As some of you may know, the Tanzanian A-level school year
is broken up into two major breaks, one in September-October and one in
March-April. This being April, I’ve just
finished the latter break: new timetables have been drawn up, my students are
slowly trickling in from all parts of the country, and the school is undergoing
a thorough makeover to beat back the now-ubiquitous rainy season weeds. Slowly, the cogs of Songea Boys’ are
beginning to turn again, and, as of this week, I’m back to my normal teaching
schedule, as if I never left. In the
end, I guess, things always go back to the daily grind.
That being said, I can’t say I’m not looking forward to a
little peace and quiet in Songea. This most
recent recess has seen me in a variety of different places---most of them quite
far from home---and it’s definitely been an exciting/hectic trip along the way.
In fact, I’m pretty sure I did more traveling
during this past break than I did during my entire first year of service.
To be fair, I did do some work during this time as well, but
most of it was concentrated into the first week of break, and it’s not really
worth talking about: I merely procrastinated like crazy during the second term
and then had to grade a semester’s worth of homework, quizzes, midterms, and
finals for two 180-student classes in the last seven days of school before I
had to leave for Dar. Quite frankly, I
don’t even recall much of that week… all I remember is finishing an entire box of
red pens, cutting brownies into small pieces to serve as carefully-rationed
mini-incentives for completing ten tests at a time, and reaching a level of
efficiency I didn’t think was even possible by internet-raised
twenty-somethings like me. Ladies and
gentlemen, I give you the Peace Corps Education Volunteer Experience.
But again, that stuff---and the stuff I did in Dar---isn’t
the point of this post. This post is
about my aimless wandering, and I began that in Moshi and Arusha.
Moshi/Arusha
For the more geographically inclined, Tanzania can be
roughly divided into five major areas---the North, the Southern Highlands, the
Deep South, the West, and the Zanzibar Archipelago. Zanzibar, while safi, is kind of in a league of its own: it has its own president,
its own government, and its own culture (very Swahili, a hybrid of Arab,
Indian, and East African cultures). The
North is where most of the infrastructure is and where most of the tourists go:
that’s the part with Kilimanjaro, the Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai
Gorge, etc. On the other hand, the
Southern Highlands area (where Songea is) is nice---but not too nice---cooler,
and less frequently visited. The Deep
South is hot, dirty, and largely neglected.
The West---well, no one really goes to the West because there really
isn’t much there.
As a staunch Songean, I had never really ventured north of
Dar until this past March. Indeed, in my
previous travels, I had seen a fair portion of the Southern Highlands, the Deep
South, Zanzibar, and the West, but I had never really seen the part of Tanzania
that is largely considered to be “quintessential Tanzania” (and, to some
extent, “quintessential Africa”), i.e., Northern Tanzania. Granted, I still haven’t had the truly classic “African Experience”---gone on
safari, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, etc.---but that crap is expensive, and it’s
way beyond my monthly Peace Corps pittance.
But still, given that I was already in Dar at the beginning of my large
break, I felt compelled to make a brief foray into the vast North---to immerse
myself in a different environment, to see friends I hadn’t seen in months, and
to indulge in the North’s legendary safi
accoutrements (swimming pools, safari lodges, wazungu food, etc.).
I gotta say, as far as Moshi was concerned, I was impressed. Paved, clean, multi-lane streets with medians. Multi-story buildings. Well-manicured public parks and gardens. Grocery stores and bakeries at every major
intersection, featuring frozen goods, imported Western items, and
properly-butchered meat. A cheap burger
joint. Well-dressed schoolchildren who
spoke decent English. White people
everywhere. And, despite all this, it
wasn’t Dar. It was pretty mind-blowing.
