Voting begins

For the first time since 1972, an El Cerrito City Council election is unopposed. Two vacancies are being contested by two candidates--one of the incumbents, Janet Abelson, and Becca. As a result, the campaign season has been a little understated for us, and while we've attended a number of events, printed flyers and knocked on quite a few doors, the pressures of the thing are not what they would have been had we found ourselves in a dogfight.

The city is not without an election, though, as the Council has proposed to close a small structural budget deficit with a half-cent sales tax measure that would temporarily raise the total sales tax in the city to 10%. The measure is, in part, a response to the ongoing statewide budget crisis and the repeated raiding of local funds by legislators to balance the state budget. It is also an attempt to offset reduced property tax revenues following the decline in local property values. While there are no council signs up, the city is already plastered with "Yes on R" and "No on R" signs.

And today we received our ballots! Voting has begun.

(The happy candidate with her ballot.)

(The historic document itself!)

Coming home

Well, our big 2010 trip came to a close with a flurry of activity. Last Tuesday night we got on the plane and took a red eye from Douala to Johannesburg. It was a fitting end to our time in Africa--Tim and Jessy hosted us for one final night on Wednesday as we slept and showered and re-packed for the last time. Thursday afternoon we flew to Dakar, then Washington, and on to San Francisco for a mid-day Friday landing.

After all those flights it would have been nice to get some sleep, but there were two problems facing us. First, Becca is running for El Cerrito's City Council this fall and we needed to file some campaign papers on Friday afternoon; second, we put all of our belongings in a storage shed and, thus, had no home to go to. So we took the BART to Becca's dad's house, picked up our car and a few belongings, raced to El Cerrito (where we missed the campaign filing, but managed to arrange for a valid delivery on Monday at 8 AM), looked at an apartment, liked it, signed a lease and activated the electricity and renter's insurance. THEN walked into our new apartment, collapsed on the floor, and slept and slept.

Friday was busy, but Saturday would turn out to be even busier. We made use of our jet lag to get up at 4:30 and do lots of things: file address changes, read old mail, contemplate how we will fill our new apartment. And, feeling ambitious, Becca found us a moving van and we moved ALL of our stuff out of storage and into the new place. By 8:00 PM, we were again sleeping HARD.

Sunday we unpacked boxes. Monday we went to work, Becca filed one set of campaign papers (the late ones) and picked up another, I met the cable guy to get internet and cable turned on, and Becca went to a local art opening to meet and greet voters (and get some much-needed signatures). Tuesday night was National Night Out (more meet-and-greet, more signatures). And so it goes.

Through all the activity it is difficult to reflect on the summer. Certainly we had a unique experience--it is extremely rare for Americans to have the opportunity to take lengthy vacations abroad. Traveling in Africa, though, really requires a lot of time, and involves an awful lot of downtime. Our routine generally involved completing activities by late afternoon, eating a leisurely dinner of some kind, drinking a beer and playing some cards. During the World Cup we traded watching soccer for playing cards, but the pace was basically the same. We visited five countries, traveled 10,000 kilometers by road, flew 35,000 miles, watched six World Cup matches, visited six national parks, slept in 35 different cities, visited fifteen people I knew from past lives, stayed with two of them, and played dozens of games of gin and rummy and war.

What was most memorable? Certainly the first 72 hours of the World Cup, where we went to the opening concert, saw the US play England, and watched the South Africa-Mexico match in a square in Johannesburg. Our gorilla visit in Rwanda won't fade fast. Our first night in Tanzania, in a border town (and former Rwandan refugee camp) called Benako with no electricity and no running water. Watching the US score on Algeria in the 92nd minute, in an Englishman's hotel, to qualify for the second round. The sounds and smells and noise and excitement and pride and patriotism of the South African World Cup. Walking into GBHS Kumba and finding it unchanged.

What was profound? Staring into the eyes of a mountain gorilla. Walking with Ugandan orphans to visit the local primary school. Watching Desmond Tutu dance with excitement the night before the World Cup. Taking nine hours to travel 200 kilometers on a Cameroonian bus. With the benefit of time I am sure the list will change as some memories fade and others remain.

So this is the final travel post for this blog. It is not the end of the year's adventures, though, and as we progress through a wedding and a political campaign I will, from time to time, post a few photos and thoughts on our progress and experiences. And check out www.rebeccabenassini.com, as most of my internet energies will be directed that way over the next several weeks!

Back in the Tropics

One great thing about being back in the tropics is that we only have one backpack to lug around - because we were able to leave all of our cold weather clothing at Tim & Jessy's (thanks guys!) - and Scott is such a gentleman that I am not allowed to carry it around. Hmm, it may also be because it would not look so good here to have me carrying a backpack half my size while he carries nothing, but whatever the motivation, it means my back is much less sweaty in this heat!

A second great thing is that we can play our advanced version of the "smell" test game. Because one's clothing becomes sweaty and damp within 5 minutes of putting them on and the primary means of fixing this is try to air them out after a long day in the same tee shirt (but "airing" a shirt out in 100% humidity is kind of an oxymoron), we spend some of our evenings trying to figure out which of us is or is not acceptably smelly and which article of clothing is the most offensive. I don't think I am being unfair when I say that Scott's socks usually take top prize.

Limbe
After the wild commercial capital of Douala, we headed to what I hear is the best beachtown in the country, Limbe. We traveled to the town from Douala via two taxi cabs and one minibus. The minibus was similar to those we took in Uganda/Rwanda/Tanzania except in this one, there were some angry Angry people. The minibus proprietors piled people into the bus, telling them that the bus would take them to their destinations - the only trouble was, people in the bus were going to all different destinations. Their game was to take people's fares to their final destination, then take everyone to a major road junction, buy them onward tickets on some other vehicle for less money than was paid to them, dump everyone off the minibus, and make money on the transaction. By the time people compared notes and realized that the bus could not be taking everyone to the disparate destinations, all people could do was vocalize their complaints, but everyone was already piled in and ready to go (or, wait for 20 minutes while the driver prepared himself to drive) so there wasn't much to be done other than suck it up.

The taxis, which was just small (typically very old) cars like nissan sentra hatchbacks, are super efficient. They are always shared unless you request to buy the whole thing out (and why would you do that?) , they travel on major roads and you point in the direction you are going in, the driver slows down, you shout your destination into his window and either he stops or it is not a good fit so he keeps driving. They carry the maximum volume of people possible of course. Typically, that is 3 people in front and 4 people in the backseat. We have not ridden in one with people in the trunk yet, but we have seen them drive by with 7 in the main part of the car and the trunk open with 4 people sitting in the trunk with their feet hanging over the back. People are very friendly on the taxi but I have a hard time understanding their conversations which are usually in English-pidgen.

In Limbe, we visited a wildlife sanctuary which was very interesting; the place is nearly completely populated by gorillas and primates rescued from poachers or from people's homes where they were being held as pets (typically purchased from poachers who killed a baby-gorilla or baby-monkey's mother for bush meat). The exhibit included each animal's story of arrival to the sanctuary.

We met a university student from Barcelona who was volunteering at the place and, after we congratulated her Spanish team on their victory, she noted that actually, the World Cup was won by Barceloneans as most of the team is from that region. We also eavesdropped on some other volunteers, one of whom were observing the behavior of the gorillas. As we were sitting watching them do what they do, the gorilla-observer correctly noted that one big male gorilla was trying to mate with a baby gorilla, she sighed and marked it in her notebook.

