Once again, Africa Time = delays in finishing things. Trust me, it's not September 22 right now.

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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?

These are some random pictures I totally forgot about uploading a few days ago ("weeks" become "days" inside the warped prism of Africa Time).

Might as well just it as an excuse to write a few short stories.

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This is The Africandle.




I made it out of a little bit of cardboard, an empty matchbox and the cap to a glass Coke bottle.

I think I could make a business out of selling these things online -- we all know how well I did on www.NewCollegeIdentities.com, after all (bold means "click please").

Instead of cardboard, which, as I've learned, tends to catch on fire when a candle burns down really low, I'd use rusted iron. It's something that middle-aged, wealthy, white suburban women like my mom would go crazy for. Ya know, sort of that, "It's rustic, but not white trashy, which meshes perfectly with my whole urban cowboy motif." Case in point: we used to have three rusted metal Christmas trees in our yard, with built in candle holders.

But why stop at Africandles? What about North Americandles, and Suraméricandelas, también? Antarcticandles, which would be a little too symbolic of the fate that awaits our planet, might be too uncomfortable to stare at for hours on end to be a big seller. Plus, who can recognize the shape of Antarctica when it's viewed from a direct aerial view? Those are out. The rest of the continents, pending development of catchy product names, are in ... as are individual U.S. states, like Texas, and those other ones that are smaller. Big name countries around the globe are eligible for R&D initiatives as well.

Hunter tried to draw an African continent to compete with mine, and he failed miserably.




Talk about The African'tdle .... bahahahahaha.

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This is our next door neighbor Biti, Baba Juma's 17-year-old daughter.




I write about Biti because of what she represents for Mwindaji ("Hunter" in Kiswahili) and I.

She is mchizi waaaaaangu. Literal translation: "my crazy person." Street translation: Biti is my homegirl. And you know homegirl acts as the perfect liaison for Mwindaji and Hatari ("Bayless" in Kiswahili) in their real life East African Affairs semina ("seminar," pronounced seh-mee-nah, in Kiswahili).

The only truth in this part of the world is that truth is not a commodity. Since, as Mwindaji says, humor is the "way I deal with everything," does it come as any surprise that I've dealt with this issue by creating a game? Making my way through the mist every second of the day wouldn't be bearable otherwise. I laugh off attempts by Babylon, sometimes successful, to play me by playing the Burns Family East African Circle of Distrust Game.

There aren't really any rules, per se; it's more just like an overall awareness that nothing anyone says, does or writes can automatically be imbibed. You "win" when you call someone on their bullshit, with an And 1 for blowing up their spot in Swahili. You "lose" when you fall for someone's bullshit, their And1 coming if they somehow succeed in taking some money off of you, which is almost always the target of the opponent in the Circle.

Jaded? I prefer the term "seasoned." You can hate and call it a seasoned tomAHto for all I care. The point of me telling you about stuff like the Circle is simply to highlight the good in one specific person here, mchizi waaaangu, my homegirl, Biti.

Biti is the one African I've met who I wholeheartedly trust, 100 percent, with every fiber of my being. Fluent in English, but not attempting to co-opt Western culture to the substitution of her own, she has just enough of "us" in her to relate to our humor, but keeps it real to the point that my eyebrows don't budge when mchizi wangu tells me something.

Biti is typically the one nominated to bring us any extra food her family doesn't eat from that night's dinner. Since Tanzanian cuisine is about as diverse as a frat party at UVa, we know to expect only something from the following list: ugali (basically just flavorless grits), maybe some chapati if we're lucky (there are two kinds: 1) think Ninfa's flour tortillas, 2) think crepes), ndizi mshare (green-skinned bananas that, if you never told me, I would just assume to be potatoes based on taste), maharage (pinto beans) and occasionally some mhogo (cassava root).

None of these things come with flavor; that, my friends, is provided by my jumbo bottle of Redgold Chilli Sauce, which I add to just about everything. (Yes, there are two 'L's in "Chilli.") Usually, Biti will just chill at our pad after that for a few hours after that, teaching us street Swahili or trying to play Mwindaji's guitar. Ally, her 11-year-old brother, used to chill here every night.

