Back in 2004, I was a bit... upset. And I spent a lot of time on the 'net, and got to know some of the people on the Sound on Sound board well. To cut a long story short (as if - the rest is long enough), I got offered a chance to work for 3 weeks for a charity (the guy who offered it was going to do it but couldn't and said he had checked it all out), teaching recording.
I did something I'd never done before, and haven't since - I kept a daily diary. Here it is. Unabridged. Unedited. Unreadable.
Well, here I am in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. First thing to hit me when I got off the plane was the humidity – wow – followed shortly by the faint body odour of a thousand strangers, which got stronger as I reached the terminal. After a long wait for the Authorities to relieve me of $50 for the ‘visa’ I was issued, it was straight through the abandoned customs lane, and then out to wait for the car. Once Slim drove, it was a strange mix of familiar and bizarre; they drive on the left here and the road signs and system are just like at home, but that’s where the similarities end; everything is a little random, and I’d imagine accidents are a very common occurrence. There are hundreds of mini-buses moving the vast majority of the populace about, and at every light you are accosted by young boys selling everything from cigarettes to TV Aerials. We arrive at his mother’s house to say a quick hello, and then to Slim’s place; I noticed that terrazzo flooring is order of the day everywhere, and I’m shown to my room, which is large, and has a double bed and en-suite bathroom too. And then the heat hits me for the first time, and I understand why airport smelled the way it did. I’m sweating from every possible pore, and the keyboard is actually wet as I type this. The A/C unit is now on, but it sounds like an old diesel sherpa on tickover, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep with that going on. But I’m really tired from the flight, I now realise, and I’ll probably grab 40 shortly as I feel like it’s really late, not mid morning.
120 later, I wake up and we go for a quick shopping trip. This place is crazy – apart from the totally random traffic issue, there’s the dismembered vehicles lying all over the place, the people’s houses built in the swamp, all this contrasting with shiny billboards offering Stella artois and the latest communications devices. It’s very odd seeing someone living in total poverty under a sign for a new Motorola phone. We move on, to a building that Slim owns that has a number of shops in it. He checks in with each of his tenants, selling tyres, phones and spares for Japanese cars. There is the severed front-end of an unknown Japanese car there, which I’m told is very desirable as accidents are a way of life, and an unbent front crossmember is like gold dust. We then move onto the supermarket, which is something that never ceases to amaze me; supermarkets are the same around the world; everywhere I’ve been I’ve felt at home in a supermarket, and this one is no exception, with the comforting sight of a packet of Kellogg’s cornflakes, and Windolene amongst all the less familiar products, including a range of insect sprays simply called “Doom”. We get what we need, and then it’s off to the shops again, to re-check with the tenants, and once more into the fray with the manic traffic and even the occasional motorcyclist, surely a risky occupation here.
On to the studio; a quick check shows a basic but functional setup. It’s not well set-out by any means, so my first decision is to put the PC on the floor out of the way, and re-arrange everything. Which ends in disaster as the PC won’t boot up when reconnected. Bloody typical. As I write this, there’s a technician attempting to fix it, but this has basically involved the removal and replacement of various components to no avail. I think that the Power Supply is kaput, but being 4000 miles away from my stock of spares it makes a swap to check a little difficult. All the other studio gear is set up and working though, so that’s a plus at least. Once the PC is working, it’ll be game on. Providing I can get power for this laptop, I’ll keep this up. The sockets are UK-type, but I think the mains voltage can only be described as “being in the 200s”, rather than the exact 230v, 50Hz perfect sinewave AC that we’ve become used to in the UK. Hopefully NEC over-engineered the charger for this baby, or it could all end in tears!
Well, no tears yet, despite a few brownouts. So, first up was dinner, which involved a semi-indian place, and chicken with chips. But chicken done in some kind of curry treatment. The chips were heavenly, probably the tastiest chips I’ve had ever. The chicken was, er shall we say scarcely populated, meat-wise. But all good, and I’m not dead from it. Then back to the house for a couple of hours’ rest before going off to a nightclub. The first thing that struck me was that the centre of town was absolutely dead; it was 12:30 am on Friday Night/ Saturday morning, and there was almost no-one to be seen, except right outside a club where the car parking was. There it was a hive of activity, and there was some industrial-strength weed being smoked by the indigines. Round the corner to another club, and it could have been anywhere in the world; R&B and then euro dance was on the menu, and apart from the makeup of the clientele, we could have been in Bournemouth. But we weren’t, we were in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. It was time to go at 2:30am, as I am still tired and don’t have a good idea of what time it really is; jet-lag isn’t something I’ve ever dealt with well, and sleeping in fits and starts doesn’t help matters. I’ve just put the AC unit on, only to find that the lower fan speeds (Medium and Low) actually make more noise than high. Weird. So High speed it is tonight, and hopefully I’ll get a decent night’s sleep and feel more human in the morning. I’ve just doused myself with DEET, so with any luck I won’t get bitten, although there seems to be less of a mosquito presence than I originally feared.
Woke up at 11am, after a dreamy night; I think the malarone are having some effect as I’ve had a dream every night since starting them, and normally don’t dream at all. Breakfast was bread and Norwegian cheese; tomato cheese and then goat’s cheese, which was brown and really sweet. Not my normal weetabix, but I’m in Africa, aren’t I? Woke to find that the tech had fixed the PC, and Ibrahim keen on getting started. Got everything set up, and started teaching him. He’s a natural on the computer – despite being a “beginner”, he’s picked up the sequencing as quick as you like. He’s dispelled one myth though, that Africans have rhythm! That part of things he really needs to work on, but it’s always hard at first, I think. He’ll get it sorted, I’m sure. As I write, he’s working on his third little ditty, and Slim has just arrived with a new SIM for my phone so people can call me. Nice. I sent a few texts last night as I was feeling a little homesick. I don’t know why, ‘cos when I was there last week I was just thinking that there was nothing there for me, but I suppose human nature has taken over again! Weird.
A couple of hours later, it would seem that not only Ibrahim has no rhythm; the other young chap, Hassan, also is incapable of playing along with a click or keeping in time. Exceptions that test the rule, etc. But otherwise progress is, er, progressing. Things are OK, and at least everything works. Lunch was fruit, again, and it’s probably not a bad diet really; don’t know if it’ll have a long-term effect on my health (i.e. I’ll become a regular fruit eater), and also if it’ll mean I have toilet issues while I’m here, but only time will tell on both those counts. I find it kinda weird that plants are capable of filtering out all the badness in the water, and yet the water companies here can’t manage the same trick. England gets slagged off a lot by those who live there (indeed one of the guys we were in Egypt with was moaning constantly about how crap it is), but there is a lot to be said for it. A lot indeed. It looks like there will need to be some serious structure applied to the lessons as otherwise they’ll just become slack drop-in sessions. I think that a 10am start is a good idea, as I’ll be done by about 3pm each day. I’ve done four hours today just mucking about, so that’s not going to be too bad, I think. Need more water though, as I think I could probably sweat for England at the moment. Makes the mosquito bites from Egypt less itchy, which is no bad thing. If I can manage to not get bitten here, then it will be a big plus. I must take my Malarone now, before I forget. That would be bad….
The arse end of the afternoon (and I use that phrase advisedly, considering the smell) is whiled away in the seemingly traditional African method of sitting on the porch watching the world go by. Everything here happens a great deal more slowly than I’m used to, and I’d think most people from the West too. Not much occurs for a couple of hours, and the conversation is a little slow too, with the odd bit here and there in English, the rest in Swahili, of which I know at least three words now. The funny thing is that like so many other languages, bits of English pop up here and there; in the middle of fixing the AC unit in my room ‘masking tape’ was heard several times, and when they’re talking about their cellphones, ‘SIM’ and ‘Network Service’ pop up regularly, which makes me feel a little less like I’m a stranger in a strange land. Most of the people walking by seem to stare at me, and some of the little kids look scared too. But I suppose that’s just normal, all things considered. I wonder if they have issues with white people in general, but that would be hard to find out without the possibility of causing offence, something that I’m keen not to do in my first few days here; when you’re this far from home, three weeks on your own seems like a very long time. The other benefit of spending the afternoon on the porch is getting a little more accustomed to the heat and humidity. At least I’m not sweating all the time now, although being in my room does feel really good, with just the big fan on. One thing’s for sure; I’m not going to complain about this summer being too hot when I get home! There are a lot of other things I probably won’t find such a bind after being here, too. Having clean, drinkable running water is something that’s just a dream here, and yet we take it for granted at home. Paved streets, constant power, constant water, drainage that works, security, so very many things that I could mention are either malfunctioning or just plain absent here, it beggars belief that anyone survives. And yet they do, and not only that, 90% of them look incredibly clean as they do so; I saw a woman walk down the road in a red dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place absolutely anywhere in the UK, and yet she was walking down a dirt track that smelled worse than most public toilets in England.
Oh good, my first case of liquid toilet. Lovely. I should also mention that the toilet doesn’t flush, so it involves at least two bucketfuls of water to get rid of whatever it is you’ve done. I’ve finally managed to get it all clear in there, so maybe it’ll pong a bit less. This probably all sounds mega-negative; it’s not supposed to, I just think that what’s missing or defective is what needs highlighting. Oh, that’s everything though, isn’t it? Whenever I’m going down the road or whatever, I just think that I’m glad this isn’t my life, and is just a three-week sojourn into someone else’s. At the moment I can hear the call to prayer from the mosque down the road, and it sounds like all the others I’ve heard; abject, despondent and distorted. And way too long. Can’t they just text everyone instead? That would be a lot easier. I know it’d miss the point….
Anyway, we’re going out. I don’t know where, but all will no doubt be revealed. My guts feel a bit ropey, so hopefully the food will be spot on, and I won’t spend the night in the bog. It’s not really bad pain, just mild discomfort. I don’t know whether it’s just me adjusting to the new fruit diet for lunch, or last night’s Indian-style chicken, or something else. Cleanliness doesn’t seem to be something that is taken too seriously here.
Oh, before I trundle off, I must just mention one more thing. Cockroaches. I hate them. They make my flesh creep, and there were four of them in the kitchen last night. Not your usual ones either, these were at least two-inchers. And there were some present at breakfast today. Really lovely. As I said, I hate them, I really do. I don’t think one will get in here, ‘cos the windows are gauzed and my door is inside another room. But if they do I’ll go totally ape and beat the shit out of the thing. In the gloom this morning I mistook a BIC pen lid for one, and was ready to kill! Did I mention that I hate cockroaches?
