back to the heart of africa. if you were to split africa into two types of countries, you'd have the beret countries, and the non-beret countries, reflecting the dress of the police. beret guys are angry with guns, non beret guys are not. namibia is a non-beret country, DRC, beret. you get it.
when you travel from a non-beret country to a beret country, it takes some getting used to. first of all, the seat number on your boarding pass only determines the general vicinity of where you will sit. i think it's only a rule that you be within 10 rows. if someone isn't in your seat, there's probably someone next to you with a card for somewhere 7 rows down on the other side of the aisle. this usually isn't a problem, people figure it out, southwest style, until some UN bitch on her cell phone with her white jeans (who can get away with having white jeans stay white in africa??) shows up and wants to sit in her seat, and only her seat. i do not want 21C, i want my seat, 22C. so then everyone has to get up and rearrange, like one of those little puzzles with the moving squares and the one empty space. so we had to move the 90 year old handicapped woman and the lady with three babies and delay departure so miss espana can sit where she chooses. miss espana was in a super crummy mood because they made her check her huge suitcase at the gate. they were having some sort of space crisis so anyone with those rolly suitcases that everyone believes is carryon size but isn't, had to check them. my bag was just as big, but i managed to slip by the tagging guy while a congolese passenger started making a scene. perfect timing. i wanted to back him up though, seriously faux-hawked south african airways guy, have you ever been to the kinshasa airport? it's like the bargain bin at filene's basement on the day after christmas. if they had made me check my stuff, i would have just as well bought a whole other ticket on another plane because it would have been cheaper than replacing all my personal electronics.
so in the departure lounge i had gotten all pissed in my mind at my travel agent, because i saw on the board that there was a kinshasa-joburg flight that landed in time for me to connect to DC on my way home - and would have prevented me from spending another night in hellhole joburg at the end of my trip (lonely planet guide: if you have to go to johannesburg, find a reason not to. if you still have to go, don't go outside. if someone mugs you and you're white, they'll assume you have a gun, which means they definitely have a gun). anyway, the airline was HBA though, never heard of it. landing in kin, i saw their fleet. hera-bowa airlines or something. um, have you ever flown on a plane with visible rust? one side of the nose was dented in, concave, like they had a fender bender with a boeing.
the n'djili airport was just like i remembered it: chaos. my star handler moses was waiting at immigration, with his huge dolce & gabana belt buckle, fly pointed shoes, fresh pinstripe suit with a pink silk tie and killer shades. i gave him some biltong (game meat jerkey from SA) and he patted the customs guy on the shoulder, who serenely halted opening my bag to search it.
i used the toilet, which wasn't hooked up to any flushing mechanism, just a bowl. the sink, just a sink with holes, no spiggots or anything. AND someone actually asked me to pay a dollar to pee.
the baggage claim is also like i remembered it. everyone crowds around with their baggage ticket in their hand like they are betting on a horse race. they check every single bag that comes around and compare it with their number to see if they win. oh! so close! #124996, and i have #124995! so what, as if their belongings may have jumped cases, like a hermit crab or something? is what they checked maybe different than what comes out? so the bags go around, and these guys red in jumpsuits go around on the conveyor too. like, you can choose your bag AND the guy to carry it for you. i don't need a guy, cuz i got moses, right? and so i keep having to turn them away. moses is hanging around with his boys, and talking on one of his phones and when i have everything he picks the lightest bag, like my laptop. so then i do get a baggage guy and he's not happy with the $2 i'm giving. like, that's a lot, shut up. i've given away so many single bills, it's a good thing i came prepared like a stripper.
it was amazing coming in on a sunday afternoon. everyone is out on the street. piles of garbage, piles of tires, piles of junk on wheels that still run, couches for sale in the dirt under trees, people stuffed into vans that have airholes cut out of the sides, and a pleasant new addition - community gardens everywhere. green plants growing in all the medians. cool.
kinshasa round 2. it's totally the opposite of namibia, but way better in my opinion.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
the miracle of life
so then came the game count. we had a long drive to wereldsend (world's end, literally), going by twyfelfontain, a nice area with posh lodges and some rock carvings. we visited the carvings and then stuffed our faces at a restaurant and drank cold guava juice, hadn't had a real meal or refreshing drink in days.
we arrive at the group camp, which is home to the save the rhino trust, and a bunch of local NGO's. we set up our tents in this nice shady area and waited for some other folk who never showed up. a few hours later a pickup arrives with about 12 people stuffed in the back like cows or sheep. they unload a whole bunch of crap, tents, mattresses, bags...and half of an animal. they said it was zebra, but it was actually gemsbok, you can tell from the hoof. (this made me wonder how reliable they would be for the game count. then again, i still don't know the difference between a cheetah and a leopard, and i still call rhinos hippos).
they put it on a table and hacked at it with machetes for a while, and then lit a fire and cooked it in these giant iron cauldrons. they offered me some, but if the best time to get diarrhea is during a game of scrabble, then the worst time is riding in the back of a pickup truck for 6 hours in the bush with strangers. i politely declined.after dinner we had a group meeting about what would happen during the game count, how we would split up into groups etc...i met my team, #4 and we planned our early departure of 6 am the next morning. i went to bed, and they stayed up late and sang and laughed and talked around the fire pretty much all nite so i was quite dead at 5 am. i was sick of the caffeine withdrawal headaches and went over to their site and asked for coffee, holding my cup out like a beggar. instant ricoffy. no milk. i took a good shot of it and hopped into the truck, the sun barely over the horizon. it was rrrrreally cold.at our starting point we went over our tasks and set off, driving 35 mph through these bumpy rock roads looking for wildlife taking notes on distance from the road and numbers. these guys had crazy eagle eyes, picking out lone springbok on a far away hill, whereas i was all, ooh! look over there! and would be pointing at donkeys. the weather slowly warmed up, and i peeled off layers until i was sweating through my t-shirt and getting a nice farmer's tan.
there was nothing soft to sit on in the back of the pickup, and my ass was being pounded into the metal wheel well, which, someone had managed to spill a liter of coffee on. sometimes i would stand and hold onto the side window of the cab and try to surf out the bumps, but would almost always get thrown out whenever we hit a good one. the coveted spot in the back is in the spare tire. it's not attached to anything so it bounces around a fair bit, but it's like your very own bumper car, with some extra cush for the tush.
everyone had their tupperware of leftover meat from the previous night's feast, and were munching on bones and ribs throughout the drive. sometime around 11 am, we started stopping a lot more, and guys were running behind euphorbia bushes with rolls of toilet paper and coming back rubbing their bellies, shaking their heads: the international sign for i shouldn't have eaten that sketchy meat. toldja so!oddly enough though, as we saw all this amazing wildlife, and even as guys were pooping and puking behind bushes, i have to say i was often thinking which animal would taste the best, and which one i would order upon our return to joe's in windhoek. the springbok is tasty and tender, a small agile animal. but what next? i decided on the gemsbok, the georgeous oryx, which are hands down the coolest, with their tv antennae horns and swishy tails:
kudu looks too horselike and muscular, and i've already had zebra, which was just like a big hunky steak. coulda been beef.
we also saw some giraffes. this my first giraffe!
we made a lot of random stops, which is totally against game count protocol, but whatever, i wasn't one to say anything. we stopped at a place that had all this bloody meat hanging, and i guess they were arranging the next day's meal. we stopped at some farm when the lady in our group had to go do her duty, and couldn't handle being behind the bushes anymore i guess. these people at the farm had a million goats. there was one pen full of the babies and another full of adults. i was checking them out, petting a cat, taking pictures when woah, one of those goats is pooping something really weird. wait...it's a little head! and a foot! it's giving birth! this is the first time i have seen the miracle of life, people. couldn't take me eyes off it. it plopped out 5 minutes later, all dirty and gross, but was immediately making noise and trying to stand. cooooool.
we were the last team to make it back to camp, hours after the others, and they were ready to send a search party for us. robin was all, what were you guys up to? what animals did you see? i saw a goat give birth! wait, what?
on day 2, our route was far more spectacular, and smooth, along sandy riverbeds and lush valleys. for the first hour, i was severaly admonished for once again shunning the fire/meat party. "why do you eat far away from us? wrong! wrong!" but they didn't exactly invite us, either. i apologized profusely. next time, i'll know better. tho, i will admit that they were all in bed moaning and groaning by 7pm.alas, we saw almost no animals, because according to legend if a baboon is the first animal you see in the morning, then you will have bad luck, and we did. (they were all like, duh, everyone knows that about baboons. don't you have the baboon rule in the US? you americans are just weird.) so we say nuthin' for hours. then, some magnificent gemsbok in a beautiful yellow field, some more baboons leering at us, and finally a few kudu. one guy did manage to spot an old mattress that had somehow gotten stuck in a euphorbia bush. he jumped out and grabbed it, a ratty, nasty foam thing wrapped in electrical cord.
of the major rules in life, 1 is to not eat meat that's been sitting in the back of a truck, 2 is to try to stay away from nasty used mattresses. but to demonstrate to you how much my ass was hurt and bruised from the previous day, i sat on said nasty mattress for three whole hours. and i'm still alive. so there.
we arrive at the group camp, which is home to the save the rhino trust, and a bunch of local NGO's. we set up our tents in this nice shady area and waited for some other folk who never showed up. a few hours later a pickup arrives with about 12 people stuffed in the back like cows or sheep. they unload a whole bunch of crap, tents, mattresses, bags...and half of an animal. they said it was zebra, but it was actually gemsbok, you can tell from the hoof. (this made me wonder how reliable they would be for the game count. then again, i still don't know the difference between a cheetah and a leopard, and i still call rhinos hippos).
they put it on a table and hacked at it with machetes for a while, and then lit a fire and cooked it in these giant iron cauldrons. they offered me some, but if the best time to get diarrhea is during a game of scrabble, then the worst time is riding in the back of a pickup truck for 6 hours in the bush with strangers. i politely declined.after dinner we had a group meeting about what would happen during the game count, how we would split up into groups etc...i met my team, #4 and we planned our early departure of 6 am the next morning. i went to bed, and they stayed up late and sang and laughed and talked around the fire pretty much all nite so i was quite dead at 5 am. i was sick of the caffeine withdrawal headaches and went over to their site and asked for coffee, holding my cup out like a beggar. instant ricoffy. no milk. i took a good shot of it and hopped into the truck, the sun barely over the horizon. it was rrrrreally cold.at our starting point we went over our tasks and set off, driving 35 mph through these bumpy rock roads looking for wildlife taking notes on distance from the road and numbers. these guys had crazy eagle eyes, picking out lone springbok on a far away hill, whereas i was all, ooh! look over there! and would be pointing at donkeys. the weather slowly warmed up, and i peeled off layers until i was sweating through my t-shirt and getting a nice farmer's tan.there was nothing soft to sit on in the back of the pickup, and my ass was being pounded into the metal wheel well, which, someone had managed to spill a liter of coffee on. sometimes i would stand and hold onto the side window of the cab and try to surf out the bumps, but would almost always get thrown out whenever we hit a good one. the coveted spot in the back is in the spare tire. it's not attached to anything so it bounces around a fair bit, but it's like your very own bumper car, with some extra cush for the tush.
everyone had their tupperware of leftover meat from the previous night's feast, and were munching on bones and ribs throughout the drive. sometime around 11 am, we started stopping a lot more, and guys were running behind euphorbia bushes with rolls of toilet paper and coming back rubbing their bellies, shaking their heads: the international sign for i shouldn't have eaten that sketchy meat. toldja so!oddly enough though, as we saw all this amazing wildlife, and even as guys were pooping and puking behind bushes, i have to say i was often thinking which animal would taste the best, and which one i would order upon our return to joe's in windhoek. the springbok is tasty and tender, a small agile animal. but what next? i decided on the gemsbok, the georgeous oryx, which are hands down the coolest, with their tv antennae horns and swishy tails:
kudu looks too horselike and muscular, and i've already had zebra, which was just like a big hunky steak. coulda been beef.we also saw some giraffes. this my first giraffe!
we made a lot of random stops, which is totally against game count protocol, but whatever, i wasn't one to say anything. we stopped at a place that had all this bloody meat hanging, and i guess they were arranging the next day's meal. we stopped at some farm when the lady in our group had to go do her duty, and couldn't handle being behind the bushes anymore i guess. these people at the farm had a million goats. there was one pen full of the babies and another full of adults. i was checking them out, petting a cat, taking pictures when woah, one of those goats is pooping something really weird. wait...it's a little head! and a foot! it's giving birth! this is the first time i have seen the miracle of life, people. couldn't take me eyes off it. it plopped out 5 minutes later, all dirty and gross, but was immediately making noise and trying to stand. cooooool. we were the last team to make it back to camp, hours after the others, and they were ready to send a search party for us. robin was all, what were you guys up to? what animals did you see? i saw a goat give birth! wait, what?
on day 2, our route was far more spectacular, and smooth, along sandy riverbeds and lush valleys. for the first hour, i was severaly admonished for once again shunning the fire/meat party. "why do you eat far away from us? wrong! wrong!" but they didn't exactly invite us, either. i apologized profusely. next time, i'll know better. tho, i will admit that they were all in bed moaning and groaning by 7pm.alas, we saw almost no animals, because according to legend if a baboon is the first animal you see in the morning, then you will have bad luck, and we did. (they were all like, duh, everyone knows that about baboons. don't you have the baboon rule in the US? you americans are just weird.) so we say nuthin' for hours. then, some magnificent gemsbok in a beautiful yellow field, some more baboons leering at us, and finally a few kudu. one guy did manage to spot an old mattress that had somehow gotten stuck in a euphorbia bush. he jumped out and grabbed it, a ratty, nasty foam thing wrapped in electrical cord.
of the major rules in life, 1 is to not eat meat that's been sitting in the back of a truck, 2 is to try to stay away from nasty used mattresses. but to demonstrate to you how much my ass was hurt and bruised from the previous day, i sat on said nasty mattress for three whole hours. and i'm still alive. so there.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
elephants and clowns
so the next day we drove to brandberg, this huge mountain that has namibia's highest peak. this is brandberg, with a spirnging springbok in front of it.
to get there you go through Uis, another ghost town that gives me nightmares. we park in this barren shopping center to buy some friggin' matches. we get approached by guys selling minerals and i point to the sign that says "any transgressors caught selling minerals will be prosecuted." next comes a guy who introduces himself as Marco, the best branberg guide available. he insists he's worked with our organization and drops a name. then repeats the name again and again like, oh, i worked with eric last year, do you know eric? yes, we know eric. i also know Eric, too, oh yeah, and eric, eric is a nice guy.
marco says he needs a ride to branberg and can show us around. robin and i confer in secret: well the lonely planet guide sucks and we can't send this guy packin' he seems to know conservation, we sort of have a reputation here...we should at least give him a ride and then see what's up. so we say sure, why not.
