Experiences

Cross Dressing At Kande Camp

Posted on by Laughingnomad

PZmR20gwby0cg19rXgklIw-2006197131657399.gif

Sat 18th 2002 Town of Mzuza
We get off the bus and go to the market in Mzuza to buy clothes for the Cross Dressing Party at Kande Camp-we have drawn names of the opposite sex and have to dress them-we have a $3 limit. Walking back to the truck I take a picture of a street sign “No Stop!”

Malawi Lake Kande Camp Two Nights
We drive into camp past the Kumuka truck that is roasting a split pig with it’s head still on above a charcoal fire…OH SICK…the girls on the truck wail. By now we are pretty dusty and scruffy and everyone wants a shower before heading to the bar for a Fanta or beer. This bar owner is a bald guy in his 50’s with a huge round gold earring in one ear-I ask him for a Pimm’s Cup. He looks at me like I am nuts and says he ha”)

I drew Rod’s name for the Cross Dressing Party so I bought him a bra and hot pink half slip and funky shower cap-we make him take off his shorts before he puts on the half slip-he loves it! Someone bought Bob a pink and white dress that looks like one his 80 year old mother would wear. Lorelle is hillarius in a diaper with a pacifier in her mouth. Rod buys Janine a snappy little outfit with a black and white zebra “Hooters” cap. Adrian gets to wear a bright pink billowy taffeta dress that looks like a Balenciaga designer model.

This clothing must be sent here by aid groups in western countries because we never see African women wearing these things which are really inappropriate for this culture. The party is in the bar and riders from the other trucks get a kick out of us-they will have their turn the next night.

Back To Snake Park

Posted on by Laughingnomad

The next morning, on the road back to the Snake Park there are small villages and shops; give me pen; give me something; what do you have to give me…the kids yell out to us as we drive past them. The little ones will fight over an empty plastic water bottle.

We are half way to camp when we come upon a huge bog half a mile long and 50 yards wide with several stuck vehicles. Everyone in the village is standing watching the goings on. We have to double back to find another road through some corn fields when we hit another huge bog with 3 feet of water and mud. We are well into the bog when a Land Cruiser, towing a mini-bus, comes into view. There is much yelling back and forth and then Francis realizes it is up to us to back out of the bog to let the Land Cruiser through. I am absolutely astounded at the ability of these vehicles to maneuver through the red slippery clay. Like I said, Hillary really missed some good 4- wheeling!

Drove past the Tanzania Military Defence Association. Reminds me that there has been very little police presence in Kenya or Tanzania. The compound has the only uniform wooden houses we have seen-apparently it is a military installation. all the other houses we have seen so far in Africa are made of sticks and mud.

Meserani Snake Park-Again
East African parks are great; toilets, and showers-some with hot water. Although on this night the water was cold. Found out in the bar later that the meter reader had offered to fix the meter so it would run half as fast if the owners of the park would kick back a monthly fee to him.

While our electronics recharged again I talked with the Brit still at the park who was motorcycling overland. His wife was in their tent recovering from the removal of a molar tooth that day in Arusha. They had lived in Guyana for two years (remember Jonestown?) with the British Volunteer Service and said it had an interesting mix of people and had a waterfall that has the longest free fall in the world but gets no publicity. He had been married 10 years with apparently no children. They rented their house out in London. Said if he could keep his expenses down to 600 pounds a month he could travel indefinitely. ($900) His father was a Cambridge graduate, he said, who still climbs mountains in Nepal. I think we are finding the one percent of the world’s population who have figured out how not to work.

Ngorongora Crater

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Firstviewofcrater.JPG

The Ngorongora Crater is a conservation area and National Heritage Site. After breaking camp in the Sarangeti, we drive another two hours up to the Crater rim where we set up camp so we can be ready for the drive down into the Crater the next morning. The crater is 16-17 km across; the difference between a park and a conservation area is that people can live in a park; so many Maasai life in the Sarangeti but none in the crater. The crater sides are covered in a dense rain forest; Black Rhino only here; no giraffes here because it is too steep for them to walk down; no Topi or Impala here; the alkalai lake is filled with pink Flamingos; Corey Bastards are mating; hyenas with their lowered backsides slither along…

The Land Rover dodges huge elephant poop on the roads meandering along the crater bed.

