A Series of Journal Entries Concerning the Voyage from Arusha to Zanzibar and Back
25 October, 2006
The Riverman Hotel in Stonetown, Zanzibar is quite wonderful after a very on-again, off-again sort of day. Two previous nights at the YWCA in Dar es Salaam were restful, though plagued with mosquitoes and thick, humid heat. Dar was boring. Really, just a layover on our way to Zanzibar. Mosque Street was, though nothing super exciting, one of the more impressive sights Dar had to offer. One mosque, nearly the size of the main building at my University campus, was divided into two architectural pieces – one shorter and painted entirely in white, one with much taller pillars extending from the roof and green globes at the tips of these pillars. What made Mosque Street quite a bit more striking than it would have been on its own was that Ramadan had just ended the day that we arrived; the conclusion of this observance period prompted the annual two-day government holiday, so really the only street in Dar to be alive with human interaction was Mosque Street, just after morning and afternoon prayer let out. We saw women and their daughters in hijabs, and men and their sons in these traditional white tunics (I do not know how to call them) and hats (I also do not know how to call these). Interesting to me how, on Mosque Street, there were clearly divided ownerships of children between the sexes; men and THEIR sons, women and THEIR daughters. Something simultaneously intriguing and appalling about this overt gender divide.
Anyhow, aside from Mosque Street, there was our YWCA, and otherwise, there was very little excitement. Just a few msungu-type establishments, such as the Florida Pub, where we drank some Amarula and Castle Lager to kill the hours between 14:00 and 17:00 on our first full day, when we found precisely nothing else to do. (“We” being Emma, Marek, and myself – in case I forget to mention that.)
And then, there was Ret Reat (said Reet-Reet) and Indian restaurant, recommended to us by an Indian man in a watch store near Shop Rite, where we had stopped to purchase a large jug of water. “Reet-Reet,” he said. “You will like it. Good food. You go down this street, make a right, and then you come to… well, make left. No. Start out to the right… left… right… right… left. Ask anybody – they’ll know. Reet-Reet. “And how do you spell that?” Emma asked. “Ret,” the man’s daughter answered from behind the counter, and she paused, “…Reat. Yes. Ret. Reat.” So we set off in search of Reet-Reet, and asked a total of seven people (mostly lovely Tanzanian women) for directions to this establishment, each person directing us down another side street with two dozen closed shops. And then, finally, an Indian woman in a wonderfully colored dress, who spoke very little English, pointed down a tiny, littered alleyway. “Go that way.” We went, and ::gasp:: at long last, an hour or more into our search for Reet-Reet, we stood below the rainbow colored lettering of the restaurant: “RETREAT – Vegetarian Indian Cuisine.” Oh, how English words are pronounced so differently by non-native speakers!
So, the following morning, we checked out of the YWCA, Marek exchanged some Euros for US dollars (because Zanzibar prefers dollars for the exchange rate), and we set off for the Flying Horse ferry to Stonetown.
Start to finish, here is the day:
1:00 Finish THE KITE RUNNER. Excellent suggestion, Marie Gilmore. Couldn’t quite put it down.
6:45 Wake up at YWCA, eat breakfast
8:00 Go out in search of bottled water and dollars in exchange for Euros in Dar
10:00 Check out of YWCA, continue looking for Bureaux de Change for Marek to exchange money
12:00 Ferry to Zanzibar, get sunburned, get annoyed by other group of wazungu girls about three years my senior, wearing bathing suit tops, with cutesie little cropped pants or skirts, and wearing a ton of beads they were probably ripped off for in Dar, and they flirt with the ferry operator.
16:00 Arrive Stonetown, Zanzibar, file through immigration, although Zanzibar is the ZAN part of TanZANia, and thereby is the same country that I’ve been in for a month already…
17:00 Check in at the Riverman Hotel, accept one room, say we will think about the second room, as the man at the counter claims that each guest must pay $10, and that we cannot pay $10 for a single room for two people to share, as we had originally planned.
