awoken at 3am by the sound of drumming

Will need to backtrack to update you on our rather harrowing trip across the border from Tanzania to Mozambique. We are only now, almost a week later, able to connect again to the internet.

In any case, I wanted to just tell you now about where we are now & later I'll fill in some gaps. We are on the Ilha de Mocambique, a small island (about 1.5km in length) that is connected by a 3km bridge to the mainland of Mozambique. It was another Portuguese colonial seat of power, but was until mid 20th Century, the Capital of Mozambique as well, and so instead of ruins, there are old dilapidated, but GORGEOUS thick-walled buildings in a very picturesque setting in the Indian Ocean.




Lots of breezes, soft air, and the place is just stunningly beautiful, with an odd tension in the older areas between what buildings are inhabited, and being used for their original purpose, and what is happening there now as alot of the buildings are going through renovations & many are also being squatted. The population here - some 20,000 - is still for the most part not completely changed by tourism (the place is hard to get to), so there is still a vibrant local culture as well.

So...it was 3am, and I was awoken by the sound of drumming. There was a P.A. system, and the sound of a crowd. After lying there for awhile, I decided that it sounded close enough & the drumming was intense aqnd good enough that I should just go ahead out in the night and track it down. I left our little hotel in the pitch black, almost sleepwalking toward the sound. Surprisingly there was quite a bit of street activity at night, and I found my way along the sandy port road, past the mosque, to the area of town where most of the people live. There, thatched roof humble dwellings are patched together into a system of walkways that lie on a lower level than the roads that are above. I finally found the source of the drumming, and was pleased to find singing and dancing as well. The best I could understand was that it was a series of singing and dance "groups" from the neighborhoods, that were performing in succession for people from the neighborhood (and others like myself, who had been called by the music). Note: I later found out that this was TUFO dancing, something the island is particularly known for - I feel really lucky to have seen it as it only occurs before special events & Islamic feast days.

I found a place to sit on the escarpment above and from this perch happily watched and listened for several hours until daybreak, when I walked along the ocean amazed at the lavendar sky. My presence attracted some attention, but not alot. As each group finished they would climb the stairs to where I was to catch a breeze, cool off, smoke, and buy a juice or soda from the small merchant stand. Many asked if I liked the music, one kissed my face in appreciation of my appreciation.

We are enjoying Mozambique very much.

Russell's Place in Pemba

Pemba is a beautiful and somewhat unassuming city in Northern Mozambique. It has a nice white sand beach called Wimbe and people leave from here to take overnight trips to Ibo and other small islands off the coast. We got a taxi beyond Wimbe to a backpacker's joint called Russell's place that we read about in our trusty Lonely Planet guide (Note: by this time we had come to call it "the Good Book" as in "What does The Good Book say about it?"). Russell, an Australian ex-pat who had been hosting this camp for the last 8 years or so, greeted us heartily and suggested Omar, the camp manager serve us up cold beers since we looked like weary travellers. Omar obliged and Russell further accomodated us by suggesting we stay in a small tent setup he had, since there were only dorm beds left and he understood that couples like to have some privacy. very nice.



A really nice feature of Russell's Place was the hot & cold ablutions block. In the morning and early evening they would set one of the large metal holding barrels on top of coals that would heat the water. you could then dip in the large mug to create the temperature you wanted. Deliscious!



Just across the road was a small patch of beach with water protected by a kind of cove that meant the water was perfectly still and I could swim miles out if I wanted. Fantastic! In Wimbe you could walk out from the beach and snorkle a very nice reef that was simultaneously being fished by locals (watch out for that hook!). We didn;t get hooked, but Hung did fall backwards onto a sea urchin (OUCH!) andI got to extract 7 spiny stingers from his ass.

Russell was a character & he attracted characters along with assorted backpackers and some Pemba locals at his nightly buffet dinners. He would drink whiskey and gin with his guests until late in the evening in the huge makuti thatch den decorated with all manner of Makonde carvings and comfortably populated by cats and dogs.





We liked this place and hope that it can remain true to Russell's vision even as Pemba real estate is snatched up by foreigners anxious to cash in on the next far-flung resort.

Ruins, ruins & more ruins

Historically, the trip along the coast has been a very engrossing and haunted tour of a great group of "rag coral" old forts, palaces and other assorted ruins. In Mombasa, Kenya there was Fort Jesus - an important fort that had changed hands frequently between the portuguese who originally built it and the arabs and Omanis who settled there.



Of course these are all slave trade ports as well, and many of the forts were later turned into prisons, so they are the sort of places where if you listen hard you can still hear the screams. Zanzibar, of course, has its palaces, baths, and active stone town, and south of Dar are the Kilwa Kisani ruins - huge old coral rag houses, tombs, forts, palaces, and mosques - that are in the middle of a village that bustles around them with not much care.