Maasai and Samali Ostriches: incubation 48 days; female watches the eggs during the day and the male at night. Biggest enemies are man and lions; Red Billed Duck; Black Winged Stilt; Black Headed Heron; White Heron; Sacred Ibis; Crowned Crane; Wida Bird; European Stock: coming from Europe with no passport and flies back in December-he is not ours, Francis says.

Common and Golden Jackal; Flamingos by the million who eat algae and salt that makes them pink; Spotted Hyenalives 35 years; noctural;4- 5 months gestation; he was walking the whole night that is why he is sleeping. No one else eats the Hyena except other Hyenas when they die. Lions may kill them but they don’t eat them. Male Lion eats first-big boss-then the mother and the cubs; 40 lions in the crater; sometimes you see no lion because they don’t know you are coming to see them and they just lie anywhere in the tall grass where you can’t see them, Francis says.

Wart Hog; monkey sitting on top of an Acacia Tree-the king of the world. A mini bus drives up. Ladies in nice clean white blouses sit in the back with their suitcases with wheels on them; probably staying at the expnsive Ngorongoro wildlife Lodge on the rim. “My god they are not even camping; not getting the full-on experience!” the kids yell out to each other laughing hysterically. By the way, at a potty stop, one of the kids spotted a tourist all dressed up like Safari Guy just stepping out of Magellan Catalogue. All the crew and kids laughed themselves silly.

Francis says that the animals in the crater are very polite because they haven’t been in the hunting block outside the crater where they learn to be scared of the human.

Black Headed Heron eating baby Black Mama snake; male elephant with biggest penus ever…swinging between his legs as he walks. Weighs 3 kg, Francis says. How does he know, Bob retorts.

We stop at Tak Tak spring for a rest and watch a school of Hippos.

When the zebras walk or run away from the car, their heads bob up and down telling the lions “I have seen you, I have seen you, I have seen you,” Francis says.

We drive around a bend to find five Forest Elephants all in a row. They are waiting for pictures, Francis says smiling. Then we drive up and out of the crater and head back to camp.

Animal Spotting The Big 5 In The Sarengeti

Posted on by Laughingnomad

I love the remnants of the Swahili cadence in Victor’s English.

Giraffe: “It is raining and he is very happy there-he is getting a shower.”

Bob watching elephants: “This makes you feel badly there are zoos.

Topi: lives up to 20 years, gestation 7 months, smell and sight are bad so they stand on termite mounds to see the lions-so no Topi in the crater because there are no termite mounds in the crater.

Bob: “My everlasting memory of Africa will be the Acacia Tree.”

Sarengeti means endless in Swahili…endless horizons, endless silence, endless pleasure for us.

Grand Gazelle: male has long horns and female has short ones; Lilac Breasted Brawler: Black Jackal-scavenger-only kills rats or grasshoppers; Impala has one mate-the male has to fight to get the female.

Best 4-wheeling ever! Hillary really missed a good time when she took the helicopter in!

The park’s vultures: White Headed Vulture; Hyena; Jackal

This is pleasure-we are finally out of the chaos of the city. Writing helps assimilate our experiences so we can move on…

Glossy Starling: Marshall Eagle; Dove; Bee Eater; Francis: I have to study and put it all in my mind. Guinnie Fowl; “Monkeys are not afraid of you they just like to be by their friends.” Velvet Monkey; Water Buck: males have horns, stay close to the water and need green grass. His enemy is the lion.

The Hippos are grazing all night and in the morning they come back and are sleeping in the day, Francis says. They are mating in the water, delivering babies in the water. They kill many people because they know man is not a good animal. They stay in the water 10 minutes without his breathing. Gestation is 8 months and life span is 40 years. Many Hippos together is called a school: Just like children-they must be together. Now is midnight for them. They roam 5 km at night and return to the pond in the morning. The Park has to arrange for keeping the ponds filled with water because otherwise we can get a problem and Hippos have to die when their skin dries out.