Arusha was pretty similar, albeit bigger and more
chaotic. It doesn’t surprise me that
Arusha is both the tourist and crime capital of Tanzania, as it has perhaps the
worst bus stand in the country… from the moment you get off the bus till about
a block away, you pretty much have to beat off the touts, “certified safari
guides,” and other assorted con artists with a stick. The city, though, is nice: I’m pretty sure it
boasts the only sushi bar in country (and it’s actually Japanese-run, so it’s
legit), and it has a huge ShopRite at the edge of town, in which I spent---I
kid you not---about an hour-and-a-half gawking at the vast array of cheeses and
vegetables on display. Unfortunately for
me, many of these nice things have a price, and I only had enough money on me
at the time to buy four tuna rolls and an ice cream sandwich at these places,
respectively. Not really enough for a
full meal, per se, but it sure beat the hell out of Paul’s Patented Half-Assed Sushi---rice, vinegar, carrots, avocados, and SPAM hunks mashed into amorphous
balls and dipped in soy sauce.
As far as the stated agenda goes, my primary reason for
venturing all the way to Moshi and Arusha was to run the 10th Annual
Kilimanjaro Half-Marathon, which was located in Moshi. I was originally intending to run the full
marathon, but training difficulties (read: my being fat and lazy) precluded the
fulfillment of this goal, thus leaving me with no choice but to attempt to
waddle my way through the half as fast as possible. It was actually a pretty fun event: as PCVs,
we tend to make a bit of a party out of the weekend, and when I wasn’t cramming
every last calorie I could into my face, I was hanging out with a lot of folks
I almost never see, which was pretty fun.
The race itself was also pretty nice: it was about half uphill, and half
downhill, and there were a ton of
participants---well over 2,000 for my particular event. My only real complaint (aside from the
Kenyans kicking my ass) was that the ending was a bit weak: I managed to match
pace with a fellow PCV about ¾ through the race, and we had made plans to do an
awesome, elaborate celebration dance across the finish line… only the final
stretch of track was completely congested with other participants, so we didn’t
get to do anything. Heck, they didn’t
even tell me my finishing time; I think it was somewhere between 2:05 and
2:15. Lame.
 |
| Everybody gets a trophy day! |
Singida and Mwanza
The latter part of my break was primarily focused on getting
to Rwanda, which I had heard allowed Americans in free of charge (i.e. without
a $60 entrance visa). Since I’m in Peace
Corps and thus a cheap bastard, this moved Rwanda to the top of my list of
countries to visit while in East Africa.
In truth, I also wanted to visit Rwanda because I had heard that it was
vastly different from Tanzania… I felt that spending a year-and-a-half cooped
up in Songea had somewhat warped my perception of Africa as a whole, and it was
important to see how the other side (or sides) lived. Also, I had heard the country was beautiful
and that it had a… unique history, and I was genuinely intrigued, so why not go?
Rwanda, unfortunately, is a pain in the ass to get to from
Songea, and I had to pass through a number of towns in order to get there. The first of these was Singida, which, while
nice, was fairly unremarkable: it’s a regional capital, it’s moderately sized,
and it’s in a semi-arid desert. Its one
claim to fame (at least, according to the PCVs there) is that it has really
nice rocks---an assertion that is vehemently contested by denizens of Mwanza,
who maintain that their rocks are far superior to Singida’s puny pebbles. Having been to both cities, I can now say
that Singida’s rocks are, in fact, more impressive than Mwanza’s, but that’s
not really saying much. It’s like two
Tanesco agents arguing over who works harder: either way, they’re both still
corrupt, shiftless jerkoffs. In all fairness,
I’m probably just saying this out of jealousy, as both Singida and Mwanza are
substantially nicer than Songea. Or
maybe I just hate Tanesco. Or maybe
both.
In any case, Mwanza is a pretty nice town---the second
largest in Tanzania, in fact---and it’s kind of like a mini-Dar: the weather’s
the same, the architecture is the same, and it’s located next to a large body
of water (Lake Victoria). It has an
awesome public library (this first of its kind I’ve seen in Tanzania) and
awesome, caught-that-day tilapia for dirt cheap. It also was the place where I saw one of the
coolest things I’ve ever seen in my service:
My first afternoon in Mwanza, I ate lunch at a semi-nice
restaurant with an open garden area and long tables. As I was waiting for my food, I noticed a
large group of Tanzanians occupying the table across from me. Each was well-dressed and had a laptop opened
in front of him or her, and one of the women was reading from a piece of
paper. One of the men, sitting next to
the woman, was furiously typing on his computer while she was speaking. It took me a while to realize, but then it
dawned on me…
Whoa. He’s taking
minutes. That must mean that this is a
meeting. But this is lunchtime. Tanzanians never conduct business during
meals, unless… HOLY CRAP IT’S A WORKING
LUNCH.