We also tried a lot of different food in Limbe. I was finally able to try Scott's famed rice, beans and pepe (hot pepper sauce in palm oil) dish, his favorite in Cameroon or actually anywhere. This is best procured from ladies on the street who set up their wares on street corners. They can be identified by their special pots, they look kind of like crock pots but no plugs and plastic, not glass. Inside these pots can be any variety of items so you must ask what they have cooked that night. The first night we did this in Limbe, we encounted several ladies without beans or rice so you must be persistent! When we finally found our lady, we bought the dish for 200 CAF (central african francs, a common currency used in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Central African Republic) less than $0.50 and it was very good. I must say that the delight with the flavor of the dish (essentially white rice with a tomatoey/oily pinto type of bean along with hot sauce) cannot be disentangled from the fantastic value. Cheap restaurants provide comparably sized dishes (but less flavorful in general!) for 2,000 - 3,000 CAF. There are risks with eating street food with sanitation and what not, but these risks exist in restaurants and at least we can watch the lady cook/plate our food the whole time. We have eaten street food everyday and so far, so good with the not-sick..

Limbe's beach is below - Black sand and volcanic rock.. And pretty strong waves!



The Worst Value Meal Yet
After 2 nights in a scrappy-beach hotel, we decided to splurge on one night in a fancy-ish place. This hotel was was some miles from town with no meal options nearby so we expected some overpriced meals. Unfortunately, the only choice at the restaurant wa a fantastically overpriced buffet - a whopping 9,000 CFA, $18 per person, compared with 200 CFA for a whole meal on the street. We sat in the restaurant with maybe 3 other tables of people waiting for the buffett to get prepared while numerous other diners approached the place, saw the price , laughed and walked out... We stuck it out to avoid traveling at night. The food was not good, the staff were extremely surly (probably because they couldn't believe how little they were getting from that 9,000 CFA per person we forked out), and I left feeling overly full because I stuffed myself on couscous, the only item I liked, to justify the huge expense.

Congratulations Seme Beach Hotel at Mile 11 near Limbe, Cameroon, after nearly 3 months of searching, we are awarding you the Worst Value Meal of our trip!

Cameroon - Arrival

The final stop on our trip is a long-delayed return (for me) to Cameroon. I spent two years here as a Peace Corps Volunteer between 1999 and 2001, teaching high school physics and geology in a government high school in Kumba, in the southwestern part of the country. I had always intended to come back and visit, and finally made it back to Douala after 9 years and 35 days.

Any two-year period generates memories in life, but those two years were more memory-generating than most, and the overall experience has impacted my life in any number of ways. Without those years in Cameroon, I would likely not have been interested in public policy for graduate school, not have met Becca, not have visited South Africa and thus had an interest in the World Cup. The experience informed and changed my opinions on any number of subjects that could fill many, many blog posts (for instance, I think that the US Post Office does an amazing job). And Becca has never seen the place.

So, from the start, I planned for these 13 days to be filled with visits to my old haunts and to actively dredge up memories, to visit my old house, my old school, the spots where I vacationed with and visited other Peace Corps Volunteers (who remain an integral part of those memories and lifelong friends--it was with one of them that we stayed during our visit to Kigali in May), to find former students or colleagues, to see how Cameroon is different and how it's similar.

Our journey here began months ago, when I looked up the visa requirements from the Cameroon embassy in Washington and discovered that a) Cameroon requires tourist visas to be obtained in advance and b) they only issue the things 60 days in advance of a visit. The 60-day threshold was perilously close to our departure date, so we resolved to get the thing in Pretoria.

Two weeks ago, we arrived at the Cameroon High Commission in Pretoria hoping to get visas and to be on our way. We should have known better. The consular official handed us the visa requirements: valid passport (check!), proof of plane reservation (check!), completed application (ok), proof of "sufficient funds" (I had brought a bank statement, check!), letter of approval from your employer (uh, hmm, really?), proof of hotel reservation (really??), and $100 (well, if you insist). We showed him what we had (basically everything but the letter and the hotel reservation) and he sneered at us: "Why didn't you get this in Washington? We only give visas to South Africans." After we explained the 60-day problem he relented. "Ok, come back when you have a complete file."

So, uh, we turned in a "complete" file. And we were duly issued a visa three days later. (Because of the delay, we travelled to the Kruger Park in South Africa rather than visiting Namibia or Botswana, as our passports were held by the Cameroonians).

So we were in!

We arrived at Douala airport at 7:30pm on July 14 after a six-hour flight from Johannesburg and a brief stopover in Libreville, Gabon. Various authors of Africa travel have remarked on the dichotomy of travelling from Johannesburg, whose airport (especially with the World Cup upgrades) is a rival to any in the world in terms of modernity. We left ATMs and cafes and duty-free jewelry stores and, a few hours later met the decay and chaos of Douala's airport. The airport infrastructure is more or less unchanged since 2001, and we walked off the plane onto the tarmac and up a flight of stairs to the jetway--the mechanism to move it up against the plane was broken. Down a long corridor to the health check (all visitors to Cameroon and most of West Africa are required to have a WHO-certified yellow fever vaccination, and to prove it on arrival) where we waived our certificates past a bored immigration official who stamped our passports, and into the grubby arrival hall.

It's hard to describe "grubby" in one of these places, and developing countries tend to be a bit touchy about people taking photos of airports or power stations or banks, so I can't show you what it looks like. Hot and sweaty, full of travellers and porters and security agents, with just a few dim fluorescent bulbs flickering from the high ceiling, with unfinished toilet stalls in the basement, and in desperate need of a good paint job and a sweep, it's the kind of room you can only find in the developing tropics.

I had remembered a more chaotic scene with porters attempting to run off with your bag to a waiting taxi, but on this night we basically collected our bag and walked through customs without incident. One immediate change was useful, however. ATMs. We brought a wad of hundreds to convert into CFA, and immediately discovered that there are no money-changers at the airport. But some loiterers waved at a corner of the dark hall where a visa logo stood, and to my surprise there was an ATM. And it gave us money. And it (apparently) gave us money at a good exchange rate!

So, with my broken French we arranged a taxi and made our way to the Foyer du Marin, our pre-booked accomodation for that first night in Douala.

Kruger Park

I have been falling down on the job and have not done South Africa justice on this blog.. to be clear though, we have been watching so much soccer and driving around the country so much (more than 4,000 miles) that I think I can truthfully plead busi-ness!

We are off to Cameroon tomorrow so I will take this one moment to post about Kruger Park and then will have to come back with a full-on-long-post regarding all of the other wonderful places we have visited in this lovely country!

We went to Kruger Park, South Africa's premiere national game park, during the World Cup semi-finals (we watched the Uruguay-Netherlands and Germany-Spain matches in the Park, to give you an idea of the timeframe). Unlike the Serengeti, which is largely full of foreigners, Kruger is full of South African families on school-holiday. These folks drive from all over the country, tour the park in their own vehicles, and rent small bungalows and braai every night (South Africans love braais = BBQs).

Much of the park has paved roads - and even the dirt roads are graded so our little car (smaller than our Yaris at home) can easily travel on them - and visitors can see all of the favorite animals (lions, elephants, giraffs, rhinos, hyenas, buffalo, leopards, cheetahs, etc). The setting is very different than the Serengeti (my only frame of reference for this stuff) - while Tanzania's park is very flat with little in the way of shrubs or trees, Kruger has many stretches with thick bushes meaning that an elephant is either 10 yards from your car, or he is 20 yards away, but you can't see him through the growth. This is both exciting and frustrating, either your sightings are great ones very near, or you can drive along for an hour seeing very little. Also, because there are so many people in the park driving themselves, as soon as there is something cool, a crowd of cars collects, jockeying for good-picture-positions.. The Serengeti was pretty empty of people and everyone had guides driving them. While we had some great highlights with elephants, hyenas, rhinos and lions, we did not see any leopards or cheetahs like we did in Tanzania.

The accommodations in Kruger are great big campuses with camping, permanent tents, and small bungalows with kitchens and bathrooms. We did not plan ahead, so the only thing we could get were the bungalows (and the reservations woman told us we were lucky to get that, that there were some cancellations otherwise the place would have been COMPLETELY full).