This time we go to an “authentic” Italian restaurant. To its credit, the pizza is good (if a little heavy on the tomato sauce, and with beef in the Jurassic style), and the price of £3 can’t be argued with. Then it’s off to “Big Sister Tanzania 2003” – the final. No-one could explain the competition to me, but it seemed that there were nine Pop-Idol-like starlets who were the finalists, and we came in at the back end of the final where a dreadfully long elimination culminated in the crowning of the winner, a lovely and teary young six-footer called Irene. Her prize was a million, but Tanzanian Shillings, which I reckon is about £650. Plus a year’s supply of body lotion. Slim knew just about everyone there from the media and press, and a lot of hand-wringing took place; they were all really friendly and enthusiastic about what I am doing here, so that’s a plus. It sounds as if the “music business” here is more crooked than in the UK, if that’s possible. And then it was on to another club, the Blue Palm restaurant/outdoor club venue. Playing 70s and 80s soul and dance, it was pretty good, although the feeling that I was about to have another “Oxtail Soup” moment left me enjoying it a little less, even more so when I saw that the toilet was essentially a hole in the ground, not somewhere I’d choose to have such an unpleasant time. Then at 2am it was off to another club, which bills itself as Africa’s finest nightclub. I wouldn’t know about that, but the display of Karaoke rapping was a sight to behold, especially the culmination of it which involved a deranged-looking skinny guy chasing a rather fat-arsed short-skirted woman around the T-shaped podium. Hmmm. And once more back here, at 3:30am. I’m tired, this is brief, and I’m going to sleep.
As I expected, I woke up at 11:30, with 8 hours under my belt. The Malarone must be having an effect as I had dreams again – three nights in a row…. Didn’t do a great deal for most of the day, except watch the world go by and find out some of the history of the kids Slim knows. Ali was painting the newly-made (rickety) rack for the mixer, PC and module, and Slim told me about him – he comes from about 400 miles away, and had elephantitis, and nothing was going to be done, so he got him treated; he has to have three-monthly injections and the disease is under control. At about 4:30 we went to the beach, making our way across DES bay with the local ferry; it was one of two, and depending on how the loading/unloading went there would be a traffic jam at one end or the other. Apparently white guys go free on this ferry, but I think Slim was having a little joke. Anyway, on the other side was the now-familiar site of loads of little hovels and some unfinished ‘beach developments’, and eventually we got to the beach, which looked tropical and beautiful until you get to the sea; it’s full of seaweed, and looks black. There are some parts that are cleaned, and these you can swim in, so we headed for them. It was easily the warmest sea I’ve swam in – it felt warm to get into! We spent a good couple of hours in there mucking about, and I lent Ibrahim my snorkel and mask, and he had a great time with it. I could see now Ali’s problem was with his legs; from the knee down there was no change in width, right down to the ankles, and his feet look a little odd. But it doesn’t seem to bother him, and its under control, so that’s good.
Then it was time to come back, and waiting for the ferry took over an hour, but no-one seems to mind here; it really is incredibly laid back. Once we got back I was lying on my bed having a rest and then one of Slim’s friends who has a studio came over as they were having problems setting a module up and wanted me to take a look. We went right to the city centre, and into a dilapidated block of flats, and on the top floor went into a flat which had gloss painted walls throughout – light blue at the bottom, and white at the top; it looked like an old hospital or school. Found the studio, which was a collection of gear that looks a bit out of place here, but would probably just about pass as a bedroom studio at home. Sorted the problem out, but refrained from commenting on everything else that was wrong, like having the speakers 8 feet apart, and so on. The live room had been treated with some foam rubber about 4 inches thick, and it resonated terribly, like a drum. So that needs fixing too. But the guys are trying, and that’s good. I’d think they have a good chance of going somewhere if they keep it up. And then it was back here again, and it’s time for bed as tomorrow I start the teaching at 10am, SHARP! Hassan has terrible timekeeping (he seems like the flaky fat kid that everyone knew at school), so he’s under strict instructions to be there on time. I’ll have to set my alarm!
Had cornflakes for breakfast, which was lovely. The milk was long-life but tasted really good. Got everything ready, and even had four pupils – Hassan was early! Showed them how to check if a mains plug was OK, as I think most locally-made leads will be less than British standard, shall we say? Then showed them how to set up the studio, and then some basic sequencing. Two hours flew by. Just got time to grab some lunch, and then another two hours is due.
No lunch occurred, so straight on with the lesson. I know it’s a stereotype, but I’ve heard so many people say that black or African people naturally have rhythm. Well, it’s clearly complete rubbish, here if nowhere else. All five of my pupils couldn’t even tap in time with a metronome, let alone tap a simple drum beat with one hand while the other kept the beat. And the crowd at the “Big Sister Tanzania 2003” final also had no rhythm whatsoever; they couldn’t clap in time any more than most English audiences could, and indeed probably less so. So I spent the last half hour doing some simple rhythm exercises with them, and it seemed to help out, as by the end of it they could at least do a two/four beat with their hands. I don’t know if they dance or anything, but I hope they do that better.
One thing is bothering me. Well, a number are, but the one of note is that Slim seems to be a bit of a dirty old man. Maybe it’s just ‘cos I’m English or a bit of a prude or whatever, but I don’t really want to hear his stories about his girlfriends phoning him up and wanting sex or whatever. The boys seem interested in these tales, but I’m not. But maybe it’s just me being sheltered or something. Although I don’t think there would be much good to be said about that in the Koran, and having had a little speech about how we pray before eating and after to say thanks (although I note that the prayer was absent), I find that funny. Still, there you go. But Slim keeps on about me scoring with someone while I’m here; I can’t say I’m in the least bit interested, ‘cos firstly I’m not interested anyway, secondly even if I were then I would have to get to know someone before sleeping with them, and that’s pretty unlikely considering I know all of four Swahili words – Hello (Jambo), Welcome (Karibou), Thanks (Asante) and Milk (Maziwa). I can find no order in which to place these words that could lead to anything but the most casual of conversations.
We went for dinner to Slim’s Sister’s house (which is also his mum’s), and that was weird. There’s something I find odd about old people who just stare at you; I don’t know it’s because they’re immensely wise and contented in their old age, and looking at you and your aspirations and enthusiasm with a mind that has been honed with the passing of time and a wealth of experience, or because they are mad old people. Anyway, Slim’s mum could probably have stared for Africa. Dinner consisted of a bowl of fish cooked in a sort of coconut sauce (looked like korma, but didn’t taste of a great deal), along with what looked like round naan bread with sesame seeds. It was eaten with the hands and apparently I made a total arse of myself by using my left hand as well as my right. This fact was made plain to me by the women laughing at me. I’m no expert on etiquette (clearly), but I did find it a little rude to laugh your ass off at a guest; I certainly wouldn’t do that to someone. Also the conversation just went on around me in Swahili when it was clearly directed at me, and I found that less than pleasant. But there wasn’t a lot I could do about that, so I just ate the food and drank the (bloody gorgeous) fresh mango juice. Oh, and got offered a Swahili woman for marriage by Slim’s mum. I didn’t enquire further than the initial offer, as I think it would have been entering a minefield. The offering of women seems to be a commonplace thing here; on the way back we went past some prostitutes and Slim told me what they were (although it was as plain as anything that they were on the game), and then seemed to be asking if I was interested in that kind of action, so I changed the subject to the hair ‘salon’ down the road (i.e. a shed) called “Death Row Hair Cuts”. What a picturesque name. I may have to photograph it….
The late evening was whiled away on the porch, watching the world go by and talking about this and that; it’s emerging that Slim has a rather incorrect view of the world as far as Britain is concerned, and also is rather racist; not in an overt way, but tends to think of everything in terms of colour. And seems to think that corruption only exists in Africa! How wrong he is; I’d think corruption is one thing that just goes to show how similar we are, from the poorest nation to the richest.
The day went much the same as yesterday, but with only three pupils instead of five. Turns out that one is an illegal immigrant from Zaire, so he’s been told not to come by slim, and the other one I had no explanation for. Unfortunately, the three remaining pupils are somewhat lacking in any musical knowledge; I know that I can’t expect them to be music theorists or anything, but you can always tell if someone is naturally musical as soon as you give them a keyboard or a sequencer. These chaps aren’t, so there’s a problem straight away. As ever, when I was planning for this I was totally over-estimating the level at which I would be teaching them, expecting people of a good standard already, not total beginners with somewhat child-like expectations of becoming an instant producer – just add a white guy for three weeks and away you go! But I guess I’ll get something out of them by the end of the three weeks – we’ll see, I suppose. There are only 12 teaching days left, maximum. Which makes it seem like a very short time all of a sudden.
Slim mentioned going to Zanzibar this weekend, and also the National Park, so that’s good, as really those are the things that I came here to see, especially given the somewhat reduced ambitions that I have for the teaching side of things. I certainly couldn’t live here for any length of time, I know that for sure. I’ve been missing just being at home, which seems really odd, but I can’t wait to get back and have a decent chat with someone without having to limit my vocabulary or wait for the next piece of incorrect stereotypical assumption to spurt forward.
Had dinner at Slim’s sister’s again, and although the faces changed (the sister wasn’t present, but her husband’s other wife’s daughter was as she is being ‘schooled’ for marriage there, along with two house-girls), the game was the same – talk about the Englishman and have a good laugh. I’ve decided to take it without even looking like I’m noticing, as this is the best way to play it for me. Slim’s mother said that it wasn’t right to be talking about me, but he said that it was my problem, not his, as I’d come here without knowing Swahili. Hmmm. I must remember that next time I have a foreigner with me.
After dinner we sat on the porch, and I learned of some more people who have ripped him off, and also a local muslim cleric sat with us for a while. He didn’t speak English, but as he went, he asked me (via Slim) to consider becoming a Muslim. I asked him why, and was told of the great benefits of being in paradise for a thousand years, and Slim waxed lyrical about paradise and how you lived after your death and so on. I didn’t bother with the “so, it’s the same old pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that every religion promises” that I normally would, but that’s ‘cos I’ve got another 16 days here, and I’m 4000 miles from home. Etc. Crock of bollocks though, like every other religion. Maybe I’ll print out that page of quotes from Richard Dawkins and leave it on the door of the mosque the day I leave…
Have been planning what to do when I get home. I sent Stu a text asking him to arrange an evening of beer, birds and cards (A BBC evening, perhaps), which will be nice. My main plan is that when everyone’s together I’m going to announce that I’ve decided to give my life over to Allah as I have seen the infidel ways of the West, and that I will be returning on my pilgrimage across Africa as soon as I have parted with all my worldly goods. Swiftly followed by “er, f*** that, let’s get pissed”. Hope it works out.
Oh, the Air Conditioner “repairmen” turned up today. No wonder Africa is screwed. These guys turned up a day late, and then proceeded to pour a shitload of water onto the carpet to clean the heat exchanger in the unit! I mean, did they think that it was going to evaporate before it hit the floor? Slim went mental, and I can’t blame him for it. And then the guy was dicking about with the wiring while all wet. I wonder what the mortality rate is for electricity-related workers here…..
Finally, I saw a cracking car sticker today – it was from BP and said “Stop being Negligent…. TO AVOID ACCIDENTS”. Very catchy, I must say.
