A few nights ago, the boys and I moved to another hotel. We loved where we were, at Panga Chumvi. We are here, on the island, for 17 days, so it seemed like a good idea to be in more than one spot. This second hotel is older, nice, has some wear to it, has a clean pool (sometimes goats come by to drink out of it) and is still quiet, but not in such an isolated sense, and has more of a Stone Town feel. We are in a little room with a nice breeze from the ocean. My bed is right next to a window, which is open all of the time. The boys have a fan and a window. On our transition here, I got to check off another new African experience: bribe an official.
We have traded mosquitoes for a breeze... and these wall crawling centipedes. I have stepped on 3 of them by accident, and it is an unpleasant sensation and sound. Honestly though, I'd step on 10 centipedes a day in trade for no mosquitoes! This, plus me stepping on two sole (flat fish) hidden in the sandy bottoms of the ocean (causing me to squeal like a baby pig, I am not proud, but they are shockingly squishy and tug, understandably, hard to get out from under your foot), has made the boys joke about how I will step on whatever there is to be stepped on. They "helpfully" point out any crawling centipede for me. At least I didn't step on any stonefish like Oso. The stonefish incident has made us a little gun-shy of the water here. The tap water here, as well as at Panga Chumvi, is brackish, and we will enjoy a nice sweet water shower once we return to Kampala.
Yesterday, when we were along the water's edge, a young man came over with a toddler. The 18-year-old was the toddler's uncle. The uncle chatted with me. The little boy, Eddy, interacted, in his way, with the boys. When we went out to the water, Eddy followed and had me hold and bob him over the waves. He was delighted, tt was quite sweet. L saw a little jellyfish in the water. I told our young man there was a jellyfish and he said, "that is dangerous, what color?" (sounds like "dan-jurous" with their sweet accent.) I told him it was brown and he said, "oh, is not a problem." They do, however, have man o' war here.
Today I went for a run along the beach. This beach has so many shells, but I managed to not step on any poky ones or any of the washed up big, clear jellyfish. Near the end of the run, a young Muslim girl ran along side me for a bit and asked for my hair tie. I gave it to her. I wonder if it's good to hand out these small things. It makes me feel nice to give her such a small thing, but does it continue this idea that you should ask the tourist to give you things, and that we are all rich?
We ate our breakfast in the restaurant with the ever so light and continuous sprinkle of termite poo as they slowly ate all the wood above our heads. The boys and I can hear them devouring wood things here, what a constant challenge that must be. We talked to our waiter some this morning. He has six children and one more on the way. His family lives in Stone Town, about a 40-minute car ride from here (also the only place you can get some things, such as banks/ATM). He works and stays here 6 days and has the choice to go home or stay here on his day off. He can spend 3,000 tsh to ride the dala dala (3+ hours total round trip) home or transfer money via the phone to his family. After the baby comes, he can go home on his day off to help.
I asked the boys if they could imagine that many siblings. "What would you think if you had 5 more siblings?" They had two responses: "How would you name them all?" Then I asked, "how would you keep track of them?" to which the answer was: "Oh, you'd get to know them."
We have had some serious challenges being able to keep in touch with Paul. The Tanzanian SIM I have is not one of the more popular ones here, so it's hard to keep charged with air time. I buy the little amounts here and there as I find them and they go fast, calling to Uganda. We won't be here much longer though, we return on the 16th and then we'll be with Paul until he finishes his class and we leave on the rest of our trip. It is hard to believe that we are close to leaving Africa.
I am coming back in to add something. We went out in the water and saw the brown jellyfish again and this one was bigger. I went back to get our swim goggles to see it better. A group of village boys were playing in the water nearby and wanted to use the goggles. There were two goggles and about 10 boys. They descended upon them like little wild beasts when I let them borrow them. When I took them back to leave, they asked for money and candy. I wanted to irritably ask them where on earth I could put money or candy in my wet attire. I suppose this earlier action, of giving my hair tie, reinforces they thought to ask for things. I think it's better not to do it at all but within a specific format.
The boys continue to totally amaze and impress me. They just stay so even keel about everything. They did have a little trouble transitioning into Kampala. Here, along the Indian Ocean, is a place of waves lapping and the breeze building as the day goes on. It is a good place to be inside yourself with the bright sun above you. You can imagine you are being washed and baked of any impurities of the soul.
