After almost nine months of our common law, sans sex de facto marriage, Hunter and I have gone from the Wazungu Wawili to the Wazungu WaTATU, baby. The third amigo, our favorite pale Pennsylvanian, is here for two weeks.




It's the first time all three of us -- TK, me, Mwindaji -- have been together since the last day of college in May 2006. And not much has changed.




TK is still awkwardly tall. And he's still silly. And I'm going to write a great story about his visit when it's all said and done, just for you, Martha.

(And he's sooooo cute, too!)




Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

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A few photos of late.



A problem you don't often think about back home -- people trying to siphon the gas out of your car -- solved.

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Derikiiiiiiiiiiiiii! I love this kid.



I mean, how could you not?

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Ain't no Air Jordans in Monduli. Just Goodyear. And Michelin. And every other tire that can be made into a sandal.

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Slavic girls are just a tad hotter than these Maasai babes.

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Hunter makes a friend.

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Mount Meru, posing as Mount Kilimanjaro. Some people say they've never seen snow on the top until this week. Global warming, shmobal warming.

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For anyone worried about our safety after having read about all the crap we've had to deal with these past few months with thieves, being forced to move out of our house, etc., please allay your fears. Olfo, our new security guard who we're almost positive stole Tom's shoes two nights ago, is ready.




Now, if I could only explain to him that you're supposed to load the arrow on the other side of the bow.

On second thought, maybe it's better that he remain ignorant on how to shoot his mshale, seeing as I'm about to fire his ass.

I Vote Max.

For my to-be-determined Balkanzania reunion in Montreal.

Élise, a.k.a. Lion of Judah, I know you're awake. And I know you're still using this blog to combat insomnia. So I know you will see this.

Max, who stayed with us back in our second month in TZ, and who reappeared in Arusha last Friday as part of a 60-person Tour D'Afrique bike ride from Cairo to Capetown, deserves the spot as your roommate next year. I give him my official endorsement. He says while you are first on his list, he feels he's about third on yours. I'm hoping some words of recommendation from me will propel him up the ladder.

If/when I visit Montreal, where I plan on getting you, him, Vincent, Mathieu and Joel together for one big reunion, and I'm ready to sing.

"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIlllllll est des noooootres, IL A BU SA BIERE COMME LES AUUUUUTRES! Duuuuuuuhh, duh, duh, DUUUH, duh! J’ai oubliez tout de mon français kutokana Kiswahiiiiiliii!"

Merci!

TWENTY TWO IN A ROW, and counting.

"Rafer Alston scored 31 points and hit eight 3-pointers, both career highs, and the Rockets beat the Los Angeles Lakers 104-92 to stretch their streak to 22 and claim sole possession of first place in the Western Conference."

Rafer Alston?!

To win 22 in a row, you need stuff like that to happen. But you also need a little bit of karma coming out of East Africa.

Could've told you something special was in store before the Lakers game even started: check out the good omen I found awaiting me at Green Hut yesterday, a few hours before tip off.




Just doing what I can to help.

Toothpaste, right?

That's what I thought, too. Until about 1.5 seconds after I put the toothbrush in my mouth. It didn't take long for me to realize that something was terribly wrong.

(Insert gagging noise here, followed by excessive rinsing out of the mouth with parasite filled tap water.)

What was wrong was that, in my haste to brush my teeth as we were running out the door two nights ago, I grabbed a tube of something that wasn't toothpaste at all. That was made evident by two things that went down shortly before I started gagging:

1) The mystery paste didn't foam up, at all.
2) The mystery paste didn't taste very minty fresh.




Not many tubes of zinc oxide diaper rash ointment do, I suppose.

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Before you judge, let me just say that this could have happened to anyone. But especially to someone in our position.

For over a month now, Hunter and I have essentially been homeless. The house search that was supposed to take a week, tops, is now in Week Six, and it's not showing any signs of abating. In other words, the search has not proved as fruitful as we had anticipated, back when we closed up shop in Patandi and bailed on our lease at the beginning of February. What started as a temporary set up in a local bed & breakfast in nearby Usa River slowly devolved into a permanent encampment.

But an encampment doesn't quite denote a home, does it? Which is why I hated that bed and breakfast. For a night or two, it would've been fine. For a night or 40, it sucked. With the women who run the place constantly all up in our bidness -- simply by nature of the fact that they were there, nothing else -- we were essentially guests in our own home. Guests with a whooooole lot of luggage.

