Zanzibar

It's not quite Venice, but still best approached by boat. Even before I knew anything of the place, its name alone piqued my curiosity. Plus, if the Sultan of Oman was willing to move his capital thousands of miles to live there, you know it has to be good....

Zanzibar is a small island off the coast of Tanzania, about two hours by ferry from the port of Dar Es Salaam. Though it's now part of Tanzania, it has a history all its own. Trading sandstorms for monsoons, the Sultanate of Oman ventured all the way down from the Arabian peninsula to colonize the island in the 18th Century. From then on it served as a hub for the African slave trade, funneling captives from the mainland to the middle east and beyond.

I first landed in Stone Town, a historic city with the kind of narrow, winding pedestrian streets one expects to find in medieval Europe. It's a fascinating melting pot of Arabian architecture, Indian cuisine, and (who would have thought) African inhabitants. Perhaps like New Orleans, it's a place where foreigners become acutely aware that they'll never fully understand its mysteries and complexities without being born there.

After a few days of culture, it was high time for the beach. I think the pictures say it all:

Kilimanjaro

Snow on the equator....what will they think of next?

Here's Kilimanjaro (or 'Kili' as they say) in a nutshell:

Day 1: Rainforest


Day 2: Steppe


Day 3: Desert


Day 4: Glacier


The Swahili phrase 'poli-poli' (slowly slowly) is applied to nearly every facet of life in Tanzania, usually to the chagrin of overly-eager tourists. But on Kilimanjaro even the most type-A westerner must learn to breathe a bit. Yes, literally. Increased altitude = less oxygen. Though I started my ascent with a brisk stride, my final steps were baby steps indeed!

Night three was spent at the foot of the glacier at 15000 feet. Bedtime was 4PM, though no one could sleep because of the altitude. At midnight, everyone got up to begin the final ascent. Fortunately it was a clear night, though flashes of lightning from clouds below illuminated our shadows on sheets of rock. I felt dizzy for the first two hours, but my heartrate doubled after taking my second dymox. It was extremely easy to become demoralized when gazing at the behemoth ahead of you. Eventually I kept my head down, taking one step, then the next, until reaching the Uhuru Peak, over 19000ft above sea level.

Altitude sickness pills, aspirin, and my iPod certainly boosted me along the way, though I don't think I would've made it without my prime source of inspiration: a team of 30 Iranian paraplegics that accompanied me every step of the way. They all lost their legs in the Iran-Iraq War of 1979, a conflict fueled by loads of U.S. military aid to Iraq. Contrary to all the negative press Iran gets in the West, I have never met a nicer group of people. They wanted to share everything they had, and would've given the shirts off their backs if asked. I had never thought about visiting Iran before, but now I'm dying to go.


I should also mention that you're reading the blog of a soon-to-be C-rate Iranian celebrity. On the way down, I was interviewed by an Iranian journalist documenting the climb. The tape should be airing on Persian International Television (Jamjam) at some point in May. Stay tuned.....

Masai Mara

Indeed terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime. -Edmund Burke

Okay, so I'm not a huge fan of Burke, but his essay on the sublime made a lot of sense after my trip to Masai Mara, the vast game park in western Kenya. His main point is pretty basic: things that scare us also have the potential to transport us into some sort of rapturous ecstasy- the "sublime," I guess.

From this perspective, Masai Mara was certainly beautiful, but not necessary sublime. From dawn till dusk, eight of us toured the plains of the Serengeti in a safari van, getting up close and personal with dozens of our favorite zoo animals (lions, elephants, and cheetahs, to name a few). Yet even the lions lethargically slinked along completely indifferent to the vans that continuously cut off their paths. I wanted to fear the lion, to feel like my life could be taken at any moment by these meat hungry felines. I wanted the lion to fear me. But alas, they had grown all too accustomed to photo-snapping Europeans in funny looking beige hats. They knew better than to attack.