I worried for a while that the friendship we had with Biti might be damaged by the transgressions committed by Ally -- the mwizi kubwa, or "big thief," as I call him. Is it awkward that the little punk who stole from us more times than he could count has yet to return my iPod, Hunter's Swiss Army knife (pictured in The Africandle scene), or the $130 U.S. he took from my wallet, and then some?

Ally, in happier days as an mgeni in our home

Yes.

Is it even worse that he has never once showed a smidgen of remorse, save for the time he literally threw himself at Hunter's feet, screaming "MWINDAJI! MWINDAJI!" in pleads for mercy accompanied by tears, while Baba Juma repeatedly beat him across the face with a rubber tire hose?

Most definitely.

And the situation isn't made any better by the fact that Biti's older brother Abdulli continues to lie, through a plastic smile that is short one front tooth, about selling the iPod which Ally stole and flipped to him.

Lying through your teeth: difficult when tooth is missing

I wish that stuff had never happened, but it doesn't change the fact that it happened in a very real way. As a result, I've amassed a bucket load of cultural experiences all tied to the same event: bribing a police officer; causing a car chase between a taxi and a dala dala (public transport Hiace van); being offered an opportunity by a young boy's father to whip his own flesh and blood with a rubber tire hose; the works. The past is behind, and while I will forget nothing, all that I can do is not throw Biti, nor anyone else in theory, out with the bathwater. After all, the third of Baba Juma's four boys, Bobu, is back in our good graces.




Though he got a few gifts from Ally, his sins were more ones of omission, and he knew he was a sinner. I could see it in his eyes every time we would cross paths in the village. Turned down, little recognition of a former friend, guilt deluxe. After a few weeks of living through an unspoken agreement that he was banned, Bobu came over with Biti one night, eyes predictably to the floor, voice like a mouse.

"Nimekuja kuomba msamaha."

I've come to beg forgiveness.

Both Hunter and I leaped at an opportunity to say "Haina shida," no worries, and allow him back in. Had my singing voice not been so bad from birth, I might have just started singing "Hakuna Matata" right there, I was so happy to have someone just say they're damn sorry.

Simply because Ally and Abdulli are in my eternal dog house doesn't change the fact that Biti is still seated at the head table of my Tanzanian dawg house. Nor does it mean that Bobu won't some day make a full and total return. But Ally and Abdulli's stories, dime-a-dozen tales of friends-turned-foes, provide an explanation of why there are so few spots available in the inner sanctum.


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Tom, you'll be glad to hear that the bump on my nose has just gotten even worse.

I will never again be as pretty as I once was.




I've since pushed it back almost all the way, using nothing but my own two hands. But I'd estimate it to be only 95 percent of the way to full recovery, leaving me looking just a tad more like a hockey player than I did before. In a way, the injury almost made me look more symmetrical, maintaining a tilt running parallel to the levels of my eyelids, one of which has the Parsley Droop. So at least I've got that going for me.

The lesson to be learned from this is that taking a charge in pick up basketball comes with a price. If you try to stand your ground in front of a moving freight train like Elia, who reminds me of a shorter, non-dunking version of Tractor Traylor, you better be prepared for a collision.

When the collision is between his elbow and my nose, though, there will be ramifications.

Blood all over the place is one thing. A blinding rush of pain through your face for a few seconds is another. Full body shakes last a little longer for a third. And scaring yourself when you catch your reflection in the door panel, a fourth, that's always fun.

I saved face that day when, after sitting out two games post-Elia elbow, pulled a Steve Nash and returned wearing a blood-soaked Band Aid on my nose. This was before I realized how bad it was.

The upside to the pain and trauma caused by my temporary stint of looking like a character from that Stephen King TV movie "Predators," I think it was, is that I learned just how much human cartilage can bend. I mean, my nose was bent to the side. As in, wow, your nose is diagonal. It's something you need to feel to believe.

Did I believe the doctors who tried to tell me it wasn't broken? No -- if you'd seen the way they went about their business, I doubt you would have either. The first one initially said it wasn't "possible" to break your nose; the second said he was unable to even ponder a course of action for me, seeing as he "wasn't a specialist;" and the third? Couldn't tell you. He was on a food break when I arrived at 7, and was still "coming back right now" when I left, at 8:30.

It was kind of cool, though, being able to push my nose back into place over the course of two days. Kind of that hurts-so-good style of pain, like pushing into a nasty bruise from a D-pole in lacrosse, or wiggling around a loose tooth perilously close to the edge. Every time I pushed, I would hear the sound of recovery, also known as crunching cartilage cells. Ahhhh, hurts so good.

