The Africa Book (Non-Fiction - Working Title - Vox Machina)
Being that this is a non-fiction book, I feel the need to qualify the non-fiction aspect of it by pointing out that I've omitted certain facts regarding my education, in order to make the story less convoluted. There was also the desire to give a bit more credence to the whole, technology changes lives theme. I didn't want the fact that I'd taken DOS in college when I was 16-years-old, to take away from the idea that anybody, including a totally uneducated child living in a Third World country, could sit in front of a computer and suddenly have a whole new world full of new opportunities, open up for them. Fact is, any basic programming I'd learned when I was a teenager really did nothing for me in terms of my current career. I never did put any of that knowledge to practical use in any way, nor did it give me any real advantages while negotiating the fast-paced learning curve of existing in the hot-bed of the "Internet Counter-Revolution" ... thus, any education I may have had prior to 1995 is hardly relevant. Truth to tell, all the uneducated kids I'm talking about helping, they're so amazingly bright, but they're uneducated for no other reason than cirumstance! The same is true of all of us, I think. Circumstance has led many bright kids away from a proper college education. This is one of the major points we want to illustrate with this book.
Synopsis/Outline
From: Jay Godsall
To: Joanne Dillinger
Cc:
Subject: Re: mazava site
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2001 16:17:35 -0400
hey power chick: how much notice do you gots te give bankin world before you jet on a 17 day bet?
Inner-city ex-stripper, JOANNE DILLINGER, spent the past 7 years dreaming of a better life. When she got it, she realized it wasn’t better at all, just better-funded.
Joanne, a woman whose family emigrated to Canada when she was only a year old, grew up in a world where women were beaten for laughing too loud. Her father left when she was 3-years-old, leaving Joanne to find male role models in the string of boyfriends her mother would bring home. She spent her formative years with a step-father who enjoyed public humiliations the way most of us enjoy a Saturday night movie. She was one of those quiet fuck'dup kids who slipped through the cracks of the Canadian education system. Painfully shy, her above-average IQ was totally over-looked and it seemed no one noticed her descent into a world of drug-addled highschool drop-outs and boyfriends who were in and out of jail. Having left home at 16, Joanne, like so many others before her, had gotten in with the wrong crowd.
It was 1996 when the 26-year-old exotic dancer got a phone call from her sister’s boyfriend, "So Joanne, do you wanna quit dancin'?" he said and she squeezed the receiver tighter against her ear. "Cuz I’ve got somebody you might wanna meet."
Enter JAY GODSALL, a handsome, charismatic venture catalyst on the ground floor of the next big thing. A brilliant and worldly McGill University graduate who majored in Film and African Studies, Jay was running a government funded project to give youth from poor neighbourhood’s access to digital tools and entrepreneurial skills. Despite her age -- the project was set up for youth aged 16–24 -- he bent the rules to let Joanne in as one of the first project participants.
It was during this 8-month project that Joanne was introduced to the tools of intelligence -- new media technology - computers, the Internet, digital cameras, film and video editing. She picked up technical skills like a bull seeing red, wielding them with a sense of control she’d never felt before.
Joanne didn’t have to swing around brass poles at two in the morning ever again.
She swiftly worked her way up from Production Assistant at Ogilvy & Mather Advertising, a premiere agency based in Toronto, to Senior Interface Designer at CIBC, a bastion of North American financial power. It was there that her aggressive and ambitious push for emancipation came to a halt.
She’d spent two years at the bank. She had the cushy job, the money, the posh apartment in the trendy downtown neighbourhood, and the prestige of being one of the illustrious wage-slave elite. A telecommuter who set her own hours to flow around her nocturnal circadian rhythms; only now she woke every morning with a profound emptiness. Lost in a vast and meaningless desert of beige cubicles, Starbucks Coffee, and digitally enhanced reruns of Friends that had morphed into her flat existence.
There was no more wrathful father in her life; no more controlling boyfriends; no more tyrannical strip club owners stealing her meager weekly earnings. She was no longer a victim. She’d taken control of her life. Her destiny.
How could she possibly be unhappy? Hadn’t she gotten everything she wanted? Was she just a malcontent, never happy no matter what she did?
Joanne was still searching. She wanted more out of life than the mere assurance that she could afford Prada shoes and Bally’s membership dues. Joanne wanted to be a part of something bigger than herself, and though it sounded idealistic and naďve, she wanted to make a difference in the world. She wanted to do something meaningful.
That’s when Jay sent his email. He told her she could help change the world and pitched her on the idea of doing for Africa what his program had done for her. She believed all those tech skills she’d worked so hard to earn could help save some dying Tanzanian kid. He convinced her she could do more than just build shoeshine banking websites. She could be on the front lines with a small army of visionaries bent on affecting global change; connecting the Third world to the First, opening lines of communication, and creating a new path to the future.
It reminded her of Steve Jobs’ pitch to the former head of Pepsi-Cola, "Do you wanna sell sugared water for the rest of your life, or do you wanna change the world?" Joanne smelled revolution and Jay’s ideas inspired her. He took away the mediocrity of her small, banal existence.
He’d asked her to go to Africa as a volunteer for his charitable organization Mazava. He was producing a documentary about Malaria, and Joanne’s official role would be Technical Support for the film crew. Four months later, she was sitting in a DC-10 and landing in the breezy warmth of Ethiopia.
She’d quit her fancy bank job, ignoring everyone’s claims that she was crazy, and headed off for, what she thought, was the adventure of a lifetime. And while Joanne busied herself with Lonely Planet travel guides, and learning everything she needed to know about Mazava, Malaria, African politics and history, Jay hired SACHA TRUDEAU to come on board as Director.
It was Sacha’s Machiavellian tenor that would strike Joanne as a chillingly familiar pattern in the African heat. Just another alpha-male seeking control. She’d seen it a hundred times before -- the power game, played by power mongors who run strip clubs, wealthy walking erections with pockets full of twenties; domineering stepfathers, boyfriends and petty gangsters trying to hide their true fears. She wasn’t dazzled by the name and she knew his game. It was this awareness that separated her from the rest of the sycophantic crew members.
Throughout the novel, Sacha comes to symbolize the power struggle Joanne’s come to know so well. Herein lies the main theme of the novel -- Joanne’s personal experiences are the microcosm of a bigger world challenge.
The G8 dangles money in front of Africa like a fat businessman dangling bills in front of a stripper. The boyfriend of the stripper justifies this, saying that they might starve without this job. Unlike Joanne’s experience, there is no call from a friend asking Africa if it wants to quit dancing. Joanne wanted to be that friend.
In her journey backstage, she was confronted by the stripper’s boyfriend, Trudeau, who tried to stop her from showing Africa what digital tools could do to unshackle their minds. This story is a first hand glimpse behind the scenes of power and the conflict between rich controlling elites and the democratizing forces of globalization.
The goal of the documentary was to educate the public on the threat of Malaria, how this old disease had killed more people than old age and yet no one in North America knows much about it. The idea was to make North American’s care, and Discovery Channel’s involvement assured them their documentary would reach a wide audience. All the pieces were in place, only once Sacha became involved, he decided it would be more effective to turn the film into a strange and sad episode of Survivor. Joanne suddenly found herself trapped in the twisted G.I. Joe fantasy of a confused and angry young man.