Today I was awoken by the house-girl (Farida, it sounds like) calling me ‘cos there was no key for the front gate. I was half awake anyway, but still felt weird. She just said “Gate”. She’s a bit terse, that one. I’ve tried the odd ‘Asante’ at her, but she just shrugs them off. Hmmm. Slim is weird; although he’s clearly popular and generous, on a personal level I find him to be quite rude; he thinks nothing of cutting people off in conversation, and he seems to be very shouty and rude in Swahili. And there is, of course the leaving me to be poked fun at during dinner, etc. But I can’t really say anything as I still have another 15 full days left. And it turns out that he’s making the return journey with me as well, so that’s another one, although at least I can expect a flushing bog on a BA 767. I didn’t think I’d be looking forward to a 9-hour flight followed by a 90 minute drive, but I really am.
Today’s lesson went well, until the power went off just after lunch. Last night one of the cables from the transformer over the road was glowing red hot, and I guess it just had enough. It meant an impromptu drumming session on a table, and still only one of the four has some rhythm, Mohammed (or Kabadi, depending on who speaks to him), a computer engineer, apparently. He’s pretty good at everything, and obviously has some previous experience with Cubase, although it all seems a bit random. Slim (at my request) got me an English – Swahili phrasebook. Unfortunately it seems to be from the colonial period, as it contains such classics as “Do not starch the collars”, “I want my shoes shined”, “Build the walls three meters high”, and a couple of pages for teachers to tell the class what to do. The fact that most of these things would then get responses that you wouldn’t have a clue about is clearly lost on the writers. I’ve expanded my vocabulary to include yes, no, shop, please, water, and goodbye. I’m crap at languages so that will do for the day, or I’ll forget the lot. Slim’s giving it large about how I should now speak Swahili all the time, but as they all speak at a thousand miles an hour and I’ve got a dodgy phrasebook, I think not. Ironically, his English isn’t as good as he likes to think it is, and he also often mispronounces words, and when I say “pardon”, he’ll say it really loudly as if I’m an idiot. He was talking about baked beans this morning and it sounded like bacon beans. When he said it again, on the third time it was a little less unclear, and he was saying bay-ked beans. His ‘D’s sound like ‘N’s a lot of the time. And also his ‘K’s like ‘G’s. Which helps a lot. Anyway, saying things as if the white man is an idiot seems to be a favourite pastime, as a guy said “Hello, how are you?” in English the other day, and I say “I’m fine, how are you?”. Because he couldn’t understand me (even at the third s-l-o-w time of saying it), he asked if I was not English. Hmm, yes.
Last night’s dinner (Fish and coconut sauce, etc) did not go down well. I thought I was going to be sick all night, and there’s no water so I’ve not had a poo either yet today. I guess I should go and fill up a bucket and take it from there, as no doubt the sooner it’s out the better. Oh joy. That’s another thing I won’t miss; here my toilet’s (open, but netted) windows face to Slim’s driveway / entrance hall and one behind as well, so every sound can be heard as clear as day. Which makes for some interesting attempts at stealth pooing. Clearly my bowels can read as they’re starting up now at the mention of their name. Off for a bucket of water….
….which the maid insists on bringing. I feel odd having someone do something that I’m perfectly capable and willing to do, but I suppose I should get used to it. Dinner was cooked by Slim, and followed the now usual pattern of having been built up beforehand to being rather a disappointment. He had said that (a) he was a great cook, and (b) it would be fillet. Instead it was over-cooked (by several orders of magnitude), with a pepper taste that you could clean a toilet with, and was probably the toughest cut of beef I have ever encountered. Slim did say that he got to the store too late, and that the fillet had gone…. It has to be said though that the potatoes were heavenly; the chips I had the other day were fantastic too, so the local potatoes must be top-line. I ate way too much as I had lots of potatoes and Slim served me another slice of well-done T-Rex, which being English I was too polite to turn down. I am now paying for that with a leaden stomach. The evening was passed in the now-traditional manner, on the steps out front. The guy who lives in the front room of the house is very friendly, and his English is good; what’s more he seems to like talking in English (as does one of his friends), so that helped pass the time. He told several amusing stories about hunting Buffalo, and some other things too. The rest of the evening was spent with a bit of a verbal sword-fight with Slim; I figure that if he can be rude to me, I should not be afraid of speaking my mind. So I did, firstly on the subject of terrorism, which seems to be a favourite subject of his. People here seem to view Osama Bin Laden as some kind of a hero for dealing a bloody nose to the west. And yet all of them dream of coming to Europe, and all the kids here want to look and act American. Where’s the logic there? Anyway, I set Slim straight on the subject of terrorism – firstly that it’s old news in England because the IRA have been around as long as I can remember, secondly that if it wasn’t ‘because of the USA’s presence in Saudi Arabia’ it’d be something else; OBL is an evil madman, and would kill people just for the sake of anything that came to mind. And thirdly that terrorism is the act of a coward. Only a coward would attack innocent people by surprise, and not stand up for what he believed in. I don’t know how this went down, but frankly I don’t care; the man is a coward, and I’d say that to the most fanatical of his supporters (as long as they weren’t armed, or I was suitably tooled up to match).
I’m still thinking that either the trip to Zanzibar or the National Park (Mikumi) will somehow ‘fall through’ – Slim was acting as if we have three weekends left, and was saying that we’ll stay here this weekend. It took me three goes to tell him that we only have two left, so that would be both of them taken care of. I don’t really want to see a local concert instead of going to either of those two places, so I’ll need to keep on the case there. Everything else so far has been less than was promised (apart from not having to spend any money; so far I’ve not spent a penny), and I’m expecting that to fall into the same category. I hope not, as that’s really the only payment I’ll get for these three weeks; as an experience this has been a great deal different from what I was expecting (and indeed what I was told to expect…)
The AC now works too well, and I had to turn it off because I was cold! I’ll turn it down tonight…. No more omelettes for breakfast for me, ‘cos I’m egg-bound. One extreme to the other! A plumber turned up and Slim asked if all the taps were OK, which they are, but I told him the toilet doesn’t flush. So the guy came over and had a look, and pulled random bits out of the cistern – a float, a valve, and a few other things that were just hanging about in the water rather than serving any purpose. He’s gone off to get some parts, so he’ll probably be back in a day or two. With the wrong ones, if British plumbers are anything to go by.
It’s become irrelevant by lunchtime, as the water is off. Again. I have planned ahead though, and filled a bucket so I can at least get a couple of flushes before having another housegirl guilt scenario.
Weird. I had thought it would be a good idea to follow a musical equivalent of the prime directive and not try to influence the boys’ musical learning, but it became impossible not to show them some stuff, which they have lapped up and treated like gospel. And then I just showed them a simple 1 4 5 chord progression, and they absolutely loved it; it was like they’d been given a huge gift. They’re working on their own now, so maybe they’ll get the hang of it, as everything else had been one chord or just adding more notes which sounded, er, interesting at best.
I’ve got some early Verve playing now, and it’s really depressing. I’ll put something else on; I noticed when I drove to Gatwick to go to Egypt that a lot of my music was depressing, so maybe I should play something else. Yeah, Van Halen should do the trick. Atomic Punk! Yeah!
The afternoon went well, so well that I did an extra 90 minutes without noticing. Had another t-rex dinner, with some weird kind of bread made from maize. It’s used to coat the food you’re eating, so you rip off a big bit, and squash the meat into it, and eat the lot. It was OK, but really filling, so I didn’t eat much. Met another guy who “has a studio” in town, and I’m going there to see it at some point, as it sounds as if he needs some help. I’m a transcontinental studio fix-it-boy. Lazed around again (and got good at FreeCell…), and then went to the Internet Café. It was 33p for an hour, which is pretty good. Granted it took nearly 10 minutes to sort my e-mail out, and out of 242 mails, only four were for me. One was from Lauren which was nice. I didn’t mean to go overboard with the reply, but ended up writing a lot. Like I always do when I mail her, fool that I am. Although she said I looked “hot” in my holiday photos, so that’s nice. Unless she’s taking the piss, of course. Or meant hot as in temperature. Whatever. Mailed Mum, and cleared up a few things that I couldn’t mention when on the phone, although Slim was only just behind me, so it wasn’t exactly no holds barred. That can wait for when I’m at home. And then I mailed Stu, to kind of set the seed for my little joke of having converted when I get home. It wasn’t over the top, just saying I’d seen how the other side lived, and that a guy was asking me to convert, which was true. Ho ho ho. Then had chips at some dodgy outdoor café. The chips were ace, but the chicken was almost totally bereft of any meat. There was a bunch of cats hanging out for scraps, so I fed them as much as I ate, and then they fought over the bones. It was clearly something that didn’t happen often, ‘cos I gave one of them I liked the look of a “big” chunk of chicken, and he couldn’t believe it, just staring at it, and then when it was in his mouth he seemed to be surprised and thinking ‘What do I do now?’. And then he ran off. And then it was off to the ice-cream stand at a petrol station. Lovely ice-cream, and a chance to watch the idiot public van drivers rocking their vans while they filled them up as they seem to think they can get more fuel in that way. People can be really stupid sometimes.
Oh, I’ve only just noticed that it’s Friday the 13th. Well, something bad has happened; the milk that was with breakfast was ‘on the turn’, and I had a few spoonfuls before realising it. My guts have really been playing up today, and the problem with it being like this is that I know full well there will be no respite from the unclean nature of everything here. If it was at home, you know that you can just go home, and you’ll be OK. Here, every food or drink can be a source of more arse-wrong, and you don’t know until it’s too late. Even had to dive out of the lessons a couple of times to dash to the bog; not ‘cos of runs or anything, just really needing to go. And there’s more toilet news, ‘cos the plumber is back with the parts. Although it turns out the parts were here the same day, he just couldn’t be arsed to fit them! He’s struggling with it now, although I don’t think he’s brought the “flush” part of the bog, just the new valve and float. It sounds as if he’s flooding the place, but he seems unworried. Although it’s hard for him to work as it’s getting dark now, and the lights in there don’t work. Even he seemed surprised at that. Hope he likes cockroaches. I’ve just realised that all my washing stuff is in there, so I hope it doesn’t get caked in shite; the lav looks less than clean on the outside, so the inside is probably a right mess.
I can’t believe the way Slim talks to people; it’s not just that he’s talking in Swahili, and therefore at about 800mph, but his tone and manner are really rude, if you ask me. I’m sure it can be frustrating talking to people who are stupid and lazy (I know plenty of ‘em), but he just totally flies off the handle at everything. The boys had a problem in the studio that meant they had to interrupt my lunch lazing, and all it was was the volume on the Proteus synth was turned down; no big deal, and not obvious if you don’t know; once you do know you’d never do it again. Slim was in the studio when I sorted it out, and he got really angry with Ibrahim (who is a good kid, basically, and a decent student), and smacked him round the back of the head, telling me that’s what they do at schools here. I only said “Well, we don’t do that at my school”, and left it at that. If he played up, fair enough, but that was out of order.
