What is my name?

I do sometimes get funny questions, like "What is my name?" or "Where is my money?" There are easy answers to those ("Freddy" and "In the bank") People often don't seem to understand the replies, but don't seem to care much, either. "Money," "Give me money" or "Give me my money" is also often asked by kids. A few grown-ups have asked the question also – the poorer the region the more frequent the question.

I also get often greeted with a friendly "Good Morning, sir", no matter if it's breakfast time or a quarter till dusk...

Today I was walking around some in an area where I hadn't been before. Frankly, I was trying to find that shortcut to go to KIDT and got lost. I thought I could just kinda follow those railroad tracks, since I know I have to cross them at a certain point. However, I didn't realize there were a few different lines, going in all sorts of directions. I ended up choosing the wrong one and ended in a poor people's area, where curious kids yelled "Mzungu" and waved at every street corner. There was quite a bit of activity and some people loads of stuff on their bicycles. One kid kicked his self made football (made out of plastic bags) to me. I tried to imitate as best as I could some African football juggling move and passed it back.

Eventually I ran into an argument of two women. Of course I had no idea what the matter of the controversy was, but it was hilarious as they kept yelling at each other, with no one giving in. Eventually the one lady left (more or less dragged by another bystander), but they kept yelling at each other. Since one woman kept stepping away further and further they had to yell louder and louder. They were also still making hand gestures. Eventually, they must have been almost 100 metres apart, still yelling at each other. I think all the rest of the onlookers were as amused as I was.

Then I ran into Hasimi. He coordinated a picture (see next blog entry, "Hey, where is your bicycle?") with some kids that desperately wanted their photographs taken. I have no problem doing that and can show the result right away. But I can't give them a copy, which is a shame. It is easier for me that way. Photographing seems a touchy subject and the on time I took intensive pictures from Moshi was during the city walk. Even then, a guy got mad and me (and yelled at the guide) when I took a picture of a toilet. I read somewhere that East Africans believe that by taking picture the photographer gets power over their souls. However, no fear that a little money could overcome, which makes me question this a little bit. I did this only one time, but after that decided to just leave it at the fact that they don't want to be photographed. Period. It does mean I have a lot of boring pictures, but at least I have a lot of interesting memories.

The early bird...

...catches the fuckin' worm (*). I don't have a watch and most of the time this is fine while travelling in Africa. Appointments and meeting times are rather vague anyway, and people are seldom on time. But occasionally I do have to get up early to catch a bus. So I can rely on two things – my laptop or my camera. Both of course are not set for the right timezone. My computer runs on Eurotime, so is lagging two hours behind African time (two and half considering that I was told when a meeting is at 8 expect it to be at 8:30...). My camera is set to US Pacific time. Here things get a bit weird as it isn't adjusted for Daylight Savings. I never paid attention to it, but thought I had to add ten hours, when in reality it is eleven.

What's worse my already mediocre maths skills suffer even more at four in the morning. Needing to take the 6:30am bus back to Moshi I was hoping I would wake up in time. I had Plan B, which was the Aussie couple I met the evening before ( we had independently no luck at one hotel, which was full, then ended up in the same hotel; we then went out for dinner together). They agreed to knock at my door at 5:30. Well, as most often is the case with me when something important is to get up for I will wake up early and then can't go back to sleep. This time my internal alarm propelled me out of deep sleep at 4:00, or so I thought. I was lying awake for a while and got up at 5:15. Took my time to get ready wondering why the Aussies didn't knock and went downstairs at 5:45, right on time. I woke up the night receptionist, who had nodded off on his desk and asked him what time it was. He looked at me with tired eyes, apparently barely awake enough to notice that there was a person standing and that person had asked him a question. He eventually got his act together, looked at his cell phone (the standard watch in Tanzania) and said "4:45"

OUCH. I completely had miscalculated the time from the camera! And to top it off I could have made things much easier for myself, as right at 5:00 the dude was making it clear through the speakers that it's time to pray. When you get a hotel room in a muslim area make sure it's not next to a mosque, unless of course you have to get up early.