Every single thing that we own, and that our NGO owns, was being stored under our two single beds, and in our closet. It was like a warehouse in Room 3. Aside from our own personal effects, 100 percent of the inventory fell under the "Stuff Donated for the Kids" department: soccer balls, jump ropes, shoe polish, soap, t-shirts, toothpaste, and, as I learned two days ago, diaper rash ointment.

Had I seen this photo, it might have tipped me off. Just maybe.

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"Hold up, real quick, I'm gonna brush my teeth before we go."

Hunter, Meghann, and Meghann's Kenyan friend Lali were all waiting on me. It was Jamie's last night in TZ, and before she headed off for a month in the Punjab, everyone was getting together at Nick Pub for a little going away party of chicken and chips.

The toothpaste on the sink had been teetering towards the edge of doneskies for days at that point -- earlier that morning, it had officially been kicked. Remembering this, and remembering the yellow plastic bag I personally stored under my bed during the move from Patandi -- the one that held eight brand new tubes of excess toothpaste meant for our students -- I blindly moved my hand around the warehouse until I felt it: the crinkle of the bag, the feel of the unopened toothpaste containers. Bingo.




It was a matter of bad luck, nothing more. Heads or tales style bad luck. Had I grabbed it from the other direction -- actually seeing the label, rather than a bunch of meaningless words printed on the back -- this story never would have been written. But it is being written, because I didn't see the picture of a mother caressing her sleeping child until the damage had been done.

But in my defense, did I really need to look? I'd handled enough toothpaste tubes in my day to know what a toothpaste tube felt like. And this, my friends, was toothpaste. Definitely toothpaste.

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"Hunter!" I yelled in a hushed, yet urgent tone, not wanting to draw the attention of Meghann or Lali. "Hunter!"

He walked into the room. "What?"

"Dude." Panic reverberated in my voice as I handed him the Desitin. "I thought it was toothpaste!" I hissed.

There are moments in life that you just never forget, no matter how old, gray and wrinkly you become. Something tells me that this was one of those moments for Mwindaji.

"HO-LEEEEE SHIT!" His jaw dropped. Then he started cracking up. "Oh my God! You brushed your teeth with that?!"

I hadn't even known exactly what it was until I'd finished gagging, at which point, panic stricken, my eyes frantically sought out the "Warnings" section of the very label that hadn't tipped me off as I got up off my knees and walked into the bathroom. What I found made my body run cold:

"Did I swallow it????"

Poison Control Center?!

There ain't no Poison Control Center in our neck of the woods. Last week, when I was taking one of our students, Rosie, to the St. Elizabeth HIV clinic to get her CD4 count checked, they didn't even have a Band Aid to give her after sticking her six-year-old little arm with a mondo needle that sent a rivulet of blood dripping onto the ground -- HIV-infected blood. If they don't even have Band Aids at an AIDS clinic in Africa, how do you expect me to find a Poison Control Center as I froth at the mouth on the verge of death by diaper rash ointment ingestion? I mean, isn't zinc oxide bad? Isn't that the stuff you put on your nose when you go skiing?

"Dude," I told my supposed best friend, who instead of sharing in my concern that I might be on the verge of death, was still laughing uncontrollably. "I'm really freaked out!"

"You'll be fine," he assured me, not even knowing whether or not I'd actually swallowed anything. "Don't worry."

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But I was worried.

"Yo, I know I'm probably just paranoid," -- Hunter was unlocking the gate so we could get out of the driveway, and he was clearly amused by my panicked state -- "but I'm bringing this stuff with us just in case I go into cardiac arrest or something on the way. And also," -- I pulled the card out of my back pocket -- "I brought this Med-Evac stuff. It's right here." I motioned to the back pocket of my Carhartt's.

Looking back, preparing to be life flighted to Europe because of a toothbrushing mishap seems a bit much. At the time, though, I wasn't thinking so rationally. "I just swallowed baby diaper rash cream, and there isn't a Poison Control Center on the continent." That's what I was thinking.

And don't think that I don't hear you laughing. What would you have done in my situation, tough guy?

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The entire ride to Nick Pub, I was counting every heart beat like it was a gift from God. Not that ever breath isn't a gift from God when you're not thinking you've just poisoned yourself; it just seems especially precious when you are thinking that.

"This is how I'm gonna go out," I castigated myself, silently. Still freaked out by the "do not swallow" stuff, I wasn't swallowing. At all. For 30 minutes. "'R.I.P. Bayless Parsley. 1984- 2008. Death by baby rash diaper ointment poisoning."

