I'm chewing a nice piece of bacon right now, once again safe and sound at the café by my apartment in Calgary.
Between hopping into a taxi to the airport in Zanzibar, and getting dropped off at home last night, was slightly over 48 hours. I felt sorry for the poor guy who sat next to Rococo and I on the plane into town last night; talk about two smelly people.
Anyways, I have a lot to say about my summer, but it will take a whole bunch of entries to cover them, bit by bit. I'll start by saying that I started the week at the Paradise Beach Bungalows in Paje, and if that was what Paradise is like, I want in. As I was sitting on the beach, I thought to myself, how the heck did I get here? Got frustrated at work in Boston one day, and boom, here I am staring out at the clouds over the Indian ocean.
Spent the last two days in Stone Town, though, where a batik salesman threatened to beat up Rococo as soon as he saw her without my company, because he knew how Asian shit thought. I haven't been challenged to a fight in years... the guy was, apparently, known in the neighbourhood as being a bit deranged, though, so I suppose he was just another victim of a health care system designed to screw over the poorer population.
I had better go pay my MasterCard bill before I anger some collection agent here...
8 comments:
Hey welcome back ;)
Thanks. :) I can't wait for classes to begin again...
I'm happy to know you are back. Can't wait for more details. Fifi is returning to the motherland this weekend. The great boston exodus is nearly complete.
What did you mean by this "he knew how Asian shit thought"?
That's exactly what he said. Once it was clear we wouldn't be buying anything, he let the racial slurs and insults fly. It seemed like interracial distrust and dislike sat just below the surface in most conversations.
The guy seemed serious in his threats, but when I got openly angry, he eventually retreated down the street. We ran into him a couple more times over the next day, and he actually asked me to fight him at one point, but I brushed him off. I dunno, but he apparently had some untreated psychiatric issue.
At the beginning of our trip, one of the girls from my class was actually 'lightly' knifed and beaten in Arusha one evening; she was going for dinner with some other foreign med students, who ended up fighting off her attackers. That kinda made the rest of us a bit defensive later in the trip.
Hey welcomeback to this hemisphere. (We almost gave up on you.)
Thanks, MadSci. I know, it's good to be back in the land of national health care. Now I can feel free to get sick at my leisure.
That is one powerful story of the homeless Allen and his street friends. It reminds me what an isolated and insulated environment HMS is. How should I put it- it gives me a somber perspective of the world easily lost when I am buried in the daily bench work.
Please post as much detail as you can afford the time. You write so well maybe one day you should turn your summer experience into a book.
Welcome back.
rw, thanks... Hmm, a book? I don't think so. :)
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