leading up to departure

Day 1 in ethiopia.

I have now moved countries. Already arriving at the guest house I have gotten a much different feeling that my last location in Dar. In dar, I was living with the Jesuit community. These were wonderful men who were very encouraging and hospitable. We’ll see how Ethiopia treats me.

I feel as if these past few weeks I have inadequately recorded my experiences. I have been living out of a rucksack hanging out with really wonderful people. This started the moment I left Mwanza. From my 18 hour journey to Arusha began the roller coast ride that finally ended here in Addis Abbas. I can’t say that it was terribly uncomfortable moving around from port to port. In part this is because the people I have been with have been so great. Right away in Arusha at the novice house I had a sense of fitting in with both the senior priests and with the novices. Down in morogoro I had a real chance to have fellowship with my former school mate Daniel Hendrickson and his friend Stephanie. I also met a Jesuit there from OR named Bart. Climbing Kili I was once again surrounded by great people.

I made my way from moshi to Dar last week Saturday. The moment I arrived I was filled with a sense of hospitality. Although my typical evangelical Oregonian line about Portland being the brew capital of the world ruffled some feathers with a german Jesuit, I was wholly welcome there. Kizito, the Jesuit guest master who received me at the bus station, is an outrageous Ugandan. Edmund is a mildmannered Tanzanian. Gabriel and Charles were both novices who I met earlier in Arusha. Then there is Fr. Don from from Penn. Fr. Don has longer hair, wears high waters with converse shoes, and would fit right in at Eugene. He was so affirming of me as an Oregonian. Everytime some unexpected circumstance was solved in an unexpected way by me, he said, well of course you would, your and Oregonian. Having been telling so many people how great Oregon is, it was wonderful to meet a man who in fact evangelized me in my Oregonianness!
I also had a wonderful time meeting the Scoobie Doo Gang, the JVI’s. Kate, Billy and Susan make a wonderful and fun community of people.

Zanzibar.

Last week I went to Zanzibar. I was dropped off by Kizito, a Jesuit from Uganda, at around 7 AM. I was to board at 7:30 and be off by 8AM. Waiting in line I got to talking to an Arabic Tanzanian man who was born on Pemba island. I also met a colimbian fellow. In the midst of all this conversation, time passed and the line moved nowhere. It seems there was a problem with the boat. Not knowing what to do, I just waited longer. Optimistic man that I am, I just figured it would be fixed in no time and we would be on our way. African transportation leads one to a different experience however. While walking around, I heard two American accents. I asked these two men where they were from. They said Oregon! Can you believe it. They explained to me that they were only going to Zanzibar for a day and that their driver was going to see if the ferry was working. I asked them what city they were from and they said seaside. My family and I vacation in seaside every year. My mind, which always seeks to make relationships between events reminded me that I had met a Fr. Nicholas in Seaside who is in fact from Tanzania. I told these gentleman about this Tanzanian priest, and they exclaimed to me that Fr. Nick is their driver here! The world is small! Their parish is twinned with Fr. Nick’s parish in the Moshi region and they had raised money to help build a youth center. In 3 months they had raised 50,000 dollars. Michael owns subways up and down the coast, as well as the elephant ear shop in downtown Seaside. Dave owns a holiday inn express in Seaside.
It turns out that the ferry wouldn’t be running, so we refunded our tickets and started looking into other boat means, when Michael and Dave were approached by a fellow trying to get us to take a plane. Having had enough experience of Africa, we were a little suspicious, but upon looking into it, the company seemed legitimate, so we picked up our feet and left for the airport.

I spent the next few hours with these three gentlemen exploring the food and architecture of Stone town.

That night I checked into the karibu inn and was lucky enough to get a cheap dormitory all to myself. I hit up the town and found a regular “impromtu” fish market that gets set up every night. You select your fish and they fry it up for you. I had lobster, king fish, squid, and octopus. I also met another Oregonian from Eugene!

A Danish fellow (Skull!) came and sat next to me and after chatting for sometime, we headed to a local bar with a finnish girl. You always get an odd assortement at Zanzibar bars. The island is 99% muslim, so any local in the bar is bound to be one of those who “departs from the norm”. One such fellow came up to me, shook my hand, and said Superpower. I misunderstood and thought that he had somehow traced my nationality and sputteringly tried to defuse a potentially tense situation. It turns out, however, that his name is, in fact, Alisparrow superpower. He is a nutty man, short in stature and Rastafarian in his heart. He no longer has the rastafari hair as he had a colony of bugs in it. There I came across a half breed Canadian/Oregonian. Somehow in 1 day I ran into more Oregonians than I have seen in my whole trip. What an experience going to a tourist spot!

At 8 am I grabbed a hotel taxi to cross the island and hit up the beach. It might be easy to say that one doesn’t need to go to the beach, as there are plenty of those in the US, but that person would have a hard time turning away from the white sand and pristine Indian ocean. Wow. It was gorgeous. With limited time, I just decided to get off at the first beach I came across, which just so happened to be Jambiani beach town. I had met a great gay couple (Dave and Chris) in the bus who also chose this town because it was quieter than the other cities. I just heard from the driver, with whom I had been enganging in what has been called Matatu theology, and he said if you want to go snorkeling, this is the spot. The first two hotels got filled up by our little bus, so I started to ask the locals if I could stay in their houses. Apparently it’s illegal and my driver coaxed me back into the car, promising cheaper pickings ahead. With only two of us left in the car besides the driver, I saddled up next to the giant sun glass decked british traveler in the vehicle. Her name is Marissy and she works in music production for the rough guide. That is a job of which I am certainly jealous. Marissy told the hotel guy she would only pay 15$. He finally came close to acceding and assuming that we were traveling together, he also gave me a similar rate. After some excellent seafood, with the great gay couple who seem to travel for one year out ever five, Marissy and I got in a local Dow and while she enjoyed a conversation with the captain about local music, I went snorkeling for two hours. Wow! I saw fish of every color. I saw bright blue fish, yellow striped fish with pointy “lips”, green fish that sparkeled, long fish that looked like sausages and even a sting ray! Just going out in the sail boat, however, was an experience that was rejeuvenating. For dinner we got back together with Dave and Chris and enjoyed a night of good conversation on the beach side. I could have spent weeks exploring that island. Alas, the next morning I had to catch a bus back to stone town for one more tourist attraction before boating back to dar.

Catching the morning spice tour I learned all about the spices and fruits grown in Zanzibar. One fruit, which is reputed to smell like hell and taste like heaven, had the consistency of pizza dough and would have gone great with a bottle of wine and some crackers.


The day after making my way back to Dar I was able to purchase plane tickets for the following day and arrange an interview with Joe Healey, proverb collector and author of various books including “towards an African Narrative Theology.”
Ethiopia requires that you have a ticket for an onward destination to get a tourist visa. My plans, ever fluid, were somewhat in a turmoil since my sister wants to meet me in Tunisia, but there are no direct flights there. What did I do? Hedge my bets on either my sister changing my mind or a better airline in another country and I purchased a ticket that leave the day after easter for Egypt! Regardless of whether grace meets me there or not, I get to see the pyramids!! As Daniel reminded me in Morogoro, this is where the boy the Alchemist goes to find his personal treasure. Maybe mine will be there too!

On the way to meet Joe I got in a great conversation with a muslim man on the Dala Dala about the nature of humanity, language, culture and religion. These are not easy topics for me to cover in Swahili, but we had a great time all the same. Joe and I spent a few hours chatting about the state of the catholic church and he gave me some well needed reminders about the dangerous use of language. Finally getting back to the Jesuits, I enjoyed a good dinner with the JVI’s and prepared for my next day departure.