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So Bill Clinton came to Arusha my first month in town, my guess being for an HIV conference of some sort. But you never know. Maybe he stopped by East Africa to catch a glimpse of the UN Rwanda Tribunal that's been held in the Arusha International Conference Center (AICC) for around ten years.
The city of Arusha should thank the lovely people of Mogadishu for what happened in 1993, because think of all the money that has flowed into town as a result. That's pretty much the No. 1 reason Clinton allowed the genocide to go down on Tanzania's western border, which in turn has spurred a decade of pointless UN spending in the mission to slap wrists in a fair and lawful manner.
Just look at the results. Arusha is the Geneva of Africa!
As long as you forget about the crime, the dirt, the smell, the pollution, the poverty and the collective hustler mentality among the people, then yeah, I'd agree. Arusha is the Geneva of Africa.
But to maintain that illusion, the people at AICC might want to, I don't know, center the phrase "Geneva of Africa" on their billboard.
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Right across from the Rwanda Tribunal is this flower shop. Here's what was going through Bill's mind as his black Suburban caravan was taking him down this road:
"Ouch, Rwanda was a rough one."
(turns his head to look out the other window, so that he doesn't have to be reminded of the 1,000,000 dead Africans who perished on his watch)
"Jennifer Flowers?! Is this a cruel joke?"
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First thing that hit me when we parted ways with this girl who we passed on the trail to our house: WHY DIDN'T I GET ONE PERSON TO HOLD UP THE 'U,' ONE TO HOLD UP THE 'V,' AND THE LAST TO HOLD UP THE 'A'??
Stupid!
Admit it: you want my gold Ricky Williams Saints jersey.
Duh duh, duh duh, duh, DUHHHHH, DUHH! YOOOOOOOOOO!
Duh duh, duh duh, duh, DUHHHHH, DUHH! VEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Duh duh, duh duh, duh, DUHHHHH, DUHH! AAAAYYYYYYY!
YOU-VEE-AYYY! GO 'HOOS GO!
Goddamn I miss college.
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For reasons I have not yet been able to ascertain, there are two guys around my village that rock Saddam Hussein collared shirts full time. Is it because they didn't know who it was when they bought it, used, at the sokoni? Is it a sign of Muslim solidarity? Maybe just the natural outcome of a-shirt-is-a-shirt mentality? Or is it because they think Saddam is the new Ché?
I don't know what to tell you. Except for one thing: that this guy has a new name, that he answers to every time I walk by.
"Mambo Saddam!"
"Ay Mzungu, poa, vipi?"
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Washing clothes here is a bitch.
It's not something you can "do real quick," before another activity. It is the activity for the next few hours.
"Hujui kufua," our neighbor Biti said today. She was disparaging my washing skills because my system is slightly different than hers, and she is scared of what she doesn't know.
"NAJUA," I insisted, because I do know how to wash. My secret is simple: just invite all the neighborhood kids over to do it for you.
I'm normally against child labor. But then again, until I came to Tanzania, never had I had to spend an entire afternoon kind of getting my clothes clean, only to wait several hours as they dried on a clothesline, before finally returning them to my shelves, hard as loaves of unleavened bread. Life is hard in the former Third World. Thank heaven for little boys and girls to lighten my load a tad.
It wasn't a premeditated deal; it just happened. The first mtoto mdogo -- which I cannot remember -- came in uninvited, saw me slaving over a bucket of socks which were way past due for a wash, and then he left. Anyone who's ever lived in an African village can probably guess what happened next: the word spread like wildfire.
Soon, I had Mwajuma (left) and her brother Amis (big ears) hard at work beside their neighbor Johanna (right). None can be older than six.
When these original three first got going, my expectations were low. Look at them. They're little kids. Even I have a lot of trouble washing clothes the Tanzanian way (by just grabbing hold of some fabric with both hands and rubbing them together almost until you start a fire); there was no way these wadogo would be able to make a dent in my grimy socks.
Boy was I wrong.
"Tayari," Mwajuma would say, handing me sock after sock, each one cleaner the the last. It was like clockwork. Soak, scrub, rinse, scrub, rinse, boom. Tayari. Again and again and again.
We knocked out in an hour what would have taken me two, easy. It was all thanks to the kids. As a reward, I gave them nothing except for a few asante's. After all, they had had the pleasure of spending the afternoon in a sort of Bizarro, East African Neverland Ranch with Yours Truly.
Is that picture illegal to post on the Internet?
Will a friend of Craig Biggio's please forward this to Patti?
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