marco says his friend christian needs a ride too. so they both hop in. i'm very wary. making sure i see their hands, no funny business. we all exchange names and it's obivous they've forgotten mine because every sentence starts with "rrrrrrobin!" with a big rolled r, but they'll actually talk to both of us. "rrrrrrobin! i hope you don't think it's rude if we stop somewhere first to pick something up?" no, that's ok. so we stop at a store. marco goes in and christian starts telling us how he's on the board of this conservancy that he works with. guy knows what's going on, sounds legit. i start to relax. marco comes out of the store with a bag full of 2 liter beer bottles and some wine, tho it looks light brown so it must be moonshine or something. i'm thinking they are going to drink them over the weekend but no, they open the booze right then and there, and start swilling. they also start negotiating their price. 300 namibian dollars per person and we will show you elephants! um, that's ok, thanks, we're the ones giving you a ride here, you should pay us! hahahaha...swig swig swig, spill booze all over our vehicle.
they start arguing with each other in clicky language. i'm convinced they're deciding who will slit my throat and who will drive the getaway car. robin is from montreal so i start speaking in french. what do you think of these guys? how much do you want to pay them? do we have to? marco pipes up "rrrrrrobin! do you think that we don't understand french? why don't you just talk about us in english?" a little awkward. i tell them if they speak clicky, we will speak french. he says "ca m'est egal." dang.
with booze they start to mellow out, make jokes, chit chat. marco pulls out a cigarette. sorry, no smoking in the car guys. "rrrrrrobin! can you stop the car so that i may smoke and christian can show you the euphorbias?" ok, i guess. we get out and go to a euphorbia tree. they smoke like chimneys. christian rubs a euphorbia branch with two rocks and some milky stuff comes out. "poison! very bad!" yes, we know. "poison!" yeah, got it, why don't you prove it is poisonous? "haha, you are very funny!" back in the car, 5 minutes later christian is moaning and rubbing his eye. "euphorbia! in my eye!" oh great, this clown got poison in his eye. we use half our water supply to rinse it out. who are these clowns?
they teach me the four different Damara language clicks. impossible. saying good morning requires two different types of clicks really quickly you have to bite your tongue. for some random reason, maybe boredom, we decide that they will show us a campsite, some elephants, and we will pay them 200 Namibian dollars. sortof a lot, but, whatever. they are excited, but argue a lot with the clicking. we first stop at this village, its location is noted thanks to the sign: an old car door. 
here we meet this really old guy and they ask where the desert elephants are. the guy gets really excited and starts acting out this whole elephant encounter. this is already worth my $100. the old guy and his buddy let me take pictures and they draw a little map in the sand. mapping! we offer them some marie cookies, even though they have no teeth. they are very grateful. 
we go to the campsite, these shady spots all spread out along the river, very nice. i pitch my tent in the middle of a whole bunch of elephant prints. hmmmm.
at the reception we decide to get a cold drink and have our lunch. we pull out our picnic and the two clowns pull out theirs. nevertheless ours seems more appealing, so they are digging into our hard boiled eggs and peanut butter. they are making hard-boiled egg and peanut butter sandwiches with our bread. who are these clowns? marco is peeling his third egg and i put the carton away. half my eggs are gone! the only thing that makes up for it is this really cute baby meerkat running around under our. feet. i pick him up and put him in my lap and i want to take him home.
we drive down towards the river bed, and during the dry season, they become smooth roads. there are lots of tire tracks...and elephant prints, not to mention huge piles of poo, like basketballs. fresh, too. i'm becoming a real skatologist here.
we turn a corner and there they are. magnificent. and a little baby elephant too! we climb up onto a ledge and robin and i are pefectly content to watch the elephants do their thing - douse themselves with dust, grab at trees with their trunks. marco and christian are holding onto their beer bottles, they insist on taking pictures for me. they take terrible pictures. like half an elephant. we must get closer! closer! no seriously guys, this is fine, we can see perfectly. we must get closer! so much for the client being boss. so we get into the car and slowly drive up, pretty damn close to these elephants. marco and christian are all "we have to be rrreallly quiet! the elephant doesn't like noise!" only he is screaming this and we are all, we understand so shut up. and then marco says yeah, shut up dude, and then christian says no you shut up and then they get into a clicky argument and i just wanted to knock their heads together like curly and moe. they insist on taking more pictures...of the rear view mirror, the back of robin's head. maybe they don't understand the look through the viewfinder part. they think they are doing me a huge favor but they are just using up my battery.
then this south african guy shows up and long story short, the guy pisses off a big elephant and it starts to charge his car. he backs up out of the way and swerves so that the elephant is headed straight towards us. i am imagining our car being crushed, sides impaled by tusks. we peel out of there and go a little further, but now the elephants and the two clowns are now very agitated. the clowns won't stop yelling and getting out of the car to go yell at the south african guy and the elephants are giving us the stink eye. for the love of god will everyone just shut the fuck up!! but they won't. it goes on. finally they say "ok we saw the elephants now we can leave."
their eyes are all glazed over, they are sweating, totally wasted drunk. on the way back, christian breaks out the marriage proposal "i will treat you so well you won't have to work"
oh really? what will i do then?
"you will tend the crops"
oh, sounds awesome! will you be drunk all or only most of the time?
"i want to go live in texas"
this sounds delightful!
we get back to the campsite and frick and frack are pulling out their tent, all excited about camping with us, fully expecting to mooch off us for the rest of the weekend.
"we will guide you to the white lady (another rock painting. ho-hum)"
will you be loud and annoying eat all our food too? here's your $200, now scram!
as we booted him out of the car christian asked "i did well, right?"
yah, sure ya did. i did get their mailing address though, and i plan on sending them each a t-shirt - one obama and one hillary.
to get there you go through Uis, another ghost town that gives me nightmares. we park in this barren shopping center to buy some friggin' matches. we get approached by guys selling minerals and i point to the sign that says "any transgressors caught selling minerals will be prosecuted." next comes a guy who introduces himself as Marco, the best branberg guide available. he insists he's worked with our organization and drops a name. then repeats the name again and again like, oh, i worked with eric last year, do you know eric? yes, we know eric. i also know Eric, too, oh yeah, and eric, eric is a nice guy.marco says he needs a ride to branberg and can show us around. robin and i confer in secret: well the lonely planet guide sucks and we can't send this guy packin' he seems to know conservation, we sort of have a reputation here...we should at least give him a ride and then see what's up. so we say sure, why not.
marco says his friend christian needs a ride too. so they both hop in. i'm very wary. making sure i see their hands, no funny business. we all exchange names and it's obivous they've forgotten mine because every sentence starts with "rrrrrrobin!" with a big rolled r, but they'll actually talk to both of us. "rrrrrrobin! i hope you don't think it's rude if we stop somewhere first to pick something up?" no, that's ok. so we stop at a store. marco goes in and christian starts telling us how he's on the board of this conservancy that he works with. guy knows what's going on, sounds legit. i start to relax. marco comes out of the store with a bag full of 2 liter beer bottles and some wine, tho it looks light brown so it must be moonshine or something. i'm thinking they are going to drink them over the weekend but no, they open the booze right then and there, and start swilling. they also start negotiating their price. 300 namibian dollars per person and we will show you elephants! um, that's ok, thanks, we're the ones giving you a ride here, you should pay us! hahahaha...swig swig swig, spill booze all over our vehicle.
they start arguing with each other in clicky language. i'm convinced they're deciding who will slit my throat and who will drive the getaway car. robin is from montreal so i start speaking in french. what do you think of these guys? how much do you want to pay them? do we have to? marco pipes up "rrrrrrobin! do you think that we don't understand french? why don't you just talk about us in english?" a little awkward. i tell them if they speak clicky, we will speak french. he says "ca m'est egal." dang.
with booze they start to mellow out, make jokes, chit chat. marco pulls out a cigarette. sorry, no smoking in the car guys. "rrrrrrobin! can you stop the car so that i may smoke and christian can show you the euphorbias?" ok, i guess. we get out and go to a euphorbia tree. they smoke like chimneys. christian rubs a euphorbia branch with two rocks and some milky stuff comes out. "poison! very bad!" yes, we know. "poison!" yeah, got it, why don't you prove it is poisonous? "haha, you are very funny!" back in the car, 5 minutes later christian is moaning and rubbing his eye. "euphorbia! in my eye!" oh great, this clown got poison in his eye. we use half our water supply to rinse it out. who are these clowns?
they teach me the four different Damara language clicks. impossible. saying good morning requires two different types of clicks really quickly you have to bite your tongue. for some random reason, maybe boredom, we decide that they will show us a campsite, some elephants, and we will pay them 200 Namibian dollars. sortof a lot, but, whatever. they are excited, but argue a lot with the clicking. we first stop at this village, its location is noted thanks to the sign: an old car door. here we meet this really old guy and they ask where the desert elephants are. the guy gets really excited and starts acting out this whole elephant encounter. this is already worth my $100. the old guy and his buddy let me take pictures and they draw a little map in the sand. mapping! we offer them some marie cookies, even though they have no teeth. they are very grateful. we go to the campsite, these shady spots all spread out along the river, very nice. i pitch my tent in the middle of a whole bunch of elephant prints. hmmmm.at the reception we decide to get a cold drink and have our lunch. we pull out our picnic and the two clowns pull out theirs. nevertheless ours seems more appealing, so they are digging into our hard boiled eggs and peanut butter. they are making hard-boiled egg and peanut butter sandwiches with our bread. who are these clowns? marco is peeling his third egg and i put the carton away. half my eggs are gone! the only thing that makes up for it is this really cute baby meerkat running around under our. feet. i pick him up and put him in my lap and i want to take him home.we drive down towards the river bed, and during the dry season, they become smooth roads. there are lots of tire tracks...and elephant prints, not to mention huge piles of poo, like basketballs. fresh, too. i'm becoming a real skatologist here.
we turn a corner and there they are. magnificent. and a little baby elephant too! we climb up onto a ledge and robin and i are pefectly content to watch the elephants do their thing - douse themselves with dust, grab at trees with their trunks. marco and christian are holding onto their beer bottles, they insist on taking pictures for me. they take terrible pictures. like half an elephant. we must get closer! closer! no seriously guys, this is fine, we can see perfectly. we must get closer! so much for the client being boss. so we get into the car and slowly drive up, pretty damn close to these elephants. marco and christian are all "we have to be rrreallly quiet! the elephant doesn't like noise!" only he is screaming this and we are all, we understand so shut up. and then marco says yeah, shut up dude, and then christian says no you shut up and then they get into a clicky argument and i just wanted to knock their heads together like curly and moe. they insist on taking more pictures...of the rear view mirror, the back of robin's head. maybe they don't understand the look through the viewfinder part. they think they are doing me a huge favor but they are just using up my battery.
then this south african guy shows up and long story short, the guy pisses off a big elephant and it starts to charge his car. he backs up out of the way and swerves so that the elephant is headed straight towards us. i am imagining our car being crushed, sides impaled by tusks. we peel out of there and go a little further, but now the elephants and the two clowns are now very agitated. the clowns won't stop yelling and getting out of the car to go yell at the south african guy and the elephants are giving us the stink eye. for the love of god will everyone just shut the fuck up!! but they won't. it goes on. finally they say "ok we saw the elephants now we can leave."their eyes are all glazed over, they are sweating, totally wasted drunk. on the way back, christian breaks out the marriage proposal "i will treat you so well you won't have to work"
oh really? what will i do then?
"you will tend the crops"
oh, sounds awesome! will you be drunk all or only most of the time?
"i want to go live in texas"
this sounds delightful!
we get back to the campsite and frick and frack are pulling out their tent, all excited about camping with us, fully expecting to mooch off us for the rest of the weekend.
"we will guide you to the white lady (another rock painting. ho-hum)"
will you be loud and annoying eat all our food too? here's your $200, now scram!
as we booted him out of the car christian asked "i did well, right?"
yah, sure ya did. i did get their mailing address though, and i plan on sending them each a t-shirt - one obama and one hillary.
Friday, June 13, 2008
colonel's hat
so, where to start. turns out my colleague robin is getting shmoozed by the namibia office to come do a stint here. so, they were more than generous in lending us a truck, camping equipment, pretty much everything we need for a swell week in the bush.
we loaded up on food at the supermarket downtown. we're all giddy for our trip, planning our meals. inside the store we are arguing over how many packages of marie cookies. these are little sugary biscuits like the petit beurre, or petit exquis you get in france. robin loves them. he cleans out the shelf and puts 10 packages in the cart. 10 packages? he says, you're right! we need more! and finds another.
so we parked on the main avenue on the main strip of downtown windhoek. there are people everywhere, it's saturday morning. we come out with our full bags of groceries and are loading them into the back of the truck when this guy starts moaning like a zombie and going through the bags. i try to shoo him away like a fly but he won't leave. out of the corner of my eye i notice another guy opening the other side passenger door. mutherf$%*# it's a scam! i grab the guy nanoseconds before he makes off with my passport, money, camera, cell phone, pretty much anything he wants. he shrugs and walks away. i look at everyone on the street, wondering why no one cares that this guy was blatantly robbing us? are they probably thinking, eh, another rich white person getting what they deserve? who knows. i was pissed.
it took me a while to relax, but the beautiful mountains, springbok and abundant wildlife soon settled in. in one town with a crazy name like otjiwarongo we stopped to gas up and for some insane reason i was lured to these meat pies in a display case. wiener-shnitzel. from a namibian shell station. robin bought one too. i was happy, my stomach was not.
along the way i notice we are running over these huuuuuuge insects. like tarantula size. but they're not spiders, they're some sort of cricket. crunch...crunch...cru-crunch...for miles and miles and miles. what are these things? they're everywhere! crunch! this is what they look like:
we make our way to the spitzkoppe - a.k.a the colonel's hat. looks like it, a big hat shaped boulder thing. totally huge. i had read in the lonely planet about this community campsitewhose proceeds go this poor village and stuff. we turn down this dusty street and drive straight into a steven king novel. or maybe the hills have eyes, or the hills have eyes 2. there are shanty mud, zinc, or entirely-made-entirely-out-of-soup-can huts, with kids running around selling big hunks of quartz, amethist, fluorite, malakyte. everywhere we went, hunks and hunks of rock. unless you're my brother when he was 8 or my uncle geologist, why would anyone buy these rocks? i'm thinking, someone needs to bring a rock tumbler and a dremel kit into this joint and teach these people to make some beads! (hellooo aurelgrooves africa) seriously. 
we roll up to this campsite and it's majorly creepy. the reception is made out of old driftwood or something. i can tell robin wants to u-turn right on out of here. i insist we stay. look at the cool rock mountain! 
we pay our $5 and wander around to find a site to pitch our tents. the place is huge, sprawling. each site is at least 1 km from the next. some are nestled in rocks, others are under these big trees. they're actually all pretty neat and unique, we can't decide which we like best. 
we drive around and see some rock paintings, robin is so over rock paintings. even if they're 5000 years old, he's all, whatever, doesn't do it for me. i don't like to see how they have been vandalized. it's like some idiot comes all the way out here to write "yer mom" on a 5,000 year old work of art wtf??
we go a little further around the mountain and see klipspringers, cute little rock hiraxes and more and more of those huge friggin' crickets. i do not want these things near my tent. we come to this chain rope in the mountain that leads up a steep slope of rock. we go up it and it's just a totally cool mountain of crunchy quartzy rock with huge boulders teetering on top. we're climbing all over, my sandals are gripping this rock i can defy gravity, and i end up in one valley and robin is in another, 100s of feet away. because of the echo we are talking as if we were in the car.