Then Bob says to Francis: “There are humans that eat 25kg a day, the gestation is 9 months they eat animals and leave a big mess.” Francis is delighted “very good, very good” he says. Bob and Francis are friends.

Black Smith; Embrella Acacia-big old one; Maasai Giraffe: gestation 15 months; lives 35 years. When they are walking or when they are ambling their legs are together and when they are running their legs are asymetrical. It is illegal to kill this animal, Francis says. Leopard: a loner-if you see two leopards together either they are mating or it is a mother with her cub. After the baby is born the male is takes off. They are afraid of the dew, like a housecat, so they stay in the tree. At night they are coming down and hunting for their food. When they are killing they put the food in the tree and they are there eating for three days. For hunting they have to use their cunning because they run so slow-they have to hide somewhere and wait-like the lion. Cheetah runs 110 km per hour and is fastest land animal. He cannot climb-just walks. Don’t know if we’ll see him today because of the tall grass…

Much sighing-becoming more and more relaxed…like the animals….

Many Ostriches; Francis says the best animal viewing is July-Sept when the grass is brown and everything is dry and animals are gathered around the water holes. However, Bob saw more animals this trip than he did six years ago in August.

Saw part of a pride of male lions out in a field. Francis spotted a lioness on a rock sleeping-she is waiting for the sun; completely relaxed with one foreleg wrapped down around her rock. There are only 3000 lions in the park. Lives 16-20 years; gestation 5 months. Sometimes their teeth break and they can’t eat food and they have to die. They eat 40 kg of meat-can go one week without eating; nocturanl-very active at night. Later we drive up to a vehicle and two lionesses are lying in the shade against the back wheel. Several vehicles arrive and park in a semi-circle around the lions so we can all take pictures.

We are triumphant! We have seen the “Big Five,” Buffalo, Elephant, Leopard, Lion, Rhino.

Sarangeti Spoof: a person says they have spotted an animal and everyone tries to see it. It is not funny.

We stop at a Maasai Village on the way out of the Sarangeti. “They are people-not monkeys,” I say, and refuse to get out of the car. Most everyone else goes inside the village, made of sticks and bushes, to watch the males do their jumping dance and make the Wilderbeast sound while the females try to sell their necklaces. It costs $5 to go into the village-this is not a cultural exchange or an I-Thou experience either one.

Egyptian Geese; The elephants kill and they pile branches on top and wait for three days to make sure he isn’t going anywhere; Toni Eagle; Wilderbeast: they are very stupid, Francis says, if one crosses the river they all have to cross…like sheep. If they have been in the hunting block, when you stop the car they are not sure of their life. They remember those bad people there. If they have always lived outside the hunting block you can go right up to them and they are not afraid of you.

To the Sarangeti

Posted on by Laughingnomad

HF0m0NezqDnitkljwNP8lg-2006188104829364.gif

A week before picking Bob and me and another 3 people up in Nairobi, the WorldWide Adventure Company had taken about 15 others across the Masi Mara into Rwanda to see the Gorillas. Their stories made us sorry we didn’t go…”we were 2 meters away from them…they were so relaxed…and peaceful. The gorillas were completely comfortable with us being there…”

Our first day out the kids were hyper as hell from being stuck in the mud for two days after seeing the gorillas. I threatened to abandon the truck as soon as we got to Dar es Salaam but earplugs got me through. The second day was better…our good natured trip leader talked the kids out of the Michael Jackson tape. Our guide, Rod is South African; the crew-Kenyans. George is a great cook and James-a good driver. The truck is a great way to see Africa because you sit up high and can see all over.The luggage and kitchen stuff is underneath the seats…accessible from outside.

As the truck was moving through the Kenyan/Tanzanian border a young kid wanted $100 American for his little hand-carved giraffes; we all laughed and he yelled up at us “I want to be the Bill Gates of Africa!” then quickly added, “I am just joking!”