I repeat: a working
lunch. In Tanzania.
In my entire service so far, I have never seen Tanzanians work during lunchtime; in fact, I get
routinely admonished for letting my food get cold at school because I’m doing
work, “Chakula kwanza, Mista Paul.
Chakula kwanza.” Not just
that, but I routinely see Tanzanians literally drop everything and furiously
elbow check each other out of the way to get to food when it’s served
(especially on “meat day” at my school), and if I happen to be teaching during lunch break, it's pretty much guaranteed that there'll be nothing left for me when I get back.
These particular Tanzanians in Mwanza, on the other hand, were not only conducting
a productive meeting with a scheduled agenda---and minutes---but they were also doing it during the hallowed hour
of lunch break. Crazy.
And the best part?
When they were actually served food, they waited. They finished their
current item of business, politely asked for spoons (so as to not get their
hands dirty), and begun to eat while
discussing the next point. It was just
so… civilized.
Man, maybe I HAVE been spending too much time in Songea.
The Bukoba Incident
As nice as that little interlude was, Bukoba gave me a firm
reminder that I was, in fact, still in Tanzania, and that Tanzania doesn’t
always take too kindly to foreigners.
Don’t get me wrong, the town is nice enough: it’s green, pretty, and
fairly safi (it has the biggest
freaking cathedral I’ve seen in country… like National Cathedral big). It also serves as the kinda-halfway point
between Mwanza and Kigali, and getting there allowed me to ride the ferry
across Lake Victoria. (I don’t know why,
but I have a strange obsession with riding boats in Tanzania. If there’s a major body of water with a boat
that goes across it, I must ride
it. I know, it’s weird. Don’t judge me.)
 |
| Your requisite Bukoba tourism picture. The island in the background is Msira. |
In any case, the reason why I only have a lukewarm impression
of Bukoba is because I was robbed there.
Well, partially robbed. Let me
explain:
During my stay in Bukoba, I was sharing a hotel room with a
German girl I had met on the boat (that way, it worked out super cheap for both
of us). The guesti was pretty average fare: while there were no bars on the
windows, the beds were comfortable enough, and there was round-the-clock
supervision from a clerk. Moreover, our
room was on the second floor of a building overlooking a major intersection,
which I thought afforded us a little extra security: in order to break in, one
would either have to bring an exceptionally tall ladder and set it up in the
alley adjacent to the building (which, incidentally, had a bunch of fundis working in it), or sidle about 20
feet along the building’s front façade (again, in full view of a major traffic
intersection) from the main balcony to the window, which locked from the inside
anyways. By no means was our hotel Fort
Knox, but I still felt reasonably safe leaving my stuff there.
One day, after a fairly lame excursion to the nearby island
of Msira (all we wanted was to chill on the beach, but, as wazungu, we were given a mandatory escort around the island and
were forced to fuel the village head’s nasty drinking habit by paying him
tribute… the guy even stole the tip we gave his son for helping us out), my
roommate and I returned to the guesti
to wash up and prep for dinner.
Strangely, however, when we unlocked the door and tried to get in our
room, the door wouldn’t budge---it had been bar-locked from the inside. Seeing as we had the actual key on us---and,
in fact, had had the key with us the whole day---this was fairly alarming, as
it proved fairly conclusively that someone had broken in at some point during
the day. Peeking through the ventilation
holes above the door only served to confirm this suspicion: all of our valuable
items---my computer, my Zune, her and my headphones, our cellphone
chargers---were gone. After questioning
hotel staff about seeing any suspicious activity during the day (and their
saying that there was none), we came to the unfortunate conclusion that we had
been robbed, and, by this point, the perpetrator was long gone.
