Twenty-seven hours into my flight and 10,700 meters above the Mediterranean Sea I finally reach a point where I can type. I had to make a switch from wine to beer for the sake of sanity. I am en route to Mafia Island, an archipelago just south of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania. That’s East Africa for you who are either employed in the hospitality industry or otherwise geographically inept. The flight schedule is completely jumbled.
The odyssey begins in NYC at JFK and puts me in Milan, Italy; via Casablanca, Morocco. After a nine hour layover (Thank God) in Milan there is an 8-hour leg to Mombasa, Kenya. I say ‘Thank God’ because Morocco lost the only bag I checked in and it took them 7 hours to get it where it should have been. Kenya leads to Zanzibar where I should have a man waiting to take me via bush plane to Mafia Island. A man I have never spoken to outside of emails. A man with no phone number and only a P.O. Box for an address.
I am substantially less vulnerable than I have been in previous trips - financially speaking anyway. As far as health goes I am quite fucked as I opted out of spite not to pay American medicine prices for some of the vaccines I will surely need in favor of trying to find them on the island. I routinely travel with no credit card and no insurance. Lady Luck put me on the last panga boat to Little Corn Island, Nicaragua with $8 in my pocket and zero in the bank. And Lady Luck brought me back to Miami three months later with $9. Later that year I left Cairns, Australia for Auckland, New Zealand with five Australian cents to my name. If Australia had a departing airport tax I might still be there. Starting to see the pattern?
My hopes now are that there is enough money in my bank account to cover the cost of my Tanzanian visa, and that my bank doesn’t freeze my card for “suspicious activity” because it has been swiped in three different countries in the last 24 hours. Is there a bank that caters to “suspicious people”? It would certainly make my life easier if I could find one.
Flying over Zanzibar I am reminded by dirt and tin roofs of Nicaragua and the poverty that would be waiting below. I feel as if I am prepared for it. At least as prepared as I can be. What is the worst that could happen? If I die on African soil it will be doing what I want to do. Studying food and people in a yet another remote environment. Surrounding myself with seafood and surrealism.
The airport is small and crowded as another plane has landed within minutes of mine - the only two planes of the day. I am told by the customs official that I must pay US$50 for for a visa. I have 5 Euro, some change, and my (“wherever you go, there’s . . .”) Mastercard debit card. I explain my situation to him and he sends me to the exchange booth to get cash. So here comes my roll of the dice.
Is Vegas is the cards for me this year? Or is the bank going to fuck me? What happens if they do? Insufficient funds? Suspicious activity hold on my account? I hand the teller my card and ask for US$100 in Tanzanian Shillings. Go big or go home, right? She hands the card back and says that the machine is broken. No credit cards today. “Good to be back in the Third World” I mumble to myself. I again explain my situation and ask if I may go outside to see if my contact is waiting and can front me the cash- my contact that I have never had a verbal interaction with during the entire course of a two-year interview process for an executive position in his luxury island resort.
I walk outside into a sea of chaos where locals are peddling cashews, safari operators and the like are looking for contacts, taxis lurking, and I see my sign. A local with the ubiquitous “Mr. Hinckley” sign. I scan the crowd for more similar signs. Not that I expected two Matt Hinckley's to be on the flight, but a year ago I had a friend in New Zealand who got off a plane in India and stumbled onto about eight people carrying signs with his name. Only one would hold all the clues. Important information like, for example, where you are staying. Only God, or perhaps The Devil himself, knows the intentions of the rest. Most probably looking for a wily way to make a few dollars by nicking a cab fare from their competitors, others maybe interested in your spleen, or perhaps in sending your family a sizeable portion of your ring finger along with some very detailed instructions as to what Swiss bank account your ransom should be deposited into. Lucky for me there was only one sign.
I explained my position to my contact, Charley, and he phones the boss who in turn makes the necessary arrangements for me. No deport stamp on the passport today. I am in Africa on a one-way ticket for an indefinate period of time. Broke. Jet-lagged. Hungry. Edgy. Yet somehow still plugged in.