"this is pretty sweet."
"pretty sweet indeed."
"look at that white guy down there with no shirt."
"he's totally sunburnt"
"pretty sweet."
we lounge a bit then go back to the reception with a goal of getting matches. we bought everything for our trip, stopped to refuel, re-fill our water jug and kept forgetting the darn matches. we find eddie, from the reception and he's all, oh, you have to go to the village for matches. we are not going to the creepy village eddie, someone here has to have matches. look, that guy is smoking a cigarette. and so he finds us a box of matches, we are happy.
we search some more for a campsite and found one nestled in the rock, like in a crevasse.
there's a fire pit area and a counter top carved into the stone. and a little toilet around the corner, with tp, and a seat and everything. we can creep over the rock ledge and watch the sunset. perfect.
the sun sets quickly and we are soon in the dark, with a million stars overhead. i want to start cookin' and we look at the box of matches. i'll be damned! there are only 7 in there, and they're all used, except for 3. the first one goes out. we hold our breath, concentrate...come on...we need one match for tomorrow's breakfast. the second one breaks in half. dangit! this is it, or we don't eat...finally it lights and our gas is lit. i keep the stove going for a while to hard boil some eggs, which i plan on eating all week. i'm all about the hard boiled eggs.
some sort of rat thing tries to run off with the lid to our pot. he drops it halfway to his lair and it makes a loud clanging noise, scaring the crap out of us. what's up with all the thieves??
we are in our tents by 7pm - campin' style. throughout the night i have nightmares of leopards and elephants coming, but nothing but those darn crickets. i have to pee but i'm scared of the crickets. they are surrounding my tent the next day like they are avenging the death of their cousins on the highway.
in the morning, i wake up and run to the rock ledge and see zebra tracks everywhere, more hiraxes (sooo cute!) and a wonderful sun rise over the savanna. we had an elaborate plan to light our half match to get some tea and oatmeal going. it will take me 5 days to realize that roibos tea doesn't have any caffeine in it. mutherf%$$^.
i go back out to my ledge, and see this splendid view. but i still get blackberry reception. we are not far enough out of town!
we loaded up on food at the supermarket downtown. we're all giddy for our trip, planning our meals. inside the store we are arguing over how many packages of marie cookies. these are little sugary biscuits like the petit beurre, or petit exquis you get in france. robin loves them. he cleans out the shelf and puts 10 packages in the cart. 10 packages? he says, you're right! we need more! and finds another.
so we parked on the main avenue on the main strip of downtown windhoek. there are people everywhere, it's saturday morning. we come out with our full bags of groceries and are loading them into the back of the truck when this guy starts moaning like a zombie and going through the bags. i try to shoo him away like a fly but he won't leave. out of the corner of my eye i notice another guy opening the other side passenger door. mutherf$%*# it's a scam! i grab the guy nanoseconds before he makes off with my passport, money, camera, cell phone, pretty much anything he wants. he shrugs and walks away. i look at everyone on the street, wondering why no one cares that this guy was blatantly robbing us? are they probably thinking, eh, another rich white person getting what they deserve? who knows. i was pissed.
it took me a while to relax, but the beautiful mountains, springbok and abundant wildlife soon settled in. in one town with a crazy name like otjiwarongo we stopped to gas up and for some insane reason i was lured to these meat pies in a display case. wiener-shnitzel. from a namibian shell station. robin bought one too. i was happy, my stomach was not.
along the way i notice we are running over these huuuuuuge insects. like tarantula size. but they're not spiders, they're some sort of cricket. crunch...crunch...cru-crunch...for miles and miles and miles. what are these things? they're everywhere! crunch! this is what they look like:
we make our way to the spitzkoppe - a.k.a the colonel's hat. looks like it, a big hat shaped boulder thing. totally huge. i had read in the lonely planet about this community campsitewhose proceeds go this poor village and stuff. we turn down this dusty street and drive straight into a steven king novel. or maybe the hills have eyes, or the hills have eyes 2. there are shanty mud, zinc, or entirely-made-entirely-out-of-soup-can huts, with kids running around selling big hunks of quartz, amethist, fluorite, malakyte. everywhere we went, hunks and hunks of rock. unless you're my brother when he was 8 or my uncle geologist, why would anyone buy these rocks? i'm thinking, someone needs to bring a rock tumbler and a dremel kit into this joint and teach these people to make some beads! (hellooo aurelgrooves africa) seriously. we roll up to this campsite and it's majorly creepy. the reception is made out of old driftwood or something. i can tell robin wants to u-turn right on out of here. i insist we stay. look at the cool rock mountain! we pay our $5 and wander around to find a site to pitch our tents. the place is huge, sprawling. each site is at least 1 km from the next. some are nestled in rocks, others are under these big trees. they're actually all pretty neat and unique, we can't decide which we like best. we drive around and see some rock paintings, robin is so over rock paintings. even if they're 5000 years old, he's all, whatever, doesn't do it for me. i don't like to see how they have been vandalized. it's like some idiot comes all the way out here to write "yer mom" on a 5,000 year old work of art wtf??
we go a little further around the mountain and see klipspringers, cute little rock hiraxes and more and more of those huge friggin' crickets. i do not want these things near my tent. we come to this chain rope in the mountain that leads up a steep slope of rock. we go up it and it's just a totally cool mountain of crunchy quartzy rock with huge boulders teetering on top. we're climbing all over, my sandals are gripping this rock i can defy gravity, and i end up in one valley and robin is in another, 100s of feet away. because of the echo we are talking as if we were in the car.
"this is pretty sweet.""pretty sweet indeed."
"look at that white guy down there with no shirt."
"he's totally sunburnt"
"pretty sweet."
we lounge a bit then go back to the reception with a goal of getting matches. we bought everything for our trip, stopped to refuel, re-fill our water jug and kept forgetting the darn matches. we find eddie, from the reception and he's all, oh, you have to go to the village for matches. we are not going to the creepy village eddie, someone here has to have matches. look, that guy is smoking a cigarette. and so he finds us a box of matches, we are happy.
we search some more for a campsite and found one nestled in the rock, like in a crevasse.
there's a fire pit area and a counter top carved into the stone. and a little toilet around the corner, with tp, and a seat and everything. we can creep over the rock ledge and watch the sunset. perfect. the sun sets quickly and we are soon in the dark, with a million stars overhead. i want to start cookin' and we look at the box of matches. i'll be damned! there are only 7 in there, and they're all used, except for 3. the first one goes out. we hold our breath, concentrate...come on...we need one match for tomorrow's breakfast. the second one breaks in half. dangit! this is it, or we don't eat...finally it lights and our gas is lit. i keep the stove going for a while to hard boil some eggs, which i plan on eating all week. i'm all about the hard boiled eggs.
some sort of rat thing tries to run off with the lid to our pot. he drops it halfway to his lair and it makes a loud clanging noise, scaring the crap out of us. what's up with all the thieves??
we are in our tents by 7pm - campin' style. throughout the night i have nightmares of leopards and elephants coming, but nothing but those darn crickets. i have to pee but i'm scared of the crickets. they are surrounding my tent the next day like they are avenging the death of their cousins on the highway.
in the morning, i wake up and run to the rock ledge and see zebra tracks everywhere, more hiraxes (sooo cute!) and a wonderful sun rise over the savanna. we had an elaborate plan to light our half match to get some tea and oatmeal going. it will take me 5 days to realize that roibos tea doesn't have any caffeine in it. mutherf%$$^.
i go back out to my ledge, and see this splendid view. but i still get blackberry reception. we are not far enough out of town!
Thursday, June 12, 2008
whew!
well that was just crazy.
here's a little news to tell you what i was up to, then i can fill you in the details. btw, we waited on this guy rodrick the journalist for a few days to follow us on the count, and then he said he didn't want to camp, and bailed. still wrote the story, which horribly misquotes everyone and get many facts wrong...but i wuz there, man! and it was awesome.
Namibia begins world's largest census of animals
By RODRICK MUKUMBIRA, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 11, 6:16 PM ET
The world's largest land-based census of wildlife began Wednesday across a huge swath of northwestern Namibia, World Wildlife Fund officials said.
The annual animal census, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, came as the American agency prepared to announce that it is ending conservation funding in Namibia a year earlier that previously planned.
Wildlife in Namibia has increased since the U.S. agency began funding community conservation programs in 1993. To date, the United States has given $41.6 million to programs to help people care for natural resources and benefit from the tourism generated.
"Only a few years ago, local people viewed wildlife only as competitors for food with their goats and other livestock and as potential dangers, but all that has now changed," said World Wildlife spokesman Chris Weaver.
Weaver, whose organization manages the U.S. funds, said the conservation programs allowed animal species to flourish and made poaching "virtually extinct."
He said conservation efforts since 1995 had increased Namibia's lion population from 30 to 130, dramatically raised the number of cheetahs, and nearly doubled Namibia's black rhino population. Namibia had about 7,500 elephants in 1995, but now has 26,000, he said.
Teams of game scouts, conservationists and scientists expect to find even higher numbers this year as they fan out to count elephants, lions, cheetahs, rhinos, oryx, giraffes, mountain zebras and springbok on 16 million acres of wildlife reserves.
Besides conserving wildlife, U.S.-funded programs in Namibia have generated income from tourism, creating 946 permanent and 6,200 part-time jobs, Weaver said.
U.S. officials planned to announce the cancellation of funds in Windhoek on Thursday. U.S. government spokesman Raymond Castillo would not comment on why the funding was being cut, but said the program had been tremendously successful.
here's a little news to tell you what i was up to, then i can fill you in the details. btw, we waited on this guy rodrick the journalist for a few days to follow us on the count, and then he said he didn't want to camp, and bailed. still wrote the story, which horribly misquotes everyone and get many facts wrong...but i wuz there, man! and it was awesome.
Namibia begins world's largest census of animals
By RODRICK MUKUMBIRA, Associated Press WriterWed Jun 11, 6:16 PM ET
The world's largest land-based census of wildlife began Wednesday across a huge swath of northwestern Namibia, World Wildlife Fund officials said.
The annual animal census, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, came as the American agency prepared to announce that it is ending conservation funding in Namibia a year earlier that previously planned.
Wildlife in Namibia has increased since the U.S. agency began funding community conservation programs in 1993. To date, the United States has given $41.6 million to programs to help people care for natural resources and benefit from the tourism generated.
"Only a few years ago, local people viewed wildlife only as competitors for food with their goats and other livestock and as potential dangers, but all that has now changed," said World Wildlife spokesman Chris Weaver.
Weaver, whose organization manages the U.S. funds, said the conservation programs allowed animal species to flourish and made poaching "virtually extinct."
He said conservation efforts since 1995 had increased Namibia's lion population from 30 to 130, dramatically raised the number of cheetahs, and nearly doubled Namibia's black rhino population. Namibia had about 7,500 elephants in 1995, but now has 26,000, he said.
Teams of game scouts, conservationists and scientists expect to find even higher numbers this year as they fan out to count elephants, lions, cheetahs, rhinos, oryx, giraffes, mountain zebras and springbok on 16 million acres of wildlife reserves.
Besides conserving wildlife, U.S.-funded programs in Namibia have generated income from tourism, creating 946 permanent and 6,200 part-time jobs, Weaver said.
U.S. officials planned to announce the cancellation of funds in Windhoek on Thursday. U.S. government spokesman Raymond Castillo would not comment on why the funding was being cut, but said the program had been tremendously successful.
Friday, June 6, 2008
panda wuz here
was walking around today after work and saw this. the wwf logo - namibian graffiti style. those crazy environmentalists! not bad. gorilla marketing? huh. huh.
do i look like the kind of girl who likes to sing songs?
so there's this hiv cartoon poster i was reading in the bathroom. it's this guy mbdankta in a small village and he's all psyched cuz his girlfriend is coming home (he receives a letter and there are lots of floaty hearts all around his head). in the next box: a cloud with !!! above his head!!! he needs condoms!!!
so he goes to a bunch of clinics and each one doesn't have any, then he goes to visit his buddy akbar because akbar aaaalways has condoms, cuz he really gets with the ladies. but akbar says, no man, i had a craaaazy weekend! so them mbdankta is all oh, this really sucks, i will have to find something else to do with my girlfriend. what will we do? hold hands? go for a walk? sing songs? play a game? and so when he sees her he says, i'm sorry i don't have any condoms, "maybe we can sing songs instead?" and she's all, songs?do i look like the kind of girl who likes to sing songs? i'll give you something to sing about...and pulls out a whole bunch of condoms. and they are both happy.
i can find at least a few things wrong with this story...
anyway, we're packing supplies for our trip and all we have are big cardboard smile condoms boxes. teehee. seriously, our truck is going to jam packed with these, what will people think?
so he goes to a bunch of clinics and each one doesn't have any, then he goes to visit his buddy akbar because akbar aaaalways has condoms, cuz he really gets with the ladies. but akbar says, no man, i had a craaaazy weekend! so them mbdankta is all oh, this really sucks, i will have to find something else to do with my girlfriend. what will we do? hold hands? go for a walk? sing songs? play a game? and so when he sees her he says, i'm sorry i don't have any condoms, "maybe we can sing songs instead?" and she's all, songs?do i look like the kind of girl who likes to sing songs? i'll give you something to sing about...and pulls out a whole bunch of condoms. and they are both happy.
i can find at least a few things wrong with this story...
anyway, we're packing supplies for our trip and all we have are big cardboard smile condoms boxes. teehee. seriously, our truck is going to jam packed with these, what will people think?
