Where In The World Is Becky?

Pole Pole (Polay Polay) translation: slowly, slowly, or, ‘take it easy.’
Hey all, blogging from Zanzibar, my final stop on the Becky Africa Tour 2007. Well, actually, I’m going to stop in a town called Moshi, which sounds like a video game character to me, to see Mt. Kilimanjaro, which I thought I saw en route to Nairobi the first time, but didn’t. Oopsie. Otherwise, I’ll be here for the next week, at the beach. Went to the beach one day in Lamu, but it was a disappointment – very windy and rocky. So we’ll see what Zanzibar has to offer. But for now, back to Lamu. I took the bus from Malindi, the “good” bus, with armed guards. I guess the road between the two towns used to be pretty heavily preyed upon by bandits from Somalia. I couldn’t decide if the soldiers made me feel safer or more worried… Stayed, for the majority of the time in a guest house called Casuarina, a picturesquely crumbling Swahili building, tall and a little maze-like inside, with a thatched palm roof and an open balcony to catch the sea breeze. My room had a big double bed with a mosquito net, which I love sleeping under – very, very romantic, but the mattress was so thin I felt the slats of the bed every night. Bathrooms were pretty bad – no hot water. Actually, I can’t remember the last time I had a hot shower.

Lamu is a center of dhow building as well, and all the traditional boats have this blue carving on the wood. I took a dhow trip with a bunch of other tourists on my second day – all girls, a few Canadians and Brits. Spent most days hanging out in cafes, in one called Bush Gardens – not sure if the joke was intentional – but the owner is named Satan.

Me: Nice to meet you; I’m Becky.
Him: Hello, I’m Satan.
Me: Could you spell that for me?
Him: Just like in the bible.

OK. It was at Bush Gardens that the true meaning of pole pole became apparent: You order a juice and a companion orders a tea, for example. Someone will make your juice, fresh passion fruit and lime in my case, and then, after they are done doing whatever they have to do to a passion fruit to get the juice out, and juicing the lime, let’s say 20 minutes, they’ll put the tea kettle on to boil. Dinner = a two-hour affair. Luckily, I had nothing better to do than sit there and read or spend most days wandering the streets, soaking up the culture. Went to “ladies night” at the local bar – one free soda! Other impressions of Lamu – no cars, they get around on donkeys and try to convince stupid mzungus to take an embarrassing donkey ride. I can just imagine them talking about which one is the bigger ass in Swahili as they lead the donkey along. Anyway, I gave it a miss, but all those donkeys add up to one thing: lots of donkey shit, everywhere. And the electricity in Lamu is sketchy at best, so you can be walking down a dark alley in a mine field. And me with no flashlight. I got some funny statistics though: 3,800 donkeys, 4,500 cats, 45 mosques and 19,000 residents on Lamu. I’m not sure who counted all the cats, which are everywhere, all strays, and oddly, almost all calico. I thought much of little Gracie. The buildings are beautiful though, but like I said, crumbling everywhere. No one seems to fix anything here.Everything, from the roads to the buildings to the buses, is in some state of decay. Most of the clothes people are wearing seem to be the castoffs of the west, actually. All the clothes and shoes you donate to places like Savers get sold to some third party if they don’t sell there, I think, and then get resold in African markets. I’ve seen countless Green Bay Packers jerseys, for example, and the other day I saw some dude with a “Smith Family Reunion, July 5th, 2005, Charleston, South Carolina” t-shirt on. There were also lots and lots of veiled women here, with only their eyes peeping out from flowing black tents. They definitely got a raw deal, as the men are all in white robes, which is at least cooler.

So, all-in-all, Lamu was very enjoyable. Got some culture, ate tons of seafood and coconut rice. Met a Peace Corp girl and her boyfriend on their way to Mombasa the same day as me, so we were all on the same bus, in the back: big mistake. It was so bumpy, aka, filled with the usual potholes, that at one point I had my sandal clasp undone (though they were still securely on my feet) and we hit a pothole so huge that they flew off and under the seat next to me. The best part was that there were speed bumps on this road – I mean, could a more arbitrary speed bump even exist? I think not. Spent the night in Mombasa, which seems a nice enough town. Got around in little tuk tuks, a preview for Thailand I’m guessing. Will try to take some pictures of them for you.

Bus the next day to Dar – which I was not looking forward to. A long, long dusty ride, with a seat that was stuck in a reclining position and a seat mate who was taking up his entire seat and half of mine. I kept trying to nudge him back, to no avail. And then he noticed me struggling with my seat, trying to get it to sit upright and he very kindly reached across me, touching my chest in the process, to help. There were these two British kids (19 qualifies as a kid now) sitting behind me who saw all of this unfolding and I found out later that they were remarking on its hilarity. Got to Dar without serious incident though – one flat tire and one more border crossing, spent the night at the good old Safari Inn, met some dudes randomly in the restaurant, and set out the next morning for Zanzibar, where I now sit. That’s it for now folks, probably it till a wrap-up “Becky’s impressions of East Africa” entry from Nairobi, where I’ll arrive on the 25th, leaving for Singapore on July 27th. Hope you’re all well and I’m out to the beach. xxx

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 21st, 2007 at 4:05 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.