you can be blaze about some things, but not about a giraffe

Last week my parents came to visit Tanzania.  First on our itinerary was a visit to Mikumi National Park, in central Tanzania.  Initially they were reluctant – no one in my family is particularly into animals, as pets, in zoos, or otherwise.  Plus, the costs of doing any kind of safari in Tanzania are generally speaking prohibitive. Nevertheless, at my insistence, you cant come to Tanzania and not see some sort of wild animal! – there we were.

In our circa 1970’s Land Rover, equipped with a good driver but without seatbelts, we moved at a slow clip.  It wasn’t long before we were rewarded with impalas languidly grazing the tawny grass (it’s the dry season) and giraffes ambling amid the trees.  Each time we spotted an animal or group of animals, the driver dutifully halted the car to allow us to take about a million pictures alternating between our point and shoot cameras and the video camera.

Standing with my upper body poking through the elevated roof of the vehicle, I became increasingly bored with the spot – slow – photograph pattern of the afternoon.  Another giraffe? Big deal.  A couple of weeks ago I was walking among giraffes – alone!  And then it struck me – did I really just think that?  For those of you who have listened to me quote Titanic for the last fifteen years, it won’t surprise you that the first thing that came to my mind was “you can be blaze about some things, chomey, but not about giraffes!”

And it’s so true.  The animals of the savannah: giraffes, elephants, lions, impalas, wildebeests, buffalo, elands, hippopotamuses, crocodiles and warthogs, to name a few are hardly animals that I see every day, here in Tanzania or at home in North America.  On top of that, lets not forget what a privilege it is to observe them interact with each other on endless golden planes, and not in the confines of the local zoo.

I revamped my attitude just in time for one of the highlights of our trip.  Our guides stopped to assist another vehicle that had busted its tire.  Afterwards, as that car moved down the road ahead of us, its driver pointed out the window to a number of trees at the side of the road.  Arriving at the trees, a bloodied carcass was visible in the clearing.  Knowing that whatever killed that animal was likely to be in the vicinity a hushed silence fell upon us.  Our driver murmured, “I’m not supposed to do this” and proceeded to drive off the road towards the trees.  Lying prone in the scrub were three lionesses, panting heavily under the stress of the giant meal they had just consumed.  They didn’t even turn to look at us frantically recording them and then afterwards, staring at them in awe. 

In the gloaming as we traveled back to our hotel along the main road that cuts through the park our driver stopped one last time.  In the bushes set back from the road, a family of elephants was dining on the surrounding trees.  Too dark to photograph, I sat quietly, respectful of their majesty and eagerly anticipating the promise of another day in the park.

cheat post

My parents are two hours from Dar and it is finally clear that this week I wont be writing about my recent trip to this nation's capital.  Instead, here's my latest column - which draws on things I've written about here and manages to feature a picture of where I went, far better than any that I took!  So any way you look at it, this is a cheat post, pole (sorry)!

http://twssmag.com/2011/08/16/column-d-the-joys-of-travelling-solo/

Got fuel?

This morning I got invited to a new facebook group. It is not a joke.  Last week legislation that reduced the price of fuel by 200 TSH ($0.10) came into effect, causing gas station operators to freeze their pumps and refuse to sell.

I had gotten wind of this through whispers in my exorbitantly priced gym’s change room.  Spotting a friend on a treadmill, I advised her to fill up her tank.  After a particularly painful workout, sitting back with my evening soda water, I realized my oversight – I’d forgotten to go to the gas station!

Of my colleagues, I’m the lucky one.  I live a ten minute drive from the office and have for the most part maintained a quarter tank of gas at all times.  There were rumblings that the government was going to ‘solve the problem’, and I figured that by exercising some prudence I could make it until the weekend.

And I did.  The problem was solved when the owners agreed to reduce the price after depleting their residual stock.  So Saturday morning I filled up my tank and Sunday I headed out for some much needed beach time (it was a long weekend here – literally ‘eight eight day’ and yes, there was a ‘seven seven’ holiday last month!).  Tuesday morning my assistant said that on Monday her neighbourhood was packed with people crowding the gas stations – on a holiday! 

A quick read of the daily paper explained the situation - sort of.  Yet again, owners were refusing to sell petrol.  In Dar, this is a heightened crisis because of the abysmal traffic.  People can literally spend hours commuting at a standstill, burning fuel.  Public transportation (which most people rely on) has begun to grind to a halt because buses have nowhere to fill up.  I’ve written countless times about the pathetic state of power generation here – a problem that is compounded when there is no diesel to fuel back-up generators.  Yesterday there was apparently a command that the stations had 24 hours to open or face the revocation of their business licenses.  If the impasse continues, quite literally the city will stop working (comments on its functionality aside).

And so, the facebook page.  I was even able to contribute by sharing a lead when our driver got word of an open station in the neighbourhood! Hopefully this isn’t yet another false start to resolving the problem- only time will tell!

what is the plot?

Lately I’ve started to ask myself “what am I doing here?”  I am back at a desk, far from the exhilaration that comes with a daily venture into the unknown.  I started this “spirit quest” as my wittier friends have termed it, back in August of last year when I decided that I could no longer wait for my life to happen.  Today, while devoting too much time to reading other people’s stories online, I came across this quote on a blog by someone who had set out on a year of travel: “my life has a superb cast, but I can’t figure out the plot” (Ashleigh Brilliant).  Perhaps owing in part to my blogosphere induced haze, I felt as though my reality had leapt up off the page – this is exactly what I feel like most of the time! As though I am constantly searching for the plot in my own story.

 

Naturally this inspires a lot of questions in me: why is it that I feel like I don’t know the plot in my own life? How should I go about finding it and then what should I do with it?

As my yoga practice has fallen substantially off the rails, I cannot answer these questions.  It occurs to me that instead of figuring out the plot I’ve been spending a lot of time checking out potential locales, testing travel equipment, sampling the meals that will be eaten by the characters and so on.  I’ve went around the world seeking additional cast members, auditioning for both supporting and leading roles.  All the while, I’ve captured images (in pictures and in writing) to aide my memory when the story is eventually told.

In the process, surprisingly few people have asked what the story they are participating in is actually about.  Likewise (and fortunately), they seem equally uninterested in what the protagonist (myself) is ultimately set on doing.  Unequivocally, the cast I’ve assembled is superb.  Isn’t that a feat in itself? Which brings me to an (I think better) question about the plot – should I care?