Going Home

I said goodbye to Tende at about 6.30am as he was going on a safari. My last meal in Dar es Salaam I felt had to be zege (chip omlette) so Elaine and I had that for lunch. I left Elaine outside the airport as only travelling people are allowed in the airport. The flight from Dar es Salaam to Doha, Qatar was very boring. Before taking off, I was delighted as I thought I had the 2 seats beside me free. Unfortunately a group of children came late. The eldest being about 15. The girl sitting beside me was probably around 8 and it was clearly their first time on a plane. The girl beside was the messiest thing I have ever witnessed on a plane, probably since it was my first time sitting next to a child. There were cheese and crackers everywhere (that was after she asked me what the cheese was for) Her little tub of milk for tea ended up all over herself and she wouldn't stop moving. I thought to myself were we all this annoying when we were that age!! I then thought I was probably worse.

The in flight entertainment was time slowing. First movie was "Mr Bean Goes on Holiday". Granted, it did have its moments and while watching the 2ND movie, I thought to myself, I wished they just replayed the Mr Bean film. The 2ND film was "Pirates of the Caribbean 3". What a terrible film. I remember laughing once at something Johnny Depp did but it was clearly too funny for me to remember now.

I arrived in Doha at 9pm and was greeted off the plane with a sticky, hot, 36 degree slap in the face. Just walking down the stairs to the bus was making me sweat. The airport was fine. My only complaint was when I was getting my bag checked because of my laptop. I was tired and he was making me take everything out of the bag. I took my laptop out of the case, he tried to open it from the back, I reached over to do it for him. He pulled it away and tried opening the screen without pressing the release button. I reached over again. He looked at me and said "I know how to do it, I've done it a million times. We are not jungle people out here." Thankfully my instincts were slow due to tiredness and I managed to think to myself, "say nothing !! They don't have the same lack of political correctness as Tanzanians do." So I just replied "It's expensive, I don't want it broken."

The 4 hours flew by since they had free wireless Internet. I sat on the floor as there were no seats near the only plug I could find. My ass was asleep by 1am.

Same situation as on the way from London to Doha, the Doha to London plane was great. I had my own TV screen which I could choose what I wanted to watch. I actually didn't watch a whole film through. I either got bored or fell asleep and when I finally got into Ocean's 12, we landed in London. As soon as I walked to the baggage claim belt, my bag was there. When I walked out of arrivals in Heathrow, I had the Beach Boys song "God Only Knows" in my head because of the closing scene in Love Actually.

I had 2 hours to kill in London before I could check it in again so I went upstairs to a pub and got an English breakfast for £8.80. The sausage was a let down but the bacon, mushroom and especially the scrambled egg more than made up for it. After checking in I queued for about 20 minutes at the "International Departures" section only to find out Irish departures were put with rest of UK departures. Grrr, I thought, going to Ireland is an international departure, which was quickly followed by the thought I don't care and if I heard another Irish person make the same complaint, I would think, "idiot!"

Flight from London to Dublin was only 50 minutes but seemed alot longer. I fell asleep for about 20 minutes but was feeling like I could sleep talk any minute. It had been a long time since I spoke to anyone and walking around the airports, I noticed myself talking to myself alot louder than usual and when I was half asleep on the plane, I thought I said something but when I looked around, nobody was looking.

FINALLY, I arrived in Dublin airport, but waited for ages for the plane to park as there was a traffic jam on a runway and spent ages waiting for my bag. When I got my bag, I walked out of the arrivals section of the airport, all eyes on me. From flying home alot from Linz last year, I know to turn right and that's generally where my Mam will be.

Traffic was terrible coming out of the airport but it didn't take too long to get home. Since I left, my bedroom has been completely re-done.
It no longer looks like the bedroom of a young teenager with Manchester United crests pasted all over the room, it's nice.

So that was my Africa trip and this is the end of my blog. If you read some/most/all of this, I thank you. I feel if I continued to write about my life after Tanzania it would be unoriginal, contain alot of private jokes and would interest no-one and I have no interest in writing it for myself. So, I'll quit while I'm ahead I guess.

Asante na tutaonana.

What Awaits Me at Home

I leave today (Wednesday 5th September) and arrive home tomorrow.I have mixed feelings about going home. All in all, I'm more than happy to go home but I will definitely miss alot of stuff here.Maybe I have made them out to be horrible but I will miss the unpredictable entertainment of dala dalas. I will miss getting chips or zege whenever I feel like. There is alot I'm going to miss about the daily lifestyle of Dar es Salaam.