With Jay still back in Toronto, and the crew in Africa, Sacha took complete control and brought the crew into the deepest, darkest corners of Africa. Places even locals wouldn’t dare to tread. He reveled in pushing each crew member to their physical limits and secretly intended to break them all emotionally. He wanted the crew to fall apart. He wanted the crew to catch the African diseases they’d gone out there to film, and he intended to get it all on tape.
It wasn’t surprising that a city dweller like Joanne would perfect the fine art of falling apart in a place like Africa, and she didn’t require much of a push. They were in a place where taxi cabs and vanilla cappuccino didn’t exist. Not only was she out of her element, but Sacha had taken the laptop and cameras, ordering Joanne to leave behind her portable CD player and all her CDs. Despite Joanne’s supposed role as the Technical Support Specialist, Sacha wanted to be in charge of all the equipment, thus neutralizing her on every level.
Sacha had mapped their course on foot, leading them on 8-hour hikes through waist-high, worm infested mud and flood waters with 60-pound backpacks on their shoulders and not enough food or water. The crew members grew to hate each other and the fighting among them compounded the stress of the situation.
The doctor on the crew, who specialized in Tropical Medicine, was horrified with the chosen routes, graphically describing the dangers of walking through the pathogen infested, mud-filled waters as they trudged on their pseudo military madness to nowhere. Sacha ignored her warnings, labeling her an alarmist and pushed on, the entire crew hiking through sewage filled monsoon waters, their blistered bare feet squishing through hot bubbling masses of reeking human shit. They were terrified, panicked, tired, and defeated, their arms and legs cut up from the reeds that whipped as they passed and the contaminated water infecting their open wounds with deadly water and soil transmitted parasites. They all suffered from vomiting and diarrhea, dehydration and malnutrition.
They arrived in the island village of Ngalimila, their home for the next month.
When Sacha wasn’t torturing the crew, they spent most of their time in the small farming village where Joanne fell into a deep depression. She stayed in her tent. She came out only for meals or when the crew was gone. She’d forgotten why she’d volunteered in the first place and all she could think about was going home. She’d never felt more alone in her life.
On the 19th day of their stay in the village, Joanne got hold of the laptop while the rest of the crew was off on a shoot. She brought the machine out into the centre of the village and pulled out a couple CDs she’d hidden from Sacha -- African music she thought the locals would appreciate. The music sang through the still air and like a stark bolt of sunlight the whole village came alive with excitement. Villagers gathered round the machine in awe of it, asking questions like, "Where is the record?" "Why is there no needle?" "Where does the sound come from?" Joanne was thrilled with the opportunity to teach, and the children were delighted as they found an almost intuitive understanding of how the mouse moves the cursor across the monitor and that a few clicks could accomplish more than they could imagine. This was the reason Joanne had made such an arduous journey and these were the only people that would show her any real kindness. The locals. Their guide and translator, the village doctor, the children, two of the village women and a Masai warrior who’d taken a liking to her tattoo and the mess of frizzy curly hair on her head. It was with them that she found friendship and comfort through the hammering days that followed.
Joanne wanted to give these people the mental emancipation of technology. She wanted it to do for them what it had done for her. Freed her from the prison of her tent. It was in this brief moment of time, where she brought the laptop to life for a group of villagers that Joanne knew she was right. Africa could save itself, just like she did.
Nearing the end of their stay, Joanne was overcome with fear. She could not go through this again. More sickness, more hiking through worm infested mud and water, and more fear of being infected. By the time Joanne returned to the comfort of the city streets of Toronto, with a scorching case of Schistosomiasis, (a disease caused by parasitic worms), she was emotionally and physically destroyed. She’d plunged deeper into depression and reverse culture shock.
She was evicted from her apartment and had slipped back into the pattern of falling victim to tyrannical males. She went back to dancing. She’d lost everything, including faith in herself, and perhaps she was just plain stupid to even think that some nobody ex-stripper like herself could affect change in a world dominated by men in suits colluding with cockswinging commando politicians. A world that was just too big, with problems she could barely comprehend. What the hell did she know about world politics and the G8 Summit?
Jay had also come out of this ordeal scarred and battered. He contracted Strongyloides, (another disease caused by parasitic worms), he was nearing bankruptcy during a legal battle with Sacha, he lost his office and was scrambling to salvage his reputation and anything he could from the documentary debacle.
Joanne quietly disappeared to the U.S. where she resumed her career as a web designer, writing and trying to find a way to learn that her whole experience in Africa hadn't all been for nothing.
That’s when Joanne got another bolt of optimism from Jay.
From: Jay Godsall
To: Joanne Dillinger
Cc:
Subject: Re: ideabank site
Date: Sat, 13 Sept 2003 16:17:35 -0400
hey power chick: how much time do you need to give a chick of no fixed address to get her on a plane to afric?
And so the story comes full circle, a sign that oligarchies of power have a shelf life. They can’t keep underdogs down. The ghetto-people can find a way to put on their own music and dance to their own tune.
Throughout this novel, technology plays a large part in changing lives. I plan to illustrate this by including emails, photographs, and blog entries I kept, documenting the entire journey there and back, in the hopes that this will attract a young, web savvy audience that doesn’t tend to read quite as much, while staying loyal to the non-fiction format.
Excerpts
the inescapable us
the sun is close and hot
sticky and sweet and heavy
like so much hate and sex and fear
there are verdant plants and trees
crawling across the opaque picture window
of her soul-less stoic eyes
best to revile or stay sleeping
how strange that she is here
and you are gone and the world is screaming
the vastness of the sky hasn't caught on quite yet
all meek we'll get it in the end
best to defile or let the dripping sparkling heat
strip away the decay of the day
she is thinking about the new spiderman movie
and the next time she can get online
and in her muddied mind
she is failing the rorschach test
- joanne dillinger
day one - sunday april 14th, 2002
[after this entry, there won't be many dates and times posted cuz i was so fuck'dup i didn't know what day it
was most of the time, ergo my failure to date and time my journal entries]
i am sitting with ben, carrie and sacha at pearson international. flight leaves at 5:30pm. i am exhausted already
cuz i'd stayed up really late the night before, packing and preparing for the trip. my stomach is queasy but ben is making us laugh
and i've accepted the fact that i've checked my bag with all my toiletries and will have to spend the night in frankfurt with no
change of clothes or toothbrush. i will buy stuff there. i called cheryl and she promised to record the final 6 episodes of the
x-files for me. graham seemed more sad than i'd expected him to be when he dropped me off. he was crying. i wondered if somehow, he
might've felt it was over between us, before either of us really knew it.
»»
the plane has taken off. i sort've fell asleep for a bit but the smelly kid in front of me kept screaming. i hate coach. i will never
ever fly economy class again as long as i live! [sour skittles are yummy]
i think the other crew members think i am weird or something. or maybe i'm just making them uncomfortable, like i always seem to do,
because i don't talk much. most of them are french and they pronounce the letter "J" like a soft "G" and i find it confusing. carrie
brought a swahili language and etiquette book and she and ben are reading from it. i'm sitting on the wing of the plane so i have to
lean forward to see the sky, but i'm glad i got the window seat. we're above the clouds now. god i hate coach. did somebody fuckin
fart in here!?
