Death is literally on my doorstep

July 4, 2010



Happy We Get To Live In The Greatest Country Ever Day, American friends. :) Now go read a copy of the Constitution and remember why!



Our neighbor died last night. We didn't know him; he had been ill for some time. Apparently, most of Dar es Salaam did know him though. Large trucks carrying tents, tables and chairs woke us up throughout the night, unloading and building a small grandstand between our wall and theirs (they live across the street from us).



We live about a half mile down a dirt road, at a T-intersection with a smaller dirt road. One side of the T is now jammed with chairs, tents for shade, and cars. In fact, throughout the day, cars jammed almost every road in our neighborhood. We were fortunate to get out for church before the bigger crowd showed up; we tried to get home three times in the day but had to park far away and walk in the gate to put a purchased chicken in the refrigerator. They had laid the casket out right in front of our gate, with rows and rows of chairs backed right up to the gate...I had to ask people to get up just to access the pedestrian gate. Felt really bad about that. It would have been nice if they had asked before they blocked us out, but hey, they were having a much worse day than us.



I was so, so sad for this family who lost someone so obviously important in their lives. Even through the cultural fog, that is obvious. A parade of people dressed in fine clothes brought gifts for days. I put on a long skirt and sleeved shirt and carried a card over. I hope they received it in the spirit it was given. Barnabas helped me with the wording...he advised me not to go in their gate, or I would be exposing myself to many strangers asking for money or favors. I trusted him on this one. Even at the local church one Sunday, two people asked me for a job during worship...not cool, but a reminder of how desperately people here need work.



So, this man's body lay at our door for the entire Independence Day, and we finally got in the gate well after dark when they moved him in a hearse. Another sign he was someone of high standing: hearses are very uncommon here; it is the first one I have seen.



Thank God for friends we could spend the day with. We ordered pizza and felt very American for one insulated day at another friend's house.

Zanzibar!

Amanda, our guest, thought it would be fun to go to Zanzibar, so I did what any adoring hostess would do...I booked a trip. We had Ruby and Henry in tow, so decided to keep it to one night with two days on the big island. The ferry was recommended by several friends, so we took the fast ferry. Ninety minutes rather than up to 4 hours on the slow ferries.

After barely making it to the port on time due to traffic, we pushed our way through a throng of porters and fake porters (called fleas here) to the boat. I had expected to be on one of the larger ferries, with two or three stories of cabins and decks, but instead we were in a smaller speedboat, like the ones you can ride in Chicago or other port cities. Seating about 30-40, it was a nice if sometimes choppy ride northeast to Zanzibar. Once past Mbudja Island off of Mbezi Beach, the water got pretty big at times, but was always deep sapphire blue, with bright aqua (the exact color of most pool bottoms in the US) reef areas around the little islands dotting the coast of Tanzania.

On the ferry ride, I sat next to a nice Muslim couple from Madagascar. The wife was removing her long covering as we sat down, revealing stylish capris and a slim-fitting t-shirt underneath. They explained that she only has to wear the traditional garmets when with her family, whom they had been visiting in Dar. It was kind of funny to see them using the pieces of her dark gown as sunshades and pillows on the ferry ride. Within the first 30 minutes, Henry and my new neighbors were sleeping, and the final hour of the trip went quickly.

We approached Zanzibar from the south, passing by the fingerlike southern peninsula and Prison Island, and finally saw Stone Town for the first time. By the time we came into port, we were definitely ready to be on land. Little did we know how luxurious that boat ride would seem later!

Once on the dock, we collected our bags and went through 'customs', then walked out to the dozens of taxis all trying to convince us they were there for us. However, none of them knew our name or contact, so we waited several minutes until a small van pulled up, with a man who knew our names.

The short ride through Stone Town to our hotel just north of there was interesting. Zanzibar seemed more vibrant, maybe because almost every view is set against the glittering Indian Ocean. One big difference we noticed is that the hand carts present everywhere in Tanzania were usually pulled by donkeys or cows on Zanzibar; they are always pulled by men in Dar. Nobody could give me a reason why.