As for yesterday, not much was happening. I checked out of the Blue Oyster after another nice breakfast and walked to the street to wait for the bus. No watch required for that one, as it stops by when it pleases (well, when it's full...) After more than a half hour a bus came the other way, so I asked the driver when he'll be coming by for the return trip. The enlightening answer was "Later." I asked if that meant maybe 20 minutes, so he said "Yes." I am sure if I would have said half an hour or an hour he would have head the same answer...

So I went back to the hotel, knowing that they have a transport option. It is 10,000 instead of 2,000 shilling, but at least it is not as crowded. However, my hope it would be faster was dashed when they made several stops, going into the resorts and picking up more passengers. I saw my goal of reaching the noon ferry, for which I already had bought the ticket, vanishing. We finally got to the ferry terminal around 12:15, which I thought was still good as ferries also never leave quite on time. This one however, was already gone. Fortunately they told me my ticket was valid on the next ferry as well, which was leaving at 16:00. So I strolled through Stone Town's narrow alleyways one more time, had a mediocre lunch (never eat anywhere that Lonely Planet didn't mention...) and eventually made it back to the mainland.

The Australian couple are about halfway through a world tour, having visited places like France, Morocco (rock climbing!) and Zambia, with the rest of the journey still up in the open. Sounds nice!

After an uneventful bus ride I am now back in Moshi.

(*) Uh, of course another Springsteen reference, from "My best was never good enough"...

Lazy as a cow on the beach

I don't know if there is such an expression as "lazy as a cow on the beach," but I assume if there were I would have qualified yesterday. I enjoyed a nice breakfast on the balcony of the restaurant, then sat down and did nothing. Oh wait, I did read some!!! Just finished Bill Bryson's "Thunderbolt Kid" and I am now a few dozen pages into "Paula" from Isabel Allende. Both describe their upbringings and both put tears in your eyes. Bryson from laughter and Allende from pain (the autobiographical book describes the dying of her daughter Paula). At one point in her life Allende claims to have lived in Lebanon, but her description of the narrow alleyways, the markets, the spices, the haggling and even the ocean suggests she really was in Zanzibar!!! "Paula" is also nice to read knowing that one of my friends is reading the blog from Santiago de Chile, where Allende used to live. Hola!

Around lunchtime I went for...lunch, before spending the afternoon doing more or less the same as in the morning (nada!). I did go for a short walk to buy some water, though.

Both the first and second evening I did what I couldn't the last two weeks: Going for a run. Due to weight savings restrictions to get me up Mt. Meru as well as space concerns in my backpack I left my running shoes in Moshi. I figured I didn't need to go running while climbing up Meru for exercise and I could get some beach running in at Lake Victoria and Zanzibar. Well, the sand beaches near Mwanza were rather short (as in a few metres), so part one of the plan didn't work.

The planned triathlon training on Zanzibar also failed. I never got around to rent a bicycle (yesterday, as I said I was just plain lazy and today I went for a snorkelling trip, before following the same routine as on "lazy day"). Swimming also proved difficult as the low tide was in the morning and evening. High tide is around 3:00 and 15:00. But even at high tide it seems you can walk to Madagascar, if not to Indonesia w/o getting your head wet. For the snorkelling trip we went to some reef, maybe a couple of kilometres from the shore and at places it was so shallow you could bruise your belly gliding through the water. Running was also not the best barefoot. As mentioned the sand was not only as white but also as dense as a healthy tooth in the commercials. If that alone didn't kill the feet the rocks and shells surely could. I fought through it, sometimes running gingerly. All the while the locals ran barefoot through the sand full blast or were playing football.

The snorkelling was indescribably beautiful, with fish in all kinds of bright colours – except for those of course who didn't want to be seen. There was an eel-like fish that was hard to spot and some white ones that were hanging out over the white sand on the bottom and you had to really open your eyes. The best covered one was a very flat fish (paper-thin...) that was also white like the ground. When I saw the first one only the fin gave it away, as initially it wasn't moving at all. That kind of fish was so well-covered that at some point I accidentally stepped on one. I had gotten water in my goggles (arrgh, I mis-spelled this initially as "googles" – what has the world come to???) and needed to stand up quickly. I then noticed that flat fish being disturbed and move on.

