Well, Italian poetics aside, things went off without a hitch.  I got to Dar  in one piece, was issued my fake ID without any problems, and was more than ready for my long-awaited holiday to begin.

Dar was a shock to the system.  From the heat to the architecture, the lack of hills and the abundance of street food, it was a wonderful but sometimes disorienting shock to the system.  Or maybe it was a wonderfully disorienting shock to the system.  Things in Rwanda that once seemed complicated and confusing are just part of ordinary life now, and as Alanna so aptly put it, “I need to go places where I don’t know what’s going on, so I can figure it all out.”

So, what did we figure out in Dar?

1.       1.  Pants are not appropriate.  It’s hot in Dar.  We were not adequately prepared for how swampy pants can get after five minutes in 90 degree heat and 90 percent humidity.  Within 10 minutes of arriving at the hotel room, I became a strict adherent to Alanna’s “no pants in the room” rule.  I adhered to that rule with a religious fervor seldom witnessed outside of Dateline investigative specials.  The next day, I bought a flowy dress and amended the rule to “no pants.  Ever.”  The one time I broke it, fate was quick to administer retribution.  Word of warning to the fair-skinned: If you wear pants with holes in the in a tropical climate, be certain to apply sunscreen to ALL relevant areas.

2.     

       2.  Rickshaw drivers are dubious after dark.  At one point, Alanna and find found ourselves somewhat stranded late at night without any immediate source of transportation.  We couldn’t really walk far, as my shoe had just broken.  The only solution was, of course, to flag down a rickshaw driver.  The conversation that followed, or failed to follow, was undoubtedly influenced by one or more illegal substances.   As we watched the rickshaw weave unsteadily away from us into the night, Alanna summed up the encounter nicely: “Do you think he realizes we aren’t actually in his rickshaw?”

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       3.  The long way is the only way.  I have never claimed to be good at reading maps.  When it comes to that, I am functionally illiterate.  Alanna reads maps at about a sixth grade level.  To only compound the problem, our guidebook’s map had the level of detail barely exceeding that of a cereal box treasure map.  So we were lost.  Frequently.  Luckily, we are both fond of wandering, and often ended up in interesting if unexpected places

      

      But after two days in Dar, we were ready for some quality beach time on Zanzibar.  We had originally planned to go out west to Arusha and poke around Kilimanjaro, but a lack of money or desire to spend ten hours on a hot bus made us opt for island life instead.  Zanzibar, and especially Stonetown, might be one of my favorite places that I’ve ever visited.  The old heart of Stonetown is a labyrinth of narrow winding streets, none of which go where you think they will.  It’s easy to get lost, but only if you make the mistake of having an actual destination in mind.  It was far better to just wander, and we did.

      

     Of course, sometimes you set yourself up for failure.  On the ferry ride over, Alanna and I flipped through the increasingly suspect guidebook and picked out a lovely sounding hotel.  Then, we spent an hour and a half trying to locate it, only to eventually learn that it no longer exists.  Even Dick Pat McGuyver couldn’t rig up a GPS to find it.  But eventually we ended up at a very nice hotel—with airconditioning.  I am not ashamed to admit that I draped myself all over the thing, on multiple occasions.  It was an almost religious experience, and I send many prayers of thanks to Our Lady of Perpetual Air-Conditioning.

      Stonetown was a fascinating  mix of locals—with Arab, Indian, and African cultures—and tourists—mostly beautiful Germans.  Walking down one street, I would see women in saris or full burkas, men in prayer robes, brightly color kanga prints, and little girls in pigtails.  The variety of food was equally amazing.  Oh, the seafood.  I’ve been eating sardines from a can for the last year.  Needless to say, my standard for good fish had sunk  to fairly shameful depths.  One week in Zanzibar was enough to float my culinary nautilus back up the surface.  The night market was a great place to get fresh, delicious seafood, and a prime location to people-watch.  Each evening, as the sun began to set over the Indian ocean, dozens of vendors would set up their stalls in the waterfront park.  Lobster, prawn, shark, tuna, barracuda—if it could swim, it could be grilled on a plate.  There was also an intriguing dish called “Zanzibar pizza”, which featured meat or fish, onion, egg, and mayonnaise all fried up in a crepe.  The dessert version nutella and banana.  I’m pretty certain that it shortened by life by a few happy, fattening years. 

      Despite my firm belief that fish belong in my stomach, Alanna and I went snorkeling one morning.  The boat we rode out in was called “The Gladiator.”  Less mature people would have made many jokes at this.  We went with a group and beautiful Germans and a branch of the Spanish mafia.  Our first stop was at Prison Island, where we got to get up close and personal with the island’s giant tortoises.  The Spanish mafia, of course, sat on the tortoises while the beautiful Germans, huddled quietly next to the sign that read “Do Not Sit On The Tortoises” were politely horrified.

      

      After the tortoises, we hitched up our skirts, remounted the gladiator, and headed back out to sea.  In a moment of collective stupidity, neither Alanna nor I had put sunscreen on our backs that morning.  As I paddled happily amongst the coral, watching the rainbows of fish that swarmed around me (and wondering how many people the Spanish mafia had sent to sleep with these same fish), the sun was shining steadily overhead.  Let’s just say that no one rides the gladiator without getting burned.

      For Christmas, we headed out to Jambiani on the east coast.  The guidebook (which by this point, neither of us trusted) described Jambiani was a “village.”  False.  It had a post office, an internet café, and more than one shop.  That, my friends, is a town.  It was a wonderfully quiet and relaxing time, and one the rare occasion I could peel myself out of the hammock, the warm waters of the Indian Ocean were just a few feet away.

      Our hotel was staffed exclusively by Rastafarians.  I reached by Bob Marley threshold after three days.  I also realized that my manners have become increasingly African in some regards.  Take two examples:

1.       At the post office/minimart, a nice older (probably German) tourist was attempting to mail some postcards.  Rather than wait in line behind her, I did was felt normal:  I edged in front of her, demanded two water bottles from the shopkeeper, paid, and left without apologizing.  Only as I was walking away did I realize that this behavior could be construed as rude.

2.      On the way back from Jambiani, Alanna and I rode a dala-dala, the Tanzanian  equivalent of a twegerane bus.  As more and more people piled on, we were forced to squeeze closer and closer together, much to the discomfort of the Germans riding with us.  I had an old Tanzanian mama on my right and a German man on my left.  My arm was draped over the mama’s shoulder, while her hand was resting gently across my knees.  This felt comfortable.  There was a clear line of demarcation between me and the German.  We did not touch.  This felt uncomfortable.  Alanna and I both got off the bus laughing, but wondering how we are going to manage to go back to a world where personal space is so rigidly define and easily violated.

So, to make a long and rambling story short, Tanzania was wonderful. It was good to leave Rwanda for awhile, and it was good to come back, too.  School “begins” on Monday, so my lifestyle of leisure must come to an end.  Well, a merry very belated Christmas, and a happy somehow belated New Year!