There are some things I won't miss though. As I type this, a mosquito just bit me 3 times on my shoulder and once on my finger.I caught him on my finger, squashed him and all my blood that was inside him remained splatted all over my finger with his insides.Also, mosquito related, I won't miss taking lariam. They make me feel sick for a while, had a freaky dream once (wrote about it)and they make me more attractive for mosquitoes to bite. I won't miss being the only early 20s person around the place.

The whole standing out as a mzungu won't be missed.

I dread going into my final year of college. Should be the toughest year of my life to date. I do accept I have to do it as I've had the best year of my life in Linz and Dar. I go back to Dublin where all the kids have shoes, where burning your rubbish outside on the street is an arrestable offence, where women have small asses, where people won't stare at me, where people are generally not as friendly, where there is a legal age for drinking but at the same time where under 18 year olds drink too much, where the windows have glass and the bed don't have nets over them, where the chance of diseases is minimal, where blaring music at 3am for the whole village to hear is a taboo, where young teenagers are cheeky bastards and don't respect their elders, where taxis prices are unmeetable and where a price to go somewhere in Dar is already on the meter just for sitting in the seat and telling the driver where to go, where bouncers and security men won't be masaai warriors and won't have any respect for me, where a shitty beer is 3 times more expensive than a great beer in Dar, where saying you be somewhere at a certain time means you will be there at that time, where people kill flies because they don't like the sound of the buzzing rather than preventing themselves getting bitten, where 1 pot hole on a road is complained about, where there is grass completely covering football pitches, where I can have a hot shower, where the biggest money note is €500 and not 10,000tsh (€6), where the city has an ATM at most corners even if most of them are out of order, where power cuts are rare, where the coast of the city has no or really shitty beaches, where I will spend hours watching a TV even if there is nothing good on,where the Internet connections are at least decent, where the minimum amount of phone credit I can buy is €10 as opposed to the maximum being 5,000tsh (€3), where scumbags walk the streets thinking they are better than me while spitting, smoking "Johnny Blue" and drinking cider!

and finally.... where I won't be living like a king for a few quid !!!! :-(

I would love to come back soon but I've done Tanzania twice now in my youth and young manhood, so for now my life is doing this awful degree so I can get money together through a shitty job in a cubicle where I'll stare at a computer screen for hours while knocking back aspirins to cancel the headaches so I can do more travelling. Who knows where though, I would like to do Asia and North America but.... who knows.

The things I have already marked on the calendar to look forward to are:

1. most noticeably (along with point #2), I go to Switzerland on Monday(10th) to see Kristin. I've been counting down to that for a long while now.


2. Mom's cooking. She's the best cook I know. The few times I'd come home from Linz, I would request a certain dinner but this time, I trust her knowledge. Usually it's her pasta with cream sauce or a chicken broccoli dish.


3. I'm having a piss up gathering in Sweeneys on Friday night (7th Sept) with a few of my friends, so a nice pint of the black stuff is included in this point.


4. The only thing that will keep me sane in final year is the act of insanity and going back to play American Football with my fellow pissheads of DCU Saints. Missing all of last season has made me hungry to crack heads.


5. Spar rolls: "Mayo, plain chicken, red onion, grated cheese please, in that order, thank you."


6. The rugby world cup, sadly I don't think Ireland are ready to take on any major teams but we'll see.


7. Seeing Arcade Fire on concert in October, it shall be epic !!!


8. Philip and I are going on one of usual Dublin pub crawls when I get back from Switzerland and when he is in Dublin for a short while. I love these. Also he got a new dog I'm dying to see.

I'm sure there are a few things I'm looking forward to but have forgotten them right now.

Taking care of the Mzungu

Just a quick post about a dala dala conductor I know to see and he knows me to see and he gives the impression he feels he has to mind me when I'm on his dala dala. He works on a Ubungo-Msasansi dala dala. The first time I met him, I was getting a dala dala home from work. It was full of schoolkids. He told a schoolgirl to get up to let me sit down. (This is quite normal as they don't pay as much as normal folk) She choose not to hear him but the schoolboy sitting beside the window beside her climbed over her to let me sit. After I sat down he gave out to her in Swahili but I heard the word Mzungu about 3 times.
He then said to all the kids on the bus something too as if he was giving out to them all. There was some more small talk but nothing worth reading about.

My next encounter with him was when I was getting a dala dala to Msasani to football.
It was packed. After he asked me how I was and I realised I met him before, he told me I could stand on the step which is a bit lower. (I'm too tall to stand up straight in a Dala Dala)
I was thankful to be honest as usually they don't let you because opening and closing the door can be a problem.

My final encounter was, again on the way to Msasani but I was with Elaine and we were going to meet people for dinner. This time, it was too packed to even close the door. Elaine made it up onto the Dala Dala, but I couldn't perfectly so he said I could stand on the step. My back facing the door and he told me to turn around so I could look out the door as we travelled about 40mph on the main road which had it's bumps. It was great, I felt like a child being invited to the cockpit on a plane and to add to that feeling, Elaine told me to be careful and not fall out.