Our first day we searched and searched for lions but only managed to see a couple far away just before we had to get back to the bungalow (you can only drive yourself around from sun-up to sun-down, then only guides can drive guests, for animal and people safety I suppose).

We needed help finding lions! The lodging campuses have maps up where guests note where they sighted animals, which is pretty cool. We checked the map for lion sightings (since they hang out in their turfs, a couple of kilometers from one another, these sightings maps can be good guides for where to find them from one day to the next). The map had many, many lion sightings. Sigh. We also heard this dude bragging to some people about seeing 20 lions in 4 days.. Sigh, the lions are all over, just not where we were looking!

We committed to find them the next day by getting up a dawn, when they are more active.. (Getting up at dawn is much harder for me than for Scott for some reason.) On the road that next morning we saw hyenas and all manner of birds and antelope but NO lions.. Darn it.. By the evening we came across a crowd of cars and joined the group viewing a sleeping lioness right near the road and a male lion. The word from the crowd of cars was that they were a mating pair. We hear that lions mate for a week or so and during that period they will have sex up to 700 times. Exciting. We waited by the side of the road, hoping the lioness would wake up in the mood. No such luck, we had to return to camp as sun-down was approaching. Good lion sighting but not great.

The next morning, up at dawn again. Hyenas in the road again, we are a magnet for those animals it seemed. No lions for one and a half hours. Then, on a dirt road (good because little traffic), we saw a car stopped ahead of us in a river bed which was largely dried out, but still had small pools of water in it. We looked about spied one, two, three, four.. SEVEN lions!! Two lionesses and 5 cubs, the cubs were probably several months old.. OH Sweet Kruger overlords! It was awesome, the babies were playing in the river sand, we sat there for more than an hour.. They played and drank water, then the lionesses looked disturbed/interested in something along the river bed.. We looked in the direction of their gaze/noses and saw a GIANT male lion walking right towards us! This created great drama because the males sometimes kill baby lions so that they can mate with the mothers (like people, mommy lions do not often conceive while they are attending to babies/nursing). Would the male lion pick a fight to get to the lady lions??


Our lions playing in the sand.



Male lion passing by our car, keeping an eye on the group of lions in the sand.


Lionesses have their babies peering over this sand bar as the male passes by.

He would put himself at great peril to try this, two female adults could cause him a lot of damage. He veered off away from them, both groups eying one another warily. In avoiding the lionesses, he walked right past our car. It was awesome..The best lion sighting ever. Strange but not that strange that the 'best' sightings one can have of animals involve either mating or violence.

Luckily, we had this great experience our last day in Kruger, I left loving the place of course!

We also had a great encounter with a mommy and baby white rhino when we staked out a water hole. The baby rhino was very cute, babies always do a lot more than the adults, those adults are always saving energy and not moving much.

World Cup Notes

The World Cup is down to its final four (Holland v. Uruguay and Spain v. Germany), here are a few musings about the event so far:

• What a spectacle. Nationalism (patriotism?), politics, larger-than-life personalities, celebrities, technology, marketing...it's hard to enumerate the passions and excitements that go into the World Cup. Let me just say that the event, in its entirety, has been remarkable.
• Despite years of negative publicity, in the event South Africa has been amazing. The stadiums are spectacular, crime has been a non-issue, the organization has been (mostly) flawless, people on the street are welcoming and friendly and more than willing to assist fans visiting the country. Extra police and armies of volunteers have ensured that the event has been safe and well-run for everyone.
• The US played well and won a lot of support. Not well enough to win, and not enough to steal support from Ghana. But the soccer world has too many players who whine to the referees and lie on the ground at the end of games. The US played in some dramatic games and their hustle and grit were a credit to their country and to the game.
• Americans were the largest bloc of visitors and spent the most money (according to Visa). Thank God they ignored those news articles (you WILL get carjacked) and the crazy marketing (some British company sold stab-proof jackets), every American we've spoken to has had a blast.
• England fans are annoying, and seem to be mostly drunk. Or most of them, anyway. Apologies to our English readers, but that's the truth. One funny English fan moment...at the Ghana-Uruguay match some guy in front of us bellowed "Come On England" every eight or ten minutes for the entire match.
• South Africans have readily transferred their support. There were some wild expectations of the South African team, but when they went out the country switched allegiance to Ghana en masse. We saw the Ghana-Uruguay match with 84,000 Ghanaian supporters (um, no, there were very few actual Ghanaians). Brazil would have been a third choice, and Spain may be the fourth choice for the country.
• We've been to four stadiums, and Durban, Cape Town, and Johannesburg's Soccer City are all world-class. Durban's is probably the most dramatic, with a huge arch supporting the roof over the seating and, like Cape Town, situated close to the beach.
• Live 3D technology isn't a world-beater. Sony is broadcasting matches in 3D, and we watched Spain-Paraguay in a cinema, live, in 3D. It was cool, definitely a new perspective, but I don't think I need to run out and buy a 3D TV. Unlike HD-TV, which makes a huge difference in watching sporting events, 3D TV doesn't seem to add much to the experience that was previously missing. And the glasses are annoying.
• Who's going to win? After early South American dominance, we are down to a fairly normal European threesome in the semis. But Spain and Holland have never won the Cup and Uruguay hasn't won since 1950, so we could still have some drama in the final week.

Kimberley

(In front of the Big Hole)

History

By the 1870s, the South Africa interior was taking on some modern characteristics. Boer farmers had populated and appropriated large portions of the land, and had declared independent republics in the Transvaal and trans-Orange regions. The British had consolidated control in the western Cape and in the Natal province around Durban. Khoisan Africans were completely marginalized and had seen their populations dramatically reduced. And the black African civilizations were in the process of being subdued.

Then, in 1871, two farm children discovered a diamond on the banks of the Orange river.
In the following decade, the region around Kimberley experienced a diamond boom. Prospectors from across the globe flocked to Kimberley, staked a claim, and started digging. Those who "hit it big" bought more claims, and began to hire laborers from amongst the black population.

Kimberley, as a town, flourished. By the early 1880s it had the first electric streetlights in the southern hemisphere. It soon had streetcars, saloons, banks, and mansions for a lucky few.

Diamond Mining and De Beers
The individual claims were originally staked at about fifteen feet on a side, with the claimant owning the vertical rights to the claim. And since the diamonds were underground, that meant that you had to dig. And since some diggers were faster than others, there was soon a chaotic jigsaw of holes and bridges and guywires across the main diamond site. Cave-ins were common. And the deeper holes began to fill with water. What's more, by the early 1880s the easy digging near the surface was finished, and few diamonds were found in the harder "blue earth" underneath. Small operators or individuals began to sell off their claims.

(The Big Hole today)

Through the 1880s, this consolidation of claims created a handful of major operators, each "hiring" labor from African tribes and each struggling to stay ahead of his peers. Finally, Cecil Rhodes managed to buy out all the remaining operators (using loans financed from Rothschild bankers in London) and formed De Beers Consolidated in 1888. As the "blue earth" was found to contain lots of diamonds, De Beers, via their local monopoly on Kimberley diamonds, effectively gained control of the global diamond market.

Boer War
Kimberley, as an English town in the middle of the Boer interior, and as a tranport hub (the British, of course, built roads and then railroads to Kimberley as its importance grew), became an easy target for the Boers during the Anglo-Boer war in 1899. The siege of Kimberley lasted four months before the British were able to raise it, from November 1899 to February 1900. The siege is perhaps most famous for the "Long Cecil" a six-pound cannon designed by an American working for Rhodes and built in the De Beers workshops in town. The local British garrison had only small weapons while the encircling Boers had artillery, so the "Long Cecil" was built using the tools at hand. That it actually worked was quite remarkable, given that there were no gun-making tools (or expertise) in Kimberley at the time.