Still though, I wanted to verify beyond doubt that my stuff
had, in fact, been stolen, and since there was no other way to get into the room,
I asked the hotel staff if we could break the lock and enter. After some discussion of the particulars
(repair costs, etc.), the staff relented and we kicked in the door. It was actually pretty badass, and, had I not
been distracted by the whole being-robbed thing, I probably would have enjoyed
it a lot more than I did. I guess all
that Tae Kwon Do training ultimately paid off.
The next 30 seconds are a bit of a blur. I remember the door collapsing, rushing into
the room, and making a beeline for my bed to check my valuables (my roommate
did the same for her side). I remember
muttering a string of curse words upon realizing that the thieves had taken
literally everything of value I owned,
and I remember quickly making plans on how to spend the rest of my Peace Corps
service computerless. I also remember hearing
a loud shriek from the opposite end of the room, whipping my head around to see
what was happening, and seeing one of the hotel staff dragging a terrified
teenage girl---replete with dirty school uniform---out of our room’s wardrobe, throwing
her on the ground. When she tried to
scurry away, he pinned her down under his knee and proceeded to methodically
beat the snot out of her. Holy crap.
As it turns out, this girl was the thief: she had broken in
sometime during the afternoon (how she accomplished this, I still have no
idea), and she had gotten trapped in the room when we had returned early to get
ready for dinner. Guilty as hell and
with no way out, she elected to hide in the wardrobe, perhaps to forestall her
inevitable ass-whooping by a few extra seconds.
Seriously, though, this girl could not have been caught more red-handed:
she was literally clutching the bag with all our valuables in it when she got
caught, and despite being thrown on the ground and receiving a vigorous
face-pummeling, she refused to let it go… we had to physically wrench it from
her grasp. Fortunately for us, all of
the important things were accounted for (computer, money, cellphones, chargers,
etc.), so that afforded us some measure of relief. There was still one item missing, however---my
Zune and headphones---which was the cause of some lingering consternation on my
part.
Now, to be fair, my Zune is pretty old, and it can’t really
do anything that my computer can’t already do better. I wouldn’t have died if I didn’t get it
back. But still, I use it a fair bit in
country; its battery, despite four-and-a-half years of extensive use, is still
better than my computer’s, and it tends to come in handy on the longer bus
rides. Also, it was pretty reasonable to
assume that it was still in the room somewhere: if the thief had an accomplice
or if this was a well-coordinated strike, there would be no reason for her to
hold on to everything else and just
steal the Zune… she would probably just have dropped the entire package out to
her friend in the alley and that would be that.
No, it had to be in the room. I
just didn’t know where.
So now began the fun part---the interrogation. First, we had to clear the area: given that
the town wazungu had been robbed in
plain daylight and the thief had been apprehended, a mini-mob of
about 30 people was forming outside the hotel, and there were at least 10
complete strangers in the hotel room, waiting their turn to grab the thief and
smack her around a bit to get her to confess where the missing Zune was. It actually got fairly intense at one point…
one of the hotel staff had her pinned down and was threatening to burn her eyes
out with a fully-heated immersion coil if she didn’t fess up (luckily, my
roommate made a diving save to unplug the coil before this actually
happened). Regardless, we managed to get
most of the randoms out of the room and lock the door, which allowed me to
summon up my best gentle-but-firm/good cop Kiswahili and have a one-on-one talk
with her.
The talk, unfortunately, was unproductive. For one, she was still a bit discombobulated,
as she was beaten pretty badly and thus bleeding a bit/sobbing uncontrollably. On top of that, she was having a great deal of
difficulty finding a story and sticking with it: she first denied any knowledge
of my Zune, then she admitted to taking it but claimed she didn’t know where it
went, then she introduced a previously unmentioned accomplice, Evarastus, to
whom she dropped my Zune out the window, etc.
With her story becoming progressively more convoluted and nonsensical (if
she and her accomplice apparently used a ladder to climb in the second-story
window, why the hell would he (a) only take the Zune with him when he left and
(b) deliberately screw her over by yanking out the ladder before she could get
down?) I began to lose patience with her incoherent babbling, telling her to
shut her dumb, lying mouth and listen to me.