Stayed the first night at Namanga Camp where Bob discovered a small pretty Maasai woman named Eunice tending the small camp store. Eunice gave me my Maasai name-Milanoi. We exchanged addresses and she promised to make me a necklace with my Maasai name and send it to my home. (I never got it of course.) She refused to take money for the necklace or the postage so I gave her a silver ring. But in the morning she didn’t give me my 20 shilling change for a Fanta I drank the night before and then the other shoe dropped. She asked me to send her clothes, shoes (size 4) earrings and nail polish and clothes for her 9 year old son. Our expectations of cultural exchanges so different…we hate feeling “used” under the pretenses of friendship. Extend that to our Aid programs world-wide. Who is used by whom?

Danger in Nairobi

Posted on by Laughingnomad

We were advised to go nowhere in Nairobi on foot at night. The downtown area is poorly lit and muggings are common. When Bob was here six years ago his trekking outfit arrived late at night. He  had told someone he was going out for a walk. Before he could take off however, his trip leader pounded on his door in a panic-told Bob he didn’t dare go. So thinking the leader was a bit compulsive, Bob went down and asked a Kenyan guy in the cigarette kiosk if it was true. The guy responded that if Bob went out he would likely be mugged within two blocks.

As it turns out, at our first meeting the night before we left Nairobi, one of our well-traveled American safari mates who had been working in Spain for 4 years, was swindled out of $450 the day she arrived. They posed as police looking for counterfeit money and intimidated her into showing them the money…which they confiscated saying they needed to copy down the serial numbers at the police station. The “police station” was a sham. They were very very good she said with some chagrin.

Bob had an experience in Arusha where a guy heard the teller at a bank tell Bob to use an ATM. The guy tried to get Bob to follow him and Bob had to try to lose him.

Later, in Zanzibar, while walking along a beach Bob took a picture of a boat. He was approached by a guy who flashed a badge and told him he was a policemen and to go with him. Bob said no and walked off the beach back into town.

In Dar es Saalam, while the truck was parked in front of the internet, a “tout” followed Bob around for an hour and a half trying to get him to use his “guide” services. He wanted to show Bob something off the beaten track and after about a block and a half Bob realized there was “nothing he wanted to see.” He started heading back to the truck and the guy tried to get him to take a picture of the post office which Bob knew was a no-no. Two more guys came up to him from nowhere and flashed their badges at him and said “We are the police, come with us.” A third guy came up in uniform and told Bob to get into the car. Bob said no and walked away faster and faster until finally he ran about four blocks back to the truck. Bob said it was spooky because if they had tried to strong-arm him he didn’t know what he was going to do.

Nairobi…First Impressions

Posted on by Laughingnomad

On April 30, 2002, the plane from Cairo landed in Nairobi Kenya to music from “Out of Africa” (groan) and a horrific monsoon-season rainstorm. A taxi ride to the downtown area that should have taken 20 minutes took three hours.

The Parkside Hotel where we are staying, across town from the Hilton and Stanley Hotels, is decent and many of the non-governmental organization expats stay here. For a city with a population of two and a half million people the downtown area is surprisingly small and you can walk across it in about 15 minutes.

First Impressions
You immediately see signs of the ousted English: driving is on the left side of the road, many of the taxis are English (they look like black 1940 limousines)they serve English breakfast including pork and beans without the pork. Besides Swahili and the tribal dialects, English is spoken as the common language.

The feel of the people and sound of their voices is soft and resonant-not strident as in Egypt. The smiles on these faces are wonderful. We are very happy to be here.

We don’t feel in the least bit uncomfortable yet. We are called Mama and Papa…disconcerting reminders of course that we are not 20 something backpackers.

The women all have straightened hair unless they have cornrows or short cropped hair. The men all have very short cropped hair. One seller, comparing his lack of hair with Bob’s referred to both of them as having “mosquito highways” the literal translation for a bald head in Swahili!

