dystopia

Strange days lead to Strange nights
What do you control when you have no control?
Everyday the flames get higher higher higher
You can move your feet one in front of the other, you can even move the speed faster slower. But where can they take you? How far can you go till you are constrained by all the chains that bind?
You can open your mail or leave it stacked away. Yet bureaucracy revolves on its axis, heedless of Schrödinger's cat entwined.
Tread water the shore remains ignored.
Everyday the sky gets lower lower lower
You can pop the tab, swallow the pill, follow the white rabbit and yearn. In the morning the glass is still a mirror not a magic lantern
Everyday the tide gets blacker blacker blacker
If we cut off the water then the jackals will return
A sharp stick
Strong hands digging in a pit of mud
Our tongues they are all on fire
Soft things can be squished
Hinges can be snapped
The earth is on fire
You can paint on a smile, outline your eyes
Pull up the muscles
We are all hungry we are all tired
The walls we build are higher higher higher
You can hit the snooze or jump from bed but everyday you ride the same line, sardines like sheep in pipelines, messy mechanisms of the Powerful.
Higher higher higher
Let the mother fucker burn
Control is imaginary
Self determination fallacy
We're afraid of dying
Plug in Check out
A can of paint explodes, dripping rivulets over plastered advertisements.
But a little bleach and a minimum wage check rerights remnants of reality.
The earth the earth is on fire

cough medicine crazy or "kichaa"

i spent this weekend in my cave in inwood, hocked up on as many over the counter drugs as i could afford. labels may say only every 4 hours, but if you alternate, you can keep on chuggin practically continuously. my cocktail not only kept my fever down, but also made golf and sesame street inexplicably entertaining for hours!

i should have suspected i was on the verge of physical meltdown when i burst into tears after a woman working at pret (ny deli) unexpectedly made me a free cup of tea and lemon when i tried to speak to her. but i tossed it off to my typical craziness.

i refer to my craziness a lot- sometimes in self deprecating jest, sometimes in honest despair of my over-dramatic nature. the word "kichaa" is Swahili for "crazy/disturbed person" it is  a very bad word, both as a description and as a noun. it is taboo. well, of course upon learning the word my mother and i immediately incorporated it into our daily speech. we are southern women worthy of many Tennessee Williams plots and Faulkner-ian tragedies who should probably be medicated at least some of the time. and as such, we embrace our "craziness" much to the shock and horror of the Tanzanians.

living in a large city like new york, you are faced with the truly crazy- the sad, mentally disturbed individuals somehow living their lives. and they are scary. why are they scary? what is it about someone, unkempt and restless, anxiously mumbling to themselves that makes you edge away?

as i sat, under the influence of as much ibuprofen i could find, pathetically woe-be-gone in my state of life, on the painfully loud subway, i found myself next to a truly disturbed individual. not wanting to offend mr. crazy, i did not leap to a new seat. but my, somewhat induced, state definitely felt the dark aura oozing off him, like a b-horror flick. i suddenly realized i had squished myself completely against the man sitting on my other side. mr. crazy hopped up to stand and hold the rail, still waging his argument with an unseen individual. i tried to relax away from the stranger on my other side, but found it very hard to do so. there was some sort of comfort from the contact with the silent man on my right versus the combustion of ticks and angry mutterings leaning over me.

where is that border line between "respehctahble southahn" crazy that's fodder for so much literature and family gossip and the truly taboo crazy? it's not funny really. these people some how survive in this overwhelming huge city, despite the other voices in their heads.  it's just another on a long list of things that's sending me to hell, probably.

g'night

the gods are against me

the gods are against me

after my many hours in amsterdam, and after that lovely picture, it was finally time to get on the plane.
amsterdam can kiss my ass. we had to go through 2 more security checks at the gate, which included them taking away my airport sealed bottle of amarula from kia!!!!
yes i am not greatly surprised, but they wouldnt even let me check it. they said only items bought from the amsterdam airport can come on the plane, even sealed by another airport. how is that even right? i could buy a gallon of flamable liquid and they put it in a little "see blue fly" bg and everything is peachy keen?? but i have a single bottle of deliciousness sealed in a the same plastic they use and oh no im a terrorist???
"they don't know how to seal them" at other airports. WHAT? oh it made me so mad. one of the security officers proceeded to tear at the sealed bag to show how it wasn't really sealed. i was too tired to even beg them to let me check it. i couldnt believe he was tearing open my bag to show it was open. then, worse! they threw it away!! i would have rather they actually take it a drink it!!!!