(The original Long Cecil)

Modern history and Big Hole
Unlike ostrich feathers, diamonds have never gone out of fashion, and De Beers careful manipulation of the diamond market has ensured that Kimberley has remained fairly prosperous throughout the 20th century. Today it is a fairly sizable modern city, with continuing mining operations in the area. Tourism is significant, with lots of markers to nearby battlefields and guided tours of the "Kimberley Big Five" the five large holes in which open mining of diamonds took place.

The premier attraction, however, is the Big Hole. The site of the original diamond digging by individual claimants, De Beers continued mining the site until 1914. In the end, it became the largest hand-dug hole in the world, with hand digging from the surface down to almost 300m in depth, and underground digging (via shafts) continuing to a depth of 1000m. Today the Big Hole is partially filled with debris and water, and there is no longer any mining at the site. In all, 2.7 tonnes of diamonds were harvested from 22 million tonnes of rock.

(Big Hole statistics)

De Beers dominated the diamond market in the 20th century. Savvy marketing ("A diamond is forever"), the absence of a secondary diamond market, and supply constraints meant that they could largely control the price of retail diamonds. While their control has been challenged in recent years by other diamond producers (mostly in Russia), they remain the largest player in the global diamond business.

Oudtshoorn

(Oudtshoorn museum, built during the feather boom)

Cape History
The Cape of Good Hope was found by Europeans near the end of the 15th century, with visits by Bartolomeo Dias and Vasco da Gama providing early accounts of the area. By about 1600, there was a permanent Dutch settlement located as a supply depot for ships passing around Africa to reach the East Indies, and over the following century the settlement prospered. Black Africans had not yet reached the Cape in their long expansion southward from central Africa, and the region was populated only by Khoi-San hunter-gatherer peoples who were rapidly enslaved or displaced by the Europeans (There is a fascinating chapter in Guns, Germs, and Steel discussing how ideal the Cape region was for Europeans to gain a foothold in Africa--with a Mediterranean climate familiar to the Europeans but alien to black Africans, the white population swelled rapidly).

During the 18th century, European explorers penetrated the interior and came into contact with the indigenous civilizations in Zulu-land and Zimbabwe. A turning point came in 1803, when Holland itself was threatened by Napoleon. The British, being generally terrified of Napoleon, chose to pre-emptively occupy Dutch settlements around the world. Over the next fifty years, Dutch settlers and farmers came into conflict with their new British masters and chose to leave the Cape colony to go it alone in the African interior. This "Great Trek" has a lot of parallels with the westward expansion in the United States, complete with land grabs, warfare against the indigenous population, and declarations of various independent "republics."

One of the settlements in the interior became known as Oudtshoorn (pronounced something like "outs-horn" or maybe "oats-horn"). The town is located in a picturesque valley between soaring mountain ranges, and today is about a seven-hour drive from Cape Town. We spent two days there relaxing on our trip to Cape Town, and learned a bit about its unique history.

Ostrich farming
Oudtshoorn came into its own in the 1870s. A number of early settlers had learned to farm ostriches, and, lucky for them, the whims of European fashion turned ostrich feathers into the height of style. Typically the feathers would be made into plumes for hats, though apparently they could be used in a wide variety of applications (on boots or sewn into wedding dresses or as fans or dusters). The British obligingly built a railroad to Port Elizabeth and soon the "ostrich feather boom" was on. At the height of the market, Oudtshoorn ostrich feathers sold for more than gold, by weight, and the speculative boom in the area reached the usual bubble proportions. Award-winning stud ostriches could be sold for several thousand pounds (more than an automobile). Within a few years the town had a hospital, several banks, a pharmacy, a railroad depot, and nine architects building mansions for the newly wealthy ostrich farmers.

The usual story with economic bubbles followed. New settlers flowed in, banks offered vast loans at too-low interest rates, and there was a total absence of regulation or quality control. The resulting oversupply (and low quality) resulted in the first crash in the feather market in the 1880s. Fortunes were lost, lenders went bust, and thousands of ostriches were slaughtered.

The whims of fashion, however, ensured that demand for the feathers endured, and after some consolidation and introduction of local production controls the ostrich market was soon back on its feet for another go. Oudtshoorn had some of the earliest automobiles in South Africa, and the new round of feather-baron mansions were often built entirely of materials imported from London.

The first decade of the 20th century saw a slow decline in the ostrich market, however, as fashion began to move away from large feathers (the Oudtshoorn museum blames automobiles for changing tastes of European women toward smaller feathers). The outbreak of war in 1914 finally killed off the market, however, and the second "feather crash" proved to be the last. The years since the crash have seen attempts by the farmers to revive the feather market, various attempts to introduce ostrich meat to the world (it's very good, it's red meat, and it has little or no cholesterol), and the launching of ostrich tourism. None has been very successful, though there is still a large population of ostriches in the area.

(Feather baron's car, once worth less than a prized ostrich)

(Feather baron's house)

One of the interesting aspects of the bubble is that Oudtshoorn was, very early on, a very cosmopolitan city. Speculators from around the world poured in, including a large population of Lithuanian Jews (who were populous enough to have their own schism, resulting in two Jewish communities and two bickering synagogues in the late 19th century). And later the town was host to 500 Polish orphans during World War II, most of whom still live in the area.

We visited an ostrich farm for tourists and learned about the farming techniques, about the feathers, about feather fashion, et cetera. The absolute highlight, however, was the chance to ride an ostrich. You have to weigh less than 75 kg, so I was ineligible, but Becca took her opportunity and rode that ostrich around the pen like a champ.

(Ostrich riding)

US advances

So the US won their group and advanced to the knockout stage of the tournament! This is pretty exciting stuff, it's only the third time the US has advanced since they started competing again in 1990. And they have an interesting draw--Ghana is the only African team remaining, which means that EVERYONE is going to be rooting for them here (South Africans have been great about rooting for all of the African teams, and always refer to this as the African World Cup, and while the US are generally a well-liked team and would have enjoyed lots of support, with this draw they will get none from non-Americans). The match is on Saturday at 8:30 our time (should be about 11:30 am PDT).

We are in Cape Town with Jessy and Tim and Tim's brother, and will be watching the match somewhere in the city. Cape Town photos to come, with Becca's play-by-play since Durban, but let me say that Cape Town is a beautiful city that is well worth a visit if you've never been.

In the knockout round we've got tickets to Spain-Portugal, and to a second-round match between the winners of Uruguay-Korea and USA-Ghana. Go USA!!!

World Cup Opening Concert - Us v. England

(Been too long since the last post! There has not been a lot of internet time for me with all the soccer to watch!)

Coming back to Johannesburg is like coming home. We arrived in the airport on June 10the day before the first match of World Cup 2010 for the third time on this trip and the airport was abuzz with crowds of visitors looking for their rides and stopping at the various shops and vendors to pick up their team's (or their adopted team's) swag. We picked up our car and (much more comfortably) drove to Jessy and Tim's place. We only had a few moments to put our stuff down after our flight from Uganda, because Jessy and Tim got us tickets to the kick off concert! We hurried to get ready (each time we digressed into recapping our East Africa adventures, Tim would gently encourage us along with a "This sounds like a conversation we could be having in the car" - Sula, you can just imagine his nice-Tim-tone!)

Opening Concert
We arrived at the concert in Soweto around 4pm after using the park and ride system. The concert went on for more than 9 hours, we made it through 8+ (then a DJ took over and we were too wiped out to boogie any longer) and the highlights for me were:

The vibe. That's right, I just threw down that buzz word. It was great, people were really in a party mood, especially the couple next to us who were squatting in some seats and who just managed to stay in the seats through their (extremely drunk) friendliness.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu stole the show. He gave an excited rambling speech in which each of his sentences were punctuated with a little dance, shoulders wiggling and arms waving, he was so excited!

