Stone Town, Zanzibar, Tanzania

Taking strange shits in foriegn countries, that's one perspective on my life right now.
Yesterday I was sick, walking dead style. I tried going to class because the alternative was lying in a pool of sweat in a room with little ventilation and no natural light. Meredith walked me home mid-morning when I realized I was bing completely ineffectual. I had weird half-asleep fever dreams for most of the day until my fever broke in the early evening.
Today we went snorkling over a coral reef off the coast of Zanzibar for class, definitly a 'hey guys, guess what I did in school today?' experience. Add it to the list. Tonight I watched the sun set from a cafe in Stone Town, hearing the patter of the waves on the beach, surrounded by a tables-worth of friends, eating ice-cream.
My life is this weird combination of comfortable and uncomfortable experiences, not so much alternating as simultaneous. Crapping for the 6th time in 3 hours (or the 1st time in 3 days), buying street food (and getting overcharged for being white), lying spread eagle in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, waking up in the morning already sweaty. Talking to a Kenyan fisherman who came here a year ago in search of work. Whether he finds a job or not he'd rather stay in Tanzania then go home because, he says, "there are [corrupt] politics in both countries, but here they don't kill each other, they talk instead" (at least until next year's elections). When he asked, we gave him money for food. He says he needs just $100 to buy his own dhow, a fishing boat. We part ways, him going to buy food, us to get on a hired boat and look at coral under the sea. My life is very surreal most of the time.
In conversation my ecology professor mentions that RG [Rethinking Globalization, the program I am on] is a lot like the army. Should know; she was on active duty as a military police officer for 5 years in the mid 90s. And its true. We, the students, willingly give up most of possessions and leave everyong we know to be with 25 fellow strangers, going where we're told, seeing and learning whatever someone thinks it is important for us to know, sleeping and shitting in strange and interesting circumstances. We get on bussess and into the backs of trucks without knowing where we're going. Just roll with it.
We get no choice who becomes our friends, but we'll put our trust in them. What kind of person voluntarily puts the comforts and friendships of home asside for a year to live, cry, laugh, and question with a group of total strangers who's greatest commonality is that they too were willing, eager to take that same step. My life is very surreal.
By the way, I'm staying with a local family in Zanzibar right now. I have learned a maze of alleys and landmarks necessary to navigate anywhere. I sleep in my boxers under a blue mosquito net. I eat with my right hand, clean myself with my left in the muslim way. My host father has two wives, one here, one in Dar es salaam. I accidentaly say assante, thank you in swahili, even to my classmates. I have seen my reflection once in 4 days. I hve no running water. I take a pink malaria pill every morning. I am surprized and amazed by how nice, open and genuine Zanzibari people are.

Salaam.


Written on 10-14-09