»»
just landed in frankfurt. my head and ears hurt. i still need a nap. there are grey planes here. big, grey planes and i think to
myself, i think planes should be painted black instead of white.
the sun is round and close and looks such like a ball of glowing orange fire.
the frankfurt airport seems to have been taken over by an invasion of the body snatchers or something. it's eerily quiet and even
though the place is packed, nobody is talking. the woman's voice over the intercom system is disturbingly calm. the city is
impossibly clean. pretty to look at in a sterile sort've way. like something out of a sci-fi novel. lots of chrome and steel. i can't
get over how everything is so efficient here. the escalators stop when no one is on them. there must be motion detectors somewhere
and the hot water in the hotel is propane powered, so the heater shuts on and off with the taps. the subway trains look like shiny
bullets.
there are very few people of colour around here. ben told me that a whole van load of men were staring at me in that obvious oogling
way. he said, "it must be neat to be stared at all the time ehehe." but i was really more embarrassed by the attention and felt a
sudden need to zip up my hoodie all the way in an attempt to hide inside my sweatshirt.
sacha bought some candy snacks from a vending machine in the subway station and everyone laughed cuz i thought the candy had the
texture of flesh and then we started calling it flesh candy and then it became david cronenberg candy and we were laughing hysterically
at this flesh candy joke until i decided we were all delirious from sleep deprivation.
»»
we're on the next flight to addis ababa. i can't wait to land in ethiopia. this plane is smaller, like a dc10 or something and i'm
even more uncomfortable on this plane than the last, if that's possible. the 28 hours of flight is slowly killing me and laughing
about it like an evil comic book nemesis. i've lost my portable cd player on the last plane and i'm freaking out cuz i realize that
i left one of my matt good cds in it! i curse my forgetfullness and swear i'll replace the discman at the next stop.
»»
i am still on the motherfucking plane going to addis and i just want to go home now. i hate myself for feeling like this. a coward.
i am lonely and i feel like the rest of the crew doesn't like me. the lights are low and the harry potter movie is boring the shit
out of me. i don't know exactly why but i kind of feel like crying. i think i'm exhausted and overwhelmed. and strangely, no one else
seems overwhelmed at all. i keep thinking about how far away from home i am right now. i've never been this far away from home before.
god, i'm like a fucking hobbit for chrissakes. and i realize there's no turning back now. there's no quick escape route. no back exit
with a cab waiting.
i wish i was more confident. i wish i wasn't such this big, ubergeek that has to rehearse things to say in my head, only to feel stupid
for saying them afterwards. i was hoping to make some friends here but it's becoming clear to me that i may be completely incapable
of making friends. i'm so socially awkward it's ridiculous.
i listen to sacha speaking german and french, and while i curse myself for not being able to speak my own languages, filipino or
spanish, i wonder if he can speak any other languages on top of those two. and then i contemplate my eyebrows and i'm glad that i
finally figured out how to wax them so they're perfectly shaped, as opposed to being stupidly crooked.
it's funny how it's so exciting to get plane food. you know, cuz you're so powerless. you can't get up and get yourself anything to
drink or eat. so when they bring the food around, you kinda feel like a little kid going through mom's grocery bags and looking
for the box of cap'n crunch. but then you eat your plane food and you can't help but feel a bitter disappointment cuz the food sucks
so badly you can only compare it to eating styrofoam. bad food + sleep deprivation + 60 pound bags + lots of walking = one very
grumpy joanne.
»»
the sun has come up and i've just finished my most craptastic continental breakfast of stale bread and frozen butter. i've pocketed
several packets of sugar, coffee whitener, wet naps and salt, just in case. i forgot my watch and have no sense of time.
»»
the promised land! yes yes. the day in ethiopia was fucking spectacular! i am madly in love with this place now and wish we could stay!
the people are so beautiful. everytime i turned my head i was face to face with some gorgeous young face. is this where models come
from? i felt sad that i didn't have anyone to share all of this with. still not really speaking to anyone in the crew much. still,
a wonderful adventure nevertheless.
we drove by the king's house. ethiopia has a king and they call him "the majestic".
people keep staring at me everywhere i go. i'm a stranger in a strange land! :) the weather here is perfect. not hot, not cold and
oh so sunny. i have a tan already. ethiopian coffee is too strong for my taste but has a wonderful smell. we had scrambled egg
sandwiches at a cafe and ben says that the people of ethiopia are much cooler and more laid back than in madagascar, where he
says we would've been mauled by a crowd of beggars by now.
the beggars in ethiopia are less aggressive, but still very much present. they move their hands toward their mouths gesticulating
the act of eating, but i don't need the signing to tell that they've not eaten in what's probably been days or even weeks. they're
dirty with strange white patches on their skin. carrie says it's from malnutrition. a man stands outside the window of the back
passenger seat which i am occupying. he's so close to me that i can smell the sweat on him and he shows me his deformed hand. a
normal hand with a whole other hand growing out of it. i try not to stare but my morbid curiosity prohibits me from being more
courteous. i look up into his eyes and he smiles. a strange mona-lisa kind of smile. sad but happy. welcoming. friendly. it's my
natural inclination to pull out my wallet and hand over some cash, but ben stops me. he says that if i give one person money, the
entire town will descend upon us like flocks of vultures and we don't have enough for all. i put my wallet away and i shake my head
at this man with the most apologetic look i can muster and he nods and smiles as the taxi pulls away.
i've never seen so many people missing limbs before in my life. people with no arms, no legs, missing fingers or extra fingers. i've
read about abject poverty but until now have never really seen it. the homeless in toronto are well off by comparison. i am in shock.
the military presence is strong for a place that seems so peaceful. the soldiers are all armed with automatic weapons. but they
smile as we walk by them in the market. the place is full of noise and new smells. spicy smells and sounds and people shouting words
i don't understand. my heart is racing. sacha is walking so fast through the crowds in one of the narrow roadways of the market and
we're having trouble keeping up with him. ben calls up to him to wait so we don't get separated. there are 6 of us. 6 pale foreigners
walking through the market holding tight to our knapsacks as we heed sacha's warning about the wily thieves.
men and women are touching, pinching and poking at me as i make my way through the crowd. mostly just wanting to touch my arms and
they seem especially taken with the big mess of long, frizzy, curly hair on my head and they touch it gently, rubbing the strands
between their fingers. i don't understand what they're saying to me so i just smile and nod a lot. mireille and carrie pull out their
cameras and start taking pictures. they ask some of the women politely if they can take their photo and the women oblige, putting
big, happy grins on their faces. we have to explain to them that we will send the photos later. they think the photos come out of the
camera right away, but sadly we're not using polaroids. they want to keep the photos.
a man offers me a big, green leaf and gestures for me to chew it. i look over at ben for approval and ben says no, that leaf will get
me very high.
people are yelling out "china! china!" and i'm surprised to see they're pointing and waving at me. i realize they think i'm chinese
and ben says there are a lot of chinese business men there, so the locals are familiar with chinese people. they assume that the
chinese are there for business and the white people are all doctors.
the evening in dar es salaam is not going very well.
i'm exhausted from carrying the 30 pound laptop case around everywhere and i'm sure that carrie thinks i'm a big fucking lamer.
i can tell she's annoyed with me and i know she probably would've preferred to share a room with one of the other crew members.
i hate the food here and i'm completely preoccupied with the contaminated water. i have showered though.