Diplomacy Egyptian Style

Posted on by Laughingnomad

As westerners we are not used to the constant demands for “baksheesh” (tipping) that make you want to blow your stack…and then they want you to be happy about it! Salaries and wages are so low that baksheesh becomes an essential means of supplementing incomes-so for a cleaner in a one or two-star hotel who might earn only about $35 a month tipping becomes the mainstay of the income.

Minimal Diplomacy
Waiter on the train as we were returning to Cairo, asks Bob “Are you happy?” “That much,” says Bob with a show of hands about two feet apart…There just is minimal diplomacy as we know it unless you are insulated in a four or five star hotel. But the older eccentric Brit eating with us in our hotel restaurant has been coming here every year for six years…and was here during the massacre in Luxor. You just have to realize they are trying to survive, he says, and that the people are living in a benign dictatorship that colors the cultural fabric.

At the airport, as we were walking up to the doors we thought we were home free. But as soon as the door opened there were two uniformed and armed police facing us. One yelled “what are you doing here!” With our bags it was obvious that we were tourists so the question was confusing. At that point, Bob retorted angrily that we were just trying to get into the airport! They let us go.

Cultural Attitudes and Mores
Is your husband looking for new wife, says the tour operator…want to trade your wife for a camel he says then to the young Irish guy visiting with his shy new Japanese wife on their honeymoon…your husband is a lucky man…if he finds new woman you just kill him and put him in the Nile.

In the souk (market) I said “see you later Alligator,” to a seller. “Here it’s not ‘After While Crocodile,’he replied. “it’s ‘In the Nile Crocodile’.” We laughed! Water is sprinkled on the streets to keep the dust down…making mud…as I walked down the street.

What are you looking for…nothing, I don’t need anything…I am just looking to appreciate…if I buy that it will just sit in my house…are you Egyptian he asked. No, I said, American…he said you think just like an Egyptian…what do you need. Nothing, I have husband and children and a house…what are you looking for…nothing…I have nothing, he said, what color do you want? Blue I said…how big do you need it…infinite size, I said not realizing what kind of game I was playing with him. Then…I have something you have never seen, he said…come look…

Young man wants to buy my shoes…with those shoes I could get dressed up and go to the disco and find a woman…!

After the souk, dodging 6 lanes of honking cars not traveling in any one lane, we cross the street for orange juice while a truck full of soldiers passed by waving and blowing kisses…also men sitting idle…not seeming to mind I was with a man…your husband is a very lucky man…to Bob again are you looking for new wife?

Later in Aswan I heard from a vendor…would you like a banana…just 30 minutes….

On the train on the way back to Cairo from Luxor…here is a flower (looked like a dandelion but smelled like a gardenia) realizing the server had to have gotten off the train at the last stop to get it…can be very charming but no clue about western sensibilities or boundaries…and I suspect they don’t care to know.

I read that even Egyptian women, who would not otherwise, wear the higab (Islamic scarf) outside the home to protect themselves from the same harassment. It is not really intimidating but just a nuisance, like a mosquito buzzing in your ear, Lonely Planet says. You can swat it away and keep it at a distance, but it’s always out there trying to get in your ear. The problem is, according to one Egyptian man, that for every 10 women approached, one will say yes. The Dutch woman on the train behind me said that her brother who travels a lot, has come across a lot of Egyptian men who hook up with Western women.

Santorini & Sifnos

Posted on by Laughingnomad

pjSwKsKjPzr5gOYYAx9PKM-2006172105305371.gif

As the ferry approached the island through the caldera you see a red-brown black and pumice grey terraced cliff face that looms hundreds of feet above the water with brilliant-white buildings with blue trim reflecting the Aegean Sea hanging off the side. But all those beautiful buildings hanging off the cliffs of Santorini, as it turns out, are all hotels, boutique shops, cafes and restaurants with a few blue domed Byzantine churches mixed in.

Walked into a cafe for breakfast of coffee and pastry the first morning to the sounds of Portland’s own Pink Martini playing on the stereo. While walking around the town-Bob in his perennial shorts-we passed a group of Spanish teenagers and one was heard in English “look at that guy-he’s wearing shorts-makes no sense! Do you think it made any impression on Bob?

