Within an hour of the chaos at the ferry dock, I lay watching the fan blades spin above my hotel bed. Their breeze didn’t hold back the sweat drops or the clinging humidity. I could feel the pull of our ultimate destination at the northern point of the island, and a montage of the journey from Rwanda flashed through my mind.
. . .
The adventure started well before dawn when a taxi shuttled us to the Nyabugogo bus park in Kigali. My travel companions and I caught the first of several buses into the unknown. The coach took us to the southeast corner of Rwanda, the border with Tanzania at Rusumu Falls. This is the same river that passes below my village clear on the other side of the country. The violence and sheer volume of water going over the falls impressed me as I crossed the one-lane bridge to Tanzania. While the town on the other side was recognizable, I immediately noticed how different brands were sold: soft drinks, cell phone airtime, etc. A bus eventually came to take us on to Kahama. Because of the piled up luggage, it was a couple of hours before I noticed we were driving on the left side of the road. We passed wilderness, villages of thatched-roof huts, and roadside towns. The most rural of the villages made the most remote areas of Rwanda look like utopian cities. Mud, sticks, grass, and tarpaulins were major architectural features.
At the first stop Mackenzie and I went searching for grilled corn. The first thing we saw was a giant bird standing next to the road. It was the size of a senior one student and looked something like I imagine a homeless person would look as a bird. We found a man grilling corn, but he spoke only Swahili. He said a corncob was “Five,” and held up five fingers. The new currency was strange to us, but this seemed reasonable. We bought what we thought was 25 shillings worth of corn, but when we gave him 50 shillings he refused to give change and merely laughed at us. Minutes later when we got back to the bus everyone was livid because of how long we took; they were on the verge of leaving without us. It turns out that pit stops are very fast in Tanzania where the distances are much greater. We latter found out that the man grilling corn had meant 500 shillings. Oops. Such is the benevolence of Peace Corps volunteers.
That afternoon our connecting bus was broken down, which was no great shock, so we settled in for a night in the placid town of Kahama. Again the language barrier arose when we were sipping on cold Kilimanjaros in a bar. The waiter said they didn’t have omelets, but they had chips. Every time we ordered chips, a chips-omelet would come out.
The next morning we left our spartan guest house on a bus to Dar Es Salaam. In the black pre-dawn we passed a sprawling diamond mine allegedly owned by George W. Bush. At 10 am we stopped to pee in a field of Acacia bushes. Guardian ants lived in hollow bulges on the stems, ready to attack anything that touched the thorny bush. We drove all day, carrying on through Dodoma and stopping only twice in the afternoon at service plazas, the second of which could have been in the United States even with its Africa-kitsch theme.
At dusk our gradual decline in elevation quickened as the sun and the mountain-punctuated plains faded. It began to get stiflingly hot and humid; I was sweating bullets. My watch read 10 pm and we hadn’t stopped since 2 pm. On the outskirts of the city we became mired in the bumper to bumper traffic jam that is Dar Es Salaam. I don’t think I have ever seen as many gas stations as the road into Dar. It seemed like there was one for every ten cars. In Rwanda two service stations in one town are a lot.
From sunset until I stepped off that bus well after 11 pm, I was living a decent into my personal hell: nothing to eat or drink, no freedom of movement, no breeze, and no bathroom, all while stewing in temperatures hot enough to give you a headache and make you feel like you’re dying. On top of that, we were stuck in stand-still traffic illuminated by the ugly, pallid glow of the surrounding gas stations. But I knew the bus ride would be tough when I bought my ticket. I have to hand it to Africans for their patience, while suggesting that they may find it rewarding to be more demanding in regard to their personal comfort.
From the bus park a taxi took us to a sober, but pleasant, Econolodge. After freshening up, our venture out into the night in search of beer and food was half successful. Apparently the good authors of the Quran never took the bus from Kigali and needed a cold one. Nevertheless, we found some incredible Indian food at a carry-out & café near the hotel and enjoyed it at an outside table. Despite the city’s moldy decrepitude, I found some charm to the blocks of low rises with barred storefronts, white light pouring from a handful of cafés advertised by flashing LED signs. I was surprised at the number of homeless people, mostly women, sleeping on cardboard under stoops. In Rwanda most people can’t imagine urban homelessness.
The next day we explored Dar Es Salaam and indulged in consumer culture. This included several supermarkets and two shopping malls. Both malls were unimpressive by American standards, but were awesome to us. The latter was indoors with air conditioning and a movie theater. A highlight of the day was a ride on a tuk-tuk, an auto rickshaw.