All the big names were really good, Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys, and Shakira (who brought the show down with the World Cup theme song Waka Waka), but I also loved Canine (not sure if at home they are playing the coke commercial with the "wave your flag" song, but that song is awesome live and I don't mind saying it!) and the Parlatones.

The Electric Slide - that's right, that favorite wedding dance broke out in the giant standing-room area in front of the stage and we watched it grow and grow, as a couple of hundred people joined in at various points in the concert, all electric sliding, its alive and well in RSA!

The comedy happened at the end of the concert, as 30,000 people streamed out of the stadium to get on the buses back to the park and ride lot.. Awh, the comedy, first is the smushed, pushing to get out of the stadium shuffle. As we exited the stadium, we could see that none of the buses had left yet. Curious.. How to get 30,000 people out if the buses are not moving? It turned out that the pedestrians streaming out of the stadium were blocking the street that the buses were supposed to be using for their route.. We decided to walk very quickly to the back of the line of buses, effectively cutting the empty buses off before they could make it to the crowd of people at the stadium. We hopped on one that then turned before we even got to the stadium, bypassing all that pedestrian-blockage. Genius, we made it home quickly after that and we learned the trick of the park and ride - Always walk quickly from the crowd to try to intersect the transport before it reaches the slow, bulk of the crowd.

Bafana Bafana v. Mexico
After the build up of the concert the night before, we planned to watch the crucial opening match of the World Cup in a giant public square in Freetown, a neighborhood in downtown Joburg. Tim had to go to work that morning (boy guy!) so Jessy, Scott and I located a public minibus to take downtown (one stopped immediately for us and we crammed in, the signal is a finger pointing down, for downtown I guess). We heard on the radio news in the minibus that Nelson Mandela would not be attending the match, his great grand-daughter was killed in a car accident the night before while leaving the concert - very sad, she was like 12 years old.. That was unhappy news as South Africans prepared to open their greatest international event ever.

The square filled up with people and dancers entertained the quickly growing crowd in front of the big screen. We easily found Tim and his cadre of workmates and prepared to scream and shout along with the bafana-dominated fans (although there was a lone Mexico flag waving in the crowd, I must admire their fans for showing up in the host country's downtown!). A band set up for more pre-game entertainment. Strangely, they didn't start playing until about 10 minutes before kick-off! They drowned out the national anthems of South Africa and Mexico. While the square in the crowd put up the 'substitute' hand signal, the singer droned on about how she was so excited to be in South Africa, that although they are a Canadian band, her mother is South African and her father is Mexican and that she wrote a special song for the South Africa v. Mexico match. It was a comical song which went on and on until finally they got off the stage just in time to avoid a riot, as the game began and the sound system switched over to the game commentary.

Ahhh, an exciting game!! Most of you probably know the result (tie, 1-1). The first goal of the World Cup which bafana scored was met with a crazy celebration in the square that went on and on. Mexico equalized and the square went briefly quiet. At the end, most people seemed somewhat let down but overall were satisfied with the result. We walked through the streets of Joburg back to our car along with a pretty happy crowd. Good day.

US v. England
I will admit it.. I find Hugh Grant and Colin Firth somewhat charming, I can name some members of the British royal family, and maybe I have enjoyed riding the tube, hanging out at the British National Museum, and relishing that satisfying feeling of carrying around those wonderfully weighty pound-coins.. All of that affection for the English has been wiped away through a single match-watching experience with those awful Englishmen! By the end of the match, I was hiding my revulsion at hearing their obnoxious accents and turning my gaze away from their horrible red and white flags! But let's not get ahead of ourselves...

Neither we, nor Jessy and Tim had tickets to the US-England match when we arrived in Joburg on Thursday. The game was on Saturday. By Friday night, Jessy's friends had come through with 2 tickets and Tim had found us another set of tickets on a website called Sam's Army, if we wanted them. Our dilemma was that we had tickets to the Germany-Australia match the day after the US match in Durban, about 6 hours away. We debated whether we should go to the US match, arrive back in Joburg at 3 am, get up at 8am, drive to Durban, arrive in time for the match and then get to bed at 2am again.. This was a brief debate. Saturday morning we got up early and piled into the Tim-mobile, US flag flying from our window.


A Donovan free kick.

Like everyone else, we got to Rustenburg really early and planned to watch the daytime matches within walking distance to the stadium. Thus, we spent many hours with the English fans at the only two pubs in town (Rustenburg is SMALL). This early in the evening they were generally bearable though increasingly drunk and out of control.

After a number of snafuus trying to meet our ticket sellers during which we contemplated giving up trying to buy the tickets and just heading back to a pub to watch the game on TV and save our $350 (our seller's transportation was late from the Joburg airport, our cell phones weren't connecting, their got their north-south mixed up making us walk all the way around the stadium to find their gate), we met them and followed them up to their AWESOME midfield seats just in time for the national anthems. After a yelling-version of God Save the Queen, we launched into the Star Spangled Banner and believe you me, I have NEVER sung that anthem so loudly and with so much verve.


USA! USA!

And then, kickoff! So exciting! Wait, why is England so close to our goal? Oh no, minute 4, goal, England. Boy did that suck, the obnoxious boys behind us spilled beer on my pants and all over my seat in their celebration. Then came their singing which at the time made me grit by teeth but now is kind of funny. Favorite song, "You've only got one sub". to which we responded "USA! USA!" Other songs came as well, which were always met with the old standby "USA! USA!". They then adapted a song to "You've only got one song". Funny English. They were just launching into "Are you Scotland in disguise? Are you Scotland in disguise?" in the second half when the glorious Clint Dempsey's slow-kick dribbled through England's goal-keeper's hands and into the back of the net! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAALL, USA, on Greene's error.. Oh the wonderful celebration that we had which was made all the more sweet as the English song changed to "Are you Scotland in dis-What the F#%&?"

After some more ball-kicking, the match was over and for the most part, we were happy with the tie-result.

For the park-n-ride back to the car, we initiated our system learned during the pre-game concert - We started walking back towards the car lot. We were in a large group that felt pretty safe, until we came upon three nere-do-wells. I say this, because one was urinating on someone's front lawn, another had blood on his shirt and a third was carrying a large stick, maybe 4 feet in length. Lucky us, they fell in step with we four and wanted to chat. The bloody one, who also sported a black eye, wanted to tell me an expletive-laden story about the Americans he had just beat up. His face was yuckily near mine and he was drunk and had metal braces. I was just sucking in my breath to provide a reply - something classy like "I don't like the way you are speaking to me" when Scott firmly took my hand and led me away..

I was disturbed to have them walk behind us so I was very happy to see that mini-buses were coming towards us, en route to the stadium to pick people up for the park and ride. From our place on the road, we could intercept them and they could just U-turn, avoiding all the stadium traffic. Score. The funny part was, everyone in the crowd walking had this idea, so the first 20 or so people who got to the bus could get on. You can imagine how people jockeyed to be those first 20. As a bus would approach, people would veer off into the second lane of traffic, waving widely. If the bus would slow to a stop, what occurred was something like a scene out of zombie movie, where all these people (zombies) converge on the mini-bus and half shake it over as they try to get themselves on the bus.

We zombied-out ourselves and got onto the third or fourth bus we saw. We got home by about 2am and sleepily bid goodbye to Jessy and Tim the next morning as we ventured out of Joburg, our familiar home, to the rest of the country!



We four at the match and one obnoxious english dude.

More Photos - World Cup Update!

(Sorry, no WAG photos..Couldn't find those elusive gazelles.)

South African World Cup

Fan park in Johannesburg, opening match with South Africa.

It is difficult to overstate the significance of this World Cup to South Africa, or to overstate the pride and excitement you can feel from South Africans.