18:00 Find the Oceanside fish market, where we purchase fish kabobs and roasted plantains for 2000 Tsh per piece (quite overpriced). Sit on stone bench in the park next to two small Tanzanian boys. I bite into the first piece of fish on my kabob; it is very salty. I pick the piece of sweet potato off the skewer and place it between my front teeth, enjoying its sweet contrast to the salty fish. I pull the next piece of fish off the skewer and chew it, noticing that it tastes a bit funny, like ammonia. But decidedly, I was crazy – why would fish taste like ammonia? I chew. Salty. Saltier than the last piece. And I decide that I’m not crazy. This fish tastes like ammonia. I look down, toward the sweet potato savior for my taste buds; the third piece of fish has some short, white flecks of flesh resting atop its golden cooked surface. Upon closer examination, these flecks of flesh seems to be writhing. I bring the skewer toward my eyes. The fish itself blurs in my field of view, and I focus on several worms. Teeny, tiny, white, writhing worms. On my fish. In my stomach. I fell Emma and Marek not to eat anymore – thankfully, they hadn’t eaten much at this point. We toss our dinners into the trash, which is labeled “Dust Bin,” and has a hole in the bottom. We leave the park, in search of alcohol, so that I might drink it and kill anything that might have been writhing or squirming in my stomach. Some good Russian style medicine.
19:00 We stumble across an Indian restaurant, and I decide I want a sweet lassi (lovely drink, something between yogurt and buttermilk, but sweet), and then each of us decided upon a small menu item to make up for the dinner disaster. Everything was delicious. And we washed it down with a round of Konyagi shots, after “Na zdrowie,” the Polish cheers, “to your health.” Emma added, “…literally.” We chuckled, and I tried not to think of the insects I had earlier eaten.
20:00 Return to the Riverman, where we take the rooms given to us – a single and a double. The man at the reception desk offers us $8 each for the first night, and $10 each for the second two nights. We say $8 for the first two, and $10 for the last. He tells us to consult the owner later. I shower at the Riverman, under running, pressurized water. There was only one temperature, which was cool, but not cold – a good temperature for sunburned skin. I lathered my skin everywhere with rose soap and washed my hair quite thoroughly, including a full rinse – to the point that no shampoo was left lingering at my roots, which is a persistent problem when I shower with a bucket of water in Monduli. I washed my face, my legs, the backs of my knees, my back, my neck. All under running, pressurized water. Heavenly! This was my first non-bucket shower in over a month. It was quick by Western standards – probably ten solid minutes though. Borderline frivolous, because I admit, I stood there for a minute letting the water run over my face, and I wasted that water in that minute. But I really – I mean really – appreciated that minute.
20:30 Started writing this entry, and was interrupted by a knock on my door from the receptionist, to alert me to the hotel owner’s arrival.
20:45 Emma, Marek and I approached the front desk prepared to do battle, to insist that we understood the cost of the hotel to be $10 per room, and not per person. But battle was unnecessary. The hotel patriarch agreed to $8 per person for the first two nights, and $10 for the last night, which was quite fair after he explained that $3 per person goes to the government. We chatted, about Ramadan, his fasting (he’s still fasting though Ramadan is officially over, because women make up for the week they do not fast during their menstrual period and he was fasting with his wife for this extra week to make it easier for her), about us being students, life in Monduli, life on Zanzibar, and we asked him where we can eat ugali. “Ugali! From Monduli, you say? Of COURSE you like ugali! Well, pay 2000 Tsh and you get ugali, fish, some sauce, some vegetables. Maybe beans, too. You can go to the CCM Club. I can take you there tomorrow night, though I still fast. Thirty days, you know. (Or had he said forty?) Or you can go to the restaurant across the street from the Clove hotel. AND, you must drink sugarcane juice, and you must eat Zanzibar pizza. I am quite fond of it myself.” This man, obviously bright, as he was sent to study in Russia under the Socialist government around the time that the Doc did the same, seems quite happy and proud of his establishment. Despite its current renovations, it proved to be quite clean and tidy. My bed, which I am currently sitting upon, is quite comfortable indeed, and I am still reaping the benefits of relaxation from that lovely shower. Perhaps it is time to rest. Good night.
26 October, 2006
Before coming to Tanzania, I had no idea that mosquito nets hang from above the bed. I thought that the net was placed over the whole body and tucked under the mattress, so I sometimes wondered whether I’d be able to configure this net on my own or perhaps I would need someone to “tuck me in.” Sometimes, I am quite naïve. I think of this as I lay in my bed at the Riverman Hotel – my own spacious, double bed – and stare up at the elaborate wooden frame suspended from the ceiling so that it is exactly the width and length of this bed, and I realize that constructing such suspension systems for mosquito nets is a craft unto its own.