It’s been really hot today as well; I’ve sweated buckets. I had a funny thing with the maid today as well; I took one of my glasses back to the kitchen, and she obviously heard me and came out of her room, ready to serve. She asked if I wanted water, and I said no, and I was trying to explain, which she found funny, so I just did a universal-language shrug, that it didn’t matter, after trying to start a sentence. So that was funny. At the time, anyway.
The evening went like many of the others; it occurred to me that Slim hasn’t once asked me what I want to do in all the time I’ve been here; I went out front to see what was on, and he said that I “should be ready, now!”; I’d already washed, and was just seeing what was needed, clothes-wise. So I got ready in all of 30 seconds, and he’d vanished inside. It was about 20 minutes before he re-appeared. And then we had to wait for someone, during which time some drunk tosser turned up and was really annoying and rude; he’d been told by Slim that he needed my permission to look in the studio, so I gave him it (for what it was worth), and after he came out, he just got abusive about me not speaking Swahili. I tried to be pleasant, but he pushed me at one point, and normally I’d have pushed him back, but ‘cos of the situation I didn’t. Luckily we went soon after that, and I told Slim that if he pushed me (or anyone else, for that matter), then they’d get my usual response rather than the polite Englishman routine. I can’t believe how bloody rude some of these people are.
Dinner was a pizza, which was all of £3, for a 13” one. And then we went to what Slim said was a concert, at the Police Mess Hall. But (surprise) I wasn’t allowed in for some reason (this wasn’t explained to me), so we didn’t stay. I got the feeling that Slim knew that was going to be the case all along, and was just carrying on some business anyway. We then went to the local “concert hall” which looks like an semi-open-air market building, with 100 ceiling fans running, and the worst acoustics I’ve ever had the misfortune to suffer. This, combined with the overdriven, underpowered PA and probably the most banal collection of “rappers” (and I use the term loosely, having seen some talented ones in my time, of which these were none) ever assembled in one town at any given moment, made for a completely awful evening of “entertainment”. I feigned illness from the milk issues earlier on, and came home. Slim, of course, went back out, no doubt to recapture his youth or something.
That’s more than a week I’ve been here. It seems like an age, it really does. In two weeks I’ll be back at home, and when I close my eyes, I can imagine how good my bed will feel. And drinking straight from the tap, and milk from the fridge. Heaven.
Two things. Firstly, today is Valentine’s day, which is lovely. Especially as it’s a real novelty over here, so they’re going totally overboard on it; they’re in an embryonic capitalist exploitation phase and making use of everything they possibly can. I’ve heard more than enough about it, and possibly ‘cos I won’t be getting any this year. B O O – H O O.
Second, the toilet still doesn’t work. The guy obviously set it up so it would work once, and he did look a bit worried when Slim tested it. But it doesn’t even fill the cistern now….
… so I put my DIY head on, and made it at least do that. I have a (small) water tank serving my room, so by stopping it draining away maybe I’ll suffer a bit less from the no water scenario. Intercontinental DIY too….
Finally went to see some of Dar, albeit on what was a thinly-disguised trip for Slim to see some people and get some truck bits. But I took some pictures and saw some more weird stuff. There are guys making chips on big woks in the street that look like they haven’t been cleaned since the British left the country. I didn’t get to take a picture though, which was a pity. I didn’t think it would go down too well. Found that one of Ibrahim’s friends (called Mohammed, like about 50% of the male population here) plays the guitar. He’d come with his notebook and some questions about the basic music theory I’d done with the boys the other day, so I went through some more stuff with him and showed him some chords on the guitar, which are now being furiously copied down by everyone else. I’ll send them a guitar tutor book when I get home. The guitar had an action like the clichéd eggslicer, and the fretboard actually sunk into the top of the guitar too. Really hard to play, but it was better than nothing. I started longing for my Strats at that point. Tomorrow we’re going to another beach, apparently, so that will be a nice way to spend the afternoon, and maybe get some kind of a tan. I’m pretty tired, it’s 4pm, and I’m in my room (surprise surprise). It’s too hot outside, so it’s OK here.
However, there is a problem. I got my washing back, and was pleased to see that the red T-shirt hasn’t turned everything else I had washed pink. But the problem is I now know why everyone smells. ‘cos I smell now. And it’s not because I haven’t washed, it’s because I’m wearing the first T-shirt of the wash, and it smelled a bit bad when I put it on. Now I’ve been wearing it for 6 hours, my sweat has obviously re-activated the latent sweaty smell in the shirt, and I’m feeling pretty smelly. But it’s a different kind of smelly from that you get if you just don’t wash; this is a really stale smell; it reminds me of the kind of fat bloke wearing a vest you always see as the desk guy looking after the per-hour hotel in American films. Luckily I’ve saved my “Star Wars” T-Shirt, and I’m pleased about that, cos at least I can smell good on the way home. Which I’ve also found out is 11 hours on the plane. I’ll have to try and get some sleep during that time; going back in time is always harder than forward for me, and I don’t want to fall asleep driving home, and I also want to be in a fit state to go out on Saturday night. Although it’ll probably not happen or be an anti-climax. Oh boy, do I sound negative! But I’m probably building up a Saturday night out in Bournemouth to be a little more than it actually is. But I’m sure I’ll have more of a laugh than I have done here. I’m wondering what tonight has in store; I’ve got no desire/reason to stay out until 4am, ‘cos there’s nothing to keep me there. If I met someone I could either have a laugh with or a conversation, then fair enough, but that seems about as likely as winning the lottery. I’ve had to relent and put the AC on in here, ‘cos it’s still pretty sweaty in here, and I really don’t like the smell. God only knows what it’ll smell like next week…. I’ll really fit in though, I suppose….
Went out and had a decent night out, because we met up with Saif and his friend and played a few games of pool (with the worst cues I’ve ever seen, along with tables with massive pockets, making things a whole lot easier), and then went to the club we went to before, but it was fun because there were a few of us and we had a good laugh. It’s always better when there’s more of you, and it meant that Slim could go off and talk to his mates without me just standing there like a tool. I danced to plenty of music that I wouldn’t even be in the same room as by choice at home, but no-one knows about that, and I’m not telling! It’s 3:38 as I write this, and we only came home because the power went off in the Disco, meaning that there was just blackness and no music. It came on once we were on our way out, because the place has a massive diesel generator outside, but I think Slim was tired. And I’d had enough without it being a drag; I’m pretty tired, and my feet hurt, which I found out (when I got back here) was because my bites were playing up; I don’t know why, but my feet have several bites on them – I’ve only had two on the rest of me, but my feet have six. I guess I’ll need the repellent on all day on my feet as something (not a mosquito) has taken a liking to them, and it’s only been since I’ve binned the socks and trainers during the day. They’re really sore at the moment, as I gave them a scratch, fool that I am, when I got in….
My feet kept me up all night. Probably scratched them while I was asleep, and woke up at 9am, but felt like poo, so I stayed in bed until 11, playing the many card games on the laptop. Had breakfast (and tried out some more Swahili) before finding that Slim wanted me to drive a car back from DES town centre. Which seemed OK to me. So off we went, and I ended up driving his Nissan back, which was nice, despite being an automatic. Went to Coco Beach, which looked amazing. However, when I got in the water, I realised why there were so few people swimming – there were really sharp rocks all over the place, as well as hard-spiked sea urchins. There were sandy places to go to, but there was still the odd surprise here and there. I trod on one, and ended up with four broken off spines in my right little toe, which I had to pull out later on. We played a couple of games of pool (with the worst cues and table I have ever experienced – at one point bouncing off the cushion the ball jumped over an inch in the air!), and then came home. Then we went to a place called the Slipway, which was like an American-style open-air shopping and food place; there were a lot of people hanging out there, and most of them looked American in the way they dressed and acted, something that seems to be the way all over the place. Then it was “Fish and chips”, although the fish wasn’t exactly English style, and was way too bony for my liking – every piece I had (and we’re talking small pieces here) was full of bones. Chips were good though. Slim told everyone that you can’t get chips like that in England, which I corrected and was told that I was wrong. It turned out he’d only ever bought ‘chips’ from McDonalds, and had extrapolated that into real chips not being available in England. A typical example of a what’s happened a lot so far. Then the drunken annoying bloke turned up, so I went to bed.
After today there are only 10 days before I go. I’m over half way through, but it seems like I’ve been here forever. The slow Swahili learning rate is something that I want to address; I think part of the problem is me being utterly crap at languages, and part of it because the phrase book I have doesn’t make it clear what the words mean; with a book that explained the words and structure and so on, it would be much better for me to learn from, so I’ll see if I can get one that will teach me.
Did some sampling with the boys, but had an interruption from Slim. He’d given Ibrahim a 5000 Shilling note (just under £3) yesterday to get some stuff, and Ibrahim hadn’t given him the change. So he came in and gave him a bollocking and said he was a thief and all sorts. Ibrahim gave him the change, but Slim kept on. It was really embarrassing – I didn’t know where to look, I really didn’t, and I could see how angry Ibrahim was. If you’re going to give someone a going over, I don’t think you should do it in front of the other people, and yet that’s exactly what Slim does every time – in fact on Saturday he asked me to come into the office (he said he had something to show me), and then gave Hassan a bollocking for turning up 30 minutes late on a Saturday to do some sequencing on his own. He just went on and on about it. At every opportunity he’ll give someone a dressing down; Said was going to put up some new curtain wire, and he came in with Slim to measure it, and he gave him a going over, for what I don’t know. But he has a really bad anti-African vibe all the time, always slagging the people off. They just seem like normal people to me; every population has its people who are late, lazy, and so on. I mean, the level of workmanship and safety is clearly not what I’m used to, but largely the people seem the same, apart from their customs and so on.
In the evening managed to get the phonecard details to Mum – made the initial call via an internet phone which was a dodgy experience in the phone place next to the internet café; it cost 1500 shillings which is just under £1. I hate to think what my phone bill will be like for the times I’ve called home, but that’s just a little surprise for me; although I’ve obviously not earned a penny in the last couple of weeks, I’ve not spent anything either, so it’s not all bad. Spent quite a long time doing my Cubase SX manual; the time I’ve had here has been handy for doing that and I’ve been trying to do four pages a day, which might not sound like much, but when you’re trying to run Word, Photoshop and SX on this laptop, it can slow down a bit, and when Word does an auto-save it locks up for about a minute. It’s coming on OK, and I think I’ll turn it into a PDF and sell it on eBay as it’s a pretty good primer for using it. There are all sorts of things that I could sell on there, as I’ve done loads of manuals for things.