On arrival, the first thing you notice are the flags. Johannesburg is papered with flags. The freeway to the city is lined with the flags of the participating countries for 20 km. Every other car has a South African flag flying from the back window (often paired with an English flag, or a German one, or the US flag). People have South African flags painted on their cheeks, flying from their rooftops, laid out with colored rocks in the road medians. There is a palpable sense of pride--of a kind of the-world-needs-to-know-about-South-Africa--on the radio, on billboards, in conversations.

South African flag, one of millions flying in the country this month.

I was in South Africa in 2000 on the day that they were not awarded the 2006 World Cup. The FIFA governing board vote was expected to be close, but South Africa believed that they had the votes. They organized fan rallies across the country to watch the vote on large screens setup in public squares. On the day of the decision, one of the 24 representatives, who had publicly committed to the South African bid, received a death threat and chose to abstain in the vote. The final vote was 12-11 in favor of Germany (the tiebreaking vote was to be the FIFA president, who had championed the South African bid). You can imagine the disappointment, followed by outrage, followed by disgust. Eventually FIFA altered the bid-selection process, virtually guaranteeing that South Africa would host the event in 2010.

I was back in 2004 just after the 2010 Cup was awarded. Even then, you could sense the excitement. The organization I worked for provided HIV education to teenagers, and immediately launched a "Be There in 2010" campaign (the idea being that you'd better make choices today to ensure that you would still be alive to see the matches). Plans even then were in the works to get stadiums built, hotels ready, transport expanded. And everyone, EVERYONE, was getting involved in cleaning, building, planning, developing for the event itself.

You would never know it from western media reports. For the last four years all you could read in US and European newspapers was about how the stadiums weren't finished, there wouldn't be enough hotel rooms, the transportation would be a mess, and even if all that worked you'd probably be car-jacked or raped before you got out of the airport. At best this was unfair coverage, at worst it was overtly racist.

Now here we are. We've attended four events in four days--we saw the opening concert in Soweto (the Black-Eyed Peas were good but Tutu really stole the show), we watched the opening match between South Africa and Mexico in a public viewing area in central Johannesburg, ran out to the US-England match on Saturday night in Rustenburg, and saw the Germany-Australia match last night in Durban's iconic new stadium. All have been well-organized (with the possible exception of the park&ride system). People are extremely friendly and welcoming and helpful. The stadiums are spectacular. The roads are flawless. The extra signage to and from the FIFA events is great.

In the end, barring some external event (there was a lot of worry about terrorism at the US-England match), the event will finally overshadow all of the negative publicity. We have already heard this from other visitors ("People are friendly, we are having a great time, we can't wait to tell our friends how beautiful South Africa is").

Durban stadium

The largest bloc of international visitors is here from the United States and, indeed, we have run into lots of Americans everywhere we have been so far. There were quite a few at the Germany-Australia match last night. For South Africa, the visitors from every country will become ambassadors, passing out the true story despite the misleading news reporting.

World Cup 2010

Every four years, the world outside of the US stands still for four weeks while the soccer world cup finals are played out. The 2006 edition was played in Germany; 2014 will be in Brazil. Because the tournament provided the primary motivation for our trip, and because some of you may not be experts in the mechanics, this post is just a short primer on how the thing works.

During the two years prior to the finals, pretty much every country in the world participates in regional qualifying tournaments. FIFA has carved up the world into regions, and each region gets a number of spots in the finals. There are 32 spots up for grabs, and Europe gets 13, North/Central America 3, Africa 5, et cetera. This year's qualifying phase ended several months ago; perhaps the most notorious event of the qualifying was when France's Theirry Henry used his hand before scoring a goal against Ireland--France won and qualified, and if they had lost Ireland would have qualified.

The finals progress in two rounds--first, a round robin arrangement called the "group" phase, then an elimination tournament called the "knockout" phase.
The group phase proceeds as follows: the 32 teams are drawn into eight groups of four teams each. Some groups are strong (Brazil, Portugal, Cote d'Ivoire, and North Korea are generally considered the strongest group with three contenders) and some are weak (the US is in a middling group, with England, Algeria, and Slovenia). During the group phase, each team plays against the other three teams in their group and, through a rather complicated tie-breaker and scoring method, the winner and runner-up for each group advance to the knockout round. The third- and fourth-place teams in each group go home. The US-England match on June 12 (7:30 AM PST televised nationally on ABC) is one of the marquee matchups. Draw or win, and the US stands a very good chance of advancing.

Sixteen teams then advance to the knockout phase, which proceeds as a familiar-to-Americans single-elimination tournament. The winner will be crowned in Johannesburg on July 11.

South Africa is hosting matches in ten cities scattered around the country. We have tickets to the following:

• June 13: Germany v. Australia, Durban.
• June 16: Spain v. Switzerland, Durban.
• June 24: Cameroon v. Holland, Cape Town.
• June 29: Elimination Round of 16, Cape Town.
• July 2: Elimination Round of 8, Johannesburg.

The country is huge, as you'll learn from future entries on the blog, so we will be doing a lot of driving. But the atmosphere is already electric, with flags on every car and with soccer the ONLY subject of conversation.

Bye Bye East Africa

It is our last day in Entebbe, Uganda, we are awaiting our flight tomorrow back to Joburg and now seems like a good time to reflect on the places we have visited and to crudely sum up these large, complex places with a few pithy phrase and remembrances.
Uganda
Cheapest place we visited (and anyone who knows me knows that his is very important to me!). Great national beer is called Nile Special and is pretty good. Most everyone speaks pretty good English so we interacted a bunch with people, including our memorable walks in Lake Bunyonyi with some school children. We did not see a great deal of this country, but we liked what we saw and I could see us coming back here at some point. Memorable moments include:

- The bus's flat tire on the Longest Day (part 1) when we traveled from Entebbe to
Kabale,

- The lovely warm evenings in Lake Bunyonyi with a wonderful view and those comical "smoke fires" (as we dubbed them) which were fires built by the staff each night with fresh wood which generated a tremendous amount of smoke because it was not dried,

- Our walk with three kids up to their school atop the Lake, and
our tour of the Buganda Palace which included a walk through the creepy tourture/execution stalls built and used by Idi Amin and then by his successor, Obote through the middle-1980s.

I also must publish here my deepest apologies to Kampala - as Baby's Dad said in the classic Dirty Dancing, when I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong. We went back to Kampala yesterday on a day trip from Entebbe and I have a much, much better impression of the City. The taxi park is still a madhouse, the streets in many places are clogged with cars and burn your eyes with the diesel exhaust, but the City has some very interesting and beautiful places including views on its various hilltops (all of which have some structure of significance, Parliament for the Buganda Kingdom, a mosque built by Colonel Gaddafi, a catholic church, a protestant church, a hindu temple) and we shopped at The Best bookstore we had seen on our trip which was exciting (new books!). My regrets for my previous harsh words directed at this fine City.

Rwanda
An amazing and interesting country, with its unusual topography, the intense land use of the cities, city-outskirts, and rural areas, the organization of the capital, Kigali, the feeling of hopefulness we observed in almost all of the places we visited, and the amazing transformation which has taken place since the genocide. While we visited a lot of this country, I would love to come back in 10 years to see the progress which so many believe Rwanda will achieve by 2020. We will have to come with a pile of cash though, Rwanda was the most expensive place we visited and it is likely to only become more so as it develops further.

I'll remember so many things about this place, including the hills and views in Kigali, Serena's awesome house and cute pets, the school children in their blue or green rubber flip flops (those were the best colors I guess), the GORILLAS (of course), a man I observed walking to work near Lake Kivu with a laptop compter bag in one hand and a machete in the other, the feeling of relief I had when my moto driver found Scott at a taxi park after we had lost him when my driver ran our of petro (that was quite a relief! Not good to not speak any French there!), a funny moment when a gang of toddlers ran right over to us along the road one day, ending in a big, leg-hug, and the amazing, AMAZING feats of agricultural terracing and cultivation taking place in so much of the country.