Currently, we are splurging on a stay at the Old Boma - this is an old German municipal site that was recently renovated with exquisite care by a non-profit foundation. We can only afford to stay one night in its thick walls, before we hit the public buses to cross the Mozambiquan border early tomorrow.



Here is the Old Boma website. The foundation that runs it contributes back to the local population and there is nice locally produced artwork on the walls. We have hot water for the first time in weeks - glorious....
http://www.mikindani.com

Mloka Bus

We departed Dar es Salaam on the early early morning (4am to be exact) on the 14th of April. We were catching the public bus into the Selous Game Reserve. The reserve is the oldest & one of the largest game park areas in all of Africa & is quite exclusive. Usually people fly into a camp and spend hundreds of dollars a night to experience the pristine nature of the researve and its animals. So Hung & I of course are doing it on the cheap - we found a "deal" that if you take the public bus to a small village called Mloka, at the very end of the line, they will give you a discount at the Selous Mbega Camp.

What a journey! really I guess it was kind of a cliched African bus trip - we were set to depart at 5am, and because of brake trouble only ended up departing at 8am from Dar. This was after witnessing a rather discouraging scene of a group of men banging one of the brake parts on a piece of concrete in order to loosen it. The bus was extremely crowded (all seats filled, plus standing room filled for a 7-9 hour journey). Because we are mzungus (white/foreigners) we had seats already arranged for us (sadly I got the distinct impression that we had displaced some few people), so we settled in for the trip. It was on this trip that I began to understand several things about African culture - one motto being "there is always room for more" - despite the bus being overcrowded to begin with (later we learned that this was the first bus for three days of what is normally a daily bus) we continued to stop and receive passengers and goods. THE ROAD WAS TERRIBLE.



Of course we broke down (insert picture here), and toward the end when we passed a lorry that was stuck, the whole bus disembarked to help push the lorry out of the way so we could continue.



The bus was extremely hot, so at the end, Hung suggested that we climb on top of the bus to join a group of men who seemed to be enjoying themselves on a mattress above. Hung was greeted with surprise, but when I followed, one man tried to catch me at the top and send me back down, but some others waved me up, and there we were, lurching into the sunset ducking along with the others the stray tree limbs that punctuated the last 10km. We did eventually make it & the camp had a landrover (unofficial vehicle of East Africa) waiting to take us & several park rangers to the camp just in time for darkness to fall.

The trip out was not as adventurous (thankfully) by bus, but we ended up hitching a ride on the back of a lorry carrying rice to the town on Nangurukuru. The road was bumpy and hard the whole way & Hung's initial excitement at our fortune in catching the ride, eventually faded as 6 hours later we were stuck in a ditch, collecting rocks with other passengers to wedge under the lorry wheels. The entire truck load of passengers and rice haulers got a big kick out of my screaming "fire" in English when the truck overheated and blew some sparkplugs igniting the engine for a brief moment. An hour or so later when we caught a local dalladalle to Kilwa Masoka, the crew was still laughing about it. 16 hours after departing the Selous, we had arrived at our next stop. Hung took a picture of me in the rice lorry.

Off the map - thinking of all of you...

so...hopefully no one was worried...we were "off the map" for about a week. A strange experience. We pretty much knew where we were most times, but a few instances we have been in limbo areas, areas not easily reacheable with no internet connection. I'd feel better if we knew more swahili, but we are somehow getting along ok. I have been learning the language (which is quite pretty & melodic & thankfully easy to pronounce & decipher verbally) bit by bit - just enough words to get in trouble as Hung says - and usually there is some clean & pressed young male student who knows some English & is pleased to help out along the way.

I'm going to divide up the next few entries (as alot happened in the meantime) - but I wanted to acknowledge several important occurences in the Jenik/Tu families that are going on in our absence - namely, my mother, Carol's birthday (04/22 - or in Africa as in Europe 22/04), my Great Aunt Anne's 100th(!) birthday celebration (happening this weekend, though her actually birthday was the 14th of April) and Hung's dearest brother Ben's wedding celebration also on 22/04. We will raise a cold safari beer in toast this weekend to all of our loved ones gathered as they are in Long Island and mainland China for their respective celebrations.

Selous Mbega Camp

On the Riverbank of the Rufigi River is a simple safari lodge called Selous Mbega Camp. It is named after the game reserve it borders (which was named after Frederick Selous) and run year-round by a Tanzanian born man of German ancestry named Sasha and his father.