Thursday, June 5, 2008
windhoek...kinda boring
so windhoek is indeed really neat, according to the guide book, but i don't have time to do anything because it's work work work! and prepare for our big trip next week. though i did get invited to a cool bbq at this one guy's house who lives in a glorious multi-level house that he rents cheaper than my apartment in dc. i could live here.
this is a typical windhoek street. pretty nice! looks like california or something. there are also very, very few clouds.
but still, they are slave drivers. they put the mozambiquans to shame. i don't even go out to lunch, i just eat bread and yogurt that i steal from breakfast at the hotel.
so i don't really have any stories to tell, i'm just going to show you a few pictures that i have.
this is my room at the pension uhland. doesn't it look super cute and german? i wish i had a picture of the big black fuzzy cat. only annoying thing is the big aviary outside that has a lot of chirping birds that don't let me sleep. and they keep setting off the motion sensor light so all night it's on...off...on...off...
i watch roland garros on the telefunken.
this is bbq guy's really small dog. note the scale - you can compare his size to my foot (women's size 6.5). this is right before i punted him into angola.
this is a typical windhoek street. pretty nice! looks like california or something. there are also very, very few clouds. this is the view of a windhoek sunset (looking east tho). 
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
culture shock in namibia
so it's still a little culture shock here in windhoek. i can drink the water! i can eat salad again! i don't have to carry wads of toilet paper around in my pockets! (i just got my cargo shorts back from the laundry...what a mess). hey, it doesn't mean i don't like roughing it, people... it's just weird to think that only a few km away, over the border is such a completely different environment (e.g. angola, zimbabwe).
the only thing i'm not prepared for...it's f-ing cold! it is winter, afterall. at night it gets rrreal chilly. like 50s. i have a fleece and a sweater, but i'll need a hat and some thick socks or something. i can only imagine what it's like in the desert up north. so i'm going to have to do some shopping. robin, my canadian colleague here (and old friend from mcgill) found a store called "beaver canoe" that he wants to check out, we suspect it might originate from america's hat. canadians, always sticking together.
so last night we ate dinner at joe's beerhouse, which is just a short walk away. it's a crazy maze of picnic tables, trees, fireplaces, animals heads...and bottles of jagermeister. the sign at the door says "the house wine is....JAGERMEISTER. drink up!" the fireplaces were all glowing and warm, just like the atmosphere. i drank a tofel and a beer shandy, and for my meal, ordered some springbok. this is a springbok, fyi:
the only thing i'm not prepared for...it's f-ing cold! it is winter, afterall. at night it gets rrreal chilly. like 50s. i have a fleece and a sweater, but i'll need a hat and some thick socks or something. i can only imagine what it's like in the desert up north. so i'm going to have to do some shopping. robin, my canadian colleague here (and old friend from mcgill) found a store called "beaver canoe" that he wants to check out, we suspect it might originate from america's hat. canadians, always sticking together.
so last night we ate dinner at joe's beerhouse, which is just a short walk away. it's a crazy maze of picnic tables, trees, fireplaces, animals heads...and bottles of jagermeister. the sign at the door says "the house wine is....JAGERMEISTER. drink up!" the fireplaces were all glowing and warm, just like the atmosphere. i drank a tofel and a beer shandy, and for my meal, ordered some springbok. this is a springbok, fyi:
this may have been one of the tastiest meals ever. it was a brochette of the most tender, flavorful, perfectly grilled meat (sorry, dad!). better than duck! it came off the skewer with ease, and melted like butter in my mouth. in between these tender morsels, bacon wrapped figs, mmmm. all of this accompanied by these large balls of butter corn fritters delicately pan fried to keep their shape and asparagus and cauliflower with some sweet chutney on it. simple, deelish. robin had the oryx steak, which was also tasty and we are planning on working our way up to zebra, which, according to the menu is a "man's meal."
goodbye mozambique, hello namibia!
i finished my 2 weeks in mozambique with one more night in maputo. i landed with a few hours of sunlight left, eager to explore this urban delight. the sky was already turning golden as i raced around the streets in a brisk walk.
i saw some kids with kites made out of garbage bags, just like the one i bought in northern neck and played kite runner with. there was a boy with a monstrous pile of VHS tapes in those plastic cases like they have (had) at the library. he was selling them for 50 cents each. there was a small mob arguing over a copy of rocky III.
it was friday rush hour, so hustle and bustle. pretty nice. finally, as darkness lingered i raced back to my hotel for safety, and a fantastic 7 hours of internet, catching up on emails, bills, fixing my mp3 player (yes!! finally), deciding to go to congo after namibia??
the hotel insisted i get a taxi at 5am for my 7am flight the next day. i woke up after only an hour sleep at 4:30 to take a shower. the water was hot for two seconds and then freezing cold. this went on for 10 cycles until i finally gave up. this has been THE trip of cold water showers, from before i left DC, when my hot water heater conked all the way until now. all. cold. showers. argh. i got dressed and headed down to the reception and let them have an earful. i'm not sure where it came from, maybe the beehive that has become my hair but i let out the most fantastic porto-spanglish i have ever heard.
i was all, 3 star hotel, eh? more like NO stars! the concierge guy was verrry apologetic. he offered me another room, yeah, thanks, that's really useful now.
it was dark, really cold, and i get into this beat up old car that has SPRINTER written on the side. there are no headlights, lots of metal hitting metal sounds where the wheels and engine are, and what looks like the result of a horse vs. windshield accident: windshield lost. he's telling me how it's the worst time to drive, that everyone is drunk from their friday night. indeed, i see a lot of swerving cars, people running red lights and running into sidewalks. cool.
the street names are all karl marx ave, stalin street, lenin road and east timor ave. huh?
the driver puts on his seat belt, first time i've ever seen one in use. very dangerous! he says, and i don't know if he's referring to the streets or his own car, where safety isn't exactly paramount. we pass some kids making a huge bonfire on the sidewalk where there was a fruit market the day before.
we come to an intersection with a dude totally naked except for a ratty t-shirt that just barely hides his privates. instead of feet he has ankle nubs to which flip flops are tied with a thick string. like peg legs. how does this guy manage to stand? i'm impressed. he approaches the taxi and starts screaming flailing his arms wildly. we get a nice little peep show. maputo style!
during the rest of the trip the driver comments on how dark it is, how early it is, how well he is driving and i'm agreeing, yes! indeed! claro que si! what i realized at the end is that he was justifying the reasons to raise the cost of this trip. i had unknowingly talked myself into a $20 cab ride. eh, it's still dark out, i'm tired, the airport isn't actually open so i have to sit on the sidewalk...i don't actually don't care, dude. i still had a wad of mets and no discoteca to spend it in. whatever. goodbye mozambique!
and hello namibia! what a delightful surprise! the airport is clean, shiny, a working conveyor belt and these cute little carts. my cell phone works. with email. a driver with a shiny corolla is waiting for me. the airport parking lot looks like the new one at charles de gaulle. this is weird.
we drive through a desert landscape that looks a lot like the causse mejean. there are lots of road signs for towns, narrow shoulders, passing lanes. they are all written in the curvy sans serif font on bright clean signs like you see in france. we drive into windhoek and there are no crazy homeless people, just clean streets, smiling people, bright modern buildings...are we still in africa? seriously.
i saw some kids with kites made out of garbage bags, just like the one i bought in northern neck and played kite runner with. there was a boy with a monstrous pile of VHS tapes in those plastic cases like they have (had) at the library. he was selling them for 50 cents each. there was a small mob arguing over a copy of rocky III.
it was friday rush hour, so hustle and bustle. pretty nice. finally, as darkness lingered i raced back to my hotel for safety, and a fantastic 7 hours of internet, catching up on emails, bills, fixing my mp3 player (yes!! finally), deciding to go to congo after namibia??
the hotel insisted i get a taxi at 5am for my 7am flight the next day. i woke up after only an hour sleep at 4:30 to take a shower. the water was hot for two seconds and then freezing cold. this went on for 10 cycles until i finally gave up. this has been THE trip of cold water showers, from before i left DC, when my hot water heater conked all the way until now. all. cold. showers. argh. i got dressed and headed down to the reception and let them have an earful. i'm not sure where it came from, maybe the beehive that has become my hair but i let out the most fantastic porto-spanglish i have ever heard.
i was all, 3 star hotel, eh? more like NO stars! the concierge guy was verrry apologetic. he offered me another room, yeah, thanks, that's really useful now.
it was dark, really cold, and i get into this beat up old car that has SPRINTER written on the side. there are no headlights, lots of metal hitting metal sounds where the wheels and engine are, and what looks like the result of a horse vs. windshield accident: windshield lost. he's telling me how it's the worst time to drive, that everyone is drunk from their friday night. indeed, i see a lot of swerving cars, people running red lights and running into sidewalks. cool.
the street names are all karl marx ave, stalin street, lenin road and east timor ave. huh?
the driver puts on his seat belt, first time i've ever seen one in use. very dangerous! he says, and i don't know if he's referring to the streets or his own car, where safety isn't exactly paramount. we pass some kids making a huge bonfire on the sidewalk where there was a fruit market the day before.
we come to an intersection with a dude totally naked except for a ratty t-shirt that just barely hides his privates. instead of feet he has ankle nubs to which flip flops are tied with a thick string. like peg legs. how does this guy manage to stand? i'm impressed. he approaches the taxi and starts screaming flailing his arms wildly. we get a nice little peep show. maputo style!
during the rest of the trip the driver comments on how dark it is, how early it is, how well he is driving and i'm agreeing, yes! indeed! claro que si! what i realized at the end is that he was justifying the reasons to raise the cost of this trip. i had unknowingly talked myself into a $20 cab ride. eh, it's still dark out, i'm tired, the airport isn't actually open so i have to sit on the sidewalk...i don't actually don't care, dude. i still had a wad of mets and no discoteca to spend it in. whatever. goodbye mozambique!
and hello namibia! what a delightful surprise! the airport is clean, shiny, a working conveyor belt and these cute little carts. my cell phone works. with email. a driver with a shiny corolla is waiting for me. the airport parking lot looks like the new one at charles de gaulle. this is weird.
we drive through a desert landscape that looks a lot like the causse mejean. there are lots of road signs for towns, narrow shoulders, passing lanes. they are all written in the curvy sans serif font on bright clean signs like you see in france. we drive into windhoek and there are no crazy homeless people, just clean streets, smiling people, bright modern buildings...are we still in africa? seriously.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
ibo...sigh
getting used to life without email, lights, dishwashers, alarm clocks...we wake up real early with the sun around 5, in bed by 9. whenever the generator turns on everyone comes out of the woodwork with their phone and laptop chargers. for the first few days there was only one outlet working and it was a giant mess of extension cords, knotted cables and phones and blinking lights everywhere. i so thought i was going to get electrocuted. electrocuted on an island with no electricity!
our dinners at the hotel are family style with the owners and other guests, which include this couple from the bay area who really wanted our honeymoon suite. haa haaaa. we sit surrounded by kerosene lamps and figure out if the hotel should get a goat and chickens and serve fresh milk and eggs. or maybe a crocodile. something cool that eats garbage. so...goats.
there are loottts of spacious smiles, as most of the fishermen have no teeth. they wear these really ratty clothes, like one guy, whose shorts and underwear were ripped right across his ass. you could see everything. and i mean everything. so alice got them uniforms: these silly sailor boy outfits, navy blue and white with the little knot in front and flap in the back. so weird.
it's ironic that across the street is a giant building with "central electrica" written on it. the last time it worked was in the 80s. yeah, more like the 1880's.
it's also ironic that on an island with no cars or lights, there's a "no jaywalking" sign in the main plaza that says to only cross when the light is green. this is downtown ibo:
our dinners at the hotel are family style with the owners and other guests, which include this couple from the bay area who really wanted our honeymoon suite. haa haaaa. we sit surrounded by kerosene lamps and figure out if the hotel should get a goat and chickens and serve fresh milk and eggs. or maybe a crocodile. something cool that eats garbage. so...goats.so in the early morning we do real work: we head out on the water the some local fishermen. on the first day we set out 20 wicker fish traps -all homemade and amazing 0 inside and outside the fishing sanctuary. no need to use a gps, the fishermen know exactly where to put the traps, so they are eagerly diving in, doing most of the work while we sit in the boat and eat peanuts and laugh. the next day we pull up the traps, see how many fish are inside, measure them. if we're inside the sanctuary, tag the fish and let them go. if we're outside, the fishermen get to take the fish home. plus they get a small pay, and they are seeing the positive results of having a sanctuary, so they're very excited about the work (not excited about letting fish go. they usually look at these huge fish and get the little dollar signs in their eyes going "cha-ching!"). alice says the fish inside the sanctuary are poisoned, and that you have to let them flush it out for a while before you can catch them. that's her way of saying wait for them to get bigger!
there are loottts of spacious smiles, as most of the fishermen have no teeth. they wear these really ratty clothes, like one guy, whose shorts and underwear were ripped right across his ass. you could see everything. and i mean everything. so alice got them uniforms: these silly sailor boy outfits, navy blue and white with the little knot in front and flap in the back. so weird. we have to keep all the gas for the boats under lock and key in a big empty building that is the park office, or else it will be stolen. and we have to be real careful about who goes in there, always need a watchdog to make sure they don't skim from the top. we put tick marks to make sure the levels are the same the next day. already, one guy knows about our stash and came asking for gas for his home generator. his home generator powers that annoying disco music we hear every night. sorry senor! he insisted he was an important man from the opposition party. sorry senor! ask your party for gas!
yesterday afternoon alice took me for a long walk to see a friend, a woman who lives in a hut with a dirt yard surrounded by a bamboo fence. she brought out some chairs for us while she sat on a mat with her grandchild on her lap. there were goats, chickens, garbage. i was trying to imagine living like that, with so little, spending your day preparing food and doing daily chores. it's sortof like camping...but...i imagine without the glory. there was a young girl there, who was washing clothes in a bin, and just hanging around playing with dirt and an old carboard box. i wonder what she was thinking about, how is each day different? does she ever get bored?
then we walked around the town some more and met some kids who surrounded us in awe. this little girl in a ripped dress jumped into my arms and clung to me like a little monkey. it sortof made me sad. alice knew immediately, "don't cry!"
then we walked some more to the fort at the end of the island. a big white star shaped thing i've seen on the satellite images. inside were a whole bunch of guys just sitting on the ground, banging, bending and soldering silver. silversmiths! they find old portuguese coins and make the most intricate delicate amazing jewelry. alice definitely knew i would love this place. i learned a little bit from the guys, watched them melt silver into little balls and chain links using a tube, they blow air into this hot flaming oil can thing. crazy. alice bought me a beautiful pair of earrings and i picked out 2 more, for less than $10. i could have bought the whole store. they wrapped them in torn pieces of hiv pamphlets, which are everywhere here. "Q: my baby is not gaining weight. A: your baby might have aids." sigh.