Tanzania
We spent the most time in Tanzania, traversing the country from west to east by land. The far west in Tanzania appeared very poor, poorer than most parts of Uganda. By Mwanza though, on the edge of the country's west if it were split in thirds, the influx of resources from tourism was clearly evident, with high-rise buildings and many cars and land rovers. The Serengeti was incredible and we could have spent more time there, I won't forget my inadvertent intake of breath when the cheetahs we were stalking made a run at the wildebeests and springboks, and Dar Es Salaam seems like an up and coming African city. On the down side, the farther east we traveled in Tanzania, the more frequent and more insistent sales people became, with the culmination in Stone Town in Zanzibar where 'touts' would walk along with us for blocks, trying to talk us into a t-shirt.

In spite of this, Zanzibar was an extremely interesting place to visit for its history and distinctive East African/Middle Eastern/South Asia culture (EPS will be happy to know that I read the entire exhibit from the Zanzibar Stone Town Conservation and Development authority which documents the seemingly impossible task of encouraging rehabilitation of Stone Town's many historic buildings (many of which are in complete disrepair) and regulating new development's integration with the historic structures). And I will not forget the incomparable Indian Ocean (though a special place in my heart remains for the fierce Pacific!).

While I wouldn't say that I drank A LOT in Tanzania, I drank enough beer here to know that - of the two national beers Serengeti and Kilimanjaro - I much preferred Kili (for the taste, though the beer made in impression on me because from the moment we entered the country, I saw bar and restaurants plastered with painted lettering spelling "It's Kill Time!" which somewhat disturbed me, I figured it was some soccer term I was not familiar with.. Later, I saw that the actual text was It's Kili Time! which makes much more sense for a beer advertisement..).

Thanks East Africa for a great trip! And sorry Kenya, we'll catch you next time.

Two tickets

South African
Our plane tickets to East Africa were on South African Airways in/out of Entebbe, in Uganda. We had no set plans for these five weeks, and in the end found ourselves in Zanzibar in week 4. The return to Entebbe would involve two hours on a boat, a ten-hour bus ride to Arusha, six more hours to Nairobi, another ten-hour bus ride to Kampala, and a one-hour matatu journey down to the airport. So, we thought, why not change our flight to leave from Dar es Salaam (or even from Zanzibar) for the return to Johannesburg? If the change fee were less than $150 each, the cost of visas and buses and all those hours would make it an easy decision.

First stop, the South African office in Dar, where we met a not-so-friendly employee of the airline.

-You cannot change a ticket once you have begun the journey.
-But we are willing to pay a change fee!
-No, this ticket can't be changed. You can buy another ticket leaving from Dar, one way. How much? Five hundred and seventy-eight US dollars. Each.
-But we have a ticket from Entebbe, and your flight from Dar on the same day at almost the same time isn't full. Why can't we just get on it?
-What I'm explaining to you is that you can't change a ticket once you have used one leg. You might be able to get a refund from the issuer and then apply those funds to a new ticket, but you'll need to call Orbitz since they issued you the ticket.

Orbitz
Hmm. Calling the US is, at best, difficult and expensive. Still, thirty hours of buses impelled us to try. We've been carrying around a cellphone with a Uganda SIM card in it, so we loaded it up with ten dollars of airtime and dialed the Orbitz number, some 212 area code in the US. We don't know our own phone number, though, which was never an issue previously but which turned out to be relevant here. Becca drew the short straw and dialed. I watched with some glee....

She pushed a "1."
Another "1."
-Existing reservation.
Uh-oh, voice recognition computer.
-Change ticket.
Making progress...
-Speak to a representative.
Uh-oh.
-Speak to a representative.
-SPEAK TO A REPRESENTATIVE.
La-di-la-di-la-la-laaa. La-di-la-di-la-la-laaa. Sounds like on-hold music. Please remain on the line, all our representatives are busy, your call will be answered in the order it was received.

Several minutes pass and we imagine our airtime value slowly eroding. We can receive calls for free, though.

Hello, thank you for calling Orbitz. Your business is important to us and I appreciate you waiting on the line to speak to....
-Hi! I'm-calling-from-Zanzibar-and-I'm-about-out-of-airtime, can-you-see-my-number-there-and-call-me-back?
Sure, uh, uhm, one-two-one-two...
-No, that's YOUR number. I'm-calling-from-a-256-country-code.
She shoots me a "I can't believe I'm calling the US for a dollar-a-minute and the thing got forwarded to India" look. Money is running out here.
Uh, uhm, no, if you give me your number I can call you back.
-No, I-don't-know-it, let's-see-if-we-can-get-this-done. I-want-to-change-a-ticket.
Becca rattled off the ticket record, eyes rolling upward repeatly.
This ticket isn't allowed to be changed by South Afrrican once it's in progress, ma'am.
-Right, I know that, is there any way to cancel and reissue, or anyway I can get a refund on this ticket and buy a new ticket out of Dar.
I think you will need to speak to South African ma'am.-Uh, they-told-me-to-call-you.
I'm sorry ma'am, what I see here....

Click. Our airtime was finished.

Second chance
So we're stuck on the bus. Or maybe not. In our research we discovered a Plan B; Air Uganda runs flights from Zanzibar to Entebbe for $300 a ticket. We'll still need to buy visas, but we avoid the ferry and the buses and Nairobi and all the rest. AND they have a website with a Book-It button!! Better and better!
So we log on, choose the flight, click the Book-It button, and....nothing. Try it again and....nothing. Hmm.

Ah, Air Uganda has an office in Zanzibar, perfect. A two-kilometer walk from the hotel, it's a bit warm today but what the heck. Let's avoid those damned buses!!

-Hello, welcome to Air Uganda.
-Thank you! We'd like to fly on Sunday from here to Entebbe. Do you have any seats available?
-Yes, and they are 293 dollars each.
-We'll take them. Here's our credit card.
-Sorry, we accept payment in US dollars. Oh, and I'm closed tomorrow. And I'm leaving at 4:30 today.

What? Here we go again. We need cash and we need it in an hour. Fortunately, we've got several hundred US dollars still on the roll. Unfortunately, by now we've discovered that old dollars are no good (somebody muttered something about counterfeiting--whatever--but four of our hundreds would be cigarette wrappers by now if either of us smoked). So we're stuck with the double-conversion problem again. There's an ATM nearby to give us apparently useless Tanzanian shillings. We need to convert 800,000 shillings into dollars and get back to the office in an hour.

Bingo. The nearby ATM spits out 400,000. Combined with the 100,000 in my pocket we are well on our way. Of course, we've maxed out that card for the day. Next card..."Sorry, this card cannot be accepted." Uh-oh. Down the street we go to Barclay's. "ATM is finished," says the guard. Double-uh-oh. How much is back at the hotel, another 100,000, plus some US dollars? That gets us close.
Pretty soon we've got 600,000 shillings that we need to turn into dollars. Into the forex shop!!

-No dollars today.
-What? It says you are selling at 1505...?
-Sorry.

Ok, ok, next shop. We've got twenty minutes to the deadline.

-Sorry, no dollars here.
-DAMN!
-Try Eagle Forex.

Ok, next shop.

-Yes we can change four hundred, no problem.

Success!! The teller counts me out twenty twenty-dollar bills.
We stumble back into the Air Uganda office with a few minutes to spare. I've got 400 in twenties and a couple of post-2000 hundreds. We've done it!! Take this money, Air Uganda lady!