»»
the heat in dar is hitting me and laying heavy on me like a sticky, wet blanket. we were greeted at the airport by government
officials. i'm supposing this is because of sacha's celebrity status and probably also because dr. don desavigny is our liaison. his
work in malaria makes him interested in this documentary project. sacha is going to meet the first lady tomorrow and i wonder to
myself what it must be like to be so important.
»»
i'm having horrible nightmares and the loud megaphone in the sky was bellowing muslim prayer songs in a painfully distorted,
screeching wail that leaves me hiding under the thin sheets in the dark of my mosquito netted room like a frightened child. i dreamt
that my mom was sick and i was crying over her and she was hugging me.
day 4 - april 17th, 2002
breakfast was gentle this morning. a piece of bread with strawberry jam on it, a banana and a cup of tea.
we're at the national institute of medical [health] research. we're meeting with dr. don desavigny and his colleagues, who have been
fighting malaria here in tanzania for 30 years now.
i'm still distracted by the contaminated water and can only bring myself to drink coca-cola and orange fanta cuz i feel they're the
safest cold drinks.
we're gathered in a smart, air conditioned office with our laptops hook'dup and a black woman (who reminds me of my grandmother for
some reason) is bringing in platters with coffee, tea and donut-like cakes.
most of the doctors here are british. we have many fancy coloured maps to look at and a british doctor, whose name is joanna, is
helping sacha choose an ideal destination for us to shoot this documentary. it will take us 9 hours by train to travel to ifakara.
there is flooding and there's been a ferry accident that killed 40 people. they tell us there will be very much rain and danger but
i'm not worried about that right now cuz i still can't get over the weirdness of the food here cuz i'm a total fucking brain donor.
ben told me it was normal for me to feel slow and groggy for awhile until i'm acclimatized. i think he can tell that i'm going through
some weird culture shock dilly.
the power shuts on and off everywhere. this seems to be the norm. sacha is getting advice on mapping our course and tells everyone
that he'd like to do most of the travelling on foot. the doctors have advised against it in certain areas, telling us that we don't
have to worry about catching malaria as much as we should worry about getting eaten by very large animals. i am mortified but still
convinced that i'm going to die from the contaminated water.
the helicopter is down and repairs are uncertain so sacha is trying to make other arrangements. helicopters cost $2000 USD per hour
to rent.
i am sitting at one of the long tables, rather uselessly, picking at my donut-like cake and becoming bored and impatient.
joanna has suggested a guide and translator we should bring along to help us on our journey. joanna explains, the people in the
villages don't understand malaria the way we do. if we ask them about child health, they would tell us that their children were
dying of "degee degee", febral seizures. they think the kids died from the convulsions, but they don't realize it's malaria that
caused the seizures and convulsions. they'll also think that the children have died from a fever, but they don't realize it's also
malaria that caused the fever. we have to remember these differences in communication, cuz if we just simply ask, do your children
have malaria, they will say no, but of course, they'd be wrong.
»»
carrie's been nicer to me. i'm guessing she must feel sorry for me cuz i'm so...new here.
i was walking outside the hotel alone. separated from the crew. a group of young men walked up towards me yelling out friendly
greetings. "jambo!" i reply, "jambo." and the one man who seems to be the leader, shakes my hand. i smile politely and shake his
hand as he talks to me in broken english. at first it was a normal handshake, but i realized pretty quickly that he wasn't letting go
of my hand. he had a good strong grip on me as he went on and on about how i "look like a spanish girl." they seemed to be ushering
me into the direction of an alleyway near the hotel buildings on the street and the panic bells were going off in my head. i was
pulling my hand away but he wouldn't let go and just then ben walked up and started talking to the men. he sounded nervous but firm,
with false friendly banter in an attempt to distract the men. finally ben just came right out and said, "uh, do you wanna let go of
her?" the man began marvelling to ben about how i looked like a spanish girl and ben repeated, "okay, but seriously, let go of her."
and he pulled my arm away from the man and the man seemed slightly peeved by it but i could see he thought twice about doing anything
about it. sacha and the rest of the crew were coming upon us. that's when the man began to hussle ben for money. asking him if he
wanted to go on safari. i was so freaked that i walked briskly into the hotel lobby and stood there waiting for ben to finish his
conversation with the men. i could see that ben was trying to avoid trouble. he kept a friendly tone and shook their hands, telling
them we had to go in for the night, but maybe we'd see them later. i swore to god i wouldn't go anywhere alone again for the rest of
this trip. props to ben for taking over in a situation where i was paralyzed with panic. for the rest of our time there, that man
was referred to as "joanne's boyfriend". i was chastised for going out alone at night. :(
»»
i'm glad to finally find out that i'm not the only one freaking out. not only did mireille come down with a scorching case of
diarrhea, [the contaminated water, man!], but she's also having nightmares. the really bad kind that stay with you for several hours after
you've woken. she was crying, and though i was not happy to see her freaking, i was relieved that i was not the only one doing a lot
of crying.
»»
today was a good day. i had some contaminated water anxiety again this morning, but other than that, i was okay. i'm starting to
figure out which food doesn't make me sick. my "boyfriend" is back and has been coming on to me again, but not so pushy. i am
guessing that he realized he'd frightened me and so has decided to back off slightly.
i've been going alone to the internet cafe. i decided it was safe to go alone cuz it's not far from the hotel. just a few blocks.
i'm so pleased with myself cuz the sites that i'd built for eve were
loading nicely on the slow, dial-up connections in africa. so far i've found that everywhere i go that has internet access is using
windows operating systems with all microsoft software. i haven't seen any macs or netscape browsers anywhere. connection speeds range
from 33.6 - 56kbps. i've been told that over the past 2 years, internet has been growing in popularity in africa and the industry is
just now starting to take off.
day 6 - april 19th, 2002
shit, it was cheryl's birthday yesterday. i must send her an email!
right now we're on a train headed for ifakara. we had to run to catch it. running with a 60 pound knapsack on your back is detrimental
to your equilibrium. i was hot, sticky and hyperventilating and by the time we made it to the train and found our seats, i was
surprised to find that i didn't pass out. i could feel the dizziness coming on which always leads to panic generally, since i'm so
damn neurotic. when i finally cooled off and calmed the fuck down, the train started moving and a most refreshing breeze came blowing
through the open train windows. i leaned over to catch the fresh air on my face and was hit, not only with the cool air, but with a
spectacular view of east africa's countryside. breathtaking would be an understatement. the mountains were larger than life and the
green was as green as eden probably was. ben caught me staring with jaw-dropping awe at the beauty just outside and he said, "now
that's the REAL AFRICA, not the shit you see in the city." i smiled and took a deep breath to take in the smell of tanzania's clean
air and for the first time since i'd left toronto, i felt a kind of joy.
my god, i actually made it to ifakara. i had a panic attack on the train. being stuck in a third class train for 9 hours is
detrimental to your sense of well-being. i was certain i'd die of tuberculosis just from inhaling the rankness of the train
washroom, [which was essentially just a hole in the floor of the train. you could see the tracks below and so your bodily waste would
just spill to the ground. eww gross.] the rest of the crew thought the train was a romantic adventure, of course. i on the other
hand, was just itching to put up curtains in an attempt to stop the spread of ebola. i was having a terrible time dealing with having
to sit in a tiny square of space for so long and considered whether or not i might actually be claustrophobic and just didn't know it
until now. it was better during the day, when i could look out the large, square windows and see the pretty outside. but at night it
was ugly. pitch black and dank and cockroaches everywhere. the darkness outside blacked out the windows so there was
nothing but the inside of the train. it was hot and crowded and noisy and i felt like i couldn't breathe. revolting conditions aside,
i made it and ifakara is a goddamn sight for sore eyes.