then of course you have to wait another hour in a different holding cell before getting on the plane. long enough for me, as exhaushted as i was--now about 23 hours since having slept-- to be completely depressed. pathetic as i knew it probably wouldn't make it even when i bought it a kia. i was even mad at all the wazungu all around me, especially the rich ones standing next to me that kept discussing business class. "oh, your a world elite business class member? oh yes, we stand here. we are business and they will call us first but i like to stand. then i like to whisk on and sit right down first. oh it is so nice to be in business oh yes, why fly anything else. we just fly too much."
i am not exaggerating. this is what i had to listen to all the while trying not to cry from exhausted frustration over a silly bottle of amarula.

after first and business class and all the levels of elite members finally got on the plane, i drug my bags in as well. my carry ons were really too big, but i had my cameras and laptop and paintings and carvings that i couldnt bare to check. not a big deal except very heavy and hard to maneuver down plane aisles. then, low and behold people are sitting in my seat. i pull out my ticket. oh look we have the same seat registration. now i have to fight my way against the flow of traffic back to the front to get an flight attendent to tell me if i am flying today.

but i can't be mad, because my seat is taken by a severely disabled girl and her father. i can only be very very tired. then i have to go back with the attendant who looks at our stubs and says yes indeed we have the same seat. but they had to move the girl from her other location and just forgot to give me a new seat, so wait here while he figures it out. oh good. now i get to stand in the middle of the plane as people file past me, staring at me stare at them, standing ridiculously in the middle trying not to be in anyones way.

my new seat put me next to an elderly woman who coming from south africa where she had taught women to embroider bags to sell. she was very nice, but couldn't figure out how to do anything and needed a care taker herself. which sadly i had to become. adjust her seat, fix her headphones, adjust the air conditioning, set up a movie, readjust the air conditioning repeat her drink orders to the attendants... SIGH.

they stopped showing harry potter on the plane the night before pole to me. but i still watched 3 and a half movies: transformers (which was made me laugh out loud, and was more entertaining than i thought possible for it to be) a mighty heart, that made me cry, no reservations with catherine zeta jones and sexy Aaron Eckhart, and half of the new simpsons.

at detroit you have to get all your bags from the plane and go through customs. my bags, of course were among the last handful to appear. meanwhile a sniffer dog sniffs me out. great. thank goodness i dont actually have any drugs on me. but there he is pointing obediently at my carry on. the officer and i go through my bag and discover the handful of my favorite flower i had taken from pauli's bunch. yep that's it. they are so fragrant nd now they have just marked me for extra examination in customs. ah well. only meant that after the 2nd long line in through customs i had to go to the line for arabs, indians, africans and other suspicious people, to have our bags extra xrayed. im not sure what they were more concerned about. that any of us might have bombs or live chickens hidden in our bags.

when i finally made it through everything to my gate and had a whole 20 minutes before getting on the plane- i decided to treat myself to an american ice coffee (none of this tasty ice cream float business like the coffee lounge) $3.87. nearly 4,000 Tsh!

but that was nothing compared to the $93 ride it cost me to get from the airport to my apartment. and now i may pass out and die.

it is all a mystery

it is all a mystery

or a...

frustrating days.

there is lots of work for me to finish before i leave the country. more than i will possibly be able to finish, though i will try my best. 

nearly every person, wazungu and tanzanian alike, want to know why i am leaving...don't i like it? shouldn't i be getting married? shouldn't i stay home here? when am i coming back?

i already miss my friends here, and sadly we all begin to pull away--protecting ourselves from what we have come to know as the incessant ebb and flow of people in and out of town. i want to get angry, find fault, find a reason to move on.  easier to deny friendships, than admit we might miss each other.  but that is my own fault, right? usually, you just don't bother memorizing a person's name if they stay under a couple months. and here i am, staying on  for practically forever and then suddenly up and leaving with no warning.

we are a community of transients, especially those of us in our 20s and 30s. if you don't have a spouse and baby, and even when you do, few wazungu, expats, or half-tanzanians commit to putting roots in a place like moshi.  we form friendships, maybe lovers, but hardly with a clear understanding of roots and the future.  everything is for the now.

for the moment.

but when you leave the now, where do you go? and who do you go with?

Arusha National Park

Arusha National Park

my mother is completely kichaa [kee-chah'] crazy. then again, so are her friends.

this isn't a new discovery, but was reiterated today as i accompanied mother and 3 of her friends to Arusha National Park. in truth, it was a lovely day and completely mother's idea to have a women's safari. we did it on the cheap, hiring a guide but paying all our own fees and eschewing provided meals/snacks. instead we packed a picnic ourselves--too much food for anyone--i made baba ganoush with the eggplants and herbs from our garden and a feta and cucumber salad. jean brought a delicious green bean and mozzarella concoction and julia had homemade rosemary pita chips and chicken. that plus 2 bottles of white wine- so much better than the box lunches would've been any way. we even encouraged the guide not to waste his money buying a lunch but to eat ours instead.

collabus monkeys- i had never seen them before. look at that long hair!