Monday, June 2, 2008
to ibo via land
to explain where i am sitting now...cross legged on a cliff with my kerosene lantern to my left, a calm sea to my right reflecting a million stars in every direction over the island of ibo. getting here was almost as spectacular.
we left pemba around 11:30 am after a morning packed of logistics. geri cans of fuel, gallons of water, rice, fruit, computers, maps. our little helper guys packed our hi-lux pickup to the gills. just enough room for us three ladies: alice, lizia and myself.
and off we went, for a little while on a nice paved road, and then, a bright red dirt path through miombo forest and endless villages of mud huts with colorful women with painted faces, waving kids, broken bicycles, fruit stands, goats, chickens everything.
alice was in a greater hurry than usual, as we were a little late catching the high tide which would allow us to take our boat to ibo island. she was flying. i kept pointing out the speed limit signs, as a joke, because on a dirt road with pot holes the size of hot tubs, there's no way you could go the posted limit of 70km/hr, but she certainly was trying! we would pass these national geographic scenes with women with painted faces, kids pumping water from a well, a dude with an old singer sewing machine in front of his hut, kids running to catch up with the truck, while adults and livestock spread like ants to jump out of our way, and ultimately we would leave them in a cloud of light brown dust. i tried to take pictures as we zoomed by and nearly lost my camera and thrice hit my head on the ceiling. i saw the perfect baobab! but it came out a blur, even with a 1/1500 shutter speed. (people don't wear seatbelts here, and had i been wearing mine, i would most certainly have been strangled)
we finally found a shady spot to have a picnic. it happened to be occupied by an older makonde woman, also taking a break in the shade. as we slowed down she had a look of absolute terror on her face and did one of those hesitations a squirrel makes when it's facing headlights, and took off in a sprint. we pulled up pretty slowly but she ran away, screaming for her life, and never looked back. we felt really bad.
she came back 5 minutes later with a young angry man with a machete and a stick. he yells at us for scaring the woman and we pleaded, we were just stopping to rest and eat. i offered her some soggy fries.
soon, more people started showing up, a guy with two chickens strapped upside down on the back of his bike, a guy with 100 lbs of rice on another, and a fourth guy also with a machete and a stick, walking in typical mekonde fighter fashion.
we get a little uneasy with this crowd and get into the car to leave. lizia locks her door. the truck won't start. we kind of sit there, awkwardly waving goodbye, see you! thanks! they surround the car, and insist they only want to help. we get out and pop the hood - the battery is being held in place with a flip flop and a bungee cord - nice. i'm sure it's the alternator. the guys look at the engine like it's a spaceship. they poke it with a stick. we look at the dash and the battery is working, but the temperature gauge is in the red, and we have been speeding over dirt gravel and sand for a while...let's just wait. the guys don't leave. we stand awkardly in silence. finally, out of nowhere, like a horse that just decides to start sprinting, the car starts. we're so outta there!
we drive for another hour, more villages and goats. i see a guy ironing with a cinder block, a little market or a bar with a tv that can't possibly be plugged into anything. you see those dirty kids playing with the metal wheel ring and the stick like from the 20s. their moms have geri cans on their heads.
we enter quirimbas national park and hi-five the rangers who scramble down from their two story hut. the roads are slightly smoother now, and we careen around corners and nearly smash into buses, loaded to the gills with people and plastic buckets. one bus is pulling a trailer made out of a half of another bus. and they will be going over the same bumpy, messy road that nearly killed our car? sometimes, we come straight towards some guys on their loaded bicycles. they have no brakes and sortof just flail off the side of the road, legs sticking out, face in fear. alice says don't worry! they're used to it!
then, there, ahead in the road...what is that? it's a huge baboon! my first baboon!
we make it to the big tree on the edge of the mangroves at exactly 4pm. this is tanganyama. also known as the "pirate port" as we'll soon find out why. high tide is just about to hit, there are slanted sailboats lying in the mud, waiting for the water to lift them. a crowd of people unload everything from our truck into a wooden boat with a crooked outboard on the back. they are carrying everything on their heads. they call it 'helping' but really, they want something. i don't want to break out out the cash so i find a softball, a bag of trader joe's rice crackers and these cookies a girl from wwf made, that honestly, are so dense and heavy i'm sick of eating and carrying them. they are elated. one guy gets mad because he doesn't get a cookie! we take pictures. everyone is smiling.
then someone asks, so where is the combustible? uhhhh, crap. we had meant to be in a two-car convoy, but the other truck had problems and turned back...with all the gas. we had thought of everything...but this! the boat driver gives us a half-full gas can and tells us to figure it out. this guy shows up out of nowhere and says "i know a place that sells gas!" we pile back in the car, and this time, we have unknowingly agreed to give a lady and her kid a ride, plus negotiator guy, so we're packed in like sardines. we zip back across a mudplain that will soon be flooded with the tide and trap us on the mainland. kids are playing soccer in the distance, the sun is setting.
we arrive at a mud hut village and meander through the streets until we come to a store, which is conveniently owned by the negotiator guy and sells gas at three times the normal price. ooooh i get it. then they talk about mixtura. do we need an oil gas mixture? crap. someone needs to call boat guy. who has a phone that works? this goes on for a while and by this point in time, the entire village is surrounding us, kids climbing all over our our truck and ogling our gas cans. the owner shoos everyone away, basta!
i get out of the car and get mobbed by the kids. they are all gorgeous and all want their picture taken, as usual. one kid has plastic bags with rubber bands for shoes. they show me their soccer ball - a wad of plastic bags wrapped in rubber bands. let's play footbal. we are running all over the village, and with this ball i am like pele, kicking, passing, hitting chickens and goats with the ball, everyone is screaming and yelling. i am heading the ball and it sends dirt and sand all in my eyes and face, they think it's hilarious. this is the best part of my day. i hear a horn honking, alice is angry. let's go! we drop off the lady and her kid, who had been waiting patiently in the car the whole time, even though their hut was only a few doors down from the store. she was loving being in the car, it was like arriving in a limousine, so she relished the moment as long as possible.
we race back across the mudplain, trying not to get stuck in the mud (the rumor is when this happens and you stop, people come out of the mangroves to help but they eventually steal your shoes - piratas!) and we arrive back at the mangroves and the tide has righted all the boats. ours is still waiting, with all our luggage and supplies inside. we have to walk through some pretty deep water with slushy mud at the bottom that is seeping between my toes. i carry my laptop on my head. look, african style! people in the boat next to us point and laugh. they are loading a motorbike into some sort of makeshit viking boat with 8 rowers.
we get into our boat and motor through the channel and see the most gorgeous sunset with egrets, sailboats with ratty home made sails. wow.
we arrive at ibo, i have no idea how, our captain took us through mangroves in complete darkness, no flashlight, nada.
we arrive to this quaint little complex that is being renovated by a belgian couple. they are officially closed, but they are letting us stay in the little honeymoon house on the cliff. we hop out and carry our stuff on our heads to land. there is a baby gazelle on the grounds that was rescued in august. his name is elvis, he has a little black tuft of hair on his head. he wants to sleep in my bed, along with the two cats. dinner is waiting for us in this open air kitchen. it's octupus curry and rice, my favorite. i give ulrich one of my maps, he is psyched.
they cut the generator just as we sit down, so there's silence, except for the 'discoteque' that is across the street. ulrich, exclaims, oh no! not again! apparently, discoteque guy just bought that "i'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world" album and he plays is OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. indeed he does.
still, a small price to pay for being in this slice of heaven. and i haven't even seen ibo in daylight yet. all i can say is...ha ha suckers, this is my JOB!
we left pemba around 11:30 am after a morning packed of logistics. geri cans of fuel, gallons of water, rice, fruit, computers, maps. our little helper guys packed our hi-lux pickup to the gills. just enough room for us three ladies: alice, lizia and myself.
and off we went, for a little while on a nice paved road, and then, a bright red dirt path through miombo forest and endless villages of mud huts with colorful women with painted faces, waving kids, broken bicycles, fruit stands, goats, chickens everything.
alice was in a greater hurry than usual, as we were a little late catching the high tide which would allow us to take our boat to ibo island. she was flying. i kept pointing out the speed limit signs, as a joke, because on a dirt road with pot holes the size of hot tubs, there's no way you could go the posted limit of 70km/hr, but she certainly was trying! we would pass these national geographic scenes with women with painted faces, kids pumping water from a well, a dude with an old singer sewing machine in front of his hut, kids running to catch up with the truck, while adults and livestock spread like ants to jump out of our way, and ultimately we would leave them in a cloud of light brown dust. i tried to take pictures as we zoomed by and nearly lost my camera and thrice hit my head on the ceiling. i saw the perfect baobab! but it came out a blur, even with a 1/1500 shutter speed. (people don't wear seatbelts here, and had i been wearing mine, i would most certainly have been strangled)
we finally found a shady spot to have a picnic. it happened to be occupied by an older makonde woman, also taking a break in the shade. as we slowed down she had a look of absolute terror on her face and did one of those hesitations a squirrel makes when it's facing headlights, and took off in a sprint. we pulled up pretty slowly but she ran away, screaming for her life, and never looked back. we felt really bad.
she came back 5 minutes later with a young angry man with a machete and a stick. he yells at us for scaring the woman and we pleaded, we were just stopping to rest and eat. i offered her some soggy fries.
soon, more people started showing up, a guy with two chickens strapped upside down on the back of his bike, a guy with 100 lbs of rice on another, and a fourth guy also with a machete and a stick, walking in typical mekonde fighter fashion.
we get a little uneasy with this crowd and get into the car to leave. lizia locks her door. the truck won't start. we kind of sit there, awkwardly waving goodbye, see you! thanks! they surround the car, and insist they only want to help. we get out and pop the hood - the battery is being held in place with a flip flop and a bungee cord - nice. i'm sure it's the alternator. the guys look at the engine like it's a spaceship. they poke it with a stick. we look at the dash and the battery is working, but the temperature gauge is in the red, and we have been speeding over dirt gravel and sand for a while...let's just wait. the guys don't leave. we stand awkardly in silence. finally, out of nowhere, like a horse that just decides to start sprinting, the car starts. we're so outta there!
we drive for another hour, more villages and goats. i see a guy ironing with a cinder block, a little market or a bar with a tv that can't possibly be plugged into anything. you see those dirty kids playing with the metal wheel ring and the stick like from the 20s. their moms have geri cans on their heads.
we enter quirimbas national park and hi-five the rangers who scramble down from their two story hut. the roads are slightly smoother now, and we careen around corners and nearly smash into buses, loaded to the gills with people and plastic buckets. one bus is pulling a trailer made out of a half of another bus. and they will be going over the same bumpy, messy road that nearly killed our car? sometimes, we come straight towards some guys on their loaded bicycles. they have no brakes and sortof just flail off the side of the road, legs sticking out, face in fear. alice says don't worry! they're used to it!
then, there, ahead in the road...what is that? it's a huge baboon! my first baboon!
we make it to the big tree on the edge of the mangroves at exactly 4pm. this is tanganyama. also known as the "pirate port" as we'll soon find out why. high tide is just about to hit, there are slanted sailboats lying in the mud, waiting for the water to lift them. a crowd of people unload everything from our truck into a wooden boat with a crooked outboard on the back. they are carrying everything on their heads. they call it 'helping' but really, they want something. i don't want to break out out the cash so i find a softball, a bag of trader joe's rice crackers and these cookies a girl from wwf made, that honestly, are so dense and heavy i'm sick of eating and carrying them. they are elated. one guy gets mad because he doesn't get a cookie! we take pictures. everyone is smiling.
then someone asks, so where is the combustible? uhhhh, crap. we had meant to be in a two-car convoy, but the other truck had problems and turned back...with all the gas. we had thought of everything...but this! the boat driver gives us a half-full gas can and tells us to figure it out. this guy shows up out of nowhere and says "i know a place that sells gas!" we pile back in the car, and this time, we have unknowingly agreed to give a lady and her kid a ride, plus negotiator guy, so we're packed in like sardines. we zip back across a mudplain that will soon be flooded with the tide and trap us on the mainland. kids are playing soccer in the distance, the sun is setting.
we arrive at a mud hut village and meander through the streets until we come to a store, which is conveniently owned by the negotiator guy and sells gas at three times the normal price. ooooh i get it. then they talk about mixtura. do we need an oil gas mixture? crap. someone needs to call boat guy. who has a phone that works? this goes on for a while and by this point in time, the entire village is surrounding us, kids climbing all over our our truck and ogling our gas cans. the owner shoos everyone away, basta!
i get out of the car and get mobbed by the kids. they are all gorgeous and all want their picture taken, as usual. one kid has plastic bags with rubber bands for shoes. they show me their soccer ball - a wad of plastic bags wrapped in rubber bands. let's play footbal. we are running all over the village, and with this ball i am like pele, kicking, passing, hitting chickens and goats with the ball, everyone is screaming and yelling. i am heading the ball and it sends dirt and sand all in my eyes and face, they think it's hilarious. this is the best part of my day. i hear a horn honking, alice is angry. let's go! we drop off the lady and her kid, who had been waiting patiently in the car the whole time, even though their hut was only a few doors down from the store. she was loving being in the car, it was like arriving in a limousine, so she relished the moment as long as possible.
we race back across the mudplain, trying not to get stuck in the mud (the rumor is when this happens and you stop, people come out of the mangroves to help but they eventually steal your shoes - piratas!) and we arrive back at the mangroves and the tide has righted all the boats. ours is still waiting, with all our luggage and supplies inside. we have to walk through some pretty deep water with slushy mud at the bottom that is seeping between my toes. i carry my laptop on my head. look, african style! people in the boat next to us point and laugh. they are loading a motorbike into some sort of makeshit viking boat with 8 rowers.
we get into our boat and motor through the channel and see the most gorgeous sunset with egrets, sailboats with ratty home made sails. wow.
we arrive at ibo, i have no idea how, our captain took us through mangroves in complete darkness, no flashlight, nada.
we arrive to this quaint little complex that is being renovated by a belgian couple. they are officially closed, but they are letting us stay in the little honeymoon house on the cliff. we hop out and carry our stuff on our heads to land. there is a baby gazelle on the grounds that was rescued in august. his name is elvis, he has a little black tuft of hair on his head. he wants to sleep in my bed, along with the two cats. dinner is waiting for us in this open air kitchen. it's octupus curry and rice, my favorite. i give ulrich one of my maps, he is psyched.
they cut the generator just as we sit down, so there's silence, except for the 'discoteque' that is across the street. ulrich, exclaims, oh no! not again! apparently, discoteque guy just bought that "i'm a barbie girl, in a barbie world" album and he plays is OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. indeed he does.
still, a small price to pay for being in this slice of heaven. and i haven't even seen ibo in daylight yet. all i can say is...ha ha suckers, this is my JOB!