»»
the people from the ifakara centre picked us up at the train station, where i was wrecked and defeated from the heinous train ride,
and they brought us to their wonderful guesthouses! we're staying in the most awesomest guesthouse ever! there were only 2 rooms in
this first guesthouse, so they told us to decide which of us should stay and which of us should move to the next guesthouse. we let
sacha decide since he's like, the leader, and so he said that me and carrie would stay in the 2 bedroom and him and the rest of the
crew would move to the next guesthouse. at first i felt a little left out cuz i got the feeling me and carrie were the less cool,
less popular members of the crew and it was like the cool, glam kids were sticking together. silly i know, but by the time we got
settled into the rooms i didn't fucking care anymore cuz i was just so happy to be staying somewhere with a real toilet and look,
a fridge! damn! there's a real shower in here too man! w00t!
i don't wanna go on too long, but this was the most beautiful bungalow i'd ever seen! it was just wonderful staying there, and the
scenery outside was lovely. the fridge was stocked with coca-cola and orange fanta too! there was beautiful african art hanging on the
walls. shiny, dark merbau stained hardwood floors. rattan furniture in the sitting room. oh i was just in heaven. i decided that one
day i'd buy a place just like this. me and carrie loved it so much we took pictures.
ifakara was like a gift. i'd gone through the most hellish of travels and just as i was weary and beaten down and ready to break, the
gods above dropped us into a little paradise. it was nothing like i'd expected. i thought it would be, in sacha's words, a dusty,
little, hard to be in place, but instead it was lush, and rich and green.
sacha gave us one day off to chill out and recover from the exhausting trip. the first thing i did, was take a long shower and put on
clean clothes. then i slept like the dead for a good 9 hours. [until the rooster woke me up at 5am of course]. i sat in a
comfortable, wooden couch covered in fanciful deep red and gold cushions, on a deck that had a roof for shade. the view was soothing
and the birds were singing and it was just serene. it was the first time in ... ever ... that i didn't feel like listening to my discman
or watching tv. i didn't want to hear anything but the nature sounds. i just sat there in the calm place and wrote in my journal,
with cups of white tea, reading and napping. a wonderful change from the noisy, metal box i'd been trapped in the night before.
this is where i come to realize that i really prefer to travel in style. heh no more backpacking for me, man.
»»
i've decided to surrender to the sticky, suffocating feeling of the african heat. i just can't avoid it. it's never going to go away
no matter how many showers i take. i am just going to be constantly sweating and sticky and gross til i get home! god!!!
»»
most of the people at the ifakara centre are doctors, but there are also molecular biologists and students working on their masters
degrees. most of them are from switzerland and sacha is speaking to them in dutch.
our new guide and translator has arrived. his name is ngakuka, [pronounced inga-kooka], he tells us that his dog has bitten a child,
but the child is okay.
a swiss molecular biology student, called tobias is alone there and has joined us for breakfasts and to tour us around the market.
i follow along and tobias has noticed that the rest of the crew does not speak to me, nor i to them. he asks if i'm alright and
of course i say, yes, i'm fine, just a little hot is all. and we begin to talk about the weather. he tells me that it took him several
weeks to get over the culture shock. not sure, but i think he was telling me this to assure me that i'm not alone in feeling so
strange.
»»
sadly we've left the ifakara centre and are travelling about 150km to a village called mlimba. the suv has broken down a few times
now and a group of about 15 locals had to push us across a chest-high river, for which sacha paid them 20,000 shillings, [$20 USD].
they were overjoyed. we on the other hand, were a bit startled when water started to fill the car. contaminated water, man! eww!
everyone cheered when we got across successfully, [and relatively dry]. now we're sitting in the middle of a muddy road waiting for
ahmed, the driver, to fix the car.
»»
ahmed has decided that the suv isn't running very well. he thought it would be safer if we took all the weight out of the vehicle.
we unpacked all our knapsacks and gear and ahmed dropped us off at some cruddy, smelly train station in the middle of fucking nowhere.
the train was suppose to arrive in 1 hour, but we actually waited 2 hours. sitting in the pitch black of a cool african night, the
muffled buzz of waiting passengers milling about and talking softly amongst themselves. i'm afraid in the dark and so i affix my
beloved headlamp to my head and switch it on, nearly blinding a woman who was standing across from me. i apologize stupidly and
lower the beam so it's pointing to the ground.
i remove the knapsack from my back and rest it on the ground in front of me. i sit alone on one of the wooden benches lining the
outside of the stone doorless building of the train station "ticket booth". leaning against my knapsack and trying to settle in for
the long wait, sacha comes over and asks how i'm doing. deciding not to fake my usual, i'm fine thanx, i tell him that i'm pretty
fucking freaked by everything and he says, "well, if you're freaked, you're not showing it. you seem to be handling yourself well so
far." and i chuckle, a bit relieved and i say, "oh, cool." and i think to myself, cool, no one can tell i'm fucking terrified. i
wonder how long i can keep this up?
we talk briefly about the work that i'll be doing and sacha asks if i could make maps for him. maps we could use on a website.
he says i could use his gps receiver and that he'd like my help in building a site where you can click on different sections of
a map, and information on each area would pop up. i explain that this process would be pretty easy to accomplish. we discuss software
and other such web related chit for awhile and then sacha wanders off to go find his own place to settle in for the long wait.
one of the locals is selling oranges nearby and carrie and mireille share some. i'm still afraid in the dark, even with my headlamp
on, so i go over to make small-talk with the 2 of them in an attempt to quell my darkness fear.
it never gets this dark in toronto.
evidently sacha couldn't spring for the extra buck fifty it would've costed to put us in first or second class, so we're once again,
sitting in a third class train with a bunch of sick, coughing locals and their sick, coughing children. i'm freaking out about the
tuberculosis again and i'm sitting there trying really hard not to think about all the stuff i'd recently learned on flesh-eating
disease.
if that wasn't bad enough, once we arrived in mlimba, we stayed in the crappiest of craptastic motels ever to exist in the entire world
i'm sure. i barely slept at all cuz i was too busy killing roaches the size of my fucking big toe and contemplating the tinea
versicolor i could catch from the dirty mattress. i took one look at the shared bathroom facilities, walked back to my room, sat on
the edge of a wooden chair and began to cry. i'd heard of people pissing into holes in the floor, but i'd never actually done it
myself. it was a square, cement room with a foul smelling hole in the middle of the floor. near the entrance was a giant, plastic
garbage bin filled with misty, grey water and a plastic cup. that was the bath water. i don't think i've ever been quite so
mortified. jeezus christ, i'm just not cut out for this third world shit, man.