I will be in Zanzibar for about three days before I fly out to Mafia. Peter, my boss, and his wife, Anto, have opened their home to me during my bide on Zanzibar.
The inhabitants of the island are predominately Sunni Muslim which is not only unique to Zanzibar from Mafia and the mainland but unique to me as well. I admittedly don’t know shit about the entire Muslim religion other than, at present, the President of my country is on a crusade to liberate them from whatever it is that they need liberation from. Anti-American sentiment is rife and seems to rear it’s ugly head everywhere I go and this, no doubt, will not be an exception.
The road to the house recalls the Third World but magnifies my prior experiences. Animal-drawn carts blending in with mopeds, rundown pick-ups, and those personnel-carrying Mercedes trucks you always see on CNN loaded with resistance fighters, are all moving at their own pace down the dusty rubbish-strewn road. The natives are clustered around shanties and shacks going about their daily routines. The air is sticky and the breeze is wet and sends wafts of various stench generated from burning charcoal, wood, leaves, and refuse.
This is the luxurious Africa, an area where tourism brings money, and it is already evident that the people here don’t live. They merely survive. I wonder how much worse it gets when you start getting away from the tourist dollars. The annual per capita private consumption expenditures in U.S. dollars for Tanzania is 200. Nicaragua, the poorest country on the Western hemisphere outside of Haiti, offers a comparable standard of living but still spends more than twice that on goods and services. A whopping 440. By comparison, the United States spends 25,100. More than 100 times more than Tanzania.
The US knows no poverty like the people of the Third World. Our homeless are afforded shelters, food, and government programs to give them assistance. To get an appreciation for bona fide poverty take a visit to the Africa where true hardship lies. Being a long-term homeless person in America is a choice. It is a decision made by people who choose to abandon their dignity and self-regard in favor of laziness and self-pity. I have compassion for the people whom I have met in the Third World. They know hunger and suffering like few Americans.
After settling into my room and taking a quick shower I face-planted into the bed and entered the arms of Morpheus for a couple hours. When I woke up I met Peter face-to-face for the first time. He looks like the quintessential British ex-pat in Africa. Actually he looks and talks almost identically to Elaine’s boss in Seinfeld. Grey-streaked hair, wire-rimmed sunglasses, the olive green cargo pants, and the khaki shirt; the outfit that is synonymous with African safari guides. He is dark-skinned and slender and immediately strikes you as the perfect gentleman. He speaks fluent Swahili to the help and instructs them to take good care of me over the next few days. I decided in an instant that I was wholeheartedly dedicated to this man for the time I will be at his lodge. He offers me a trip into town to join him on some errands if I am feeling up to it. I am keen.
I grab my two cameras, one digital SLR and one point-and-shoot digital, and stuff them into a backpack. We climb into a Toyota 4x4 and head into town. Along the way is more of the same. Women in shrouds, some macking the full burka. Heaps of bicycles and foot traffic. And several stands along the road where you can buy nuts, fruits, and fruit juices. The Middle Eastern architecture is of British construction and is most similar to the Iraqi design which is said to be superior. The buildings have been untouched since the island gained independence from England in 1963.
We make a few pit stops before arriving at the central market. I spot a few men congregating in from of a building who are armed with assault rifles and spray guns. Automatic weaponry was well common in Nicaragua. Every bank had a guard armed with a pistol at minimum. The hotel I stayed at in Managua had a guy with a shotgun stationed just outside the door as an added perk. So guns in the Third World is not an all-together uncommon thing.
But this was a concentrated force and they were decisively armed so I asked Peter if that was an exchange or a bank. It turned out to be an abandoned building but he said that in the past few weeks there have been a series of rather high-profile armed robberies and that the government was making some sort of show of force. The robberies were during money exchanges between armoured trucks and banks. The robbers got away by car in some rather crowded conditions so the locals are led to believe that it was, in fact, the police that were doing the robbing. I want to get a photo but I will wait for a more opportune time. I learned a valuable lesson in Nicaragua about taking pictures of armed men, especially military.