Postman Pat has gone! My curtains have been changed by Ibrahim and me, so now I have a matching (!) pair of curtains, rather than Postman Pat, some flowery things and a third curtain which was like a net, but thicker, like a big doyley. Nice. Spent the morning doing intervals with the boys, which was hard; they have no real musical experience here; all the things you take for granted in England (and indeed most of the west) is just absent; most people know the do-re-mi song from the Sound of Music, but people here don’t, or anything else, so trying to explain intervals to them is pretty tough going, as they are alien concepts to them. Managed to get Mohamed to recognise fifths and octaves (he’s good at everything), so hopefully he can explain better to them using their own terms; it’s hard when you don’t have any references that you can make to people in their own culture, etc. Gave up on that and did some rhythm stuff as well, getting up to remembering four (simple) bars of clapping. Did some more complex stuff too (two complex bars), but during the simple four, Slim came in and started making out that it was too easy, so I went back to the complex one, which he couldn’t get near, and most of them could (Mohamed was spot on), and he left. Ho ho ho. He shouldn’t rubbish their achievements, as they are trying hard, and concentrate for two hours at a stretch, which is no mean feat.
And the good news is that we’re going to Zanzibar tomorrow, at 7am. I don’t think there will be room to take the laptop, so a couple of days will probably have to go without being documented. Never mind. I’ve got to take as much memory as I can for the camera though as I think this will be the main course, picture-wise; I understand from Enrico (a local producer who I had a good chat with last night and whose studio I’m going to take a look at tonight) that Mikumi doesn’t have so many animals in it, so I might not see anything to photograph. I’m sure I won’t be able to take a photo to trump Lauren’s one of her with a Cheetah, that’s for sure. Darn!
Dinner was billed as T-Bone steak and chips. Well, there was bone involved, but (as ever) the steak was a la Apollo Capsule on re-entry, and (something that I hadn’t really noticed, but now seems obvious) was, like all the other meat, heavily salted. It was as tough as a pair of size 10 Doc Martens, although it was reasonably tasty, I guess. Not much of it though, so I had a large helping of the (ever delicious) chips to shore up a rather small dinner.
I’ve just come back from Enrico’s studio. It was a long drive, about 10km out of town but it seemed more like 40 – took an age to get there. The studio was two small rooms – a small live room and a tiny control room, with a PC, Mackie 24-8 mixer, some outboard, a couple of keyboards and some badly-placed monitor speakers (off to one side!). The music he’d done sounded OK, but pretty basic, and not really my bag. But he had a few tech things that needed sorting, and it was a piece of cake to do, and he seemed really glad of getting them done! Outside it was really dark, and the stars just shone so beautifully that I kept staring up at the sky – everyone thought I was a bit mental. Enrico seemed really glad that I’d come, and wanted to give me something for doing it, but it didn’t seem right. I’ll sort him out some sample CDs when I get back, too, cos he seems like a really nice guy. It’s now midnight, and I’ve got to be up at 6am to get going by 6:30. Although judging by Slim’s timekeeping that will be more like 7.
Well, I’m back from Zanzibar! I’ll go over what I can.
Firstly, I couldn’t have breakfast before I went. I was surprised that Slim had decided that it would be best for me not to eat, because he gets seasick, so therefore everyone must get seasick. I protested, and then was told there was no milk, so no breakfast. Which was inconsequential, but led onto a story later. Got to the ferry, and had some grief getting on; after 5 minutes or so we were finally let on, and I asked why. It turns out that if you’re foreign you have to pay double the amount for the ferry ride, and as I was white they said I’d have to pay. This is racism, plain and simple. And total bollocks. I tried explaining to Slim that the price of the ferry ride shouldn’t be any different regardless of who I was or where I was from; it costs a certain amount for the ferry to operate, and then their profit and so on, and then they divide by the number of passengers. He was surprised when I said it was racist, and then said how racist Europe is. Well, I don’t think anywhere in Europe operates a “foreigners pay more” scheme on a private transport system. Anyway, rant over. No wonder their tourism isn’t what it could be.
Got to Zanzibar, and had to produce my passport. Good job I happened to have it; no-one had mentioned that I’d need it at any point. Passport people were as surly as ever, and no instructions or whatever were given at any point; I just happened in the right direction. Then we got a taxi, but stopped outside a “café” for breakfast. Well, I say breakfast; Slim said that everyone eats soup for breakfast, so I thought “OK, weird, but why not”. I soon regretted it when the ‘soup’ arrived. In essence, it was two unknown pieces of a to-be-confirmed animal (basically two big bones with some meat hanging off) that had been put in hot water. It was utterly hideous, and made my stomach crawl as soon as I tasted it. You only got a spoon, so the only way to eat it was to pick up the bones and strip the meat off. And the meat tasted like complete shite. So I said “this is disgusting”, and left it. I took a picture though, as it was unbelievable otherwise.
Then it was off to the hotel, the “New Modern Hotel” as it was called. After some more skinflinting/negotiation a “self contained double” room was settled upon, and we were shown upstairs to room B1. A natty little end of corridor number, it sported two mosquito-net equipped beds (with mattresses made of some kind of thermoplastic/foam rubber combination, with hard and soft spots), a violently noisy mid-70s (from the chrome and wood effect) Toshiba “Air Conditioner”, and a bathroom that looked like it had last been cleaned during the Crimean war; it had a solid backbone of limescale running along the middle, as well as a broken shower-head, a toilet with a cover but no seat, sunken tiles at one end which had gone brown with the evaporated water, and some of the dodgiest electrics I have had the misfortune of witnessing; there was a lampholder set in to the wall above the sink (with no lamp, and I presume live terminals), and a water heater above the bath which was surface wired, with a standard switch mounted about two feet above the bath! Talk about breaking every rule in the book. Except there probably is no book to put rules in here. Anyway, it was OK, and actually reasonably clean despite the bathroom. Off we went, and it turned out that my thoughts that this would turn into another thinly-disguised chance for Slim to catch up with people he knew was correct; the hotel “just happened” to be outside his sister-in-law’s house (although the nature of this sister-in-law’s relationship to him was not made clear, despite three attempts to explain it at my request, so we went there for a bit. And then it was into the town, which was a bustling marketplace, with the narrow streets and ageing ancient architecture I’d known to expect. One thing that I hadn’t, however, was the products; Zanzibar’s website promotes it as a simple and old-fashioned place, untouched by modern trends and markets. Which meant it came as a surprise to me to find that there were more shops selling mobile phones and Beckham footie shirts than anything traditional. Indeed most of the shops were just selling things you’d find anywhere – office furniture, mass-produced copy clothing, mobile phone covers, hardware, etc. As we went on, we spent more time with Slim talking to an old mate, and me staring at the near-bereft contents of a shop for extended periods. This has become a theme for the entire time I’ve been here. On we went, until we found the fruit market, which was more like it, and at every turn something new was to be seen – giant bananas as long as your forearm, huge avocados – everything was familiar but new, and all in a bustling noisy atmosphere where most people had business to do rather than stand around. And then it was onto the fish market. This is probably hypocrisy coming from a meat-eater, but I don’t like to see large (and sometimes rare) fish caught for food. The sight of a bisected shark on a slab made me feel very sad to be human. Seeing it covered in flies and going to waste was even worse. Next there was a sailfish, a good 6 feet long, on the floor, blackened, and presumably rotting. There were lots of small fish, and octopuses and so on, and the smell was awful; the heat and humidity made it much much worse than anything I’ve smelled anywhere else that deals in fish, and there was (of course) no ice for anything. We turned around, and out the other end I felt even worse when I saw a Manta Ray on the floor, with the centre section missing, and flies everywhere. It would have probably been 6-8 feet from tip to tip, and a beautiful animal like this shouldn’t be killed for food, let alone to sit rotting. Next we entered the furniture section, where everything was made of solid mahogany, and looked fantastic; Zanzibar has a rich history of elaborate carving (as seen in the door frames all over the town), and the beds lived up to this. We met Slim’s “brother” (although he wasn’t his brother), Salim Salim. He seemed nice and friendly, and spoke good English, and also bothered to do so which I liked. Then we went to get some sugar cane juice. The canes were pushed through a giant mangle (several times), and the resulting juice is sieved, and put in a glass with a few ice-cubes and a dash of lime. The resulting drink has to be taken first-hand to be believed; it was incredibly sweet, but not in a forced, processed way. It tasted beautiful, it really did, and a pint of it went down very quickly, something that I’ll definitely drink again.
