Siku Mbaya

I know I put up a post not all that long ago. However, I wrote that post a few weeks ago...and a few days later...I had a bad day. How bad a day? Let’s begin at the beginning, transported, as it were, by the magic of imagination...

I am in Iringa, my banking town. It is Saturday. I am headed to Dar Es Salaam, the largest city in country, Sunday morning. My ticket is for 6am, on an overcrowded bus through the mountains. Why 6am, you ask? Because it was cheaper. And while my friends and I were planning on going out...I guess I planned on sleeping on the bus. Which I did. Just not on the bus I planned. Here we go.

In Iringa there is a large rock. I believe it’s called Gongilanga...we call it Pride Rock...and every time we go up there we mock and scorn the first mshamba (redneck) to shout out, “one day son, all of this will be yours”. If there is a more beautiful place to watch the sunset, I’ve never seen it. On Saturday we went up there around 6pm or so, had a nice hike, watched the sunset, and came back down. Thus began what was really a wonderful night. We stopped by a bar on the way back down the hill to have a quick drink. I should mention at this point that I was out with my friends from my region, who were all in town for a final meeting to close out our Girls Conference. There were also a bunch of new volunteers in town who had not yet sworn in and who had just finished a one-week shadow. We get to catch up like this maybe every other month or so, and it’s always great to see a lot of people after weeks in the village living by ourselves.

We all went out to dinner that night, which in and of itself is always an adventure. Most Tanzanian restaurants only pack one or two ovens...charcoal ovens. So when we show up en masse, like a dozen or so, our food sometimes takes about two hours to arrive. This is not a huge problem, as the place has a balcony that overlooks Iringa. It is one of the only mzungu (white person) places in town, so it usually attracts an interesting crowd. That night we met a bunch of English women in town for a month or two to work at an orphanage. I also played my first few games of Tanzanian 8-ball (you get two shots after scratching...weird), lost 2 and won 2. Food arrived, we ate, we laughed, and we left...to go dancing.

Discos. Fun places. Places of joy, loud music, moving lights...and prostitutes. Can’t speak for their primary talents, but I’ve watched them on the dance floor. Wanaweza (they can bring it). The disco is always an interesting scene. Nobody is too impressed by me, but when the female volunteers show up, there’s always a stir. I end up doing a lot of pass-blocking for my friends (gotta watch the blind sides). But tonight the crowd is fairly tame, and there are a whole lot of us, which is always more fun. The DJ also plays a lot of American music, for which we are eternally grateful. Another volunteer and I try a swing-dance lift...she hits the deck. We try again...no luck. Third time’s the charm...and she’s up!

We stay till about two in the morning, and then we go to get some food...and things take a turn. There is a Tanzanian cafeteria open 24/7 (civilization has arrived!), and we are able to get some rice and beans. And as we are sitting at the table, thanking Mungu (God) for late night food, one of my friends has a bright little idea. The next time he has a bright little idea, I’m going to beat him over the head with a fimbo (stick), strap him to a kitanda (bed), and gag him with a parachichi (avocado). But tonight he’s got an idea. And he’s going to convince all of us of it.

Back to the rock.

This, in and of itself, is a horrible idea. It is 2am. It is cold. And the rock is on top of a mountain. Mountains are high. There is a road, but it’s awful, and cars can’t make it that far up. To add injury to insult, a strange thing has happened. Over the last couple years, at random times, my ankles will sort of sprain themselves. I could literally be sitting still, doing nothing, and all of a sudden my left foot is the size of a nanasi (pineapple). Which is exactly what has happened while we are eating late night food. It isn’t too bad at the start, which is why I get in the cab. But by the time we get out, I am walking like a pirate. Everybody else beats me up the rock, but I do make it. And, to my deranged buddy’s credit, it is beautiful, looking over the city, asleep in the moonlight. Of course, having reached the top, all of my friends follow the city’s example, and fall asleep. I would love to, but at this point my ankle is screaming in pain. A smarter man would wait for his friends to wake up, and deal with the pain. But a smarter man would have been in bed by 10pm to get up for a 6am bus. So he’s not here to help us, is he?

