...Bat Back Into Hell(dom)

OFFICAL: I am apologizing for the obscure Meatloaf reference, sorry to bring back bad memories

How Betsy was able to coax me out of the KLM Boeing 777 out of Tanzania, I will never know, and how she was able to stuff me back into the land cruiser to Haydom is an even more amazing feat. Well, I guess the rohypnol she dropped in my beer in Dar has finally worn off so my cognitive thoughts have returned, at the very least.

Dar es Salaam was a great experience and we were very happy to get a bit of a respite from the tedium that is Haydom. While in Dar we knew that we NEEDED to bring supplies, snacks and luxury items back with us, as Haydom has nothing to offer in the realm of 1st world goods. After much exploration, we found what we were looking for, chips, spices, fruit spread, TONS of cookies, an electric tennis racquet, a real fan and yes, a wireless internet modem! We packed all of these things, actually stuffed, smashed and piled everything we could possibly fit into an adult diaper box we found at the “wazungu” grocery store, and hoped for the best.

While in Dar, we spotted local stamp makers, guys on the side of the road who take old tires and cut the rubber into stamp-sized pieces and customize them with old razor blades for people who, well, want a stamp. I have been eyeing the possibility of having a stamp made since I first stumbled upon these people in Arusha, so I had to have one. Betsy and I made friends with one of the local Dar stamp makers, apparently everyone in Tanzania loves stamping things so it allows for ten stamp makers to set up shop within a mile radius. So, Betsy created a little drawing, this is something I definitely should have done, and gave it to Martin, our designated stamp dude. Martin told us to return in two hours at which time the stamp would be complete. At the designated time, we returned to find that the stamp was exactly how Betsy drew it out, unfortunately it was not what we wanted which was, Tembo (elephant, Betsy’s nickname for me) and Twiga’s (giraffe, Betsy’s nickname for herself) Tanzanian Adventure, with an image of a giraffe and elephant in the middle. Instead it said, STEMBO and TWIGA, in place of the elephant they carved a tree. The STEMBO mistake came from the fact that Betsy had made a little “scratch-out” at the beginning which Martin mistook as an “S”. Now, STEMBO is not a Swahili word so confusion abound for Martin who probably couldn’t understand why on earth we would want such a word, but did exactly as he was told, much to our chagrin. Both Betsy and I quickly realizing the mistake, asked him to carve an elephant into the remaining space on the stamp. In what looks more like a malformed fetus, Martin, tested the stamp and proudly handed it to its new owners, giraffe and fetus; apparently fetus will be my new nickname. Thoroughly disappointed, I returned to Martin drawing in hand, this time done by myself, and asked him to create a new stamp. The drawing I had created left nothing to the imagination, which was sketched in roughly ten seconds, since we know what happens when you ask Martin to design something. Delighted to see me, he directed me to return in two hours, status-quo. When we returned to purchase the stamp, to my surprise he cut the stamp EXACTLY how I drew it, EXACTLY! As you can see, it’s quite hilarious, since the elephant I drew was semi-retarded looking. Next time we will come to Martin with a computer print-out drawn in AutoCAD.

After the excellent week we had in Dar, we had to jump back on a bus heading to Arusha, we heard Scandinavia Express was the “best”, so we decided to try their service. The tickets were 4000Tsh cheaper than the Dar “not so” Express, the trip was to take eight, not ten, hours and they had a restroom on the bus! Well, the day of the trip we boarded the bus to find the restroom was not functioning, typical Tanzania for you. We also noted that only 12 people came on and all of them were wazungu, weird! So the bus headed for the country-side doing break-neck speed for Tanzanian roads, which is roughly 45mph. The reason this is thought of as quick is because every five miles or so you’ll hit a speed bump, literally, a speed bump. Well, what was a quick trip soon came to a crawl as we began to pick up “ticket-less” passengers on the side of the road. Before we knew it, we had a bus load of people and the driver and attendant had a fist full of schillings! (ok, no more cheesy pop-culture references from the 1960/70’s) After having stopped over twenty times, we quickly realized that this trip was infact much worse than the Dar Express, we arrived eleven hours later, three full hours after the designated time, again very Tanzanian. This wouldn’t be so bad, had we traveled 800 miles, but the distance from Dar to Arusha is roughly half that! After watching two extremely cheesy B films, one which was titled “The Base”, look it up, I highly recommend it, we arrived in Arusha. All in all, we were glad to go get a decent meal and rest the evening before climbing aboard the dreaded land cruiser to Haydom.

The next morning, butts still sore from the prior day of travel, we jumped into an 11 person land cruiser. Of course it was not only stuffed with 16 adults and 2 children, making the human total 18, but also 4 chickens! Knowing what to expect on our trip back, the 6.5 hours of rough-riding was relatively predictable and manageable. Our driver, we’ve had a different one each of the three trips, was semi-blind, which only added flair to the white-knuckled ride up the mountains. We finally arrived in Haydom that evening, Costech approval in hand and a box full of snacks in tow. We are now ready to conquer the task ahead of us, researching adolescent nutrition, for all of those not sure why the heck we’re here (albeit I ask myself that same question from time to time).

We hope that all is well back in the States and that fears of Africa have not frightened Betsy’s parents into retracting their desire to meet the two of us here... it’s not that bad, so long as you have cookies. 
-Ryan

(pics: Ryan and Rachel in Boat at Maliaka House, Ryan eating a fish head, stamp guys, Martin closest to Ryan, Stamps)