Sunday, June 1, 2008
chivas regal
so for the course they organized lunch every day and morning and evening snacks through a place next door called the chivas regal. i'm not really sure why it's called that, but it's essentially a student discoteque in a former sports complex. they would otherwise be closed during the week, but for us they arranged 7 days of special buffet with some pretty tasty food, and a long table outside with plastic chairs. the food would consist of some sort of meat, fish, roasted potatoes or fries, rice, the local version of frou-frou and some salad. carbs. whoever was first and second in line would always take all the fries.
the owner is a skeevy arab guy with lots of missing teeth. the course was meant to be 7 full days but they shortened it to 5 1/2. we were having a little review session on saturday morning (i once again found myself explaining that we were in the southern hemisphere, hence latitude is NEGATIVE) and at around 12:30 they just decided to end the pain and started clapping and cheering thank you teacher! while i was in the middle of a sentence. ok.
so we pack up and head to the chivas for what would be our final lunch. smarmy arab owner guy didn't want to refund us for the 1/2 of the 6th, and 7th day of lunch and snacks we had already paid for, but offered us to exchange those meals for booze. why not? nelson the logistics guy says, how about we start drinking now and just hang out all the way until dinner and then see where we stand? do you see where this is going?
great idea! so out come the 2 bottles of johnny walker red, ice buckets, some red wine (also in an ice bucket) and a whole lot of beer.
so there are two sizes to 2M here, small and large. the small ones are normal beer size and generally cost $1.50, but the large ones are actually cheaper, the difference being quality not quantity. the small bottles are "export quality" the labels actually read "cervesa de qualidad" so, good enough for tanzanians and south africans, but the large ones don't say anything in particular, and so i guess they are more the equivelent of toilet water with alcohol.
so we're hanging out, talking, drinking, laughing. zin tells me about his chili garden that has 6 different species and he tests their hotness, their ability to grow in different soils, and their potential for elephant deterring bombs, a big part of the work in northern mozambique. awesome. there are plenty of more rasterizing jokes. it's become a favorite word
"how are you doing?"
"you know, rasterizing, man."
then comes another fish head man trying to sell an 80 pound sailfish, which he is carrying on his head. no one wants to buy his fish and he storms off.
the sun sets, the music gets turned on, these huge speakers aimed at our table. they play a mix of only 3 songs: bon jovi's bed of roses, guns n roses november rain and the live version of hotel california. this series repeats, and repeats and repeats. i was gambling people millions of meticais "hey diego, i bet you the next song is....november rain!" it is blaringly loud. we ask to turn the music down, so they turn it up, then down so it actually doesn't change at all. so we move our chairs to a far corner of the patio. we sit in a circle around the last free beer...we drink it ceremoniously and someone immediately orders a round of 6 more to replace it. we continue in this fashion until it is dark, other tables and chairs are set up around us, and our long table is once again ready for family meal. it feels like a wedding, when you sit and try to talk over bad music and watch people dance.
nelson asks if we can put on a cd, to change these awful tunes. it's a jimi dudu album - mozambique afro-jazz. it's excellent. everyone in the place is rocking out, tapping their feet, whistling the melodies. nelson and sergio play air guitar and sing.
dinner is served. people point at the mystery meat dish and laugh and say, "aurelgrooves will never eat this!" referring to the dobrada debaucle. but they are chicken gizzards, i recognize them immediately. are you crazy? i LOVE chicken gizzards, for reals!
we eat, the jimi dudu album ends and is replaced by a reggae song with lyrics about the uprising. everyone starts chanting "rasta-rizing! rasta-rizing! with pixels!" and we dance stupidly. the evening continues.
people are dancing verrrrry inappropriately, especially during this one song "ta quete" which means "stop complaining and take it" or something terrible classy like that. it has this low angry voice and this hard loud beat and people do the ass shaking jiggling grinding thing, which i cannot do because i have no ass. we are taking tons of stupid pictures.
i started flipping my glass around, shocking and amazing all with my gravity skills, and then i smashed a full glass on the ground, naturally. no one found it funny. "teacher is drunk! rasta-rize!!"
so then everyone was asking me why i don't dance, and particularly why i don't dance with the men in that grindy african style and i tried to explain is was a little beyond my comfort zone and they say you have to dance with a man, it is an african rule and so i say fine, and that's when i found a new african boyfriend.
his name is fernando. he moved to pemba from the south in 1941 when he was 20, so i'm guessing he's pushing 90. every single one of his bones is jutting awkwardly out of his body. he has a little hunch, wears a nice pair of sweatpants and a designer polo shirt. he can dance his ass off. his favorite song is "ta quete," he goes absolutely nuts over it. and lucky for him, they play it a lot, like several times an hour.
i bought him a lime fanta after a few tiring dance songs and i think he told me he loved me. it sounded like waarrrraammmaamawaa because he has no teeth, but i'm pretty sure he was talking about love. we danced all night. every time his song came on he would be completely extatic and clap his hands and sing.
once, he was dancing with another girl, this super hot really tight jeans wearing girl, when ta quete came on and he elbowed her in the nose to get her out of the way to dance with me. he really put on the groove. later on, she stole him back. bitch.
i pulled a 'my dad when he's drunk' and invited fernando to thanksgiving. "it's one of the many, many, many days that the americans eat better than the mozambiquans!" and hey, with a little luck, maybe he could get a spot at peconic landing? at the end of the night he saw me dancing with a co-worker and mumbled his usual warrramamaaawaaa and stormed off. i never saw fernando again.
zin showed up gave me a plastic bag full of teeny tiny extremely hot chiles. "the smaller they are, the more spicy...just like teacher!" they made my throat burn through three layers of plastic. he shakes my hand, which is now covered in super hot chile, which i later rub in my eyes.
we finally decide to change venue, and i ask to ride in the back of the pickup, mozambique style. the only thing that's missing is 15 other people riding in the back with me, that would make this more authentic. so rito decides to give some prostitutes a ride too. i'm standing there, balancing and surfing, holding onto the cab, wind flying through my hair, lsitening to portuguese, staring up at the stars. this place is amazing...i will miss you pemba.
the owner is a skeevy arab guy with lots of missing teeth. the course was meant to be 7 full days but they shortened it to 5 1/2. we were having a little review session on saturday morning (i once again found myself explaining that we were in the southern hemisphere, hence latitude is NEGATIVE) and at around 12:30 they just decided to end the pain and started clapping and cheering thank you teacher! while i was in the middle of a sentence. ok.
so we pack up and head to the chivas for what would be our final lunch. smarmy arab owner guy didn't want to refund us for the 1/2 of the 6th, and 7th day of lunch and snacks we had already paid for, but offered us to exchange those meals for booze. why not? nelson the logistics guy says, how about we start drinking now and just hang out all the way until dinner and then see where we stand? do you see where this is going?
great idea! so out come the 2 bottles of johnny walker red, ice buckets, some red wine (also in an ice bucket) and a whole lot of beer.
so there are two sizes to 2M here, small and large. the small ones are normal beer size and generally cost $1.50, but the large ones are actually cheaper, the difference being quality not quantity. the small bottles are "export quality" the labels actually read "cervesa de qualidad" so, good enough for tanzanians and south africans, but the large ones don't say anything in particular, and so i guess they are more the equivelent of toilet water with alcohol.
so we're hanging out, talking, drinking, laughing. zin tells me about his chili garden that has 6 different species and he tests their hotness, their ability to grow in different soils, and their potential for elephant deterring bombs, a big part of the work in northern mozambique. awesome. there are plenty of more rasterizing jokes. it's become a favorite word
"how are you doing?"
"you know, rasterizing, man."
then comes another fish head man trying to sell an 80 pound sailfish, which he is carrying on his head. no one wants to buy his fish and he storms off.
the sun sets, the music gets turned on, these huge speakers aimed at our table. they play a mix of only 3 songs: bon jovi's bed of roses, guns n roses november rain and the live version of hotel california. this series repeats, and repeats and repeats. i was gambling people millions of meticais "hey diego, i bet you the next song is....november rain!" it is blaringly loud. we ask to turn the music down, so they turn it up, then down so it actually doesn't change at all. so we move our chairs to a far corner of the patio. we sit in a circle around the last free beer...we drink it ceremoniously and someone immediately orders a round of 6 more to replace it. we continue in this fashion until it is dark, other tables and chairs are set up around us, and our long table is once again ready for family meal. it feels like a wedding, when you sit and try to talk over bad music and watch people dance. nelson asks if we can put on a cd, to change these awful tunes. it's a jimi dudu album - mozambique afro-jazz. it's excellent. everyone in the place is rocking out, tapping their feet, whistling the melodies. nelson and sergio play air guitar and sing.
dinner is served. people point at the mystery meat dish and laugh and say, "aurelgrooves will never eat this!" referring to the dobrada debaucle. but they are chicken gizzards, i recognize them immediately. are you crazy? i LOVE chicken gizzards, for reals!
we eat, the jimi dudu album ends and is replaced by a reggae song with lyrics about the uprising. everyone starts chanting "rasta-rizing! rasta-rizing! with pixels!" and we dance stupidly. the evening continues.
people are dancing verrrrry inappropriately, especially during this one song "ta quete" which means "stop complaining and take it" or something terrible classy like that. it has this low angry voice and this hard loud beat and people do the ass shaking jiggling grinding thing, which i cannot do because i have no ass. we are taking tons of stupid pictures.
i started flipping my glass around, shocking and amazing all with my gravity skills, and then i smashed a full glass on the ground, naturally. no one found it funny. "teacher is drunk! rasta-rize!!"
so then everyone was asking me why i don't dance, and particularly why i don't dance with the men in that grindy african style and i tried to explain is was a little beyond my comfort zone and they say you have to dance with a man, it is an african rule and so i say fine, and that's when i found a new african boyfriend.
his name is fernando. he moved to pemba from the south in 1941 when he was 20, so i'm guessing he's pushing 90. every single one of his bones is jutting awkwardly out of his body. he has a little hunch, wears a nice pair of sweatpants and a designer polo shirt. he can dance his ass off. his favorite song is "ta quete," he goes absolutely nuts over it. and lucky for him, they play it a lot, like several times an hour. i bought him a lime fanta after a few tiring dance songs and i think he told me he loved me. it sounded like waarrrraammmaamawaa because he has no teeth, but i'm pretty sure he was talking about love. we danced all night. every time his song came on he would be completely extatic and clap his hands and sing.
once, he was dancing with another girl, this super hot really tight jeans wearing girl, when ta quete came on and he elbowed her in the nose to get her out of the way to dance with me. he really put on the groove. later on, she stole him back. bitch.
i pulled a 'my dad when he's drunk' and invited fernando to thanksgiving. "it's one of the many, many, many days that the americans eat better than the mozambiquans!" and hey, with a little luck, maybe he could get a spot at peconic landing? at the end of the night he saw me dancing with a co-worker and mumbled his usual warrramamaaawaaa and stormed off. i never saw fernando again.
zin showed up gave me a plastic bag full of teeny tiny extremely hot chiles. "the smaller they are, the more spicy...just like teacher!" they made my throat burn through three layers of plastic. he shakes my hand, which is now covered in super hot chile, which i later rub in my eyes.
we finally decide to change venue, and i ask to ride in the back of the pickup, mozambique style. the only thing that's missing is 15 other people riding in the back with me, that would make this more authentic. so rito decides to give some prostitutes a ride too. i'm standing there, balancing and surfing, holding onto the cab, wind flying through my hair, lsitening to portuguese, staring up at the stars. this place is amazing...i will miss you pemba.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
peanuts!
today we hung out at the pemba dolphin allllll day. just sat under a thatched umbrella, drank some water, went swimming with nelson's daughter, played frisbee, took lots of pictures of passersby...a perfect sunday. it was hilarious to see a mozambiquan teaching chinese tourists to throw my frisbee. there's a stage nearby that had live music and dancing, including the women with the painted faces. i took their picture too.
we're taking tons of pictures. lizia decides there's not enough pictures of me and uses my new telefoto lens to zoom in on the huge zit on my chin.
so nelson's daughter isa has been tugging on my hair all day. beautiful hair! she screams. i only understand half what she is saying. we're playing in the water and once again, she's petting my hair and muttering sweet portuguese nothings. we dry off and she wants to go for a walk. perfect, i've been wanting to as well. but she drags me away from the beach across the street to marco's house, a guy from the course. marco isn't home and the guard won't let us in. isa puts on this adorable sad face and says pleeeeease, just for a moment. he lets her in and i have an awkward 5 minutes with the guard, barefoot, in my bathing suit. she comes out two seconds later and she takes me back to our chairs, no detour. so much for a walk on the beach! she pulls out the comb she just stole from marco's house. for the next hour and a half i am her live barbie doll. she is coming, braiding, unbraiding and pretty much pulling out all my hair. before i left my boyfriend asked me if i was going to get my hair braided in africa. i said no way, i'm not going to be like one of those lame tourists in the caribbean who come back with cornrows that look worse day after day. well, now i just look like a really messed up caribbean tourist with half my head in these teeny tiny braids i can't undo without ripping out all my hair.
so while i was sitting there helpless against this adorable little girl attaching my head, tons of people were coming by, selling stuff- chocolates, lollipops, wontons, chicken skewers, earrings.
dmitri the frisbee guy who calls himself "a business man" has been asking all week to show me his jewelry. i buy some beads that are these cool oval seeds and a pair of cool wooden earrings. his buddy shows up to watch the transaction in awe, where i give dmitri $4 worth of mozambiquan money. dmitri is now loaded, showing off to his friends. i wave goodbye when the friend asks me about my earrings. plata (silver)? yes, they are simple, silver hoops i buy wholesale for less than a dollar back home.
can we trade earrings???
he has these white round studs with a rubber backing.
sure, why not.
so we trade. he puts on my hoops and he's psyched.
i have these cool white carved spikes with balls on the end that feel way too heavy to be plastic, way to warm to be shell. uh, they just might be ivory. yolande thinks so. sortof cool, i guess. i can't really wear them because the stems are super thick.
i am now mostly earringless except for the one extra hoop in my right ear (i've been meaning to even out my piercings). the dude who i taught trick frisbee throws says i look weird with one earring. so strange. you should take off the last earring and give it to me!
he's probably right.
i should have brought more earrings!
so there's lots of ladies around wear typical colorful dresses, have a baby strapped to their backs and heads wrapped in colorful fabric selling peanuts out of these cool round baskets. i suddenly had a hankerin' for some roasted peanuts and so i ask to buy some. she rolls it up in a newspaper cone, or what looks like pages from a book (i heard they have been using textbooks, since they're given out for free every year).
she says 'mil' and i don't understand...that's 1,000...$40?! no. mil actually means one meticai. so wait...that's...4 cents? so these ladies are selling peanuts for...peanuts! i've actually never seen one meticai, the lowest denomination i know of is a 20 bill and the lowest i have in my wallet is a 50 (i took 3,000 out of the bank machine today and it was all in 50s. i'm carrying a WAD). ummm. it would be really annoying for me to ask for change. i'm considering buying her whole batch of peanuts, plus the basket. that's a lot of peanuts! alice doesn't like peanuts. oh well, i send her on her way. i tell alice how peanuts are more expensive where i come from. i wonder how on earth they can make any money selling peanuts so darn cheap. turns out they're really easy to grow, really easy to harvest and roast and sell.