Beat -- thank you. Beat -- thank you. Beat -- thank you. Keep on coming, baby. Beat...

Not quite the stuff that "Braveheart" is made of.

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I never told Meghann and Lali. Mainly because I was already getting enough grief from Hunter, and I was still kind of worried. Every little pain in my chest equaled an, "Oh my God! What was that!" in my brain. But I did tell Jamie. And only because she was leaving.

I figured it'd be a great gift to send her off with: a story that can make you spontaneously combust into hysterical laughter is certainly a gift that keeps on giving. How foolish it was to think it could have been "our little secret," though. Soon, Sam and Tait were on the scent; they wanted to know what all the commotion down at the end of the table was about.

Sam, fever stricken and trooping it just to be there, almost spit out her food. Tait, who was perfectly healthy, had a little less crazy reaction, but not by much. And Jamie, a nurse back in the States, shook her head in horror at the list of ingredients.




"Oh my God, zinc oxide?!" she exclaimed, jaw agape. "That's like the stuff you wear when you go skiing!" (I knew it). "You put this in your MOUTH?!"

"It looked like toothpaste!" I yelled for the billionth time.

"I know, but still..." her eyes continued to scroll as her voice trailed off for a hot second, coming back to life with the next revelation. "Oh gross, barbadensis, too."

No idea what barbadensis is, but it definitely doesn't sound good.

Sam grabbed a hold of the tube to have a look for herself.

"Oooh, 'goes on smoothly!'" she read from the label.

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It's been two days, and I still haven't brushed my teeth. I finally got around to buying a new toothbrush today, though. And some toothpaste, too.

Don't worry, I checked the label three times before I paid for it.

The face of a man with an "anal fissure."

"I wonder if Barry would let me borrow some of "The Cream." Two birds with one stone I guess..."

Uhhhhh........

"Anal fissure"? What ever happened to strained ligaments and turf toes? You start letting players like this...




... into the league, and that's when you begin to read about "anal fissures" on ESPN.com. And how one of them may keep our brand new, Japanese second baseman out of Opening Day, in what would be his first game as an Astro.

Say what you will about Craig Biggio's declining production in the tail end of his career. At least he was tearing ACL's and MCL's -- not his scoofy, like good ole Kaz Matsui.

The Real Life Air Up There

Now this is the kind of Tanzanian orphan I think we should be trying to save.




If I could play Jimmy Dolan, I would.




Only God knows what might have happened had this kid from Dar es Salaam been born in Arusha ten years after his real birthday, February 16, 1987. A kid that tall definitely would have been a regular at our court in Soweto, and a kid that tall definitely would have caught my eye.

And UVa would have been making room in admissions for one very tall, very athletic Mbongo baller about seven years down the line.

Hasheem Thabeet -- born in Tanzania as Hashim Thabit Manka, only to change it to the Americanized version soon to be called out by David Stern at the NBA Draft -- would have qualified for our sponsorship program had our NGO existed when he was growing up in Dar es Salaam during the 1990's. The TZ government defines the word yatima, "orphan," as any child who has lost at least one parent. Whether or not this semantical tweak is a marketing ploy (the more "orphans" a country has, the more attention it gets from Western NGO's) or a reflection of cultural differences, I don't care. Hasheem Thabeet, whose dad died during his childhood, would have been the greatest yatima in the history of the ACC.

The man is a giant: 7'3", 265, with a wingspan of 7'5". At the time that the NY Times article Mr. Booth sent me went to press (I had never even heard of Thabeet until then), he had more blocked shots (127) than nine Big East teams. MORE BLOCKED SHOTS THAN NINE BIG EAST TEAMS. And he's using his talents to send UConn into the Tournament ready to make some noise.

Man, could we have used this kid at Soweto. Hunter and I play on a guard-heavy team that knows nothing of rebounding or defense. It's fitting, I guess, that we're called the Kings; circa 2002 Kings, of course.

When I first arrived in TZ back in July, my uncle Kenny emailed me to say that Penders was looking for a big man in the Patandi region to help with the boards, preferably 6'8" or bigger. Jeep made the obvious "The Air Up There" joke when he saw the photo of me with my Maasai admirers at the Bush appearance.




And even I had someone ask this dude how old he was, and whether or not he'd ever played basketball.

(He's 28, and he's never played. Too little, too late.)