ben told me that this place was somewhat luxurious. that there were places way worse than this. i couldn't imagine. i didn't want to.
how do people live like this? it's just not right. i was once again, in shock by the appalling living conditions and it was becoming
harder and harder to keep up the brave front.
sacha walked into my room, precisely at the moment i was having my little crying fit. he asked "joanne, do you wanna come out
adventuring with us?" in an attempt to cover up my wussy, little minor breakdown, i asked if they'd be getting some food and when he
said yes, i agreed to come along.
they ended up getting meat-filled samosas from a street vendor. something jay warned me not to do, so i ate nothing for dinner that
night - again. after they'd eaten the questionable samosas, i followed the crew as they wandered into a bar with african rap music
playing excruciatingly loud. the distortion was painful. we were accompanied by ahmed, our driver, and a bunch of young locals that
ben had befriended on the train. they decided to stop at this bar to have a few beers. i suddenly felt strangely like i was surrounded
by a group of frat boys. i was uncomfortable and because i cannot drink alcohol, [an enzyme deficiency that prohibits my body from
breaking down alcohol and therefore i can't drink without becoming violently ill], i was worried i might offend someone by
turning down an offer of drink. i wanted to leave, to avoid any potential drink offers. carrie was also uncomfortable and so thankfully
she asked ahmed if he could walk us back to the motel.
we headed back and spent the rest of the evening killing roaches and trying to find creative ways to sleep on the filthy mattress,
without actually coming in direct contact with it. [this is where a thermarest comes in very handy]
»»
morning. we had a breakfast of chippatos, eggs and tea and started off on our epic trek of suffering. [uh yeah, the real suffering
hasn't actually started yet]. we travelled on foot about 30km, [approximately 20 miles], from mlimba to mpanga. this was by far the
toughest thing i've ever done. more physically challenging than any sport i've ever encountered. it made kick-boxing look like a
picnic. my feet are blistered and battered, my arms and legs are covered in scratches, welts and bright red slash marks from the
reeds whipping past us as we walked through the flooded landscape. my hips are badly bruised from the waist strap of my backpack and my
body has been completely depleted of fluids and electrolytes. the scorching heat dehydrated us in half the time we'd expected it to.
we'd run out of food and water and there were 2 occasions where i began to cry, trying really hard to hold it in. show no weakness and
all that. carrie began to worry because she only had one saline i.v. bag and after several hours into the hike, none of us had needed
to stop for a bathroom break. this was a bad sign. we were all so fatigued and broken down near the end that we hired some local boys
on bicycles as porters. they strapped our outrageously heavy backpacks onto their bikes and carried them the rest of the way to the
mission, where we were to stay in mpanga. sacha was against using porters cuz he felt strongly that we should "pull our own weight",
but by the end, even he had to give in and realize he could go no further.
when the porters arrived at the mission, they gave the nuns there a message that "the ladies is so tired" so the nuns sent a couple
of boys with their tractor to fetch us. [a giant tractor is the only type of vehicle that could've negotiated the deep potholes of
floodwater and mud that covered the dangerous route which we'd so arrogantly chosen to take - we definitely had a greater respect for
nature after that day]. the sun was beating us down like a vindictive greek god. it was the last 5km of this trek and i was delirious
from near heatstroke, hunger and dehydration and the sound of the tractor was like music to my ears. i began to yell out, "i think i
hear a truck! ngakuka, can you have them drive us the rest of the way!? please, i'm beggin you!"
that's when we saw they were turning the tractor around so it was going in our direction. my second experience of pure joy. a
different kind of joy, but a joy nevertheless. i dropped to my knees in the mud and just watched while ngakuka made his way over to
the larger than life vehicle. there were 2 young boys driving. they couldn't have been more than 16 years old. the boys told
ngakuka that they were to fetch us but there was only room for 3 of us on the tractor. i was chosen to go first of course, cuz i was
the big baby of the crew and then carrie and mireille came along as well. the rest of the crew would walk the rest of the way so the
tractor wouldn't have to come back for a second trip.
now the tractor was way better than walking half dead for another bazillion hours, but still, one helluva bumpy, scary ride. every
time we went through a pothole the damn tractor would nearly tip over! we'd scream in terror and the 2 boys driving would laugh
hysterically at us as they righted the tractor again, like it ain't no thang.
»»
i woke disoriented in a hospital bed at the mission. still dehydrated and unable to eat or drink much without feeling sick. i broke
down at the breakfast table and started to cry in front of everybody. mireille pulled me out of the room and we sat out on the steps
in front of the church, while i took a moment to regain my composure. she told me i needed to eat and drink. but i was more concerned
about the fact that i was now viewed as the weakest link in the group and i wondered why i was surprised by this. i'd never felt
more alone in my entire life.
we had a group meeting after lunch. i was able to keep down a couple oranges and 500cc's of iodine treated water. i'd taken a nap but
was still having trouble eating solid food, though i managed to sit through the group meeting without slipping into a coma. sacha gave
me shit for the not eating thing. lecturing me about how it was inevitable that i'd get so sick when i hadn't been eating all week. he
pointed out that he'd noticed i wasn't eating or drinking nearly enough to keep up enough strength for this kind of journey. i felt
stupid and singled out. i didn't understand why i was getting the brunt of the lecture, which was clearly directed at me, when i
wasn't the only one who almost fell apart out there. i was also reprimanded for not finishing the food that sister mabelize had
given me. not cleaning your plate in a country where people are starving to death is totally unacceptable. i understood this, but was
too sick to care anymore.
sacha kept warning me to prepare physically cuz we weren't even finished yet. we had to hike another 10km, [approximately 7 miles],
through more flooded, muddy, shit-filled water, to a small, remote farming village called ngalimira. the walk would be the same as
the last one except there'd be even more water. i'd thought that dragging my soaked self through knee high water was bad enough, but
now the water would be waist high and in some places, chest high. and we'd still have to carry our 60 pound backpacks, which we'd fully
waterproofed in order to be able to drag them through rivers. it would be another long, slow and painful journey, just like the last
one, except even though the distance was shorter, it was expected to be more treacherous because of the flooding. he stressed that
everything there would be 10 times worse than it's been so far. shit food, shit water, shit everything. the only thing i could look
forward to was the fact that i'd be sleeping in carrie's clean, dry tent, instead of some roach infested pisshole.
carrie had gone down into the village to fetch some coca-cola for me. my blood sugar had dropped too low and we'd already used up the
last bag of saline to rehydrate me intravenously. it was important that i be fully rehydrated for the next hike out.
»»
2 bottles of coca-cola later and i feel a little better. still weak, but better. ngakuka has been looking at me, his eyebrows
pushed together like a concerned parent and he says, "do not worry my dear, you cannot die, you are much stronger than you think."
and i got all choked up as i smiled up at him. i felt small. like a little girl. and he patted my shoulder.