I've never been able to breathe out of my nostrils very well. At least not since I can remember. The initial crookedness inflicted upon my nose, I believe, came in 8th grade when, once again, I got 'bowed in the shnoz by a bigger, older player on the basketball court. Only that time, it was during a varsity-faculty game, and the role of Elia was played by Coach Fines, the guy who reminded us approximately 1,000,002 times that he guarded Greg Ostertag once in a high school game.

Coach Fines and Elia are responsible for me losing out on any potential modeling opportunities, but I can't blame them for stuff that happens on the court like that. What I lack in beauty, I make up for in stories that make me seem a lot tougher than I really am.

"Jina lako nani?"

It's a question I never know how to answer here in Tanzania.

"What's your name?"

"Uhhh...."

There are just too many options. Bayless, Billy, Hatari, Hakuna Pwani, Teacher BP (pronounced "Teecha BP"), and the classic, Mzungu. I often just say "Nina majina mengi" when I'm asked that question, because it's true -- I have many names with the Waswahili.




The total may be equal in number to the amount of Tanzanian friends I have who are under the age of 12.

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"Hi, my name is Without a Beach."

First up: Hakuna Pwani has gotta go.




Pretty much the only one who still calls me that is Brian, the kid sitting on the hood. And even Brian uses it less and less frequently, which is good, because it means he won't be able to teach little Derriki, the one in red, to say it when he begins to increase his vocabulary beyond the word "car" (which, in Kiswahili, is simply kaa).

As of now, Derriki -- who I always assumed was Brian's little brother, when in fact they share not a mother but a roof -- just calls me "Ugghhhh."

Hakuna Pwani was cool at first, back when I thought pwani actually meant "bay," like my Lonely Planet Swahili phrasebook said it did. I should have remembered to never believe anything produced by Lonely Planet, a lesson I learned while traveling in the Balkans. Nine weeks in the field has taught me that pwani really means "beach" or "coast," not "bay."

And to think, all that time, I had actually been saying, "Hi, my name is Without a Beach." Tell me about it; after falling in love a thousand times over in the former Yugoslavia, I've found quite a different girl situation awaiting me here in East Africa.

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"Mzunguuuuuu! Nibebe! Nibebe!"

Moving on to the name I really dislike being called: Mzungu. It's what every single child who doesn't know us yells when we walk by. Used to be cute. Not anymore.

"Mzunguuuuu! Mzunguuuuu!"

Yeah, kid, why don't you alert the media? We HEAR YOU. The entire village hears you. We live here now, and this is the only path we can walk down. So you'd better save your vocal chords, because there will be many Wazungu sightings in the months to come.

It'd be like if all the neighborhood children from Southside Place, USA yelled "Mexicaaaaaaan!" every time a truck full of yard workers drove by. That's because Mzungu doesn't even mean "white person." It means "European." I'm not any more European than a tan skinned Nicaraguan who cuts grass for a living in Texas and speaks Spanish as a first language is Mexican.

Habiba, the little girl on the right, actually knows us, and yet still refuses to recognize that all the other loke dog children are calling us by our names by this point. Habiba, though, gets a free pass because of the contagiously euphoric state she reaches after a Mzungu sighting. It is incredible.




"MZUNGUUU!" she screams, every single time. "Nibebe! Nibebe!"

I just wonder if it's customary for a little African child to say to an African, "carry me," or if for some reason Habiba thinks it is part of an unspoken contract that all white people are expected to pick her up whenever they see her. That being said, it's hard to say no when she runs full speed towards me, yelling my "name" and leaping into my arms at the end just for flare.

For the simple reason that it is impossible not to smile when I see her, Habiba is one of the few who doesn't irritate me by calling me a Euro.

"Wazungu wanatoka Ulaya!" I sometimes yell at the ones who do bother me, though. "Mimi ninatoka Marekani! Msiseme Mzungu!"

That's me explaining the difference between white people from Europe and white people from America, and why it's technically incorrect to call me a Mzungu. It's in one ear and out the other, though, with children of all creeds and colors. As sure as the air in Patandi smells like burning trash and dust, that word's de facto definition will continue to be "white guy" till Kingdom come.

