Mzungu Express Update II

We left Zanzibar with happy/strange memories and headed for Malawi when tragedy struck The Truck. But before getting to that, I should introduce The Truck's passengers. Our truck is made up of the ordinary and quirky hodgepodge of people; The Kilimanjaro Krew from previous posts, the doctor and wife from near London, the Cornish couple and Australian woman and her 75 year old mom (whom looks like Burgess Meredith from Rocky...I think I mentioned this before) and the older couple from Victoria, BC who can do nothing but stare at birds. A lion could be having tea with a hippo while elephants Tango in the background, and they'll be looking at the bird sitting on the rock... even if apparently dead.

But we have one couple that can turn this rather ordinary group cool...and that is our Dutch Blond Lesbian Nurse couple. I kid you not! I could not make up this demographic if I tried. Well, anyway rumour started circulating The Truck, that they were not lesbians at all, but just very friendly in the way that Dutch Blond Nurses are. The verdict is still out, but most are deeply saddened by this development and almost everyone is in denial. I'll keep you posted about how they pan out.

So anyway...we crashed The Truck...a lot! So much so in fact, that we made the front page of the Zambia Daily Mail and the Times of Zambia. I'm finally on the front page, and it's not about a conviction or police hunt. Ha...my schoolmates were all wrong!

So here's what happened: We're driving into Lusaka (the capital of Zambia) when we smell something burning. Having a strict "No Immolation" rule on the truck, we realised it was not once of us. We get out, and see the engine has spewed oil over the radiator. The whole mess is smoking and The Truck is definitely not going to go anywhere unless a very, very strong tailwind instantly come up. This is the kind of mechanical failure that the water temperature gauge, the oil pressure gauge and the automated fault detector on the this Daimler-Mercedes truck would detect before it got to this stage. And they all would have...if they worked!

It seems none of the dials on the dash work! Hence even at a standstill The Truck is always cruising at 60 KPH with the engine humming at 4500 RPM.

The tour guide/driver (who later later in the journey even becomes the scourge backpack-stealing baboons) takes off to town to get a tow-truck for The Truck and a minibus to get the rest us to the campground. The Truck was to show up there later on with our tents and equipment, but it never did. So we just checked into the chalets there and go to sleep. Next morning still no truck, but somehow our tents had arrived.

Later that morning we are taken via minibus to meet up with The Truck, which we thought would be the garage where it was being repaired. Instead we are taken into the centre of Lusaka. And right there in the middle of morning rush hour we see The Truck sitting half in a fountain surrounded by the main city roundabout.

It seems that the the tow-truck started to haul The Truck, but halfway to Lusaka, the driver demanded another huge amount of money, or he would go no further. Having no choice our guide/driver calls the owner of the camp where we were staying, who promptly took his truck out to tow The Truck the rest of the way. But he didn't have a tow bar...just a rope. The road leading to the roundabout encircling the fountain runs downhill. The Truck started picking up speed, and with no engine, it had no brakes and limited steering. They tried putting The Truck in gear to slow it down, but... Anyway, The truck tore down some steel pillars and jumped over a concrete barrier to land halfway into the fountain, which by the time we arrived was filled with oil.

We spent the next two hours surrounded by rubberneckers until a huge 40 tonne crane (it said so on the side) came, blocked the morning traffic altogether and picked the whole truck up out of the fountain to be towed away. We were taken by mini-bus to to Livingston, our next stop on the tour. What about The Truck? Well that's another story...

Mzungu Express Update I

Sorry for the delay, but it seems that all the Internet connections between Tanzania and South Africa run over a single Tin Can and string modem.

Right, in case you're wondering "Mzungu" is the Swahili equivalent to "gwailo" or "giajin", and basically means silly white people who burn too much in the sun.

Well from where I last left off, The Truck made it to Zanzibar. Well more accurately, the people on The Truck did, the truck itself stayed because Zanzibar is an island and although there are many thing the truck can do, floating is not one of them (keep this in mind for later on). So, Zanzibar was quite pleasant; people were not at all aggressively trying to sell you everything in site and I managed to get some diving in. It was an uneventful dive where the pretty coral and fish was offset by the whining woman of a dive-buddy I had, who just had to tell the whole world that she used up too much air because she was physically shivering because her wetsuit was too big bla bla bla. At one point her air tank clocked her on the back of the head when a wave hit her. I shouldn't have laughed, I know, but then having to have to hear of the bump it left all the way back to shore, I'm glad I did.

On the final day there, I met a young guy while walking on the beach named Mohammad...I mean that was the guy's name, not the beach's, but then again, it could have been Mohammad Beach as well. Anyway, to make a long story just plain convoluted, we got talking about this and that, and he seemed quite articulate and intelligent. He invited me to lunch. But being the kind of person that is sceptical of such invites in general - not just when you are the only white guy miles away from anywhere on a beach potentially named Mohammad while talking with a guy with the same potential - I refused...also because I was starting to get a bit bored, but I did offer to buy him a drink.

So we're in this local restaurant and he tells me he's 20 and a student and he has to go do military service in a year and then hopefully university to become a doctor and marry his current girlfriend.

Seems OK, and like Mohammad Beach, could all be potentially true.


Then...
"Can I ask you a favour?"

Here it comes, I was thinking, but let's see.
"Well that depends what it is."

"Well Zanzibar is a Muslim country and many thing are difficult to get here that maybe you can send me when you get back home"

"OK, what kind of things?"

"Naked Nudey books"

"Ha!" I thought to myself...or did I laugh out loud? Can't say for sure

"You see, some of the boys at school have some, but sometimes they will not show me and when I ask to buy, they are very expensive. I would like to have some for me...and my girlfriend."

This might just be the tip of the iceberg; the opening of and rapid thrust into Pandora's box (excuse the pun..hee hee hee). I'd better test him.
"What kind of books would you like?"
I'm thinking he's going to mention some depraved titles involving sea creatures and office furniture, but instead he only says:

"The kinds with 'black peoples', if you can."

Now who am I too deny a young man his god-given right to decent, wholesome man/woman, one-on-one (or there abouts), African-centric porn? Just because his country would deny it to him, why should I follow in the same fanatical footsteps? After all, I eat pork, drink alcohol and break who knows how many other pillars of that faith, so why not this?
"How many do you want?"

"Only one. Sometimes if it is a big package, the people at the post office open it. If they find the books...they will keep it themselves and then sell it at a high price."

Damn corrupt system...how could they? I mean keeping the population in deliberate poverty is one thing, but taking someones porn is just not right! (just to be fair, Zanziabris tend to live a higher standard of life than the rest of Tanzania, which by the way stands for Tanganyika Zanzibar Independent Area)
"OK...I'll see what I can do...what's your address?"

He gives it to me. Now I never expected my IT career to last forever, but even so, international porn distribution was not what I was considering as an alternative. The irony of this whole encounter hit me when I saw the address which was care of someone or other at the "Department health, women and children". Just the place where porn would be welcome!