The boat, btw, was a very simple catamaran, entirely made out of wood. Except for the sail and the ropes, of course. Fortunately the Indian Ocean is very calm, we didn't go very far and my cousin wasn't around (every time I go on a boat with my cousin I get sea sick; this has been true on the ferry between Oostende and Dover, on a harbour cruise in Hamburg and going to one of the islands off Santa Barbara).

Yesterday evening I had the fish platter for dinner. It was by far the most expensive meal I had in my two months here, but I reckon that in the US or Europe I would have paid twice the amount of the 25,000 (some 22 or 23 dollars) that it cost, with all kinds of seafoods on the plate. Yumm!

Oh, when I returned from my run yesterday evening I saw a cow grazing in the sand. I have seen cows in weird places before, but usually there was some kind of green patch nearby. Not just shells and salt water. The cow didn't even snorkel, swim or read a book. It was truly lazy as a cow on the beach.

Double O Seven

Damn, that Zanzibar labyrinth is quite amazing. I went there on X-day (by now I have forgotten which day of the week it is/was – I am truly on vacation mode...) before breakfast. The narrow pathways which barely allow three people to walk past each other wind there ways around in ever unexpected ways. Only when you see the sign "Green Garden restaurant" for the second or third time do you know you had been here before.

If it wouldn't have been for the yawning morning emptiness and instead filled with the afternoon/evening excitement of countless tourists, locals and shop owners trying to entice the prior two to do some business with them I would have felt right like in a James Bond movie. Or maybe the one I saw with my nephew on his birthday. It was so bad I have already forgotten the title, but it played out in some similar setting. However, no chance in hell of wild chases and dudes falling 20 metres down with only as much as a trickle of blood as a consequence. Zanzibar is, as everyone had told me, very safe. Even using those narrow paths back at night posed no problems.

After a nice breakfast at the Riverman Hotel I wandered off again, aimlessly walking around and accidentally ending up at the fish market. I hadn't seen it mentioned in the LP guide and I didn't see any other white people (which is really hard to do anywhere in Zanzibar, I think). The scene was amazing. There were tons of bicycles parked with big baskets strapped across the racks, waiting for something to deliver. People were cutting up fish everywhere, trying to get me to buy the local catch of the day. What would I do with it? Eat 3,000 rolls of sushi? I stumbled on, past the shipyard, where intense hammering took place relentlessly.

I listened in to some of the auctions. That was a lot of fun. One guy yelled out the prices and the bidders chimed in when they were ready to offer more. "Nane. Nane na mia tano. Tisa. Tisa. Tisa. Tisa. Tisa na tano. Tisa na tano. Tisa na tano. Tisa na tano. Kumi. Kumi. Kumi." Aha, fish sold for ten thousand. They didn't say the thousand parts, so the literal translation is "Eight. Eight five hundred. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine. Nine and five hundred. Nine and five hundred. Nine and five hundred. Ten. Ten. Ten."

Even my undeveloped mzungu ears could clearly hear the prices announced, so it came to a surprise that some tried to pay 500 less, claiming they didn't hear the "mia tano" part. But since this was usually resolved under much laughter and all the guys seemed to know each other it may have well been just put on show for me...Thanks guys!

I went on towards the shoreline, where I saw some fishermen on their boats, dealing with maintenance etc. One guy was wading in the low waters. I couldn't tell if he was looking for fish or maybe just doing a "Kneipp-Bad." Strolling off into some less populated area, I saw some of the boats that hadn't survived the last storm or maybe just died a slow death of old age. The sand was pretty black and dirty here. I left the beach, declined one offer to go for a spice tour ("or anything else you need") and came by a local market, where men and women were busy frying up all kinds of things for a little (unhealthy) breakfast. The diets of Tanzanians aren't actually too healthy, in my opinion. They put a lot of sugar and salt into everything (well, not at the same time, of course) and also drink an unprecedented amount of soft drinks, sold in 300ml bottles. They are all from the Coca-Cola company. Coke, Sprite, Mirinda, Bitter Lemon and a battery of other flavours.