Our next door neighbor Baba Juma (pictured below), who runs the Meru Peak Day Care School from the confines of his own home, has come up with the perfect solution to this problem.




"Huyu sio Mzungu," he sternly informs whichever child he has singled out, who in turn stares up at this figure of ultimate authority, mouth agape with awe. "Anakaa hapa hapa sasa. Ni Mwafrika mweupe."

Since I live here now, Baba Juma wants me to be known as a "white African." I like that, Baba J. Good call.

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"William is a good worker."

Why is your name Billy?

I can't count the number of times I've heard that query since the alias first stuck back in the summer of 2000, when I was a 16-year-old construction worker battling the sweltering Houston summer heat out on East Airtex Rd.

It was my first day on the job, and I knew no one. My superintendent, Red -- who later alternated between "Jew Boy" and "Jerry Seinfeld" as better names for his bushy eye browed helper bee -- was introducing me to Victor, a Mexican who was to become my mentor of sorts. Victor did not then, nor does he now, speak very good English. He could understand almost everything, but it was pronunciation that loomed largest of all the roadblocks to fluency.

"Bayyyeely?"

"No," I said, not understanding why he couldn't get it right after three tries. "Me llamo BAYLESSSS."

I over-pronounced the last two letters so much, it was like a classroom full of eight-year-olds had just found out they were getting two recesses that day. Still, Victor's face remained blank, except for his eyes, which were speaking in a language of their own: "No entiendo-no entiendo-no entiendo," they said. I kind of felt bad for the man, because you could tell he was trying.

And he tried again.

"Baaayylii..." Oh my God .... "...eely?"

No.

I sighed.

"Bílly," I said, capitulating. "Bílly is fine."

And thus, Bílly (pronounced Bee-lee) was born.

From that day forth at work, I was known as Jew Boy/Jerry Seinfeld by the white super's in the air conditioned trailer, and as Bílly by everyone else under the sun.

The Mexicans honestly thought it was my name. Augustine soon started to tell Red what a good worker "William" was. The black dudes, though, only said it because they were making fun of the Mexicans. Robert Murphy -- a.k.a. Samuel L. Jackson -- used to lay it on way thick whenever one of my amigo's was in earshot: "Billy! (glances to see if Victor or Augustine is listening) Hey Billy! Hooh haha! Billy!"

It was only a matter of time before the name was to catch on with my friends at school, albeit in a slightly more Anglicized version. Bílly thus became Billy, and the first nickname I ever actually liked began to grow into its own.

It's not just a Hispanic thing, or even just an inside joke thing for my friends in Texas and Virginia. People the world over call me that by mistake, both strangers and friends. There are lots of Serbs that I count as my boys, for example, who don't know my real name, and I don't have the heart to tell them. I guess I don't do much to help matters by giving them my email address: billyparsley@gmail.com.

Baba Juma has continued on with the tradition laid down by Victor. He sometimes tells little kids to call me Mwafrika mweupe, true, but he and his entire family definitely call me Billy all the time, and his 17-year-old daughter Biti sometimes even shortens it to Bill on occasion.

I'll never forget the time a guy here really did get "Bayless" down pat, only to be corrected by Baba Juma. His name was John, and he was giving us a ride home from a meeting in Usa River. When Baba Juma heard John call me by my real name, he cut in.

"Hapana," he said. "Huyu anaitwa Billy." He then shot a quick glance over in my direction, as if to say, "I gotcho back. Don't worry." I nodded in appreciation. You tell 'em, Baba Juma.

"Ahhhh," John replied, no doubt making a mental note as he sized me up and down in his rear view. "I see. I am sorry, Beelly." It's ironic that John looked just like the older black cop from "Homicide: Life on the Streets," an old NBC show that actually had a character named Detective Bayless.

Billy, it seems, is a nickname that has a lot in common with the Roman Catholic Church -- it's long lasting, and it's universal.

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She must have been breast fed longer than the other children

Mwajuma is not only the cutest little kid neighbor we've got, she is also a genius. Of the hundreds of people we give daily greetings to in our village, she is the only one that can say "Bayless" -- and I doubt she's even reached her third birthday yet (not that she'd even know if she had, as kids here tend to not even know their own ages, let alone a D.O.B.).

I love Mwajuma. If you saw her in real life, you'd understand.