Another slight difference between Dar and the island is that the island is over 90% Muslim. Almost all women wear full burkas or at least the full covering (head to feet, but not faces), often in black. One of our guides told us the black is only for women traveling out of their village. We did see one woman in a brightly tie-dyed garmet, and I felt she was a kindred spirit.

Imani Villa Hotel sits in the middle of a fishing village, next to a school of the Koran. A lovely spot with a small beach, tree house bar and restaurant, I loved it immediately. Simon and Kristen, the owners, do a great job making the few rooms lovely and comfortable. Each is unique and filled with useful, gorgeous antiques from eclectic Zanzibar. The food there was exceptional (I had barracuda with coconut sauce that I am still thinking about today) and the atmosphere sets it apart from more tourist-y places.

We toured Stone Town, went in several shops, didn't take as many pictures as I hoped due to managing two tired children, and returned to the villa for some food and rest. The sunset over the ocean was a real treat, something we don't get living on Tanzania's eastern seaboard.

Tuesday morning our goal was to see some of the wild monkeys living at the forest in the southern part of Zanzibar. The guide picked us up and drove about an hour through villages and past some swanky estates that he said were wealthy government officals' homes. Reaching the forest ranger station, we paid a small fee, read some literature about wildlife there, and went with our guide down a path toward the main forest.

After less than a half mile we saw several monkeys playing with a group of tourists. Apparently, these simians are quite used to humans and were a little too friendly at times when we followed our guide into the forest to see more. One adolescent kept trying to climb up my long skirt, reaching my back at one point. We left with good photos and a little creeped out.

After a few more hours on the hotel beach relaxing, we returned to the dock and breezed through paperwork and on to the bigger ferry. Deceptively comforted that this ride would be somehow better than the last one (which wasn't bad at all), we settled into our seats on the outside of the top deck.

Soon, the deck was filling up. Apparently they sold many more tickets than they had seats for, which I didn't think was supposed to happen on the first-class deck. However, people kept pouring in, and we held tight to our seats. There were dozens of people standing in aisles, sitting on every inch of deck, and as we left the dock, more came out of the air conditioned cabin to photograph Stone Town. I wanted these photos too, but knew that the second I stood up, two people would take my seat.

Sick bags were immediately distributed by a deck officer, and Amanda and I looked at each other gloomily. A child sitting in front of us on the floor vomited immediately into a clear plastic bag, and several people tried to get her father to put the clear bag into one of the opaque black sick bags...the sight of the vomit was making others feel ill. The girl and her father didn't speak swahili or english, but they finally got the message.

The ride proved as rough as the the bags had suggested. Throughout the first hour, more people than I can count threw up around us. Thankfully, everyone was very tidy about it. Amanda's greenness told me she was having as rough a time as I was. Choppy, big waves and wind gusts kept the boat rocking and bouncing the entire time, and finally, as I spotted the mainland, I joined the crowd of the seasick. That night, when Ruby talked with Len on the phone, she said, "Mommy threw up four times in her little black bag. Henry said, 'Hey!' (which he did, since I had to lean over him to hit the bag) and then we sang songs."

Indeed, we did sing a couple of Rich Mullins songs before and after my seasickness, and I'm glad Ruby remembered that part. And I did feel much better afterward. We left our little bag with its top firmly knotted shut among the dozens of other neat bags on deck when we left, collected our bags, and found our taxi driver to take us home (the 45 minute ride took over THREE hours with traffic!).

Another highlight of the trip was that I discovered that Zanzibar, aka Spice Islands, is home to many of the fresh spices I have been unable to find here on the mainland. How silly of me to not know that!

One last note...we are not on some huge vacation here. :) We just happen to live on the coast of an amazing country, where the free beach is one of the only places to take preschoolers! The photo above is the sunset over the Indian Ocean from Zanzibar...something we don't get to see living on the mainland.