On the third day, I had the opportunity to visit a Masai village on the outskirts of the park. Each hut is made of hardened cow dung. The women provide all the manpower; the men serve the indispensable function of supervising the women (sorry guys, I don't think

becoming Masai is quite as easy as, say, converting to Presbyterianism or joining the vegans). They're on the Atkins diet and they don't even know it- milk and beef are their main staples. More than anything, I was impressed with the beauty and style of their traditional clothing. Tres chic. Look out, Versace- Masai couture will be huge!

Dar Es Salaam: A Guilty Pleasure

My title for this entry came to mind sometime between puffing smoke rings through a pineapple flavored hookah and losing 15000 shillings at a black jack table. (Don't worry, it's not that much)

Though the casino might not treat your pocketbook kindly, I'm positive there are dozens of ways to strike it rich in this jewel by the sea. Here are a few:

Laundromat Franchise: It might be the dry season in Tanzania, but I'm soaking wet from dawn to dusk. Say goodbye to those Jane Fonda videos. Just keep breathing!

Recycling Center: Less trash melting = cooler climate!

Traffic Light Distributor: Sure, there are some faded white lines here and there that allegedly guide traffic, but in reality each intersection plunges traffic back into a Hobbesian state of war.

Dry Ice Street Vendor: need I say more?

Water Park: no others exist for thousands of miles....even Bill Gates will envy your monopolistic enterprise.

As you might have gathered, this city is HOT.

Dar Es Salaam (meaning 'Haven of Peace') is fascinatingly cosmopolitan- a confluence of African, Arab, and Indian cultures. I spent three days here en route to Nairobi. The city is known to be somewhat dangerous, though luckily I think bandits were distracted by the arrival of Princess Mathilde of Belgium (she must have known I was coming...)

On the train from Zambia, I met an Omani from Zanzibar named Qussay who showed me around the city, and even took me to the 'house of ill repute'- a beach bungalow owned by two very hip expats from South Africa and the UK. Definitely gave me some inspiration for retirement!

Malole

After a week of 'roughing' it in the bush, Ned and I decided to return to Malole. Hoping to avoid a three hour walk, we thought we'd test the local mail system and send the Brothers of the Sacred Heart a message to pick us up. Since there's no postal service beyond Malole, we sent a "bush note." No stamps? No envelopes? No problem! All you do is write your message, walk to the road, stop the next passerby on bicycle, and describe to him/her where you want the letter to go in as much detail as possible. If the cyclist happens to be going in the right direction, he'll customarily agree to deliver the message free of charge. Okay, so maybe there's one small flaw in the system- you'll never know whether the note is actually delivered. Unlike most New Yorkers I know, Zambians will rarely (if ever) say 'no,' and the phrase 'I don't know' seems to be altogether missing throughout the country. Perhaps I shouldn't have been too surprised when the car didn't show. Oh well, a three hour midday walk never killed anyone (I hoped....)

For little children, muzungus (white people) are a constant source of fascination. In fact, they will all chant it in unison when they see one. By the time I had walked half a mile, I had a lemming trail of about 8 children in my wake. After a few idiosyncratic arm movements, I realized that they were all playing copycat with me. Hmmm.....seemed like the perfect setup for an early morning aerobics class. For the next twenty minutes, my new cadets and I skipped, hopped, and slid our way to Malole. I thought the moonwalk might be a bit of a stretch. Don't ask me why, but I kept thinking of the 'Doe, A Deer' scene from The Sound of Music.

For the past ten days I've been living la bonne vie at the brother's residence. With electricity, satellite television, and 1-3 servants on staff at any given time, it's no secret that they live better than the rest of the community. However the lifestyle is chosen conscientiously- one of the brothers mentioned to me that their order would not command the same level of respect if they lived in poverty. Living beneath their means, he argued, would be taken as an insincere attempt to assimilate.

Slowly but surely I've managed to make myself useful at the school. There is a small computer lab equipped with hardware donated from a sister school in the UK. Operating systems range from Windows 3.1 to Windows 98. Only a handful of teachers and students have e-mail. Though I'm not much more than an Excel novice, my knowledge of the SUM formula instantly raised me to the level of guru!