-Uh, the bank is going to charge me for these small-small bills.
-WHAT? What do you mean? You asked for dollars and here are dollars! What's the problem?
-These small bills, they are going to charge me three percent. These are no good.
-No no no no no. You said you needed 583 dollars, and here are 583 dollars. If you are going to convert them at the bank why do I have dollars? We had shillings and just converted them, we had to stop at three forex bureaus to get it done!
-And this hundred, it's from 2001 which is no good. It needs to be 2003.
-Wait, what? 2003? Why? You didn't say that before. I'm American, I brought this from the States, it's a good bill.
-Sorry, this other hundred is good. I'll take it. Now you owe me 486.
-Wait, so you won't take a credit card; you won't take perfectly good dollars; you asked for dollars, I got shillings and converted them to dollars, here they are, and now you won't take them because you can't convert them back to shillings. This makes no sense. I just want to buy a plane ticket, tell me what I need to do to buy this &*@#ing ticket!!?!
-Ok, maybe I can take these small bills, but you are still one hundred short. And I'm closing in five minutes.
-Uh, ok, that's progress. Umm, what can we do now about the other hundred?

And here's where the joy of travelling in Africa kicked in.

-Just pay me the other 100 at the airport. You can go find one this afternoon and you'll just pay me there on Sunday.

Which is exactly what happened. We showed up at the airport, waited for her to arrive to check in passengers, handed over a new hundred-dollar bill (that we'd finally gotten out of the ATM-forex black hole and which disappeared into some hidden pocket beneath her robes), got on the plane and two hours later we were in Entebbe. It was frustrating and stressful (not to mention sweaty, Zanzibar is like a sauna), and shame on us for not knowing the 2003 rule, or the small-bills rule, or the dollars-to-shillings-to-dollars-to-shillings option. But in the end we showed up at the airport, handed someone a hundred-dollar bill, and got on the plane.

Air Uganda turned out to be one of those real blessings you never expect but sometimes find in out-of-the-way places...great flight, brand new jet, comfortable and fast despite a quick stopover in Mombasa. Despite the pain-in-the-ass cash transaction, the contrast with South African and your-call-will-be-answered-in-the-order-we-received-it Orbitz was pretty striking. We've lost something with our endless computer menus, clueless voice-recognition software, by-the-book-even-if-it's-stupid policies, and far-way call centers staffed with people who aren't allowed to make decisions on their own. We would have been happy to give our money to South African and it would have been win-win. Instead we gave it to Air Uganda and are miffed at South African (which is, otherwise, a pretty good airline).

Those who have traveled with Scott will know this, but for the benefit of those of you who have not I must relate the following: Scott in Africa has a very different public face than Scott outside of Africa.

Africa-Scott wears pants everywhere (some of you, like cousin Craig will know that home-Scott LOVES his shorts) because in Africa, only little boys wear shorts. 90+ degrees, he wears khakis, just like all the other men here.

Africa-Scott loves beer. home-Scott can barely get down a pint at home, but something about the hot humidity and the no-work-tomorrow turns Africa-Scott part-British.

Most astoundingly, Africa-Scott talks to everyone - Taxi drivers, kids on the street, waiters, bartenders, hostel-hotties (ok, everyone talks to the hostel-hotties), bus drivers, etc. And he doesn't just chat, he shakes hands and gets names and finds out where each is from and which football team they support, and what they think of Barack Obama (so far, universal love and admiration). You will find this hard to believe, but I am usually a wallflower in these encounters, listening to the conversation and wondering how I can get a word in..

There is a darker side to Africa-Scott though, Africa-Scott does not take any smack from anyone. When a ferry salesman stalks us on the sidewalk trying to get us to come into his office in Dar Es Salaam to buy his ferry ticket, Africa-Scott puts up with his following us around but does not abide the man getting a bit too loud and pushy - where America-Scott would have glared in my direction and tilted his head silently to indicate that we were getting the heck out of there, Africa-Scott stops dead and turns to the man and inquires why he is yelling in his face. Hilarity ensues. Africa-Scott also is a very, very hard bargainer. He advises me to put down the necklace and walk away from the salesmen when my bargaining is not going well and makes sure I do so, then eventually buys the necklaces for 1/4 the price I was at, from the window of our car as we are driving away. When a taxi driver asks for 35,000 Tanzanian shillings for a ride we think is 10,000 and hesitates when we ask him to lower the price, Africa Scott quickly goes to another driver, gets a good price, and then taunts the first man as we drive away, saying out of his winder "You asked for too much, too much my friend. You should not do that."


As I think of other Africa Scott-isms, I will pass them along... For now, here is a photo of relaxed, Africa Scott..

Random Musings

I mentioned that our time at the beaches in Zanzibar did not translate well into posts because they were so leisurely - read, play cards, swim, read, get lunch, etc. - that instead of the play by play, here are some random thoughts I had along the way..

(Typical day, playing cards here..)


Disappointing bribery. While I suspect it has happened in other vehicles, Zanzibar was the first place I saw first hand the bribes demanded by local cops. It is very disheartening. The fact that it is done right in front of us, when we could work for the State department or something, and that it was done for very little money (as little as $0.30) indicates that they do it all the time and that they have no fear whatsoever of getting caught. Because there is no one to catch them, their bosses must do it on an even greater level.

Amazing Indian Ocean tide. The Indian Ocean is not only turquoise and a very comfortable temperature, in certain areas, like Jiambiani on the southeast coast of Zanzibar island, the beach is so shallow that low tide means boats sitting in dry sand because the water receded maybe three football fields away.. And when the tide comes in 6 hours later, the water gushes back to shore.. It is such an interesting sight, we set up our camera and took interval photos to mark the changes between tides.. Here is a photo at low tide and one at high tide, about 5 hours apart..




Ridiculous prices. For our nice, honeymoon feeling, we stayed in a resort called Blue Bay in Kiwengwa, along the east coast where there are a string of Italian-owned places. Our place was like the price of most places, $190 per night which included breakfast and dinner, but not lunch or drinks. Expensive, we thought.. Boy was it, the first night we saw that the beers, which were about 2/3 the size of regular bottles we had seen elsewhere, were 7,000 Tanzanian shillings - the price on the bottle cap is 1400 shillings.. we were outraged! So the next day, we excited the resort, which is kind of weird for guests to do on foot, there are two gates to go through and about 200 yards to walk to get to the main road, and sought out some cheap beer. We quickly came upon a bar where the resort-workers hang out - well, at least where the non-Muslims hung out. We came back to this bar several times, buying a couple of bottles of beers and promising to return the next day with the bottles (in many non-America places, the establishment returns the bottles to the manufacturer who reuses the glass bottles). We then went to dinner each night in our nice resort with a backpack full of beer and a leatherman to open the beer... Take that, over charging Italians!

The Maasai. The Maasai are a large tribe of herders in northern Tanzania and Kenya. They wear bright colored robes and historically (reportedly) were very fierce warriors who fought off other tribes and colonialists to maintain (a dwindling amount of their) grazing land for their cows and goats. We saw them from afar in Ngorogoro Crater, typically one or two men walking in their robes, with a stick, surrounded by a herd, they looked very.. other, is the only way to put it.. With their distinctive robes, piercings, and traditional dances, they are a favorite among the tourists... We began to notice that the Tanzanians and Zanzabarians refer to them as "the Maasai" or "a Maasai" as in, We brought a Maasai to watch our land rover.

At the resorts in Kiwengwa, they have a Maasai who stood at the spot that the resort intersected the public beach as security - he would walk slowly towards the trinket-selling person who was too aggressive with the tourists and the salesman would scurry away.. My impression of The Maasai changed when we hung out at the bar with our cheap beer - there we encountered many Maasai men, they were imported from 10 hours away (Arusha) to work security at the resorts.. They asked us about America, how much things cost there, why no Americans like football, what Americans thought when the embassy was bombed in Dar Es Salaam, etc. They had their cell phones inside their robes and one was in school (in the resort, low season) for computer programming..