But I just didn't realize that I was too late. My real life Air Up There'er had already made his way to Houston, where he played high school ball at Cypress Christian, and then onto Connecticut, where he's following in the footsteps of two other big men from H-Town, Jake Voskuhl and Emeka Okafor.

As if he wasn't cool enough in my eyes -- a future NBA player who speaks fluent Swahili -- Thabeet played high school basketball in Houston. Nimechelewa.

How do you explain the essence of an entire people? I'm not sure it's possible. But nitajitahidi -- I'll do my best -- with a few stories about life in the land of the Wabongo.

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Meghann came into town this week, and getting all our ducks in a row for the big library opening at FK Academy was numero uno on the agenda.

Until you learn how to say, "Niache bwana, mi sio mtalii," you're gonna get this dude trying to sell you TZ flags every, single, time, you see him.

The actual construction we're leaving to Alan and his boys.

No wonder Alan said he "hadn't been sleeping at night" until we told him the opening was March 30, not March 1. This picture was taken two days ago, the day he thought it was supposed to be ready.

But girl stuff, like getting the materials together to make giant pillows for the chill out area, we can take care of on our own. That's why Meghann wasted no time in wanting to pick up some kanga's and vitenge, the colorful native cloths used by woman as skirts and by men as Sunday best shirts, which you can get for between TSh 3,500-4,000 (around $4) on market day.

Mama Big Apple, our old neighbor from Patandi, sporting her kitenge as a skirt...

And the special George W. Bush kanga's printed up for Dubya's visit to TZ two weeks ago

Saturday is the siku la soko in our old village, which is why we headed to the Tengeru sokoni.

I hate the women who sell kanga and vitenge more than I hated brussel sprouts during pre-K. They occupy a special antechamber in my heart, the same rat-infested shit hole I reserve for all the masela in our old village who used to steal from us with such impunity, it was as if they viewed our Mzungu spaceship house as one of those "Take 1" containers of pennies they put above the penny-pressing machines at Six Flags. With most Tanzanians, I give the benefit of the doubt when they try to hustle me -- life is hard for the sufferah's in Africa; what would I do if I were in his situation?; I'm just a white boy, and white boys typically mean money, so how could I expect him to do anything but screw me over?

Not with the women who sell kanga and vitenge. They get no slack from me. I can honestly say that they are bad people.

"Kabla hatujaanza, tuongee kuhusu bei," I said, making sure we agreed on a price before this woman -- licking her chops at the sight of three Wazungu standing before her, ready to spend their money -- unfolded and refolded a cornucopia of textiles in an attempt to find the right ones. Negotiating becomes a lot more emotional if you do it after this 10-minute process, I've learned.

"Sawa," she said, smiling, as if that was gonna work. "Elfu nane."

Elfu nane, as in, "8,000." As in, about eight bucks. As in, more than twice the real price. As in, I must be a freaking dumbass.

As in, that's how every negotiation begins when you're a white man in Africa. You start with "You must be a dumbass" price, and the more Swahili you spit at them, in theory, the more the price comes to resemble the bei ya Mtanzania. But it usually never gets there, no matter how fluid you are in their language.

"Elfu nane?!" I shrieked. Did I laugh, too? I think. But maybe I'm confusing it with my reaction earlier that afternoon. I know I laughed -- loud -- when the used cell phone hawker on the sidewalk in town had told us, after a four-second hesitation so he could think of just how badly he wanted to screw us, that the Fisher Price piece of crap Hunter was holding in his hands could be ours for the low price of TSh 70,000. Meghann had just seen a sale at Celtel for a brand new phone that had been marked down TSh 4,000 to its sale price of TSh 43,000.

"Elfu nane ni kichaa," I said, insinuating that she belonged at Bellview. "Jaribu tena."

After a few seconds of back and forth, her plastic smile not getting any less inauthentic, we agreed on a semi-fair deal of 4,000 a pop.

The unfolding/folding routine commenced. Meghann chose four kanga's that tickled her fancy. I offered to give the woman TSh 15,000 straight up for all four. She stared up at my forehead, clearly lost in thought, calculating whether or not she'd be making any money on the deal, for about two or three seconds. Then she agreed. The plastic smile didn't leave her face, and it was still fake as hell.

In Tanzania, when something seems like it's signed and sealed, it almost never is. I should have known this woman was gonna pull some shit. After all, she sells kanga and vitenge at the Tengeru market. Remember what I said about these women? There are no exceptions to this rule.