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| Rickshaw safari through the Dar Es Salaam |
The tuk-tuk driver didn’t know where the mall was. He thought he was ripping us off. We, however, ended up ripping him off. The traffic in Dar is terrible, so although it isn’t a big city it can take an hour to drive across town. After seeing a movie, we went to dinner at a nice Indian restaurant.
Late the following morning we walked a short distance down to the harbor and boarded the ferry to Stone Town, Zanzibar. There were a lot of expatriates on board from Europe, the United States, and Canada going to Zanzibar on holiday. In fact, Katie recognized a Dutch woman that lives in my district in Rwanda. It was awesome to sail on a boat in the ocean after living in a landlocked country for over a year. The top deck was hot despite the shade and pitched a lot, so my cucumber sandwich didn’t settle well. Cruising the Zanzibar channel was fun; the two-hour ride didn’t seem long at all.
. . .
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| Dar Es Salaam from the harbor |
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| Crossing the channel |
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| Stone Town ferry pier |
As I lay on my hotel bed watching the unhelpful rotations of the fan, my curiosity fermented to explore the town into which I had just arrived on the ferry. The old quarter of Zanzibar City, called Stone Town, is a labyrinth of high flats and narrow streets. Though the streets are wide enough for a motorcycle, few are passable by car. The quarter is small enough to walk end to end in twenty minutes. Throughout its colorful history Zanzibar has been a confluence of African, Asian, and European cultures, earning Stone Town the apt distinction of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Perhaps just as important, it is also the birthplace of Freddie Mercury. Our hostel was located at the Anglican cathedral, St. Monica’s, built on the site of the old slave market. After visiting two interesting cafés, variously but appropriately themed for tropical Zanzibar (one nested in a small plaza, the other on the top floor of a hotel), we stumbled upon a waterfront park at the old-city center. Set up in the middle of the plaza were dozens of food vendors. This was incredible to me, for in Rwanda there exists neither seafood, nor street food, and here they were together at cheap prices at a seaside park. I ate grilled tuna and lobster for a few dollars. There were tons of begging cats and I chatted freely with local secondary school boys who wanted only to practice their already fantastic English.
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| Stone Town waterfront |
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| Zanzibar |
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| Seaside park |
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| Mackenzie perusing grilled seafood |
The next morning we took the Zanzibari equivalent of a twegerane to Nungwi, the northern point of Zanzibar. The car was a modified pickup, with a roof and a single bench lining the sides of the bed. The sitting may have been even more squished than a Rwandan taxi-bus, but with the benefits of a good road and plenty of ventilation. In Nungwi we arrived at a simple guest house painted to look like an underwater scene. After months of planning and 800 miles, we were at our objective: the beach. Immediately we hit the beach and suddenly that hellish bus trip was worth it. The beach sand was pure white and cool to the touch. The Indian Ocean was the temperature of bathwater, but cold enough, with small waves rolling onto the shore.
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| Nungwi beach |
Once the tide displaced us from our shady place beneath the boardwalk, I had a lunner of fish tacos. They were an imprecise rendering of fish tacos, but nonetheless delicious. That evening I enjoyed ginger soda and a stroll on the beach under the full moon shinning through a thin veil of cirrus cloud. The boats looked cemented offshore and the white sand, wet at low tide, reflected everything like a foggy mirror.
The next day we went on a snorkeling cruise that sounded too good to be true. It was. However, I have no room to complain about snorkeling in Zanzibar. Part of the problem was that it was windy and there were waves. This seemed to tax the boatmen’s sailing skills. One of my favorite parts was examining all the sea creatures stranded in the shallows at low tide while we waited for the boat.
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| Snorkeling expedition |
We returned to Stone Town the following morning. The day after that, Mackenzie and I went on a spice tour. I was skeptical in the beginning, yet this turned out to be my favorite part of the trip. A very knowledgeable guide took us to the rural interior of the island and showed us all different kinds of spice plants and how they are used. At midday our tour arrived in a hamlet. We sat down in a circle for lunch on reed mats under a thatch-roof pavilion. Sitting in a large circle, we passed around large bowls of rice, vegetable curry, chapatti, and pineapple. After the substantial lunch, our guide showed us the bathhouse of the old Omani Queen. Apparently she was really stuck up and thought she was too good to share a bathhouse with her husband’s concubines, and so had her own built. Next, we climbed into our vans to drive west and then north to the coast. Arriving at the coast, we made a brief detour before continuing on to the highly anticipated final stage of the tour: the beach. From a subtle dark fissure in the meadow we descended a flight of steps to a massive underground chasm. In times past it was used to hold human chattel, a slave cave. The cavern was appropriately dark and gloomy. It contrasted starkly with the brilliant paradise outside. Water dripped from the ceiling and the only surfaces were jagged basalt. Climbing up out of the cave and steeply down again to the shoreline, we arrived at a quiet cove below a rocky cliff. Down the beach I could spot the roofs of fishermen’s houses nestled under the coconut trees. Their weathered dhows were beached just beyond the reaches of the highest tide, in front of a dense wall of vegetation.