»»
carrie and i have been sitting in our room just talking and hanging out, when ben walked in suddenly and very nonchalantly said,
"carrie, i just drank bamboo juice and vomited immediately, and also i had diarrhea."
"diarrhea doesn't come on that quickly, did you have anything else besides the bamboo juice?" carrie gets up from her bed and pulls
out her medical bag.
to which ben replied, "no, it just seemed to invoke an immediate bowel movement." and then ben politely excused himself and ran off
to vomit again.
"jeezus," i said, "i wish i could remain that calm and collected when i'm puking my guts out." and carrie started to laugh.
during the horrid hike through the sewage swamp, carrie tried to talk to me about the lord of the rings, to try and get my mind off
the fact that i was covered in mud and shit. ben referred to the neverending story and the part in the movie when the boy and his
horse get stuck in the swamp of sorrow, and the horse drowns in the swamp because he wouldn't think happy thoughts. it made me laugh
thinking that i should think happy thoughts to get myself out of my own african swamp of sorrow. and then he said, "maybe your luck
dragon will arrive soon." i was grateful to both of them for trying to cheer me up. i'd cried through most of what we now affectionately refer to
as, "the mud-walk."
ben said that it was understandable that i was freaking. he told me about the first time he'd done something like this. he'd been
living in madagascar for 8 months, so he had lots of time to go through culture shock and get used to the people and places. i on the
other hand, was thrown into this hard-core, guerilla type shit right away. i was only given 2 days off since we'd arrived from
toronto and the second of those 2 days was spent in bed recovering from chronic dehydration and malnutrition. fish out of water was
yet another understatement. i'd come from a world of taxi cabs and laptops and been dumped into the centre of the land that god
forgot. a place that didn't even have clean water, nevermind telephones or electricity.
i'm supposing that ben or carrie must've said something to sacha. told him i may have reached my breaking point. told him that i'd
cracked during the hike. i worried they'd told him about how i yelled at the second guide. i'd asked the guide if we were almost
there and he told me, "one more hour, one more hour" and then i freaked out and yelled, "you fucking said that 2 hours ago! where the
fuck are we!?" and when my walking stick/umbrella had filled with water, [we were using umbrella's to shield us from the burning sun
during the hot hours of the day, and when it cooled down, we used the umbrellas as walking sticks], and i had trouble lifting it to
dump the water out, i got really frustrated, dumped out the water and whipped the umbrella about 10 feet into the reeds across from me while
screaming, "motherfucker, i fucking hate this shit, this is bullshit! bullshit!" i threw a fit right there in the middle of the
fucking shit-swamp. then consequently of course, i kept falling into the muddy water cuz i had thrown away my fucking walking
stick/umbrella! i had lost it. jay told me i would lose it, and this was it. i'd cracked and lost my fucking mind. i believe sacha
must have felt sorry for me cuz he offered to let me fly out of here if the helicopter comes through, so i wouldn't have to walk back
out in the same shit when we leave. i was relieved and spent the next several nights praying they'd fix the goddamn chopper.
»»
welcome to our first night in ngalimira. we fucking made it. hard to believe. i just dragged my sorry ass through waist and chest
high flood waters filled with festering mud and deep, unending potholes of hot, hookworm infested, bubbling, foul, sewage. this is
by far the stupidest thing i've ever done in my entire life. it even beats the stupidity of having slept with that jackass, who shall
remain nameless, when i was 17 years old. we were walking through feces for four and a half hours. i cried through most of it. if
i don't die of schistosomiasis or strongyloides or some other parasitic infection, it will be a goddamn miracle.
carrie has lost her "go with the flow" attitude and is now seriously concerned for our health. being the only doctor on the crew,
she's really the only one who knows the specific details of every parasite we've come into contact with. her concern was beginning to
freak me out because she kept checking my open wounds and re-bandaging them. she kept telling me i'd be fine, but i got the feeling
she thought we were all totally and unequivocally fucked. all of us were covered in open wounds from the previous treacherous journey, and then we
stupidly decided to dunk our open wounds into pools of worm infested sewage. we are dumb.
what's worse was the fact that i wasn't wearing long pants or a longsleeved shirt for this trek. during the last hike, my clothes had
gotten so soaked from all the floodwater, they'd gotten real heavy. i felt like i was dragging an extra 10 pounds of water in my
soaked clothes, which made the weight of my backpack seem even worse. for the second trek i'd decided to cut the bottom half of my
pantlegs off, and just go out in my sleeveless muscle shirt. the logic being, i wanted to be lighter, but this of course ended up
leaving many of my wounds exposed. i'd attempted to cover most of them in bandages and duct tape, but once they'd gotten wet, the
tape fell off.
when we'd arrived at the village, we were greeted by friendly villagers who were eager to receive us. i was given a bottle of orange
fanta and led into one of the back rooms of the dispensary, where i was able to peel off my mud-covered clothing and take another
gypsy bath with the misty, grey water in a bucket. after that i sat on a wooden bench with my sleeping bag liner wrapped around me.
i couldn't bring myself to get up or move. i just sat there with my bottle of orange fanta and thought, this is the best goddamn
orange fanta i've ever had. carrie thought this was amusing and clicked a picture.
»»
a few things most vampires don't like
it is too early in the morning
i heard someone laughing at me with no shoes in the mud and heat and the whimpering
i'd imagined i was scrubbed clean and wearing a black pantsuit and crisp, white shirt
i could almost pretend i was pretty
in spirit pale lipstick
in the cold comfort of my smart, air conditioned office
there is no vanilla cappuccino when you're trudging through waist high pools of worm infested mud
fatigue sits heavy on your back
choking you with the weight of it
like losing your heart key
and it's not so much that i find this place distasteful
it's more that i am alone
and every hammering night seems slow and unending
i've forgotten why i've made such an arduous journey
forgotten what i was searching for
or running from
where has my head gone?
and what was it i was supposed to do again?
did it have something to do with saving the world
or was that the thinly veiled excuse i had for saving myself?
it is too early in the morning
and my body aches from hunger
day 15 - april 28, 2002
ngalimira, [pronounced ing-aali-meera]. a small farming village that is supposedly "rich" compared to some other villages. there is a
small, makeshift clinic here, the place the villagers seem to refer to as, "the dispensary", except there's not a helluva lot
they could be "dispensing". carrie decides if none of us gets malaria while we're here, she will leave all the extra chloroquine,
mefloquine, [anti-malarials], and dipsticks, [small needle device used to test for malaria], to the village doctor, whose
name is alias, [as in, also known as; i wonder if that's his real name, so far they don't tell us their real names, they tell us their
"white" names, or their "slave" names].
they farm maise here and there are chickens and roosters running about freely. they're everywhere. well, it seems like they are everywhere but
they do belong to the people who live here. i just don't understand how they can tell one chicken from the next. is that like how i
can tell between a billion different cats? they don't think of animals the same way here either. they don't give them lovely names
and such. you won't find any cats called "miss bouvier" around here. though the sisters at the mission were feeding a trio of starving
kittens and calling them "come puss puss!" and i giggled like an idiot. but yeah, the animals here are more for food and milk. there
are a few dogs and cats and they look like they haven't eaten in ... ever. they are so skinny that when they lie down, they're flat! 2-dimensional animals.
