This morning 10 of us got in a small
plane bound for Zanzibar. There were only 12 seats on this single prop craft so
it was for all practical purposes a charter flight! The weather was serene and
I sat beside Jim and alternatively chatted and blogged. Mount Kilimanjaro
played hard to get off to the north hiding its snow capped peaks in white
clouds.
In Zanzibar we drove to the old-town
also known as Stone town. In the evening we walked the alleyways of this old
city mired in its traditions and culture. There was much that fascinated the
camera but there was also too much sadness and poverty that my hands were
unwilling to direct the lens at. Much like India..once again. We witness the
sunset from a beautiful boat (a dhow) accompanied with local music, food and
impromptu entertainment by the staff. A stunning tropical sunset over the
Indian ocean.
The boarding
shed is in the shadow of Mount Meru. The chairs are appropriately
upholstered in Masai shawls or broken. Everyone waiting for their small
plane is a Caucasian. There are no brown or black travelers. It is worth
a thought that of all the guests in the hotels, travelers on local
planes and people with apparent wealth that I have seen there are none
that are African blacks. Of course my experience is one of a typical
tourist, however I notice that most medium sized businesses like grocery
stores, gift shops and restaurants are owned by another minority…people
of Indian descent. So after freedom, liberty and apparently capitalism
has graced this lovely people and civilization, the natives still appear
to be the underclass. None of this is of course definitive, just
observational. The locals are the bureaucrats at the airport, the staff
at the hotels and public servants in government. Seems like but for a
few anomalies money and race are coincident in determining class and
privilege.
I
realized just this morning that DaresSalam nearby was the site of a
terrorist bombing a few years ago. This sleepy country, sweet people and
not-much-going-on-here town…really? I don’t know anything of this world
other that what I have seen in the past 10 days but I will deny that is
possible by the average native. Which bring us to the multitude of
non-native species that plague our planet…zika, ISIS, ebola, Al-Qaida,
yellow fever and its ilk. We would be wise to inoculate our kids against
infections.
40
mins later Zanzibar is up ahead and the plane is steadier than I was
expecting. The brown desert-ish landscape of central Africa has given way
to a light green rolling patchwork dotted with the whiff white cotton
candy of low handing clouds. White beaches here we come ….God willing!
Jim
and I are in vehement agreement about the Masai and their way of life,
talking over each other to make our case and nodding as the other made
his. Extreme filth and unhygienic living even after knowing better
appears to be an illogical human choice at any level and one the Masai
have made. Their kids are educated, some have jobs in the cities so they
are obviously aware of the basic standards for the sustenance of human
life. Yet they continue to live in dirty squalor... in dung huts, a
pervasive smell hanging around the BOMA that even the most abject slums
in the world can’t compete with, they don’t use water for hygiene or
bathing, braid their hair with animal fat and mud, eat only animal meat,
blood and milk, swat away 100s of flies at a time from their childrens’
faces…
We
noticed only two older persons in the entire village…turns out the
mortality rate is very high. The kindergarden school had at least 30
young kids. All of our many escorts were Masai men in their 30s and 40s
but there were less than a dozen elders in the community. The rest were…
dead?
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