She looks peaceful, doesn't she? Calm, serene, contemplative, almost like an African Buddha baby. She just looks good. A good kid.

Well, I'm not saying she's bad ... it's just that she is crazy. Mwajuma is kichaa kabisa. And she has found a permanent place in my heart ... 90 percent of the reason being her phonetic skills.

"Bayless!"

She yells it loud, clear and with confidence, making her voice stand out that much more from the herds of other youngsters screaming out my various pseudonyms. When I heard her say it for the first time, the first thing that popped into my mind was, "Which Swahili word sounds like me?"

If only more of these Patandi youths were just like Mwajuma, rather than Habiba.

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(blank)

Abdulli (pictured on the left below), one of my favorite kids in the entire village, doesn't call me much at all. He's been deaf for three years now.

Though I must say, it doesn't cut down on the amount he tries to communicate. I try to play the sign language game sometimes, but I'm pretty sure he has the same reaction that Denny has when Gaylord Focker tells him Lil' Kim is "phat."

"Riiiight. Cool man."

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"WATCH YASELF!"

It was one of the best shots I've ever made in my life, and I had made it look easy.

Behind the legs to the left, back through the legs to the right, pull up fade away jumper from the corner. As I fell out of bounds into the slick grass, I saw the rim form a halo around the ball for just a short moment in time, and I knew it was alllllll (imaginary) net. The rain was falling down pretty hard by that point, only making my shot wet on multiple levels.

"DANE-JUHHHHHH!" I yelled as I strutted back down court. (That's how you pronounce the word "danger" if you're a motherf***in P-I-M-P.)

I wasn't asking anyone to translate, but someone offered up his services anyway. And that, my friends, was a big time move, because what he said was to become my favorite name of all.



"HATARIIII!"

With a name like that, I could out-intimidate John Wayne himself.

So you've heard about Hakuna Pwani, Billy, Bayless, Mzungu and my favorite, Hatari. Hunter's story is a lot easier to tell. He maintains a singularity of purpose that I lack as the man with majina mengi. Keeping very much in line with his personality, my friend Mr. Flint keeps it simple. He's got one Swahili name, and that's all he needs. Mwindaji. All it is is a straight up translation of the word "hunter."

The only thing worth noting is that when Tanzanians hear him say "Mwindaji," they're not thinking, "Oh, that's a pretty fratty name." They're thinking, "This guy knows how to use a gun, and he kills mammals for a living."

But as you can see, they're not nearly as scared of Mwindaji as they are of Hatari.



Mwindaji na Hatari. It's like a Tanzanian WWE tag team duo. We go almost everywhere together, and so neither of those two names are often uttered without the other following suit. I would love to know what some old dude who hears the ruckus caused by our wake must think when we pass by. Every single little kid in Patandi excitedly yelling "Mwindaji! Hatari! Hatari! Mwindaji!" and running after these two random Wazungu.

"Hunter! Danger! Danger! Hunter!"

It never stops being funny.

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"And ah me! And ah me ah BP!"

As much as I wish I could discard all non-badass names for the year -- bye bye, Mzungu, Hakuna Pwani, Billy and Bayless -- I don't think it would be very professional for a teacher to introduce himself to his Swahili-speaking students as Hatari.

"Hello kids, my name is Mr. Danger. You better not talk in class, or else you're gonna be in for a world of hurt when Mwindaji brings the pain train to a station near you."

That might not work out. But neither would telling them my real name, because just as my tongue was incapable of pronouncing "Ljubljana" like a true Slav, Tanzanian tongues are for the most part incapable of saying "Bayless" correctly. I could just go as Billy when at work ....

... but it's way more fun to go by BP. Let me explain why.



See how Monica wrote my initials on her hand? I could just lie and say it's hero worship, but I won't do that to you.

At the school where I teach, the kids play this weird game called "BP." I don't really understand the origin, nor do I truly understand the point of it, but the rules are straightforward enough:

"BP kiko wapi??"

That's basically it. One kid asks another where his "BP" is. You've got about two seconds to produce one, whether it's written on your body or your clothes. If you say "Sina," having forgotten to come to school prepared, you lose. If you say "hapa," and point to where you remembered to write it, you ... win? Like I said, I don't really get it.

Allegedly, a BP "loser" has to pay the "winner," though I'm unsure about both the amount and whether or not any money ever actually changes hands.