I realize this sort of thing a lot here (I speak of realizing the need for certain craftspeople, not my naïveté, which I probably also realize quite frequently here). Today at the market in Stonetown, among busy Tanzanians, colorful flashes of fabric, the occasional pungent and salty fish stench, men in white Islamic tunics balancing too-heavy baskets of fresh bread on their ancient bicycles, fresh fruits, spices sold in little wooden boat-like containers, I loved to watch the sugarcane juicers above all the other pleasant chaos. These men would use a standard machine, a rather simple complex machine, which stood on wooden legs, with a large metal crank that moved a gear, that spun a meter-long set of metal rolling pins against one another; corresponding halves of each rolling pin were grooved and the sugarcane was first passed through this grooved portion in order to crush the fibers and extract the preliminary juices (this was done three times); then the frayed cane fibers (still sort of held together) were passed through the flat part of the pins several times; one last time, the flattened cane was folded in half, and the sugarcane juicer placed a small piece of ginger and a lime wedge in this fold; the last juices of the sugarcane, this time with ginger and lime extract, dripped down the metal funneling shoot to a bucket with large blocks of ice to cool the liquid. A small glass was 100 Tsh, and a large glass was 200 Tsh. But anyhow, this juicing procedure really can’t effectively be done by a street vendor in any way other than to use these machines; these street vendors’ livelihood depends upon the functionality of such machines and thus, there is quite a demand for skilled craftsmen to produce such machines. Intricate craftsmanship is sort of a lost art in the US.
Anyhow, this evening has been absolutely memorable and noteworthy. Emma, Marek and I spent nearly two hours milling about the street market. We decided to purchase one (or some) of every interesting fruit that we could find: one castania apple, one “grapefruit” (we didn’t believe it because this fruit was the size of a medium sized pumpkin, but surely it was a pink grapefruit once we cut it open, and its flesh was so sweet it seemed infused with sugarcane juice), one pineapple, six passion fruits, four red bananas, one papaya, three oranges, and a coconut. Ah, and three mangos. This was to be split between tonight and tomorrow afternoon’s snorkeling trip. We took these fruits and three beers (which we had earlier purchased at a restaurant/bar, shown to us by a lovely local man) to the same oceanfront park/marketplace where we had found our wormy fish skewers the night before. We went this time for Zanzibar pizza (egg, onions, chili peppers, sweet peppers, tomato, and optional ground beef – served enclosed in crepe dough like a calzone), recommended by our hotel owner. We bought three pizzas and chipsi from three local brothers, and sat on the park grass after sunset. We ate and drank, and then ate fruit with sticky fingers and faces, and enjoyed all of the sights and sounds, colors, and crowds of children and families which represented the end of Ramadan, Eid al-Fitr, on Zanzibar.
27 October, 2006
Today, for $30, we chartered a small, independently owned, wooden fishing boat by the name of the Mr. Bean. Mr. Miller, the boat’s owner, also rented us three sets of snorkeling equipment for 4000 Tsh. The boat driver took us out to an island called Bawi, about forty minutes off the coast of Zanzibar, and to a nearby sandbar.
Bawi was a private island, and we were not allowed to set foot onto it. We were permitted only to snorkel over the coral reefs that surrounded this island. Emma and Marek thoroughly enjoyed this snorkeling experience, it seemed. They ventured rather far away from the anchored Mr. Bean, while I stayed close enough to our little boat to pretend that there was an invisible tether attaching me to it. Something about the vastness of the ocean waters just didn’t sit well with me. I felt like I had been swallowed, swimming around out there, with this strange extraterrestrial sort of coral field and otherworldly creatures crawling/swimming around below my body. Every time I placed my goggles into the water, my heart raced. How does anything live down here? Little invisible jellyfish stung my arms and legs from time to time, and I winced at the prickling pain. Emma and Marek didn’t seem to mind so much. I swam a little further away from the Mr. Bean than I was comfortable with, and I decided that perhaps I needed a short break from swimming. On my way back to the boat, I swam through a field of these jellyfish, and they stung me all along my left side. That did me in. I got back to the Mr. Bean, took my gear off, and sat on the bow of the boat for the next hour or more, enjoying the sea life from above the water. The boat drifted at a steady pace, and with the waters as clear as they were, I caught an entirely new underwater scene about every ten minutes.
Emma and Marek came back to the boat for a wonderful lunch of mangoes and pineapple, which we ate like a picnic on the bow of the Mr. Bean. Most deliciously flavorful fruit any of us had ever eaten.
After lunch, Emma and Marek snorkeled again for another hour or so. We then set off for the sand bar, just as an ominous looking storm front approached Bawi from the mainland.