Stone Town had a gigantic power outage that morning and it was nice to see all the shops in the dark. Given the already narrow, dark pathways, the power outage gave the whole scenery an even more dramatic darkness to it, which was a lot of fun. After stocking up on some food for the rest of the day in the extremely narrow and busy Darajani market I got my bags out of the hotel and headed to the bus stop, waiting for #309 to take me to the East Coast.

I made my first real encounter (when I first arrived I had a brief one, but easily outran the dude...) with a tick. That is how they are apparently known in Zanzibar (Papasi in Swahili, according to LP). I had asked a bus driver (more reputable to ask employed people rather than random street dudes) where the bus would leave. After getting there (no bus yet) a dude approached me and started talking to me. I quickly realized what he was up to. But it's really hard to get rid of them (hence the term papasi, I guess...) He started asking silly questions (like where I would like to sit in the bus - front or center, left or right). I had walked away to get rid of him for a while, but when I checked back the bus had arrived and I tried to get my luggage on top. The dude (actually now three of them) were there and asking about the fare turned out to be difficult. One said 5,000, one a said 4,000 and one would settle for 3,500. However, I asked a French guy with the same destination and he only paid 1,500. The ticks claimed this was due to the luggage. I mistakenly thought the one for 3,500 was actually the conductor and didn't realize he also was just a pest. Anyway, the whole situation was easily resolved as the bus (really a truck with simple benches on its platform) was deemed broken and we had to switch to a more comfortable looking model. I walked over, found the conductor, who told me it was 2,000 (and it was confirmed later that is the real price for that kind of bus). I was about to fetch my bag when magically the two ticks appeared with it. They had already gotten it off the roof of the other bus. It was put to the front seat and the conductor told me to get in the bus. But as one of the ticks was in the way I told him if he gets off I can get in. He didn't want to listen as he was still hoping to get some money out of the whole thing. After a few discussions I finally got in and sat down on the front seat. The tick sat down behind me and started talking about how I had to pay 3,000 to him now. Since I didn't react he started talking faster, hectically, really, and louder. The other tick had come up to the window and hammered with his fist against the window, to get my attention.

I ignored them both and told the driver to make the one behind me shut up. So after a little war of words in Swahili the papasi (notice the closeness to paparazzi!!!) finally left, pretty disgusted. I don't feel bad for not having paid them, even though they carried my heavy bag over. As LP indicates, they are usually dudes from the local drug scene, and I am not about to support that. Additionally, I had told them a few times to buzz off so it's there waste of time, not mine.

The bus ride over was extremely pretty. First, an endless street (well, maybe two to three kilometres) that was the longest market I had seen so far. I have never encountered so many shoes, mangos and all kinds of other useful (and many useless) things in one spot. After that miles of palm trees before the vegetation became more bush-like.

OH MY GOSH

Eventually I arrived at the Blue Oyster hotel. OH MY GOSH. I had never been to a hotel that scenic. Walking through the white sand (and I mean white like teeth in a tooth paste commercial) towards the gate was stunning. The hotel with palm leave-thatched roofs looked like in a postcard (a few lucky ones will receive one :)

There were places to lie down, each with a similar cocos leave-thatched "umbrella" style shade tree. The beach was equally white as the driveway and ocean had all kinds of blue, green and turquoise shades of colours. Another 007 moment and I expected some Bond girls at the bar (but only encountered the same clientèle as on Mt. Meru - mostly German and Austrians). After getting to my room, which was extremely nice and even the shared bathroom was spotless I could finally relax and forget about two months of dust. All for $35 a night.