"She thought I had three, but then she realized we got four, for 15,000," Meghann said today, recounting her version of events. My version of events has a gaping hole in it, from between the moment she agreed on a price, to the moment that I started calling her a liar in the middle of the sokoni. "So when she found out I had taken four, she started taking them out of my purse."

That's why her plastic smile never left her face; the woman thought we had done the math wrong or something, that we were going even higher than the price we'd agreed to at the outset. I would have loved to have been inside her brain during that thought process: This Mzungu is gonna pay me 15 g's for THREE kanga?? That's about .... that's a profit! A big one!

And I would have loved even more to have been inside her brain when I started getting physical.

I've had bad experiences with these women before. More than once, I've gotten what I like to call "light headed rage" -- a common affliction for me in Tanzania. Light headed rage means your heart pounds; your blood surges; and your temper prepares for liftoff. Only bad things happen from there. Once, after watching me lose it in Swahili on an old woman trying to charge me TSh 5,000 a pop for about eight kanga, my Zanzibari friend Ras Muniyr got embarrassed and left the scene. Later, he told Emily that "Hatari is dangerous."

Little do they realize this picture was taken on Opposite Day.

Hatari, which really does mean "danger," is my name in Tengeru.

These women are always thieves in the figurative sense; but this was my first time seeing one of them play the thief in the literal sense.

I couldn't believe it. I turn my back for ten seconds to negotiate a price on another kitenge I especially liked as a potential shirt, and the woman had literally grabbed all the fabric out of Meghann's hand, going on about something in Swahili.

"What happened?" I asked Meghann, observing a scene that looked far from the end of a seamless business transaction.

"She says we owe her an extra thousand," Meghann said.

"How much did you give her?"

"Fifteen."

As in the price the woman had agreed on after looking me in the eyes with that fake, plastic smile. Light headed raaaaaaage........

"Nipe elfu!" the woman cried. "Bado elfu moja!" She wanted TSh 16,000 -- four grand a piece.

"Hapana!" I yelled, making a move towards her. "Umeshakubali!" You already agreed!

"Hapana, hapana," she shook her head, and her body, too, all the while clutching at the kanga's we thought we had just bought. "Elfu kumi na sita," she demanded. Sixteen thousand.

"MAMA!" I screamed. It's like the Swahili equivalent of "mam." "Niliposema kwamba nitakupa 15,000 kwa yote, ulikubali. Au sio??" I asked, knowing that she knew she was full of shit. "Nipe kanga!"

"Hapana." The plastic smile, amazingly, was gone.

Light headed raging, I just grabbed a hold of what she was grabbing hold of, the pile of cloth, and started to pull.

Is this really happening? I thought. Am I about to start a fight with a 40-year-old woman in the middle of Tengeru's market day, in front of my boss?

I had already given two pretty hard tugs when I let go. The path I was about to go down wasn't leading anywhere pleasant. You've got to nip light headed rage in the bud, or else you're brewing trouble for yourself.

I couldn't steal back what she'd stolen from us. But I could still let her have it verbally. Like Becky's kanga says, "Maneno Maneno Yavunja Moyo" -- Words Words Breaks the Heart.




"Umeshakubali, na UNAJUA!" I yelled. "Wendo MWONGO kabisa!" You are a complete liar!

"Haaaamna," she denied. "Haaaamna."

"Ndiiiiiyo," I mocked. "Ndiyo. Wendo mwongo. Na Mungu anaangalia KILA kitu." God watches everything.

She didn't like that line too much.

"Nilete kanga," I demanded, motioning for her to give us our stuff back; she was still holding onto the money Meghann gave her. "Nilete!"

She refused.

I yelled again for her to give it back. Again, she shook her head. Everyone was staring at us. Memories of her stained teeth and her plastic smile were long gone at this point.

"Fine," I said in English -- when I get really flustered, I find it hard to avoid breaking into English filler words -- "nilete pesa." I wanted my money back.

Somehow, she didn't see that one coming. Maybe because she figured I knew I wouldn't be getting a better deal from any of her fellow cartel members lined up on this dusty road, all colluding on prices to keep the white man down.

"Nilete!" I persisted. Blood was rushing through my veins.

Grudgingly, the woman got the TSh 20,000 note out of her pocket and asked for change. We handed her a fiver; she held onto her kanga's; and I swiped that cash out of her hand like an elephant being offered peanuts at the zoo.

