Tanzania (Part 1)

This Blog has become much longer than I originally intended it to be. Instead of editing it shorter I'm just going to post it in pieces, that way it will appear that I have spent much time on this and hopefully it will appease all the people (Mom and Dad) who've been pestering me about what's going on here. It's rather boring and tediously written in most places. Also this first part was written while I was drunk at a bar in Tofo.


Curtis's Adventure in Tanzania

When I first sat down to start transcribing the Tanzanian leg of my adventures in Africa I decided to smoke one of the marijuana joints I had bought the day before in Ushango. I don't have very much experience with marijuana yet and I imagined that smoking might affect me similarly to alcohol (I'm actually quite buzzed at this very moment), lubricating my mind a little and enabling the thoughts to flow freely. I have heard that people use marijuana to help inspire their art, music, etc... And so I thought I might be able to write better from this altered mind state. I sat in my hotel room in Pangani and lit up and then wrote the title to this entry. I then realized I had no desire what-so-ever to proceed further and after probably 10 minutes I don't think I could have constructed a coherent sentence even if I did possess the motivation to do so. That night I was high out of my mind. There were moments when I was certain that I was paralyzed and could not move. I didn't like it very much, my mouth was telling me that I going to die of thirst but I didn't have any water, so I started drinking out of the sink before realizing that the water here is not sanitized for drinking. A big group of people from the UN arrived and I could hear people walking around and talking outside my window, which did not have any glass, and outside my door, the windows above which did have glass but I contrived to stuff my pillows over them to keep the smoke in anyways. There were moments I was sure that the serious sounding Swahili banter outside was the police asking the hotel staff where I was and how much they could make me bribe them not to go to jail. I played music and tried to enjoy it especially since there was nothing else I could possibly do (it took me almost an hour to spread the mosquito net over my bed) and I think I did enjoy it a little, but I was so far gone that the outside world felt like a place I might never be able to return to. Sometime during the night managed to crush yet another pair of glasses. The next morning I began the 9 hour journey back to Arusha where I would meet Jesse and we'd bus together to Nairobi where I would fly out the next day to South Africa and then bus to Maputo where I was to begin volunteering at the Iris base in Zimpeto.

I got sick the day before I left for Tanzania, a fever. I had diarrhea too, but that was nothing new. I was sitting in my room at the Roadhill lodge in Johannesburg, from where I'd be flying to Nairobi, after a long walk to the grocery store and back for bread and cheese for dinner that night when I realized that what I thought was simply fatigue from a long walk on a hot day was mandating that I sleep, which I did for about 6 hours. I woke up at 10pm and realized that I was sick. I attributed it to the stress of packing the night before and the last minute uncertainty of what I was to do with my extra luggage and how I would get to the shuttle stop etc... I put in my earphones and listened to Paul Scheele’s Genius Code which I had pirated a number of months before while still at school and which I have found to be a tremendously beneficial meditation aid. I then explored my illness, exercised my fever ridden mind and affirmed the sovereignty of my health. I did a mixture of this and sleep all night and found myself feeling much much better the next morning. I was bummed though because I never ending up eating my bread and cheese that night and I had already paid for my hotel breakfast the day before when I checked in.

At the airport I wanted to find a place to spend the last of my South African Rands but I found myself in a bookstore and ended up buying a book about Buddha by Deepak Chopra and a book about Carl Jung, which I found out later, was written with illustrations like a comic book? and as such was bizarre and confusing. Since I didn't have quite enough rands, I paid with the only currency I had, which was a $100 bill, and had to accept the change in South African Rands, thus accomplishing the exact opposite of what I had initially set out to do. Chopra was quite good though. I then when to the bar and had a few drinks and almost missed my flight (They board like 45 minutes before departure here!). I also had a drink on the plane; having previously learned alcohol is complimentary on airplanes in Africa. I ordered a scotch, not ever having tried scotch before, and received a double shot and then found that I didn't like it and it sat on my tray for the rest of the flight. I will blame my not liking scotch on the fact that it was an airplane scotch and not because I am not manly enough for straight warm scotch, although probably I'm just not manly enough for straight warm scotch. (It wasn't even warm, it was on ice)

At the hostel in Nairobi it became evident that I was still sick. This was hard to swallow because the hostel was such a lively, interesting, free place. I wanted to really experience it but I went to bed at 9 with an aching fever. I was afraid I wouldn't wake up in time to catch my bus to Arusha, for which I'd have to get up at 0530, so I was waking up every 15 minutes and checking my phone for the time. Sometime in the night I learned that my sheets, which I had taken off a neighboring bed with the understanding that they were intended for me, were dearly missed by some offended traveler. Luckily I was not discovered as the culprit of sheet theft. In the morning I didn't think I'd be able to stand up, let alone pack and carry my bag to the taxi stand. Every act of will was excruciating, every deliberation a mental torment, but the adrenaline I received from the threat of missing my bus pushed me forward. About 5 hours later I realized that in the agonizing fog of the morning I left my ipod in my bed.