The only disappointment was that cooling down proved to be harder than expected. With the air temp at around 30C it is always a disappointment if you hop into the ocean and the water temp is like 32. Even the shower did only provide some "non-hot" water, but you certainly couldn't call it cold. You guys in the Northern Hemisphere don't know how lucky you are :)

Soak up the sun

Alright, the last three days were fun. Again, more details will follow; but as I am waiting for the ferry to bring me back to mainland Africa i may as well post a quick note.

my main activity on the beach was reading and snoozing. Not too much swimming, due to the tides. But did go for a very nice snorkel trip. Unfortunately my spF40 sun screen wasn't waterproof, so the parts that weren't covered (lower leg, feet), are red now. I thought swimming with long, heavy pants would be an invitation to drowning, but even a couple of km off the coast the water was only maybe 3m deep at the deepest.

hotel and food were great and I feel rejuvenated. I would have stayed another day if there would have been availability, but need to get back to wrap up the thesis anyway.

Anyway, I'll be in Dar this evening and back in Moshi tomorrow evening.

Zanzibar or the best reason

After the really cool train ride (I will write about it some other time) I made it all the way to Zanzibar. It is a very impressive place. Its narrow streets, the mix of Indian, African and Arab influences. The food, the beaches, the water.
I went to a cool museum today about the history of Z. Especially got tickled by the painting that was done in 1888 and presented to the Sultan of Z. (from Austria) in... 1887! It must have been dull-looking the first year.Also enjoyed the sunset over the Indian ocean from the top floor of the museum (as always I was cutting it close and I was the last visitor to enter and leave the museum - They basically asked me to shut out the lights when I was done...)

Then had a nice dinner on the beach. There is a place where they sell all kinds of foods - fish and shrimp on sticks, Zanzibarian pizza, chapati etc. Pick and choose. Unlike the sugar cane to chew on as it is sold in many places, here they squeeze the juice out and serve it as a drink. And unlike the chewing version, which is way to sweet and complicated to eat, I actually like the juice. I had two glasses (55 cents total...)

Well, concerning the train ride real quick: It left at 11pm instead of 6pm due to engine problems.; I wasn't too thrilled to sit at the train station with moskitos , but fortunately most were at the lake. And I had my repellent on - actually for three nights running as there was no way to put up my moskito net in the sleeper compartment. So I slept in my clothes, too - I just wasn't gonna risk it. Of course I will only know ina few days if I didn't get bitten by an infected moskito...

The train ride was incredibly scenic and never once dull. I enjoyed the sunsets, sunrises and the stop at the villages. Each seemed to have their speciality. In one they sold tons of onions. In the next coconut. In one everybody was keen to collect water bottles. A train wreck meant the ride ended in Morongoro and after waiting for a few hours the buses arrived that brought us the final three bus hours to Dar. The boarding process was comical and at some point I will write more details about the whole trip.

Tomorrow I will head to the east coast for some real vacation. After months of trickle, bucket or now showers I will enjoy it!! Next post may only come from Moshi. I should be back there around the 10th of January.

PS: The title refers to the book by Alfred Andersch, which is called "Zanzibar or the last reason" in German. The engl version is just called Zanzibar (BORING!). We read it in school and I don't remember much about it. I think there wasn't much talk about the food and the beaches, though...(it's actually a serious book about the Nazi times)

Milk and Honey

were missing, but I had all the rest for a nice New Year's Eve party. I had bought two mangos, some cookies, put on some Springsteen music and enjoyed the evening. Later I read the Thunderbolt Kid (Bill Bryson). I meant to stay up until midnight to see what happens (I had heard some firecracker-like noise earlier and was curious) but fell asleep around 23:00. I woke up at 00:40 to some chanting. I am staying at a catholic compound and there was a choir chanting. It was very nice. I also heard them this morning. Much better than the overly loud Pop music that is often heard around here.

Ok, There are still no first class seats available, so I will be sharing a compartment with 5 others for two days (the schedule has the train arrive in Dar after 40 hours, but I hear it's often late and may have breakdowns)...