November 2005 Archives

U Ganda!

or Buganda. or Luganda. one being the country, another the kingdom and another the language. however you say it, it's better than Tanzania.

we didn't like tanzania so much. i mean, sure, zanzibar was idyllic and the serengetti -- wow! have you tasted monkey? but dar es salaam? try dar is slum. so hot you could fry an egg on your buttocks.

and buttock eggs are not so good. no. not good.

remind me to tell you about our thanksgiving sauna. i mean meal. it was great. we didn't miss home then at all.

but hey! we're in uganda! in uganda, everything is better. from the states, i thought uganda would be the type of place where i could get my hands removed but it's much nicer than that (easy mom, it's fine). people are friendly, they speak english, Kampala is nice and modern and clean and they KNOW HOW TO COOK. also, there are other people here we like. to talk to.

they also have much better computers so we're posting some of the rotten scans we had made in dar is slum. please try to imagine these taken with a nice camera and scanned with modern equipment, as opposed to what these look like -- something you found in gramma's attic. really. they're nice. we're almost sure. sorry they look like old issues of boy's life magazine.

what we have here are photos of the first five weeks of our trip. they start in Zanzibar. First at Shooting Star Lodge on Kiwengwa beach, then up to Nungwi and Kendwa in the north and then down to Stown Town. After that, the photos show our eight day safari through Arusha National Park, Tarangire, Lake Manyara, the Serengetti, Ngorongoro Crater and out to romp with the Hadzabe at Lake Eyasi. After our safari, we went to Lushoto in the Usambara Mountains and there may be a photo or two of that. Then we went back to Dar is Slum and paid good money to fly away. to Uganda.

Did I mention we like Uganda? We do.

it's spanksgiving today. that means instead of the normal stuffing-filled american version, we get the yea-boo african version.

the good news is that after much deliberation and sweat we've cobbled together a plan that makes us happy. on saturday, we're flying to kampala, uganda where we will attempt to resist the expensive urge to visit with mountain gorillas. from there, likely on to kenya briefly before flying to ethiopia and egypt for a romp through the middle east to eastern europe. we're saying we'll trans-siberian to mongolia but we'll see what happens. the money will run out sometime...

the bad news is that although we successfully developed our film and it looks like we've got some really good shots we can't tell as the scans they made of them are so freakin' piss poor you can't tell a photo of a lion eating a wildebeast from one of me in the morning (just watch it, buster!).

hopefully the negatives are fine and we can have them rescanned. somehow. africa seems a non-promising continent to try again. let's just say i'm not wholly impressed with their IT. if i can, i'll post some lousy scans here. no promises.

so, thankful that i'm alive, well, tickets in hand, adventure ahead, and in the best of company. less thankful that i've spent the past two hours working on showing you pictures and have zero to show for it.

if anyone has access to a good negative scanner, we'll send 'em your way (9 rolls!). otherwise, you'll just need to imagine me being offered monkey brains. 'cause there's a photo.

1. Zebra

we saw it there the day before, under a tree, seemingly dead of natural causes. a zebra carcass, lying on its side untouched.

the next morning it does not remain untouched. it has friends. lots of them. vulture friends. something has eaten away it's rump during the dark and the vultures -- five of them, no six, eight, twenty -- attack the rest as the day dawns, endlessly streaming in. it is not a lovely sight and yet it is. so happy, they are, the vultures. to pull out the tongue. to stick their head in the eye socket and root around for something tasty inside. we watch. the zebra gets smaller. the vultures keep coming.

i have learned a new word. the word is "kiparha."

the word means "bald."

i am kiparha. today especially as i trusted my gourd to one of the dudes who calls himself a barber here in Stone Town, Zanzibar. i walk in to his alcove, eye his ancient set of clippers and say, "kiparha." i make the woosh-over-the-head hand motion that is universal for "deprive me of hair." he replies with "karibu" which means welcome, not "you look akin to a moose."

it's sweltering. rain floods the alley.

i try to relax but my barber's cutting style implies he was trained with a mallet and chisle. he tells me something i do not understand but which seems to imply he's got typhoid so he doesn't like fans. that's straight-forward. but straight-forward Stone Town-style; a place in which if a street passes three doors without kinking, turning, disappearing, or hiding under rubble it's astounding.

we've fled the beach as wonderful as it was. we're ready to start moving, traveling. i'm still culture-shocked after two weeks. figured i'd be swinging by now but i guess i'm getting old. i'm kiparha. after all.

next stop; Dar es Salaam.