Ballpoint pens are like gold here. I always carry one with my reporter's notebook in the side pocket of my Carhartt's, and when a little kid spots me with it, all hell breaks loose.

"WRITE AH BP! WRITE AH BP!!!"

I write it.

"AND UH ME! AND UH ME!! WRITE AH BP! AND UH ME!!!!"

I write it again.

"AND UH MEEEEEEE!" (x 20)

Five minutes later, I've got Carpal Tunnel.

Whenever I make the mistake of writing it on that first kid's hand, nearly the entire school demands that they, too, receive a "BP." Otherwise, it's not a level playing field -- it's not fair for just a handful of kids to get BP immunity, while the rest are denied. So as to not give away the existence of a pen in m pocket when I enter school grounds, I even wrote my initials on the waist of my shorts.

That may be why kids started referring to me in my absence as Teecha BP -- a transliterated version of "Teacher BP."

"So what does 'BP' stand for?" I asked one day. Mwindaji had refused to believe me when I told him the game was created in honor of their favorite English teacher, but I wanted to know the real answer for myself.

"Black people," one kid said.

All right then. I guess me writing my initials on my shorts would be like trying to wear FUBU back home. "Teacher BP" is out as a cool name, too, by default.

If anyone needs me, just ask for Hatari.

I've probably lost about 70 percent of my regular readers because of the recent drought in stories I've been providing. So that leaves about three of you. I will try to describe as much as I can in these 18 minutes of remaining Internet time I've got (the connection at our house has been dunskies for a while now).

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1. First rule of living in the Arusha region of Tanzania: Until proven otherwise with hard evidence, you just have to assume that everyone here is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

I hesitate to say that this is a rule of thumb for "living in Tanzania," because I know Peace Corps volunteers who have spent a lot of time in the south of the country that have nothing but positive things to say about the Tanzanian people -- it's only when they come to Arusha, a hotbed of tourism due to its proximity to Kilimanjaro and the Serenghetti, that they complain about dirty pool. I also hesitate to call it a rule of thumb for "living in Africa," because it's a pretty big place, and I don't even pretend to have it all figured out.

Wolves in sheeps' clothing. That's a term that everyone can understand. What I prefer, though, comes from a Black Uhuru song called "Plastic Smile." I sing it all the time here; it's been stuck in my head for weeks because of the abundance of fake smiles that only seek to hide ulterior motives. As I walk the streets of Arusha; as I traverse the dirt roads of our village, Patandi; and as I sit crammed between a woman carrying a basket full of avocadoes and an old man with less teeth than eyeballs in the back of a dala dala, the Hiace van taxis that serve as pretty much the only mode of public transportation in East Africa, I sing...

Ya can't show all your teeth, plastic smile cyan't work.....

Buh, buh-buh-BUH, buh, buh-buh-buh-BUH-buh....

The bassline and the words hit me just as hard.

A plastic smile is what can't work with me anymore. I've already fallen for enough of them, and I'm tired. Not yet jaded, but certainly mentally drained. Anyone that says "My friend, my friend!" to me as I walk by them automatically disqualifies himself from friend potential. The same goes for "Where are you from?" That line is about as effective on me as the "Come here often?" line is on a hot chick.

If they're lucky, I tell them "Sihitaji bwana, toka." (I don't need it man, scram). I don't even bother to glance at what they're selling, because I don't want any part of it. Sometimes they hear me speak Swahili without a stutter, and they back off. But then there are the ones who only keep trying; those are the really hungry wolves in sheep's clothing. They get a second dose of Swahili from me, but it's not polite this time: "Mimi si mtalii! TOKA!" (I'm not a tourist! Get outta here!)

Your plastic smile cyan't work.

It is ironic that "Uhuru" is the Swahili word for "freedom," isn't it?

I promise that these feelings of mine are with merit, and that they aren't held solely by myself. Hunter feels the same way, if not more strongly about it. That says a lot, because if any of you have ever met Hunter, you'd know that "Trusting" is his middle name.

I don't have time to go into depth right now on the issue we've had to deal with in our personal lives since arriving on the 4th of July. It involves an 11-year-old former friend, who just happens to be our next door neighbor. It involves a 40-year-old man who looks like a cross between It and Kevin Willis. And it involves Musa, who I wrote about previously.

