It is a few days short of three months since we started this trip. It has been three months of epic highs and devastating lows. I have been spat out, spewed up and broken into tiny shards of shattered mirror… ok, not quite. But its been tough. I keep reminding myself of this while I stare out at an easy blue that makes a fibreglass pool look murky… calm waters, chalken sands, thatched bungalows and masai wandering down deserted beaches… Zanzibar!
It has been tough. I do deserve this. I do deserve this. And with a twinge of guilt, enough to make me go for a run in a tidy effort to chase away a slightly dulled head from the previous night’s antics, I sit pretty for six days. Six glorious days on a beach in Zanzibar! I had toyed with the idea of bringing my bike across from Dar… I am not afraid to admit a temporary lapse in sanity. We have a fairly twisted love-hate relationship, my bike and I, but I needed a break and I could never be happier than having an ocean between me and him. My word. So so happy. Rest, sleep, lie on a beach, drink Konyagi (very cheap booze), rest, swim, sleep… tough life.
Dar Es Salaam is a fascinating city. We stayed with Gill and Dave Legge and they looked after us in such a way that I felt like I was home. It is a special thing to reconnect with someone you last saw when you were not much more than four foot. They simply know things and people that mean the world to you – it was so great to stay with such wonderful, relaxed people and to cure a little bit of a latent desire to go home. It’s not that long now…
Back to Dar – a coastal city which has all the quirks of third world Africa – dilapidated buildings that ache to be bulldozed in order to uncover some opportunity for beautiful sea views; a cement factory on the distant horizon that inspired Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; a world where Arab and African worlds seem to coexist; where 30 000 expats seem to live a life of hard work intermingled with evenings of Russian music at the embassies, pizza evenings at the yacht club and coffee in the Lebanese café… it appears to be a solid existence – working for something you believe in in an international settting. Expats seem to work crazy hours and lead stressful lives where unpredictability is predicted and the beauracratic logic of the socialist past lingers…
It would be a tough world, but the idea of working in this environment for a couple of years, of gathering some understanding of how business actually works in Africa, and of leading an independent and international life that one could in Dar… I am going to look into that for some time down the road. Of African cities I have visited so far, I am most impressed by what it has to offer… I think it’s the sea that I love so much. I feel somehow that I can cope with the heat and the dust and the dirt and the chaos if I can wash it away by just looking at that great expanse - I’m waffling. Go there.
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