On our own again after the tour, we passed the afternoon wandering Stone Town and looking at art. At dusk we met up with a Canadian friend from the spice tour. Together we ate street food again for dinner, and then went to the Swedish expatriates’ St. Lucia Day party. There I mingled with beautiful Swedish people and tasted their traditional holiday indulgences: sweet cakes, cinnamon cookies, and Glühwein.
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| Labyrinthine Stone Town |
In the morning I took a final stroll around Stone Town. It was too fascinating a place not to have one last look before I left. I saw the hospital, the King’s Palace, and the old fort. Passing behind the market on my way back, I saw fishermen unloading their catch from a pickup: a giant ray, a tuna, and a shark. The mid-day passenger ferry returned us across the channel to the bustle of Dar. Back in the sweltering city, we spent the afternoon hanging out at our hotel near the bus park. This involved fried chicken, lots of beer, and even more Bananagrams. For dinner Mackenzie and I wandered to a local bar. Our English confounded the shy waitress. Eventually a driver approached us who spoke English. He ordered for us the dish the cooks were preparing in the kitchen. This turned out to be cow tail, boiled skin, and beef broth. A garnish of salt and lime made the boiled skin palatable, but I would be lying if I said I finished my large plate. I think this was more exotic than even the fried bugs I’ve eaten in Rwanda. It took a few bottles of Safari to wash the taste out.
At four in the morning I woke up to a guard knocking at the door. He wanted to know if we needed anything ironed. Disregarding the ungodly hour, I thought it was quite considerate. Anyway, I was on the bus by 5:30. I sat and sweated through my shirt while the sun rose. I tried to clear my mind of any feeling to prepare myself for the brutal journey. Two hours later the bus lumbered out of the station and westward.
The bus ride back was uneventful. The bright, clear day enabled me to appreciate the landscapes of central Tanzania much more. The general sequence went from flat acacia tree bush, to rolling bush hemmed in by craggy mountains, to flat bush punctuated by massive piles of boulders, with some of these boulder piles over a hundred meters tall. The red-brown soil stretched endlessly beneath the brilliant sun, freckled with scraggly green bushes. It wasn’t until we neared Rwanda that we glimpsed the familiar rolling hills of the rift valley highlands.
In addition to a salesman making speeches promoting his soap and toothpaste, we passengers were entertained by great music and films. The first few hours were Swahili gospel songs belted out by obese ladies, because that is beautiful. Other movies on the bus included a Tanzanian film and The Gods Must Be Crazy one & two. The Tanzanian film showed interesting cultural perspectives on children and family, and in the end everyone but the father went to jail.
We were able to sleep a few hours at the same guest house in Kahama, and crossed the border back into Rwanda in the morning. The bag-searcher at immigration was impressed that our party spoke English, French, and Kinyarwanda. It felt good to be back in a familiar culture where we knew the language. I was back at the Peace Corps office in Kigali by mid-afternoon.
Overall, traveling by bus was intense. It was hot, there were few stops for food or water, and we went seven hours between bathroom breaks at the longest stretch. I still don’t understand how Africans can go so long without such basic necessities. At this point I feel well practiced at slowing my metabolism to that of a catatonic camel and could take a bus to anywhere in the world.
I spent two days in Kigali to use up my leave days and readjust to Rwanda. This included Reggae night at a pizzeria and a birthday party. Having wandered far and wide, when it came time to head home I was anxious about being returned to the village. I had travelled distances most villagers can’t imagine, let alone such things as a shopping mall, a movie theater, or an ocean.
. . .
The last of the evening light had faded and I was squishing around in the mud a few kilometers from my house. My driver’s motorcycle had crapped out. A steady rain was falling on our heads while I held my cell phone to illuminate his tinkering with the tire. After so many days and many hundreds of miles, I found myself smiling, happy to be home.
All photos courtesy of Katie Hall, excepting the first, fourth, and fifth photographs.
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