Together, they worked to steal over $500 worth of stuff from our house. Tanzanian shillings, U.S. dollars, an iPod, a cell phone and a pocket knife. Most of it was mine. We recovered far less than half of the total booty. And we received not a single genuine apology.

The worst part? They stole from us when they were guests in our own home. Not one, twice, or even thrice -- in fact, no one could even count the number of times it happened. The most honest answer I got out of the whole debacle was from Musa: "Mara nyingi." (Many times).

Wolves in sheeps' clothing. Their plastic smiles did work. But never again, I swear on all that's holy. Kwa sababu mimi sio mtalii, and I'm not gonna take any more of this business from anybody.

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2. The Kiswahili language. Oh man do I love speaking it.

It is painfully simple, except for a few causes for confusion when dealing with what prefix to use for which type of noun. That will come with time and repetition, though. The main thing is that after one year, I will be solid at Swahili. Which will only help that much more in scaring off those wolves.

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3. Anyone who's been to Arusha remembers the newspaper hawkers. They sell The Herald Tribune, USA Today, The Guardian, and some random German papers. They're almost as annoying as the dudes who sell the Maasai daggers, but not quite.

My question is this: WHERE DO THEY GET THESE PAPERS? Second question: HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO SELL THEM WHEN EVERY SINGLE ONE HAS A DIFFERENT HEADLINE?

USA Today needs to be renamed USA Yesterday, or USA Last Wednesday. I glanced at one of them as I was walking down the streets this morning, and I was thrilled to see that President Bush had been reelected for a second four-year term. Also, did anyone else hear the news??? Alex Rodriguez signed a ten-year, $252 million deal with the Rangers. What is Tom Hicks THINKING?

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4. The reason we're here: Putting orphans in English medium boarding schools.

This month, we did so for 20 kids, though not all of them are technically orphans. Nineteen of them are boarding at the school where Hunter and I are also assistant English teachers. They range from watoto wadogo to vijana -- little kids to young adults. Some are able to speak a little English already, while some -- a little Maasai girl and her older brother -- know almost zero Kiswahili.

It warms my heart to see the smiles on their faces at school. Maybe that is enough to justify coming here for a year with next to no pay. Are we going to save the world? Not a chance. Are we singlehandedly going to change the course of Tanzania's future? No way; it takes a village to reach the Tipping Point of a nation's development. But are we going to impact just a few lives during this year in East Africa?

Mungu akipenda, as they say around these parts. The Christians say that at least. Muslims here say Inshaallah. We'd just say "God Willing" back home. Time will tell if He's down.

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5. I have a surrogate father in Switzerland that is a Texan, born and raised. He moved to the Lake Geneva region when he got married to a Swiss-born Spanish girl years ago, and getting accepted into the culture was difficult. He was a novice to the French language at first, which didn't make it any easier.

The thing that did it was sports.

I'm not a swimmer like Breck, nor am I too into wearing Speedo's like he is. Besides, when was the last time you saw an African medal in an Olympic swimming event anyway? So I had to find a different sport to help me mingle with the people in a setting where plastic smiles aren't even attempted.

Hunter and I found it at Soweto.

Soweto is a suburb of Arusha Town that just happens to have one of the rare basketball courts with two functioning, ten-foot rims. There are chain nets, too, which only makes it all the more badass.

We've only been playing there for two weeks, but I am already starting to feel accepted. And I mean truly accepted, not because they want my money. Abdallah, Mohammed, Bariki Mkubwa (Big Bariki), Bariki Mdogo (Little Bariki), Saidi, Elia, and all the other regulars who play at Soweto don't give a damn if I'm a mzungu or not. They don't care why I'm in their country, or how much money I have, or even if I'm interested in taking a safari. All those dudes care about is whether I can ball or not.

The sad truth is, I suck. Defense is no problem because defense is purely about desire anyway. And dribbling/passing never really leaves you. It's my shooting that embarrasses not only me, but the American people as a whole, because I do the sign of the cross when I hit the rim, it's gotten that bad.

More on all these topics later, when there isn't a countdown on my Internet time. Hopefully this will keep The Bob, Elise, Beth, Mr. Jenner, and whoever else actually reads this thing at bay, if not for a few days.

AMANI, UPENDO, NA TULIVO. I am out.