After exploring the island’s archaelogical and historical sites and lying on black sand beaches there was not much else to do unless you were twenty years old and wanted to spend all night in the discos-so we ferried it six hours to another, smaller island-Sifnos.

Sifnos
At the harbor port of Kamares we took a bus the five miles up a windy road to Apollonia where we checked late into the Sifnos Hotel-tired and hungry. There was only one other patron in the hotel, a French publisher who returns to the island every spring. Apostolos, the hotel proprietor, welcomed us each with an Ouzo. Then he treated the French woman and Bob and I with Mezedhes (appetizers) and we sat for the next two hours eating and talking culture and politics. This is what I had been waiting for! Marie, the French publisher was reading the memoirs of Edward W. Said the professor at Columbia University whose books are popular reading these days for an understanding of the middle east.

Apollonia is an amalgam of three very charming hilltop villages with connecting white-washed buildings with flower-draped balconies lining immaculate narrow marble footways. The people actually live and work here and one gets the feeling this is how they prefer things. The shops are only open during the summer so most of the locals have other work the remainder of the year, Apostolos says.

Sifnos is 16km by 8km-great for walking-so Bob took off the next day for a five hour walk following a trail with one great view after another along the way up to an acropolis with a church and some ruins from 600BC. Almost the entire island was terraced 2-3000 years ago when the islanders supported themselves with agricultural products but since the advent of tourism and vehicle ferries the walled terraces now mostly grow yellow and white daisies and blood-red poppies and support the lonely burro and the goats. It is interesting that the people built their town in and around the many ruins; Greece taking for granted its antiquity.

This island has given us a welcome respite from noise and activity; none of the shops were open yet and their owners were painting, sweeping, repairing all over-preparing for the summer-eager and hopeful.

Apostolos says the Greek Orthodox church is very powerful in Greece-and very conservative-legislating every aspect of family life which is the all-important institution next to the church. Families stay together always-even if/when children move away there is almost daily contact, he says. Marie, the French lady said that yes, the Greeks seem open and friendly but there it stops-they are very clannish and no one on the outside gets into the inner circles. She and Apostolos recommend reading “Three Summers” by Margareta Liberaki published also in English.

Women
My sense about the young women I have seen especially in the less developed countries of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Greece is that they are a pretty savvy lot. Nothing will hold them back now!

As there was a strike on the day we planned to take the ferry back to Athens, we asked Apostolos if we could have the hotel room for the afternoon. “Of course, of course,” he says, “life is simple, life is simple!” When we were ready to leave, he gave us each a going away drink of Ouzo. I don’t want to leave this place…I am grateful for this journey; I have learned these ways so far to say thank you: Greek-efsharisto, Spanish-Gracias, French-merci, Portuguese-obrigado/a, Italian-grazie.

Back in Athens, I sat in the internet cafe with a young Anglican priest from Britain who was bicycling his way to Haifa Israel. Not worried, he said. The other fellow, was a UN Police Observer from South Bend, Indiana stationed in Kosovo making 90,000 a year. He was in Athens on leave. Meeting people like this is one of the reasons I like going to Internet cafes.

Bob & The Greeks Again

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Bob had some more adventures on the ferry the morning of April 13th. He saw big cups and little espresso cups by the coffee machine and said he wanted a big cup of coffee. The waiter said he only had one size cup. Bob said he could see two sizes of cups. The waiter said again that they only serve one cup. Bob was getting progressively more frustrated when the waiter finally took down the big cup and gave Bob his coffee. If the waiter had told Bob to begin with that
the cup they used was the big cup it would have all been over. Or…if Bob could just have asked for coffee trusting that what he got was what he was going to get…

The second adventure was when we wanted to upgrade to business class on the ferry so we would have a seat for nine hours. The guy in charge said which “aisle” do you want? This thoroughly confused Bob as he could see no aisles so he said, I have a ticket and I don’t know which aisle it is on. Then the guy said again-which “isle” are you booked on? This time Bob got it.