not like my cats at home that look like little beached whales when they're lying around.
the women are shy and meek. it's the men who are asking all sorts of questions and wanting to look at our camera/computer equipment.
the women stand back and watch quietly, so of course i'm compelled to go over to them and let them play around with jay's handycam.
they smile a lot and touch my hair and everytime i try to speak swahili they laugh hysterically. there is one woman here who isn't
shy at all though. she's like, the popular, loud-mouth chick. she's funny and she's always laughing. she's the one who will be
preparing whatever food we have to eat for the duration of our stay. the sisters at the mission had let us bring their cook with us,
cuz they were worried we'd starve, [yeah, like i'm not already], but when she arrived here, the villagers were offended. ngakuka
explained that they felt like, what, you think we cannot cook for the whites? and so the sister's cook had to walk all the way back to
the mission - which was the 5 hour hike through that fucking mud i just spent a bazillion hours complaining about. poor girl. ngakuka
said she'd be fine though. he said they have to walk that far all the time. it's normal for them. and i say, "goddamn you guys
are tough, man" and ngakuka laughs a big hearty laugh cuz he's not accustomed to women cursing. [note to self, stop swearing for the
love of god, man! i keep forgetting that we probably represent canada to these people. and we wouldn't want them to think canadian
women are a bunch of whiny, foul-mouthed, bitches now would we? haha]
sacha seems unsatisfied that the british doctors chose this place. he thinks it's "too rich" for the documentary. he wants to show
"real poverty". jeezus, i think to myself, i thought this was real poverty. how much worse can it get!? that bow-legged kid
over there only owns that one ripped up, dirty shirt! he hasn't changed his clothes since we got here and he probably won't ever
change his clothes cuz that's his only fuckin' clothes!
»»
everything here looks like gilligan's island, man. huts an everything! i keep wanting to build a coconut walkie-talkie! haha i kill me.
sorry, i have to laugh to prevent myself from cryin'. we'll be staying in this village for another 7 days. i may very well die from
having to use that bug infested hole in the ground toilet.
sacha is going back to mlimba on tuesday to meet with the second camera crew and he said he'd be back here again wednesday night.
i don't know how to make the map i'm supposed to make on that laptop that doesn't even have photoshop on it. what kinda mac
doesn't have photoshop on it!? and it's not like i can draw it on paper and scan it in cuz hello, there aren't any scanners in
ngalimira! hey wait, maybe this is a good thing. maybe now i won't have to do any work at all! woo hoo!
i was thinking about how my sister, cheryl, gets so grumpy when she hasn't eaten. i think she's hypoglycemic or something. but yeah,
imagine if cheryl was here! i begin to laugh maniacally to myself because i haven't really eaten at all since we got off the plane back in
ethiopia, and that was 2 weeks ago. i almost want to start smoking again just so i won't feel the hunger as much, but that still
wouldn't take away the weakness and dizziness.
when you say you're going away for 4 weeks, or even if you say a month, it doesn't seem like such a long time. in fact, it seems
quite short. and yet here i am, on day 15, feeling like this long, slow torture will never end. goddamn. i could really go for a bowl
of corn flakes right about now.
a little girl, maybe about 8 years old, took my hand and walked with me to the bathroom. she looked up at me and said, "shikamoo",
[respectful greeting to an elder, the response should be "marahaba"], with her musical little girl voice and i said, "hey, how's it
goin", with my stupid, i've no idea what you're saying to me but hi, voice. when i came out of the bathroom, i think she could tell i
was a little traumatized cuz she took my hand and said, "hakuna shida, hakuna matata!" i knew what that meant! [no worries], and i
laughed a little. we walked along the dusty, hilly path quietly, hand in hand, until we got back to the tents and she said, "kesho!"
[until tomorrow] and i waved. when i turned carrie said, "hey, you've got a new friend!" and i chuckled a bit and said, "yeah."
i went back to the tent, pulled out a ziplock baggie filled with baby wipes and began cleaning the hand that the little girl was
holding. almost immediately i thought, hmm...i'm kind of an asshole, huh. i just had "a moment" with this beautiful, little girl and
i'm checking her for visible skin rashes and ringworm. fuck is wrong with me? jeezus, i gotta stop hangin' around all these doctors.
»»
2 men just showed up in the village unexpectedly. they look fancy like masai warriors, except instead of red robes, they're in black.
they're tribe is called the "sukuma" tribe. [sukuma means to push and i'm wondering why they'd call a tribe push] they had heard
about us taking pictures here. [rumours had spread for miles about our film crew] and they wanted their pictures taken!
sacha went over to videotape them and as soon as they pulled their long beaded braids out from their hats, the entire crew looked up
with jaws dropping to the ground. they were beautiful. stunning. gorgeous. tall, lanky, and every muscle was cut with precision like
they literally were chiseled from stone. where's my christfucking camera!?
carrie, mireille and eloise got up from the table, where we were having tea, to join sacha in video taping them. i stayed behind at
the table cuz i am unpopular dork-head-girl, but the sukuma men wouldn't have it. for whatever reason they were staring over at me. they
came over to stand next to me and began touching my frizzy hair. [i am assuming these people really dig my hair cuz i'm the only
one on the crew with long, curly hair. everyone else has short, straight hair] they let me touch their beaded braids and then they
touched my tattoo, which was peeking out from under the sleeve of my muscle shirt. their hands felt leathery and rough on my baby soft,
i haven't worked a day in my life skin, and it was during this touchy-feely-love-fest that i noticed the rest of the crew staring
at us a little stunned-like, and i was suddenly self-conscious. the really really cute sukuma guy pulled me close to his side and
began motioning to the crew and yelling, "peecha! peecha!" carrie shouted, "oh, i think they want a picture with joanne!" so sacha,
carrie and mireille scurried, [as though they wanted to make sure not to piss these dudes off], to get their cameras while i stood
there between the 2 shiny, adonis-like men. the cameras started snapping shots and the second sexy god was posing next to me, resting
his elbow on my shoulder and bending a little so his face was closer to mine for the shot. i was giddy and stupidly, i felt special. i
was cursing myself for not learning more swahili but loved that they let me touch their braids and run my fingers over the raised scarification on their
arms, [generally used to show social status].
after the totally fun photo shoot, sacha took the sexy god boys over to play around with the big, betacam. he let them see themselves
on the screen and they were thrilled. they howled with raucous, appreciative laughter and clapped their hands. it was wonderful.
once the excitement died down a little, it was back to work. i was walking to the tent to get my things and the cute sukuma guy
motioned for me to come over to them. he said "zuri, zuri!" and i smiled and waved and as i began to walk toward them, carrie pulled
me back toward the tent and started warning me, "don't you run off with that guy now!" she said in a sort've jokingly mothering, but
serious way. "i'm not going to, geez." and i laugh a little like i think she's gone mad with paranoia. she disappeared into the tent
and ngakuka nudged my arm, giggling with gossip and whispers, "zuri means beautiful, they say you are very beautiful."
"oh." i say stupidly and i laugh a little under my breath, trying hard to keep from grinning like a chesire cat.
© 2002 - 2007 Joanne Dillinger
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