More wandering around meant meeting up with more of Slim’s mates, and eventually we went to see one again at the Dhow countries music academy, a non-profit making school for teaching traditional music. It seemed like a haven in the hot day, being on the second floor of a quay-side building; it was fantastic to hear the students playing together, and have the breeze blow through the open windows. Spent some time being given a tour by the director (a friend of a friend, etc), and then found out that they had a sequencing setup that was given to them by the British government that had some problems; they called the teacher (Mike) who said he’d come over, and in a while he did. He was a chap from Northern Ireland, and it was really nice to have someone to talk to where I could say what I wanted in the way I wanted and not be misunderstood; having a working vocabulary of a language is one thing, but to really know how to speak it I think you need to be in that country, and obviously no-one here does. Anyway, it was a piece of cake to sort out the problems, and nice to do something good for such a great place. Slim was obviously getting impatient, but I thought that it was quite lucky that I happened to be there, so I spent some time going over things with Mike before leaving. Then it was into the museum where we saw how the Sultans lived; it was odd looking back because so many things (from the turn of the last century) seem mundane now (like the bathroom did), and yet at the time they were no doubt the height of opulence. But it was plain to see that the place doesn’t generate enough money for maintenance, and no doubt in a few years time will be having serious problems with both the exhibits and the building itself. This seems to be a common theme throughout Zanzibar. We wandered through town and found the “Tradewinds” restaurant on the third floor of a large building, and had a good dinner, and then meandered back to the hotel through the near-deserted streets; all the activity had evaporated as the day grew old, and now there were just a few people about, apart from the very heart of the market. After a couple of hours’ rest, we went to Salim Salim’s house, and I really wasn’t looking forward to spending another night being the object of Swahili-based humour. But fortunately Salim is a man who knows how to treat his guests, and an interesting one at that. He’s very old-school, and clearly doesn’t believe in a lot of modern technology, eschewing air conditioning and electric typewriters, among other things. Dinner was served on a mat on the floor in a separate room, and Slim proudly proclaimed that it was Zanzibar style, which Salim corrected as being Arab-style. It looked much like the Bedouin dinners I saw advertised in Africa, and was really good, aside from one thing (meatballs in bread) which were way too hot for me; everything else was lovely, and Salim kept the conversation in English as much as possible, and also told Slim off for ignoring me! Once dinner was done, we went for a walk, and along the seafront to see a bustling market having sprung up there, with all sorts of seafood and tourist items on offer. I would have thought that eating any of it would be tantamount to suicide, as every stall had a lot of food there, ready cooked, and yet no-one seemed to be buying; I wondered how many nights these prawns had seen…
After more business deals (I wondered why we had to walk to the end of the line of stalls, and found out as Slim met two guys to try to sell each his cars), off we went to bed. Which was difficult as the AC unit sounded like it wanted out of the wall, and the mattress had hard and soft bits in and was not good at all. Come 7am it was time to get up, so off we went, dumped the stuff over the road, and went to get on a boat to Prison Island. The boat was probably pre-revolution (possibly pre-Russian revolution), but did the trick; we got to prison island in about half an hour, and it was fantastic; a big beach out the front, and a little office where you had to pay. Slim made much about paying, and I think he was trying to make out that I was a resident in Tanzania, as they got a discount. But we’re talking less than £1, and this went on for 10 minutes. This might sound rude, but by now I was getting really pissed off with this; I’d pay the extra myself as I’d rather not be hanging around listening to abrupt Swahili exchanges and looking at the ceiling like an embarrassed schoolboy. At every turn Slim is trying to save money, which is fair enough, but we’re talking pennies here, and spending way too much time trying to save them. Eventually he pays the full price, and then (here’s the punchline) we’re told that you can’t visit the prison, only the giant tortoises as the prison has been bought by someone and there’s building work going on. After seeing the tortoises (which really are huge, and well worth a visit), we go back to the hut and the argument over the prison rages on. It seems lost on Slim that the guy taking the money is just a flunky and not a decision maker, like arguing with a server at McDonalds about the cost of a big mac. Anyway, I got bored of this and went for a wander on the beach, and saw some amazing volcanic rock structures, came back (still arguing) and then sat in the sun. Finally we could go for the snorkelling, which was really why I came to the island anyway. I ended up having to get the boat, ‘cos the tide had taken it away from the beach (although it was anchored, the rope was very long), and the ‘captain’ only had jeans on, and I was in my shorts! The water was warm and crystal clear, and about 500 meters away he anchored, and I went for a dive. It was great; nothing was too deep, and there was loads of life down there. Had some camera issues with steaming up, but saw beautiful long-fingered blue starfish, anemone fish (a first for me), a huge angelfish (who was too shy to get a picture of), sergeant majors, loads of small fish I have no idea about, and lots of interesting coral. It was great, and spent a good hour in there, without a wetsuit on; the water was just the right temperature. Then went a bit further round the back of the island and saw all sorts of other things, including some other starfish, a sea cucumber or two, hundreds of sea urchins (first time I’ve noticed their five shiny points and their eye or whatever in the middle, although it didn’t come out well on the photo), and more anemone-fish, although these weren’t two-striped ones. There was so much to see I spent about 90 minutes in there, and ran the battery out on the camera. Fantastic, and I really was over the moon about what I saw; I didn’t get anywhere near enough in the way of good pictures, but I’ve got some more fish I need to identify when I get home.
And then it was back to base, now Salim Salim’s house, for a (cold) shower, some food and then off we went, again with more skinflinting to be done; firstly with the cabbie, and secondly (after some BS from the passport people) with the boat people because I’m a whitey. Hmmmm.
When we got off at Dar, everyone waiting at the port was a taxi driver. So how the hell we ended up with the walking disaster zone we did, I really don’t know. Oh yes I do, it was price-based; we probably saved about 50p by using this guy. So, he’s got a Toyota mini-van. Which looked like a piece of brown shit. And when we opened the side door, it did nothing to dispel this initial feeling as (a) the door nearly fell off, (b) the interior smelled like it had been used for transporting wet, dead rodents, and (c) one of the seats had two positions; either fully forward (with about 30 degrees between back and base) and fully back (with 180, no doubt intended for sleeping). And then it got worse; I thought that a taxi would involve just a single party, but then three other people joined us in the turd of doom, and we falteringly made our way into the traffic. This van was beyond being condemned; every component of it was knackered, and by that I mean even down to the knobs on the radio and probably the floor too. The engine clearly had something terminal wrong with it, and stalled at every opportunity, something that was obvious as when running it would emit a loud tapping sound, and I could feel the vibration through the floor. The driver was clearly not the full ticket as we cut corners and drove on the wrong side of the road at every opportunity, even managing to shock the local residents. And as part of Slim’s economy drive we had to stop by his brother’s to drop off some bananas he’d bought in Zanzibar. But his brother’s road is on a hill (although we’re only talking maybe 10 degrees, maximum), and this was clearly beyond the specifications of the brown beast, and it struggled in the way that Olympic weightlifters do shortly before either pissing their pants or breaking something requiring surgery. Several near-misses later I bundled across the broken seat to get out of the Toyota, and then dunce-man spent several fruitless minutes trying to put my suitcase into Slim’s drive, eventually moving to the right place, but down the narrowest possible route.
Ah, my suitcase. That reminds me. Now, I’m not really that worried about it, but as everything about the guy has been pissing me off, I’ll put this down. OK, so we used my suitcase, fine. But had to shove it full of crap, both on the way over and back, and whenever Slim moved it it would be over rough ground – i.e. Dakar rally style rough ground. That is not the time to use the tiny little wheels on a suitcase. Unless you’re Slim Slim when you just drag it down the road and beat the shit out of it anyway – after all, it’s not yours, so why care.
And while I’m on the subject, hypocrisy. While in Zanzibar, we were at a sea-front area (sort of café, but in the open) and having some food. Apart from the amusing moment when a bird shat on the guy, there was something else; he spends (as I have mentioned) a lot of time slagging Africans off for being lazy, messy, etc,etc. And this time it was leaving rubbish everywhere; Zanzibar would be a much more beautiful place if they had some bins, but still people should take their crap home. Which they don’t. This got a good outing from Slim, and yet that evening he dumped a drinks can on the floor and a couple of bottles of water went the same way. And outside the house here, the same thing happens; he berates those in the street for making a mess and clogging up the drainage ditch, and yet he throws stuff into the street. And we’re talking plastic here, kids, not something that an animal might eat or might rot. Not that that would be good, but you get the idea.
Rant over. Guess I’ll go see what the boys have been up to, although my back is rather sunburnt from the diving….
Oh, I just typed “August” there, so I guess that’s some kind of Freudian slip. It seems like an age that I’ve been here. Didn’t sleep at all well last night, as yesterday’s snorkelling has taken its toll as I have a sunburnt back. It hurts to move, and obviously that’s something you do a lot when you sleep, so I felt as if I’d really not been in bed long, despite the clock telling me it was a full eight hours. Had another embarrassing episode of Slim giving someone a dressing down in my direction; this was because no-one had washed up the food things yesterday, so today they won’t get fed. Which is fair enough, I suppose, but why I have to be dragged into it so he can rant in my direction about them in front of them, I really don’t know. He was babbling on about them being “primitive people” and that they don’t want to evolve and live a clean, modern life. I didn’t know where to look, like the other times. Maybe I’m just an up-tight Englishman, but stuff like that really isn’t pleasant, and I wish he’d do it in private. If you want to embarrass someone, fine, but not your guests, eh? I know if I say anything about it it will fall on deaf ears, so I’ll not bother. At the moment my room is being used for a “stocktake” of the shirts that Slim has the wardrobes stuffed with, so I’m not exactly having the usual quiet, relaxing break, which I could really do with as I’m pretty wound up today. I need a good sleep, and a good laugh. We’re going to the national park on Sunday, so with any luck I’ll get to see some animals, although Enrico’s comments have left me doubting that! Still, it’ll be an experience anyway, although the company is getting a bit wearing, and Slim’s already told me that he has family where we’re staying, so that will no doubt be the main reason for going there. Hmmm.
And two more dressings down later…. This time I felt I had to say something; Ali and the secretary had spent the day sorting slim’s stock. And there was a lot of it, so by 6 O’clock about half was put away, and the rest was stacked neatly in my room. No problem really; I just wanted to be alone and have a nice rest. But Slim came in, saw the stuff and went mental. And got the secretary to finish the job, and gave her a telling off. And then really cut into Ali after we’d had dinner, and I felt really bad as he made him apologise to me, but really I didn’t give a shit, and I told Slim that there was no problem as far as I was concerned. But I can see Ali is not happy, and I hope that’s not in my direction, as it were. Slim then rattled on about how considerate and generous a person he is, which I find amazing given the fact that I have not once been asked my opinion on what to do, or been any part of any decision-making process (apart from Prison Island which I virtually insisted on going to because of the snorkeling, something I’m really glad that I did) at any point in the last two weeks. I could go on, but I won’t.
However, there’s a more pressing problem (excuse the pun). When I came back from Zanzibar my room smelled a bit musty; much like it did when I arrived. However, my ‘washing’ has come back, and since its arrival, my room has really started to smell bad; I came in tonight after dinner and the usual sitting outside-fest to find that the smell was pretty awful; again it’s that latent BO smell, and for most of the shirts it’s their second time round, so they’re probably getting bad. Having become semi-accustomed to the rancid stench that permeates the place most of the time, I am quite worried that I’ll still smell like a Chinese wrestler’s jock-strap on the way home and in civilisation itself, but that’s just tough, I suppose. I am so glad I’ve kept my Star Wars shirt to go home in; it’ll be really good to smell clean on the way home, or at least by current standards do so. I notice that this time none of my socks have come back, so I guess I’ll have to ask after them. We’re off to Mikumi park tomorrow (although visiting Slim’s family instead on the first night, surprise surprise, and we’ll only spend four hours in the park, which I’m more than a little disappointed about), so that will be a break from the norm; I might get to see the country rather than the messy urban sprawl that is Dar. The guy at Heathrow (Slim’s daughter’s mate, who was from here) was rattling on about how wonderful a place Tanzania is (I certainly hope he wasn’t talking about Dar), so I hope he’s right.
Not much has happened; an extra lesson for the boys because of either last week or next week taking some “time off” (?!), and in a minute it’s off to Mikumi. Camera at the ready….
Just got back from Mikumi, which was pretty cool. Saw a few animals in the environment that they should be in; the expansive plains, although in places that looked more than a little like Canford Heath, although I’d think the weather is better here. But talking of which, the weather meant that there were no lions about, as it was pretty wet, and they don’t like it and go hide somewhere. And because of the rain much of the park was closed, so we couldn’t go to where they were. It’s a bit sad not seeing them, but then that’s nature for you, isn’t it? The good points are that I got to see elephants, giraffes, zebras, gnu, storks and lots of baboons. I took quite a few pictures, but because it was a grey, overcast day, they’re not award winning or anything. But the point is that I took them, and I was (at one point) no more than 15 feet from a wild giraffe. Which is cool in my book. I could have happily spent all day driving around looking for more animals, but we only ended up spending three hours there, which flew by for me. Anyway, I’ll rewind a bit….