The sand bar was gorgeous. Fine, white sands were juxtaposed with old coral blocks and huge stony ridges. The waters were quite blue, and the sky was bluer. Essentially, that typical sort of paradise you see on postcards from exotic places. We went for a swim in the Indian Ocean and combed the beach. Soon, the skies were dark from the storm that we had evaded at Bawi, and we headed back to the Mr. Bean to wait out the bad weather, as it had started to rain. Rain turned to a downpour; the downpour turned to a torrential pelting, and then we decided that perhaps we should head back to the mainland.
The ride back to Zanzibar was unbelievably rough. Our little boat thrashed about on the waves, despite our wonderful driver’s concentrated efforts to keep things steady. “No worries, Hakuna Matata,” he told us. But not a single one of the four of us could see more than two feet in front of the boat. Were we even heading in the direction of the mainland? Rains ran off the orange tarp of the boat, and poured into the boat basin. There were nearly four inches of rain in the bottom of our boat by the time the storm slowed. It was really quite the adventure. But when all was said and done, the storm let up when we were fifteen minutes away from the Zanzibar coast, and we were quite safe and sound, though drenched and a bit cold.
Four hours later, Emma, Marek and I realized that despite repeated applications of “waterproof” sun block, we had all received terrible sunburns. We each waddled from our rooms at the Riverman to the oceanfront marketplace for more Zanzibar pizza for dinner, and then waddled back to the Riverman in another torrential downpour. We each showered, and prepared one of our beds as the “pity bed,” where we sat in our underwear, wrapped in wet sheets to soothe our sunburned skin, drinking water and whining about our shared pain. Little did we know that our skin would stay sore for a week to come!
28 October, 2006
I realize the corruption of this nation, not from my home stay in Monduli, but in more touristy areas. In small towns like Monduli, like Kisamo where Mama D’s family lives, people scrape by during water shortages and lack of electricity. There, it is easy to see what the people of Tanzania are missing in the way of daily necessities for their livelihood – but there seems this sense that everybody in the villages shares this strife, and this feeling of shared strife is easily implied to be the common daily struggle of every Tanzanian, and is therefore almost a uniting element among village people. It creates a harmony, a sense of peace and respect between neighbors. Perhaps it is presumptuous of me to say such things, but I have the feeling that so long as these village people are struggling in common ways, they can find a way to be happy together, despite what they are lacking; it is when these people see the financial status of their political leaders, and of the otherwise very small upper class, that they should become unhappy, dissatisfied with their living status, and rightfully so. Ignorance is bliss, right?
Sadly, I get the feeling that so many Tanzanians who blindly support political leaders with sensationalist reactions to everyday problems in their country, but who never really follow through with promises for these reactions, will never question why they are poor and the government officials are rich, and it is in this sort of ignorance that they can feel at peace. This is not to say that Tanzanians are ignorant to the corruptions that leave them living in poverty, but it is to suggest that perhaps some Tanzanians do not draw connections between these corruptions, their current government, and the average standard of living – connections which might lead to questioning, and questioning that might lead to change. But then again, those who dare to challenge corruption are oftentimes dealt with in rather inhumane ways. Take Moringe Sekoine, Tanzania’s former Prime Minister. He was shot, some say because of his fight against corruption.
On Zanziber, last night in Jambiani, we met a Polish couple at dinner. They explained to us their disgust at the poverty in Tanzania, when a singl car entry to the Ngorogoro Crater is nearly $300, and in a given day, such a park makes $100,000, at the very least (based on estimates of cars that visit the Crater’s main picnic spot at lunch time). Then, there is the Serengeti, there is Arusha National Park, there is Kilimanjaro, there is Mount Meru, among some others which are less popular national parks or sites with similarly priced, or more expensive entrance fees. How else might Tanzania be so poor then, as a nation - how might its people be so deprived of water, which could be distributed more effectively by national pipelines – if its government is not corrupt, if this national money does not simply evaporate into thin air? Surely, there is a national debt that must be paid off at the end of each year, but the moneys received in aid must not be properly allocated if yet so many Tanzanians starve, or die of Malaria – very curable and preventable ailments.