We took the Mloka bus here (see later posting) and it was on the way there that we made the acquaintance of Mr. Marumbwe (Dr. M was Hung's nickname for him). When we arrived we learned that we were to be the camp's only guests. Since the camp was running at half staff because it was the rainy season, it meant there were only 10 or so staff members taking care of just Hung & I's needs. Mr. Marumbwe served as our unofficial host, joining us for each of our full-board meals, and thus had the opportunity to make a big impression.

A 50ish well-educated Tanzanian, he was a member of the Makonde tribe (having been born and raised on the border between Tanzania & Mozambique) and was a no longer actively practicing Muslim. At each meal we would discuss our day (or our & his plans for the day), but our conversations soon branched off into politics- US and African. It was during these discussions that we got a small glimpse of the cruelties enacted during the 17 year long Mozambiquan civil war (1975-1992) which immediately followed their war of independence over Portugal. As Mr. Marumbwe recounted, refugees would wade across the river and be taken in by Tanzanians, often rescued from grisly states of humiliation and torture.

On a full day game drive and an afternoon boat safari with our guide Mr. Mpogo we saw common water buck, sexy warthogs, giraffes and more giraffes (a family of more than 30 at one point!), impala, elephants, zebra, hippos, and countless wetland birds like the colorful rola and the sacred ibis.





One day, instead of siting game, Hung and I decided to stretch our limbs and walk into the small village of Mloka which lay only 1.5 km away. As we set off, what transpired was truly puzzling to us: our breakfast attendant upon hearing of our plans, rushed ahead of us calling to Mr. Mpogo. Mr. Mpogo then insisted on accompanying us on our walk. Hung & I both bristled at this, first because during the day a danger of animals did not seem warranted. Of course, what do we know, and the camp was obviously concerned about something, but it almost seemed like they were worried about us going to the village. We had been there when getting off the bus, and more importantly had been already travelling in Tanzania a bit, so we knew a little swahili and the general environment of village life. We saw no harm in wanting to see more and thought to visit the small eating shack that stood with the rest of a clutter of small buildings where the bus let us out to eat lunch.

We insisted on going ahead with our walk, in part just to get exercise, and Mr, Mpogo, who had been rustled away from fixing his truck, trudged along the road with us, dodging the muddy ruts left by a morning rain. The situation was quite ridiculous. Finally Hung used my discomfort as an excuse to convince Mr. Mpogo to let us proceed unaccompanied. We went on to the village with Mr. Mpogo making a plan to meet us there in a short while. We walked slowly down the road, perfectly unmolested except for the bright sun rays. On the way into the village we passed what looked to be a fisherman, and upon encountering the first few humble huts we tripped the "Mzungu alert" - small groups of children shrieked "Mzungu!Mzungu!" and ran toward us and just as quickly away. The adults looked up or stuck their heads out but otherwise went on with their business. We stopped to rest in a patch of shade by a vending shack run by a woman. Hung bought a coke that we shared and she kindly brought out her chair from the shack for me to sit on.

We continued into the heart of the village, passing boys playing checkers, and women doing their hair, pounding cassava and tending small patches of sesame seeds and corn. We sat down for some chai at the local hotel (small restaurants are called hotels while shelters are referred to as guest houses), and stayed for some time watching the downpour that began just as we walked in. Its hard to describe the sensation of being such an object of interest. The profound communication barrier was occasionally pierced by an expressed need (usually ours - more tea, sugar, a light for Hung's cigarette) or overheard snatches of swahili referencing our presence. Hung takes it all in stride, but many times I feel an acute sense of self-consciousness, almost like I can see myself from the outside.

Eventually Mr. Mpogo did come to collect us and take us back to our camp, which started to seem like a prison now that we knew we were not "allowed" to go freely off the premises. Hung felt the experience was a bit like being in an episode of the Twilight Zone, and started to call Mr. Marumbwe "Dr. M." We left the next morning.

the fine white sands of Zanzibar...

We just returned back to Dar from Zanzibar.



We spent two nights in Stone Town (the old port area with winding streets, beautifully carved doors, and pleasant streetlife), and then went on to the eastern shore to see what all the fuss was about. wow. It was exceptionally beautiful - the sand was so white and so fine that it seemed more like lime than sand. The water was a crystal turquoise color. The sky was a constant drama - it is supposed to be the seasons of "the long rains" now, and we did get caught in a downpour when departing, but other than that it has been quite nice, with the added benefit of being able to negotiate lower rates and not have so many other tourists. Of course we are hoping for rains for the people here, though from what I have read, there is now flooding in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya, from too much rain at once.



The little village we were near is called Bwejuu, and there was lots of village life coming and going along with the tides. Women in their kangas gathering seaweed and sisal in the mornings and net fishing in the afternoons. We stayed in a sweet little thatched bungalow right on the beach. They prepared simple meals and we could go for log walks on the beach.



