A continuation of Tanga/Pangani

So, now that I have power back, a few days later, I can finish the Tanga/Pangani story.

(Thanks, Dad, for the mosquito net which obviously came in handy.)

So we took this terrible room at the Kola Prieto, for Tsh. 25,000. A man showed us from the front desk back to the room we paid for, and another man followed behind us with a can of insecticide. Insecticide man signaled for us to place our bags down in the room and to get out. So we put our bags down and stepped out of the room, leaving the door open a crack so that we could see what was going on. Insecticide man sprayed the perimeters and told us to come back in. He left, we examined the aftereffects. There was a cockroach, belly-up on the bathroom floor, and another small roachlike insect belly up on the carpet in the middle of the room. Neato! So we pay for a middle range hotel room and we get two dead roommates upon arrival. And no mosquito net. And we now have to breathe in the remnants of half a can of insecticide for the rest of the night. Sweet.

At this particular moment, we decided that we really needed to head downstairs to the hotel’s restaurant for some dinner and beer. Alcohol was absolutely a necessary component, to numb the blow of this evening. But, the Kola Prieto does not serve alcohol! Nor do they cook fresh food. Everything available was lined up on a disgusting buffet counter in shockingly shiny silver serving containers. We left immediately, and asked the woman at the front desk to point us toward some beer. We asked something like, “Restaurant ya bia, iko wapi?” which vaguely (and entirely incorrectly composed) translates to, “Restaurant of beer, where is it?” Limited vocabulary in ki Swahili gets me lots of laughs. At least somebody thinks I’m a comedian.

So we were directed to the Coffee Tree Bar and Restaurant, down the street from the lovely Kola. It was dark out, but the restaurant in question was well lit and in visibly close proximity, so we braved it. We sat at the restaurant with some little fly friends buzzing in and out of our company, while our server (the first of three that evening) attempted to understand our incredibly broken ki Swahili. She was not appreciative of my order for ugali and mchichi (greens), and after a willing translator came by to communicate for us, I learned that this was because there were no greens or even beans available to accompany ugali at this hour of the evening; our choice was chicken, or mutton. If I have not mentioned to you yet, I am steadily converting myself to vegetarianism, which some of you may consider an act of reformation to my old ways – except this time, I have much more driving reasons, which I will spare you for the moment as my vegetarian lifestyle is not the topic of this entry! Bottom line: we ordered chicken, ugali, and roasted bananas. And two bia baridi (cold beers).

Some beers and Konyagi (a disgusting local liquor that is served in plastic pouches) later, we headed back to the Kola Prieto, destitute and looking forward to leaving early the next morning for Pangani.

I hardly slept that night, due to some sort of poisonous feeling in my lungs from the insecticide. Also, I believe I was afraid that a roach might somehow find its way under my covers through the partition of my lovely mosquito net. And furthermore, the air was stale and musky, sticky and humid, as it often is in waterfront towns – not conducive to peaceful slumber. So 5:00 rolled around and I thought an obscured radio alarm had turned on somewhere in the room, but quickly realized that I was noticing the call to prayer from a mosque down the street. Such a strange and penetrating, and entirely haunting sound! I halfway like it, and I’m halfway terrified by the way the broadcast voice moans out as though it is something summoned from the dead. But all in all, the call to prayer can be heard throughout Tanzania and it will forever remind me of this country, which is pretty cool.

So yes, I managed to sleep between the end of the broadcast of the call to prayer and 9:00. At nine, my alarm sounded and my resolve was to change, eat breakfast, and get out of Tanga.

Breakfast was had in the dingy dining room of the Kola Prieto, where the same buffet style meal was set up for breakfast – this time with some eggs and sausage. Whatever was in the serving trays had to be paid for, so we opted for the free-of-charge breakfast, consisting of some stale bread, margarine, and highly caloric jelly. Jake braved the other free components, which were some green bananas and some almost-rotten looking orange melon. Soon as possible afterward, we checked out and set off for the bus stand.

We found a bus to Pangani which guaranteed us reserved seats (as opposed to squishing into a daladala) for Tsh. 1,5000. Lovely.

The bus ride to Pangani was incredibly bumpy; none of the roads we traveled were paved. About forty minutes into the ride, we came across a stranded daladala with a flat tire, presumably incurred due to the rough terrain, and our big coach bus served as a viable rescue vessel for these stranded passengers. An hour into the ride, we were able to see the coastline of the Indian Ocean. Blue, sandy, and breathtaking. I have perhaps never been so pleased to see a body of water as I was to see the ocean that afternoon, after an entire month of dryness in Monduli. The palm trees and papaya trees populating the roadside were also a breath of fresh air, because these sorts of trees generally do not thrive outside of moist environments; they are representative of the life that water breathes into Africa, and representative of one part of the dichotomy of African nature, which is the quite typically beautiful opposition to its unfortunate sister, draught and the desert. These sights, and the fact that we had seen no more than four homes along the way, were a testament to the remoteness and the pleasantness of Pangani, which already seemed to be a safe haven from our experience in Tanga.

Upon arrival in the center of town, we assumed that the bus ride was not yet finished. We had stopped in the center of a ring of maybe eight tiny shops, with about ten customers in sight. A passenger from our bus implied that this was indeed town center and the end of our bus ride, by offering, “If you need help finding where you’ll stay, I’d be glad to help you.” All the passengers boarded off and we followed, in search of the Safari Lodge, our budget hotel of choice, according to the Lonely Planet: Tanzania guide book.