later on we went to check out the stage where the music was coming from and listened to a singer. i danced with some peanut ladies. they let me taste some of their peanuts, yum. salty, perfectly roasted, so fresh. i want to grow peanuts in my balcony garden!
we're taking tons of pictures. lizia decides there's not enough pictures of me and uses my new telefoto lens to zoom in on the huge zit on my chin.
so nelson's daughter isa has been tugging on my hair all day. beautiful hair! she screams. i only understand half what she is saying. we're playing in the water and once again, she's petting my hair and muttering sweet portuguese nothings. we dry off and she wants to go for a walk. perfect, i've been wanting to as well. but she drags me away from the beach across the street to marco's house, a guy from the course. marco isn't home and the guard won't let us in. isa puts on this adorable sad face and says pleeeeease, just for a moment. he lets her in and i have an awkward 5 minutes with the guard, barefoot, in my bathing suit. she comes out two seconds later and she takes me back to our chairs, no detour. so much for a walk on the beach! she pulls out the comb she just stole from marco's house. for the next hour and a half i am her live barbie doll. she is coming, braiding, unbraiding and pretty much pulling out all my hair. before i left my boyfriend asked me if i was going to get my hair braided in africa. i said no way, i'm not going to be like one of those lame tourists in the caribbean who come back with cornrows that look worse day after day. well, now i just look like a really messed up caribbean tourist with half my head in these teeny tiny braids i can't undo without ripping out all my hair.
so while i was sitting there helpless against this adorable little girl attaching my head, tons of people were coming by, selling stuff- chocolates, lollipops, wontons, chicken skewers, earrings.
dmitri the frisbee guy who calls himself "a business man" has been asking all week to show me his jewelry. i buy some beads that are these cool oval seeds and a pair of cool wooden earrings. his buddy shows up to watch the transaction in awe, where i give dmitri $4 worth of mozambiquan money. dmitri is now loaded, showing off to his friends. i wave goodbye when the friend asks me about my earrings. plata (silver)? yes, they are simple, silver hoops i buy wholesale for less than a dollar back home.
can we trade earrings???
he has these white round studs with a rubber backing.
sure, why not.
so we trade. he puts on my hoops and he's psyched.
i have these cool white carved spikes with balls on the end that feel way too heavy to be plastic, way to warm to be shell. uh, they just might be ivory. yolande thinks so. sortof cool, i guess. i can't really wear them because the stems are super thick.
i am now mostly earringless except for the one extra hoop in my right ear (i've been meaning to even out my piercings). the dude who i taught trick frisbee throws says i look weird with one earring. so strange. you should take off the last earring and give it to me!
he's probably right.
i should have brought more earrings!
so there's lots of ladies around wear typical colorful dresses, have a baby strapped to their backs and heads wrapped in colorful fabric selling peanuts out of these cool round baskets. i suddenly had a hankerin' for some roasted peanuts and so i ask to buy some. she rolls it up in a newspaper cone, or what looks like pages from a book (i heard they have been using textbooks, since they're given out for free every year).
she says 'mil' and i don't understand...that's 1,000...$40?! no. mil actually means one meticai. so wait...that's...4 cents? so these ladies are selling peanuts for...peanuts! i've actually never seen one meticai, the lowest denomination i know of is a 20 bill and the lowest i have in my wallet is a 50 (i took 3,000 out of the bank machine today and it was all in 50s. i'm carrying a WAD). ummm. it would be really annoying for me to ask for change. i'm considering buying her whole batch of peanuts, plus the basket. that's a lot of peanuts! alice doesn't like peanuts. oh well, i send her on her way. i tell alice how peanuts are more expensive where i come from. i wonder how on earth they can make any money selling peanuts so darn cheap. turns out they're really easy to grow, really easy to harvest and roast and sell.
later on we went to check out the stage where the music was coming from and listened to a singer. i danced with some peanut ladies. they let me taste some of their peanuts, yum. salty, perfectly roasted, so fresh. i want to grow peanuts in my balcony garden!
Friday, May 30, 2008
dobrada debaucle
so after work one night a few of the guys ask me if i want to go to dinner and watch the soccer game. sure. we drive off a ways towards the airport for a place that supposedly has some good authentic food. we get there and it's totally empty. rito starts to say that in mozambique an empty place is not a good place to eat. same is true where i live too. so i wonder why are we stopping then? i make the rationale that someone has to be the first person somewhere or else everywhere would be empty. so we sit down. rito asks if frenchie wants some wine. ok. they serve a freezing cold bottle of vin d'oc....with two tall glasses of ice, and a bottle of coca cola. oh no he didn't. oh yes he will. so goes my first calimocho, or, i forget the portuguese word. rito orders for everyone, something "really typical."
i had told him "i like everything! i'll eat whatever" even tho my inner voice was screaming, are you crazy? so we get served these two bowls of vegetable stew with bread. not so bad. until the smell hits me. like the andouillette my brother ordered in paris, one thousand times worse. oh wait, that's not broccoli..."it's a cow stomach, but the rreally the cow stomach." then there was gesturing, rubbing of the belly. it's definitely NOT broccoli. for a second i wondered if it was testicle or something since they kept talking about male cows. it was soooooodisgusting. i tried eating while holding my nose, mixing with bread, adding vinegar. nothing worked. i ate three pieces until i thought i was going to puke and politely said i wasn't hungry. no one else ever showed up to the restaurant, this place was dunzo. later on we watched the soccer game at a fancy place on the beach. i had grilled squid with french fries and enough whiskey to kill anything that may have been in my intestines. deeelish. the game was in portuguese, it sounded like an auction. bubadadgushebedafguturdmfa Manchester vivshabudpshedptdur....there's a dude on the blue team called Drogba, and i saying "trogdor! dribble-ating the soccer ball." but how do you explain trogdor?
there was a commercial for Uganda telecom. there was your typical grandma calling granddaughter and smiling, girlfriend calling boyfriend and smiling...and then a policeman guy with a sideways beret banging his head against his desk. in comes a fax...it's a picture of a rapper dude with gold chains, and it says Wanted: Smack J. For: Crimes. and the policeman calls his buddy in the bush who goes and captures Smack J, puts him in cuffs with a thumbs up. uganda telecom. excellent.
i had told him "i like everything! i'll eat whatever" even tho my inner voice was screaming, are you crazy? so we get served these two bowls of vegetable stew with bread. not so bad. until the smell hits me. like the andouillette my brother ordered in paris, one thousand times worse. oh wait, that's not broccoli..."it's a cow stomach, but the rreally the cow stomach." then there was gesturing, rubbing of the belly. it's definitely NOT broccoli. for a second i wondered if it was testicle or something since they kept talking about male cows. it was soooooodisgusting. i tried eating while holding my nose, mixing with bread, adding vinegar. nothing worked. i ate three pieces until i thought i was going to puke and politely said i wasn't hungry. no one else ever showed up to the restaurant, this place was dunzo. later on we watched the soccer game at a fancy place on the beach. i had grilled squid with french fries and enough whiskey to kill anything that may have been in my intestines. deeelish. the game was in portuguese, it sounded like an auction. bubadadgushebedafguturdmfa Manchester vivshabudpshedptdur....there's a dude on the blue team called Drogba, and i saying "trogdor! dribble-ating the soccer ball." but how do you explain trogdor?
there was a commercial for Uganda telecom. there was your typical grandma calling granddaughter and smiling, girlfriend calling boyfriend and smiling...and then a policeman guy with a sideways beret banging his head against his desk. in comes a fax...it's a picture of a rapper dude with gold chains, and it says Wanted: Smack J. For: Crimes. and the policeman calls his buddy in the bush who goes and captures Smack J, puts him in cuffs with a thumbs up. uganda telecom. excellent.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
pemba dolphin
so this is the pemba dolphin where i eat pretty much every meal. it's a good mix of locals and foreigners. the food is tasty, but not very plentiful. there's grilled squid, prawns, chicken, sandwiches, all super cheap. there's one specialty i have to order, it's the sirloin steak on a hot rock. this guy was eating it yesterday and 20 minutes after it was served it was still sizzling. the service is....relaxed. it can sometimes take 20 minutes just to get a menu. there are some nice wooden chairs with ottomans under thatched umbrellas in a little front yard area cordoned off by rope, which you can watch the beach from. only white people sit in these though. the locals sit at the picnic tables. there's a security guard who swings a billy club around like he's a police officer in a benny hill episode. whenever i show up he walks right up to the rope and stares right at me. i'll be all, hello, how are you? he doesn't answer, he just stares. it's a little awkward when he stands directly between me and the beach, facing me, back to the exciting beach frisbee games, kids running around, fishermen, brightly dressed ladies carrying stuff on their heads. it's like when i watch a movie and my cat sits on the coffee table and watches me. i want to ask, hey, mind moving a little to the left so i can see the waves please? one would think if there was ever a threat, a robber or some sort, he would come from the beach side. the guard will never see this coming. he would get plopped on the head by a coconut, game over.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
dobrada debaucle
the one day i don't bring my camera to lunch, a really really short fisherman shows up with a giant sailfish on his head. no joke, the thing must have weighed 180 pounds and it sagged over his shoulders down to his waist. he was trying to sell it. it looked like an umbrella over his head.
so after work one night a few of the guys ask me if i want to go to dinner and watch the soccer game. sure. we drive off a ways towards the airport for a place that supposedly has some good authentic food. we get there and it's totally empty. rito starts to say that in mozambique an empty place is not a good place to eat. same is true where i live too. so i wonder why are we stopping then? i make the rationale that someone has to be the first person somewhere or else everywhere would be empty. so we sit down. rito asks if frenchie wants some wine. ok. they serve a freezing cold bottle of vin d'oc....with two tall glasses of ice, and a bottle of coca cola. oh no he didn't. oh yes he will. so goes my first calimocho, or, i forget the portuguese word. rito orders for everyone, something "really typical." i had told him "i like everything! i'll eat whatever" even tho my inner voice was screaming, are you crazy? so we get served these two bowls of vegetable stew with bread. not so bad. until the smell hits me. like the andouillette my brother ordered in paris, one thousand times worse. oh wait, that's not broccoli..."it's a cow stomach, but the rreally the cow stomach." then there was gesturing, rubbing of the belly. it's definitely NOT broccoli. for a second i wondered if it was testicle or something since they kept talking about male cows. it was soooooodisgusting. i tried eating while holding my nose, mixing with bread, adding vinegar. nothing worked. i ate three pieces until i thought i was going to puke and politely said i wasn't hungry. no one else ever showed up to the restaurant, this place was dunzo.
later on we watched the soccer game at a fancy place on the beach. i had grilled squid with french fries and enough whiskey to kill anything that may have been in my intestines. deeelish.
the game was in portuguese, it sounded like an auction. bubadadgushebedafguturdmfa Manchester vivshabudpshedptdur....there's a dude on the blue team called Drogba, and i saying "trogdor! dribble-ating the soccer ball." but how do you explain trogdor?
there was a commercial for Uganda telecom. there was your typical grandma calling granddaughter and smiling, girlfriend calling boyfriend and smiling...and then a policeman guy with a sideways beret banging his head against his desk. in comes a fax...it's a picture of a rapper dude with gold chains, and it says Wanted: Smack J. For: Crimes. and the policeman calls his buddy in the bush who goes and captures Smack J, puts him in cuffs with a thumbs up. uganda telecom. excellent.
so after work one night a few of the guys ask me if i want to go to dinner and watch the soccer game. sure. we drive off a ways towards the airport for a place that supposedly has some good authentic food. we get there and it's totally empty. rito starts to say that in mozambique an empty place is not a good place to eat. same is true where i live too. so i wonder why are we stopping then? i make the rationale that someone has to be the first person somewhere or else everywhere would be empty. so we sit down. rito asks if frenchie wants some wine. ok. they serve a freezing cold bottle of vin d'oc....with two tall glasses of ice, and a bottle of coca cola. oh no he didn't. oh yes he will. so goes my first calimocho, or, i forget the portuguese word. rito orders for everyone, something "really typical." i had told him "i like everything! i'll eat whatever" even tho my inner voice was screaming, are you crazy? so we get served these two bowls of vegetable stew with bread. not so bad. until the smell hits me. like the andouillette my brother ordered in paris, one thousand times worse. oh wait, that's not broccoli..."it's a cow stomach, but the rreally the cow stomach." then there was gesturing, rubbing of the belly. it's definitely NOT broccoli. for a second i wondered if it was testicle or something since they kept talking about male cows. it was soooooodisgusting. i tried eating while holding my nose, mixing with bread, adding vinegar. nothing worked. i ate three pieces until i thought i was going to puke and politely said i wasn't hungry. no one else ever showed up to the restaurant, this place was dunzo.
later on we watched the soccer game at a fancy place on the beach. i had grilled squid with french fries and enough whiskey to kill anything that may have been in my intestines. deeelish.
the game was in portuguese, it sounded like an auction. bubadadgushebedafguturdmfa Manchester vivshabudpshedptdur....there's a dude on the blue team called Drogba, and i saying "trogdor! dribble-ating the soccer ball." but how do you explain trogdor?
there was a commercial for Uganda telecom. there was your typical grandma calling granddaughter and smiling, girlfriend calling boyfriend and smiling...and then a policeman guy with a sideways beret banging his head against his desk. in comes a fax...it's a picture of a rapper dude with gold chains, and it says Wanted: Smack J. For: Crimes. and the policeman calls his buddy in the bush who goes and captures Smack J, puts him in cuffs with a thumbs up. uganda telecom. excellent.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
sunday part II. the disco
so after the dive i met up with the rest of the crew who just flew in from maputo. we're having lunch, chit chatting, i'm getting introduced to all the people i've been emailing the past year. the beach starts filling up with people.
the past few days i had started to think that this town is rather boring and dead, but here comes sunday! thousands of people are now walking, swimming, hanging out. my frisbee is flying up from the crowd. the guy i gave the frisbee too, dmitri, he's like frisbee guy now. he's perfected the throw the disc really hard at an angle so it comes right back to you thing. he throws solo, and he catches it between his legs and stuff. rad.
no one i'm sitting with seems to care or notice the gargantuan beach party forming. i'm itching to go out and take some pictures, walk around, whatever. they want to have a debriefing about the course. so i go back to my hotel room across the street to get some printouts and get caught in this huge parade. there are horses, motorbikes, the indigenous people with painted faces, police cars, trucks with dudes playing the drums in the back. it's insane, i have to frogger across this 2 lane mess to get to the hotel and i get caught up in this mob. i'm fighting my way through, getting grabbed into dancing circles, people waving in my face, they're like, can't you see this is a party? where are you going? and what is this white girl doing here?