I finally did get sick. I guess it was just as well that it was somewhere pleasant that we were planning to stay for several days, as I promptly came down with a flu. A high fever, aches & pains, the runs, etc. Of course malaria has the same symptoms in its early stages, so after a full day & a night of being completely wasted in bed, not eating, I asked Hung to help me with our little malaria test kit. It is hard to figure out strange medical instructions when you have a high fever. We finally managed to get a blood sample (don't ask!) and Hung valiantly prepared the test and 20 minutes later we discovered I was non-reactive. I was so relieved I immediately fell into a long sleep and when I woke up several hours later I felt a bit better. By evening the fever had broken & by the next afternoon I was out in a boat snorkelling!

In any case, we are here in Dar for a few nights (back in our little ramshackle spot where Mission Street dead-ends at Mosque Avenue) taking care of final business before we go down to the Selous Game Reserve. I'll try & take some more time tomorrow to post pictures, but it has been difficult since very few if any computers have USB connections.

Dar to Zanzibar

We are currently in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. We had a very beautiful bus ride from Mombasa through Northeastern Tanzania - very lush and green. We arrived in Dar after dark on Monday night. Note to travellers: if it is after dark when you arrive in a new city, take a cab (for god's sake!) even if your destination looks close on a map. I won't go into details here, but I was not a pretty sight. Dar is a stopping off point on our way to Zanzibar and also to our safari in the south. Of course we have not been able to explore it to its fullest, but let's just say we won't be sending any postcards from here wishing you were sharing it with us. I think there are some cities that are more difficult for travellers than others. Mombasa, for instance, was exceedingly pleasant to make our way around, but Nairobi's charms were a bit more hidden. Sort of like NYC and LA. Not like them (not at all!) but similar to how LA is hard to figure out as a short-term visitor, while NYC you can access things you are interested in quite easily. Anyway, Dar es Salaam has so far been the most elusive of the cities we've visited. Plus the area we are staying in is chock full of touts who attach themselves to us as we depart each morning. They really like Hung & he really does not like them.

Here is the beautiful Mosque down the street from our guest house.

We can hear the call to prayer in stereo from two different (& competing?) mosques from our window.

On a different note, the internet access is far superior here to that in Kenya. Though to be fair, people said that the access times were going through a particularly rough period while we were there. Here in Tanzania, at least so far, access times are much quicker. The cost is generally a minimum of 500Tsh (roughly the equivalent of 40 cents)/hour pre-paid. I haven't tried uploading photos yet here - may try that later tonight.

We are leaving for Zanzibar tomorrow on the slow ferry. Also, trying to take care of our Mozambiquan VISAs today (yesterday the office had closed 5 minutes before we got there).
I guess I am really travelling now as I had a lion show up in one dream and in another I was calculating exchange rates!

Mombasa!

We travelled over night via train to the coast from Nairobi several days ago. Mombasa is the main coastal city here - a major east african port, and quite a lovely walkable city who's center is an island. Our first stop was to spend some time in northern Tiwi beach on a working farm that was the home of Grace Akinya.



"Mama Grace," who is recently deceased, is the grandmother of an acquaintance through my friend Cathy, Hettie Hughes. A young Kenyan/Scot doing her doctorate in sociology (focussing on the sociology of HIV infection) in the UK, Hettie generously invited Hung & I to spend a few nights on her farm close to the Indian Ocean coast. It was a lovely spot (pictures to come) and the farm itself was rich with black loamy soil that was nurturing mango, papaya, cashews, cassava root, machengwa (oranges) and lots of chickens, cows and goats.





Here we all are eating a full English brekkie with our lovely young escort, Ngochi, who is a swahili rap artist in Mombasa.



We were dripping with sweat the whole time we were there - the coast is hotter and more humid than Nairobi - and much to our surprise, the ocean was actually hot as well!

We only ended up staying one night as Hung was anxious to get to Mombasa. We are both really enjoying the city - Hung seems to be a magnet for all types of communication. He has the opportunity when he walks alone to converse with the great mix of cultures that exist here - old and new, sacred and profane, high and low - overall the city is slower and friendlier - like Nairobi with the edges melted off.





The call to prayer has begun to punctuate our days here, as it will all along the coast of Tanzania. We are so far a bit "off" time as we keep sitting down for meals just before the call & thus miss out on food prepareed for after prayer time, but I guess we'll get on schedule soon enough. We went to a Kenyan bar last night & ended up causing a small stir just by being there - soon enough music and beer became common denominators through which people could hold forth on their life philosophies. Tonight we are going to head to a live reggae spot that a young Swahili speaking rasta-rapper named Ngochi told us was a good spot on Sundays. Tomorrow we head for Dar es Salaam and Tanzania. I have some great photos, but its hard to convert them here. Will try again from Dar.