I see this corruption, how money vanishes, in a simple case that we experienced last night:
We had made advance reservations at Kimte Beach Inn, for a single room and for a double room. Upon arrival at Kimte, there were only a double room with bathroom attached, and a double room with shared bathroom available – not the single and double with shared bath, which we had reserved. Still, despite the hotel’s misallocation of our rooms, we were asked to pay $20 for one room and $30 for the other, per night. We said we would look around for another place, but the hotel manager offered us $15 per person per night, and we said we’d take it. I fell asleep on my bed in the double without a bathroom, and found that I woke up with bed bug bites up my hand and arm.
We went to an early dinner, where we met this Polish couple which I had mentioned, and they told us about the Visitors Inn, where they were staying; a double bed and a single bed, in separate rooms, a television, hot running water, a full bathroom, in a self contained bungalow, was $35 per night. We looked into this place, and it was visibly MUCH cleaner than Kimte – no bed bugs. Between debilitating sunburn on my legs, which still dictates that I spend as little time on my feet as possible, stomach cramps, and digestive issues, I felt rather sick; Emma and Marek offered to return to Kimte and collect our baggage so that we could stay somewhere where we would not be bitten by bugs while we sleep, and I stayed in our new room at Visitors Inn with our valuables.
Emma and Marek made it out of our rooms at Kimte with out baggage, and were stopped by the staff 200 meters down the road. The staff (two men) demanded that they pay $30 for the rooms, and Emma and Marek refused. They said that there were bed bugs, that we had hardly spent any time in the rooms, and that we were unhappy with the price of our rooms when there is clearly a much cleaner place down the road for ten dollars less per night. The staff grew angry. $30, they said. They grabbed Emma’s large backpack and held her still. They called two more men over, after they lit up a joint. “You will pay $30,” they said, vindictively, as they still held Emma’s backpack. “I don’t care if the police fine us $250 for what I will do to you. Emma told me this, and I thought back to something a friend of ours told us in our first week here: “Yeah, pot is illegal. But if you have some extra money, when the police come, you give them maybe 10,000 Tsh, maybe 20,000 Tsh. Whatever you have. And they never saw you.” And just like that, Emma’s story, which could have turned out quite frightfully, became quite clear. It was the primary level of the corruption that ruins any chance for honest Tanzanians to advance their standard of living. “You will pay us, or we will MAKE you pay. Wait here thirty minutes more, and we’ll come with a knife or a gun, and we will make you pay.” Emma and Marek didn’t even have a wallet to pay them from – I had all of our money back at the Visitors Inn. And I thought, would the police even help in a situation like this? When the two people being threatened do not have any money to offer, and when the assailants, obvious drug dealers (judging from their clientele at the hotel and from their stopping mid-threat to smoke a joint, as well as their supposed easy access to guns and knives, (and that Kimte’s drug dealing operations were confirmed by a local Rasta that we met on the beach the following day)), have extra money to pay off the police, wouldn’t the police favor the hotel staff’s story? It all happened on a dark, desolate street. There was hardly a person within earshot. If Marek hadn’t taken out his cell phone to leave with the hotel staff as collateral until they could return and pay $30 the following day, I cringe to think what might have happened.
And in this small case, I saw where money goes, who receives the excess – or perhaps it is not excess, but the simple sum of money that a person had budgeted for that day, that week. Or maybe it is the money that the CCM has promised to allocate as subsidies for school fees, but that will now feed the greedy hands of some blackmailer, to keep him quiet about some scandal involving some high-up government official in drug trafficking. And who knows about this corruption, and how is able to stand up to it? Certainly not the village people. Not the school children. Not the people who are most in need. In a corrupt society, any person in a position of power can demand whatever he wishes; and as long as he has the money to pay his way through justice, he will never be punished for injustices he has served to others. He with the most money is the most correct, the most just. And so, these corruptions, small or grand, are swept under the rug, to be “forgotten.”