i finally make it back to the lunch spot and no one seems to have noticed i've been gone for 30 minutes. i tell them there's a friggin parade and they're all oh, right, pemba is about to win an award for what i understood in their portuguese was third deepest bay in the world. i'm thinking, that's odd, who cares about being the third deepest bay in the world? so i'm asking everyone about the depth, like, 70 meters isn't that deep. i'm sure there's somewhere in russia that's way deeper. and all during the meeting i'm trying to figure it out, and everyone is all why are you so obsessed with the depth of pemba bay?
finally we end our meeting and we go check out this big stage with live music and it's a celebration that unseco has announced that pemba is the third most LARGEST bay in the world, within a category of most beautiful bays in the world. oooooh, now i get it, that makes sense. people are very psyched about this. this is a most incredible party. but you know, i went to bahia honda, in the florida keys, the supposed 2nd most beautiful beach in the world and it wasn't all that. but hey, i'm not going to bust anyone's bubble here.
so me and a bunch of my collegas decide to walk over to another beach bar and grab a seat. i vote for the small chairs close to the action. they are rocking chairs. rocking chairs in the sand? they prove to be a terrible idea. i rock forwards onto my face and sergio falls sideways like he's a drunk. so we decide to get some beer. hey, it's sunday 4pm. there's a party on the beach! pemba is the third largest bay in the world!
so we order these huge beers (2m, the company owned by the president, or, "doshem") and heckle the passers by, take pictures of kids, decide we should visit the first and second largest bays in the world, wherever they are and determine if it's true. this guy comes over to sell this delicate wooden scupture of a pelican with long wings that balances on a stand. we are amazed by the leverage action on the thing. i buy one for my dad, to add to his collection of cool balancing toys on his kitchen counter. i'm like, dude, do you have a phD in physics or something? and he answers sadly no, lowering his eyes, i only recently got my masters in engineering. boy do i feel like a jerk.
we finish our beer and decide to have a change of environment. this one guy says he knows a restaurant just down the beach, which is also a discoteque sometimes. it's 5pm on a sunday, we figure it's probably pretty chill, so we go.
it turns out to be like that saturday night live skit with the guys who dance like robots to techno. saturday night at the roxbury? there's bone vibrating tribal techno blasting and the place is packed with all the girls that i've noticed are missing from the beach party. the DJ is up in a booth wearing an "i'm hot" t shirt. the dance floor is jammed with every age class between 6 and 55 and their halter tops barely qualify as clothing. an 8 year old boy asks me to dance and proceeds to grind on my leg. this is akward. and it's 5:30 pm on a sunday. we get some more beer and hang out by the blacklight. next thing i know i'm dancing in this circle with a breakdancer in the middle. it feels like the last time i was at the queen night club in paris, like when people were doing coke everywhere and there were guys dancing in cages and bubbles and fake snow kind of thing. this old lady in a unitard comes over and grabs my waist and tries to lift me up like we're figure skating.
i remind thomas, the one with the weird straw hat that we have dinner plans with the rest of the folks in an hour and a half. he ignores me and dances with a far less than 16 year old. i'm getting my picture taken left and right and thinking, this is going to haunt me some day. then i'm asking myself when was the last time i went clubbing before dinnner? yeah! i go to the bathroom. 3rd largest bay? it has the world's most disgusting bathroom! and they call this a restaurant? the doors are falling off the hinges, the toilets are all broken, leaving yellowish brown bowls that don't quite line up with the drain, so there's leaking stink everywhere. i go out onto the beach area and there's another dance floor, exclusively for kids. my light up frisbee would be so rad here. so is my sunday in pemba.
the past few days i had started to think that this town is rather boring and dead, but here comes sunday! thousands of people are now walking, swimming, hanging out. my frisbee is flying up from the crowd. the guy i gave the frisbee too, dmitri, he's like frisbee guy now. he's perfected the throw the disc really hard at an angle so it comes right back to you thing. he throws solo, and he catches it between his legs and stuff. rad.
no one i'm sitting with seems to care or notice the gargantuan beach party forming. i'm itching to go out and take some pictures, walk around, whatever. they want to have a debriefing about the course. so i go back to my hotel room across the street to get some printouts and get caught in this huge parade. there are horses, motorbikes, the indigenous people with painted faces, police cars, trucks with dudes playing the drums in the back. it's insane, i have to frogger across this 2 lane mess to get to the hotel and i get caught up in this mob. i'm fighting my way through, getting grabbed into dancing circles, people waving in my face, they're like, can't you see this is a party? where are you going? and what is this white girl doing here?
i finally make it back to the lunch spot and no one seems to have noticed i've been gone for 30 minutes. i tell them there's a friggin parade and they're all oh, right, pemba is about to win an award for what i understood in their portuguese was third deepest bay in the world. i'm thinking, that's odd, who cares about being the third deepest bay in the world? so i'm asking everyone about the depth, like, 70 meters isn't that deep. i'm sure there's somewhere in russia that's way deeper. and all during the meeting i'm trying to figure it out, and everyone is all why are you so obsessed with the depth of pemba bay?
finally we end our meeting and we go check out this big stage with live music and it's a celebration that unseco has announced that pemba is the third most LARGEST bay in the world, within a category of most beautiful bays in the world. oooooh, now i get it, that makes sense. people are very psyched about this. this is a most incredible party. but you know, i went to bahia honda, in the florida keys, the supposed 2nd most beautiful beach in the world and it wasn't all that. but hey, i'm not going to bust anyone's bubble here.
so me and a bunch of my collegas decide to walk over to another beach bar and grab a seat. i vote for the small chairs close to the action. they are rocking chairs. rocking chairs in the sand? they prove to be a terrible idea. i rock forwards onto my face and sergio falls sideways like he's a drunk. so we decide to get some beer. hey, it's sunday 4pm. there's a party on the beach! pemba is the third largest bay in the world!
so we order these huge beers (2m, the company owned by the president, or, "doshem") and heckle the passers by, take pictures of kids, decide we should visit the first and second largest bays in the world, wherever they are and determine if it's true. this guy comes over to sell this delicate wooden scupture of a pelican with long wings that balances on a stand. we are amazed by the leverage action on the thing. i buy one for my dad, to add to his collection of cool balancing toys on his kitchen counter. i'm like, dude, do you have a phD in physics or something? and he answers sadly no, lowering his eyes, i only recently got my masters in engineering. boy do i feel like a jerk.
we finish our beer and decide to have a change of environment. this one guy says he knows a restaurant just down the beach, which is also a discoteque sometimes. it's 5pm on a sunday, we figure it's probably pretty chill, so we go.
it turns out to be like that saturday night live skit with the guys who dance like robots to techno. saturday night at the roxbury? there's bone vibrating tribal techno blasting and the place is packed with all the girls that i've noticed are missing from the beach party. the DJ is up in a booth wearing an "i'm hot" t shirt. the dance floor is jammed with every age class between 6 and 55 and their halter tops barely qualify as clothing. an 8 year old boy asks me to dance and proceeds to grind on my leg. this is akward. and it's 5:30 pm on a sunday. we get some more beer and hang out by the blacklight. next thing i know i'm dancing in this circle with a breakdancer in the middle. it feels like the last time i was at the queen night club in paris, like when people were doing coke everywhere and there were guys dancing in cages and bubbles and fake snow kind of thing. this old lady in a unitard comes over and grabs my waist and tries to lift me up like we're figure skating.
i remind thomas, the one with the weird straw hat that we have dinner plans with the rest of the folks in an hour and a half. he ignores me and dances with a far less than 16 year old. i'm getting my picture taken left and right and thinking, this is going to haunt me some day. then i'm asking myself when was the last time i went clubbing before dinnner? yeah! i go to the bathroom. 3rd largest bay? it has the world's most disgusting bathroom! and they call this a restaurant? the doors are falling off the hinges, the toilets are all broken, leaving yellowish brown bowls that don't quite line up with the drain, so there's leaking stink everywhere. i go out onto the beach area and there's another dance floor, exclusively for kids. my light up frisbee would be so rad here. so is my sunday in pemba.
Monday, May 26, 2008
sunday part I. the dive
so i've been spending most of my time outside work with alice. she's a tall, confident, funny marine biology phD student from maputo. she has lots of funny stories and we get along great. in the meantime, she won't let me out of her sight. seriously, if i want to go across the street for coffee or something it's wait for me, i'll come with! i think she's terrified i'll get strangled or something and the course won't go on. the thing is, this place is really safe. the security guards are mostly barefoot, and don't carry guns, only billy clubs. and most of the time they are on their backs, feet up against a wall, staring at the sky, and likely asleep. they have perfected the plastic chair nap. if more went on in this town, they would have something to stay awake for.
anyway, at the beach, alice is like my mom. she sits by my clothes while i play with the kids and swim. she makes sure i'm always walking on the sidewalks. she also makes sure i get my projects done so this trip is feeling a lot less like a vacation and a lot more like work. so i'm pretty certain she wanted a break, which is why she sent me diving sunday morning.
the day was totally crappy and windy, the worst for diving. but i went anyway. i thought it would be good for me to be underwater with my thoughts, relax. we get in this teeny tiny boat and motor over the waves and i'm instantly soaked. and i'm the only idiot who brought a towel, which is now as wet as my hair.
i always sortof freak out during the first part of a dive, because it's like, oh my god! i'm breathing underwater this is SO weird! and it takes a moment to adjust. well the entire group sank to the bottom like a bunch of lead weights. so i'm drifting there, all by myself, trying to adjust my fins, get situated and the guide comes up and is all are you ok? are you ok? with the little diving signs...yes, i'm fine...i'm coming and i'm delaying the whole group so they're like, who's the amateur? so i go down real fast, which i hate to do, and i get a little dizzy and i can't see much and my eyes are focusing on all the crap right in front of my nose, the crap that's getting stirred up by the wind and i'm all what if these are actually little stingy bugs like they had in panama? what if they get in my underpants? what if my regulator leaks? can anyone see that i'm farting? is my heart beating too fast? what do bubbles in your brain feel like? and so on and so forth.
so much for being alone with my thoughts. i'm pretty sure i'm not getting enough air, and so i'm breathing fast, but you don't want to be the loser that runs out of air first, because then the whole group has to surface and everyone is all thanks for ruining my $50 honeymoon dive, jerk.
so i'm trying to calm down, breathe slooooow and then i'm looking at my hands to see if they're pale or whatever and then i'm wondering why we have 10 fingers and toes and not a multiple of 4, which seems more natural and then my dive buddy is all are you ok? are you ok? and he won't leave me alone and then i see this big fish and i'm all YUSSSSS like my friend meg says, and then i wonder how my softball team is doing, or if my cat will be alive when i come home and then i'm wondering if my cat could ever understand that i'm underwater, thinking about her, and then i figure i haven't really looked at anything and i see another big fish and say YUSSSSSS and then i realize how ridiculous it is that i'm saying YUSSSSS off the coast of africa 90 feet underwater and then i realize that i'm 90 feet underwater, holy crap, that's deep. you can't see the surface! how do i know which way is up?
diving is [retty fun, right? i go over and swim near the weird german couple who is taking pictures of each other. they're weird because i noticed up in the boat that the guy shaves his entire body, head, chest, arms, legs, swimmer style, but the girl doesn't shave anything.so, either she's attracted to hairless guys, or he's attracted to hairy girls, or both. which is it?
then it's time to go. 54 minutes just flew by. there was lots of soft coral, whatever. it wasn't really relaxing.
anyway, at the beach, alice is like my mom. she sits by my clothes while i play with the kids and swim. she makes sure i'm always walking on the sidewalks. she also makes sure i get my projects done so this trip is feeling a lot less like a vacation and a lot more like work. so i'm pretty certain she wanted a break, which is why she sent me diving sunday morning.
the day was totally crappy and windy, the worst for diving. but i went anyway. i thought it would be good for me to be underwater with my thoughts, relax. we get in this teeny tiny boat and motor over the waves and i'm instantly soaked. and i'm the only idiot who brought a towel, which is now as wet as my hair.
i always sortof freak out during the first part of a dive, because it's like, oh my god! i'm breathing underwater this is SO weird! and it takes a moment to adjust. well the entire group sank to the bottom like a bunch of lead weights. so i'm drifting there, all by myself, trying to adjust my fins, get situated and the guide comes up and is all are you ok? are you ok? with the little diving signs...yes, i'm fine...i'm coming and i'm delaying the whole group so they're like, who's the amateur? so i go down real fast, which i hate to do, and i get a little dizzy and i can't see much and my eyes are focusing on all the crap right in front of my nose, the crap that's getting stirred up by the wind and i'm all what if these are actually little stingy bugs like they had in panama? what if they get in my underpants? what if my regulator leaks? can anyone see that i'm farting? is my heart beating too fast? what do bubbles in your brain feel like? and so on and so forth.
so much for being alone with my thoughts. i'm pretty sure i'm not getting enough air, and so i'm breathing fast, but you don't want to be the loser that runs out of air first, because then the whole group has to surface and everyone is all thanks for ruining my $50 honeymoon dive, jerk.
so i'm trying to calm down, breathe slooooow and then i'm looking at my hands to see if they're pale or whatever and then i'm wondering why we have 10 fingers and toes and not a multiple of 4, which seems more natural and then my dive buddy is all are you ok? are you ok? and he won't leave me alone and then i see this big fish and i'm all YUSSSSS like my friend meg says, and then i wonder how my softball team is doing, or if my cat will be alive when i come home and then i'm wondering if my cat could ever understand that i'm underwater, thinking about her, and then i figure i haven't really looked at anything and i see another big fish and say YUSSSSSS and then i realize how ridiculous it is that i'm saying YUSSSSS off the coast of africa 90 feet underwater and then i realize that i'm 90 feet underwater, holy crap, that's deep. you can't see the surface! how do i know which way is up?
diving is [retty fun, right? i go over and swim near the weird german couple who is taking pictures of each other. they're weird because i noticed up in the boat that the guy shaves his entire body, head, chest, arms, legs, swimmer style, but the girl doesn't shave anything.so, either she's attracted to hairless guys, or he's attracted to hairy girls, or both. which is it?
then it's time to go. 54 minutes just flew by. there was lots of soft coral, whatever. it wasn't really relaxing.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
thirsty lizard
so they've separated the guys and the girls into two hotels really far away from eachother. "that's how it must be in africa." they keep inviting me to their hotel for dinner...and breakfast..all organic! fresh eggs and milk! ha. slo i say, why don't we all eat somewhere in town? but too late, they decided to have a fish-n-beer thing and i'm not invited. oh well.
so i went to my little dolphin cafe and drank a beer and sat and read my book. the local beer is called dois m, or 2 m, or "doishem." for some reason when i order, they always bring two. then comes a little lizard...are you thirsty little lizard? why i think you are.
so i went to my little dolphin cafe and drank a beer and sat and read my book. the local beer is called dois m, or 2 m, or "doishem." for some reason when i order, they always bring two. then comes a little lizard...are you thirsty little lizard? why i think you are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)