Tomorrow I leave for Tanzania. Kilimanjaro, here I come.....

The Bush

Strip malls, internet cafes, indoor plumbing.....living the Western life in Lusaka was certainly nice, though I knew it was only a transition. Four days after my arrival, I booked a one-way bus fare to Kasama, a small hub about 10 hours to the north. All the while, I tried to ignore the corporate slogan painted on the kiosk: "Get There, Alive." Thank goodness...I had left my crash helmet at home. Since the bus departed at 4AM, I figured I would be the first to arrive at 2:45- yet, the bus was packed! "GOD IS IN CONTROL" blazoned the windshield. Reassuring I guess, though I wish He hadn't been in such a hurry on those hairpin turns. Driving in the middle of the road and playing chicken with oncoming gas trucks might similarly be avoided. I felt pretty well packed for the trip, though I immediately regretted that my whiskey flask was only half full......

For the final leg of my trip, I boarded a flat van in Kasama headed for Malole, a village about 70km to the East. Everyone had just returned from their weekly excursions to Shoprite (a South African version of WalMart), adding about three dozen grocery bags to an already excessive human cargo. About 30KM into our journey, the van's sliding door suddenly fell off! Luckily we were only going about 5KM/hour to avoid a massive pot hole, and the boy who fell out with the door climbed back into the van unscathed. The driver chuckled, completely unphased, strapped the detached door to the roof, and continued on our journey.

They say that only drunks drive straight in rural Zambia. I now understand why....your axels won't surive the trip!

After miles and miles of bushland peppered with single-room thatched huts, I saw traces of electricity beneath a cluster of tin-roofed buildings in an isolated patch of forest. At last, we had arrived at Malole. The entire village is basically the incorporation of two regionally prominent institutions: The Malole Mission and the School of Saint Francis (one of the top five secondary schools in Zambia). St. Francis is operated by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, whom Ned had already befriended. They welcomed me with open arms (Ned happened to be there too!). And luckily, I was just in time for dinner.

After spending the night in Malole, Ned and I trekked to his new home in Kasonde, an even smaller village about 12 miles from Malole. The photos of Kasonde above suggest a Spartan existence, which is true, but shed no tears....the livin' is deceptively easy. During the week I spent there, the typical day was some variation on this theme:

7:00- Wake Up
7:30- Get Up
7:45 Coffee/Tea
8:00 - 11:00 Add layers to mud oven
11:00 - 12:00 Chat with visiting villager, who brings some sugar cane stalks to munch
12:00 - 1:00 Stroll though the bush, find wild bananas and mangoes for lunch
1:00 - 2:00 Neighbor's son Lazarus delivers lunch for two: Nshima (maize meal) and cooked mushrooms (he comes EVERY day!)
2:00 - 4:00 Fish farmers visit to discuss progress in stocking their ponds
5:00 - 6:00 Add more layers to mud oven
6:00 - 8:00 Prepare and eat dinner (alas, we make this meal ourselves)
9:00 Reading
10:00 Bedtime

The sun has come and gone, and I haven't strolled more than 100 feet from the hut. Do they have time shares here?

The Fortune Teller

It is widely believed that 'coloured' (South African colloquialism for mixed race) women from South Africa's Western Cape region have the power of clairvoyancy. Randomly, I found such a person in a slum of Lusaka. "Antie Ann" had to be at least 70 years old. She came to Zambia (or at that time, Northern Rhodesia) in 1960 when both South Africa and Malawi (her late husband's homeland) were unwelcoming. My four friends and I booked an entire morning with her, allowing for about 45 minutes each.

I had expected her to whip out some wildly exotic tools of divination; instead, she procured a regular deck of playing cards. Still, I felt chills run down my spine as she overturned each card one by one, literally unfolding my fate before me. To my surprise, she knew that I was going back to school next fall. Learning about my past was fun, but of course I was more interested in what's to come. I think it would be somewhat sacrilegious to divulge her findings here, but if anything she says comes true, I'll declassify the info :-)