Set off about 3pm, and drove to Morogoro, which is about 200km away from here. The thing that struck me most about the countryside here is how green it is; it’s amazing that there is a food shortage as there are wild plants and trees everywhere; just a small amount of planning and co-ordination could stop the people of this country starving, I’m sure. The landscape wasn’t the arid plains I was expecting at all, but lush, and with trees and large plants everywhere. When we got near Morogoro the land changed as there are mountains nearby, and it looked amazing with the clouds forming on the tops and flowing down the sides. It was a pretty grey day and rained a fair amount, but that added to the near-jungle feeling. The road on the way was mainly good, with a few unmade or broken up sections, which look like they’re being fixed – much better than I was expecting.
Morogoro itself looked like I imagined – a ramshackle sprawl of tiny little buildings functioning as shops and houses, with a more developed end with two-storey buildings, but everything in a state of disrepair – the roads, the buildings, the people…. On the way over Slim had repeatedly said that he couldn’t get hold of his family there, so it would be a surprise for them to see him. And yet when we got there they seemed to have been expecting him, not looking at all surprised to see someone they’d not seen for over a year. I should have smelled a rat, but maybe it was masked by the ever-present stench of human waste! We checked into a remarkably high-quality hotel, the “Hotel Oasis”, which was very nice, all considered. Once we had checked in, Slim said that one of his cousins just happened to be getting married today, and he was off to the wedding. Which confirmed my suspicions that there was an ulterior motive for the trip in the first place, and particularly it’s timing. Hmmm. We went for dinner in the hotel restaurant, and there met a couple that Slim had already spoken to earlier on, who he said were an English couple who were cycling round the world. The husband introduced himself (in a thick American accent), and we had quite a chat; it turns out that they set out from California 22 months before, and for him this was his second round-the-world cycling trip! He seemed an interesting guy, and it also transpired that his wife was feeling a bit ill, so they wouldn’t be cycling on Sunday, and Slim asked if they wanted to come to the park with us, which they did. We arranged to meet at 7:15, and off we went; me to the room, Slim to the ‘surprise’ wedding. I was woken at 3:15am by Slim’s return, and didn’t sleep much after that as he insists on putting the AC unit on full when he’s in the room. Which meant it was noisy as hell, and as it turned out in the morning, the outside was cooler that in the room! Great! Anyway, I got up at 7am, had a shower and so on, and then was ready to go just after 7:15. It took Slim nearly half an hour to get dressed, which amazed me; we finally got to breakfast at 7:45, and I could see that the others were a bit annoyed by this, but they’d already had some less than choice comments from Slim about their age – Pat was 64 and Cat 50, and Slim said how amazing it was that such old people could be cycling, amongst other things.
So, we set off to the park, and listened to some CDs of Pat’s Cajun/Zydeco band, which was a good break from the radio fare of “Bongo Flavour” and the other stuff that Tanzanian DJs play. Slim had a few things put straight (including thinking that California doesn’t get any decent sun!), and it was a lot more fun for me having two English-speakers in the car! Before we got to the park we saw a giraffe, and elephant and some impala, as well as a whole load of baboons.
In the park was great, although everyone else ended up talking about this that and the other rather than taking in what they could see, which I found a bit odd. Got a chance to get out and stretch my legs, and then was told by Slim that I was driving, which was fine by me – not many people will be able to say they were driving in an African reserve, or saw giraffes while behind the wheel, I think! Also it left the other three in the back (we had a guide up-front) to talk about whatever – politics, business, etc. The drive back was OK too (still me), and they were going to cycle 100km the next day to a lodge near the park. Rather them than me. Got onto various topics such as homosexuals (Slim and all the guys here are seriously homophobic, which Pat and Cat wound him up about), marriage, women’s rights and so on. All of which Slim’s ‘opinion’ came from his interpretation of Islam. Which was fun. Saw an overturned large coach too, and I’d imagine a few people died in that – it had only just happened, although there was lots of help there – trucks and locals, etc.
We had lunch at an odd little place next to the hotel, where the food was pretty ropey, and the cutlery needed old food picked from it before I’d use it! I got a lecture from Slim saying that I was making my body weak by not putting all these bacteria in it. Er, whatever. Then Slim started on some stereotypes/racist things, and I got a bit heated; he said that “white men have no rhythm”, something I’ve already covered here, and also that “white men can’t dance”, again complete rubbish. Anyone can learn anything. Then he started saying that if you put a black man in any situation, be it academic, sporting, artistic, or whatever, and give him the same training, then he will be better than a white man! Utter rubbish. People are good at some things and not at others. Or not. And then it got to nudity, and Slim saying that it was OK. I asked why it was OK for some women to be forced to cover themselves up by the males in their society, and some totally unintelligible babble about Western oppression came out. I have no idea what he was talking about. Very odd.
Anyway, the drive back here had an addition, one of Slim’s family (to whom I wasn’t introduced, but she seemed nice enough and spoke English at every opportunity), who coincidentally just happened to be coming to Dar. Of course. And Slim told me about the alarm his car has that goes off when you do over 120kph. He heard it. Except it was my mobile phone getting a message. So I did 120kph again. No alarm. So he said it was 130. Did 130. No alarm. “Must be 140 then”. “But I’ve definitely not been over 130 yet”. Did 140. No alarm. I told him that it was my phone, but he said no. And then he turned to the girl in the back and said that “If you tell a white man something, he wants proof”. And what’s wrong with that? I then asked about speeding fines as I was breaking the speed limit by some magnitude, so I slowed down. And then slowed down some more when I saw a fat policewoman in the road. Who pulled me in and said I was doing 59mph. Which I wasn’t – I was doing under 60kph when I saw her. I was a bit worried, but I needn’t have been, as the speeding fine was…. £1! Bargain – I’ll take 3! It’s the only time I’ve ever been caught for speeding at any time in my life, and I do it when I don’t get points, and the fine is £1. Good!
And that’s it for that, really – just got back and looked at the pictures and started typing. Fish and Chips is on the menu tonight, including some ice cream from the BP garage up the road. The fish here is less than pleasant – it’s always really tough, and very difficult to eat without getting some bones. Slim says that his technique is foolproof, and then spends dinner picking bones out. My technique is crap / non-existant, and involves leaving a lot of fish behind, and a pile of bones on the plate. Not fun. But probably better than the steak that was for lunch, which probably had “Firestone” written on it somewhere.
Firestone indeed. Fire-arse, more like. Went to bed early last night, feeling dodgy. Woke up early (5am), and didn’t feel too great, but I didn’t want to use the loo as the water was off, so I’d have no way of getting rid of whatever terrors emerged. Tried to go back to sleep, and was just reaching an alpha-state when the distorted, echoed cries came from one of the three mosques down the road. Lovely. And within a couple of minutes the other two started up, in competition for the early-morning brainwashed of this area. Had to listen to all of that before finally getting off for a couple more hours. When I woke up again, it was no good, I just had to go, and it was as bad as I expected. Luckily, though, the loo’s cistern was full, so I could flush it! If not, I would have had loads of trouble. The two lessons today went OK, but I have two bites – one on each hand – which have really swelled up, and the left one is like a little balloon on the knuckle. It’s really hard not to scratch it, as it’s about as annoying and itchy as it’s possible to be. Even just using the hand inflames it too, so I have to remember that as well. Hopefully today’s abstainance from scratching will mean that tomorrow it’s down to normal size, but it’ll probably be going home with a huge blob on my hand. My back has finally calmed down to bearable levels, which is a plus, as I can at least sleep now. There’s no chance of getting sunburnt at the moment as it’s solidly grey outside; indeed the weather report I saw yesterday just showed the middle of Africa as being cloudy, and all of Tanzania. Doesn’t look like changing much before I go away, according to the forecast, but it’s not too bad; at least I won’t go home burnt and bright red. Ah, home. It’s now only three full days before going home. At least that’s the way I see it; Monday is pretty much done, even though it’s actually only 3:44pm. So there’s just Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to go. One day of which I’m told will be spent in Bagamoyo, which should be interesting, but means only teaching for three hours, 9-12. Next up I’m going to work out if I should get any more laundry done; I’m toying with getting one more load done, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But given the weather, maybe not. As long as I have some reasonably clean stuff to wear to go back in I really don’t care. To be honest, I’d go home in a pair of pants. Although that would probably be a bit nasty between Heathrow and the car, and the first 15 in the car too. I wonder if they’d let you on the flight like that. But I think that I’ve got enough to not worry about the washing, so maybe I’ll just pack my case now, for something to do. Dunno if I’ve mentioned this, but when I came back from Egypt I didn’t know why I was coming back, and I was thinking I might not come back from here (before going, that is), but now I see I have so much there. OK, there are things missing, something that I clearly need to do something about, but I have such a good life compared to here, it’s really unbelievable. And in a couple of months I can ride my bike again, which will be bloody great!
Over dinner Slim decided it would be funny to ask the housegirl if she wanted to go to England with me, and obviously was inferring there would be more to it than that, as she said she would only do housework, nothing else. The height of good manners. Talking of which, he also just walked in while I was taking a piss, which really annoyed me, so I asked “Do you always just walk in when people are using the toilet?”, and he walked out, seemingly unaware of how bloody rude that is.
In the evening, I went to the Internet café up the road on my own – Slim was busy ‘teaching’ his niece to drive, although this really consisted of letting her do whatever (which was very slow, considering that she’s been taking lessons), and occasionally shout “STOP! STOP!”. Nice girl, but she really can’t drive! Anyway, the café was deserted, quite a contrast to last time I was there when it was full and very smelly. I think my nose has become de-sensitised after the amount of abuse it’s taken here; I’m worried that when I get back I won’t be able to smell properly for a couple of weeks! It was nice to be able to e-mail without having my shoulder looked over, so I could say what I really thought. On the way back, got stared at a whole lot, and shouted at in Swahili by some drunk men on the corner. Nice.
Deliberately stayed up as late as I could last night, despite being tired; managed to get to nearly 1am as I want to fight a bit against the jet-lag by going to bed later each day. If I make it to 2am then that’s 11pm in England, which won’t be too bad. However, I woke up at 5am with bad guts, but realised (luckily before it was too late) that I have no toilet paper here! It’s now 9:12, so I can have breakfast and get some paper too, and then see what damage the steak from Morogoro is still doing. I feel pretty rough, much the same as yesterday. I wish I had some way of taking samples of food and water home and getting them tested; it’d be interesting to see just how bad some of it is, particularly the water and some of the food I’ve eaten in restaurants. I hate to think of what the kitchens must look like, I really do. It’s bad enough here, and I can see the kitchen!