The Safari was set back about six city blocks’ distance from the beach, and maybe four blocks from the marketplace and town center. The staff of this establishment consisted of one man, the proprietor (Jake and I lovingly deemed him the Hotel Patriarch), and one twenty-something year old woman. The proprietor showed us a room with mosquito netting, as well as an oscillating ceiling fan, and its own bathroom with a shower, sink, and toilet! Never mind that the toilet was missing its seat, and that the shower looked quite alarmingly similar to a concentration camp shower – they functioned! And all of these amenities were offered to us for Tsh. 7,500. The proprietor also offered us affordable, freshly cooked meals at absolutely any hour. “The kitchen does not have any
exact hours,” he told us. We checked in, gladly, and decided to set out on a walk.

We walked first along the river, where we passed a number of old slave trade buildings – that is, buildings into which slaves were ‘stored,’ so to speak, before being shipped out. Or that’s what I understand these buildings to have been. But that’s from the word of a local man who was sitting on a stoop somewhere along the way, and though I trust his word, I’ll need to look up the slave trade and Pangani to be sure of what I saw.

Growing quite hungry for lunch at this point, Jake and I walked toward a small shack further down the riverside, which we thought to be a tiny eating establishment. Turns out this shack was a workplace for coconut huskers. We approached a crowd of about ten resting laborers, who welcomed us in ki Swahili, “Karibu!” We navigated mounds of coconuts; some mounds were just the husks, some mounds were just the coconuts as we see them sold at the market, and some were unhusked, whole coconuts, as they look on the tree. Groups of men and women huddled around various piles, counting husked coconuts and tossing them into a little shack for momentary storage. One man stopped working to ask us whether we knew that these were coconuts. He explained that he was a coconut husker, and that the rest of these people were as well. He told us that farmers bring coconuts to the huskers, and the huskers work for Tsh. 3 per coconut (that’s less than a third of a US cent) and that a typical shift for one of these employees is four hours long. Each worker is paid for the number of coconuts he or she is able to husk over the course of a shift. I took a few photos of the coconuts, and one of this man.

We realized that now, we were extraordinarily hungry and that lunch was our new priority. Due to Ramadan, however, this search for food was a bit cumbersome. We wandered rather aimlessly but in hope of something. A brotha sitting on the stoop of his home asked us in English what it was that we were looking for. Jake said, “Chakula! Iko wapi?” (“Food, where is it?”) The brotha took us to a rather masculine establishment, or seemingly the male hangout spot in Pangani; there were two pool tables and some brothas playing games at them (I say ‘brotha’ because it is a term meant to describe a male peer – not because I changed my name to KDawg :o)) Anyhow, the food was served quickly and it was thoroughly enjoyable – fresh, hot ugali, some tomato/vegetable broth, and a whole, small fish for each of us. I am becoming a great fan of these whole, pan fried fishes eaten in Tanzania. You just dig right in with your hands - scales, skin, and all but the bones (except I’m too much of a wimp for the fish head). Surprisingly, I find it preferable to a filet these days.

After lunch, we decided that perhaps we should take a swim in the Indian Ocean. We went back to the hotel, changed into swim gear, and grabbed a towel. Down at the beach, our swimming went in two shifts, so that each of us took a turn watching our belongings. In this time, we had acquired a dog friend with an injured paw. He had followed a msungu woman down the beach to where Jake and I were stationed, and left off with us when the woman walked in another direction. Probably, he expected some food from us. He followed us all the way from the beach to a block from the Safari Lodge. Pretty as he was, and friendly as he seemed, I was a bit apprehensive around him; I was glad to see him sniffing out food from around the corner, which led to his departure from our path.

And by the time we were back at the Safari, it was dark. We put in our order with the woman of the establishment for fish and rice. Jake and I discussed the ways in which we expect our time spent in Tanzania to impact the rest of our lives, especially ways in which we will think of our friend Rena when we notice rather typical Western frivolity (wasting water, electricity, etc…). As Jake put it, “Rena has never lived in a home with running water.” Rena gathers water from a communal source at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, every morning. And we, so many of us in the US, take for granted the simple action of opening a faucet to receive water into a cup.

On a separate note in our conversation, Jake and I concurred that this fish, which was prepared for us by the Safari, was absolutely the most delicious fish we’d ever tasted. Skin, scales, and all.

By the time we made it back to the room, I was ready to pass out. I grabbed my toothbrush and peered into the bathroom, only to notice a lovely cockroach beneath the sink basin. I turned to alert Jake to this new presence in the room, but he had already noticed a friend of his own, clung to the wall outside the bathroom. And a third one appeared, scurrying across the floor. I quickly grabbed my bottle of 100% permetherin (sp?) insect spray (thank you, Mom, Dad, or Maryanne *I think it was Maryanne, whichever one of you it was who bought this wonderful stuff for me!!!), and passed it to Jake to do the honors. After about fifteen minutes of duking it out with the beasts of the Safari Lodge, we found ourselves in an entirely cockroach free room! They all went belly up, and Jake tossed them down the toilet. Hooray for bug spray!

The next morning, we decided that we hadn’t really brought enough money to stay another night in Pangani – or I should say, we wouldn’t really have had enough money to get back, had we decided to stay another night in Pangani. But this was OK, because Pangani was a teeny little town and I feel like I certainly had a legitimate, full experience there. Another day might have failed to impress me. And it was best to come home a day early anyhow, so that I had extra opportunity to catch up on rest before the big trip with Emma and Marek this coming week.

Looking forward to Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, and signing off until then,

-Kristen.