The central market in Stone Town rapes your face. Your olfactory glands are molested. Your eyes are hammered with visions of poverty and despair that force you out of your comfort zone and require you to examine yourself. The strange sound of a predominate language completely foreign to you besets further confusion on your ears. Flies dominate the stiff fish exposed to the elements, barrels of rice and grains, and the vegetables - most of which would not be fit to make it to the shelves of the typical American grocery store. Chickens live in cramped batteries woven out of what appears to be palm fronds and they are bagged up alive in the same mundane fashion that the zit-faced teenager stuffing a head of lettuce into your (“paper or plastic?”) bag shows at your local Winn-Dixie. Some merchandise is outdated, most is rife with additives. Water is seeping up through some sort of culvert - at least I hope it is water as I have no choice but to walk through it wishing I could trade in my new Teva sandals for a pair of combat boots.
My job, in a few days, will be to load all of this shit onto a palette and paint a pretty picture with it. A picture that not only looks aesthetically appealing but also tastes fucking bang-up top-notch. No problem I tell myself. Hakuna matata, bitch! Most chefs who are at all serious about their trade would hesitate to tell you that they made a beurre blanc with margarine. Not me. Nicaragua knew no limits. I will make this work too. Besides, this is just one source. I still have sources to discover in Mafia, in Dar Es Salaam, in Nairobi, and with the hunters on the mainland. Part of being a good cook is being able to make brilliant meals out of nothing - scraps. So this promises to challenge me in that regard. Now where did I put those stomach sedatives?
I left the cameras in the car with Charley, my contact at the airport. I decided that it would be better to bring one at a time. That way when I get robbed I won’t lose both. What is that saying about putting all your apples in the same basket? The people are friendly enough. Everyone seems to welcome you in both Swahili and English. “Jambo. Where you from”? “I am American”, I say. “You are welcome”. I want to talk with Peter a bit more about life here before I start pointing a rather intimidating 200mm telephoto zoom in the inhabitant’s faces. We load up some supplies and head back for the house.
After sending a few emails home to assure friends and family that I have arrived alive I help Peter put together a caprese salad. We open a bottle of red and start talking shop. The lodge sounds stunning. He seems to be taking the right approach and I am eager to get involved. He currently has a night set aside for seafood BBQ and another set for Swahili cuisine.
I bring up the idea of wild game and he is supportive. Ideally we will use hunting contacts on the mainland as a source and trade seafood from the island for eland, buffalo, and whatever else is unfortunate enough to end up in the scope of the rifle. We spend a few hours talking about the goals of the lodge and the tasks ahead.
Eventually Antonella gets home and we eat dinner. Roasted beets and sweet potatoes, sauteed zucchini and carrots, and some steamed prawns. I try the pili pili peppers which is the African equivalent to the Caribbean’s dreaded habanero. They’re hot but the habanero dishes out far more punishment. A few more glasses of wine. Talk of travel. Talk of food. And off to bed.
I am up at 3:00 am. Wide-awake. Something is making a noise outside my bedroom window that is best described as The Count’s laugh (from Sesame Street) dropped down an octave. A few other movements and weird bird calls as well. I turn on the light to read and see that there are a bunch of mosquitoes stuck inside my net. It is one of four varieties I learned of the night before.
One, the rather common and pain-in-the-ass type. Two, is similar to One but delivers a nastier sting. Three, delivers elephantitis. Four, malaria. Chills, fever, nausea, profuse sweating, and nightmarish hallucinations. A parasitic disease which kills 1 to 3 million people each year. Eventually I will get Plasmodium Falsiparum. The worst one. And octopus will consume my hallucinations. I give the mosquitoes the kung-fu tiger fist and get back to my book. I hear Peter typing in the room next door. It’s around four o’clock a.m. Coffee time.