I get up and climb back down the rock. I reason (accurately, I still maintain) that my friends will awake, call me, and since they each have two working legs, catch up with me rather quickly. All of this works right up to the point where my friends get lost, walk through a backyard, and end up wandering the wrong way on the main highway. They still catch a cab before I do...because there ain’t no justice. I head for the aforementioned bar where we got a quick drink earlier in the night, figuring that even though it is 3am, there may still be cabs. Again, sound theory fails me. Because I have forgotten to account for a couple of things: 1. that the bar is about two miles away down a loose gravel road, and 2. that I have one working leg. Count ‘em Jim, one. But the hill won’t walk itself. Here we go.

I won’t bore you with the details. It hurt, a lot. There were dogs, and they barked, and when I reached the end of one fence, another one took up the call. I would have been pretty easy to track. I think about stopping, and then realizing my bus leaves in two hours...I don’t.

I am reminded of Chaucer in ‘Knight’s Tale’. To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on. Amen brother.

I eventually reach flat ground, and supercharge myself up to about 2 miles an hour. I get to the bar. It is, of course, closed and abandoned. Except no! There is a lonely looking dude sitting outside, in front of a grill. There’s nothing on the grill, but I’m in no position to pry. Can he call me a taxi? Maybe. It is, at this point 4:30 in the morning. The walk has taken some time. He says the cab is coming. I sit in pain. I ask him to call again. Still coming. More pain. I get up to go. Cab shows up. I try not to kiss the cabbie. I succeed. The night, such as it was, is drawing to a close. I stumble/limp into my room at 5am. My alarm is set for 5:30am. So I do what only a true idiot, who has learned nothing that life has tried to teach him, would do. I go to sleep. Will be easy to get up in a half hour, right? And if I don’t, my roommate will surely wake me in plenty of time to catch the 6am bus, which he also is riding. Right?

I wake up at 6:20. Because Fate thinks she’s funny. I call my friend. Yes, she’s on the bus. Yes...it has left. Did my roommate try to wake me? Nope, that didn’t happen. Okay then. I won’t cry. Big boys don’t. Just gonna check out, hurry up to the bus stand, and see if the company will give me a discounted ticket. Of course, when I check out, my roommate also hasn’t paid his half of the room. So that’s fun. Who likes money anyway? I limp up to the bus stand. They will give me another ticket, for an extra 10,000 shillings. Swell. All this money was just driving me crazy anyway. I get on the bus, extremely excited about a 9 hour drive, by myself, on a hard seat, on a pretty awful road. Thankfully I can’t manage to stay conscious for more than about two hours of the whole trip. Luckily, when I arrive, I can sort of walk. I’m so excited by this fact that I waltz off the bus, completely forgetting the plastic bag with all my toiletries. Cuz who likes to be clean? Finally, against all odds, have fought through all manner of obstacles, I reach my hotel in Dar. I am ready to shower, change, weep for a while, then eat a horse, dead or alive. I get to the desk, ready to be presented with the keys to my sanity. What’s that you say? There’s no reservation. Didn’t my friend make one? Apparently not. It is at this point that I realize that I’ve lost my toiletries bag. It is at this point that I begin retracing all the decisions in my life that led me to this moment. It is, at this point, that I collapse in a corner, begin to suck on my thumb, and wait for someone else to make it better.

I had a day like this once. It was funnier, and less painful. I left New York in the morning in the van I needed to return. Got pulled over for speeding in New Jersey. As a result, I missed my train. Grand. Saw my parents, had lunch with a buddy. My parents drove me for the next train. It pulled out as we pulled in. Grander. My parents now drove me back to New Jersey (like breaking back into Alcatraz), and put me on the platform in plenty of time for the next train. It arrived, and I got on. And it promptly started going west. New York was east. Four hours or so later, I got off the subway in New York. A four hour journey had taken eleven. When I got off the subway, for the first (and hopefully last) time in my life, I bend down and kissed the New York sidewalk (if you have since kissed these lips, I apologize). That day was annoying, but it was funny. This day, in Tanzania, was painful. It was long and it was embarrassing. And after my thumb was removed from my mouth, after I was placed into a room, and after I had taken the most needed shower in the history of man, the first thing I thought of was all of you. Because while this day long, painful, and embarrassing, that does not mean it cannot be funny. All that’s needed to turn an awful experience into a funny story is a willing audience. So now, as always, I salute you, dear readers. Before, all I had was a sore bottom, no shampoo, and a series of regrets. Now, I’ve got a story.