By lunchtime I feel no better at all; my guts feel like they did all the first week, which is kind of normal, but I feel really weak into the bargain. The lesson went OK, as we’re getting to mixing some tunes now, but it’s clear that these guys aren’t used to making decisions for themselves; I’ve been stressing since day one that they have to decide what they like, and still Ibrahim will say “so 12 left is the best pan position” after I’ve done an example; it’s difficult to get them to make decisions on their own, although they are at least starting to do so. Experimentation also seems to be alien to them; they will just copy something wholesale rather than try to adapt it or make something else work, which isn’t something I’ve seen ever before; I don’t know if it’s a common thing here or I’ve just ended up with three guys like this by chance. Mohamed is clearly the best of the three, as far as learning and using the computer is concerned, but ironically Hassan is the least gifted of the three brains-wise, but comes up with the best musical ideas. Slim gives him a bollocking every day – he did the same again as Hassan couldn’t answer a couple of questions Slim put on the board, and as far as I was concerned the questions were crap anyway. Hassan gets discouraged quickly, and I can see why. We spent a bit of time fixing the mix of a song of his, and he seemed happier after that.
Evening. Still ropey. Hmm. Last time I eat food I’m not sure about – that’s another lesson learned. I guess the pepper sauce was to cover up the nature of the meat. Good job I didn’t eat it all! In 3 days time I’ll be 2 hours from landing in England, which is a nice thought. No more dodgy toilet moments (for a while, at least), and being able to do whatever I want will be cool. Slim kept interrupting with his ‘wisdom’ today during the lesson which I found really annoying, but not that surprising, given the general way that people here just interrupt each other, and don’t seem to listen much. Tomorrow I’m off to Bagamoyo which is an old slave-trading town and was where Slim’s mother was born. No doubt there will be another reason for going there, but it’s not become apparent yet.
The reason was revealed over dinner; another relative has sprung from nowhere and wants to go to Bagamoyo…. Anyway, I’ve still got dodgy guts, but I’ve just been to the studio of another Ali, to sort his stuff out, which was a nice break for an hour. Slim has gone out (probably to “entertain” as he was dressed up), so I’m here on my own, and it’s only 9pm. I’m determined to stay up until 1am again, as I want to fight the jet-lag. So that leaves me with four hours to go. I’ve done pretty much everything that I can while I’m in this room; my suitcase is as packed as it can be with two days to go, I’ve played every game I’ve got on Windows until I’m blue in the face, and I’ve listened to every song I’ve got here at least three times. Ibra is in the studio at the moment with the un-named relative, so maybe I’ll go down there and make some music or something. I can’t even pick any more skin off my back!
Well, the trip to Bagamoyo was OK, but mainly because we went to some holiday place and I loafed in the pool for a couple of hours, having first removed the last of the flaky skin from my back – it was as brown as you like, and now I have a big white patch instead, but at least the skin feels OK – the burnt stuff was horrible, feeling really old and rough. The rest of the time in Bagamoyo was just spent looking at some land that Slim owns (which he plans to develop, but judging by the way the first house has been built, it will need some work – I’ve never seen so much shoddy work in one place), and just seeing the town, which isn’t really a town at all. It was an old slave trading place, but since the demise of that industry the town has fallen into disrepair completely. There is a Roman Catholic mission there, complete with early 1900s church and museum, which is well kept, but the rest of the place (apart from the resort hotels) is run down and old-looking – it looks like a page from history. The beach looked nice apart from the tide being out (about half a mile), and it being all rock pools and stuff; I’m sure when the tide is in it would look great, but went for the pool option instead, and then drove back eating some freshly-roasted cashews, the rest of which I’m going to take home with me. Now it’s time for dinner, although I’ve just had the first reasonably worthwhile visit to the toilet since the Firestone steak incident, so that’s a plus; I still feel dodgy in the guts, but at least things are getting back to normal. Only one day to go now! I sound like a prisoner who’s getting out! I wonder why….
The mobile network seems to have changed identity, and as a result I now get a good signal. The downside of this is that I can’t use the phone – calls are blocked and it seems that my texts just get sent to the bit bucket at some unknown location. So I had to go to use an Internet phone to get Mum to call me back on Slim’s phone, and I just wanted to use up the £10 credit that was on the card he gave me, so I spent some time talking about this and that. It was odd as on the way up there I felt a little uncomfortable, but on the way back (once I was talking) I felt fine and relaxed. I don’t really think that there was any real danger (certainly no more than walking the streets of London), but being the only Mzungu about means that you get stared at a lot, although the whores on the corner seem to recognise me now. Not because I’ve spent any money with them, you understand!
The mind is a perverse thing; I’ve been trying my best to go to sleep late and wake up early, and the opposite has occurred; I woke up at 7am today. Which is just great – 4am in the real world. Joy. Anyway, today is the last day. Which is a Good Thing. I thought I was getting over the toilet issues, and today is worse than before; I don’t know if it’s return of the Firestone or it’s something new; it feels the same as all the rest, and was generally unpleasant. I don’t know if it’ll pass quickly (excuse the pun), but I feel really ropey because of it; bad guts and feel really weak, plus I don’t really feel hungry; my fruit lunch has just turned up, but I really don’t feel like eating it. I’ll give it a go though as I need something ‘cos I feel pretty weak. I just don’t want to have the raging squits while on the plane. Hmmm.
Oh, and I’ve just done my postcards! Procrastination, etc.
OK, so now I’ve packed what I can. My suitcase is pretty full, and I’m still waiting for the housegirl to finish my laundry – I went to ask for it (with Ibrahim acting as translator), but she insists on ironing it. Which said there was no need for as it was going in my suitcase (and perhaps more to the point it will be washed as soon as I get in!), but she insisted. So I’ve got a ¾ packed suitcase, no idea if everything will fit in (as I’ve bought a couple of little carvings as a present for my mum, and Slim bought Dave Thomas a couple of wooden candlesticks for the stuff he donated), and I feel that once that’s done then I’m done. I want to take a few more photos too, so my camera is on charge for one last time. It’s now 8:14, so I know that in about 24 hours time I’ll be landing in England. It might sound really sad, but I am looking forward to it so much it just isn’t true. I never thought that I’d feel like that about going home; indeed on the last day in Egypt Mark commented that he never liked coming back from holiday, and normally I don’t. But this really hasn’t been a holiday, it’s been an experience all right, but definitely not a holiday, for two reasons; firstly the conditions, which although they aren’t great, I could put up with (but not long-term). Mainly the problem has been Slim and the isolation; I don’t feel as isolated as I did, but that’s probably because mentally I’m half way home; I’ve not had anything approaching a decent conversation with anyone here because of the language barrier, I suppose. Not that I’m some kind of rampant intellectual, just that living like this is not for me. I’ve just realised that I’ve packed my trainers into my suitcase, which is clearly the act of an idiot. And also I’ve packed all my socks away, so I guess I’ll be digging that stuff back out. I understand that it’s been snowing in England, and it’s certainly not going to be reef shoe weather, that’s for sure. I don’t think my feet will be best pleased, as they’re about as happy as I can remember them ever being – they’ve not been incarcerated for over a week! Poor things!
The final dinner was “fillet steak” stew and rice. And to be fair the meat was pretty tender. But again it was soooo salty it could have been billed as being in brine – it really could. Maybe the housegirl is immune to salt. Slim once again rattled on about how clean the slaughter-houses in Tanzania are, and that he could export the meat. But the EU won’t let them, because of cleanliness issues. I can believe it, judging by the general level of hygiene that I’ve encountered here. I think I’m going to go up the shop though, for one last bottle of Fanta Passion – it’s different than the Fanta in the UK, and not fizzy at all. A bargain at 16p a bottle, too. I wish I could get another pint of sugar cane juice, but that’s just a distant dream now. A nice one though.
Half an hour later, the washing arrives, and I can pack my case apart from the things I’m wearing right now. It’s pretty full, and probably a bit overweight. I hope there are no issues when we get to the airport as I haven’t really got anything that I can leave behind. Hopefully the extra stuff shouldn’t be too bad; on the way over there were serious issues as Slim was being embarrassing about trying to get too much luggage (including a dehumidifier of all things – not exactly something that it would be hard to source locally, I’d think) on board, and we met with a miserable woman, and he was being a tool about it, and I didn’t know where to look – a taste of things to come…. Anyway, with any luck I’m not overweight and can just get on the damn plane without any histrionics. It’s strange because I know full well that I’m going to be at that airport in 12 hours time, but it still seems like a dream; I’ve only been away three weeks and yet my life there just doesn’t seem real; being able to go out and do whatever I want, communicate without problems, drink water, eat decent food, not get sick, have clean clothes, phone anyone I want, e-mail, play the guitar, sit on my own, whatever. It all seems like a distant mirage, not 24 hours away from now. Anyway, maybe I’m just suffering from the salt level at dinner or something!
At last, the great day has arrived. But as ever, I couldn’t sleep well (never can before getting up early for a flight or whatever), and it didn’t help that at 4am there was the most annoying chant coming from one of the mosques; it was so loud and clearly intended to wake people up that I thought about recording it, but as I’d packed the recorder away, I didn’t bother. Wish I had now, as it was clearly a sound that has been honed over the years to be probably the most annoying it’s possible for a human voice to generate. Finally got up around 7am, having a wash and had a loud knock on the door. “I’m up!” I replied, and Slim said he wanted to come in. “Why?” ‘I have to check your room’. “Well, I’m having a wash, so I’m not dressed. You’ll have to wait”. Weird; why he should ‘need’ to check my room is beyond me, so I took a little longer than I should have done. The last time of washing in brown water (although this was from the bucket, so it was cleaner than the tap stuff, strangely), and having to use bottled water to clean my teeth too. Breakfast was frosties again, with some nice cold milk, and then, surprise surprise, a delay. The first one was that Ibrahim was having problems making the DVD; it had some issues with the files he’d exported, so he’d had to stay up all night at Slim’s request to get it done. I had said that it didn’t matter and they could send it to me, but this fell on deaf ears. Anyway, more delay ad then it finally got through that it would be after 8am before the (now VCD) disc was finished. And the plane should leave at 9:20. Hmm. Anyway, we finally got in a car (some geezer had turned up to give us a lift), having said warm goodbyes to Ali and Ibrahim, and given them my remaining money to get themselves a drink. The drive to the airport took a while, being rush-hour traffic, and on arrival, my baggage got searched; this happens a fair bit, so I can only assume that I look like some kind of terrorist; nearly every flight in the US I get searched. But then when checking in there is one nice surprise; Slim knows someone from BA and we have been upgraded to Club World, which isn’t first class, but may as well be. As I write this I am sat in a big seat (only 6 across on a 767 instead of the 8 in coach), and if I sit properly in the seat I can’t touch the seat in front with my legs! How cool is that? On top of that BA know how to make a journey pleasant anyway; the flight over was really good, and with enough legroom anyway, but this is amazing. There’s even a menu, and free drinks! Not that I’m going to partake of anything, but it’s really nice. And good films on. So I’ll be pretty busy. And the other plus of being bumped is that I’m sat next to someone else, a nice Danish chap who lives in Tanzania.
Here endeth the tome on Tanzania, Dar Es Salaam, Slim Slim and indeed reality shortfall. Roll on England, and 1 degree Centigrade!