I put forward what I felt was a reasonable proposition: she
could either return my Zune to me and we would go our separate ways, or she
could continue to hold out and go to jail.
I tried to explain to her that we got her, she was completely and utterly
caught, and if she was a good girl and returned my Zune to me, she had nothing
to fear, as I could use my white man powers to guarantee her safe passage
through the mob. I further explained that,
even if she did manage to successfully steal my Zune, I had the charger, and
given that my Zune’s battery is not what it used to be, the thing would be dead
weight in a matter of hours (and I defy ANYONE to find a replacement Zune
charger in Tanzania, much less Bukoba).
Finally, I warned her that continued obstinacy would invariably result
in further beatings, if not by the mob, then by the police. Sadly, this proposal was met with renewed protestations
of innocence---“I don’t have it!”/“Evarastus took the ladder!”/“I don’t have
any money, please let me go!”---and, given that nothing sets me off more
nowadays than Tanzanians bitching to me about being poor (especially ones who steal
from me), I took that as my cue to grab her by the arm, drag her to the police
officer waiting outside my room, and escort her down to the Bukoba police
station for processing.
The police station was pretty standard procedure. I sat down with an officer to file a report,
while the thief was made to sit in a corner, facing the wall. I claimed dollar values for my stolen goods,
while various witnesses were asked to corroborate my story. I had pretty much abandoned all hope of
getting my Zune back at this point, so I was pretty relaxed; I just didn’t
really want to let the thief get off scot-free after she so flagrantly wronged
me only thirty minutes prior. Finally,
it came time for the thief to give her testimony, so she got up, stretched, and
began walking towards the table.
Little did she know that, in stretching, she had inadvertently
pressed the main button on my Zune’s flywheel, causing the main display to
project a bright, neon-blue rectangle directly on the center of her skirt’s
waistband. She was looking at us, so she didn't notice that she had totally given herself away... but, to the rest of us, it looked like she suddenly started sporting a giant, glow-in-the-dark belt buckle.
Naturally, this caused everyone to straight-up jump her: the
guards, random onlookers, the officer who was interviewing me---everyone essentially
pig-piled her trying to get my stuff back.
Fortunately, some quick-acting female officers were able to extract her
from the fracas and drag her kicking and screaming back to the cells for a more
thorough strip search. My items were
returned forthwith, and I went and got a beer.
So, how do I feel about the whole situation? Okay, I guess. In truth, this was the first time in my life
that I’d ever been full-on robbed; while there have certainly been instances where
I’ve had things go missing under suspicious circumstances, I had never been
cleaned out like this before, and I can say without hesitation that it’s not a
fun experience. Moreover, while I’m no
stranger to Tanzanian mob justice, this was probably one of the more intense
beatings I’ve witnessed in country (there is one notable exception, but I won’t
get into that). Honestly, I feel bad for
the girl… she’s obviously fairly poor and desperate; otherwise, she wouldn’t have
tried pulling a stunt like that, and there may be outside factors that I don’t
know about (maybe she was put up to it by someone, like the ever-mysterious
Evarastus). On the other hand, I’m still
a bit angry: it was obviously a targeted attack, planned malevolently, and the dumb
girl was either too pigheaded or too stupid to take me up on my generous,
get-out-of-jail-free offer. In the end,
though, I guess I feel lucky more than anything… if my roommate and I had come
back later, the thief would have been long gone, and I would have had to spend
the rest of my service sans computer and mp3 player. Damn, that would have really sucked.
In any case, that about does it for this part of the trip. The next day, I found myself in the fertile,
rolling hills of Rwanda, and that began a whole new slew of delightful anecdotes
and whimsical misadventures. I don’t
know when, exactly, I will write about these delightful anecdotes and whimsical misadventures and post them up here, but probably… soon. Maybe.
Stay tuned for part 2!
a working lunch??! abuhhhhhhhhhhhh!???
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