31 October, 2006
Oh, hello Journal. I have a stomach amoeba, as expected after eating wormy fish skewers on Zanzibar. I’m really quite sick – nothing that can’t be fixed by tons of medication though. There is a long version of the story, which is quite terrible, but I will spare you the details. If you'd like to hear the long version, I'll send it out in an email :o)
But I'll give you the last snippet of the journal entry I wrote about these lovely experiences:
We arrived in Arusha not a moment too soon – in fact, an hour too late for my liking – and my mouth is dry. Sunburn is itching on my thighs and on my upper back. Six or more mosquito bites, at my ankles, up my legs, at my waist, are also itching, and the itch coincides with the sunburn itch, and I want to shrivel up and wilt into a pile to be swept up by the bus janitors. My stomach cramps are only worse. I am weak and dizzy. Emma and Marek carry my bags for the second time on this trip, and the kind female bus attendant finds us a friendly cab driver – I refuse to even attempt the daladala in this state. I use another disgusting outhouse squat toilet before we get into the cab. Still feeling sick. Still quite demoralized. The stall’s wooden door flies open while I’m getting sick inside, and I don’t even care who sees me in what state or in what position at this point. I just hurt. But nobody is at the door when I look up, just a chicken that seems to be studying me, puzzled. I laugh, it hurts. I remember that our cab driver in Dar early this morning taught me that “kweli” in Kiswahili means “truth.” I meet Emma, Marek, and the cabbie, and I sit in the front, on the British side, and our cab driver goes carefully over speed bumps with some lovely reggae music playing. Slowly driving, a breeze through my open window, the sun going down over the Maasai Steppe to our left, and reggae music all relax me, and despite my stomach cramps, I feel quite content in this state. 25,000 Tsh from Arusha to Monduli, and I gladly pay all of it.
Back at the Msinjilis, I used the toilet. Hooray. And Jake greeted me as I exited. He, Emma and Marek decided, and I concurred, that we should get the Doc and that I should go to the hospital for Malaria tests. Emma walked down to his office at Moringe, he informed the hospital that we were on our way, and he picked me up in his white jeep/land rover vehicle.
The hospital was no great shakes, but it was clean, and the staff was friendly, and they were quick and efficient about things. First, a consultation with the head doctor. Then, a tiny finger prick, using a new, sterile needle which I saw come out of its own little plastic capsule (I was absolutely assertive about asking to be sure that everything was fresh and sterile before my blood came into the picture – I asked to see everything cleaned for a second time first. The Doc trusts his own daughter in the hands of this institution for malaria tests two or three times a year, and the establishment is certified by a British medical bureau, so I felt safe anyhow. But still. Just taking extra extra precautions, and made sure there was zero room for error.) Fifteen minute lab processing. My treatment was quite individualized, and I was helped thoroughly by three separate professionals in the span of about forty minutes.
“You have a stomach parasite,” the doctor reported. “An amoeba,” he said. “But there’s a possibility for worms, so we’re going to give you one chewable tab that you take in the morning on an empty stomach. It’s basically an insecticide that will ensure that your system is free of any sort of bug.” He also prescribed me Cyprofloxacin, which I had brought along with me from the clinic in Hackensack. And he gave me anti-diarrhea medication. And he gave me two, week-long treatments in pill form for the amoeba. He said that I should feel relief in a day, and that I have nothing to worry about. “Just rest,” he said. “And drink water.”
When all was said and done, I owed 11,000 Tsh. Eleven dollars. That’s all it costs for lab testing and to fill four prescriptions. That means testing and treatment for malaria is probably even less, considering there’s only one prescription necessary to treat it. Eleven dollars. That’s all it costs. I felt tears welling up in my eyes. Eleven dollars is all it costs, and so many people cannot afford this simple diagnosis and treatment. So, they die. I will never forget looking at my medical bill today, and feeling guilty for considering it cheap, a real bargain.
As for my stomach, right now the medications they gave me are seeming to relieve the cramping. I’m sort of tired, but not really. But regardless, I should sleep. Jake and I will see Rena in the morning. Hooray! And the Doc has an interview all set for me after I’m well. Maasai Girls School. Computers teacher. She wants me to help her teach!
1 November, 2006
Just to let you know (and this entry is really more for my parents who are probably a bit worried after the previous entry), I feel much better today. No fever, only occasional stomach cramps, no digestive issues. Still don’t have much of an appetite, but surely that is normal after yesterday’s escapades. I’ll write again as soon as something good happens :o)
So, Emma and I went for a walk the other day, even though she has malaria and she's pretty sick. We walked through a coffee plantation and a banana plantation, and this guy yelled after us part way through the bananas. The only word he could really express in English was 'elephant!' and he pointed over a nearby hill. We asked him where, and he said to follow him. Two young kids joined us as well, screaming, "Tembo! Tembo!" (Elephant! Elephant!) We hiked through some pretty crazy junglish region, and came to a clearing with a tall tree. One of the young boys shimmied up the tree trunk to look out, and he told us that the elephants were just up the hill. We thrashed our way through more gigantic leaves and brush, and came to a second clearing, where the older boy looked out and smiled, and pointed at a herd of over thirty elephants. We were probably 100 meters away!