It's nice having my inner child with the big lolly pop smile again.

My 2nd Dar Cycle

On Monday, 3rd September, My first free Monday from work, Tende was taking a group on an AfriRoots Dar Cycle. I had already gone on one with Mejah but decided to go again. The other people were 3 English people, one of which, a sister of Elaine and Tende's friends and one of Elaine and Tende's friends and her friend who was visiting who are American. To be honest, it was almost completely different.
While cycling we actually had about 20 young school children chanting "Wazungu" (plural of Mzungu) and some guys even making kung fu noises at Janet and her friend has they are of Asian descent. Apparently they are not "wazungu" but "cheenas" (maybe spelt wrong but that's how they pronounced it.) As I've said before, the lack of political correctness without any harsh intent, can be quite funny.

We went on a different route than before, didn't go to the doctor, went to a Dar es Salaam dump (which smelled really bad). We went to a food market and not to the small "movie theatre". We did go to the clothes market, cross that dodgy bridge (which had more bits missing from it than last time) and Masaai salon like before. Although this time there were girls in the group so we saw them braid some extensions to the girls hair. Again the masaai danced for us and again I did a jump or 2. After the dance we took pictures of them and strangely enough, a few of them took out their phones and took pictures of us.

The rest of the group had to go immediately after that so it was just me and Tende let with 5 other bikes plus our own. Before I had never seen a Masaai warrior cycling a bike or wearing a helmet and from public reaction, I don't think it is a common site.

While on the footpaths beside a main road, Tende, 2 Masaai and I started racing. We decided to stop when someone with a huge cart of straw walking against us on the path almost had 4 bicycles crash into it. After some quick thinking and skidding, we all laughed. Tende asked me if I would like to take a small detour back home. I said ok and asked if the Masaai knew it was a longer way, he said no. We cycled through some very small lanes around houses.
I think there were 2 Masaai crashes in them, was quite funny. When I said I was completely disorientated and had no idea where I was, I asked Tende if that was the point (so the Masaai wouldn't be able to find the house again if they wanted) He laughed and said no.

When we got home, it was already after 4pm so I didn't have any recovery time for my last game of football in Dar. I was wrecked after the football to say the least !

Footloose

After spending the day in Q Bar watching a replay of the Milan v Seville Supercup, Liverpool thrash Derby County 6-0, Roy Keanes return to Old Trafford as manager and some US Open tennis while talking to strangers, I decided it was time to go when the people I was talking to decided to leave because the only people left were hookers and dirty old Mzungus and I was a drunken mess.

In the taxi, when we reached Morroco Hotel (which is a 5 minute walk from Elaine's) I decided I would like to walk from there, the taxi man said he would take me home
because Magomeni isn't safe and I could get mugged. So we drove until we got to Elaine's lane. As usual, nearby there was music blaring. My drunken curiosity got the better of me and I walked down. 2 guys were walking to it on front of me. There were about 25 people of all ages, dancing and 2 speakers taller than me playing rhumba music in the middle of a road. It seemed to be organised outside a hallway to some rooms where some families probably live. There were about 5 young boys watching and even a mother with her baby. It's 3am.

I got talking to 1 of the guys that was standing near me. After a while, talking to the guy, a short fat woman grabbed me by the hand and pulled me to the "dance floor". Nobody was dancing with anyone, just everyone was dancing. In my drunken state, I thought it was great fun. I thought to myself I would stay for one song.
About 20 minutes later the song still hadn't ended so I decided I'd sit down for a bit. I then witnessed the height of randomness in Dar. There was a man dancing with only a pair of shorts on (nothing strange about that, TIA !), who must have been very drunk as he had a big branch with leaves down the back of his shorts and he was doing such a funny dance I can't even describe. I laughed. He went inside the hallway and about a minute later walked out and continued to dance with a dustpan on his head.

As I re-read this, I'm beginning to think it was a "you had to be there" moment but I was in stitches laughing. The high volume of beer in my veins probably helped but it was brilliant. The guy was a champion !

I eventually went to bed about 30 minutes into the 2nd song which was about 4am I guess. The next morning I woke up with the nastiest hangover ever and mosquito bites. Around noon, we cycled about 10km to Kipepeo beach where we were meeting some of Elaine and Tende's friends. At one point on the road, the ramps weren't one single big ramp but 4 small bumps one after the other. My head nearly exploded every time I went over them. The beach was really nice. I went on a camel ride. Quite bumpy and especially when he went to stand up at the start and sit down at the end. Fun all the same.