I told her friend next to her -- the one I'd been negotiating with on that fly looking kitenge when all the commotion started -- to screw off, too.

Then, we proceeded to go right down the line and buy 10 kanga/vitenge for TSh 40,000 -- four thousand a piece, the same price the woman had tried to extort out of us ten seconds before. I smiled as Meghann handed over the money. Our nice old friend was getting to watch someone get the exact same money -- more, actually -- that she had tried to get herself, only to fail in glorious fashion.

Here is how this story explains a damn thing about Tanzania: people here would rather get NOTHING than bend a smidgen with Wazungu. It doesn't matter if you speak Swahili or not. If you're white, they feel they're being cheated if you refuse to pay a tourist price. And so they get nothing. A measly thousand shillings -- less than a dollar -- ain't shit for me, but it's a lot for that woman. And she lost out on it because she thought I was a bitch.

Well, she's wrong. In her neck of the woods, my name is Hatari.

Kosovo is ... Serbia?
Kosovo is ... Kosovo?
Kosovo is ... the match that will light the next Balkan war.

About the only thing the U.S./Kosovar and Serbian/Russian camps can agree on these days is the third statement in that list.

I've been living in Tanzania for almost eight months now; four months to go. I've put down some pretty solid roots in East Africa, temporary they might be, and I've become extremely comfortable here. But my heart is still in the Balkans.

And I always will.

I have a job, and thus a commitment, in Tanzania. But if I could go back right now, at this moment, I would. Without hesitation, I'd be on a plane to Belgrade. I want to be there. I want to watch history unfold in a place that has formed such a significant part of my life experiences. I'm here; O.G. is there. I'm here; Mladen is there. Dragana is there. Zivko. Ana. Ivana. All of my Serbian friends. They're all there, in the same city where a bunch of shabani are setting flame to the U.S. embassy, where people are looting the McDonalds', and the government is sponsoring 150,000 people to take to the streets of a place I used to call home, to protest the loss of a land that they used to call home.

I'm here, and they're all there. And the whole place looks like it could erupt at any moment.

The whole place as in, the entire Balkan Peninsula. Read your history, folks. Here we go again.

Kosovar independence was a long time coming. But it was almost like the speeding car you see approaching in your side mirrors on I-10, the one always driven by a guy with a fade: OBJECTS ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. It always shocks you when that car catches up and just flies by you: "Hey, that object really was closer than it appeared."

It's the same with the Kosovar decision to declare its statehood last week, after months -- no, years -- of talking a talk that, until now, lacked the political support to come with a walk.

Well, look who's walkin' now.

With the support of the U.S. ("Greatest country in the world!!"), and a few notable EU states as well, the Kosovar Albanians have just upped the ante on what comes next in the former Yugoslavia. Russia is in no mood to get bitch slapped again, like they were the last time Kosovo was making the headlines with such ferocity, in 1999. That humiliation -- Russian concerns about the make up of a Balkan peacekeeping force were treated like a suggestion from the uncle that has dementia -- spelled the end of Boris Yeltsin's credibility; but Vladimir Putin, the new Czar, ain't going down like that. The Russians are back; we haven't gone anywhere; and the Balkans is where this new chapter in the game is going to unfold.

Tito has just officially rolled over in his grave for the 1,000,000th time since he died in 1980. His precious creation -- his dream of Yugoslav "Brotherhood & Unity" -- continues to rip itself apart, 13 years after Dayton, nine years after the NATO Bombing Spring, five years after the eruption of violence against Kosovar Serbs by the majority Albanian community of the former Serbian enclave known as the birthplace of the Serbian nation.

First comes Kosovar independence, and then what?

Definitely not this.

The Serb minority in Kosovo -- between five and 10 percent of the overall population, and almost entirely located in the north, abutting Serbia proper -- is talking partition. The crazy ass (think Gaza strip settler as opposed to a West Banker) Bosnian Serbs to the west -- the ones who form 49 percent of a country literally being held together by EU/NATO Band Aids, Bosnia-Hercegovina -- are talking secession; they'd be joining forces with their Orthodox brethren in Kosovo in breaking away from one country to join where they feel they really belong: in Greater Serbia.

First goes Kosovo, then goes the Serb enclave in Kosovo, then goes Republika Srpska in Bosnia. And then, my friends, we'll be watching history unfold all over again.

Let's all say a prayer.

"Where you from, boy?"
Texas proud.

If you had told me four years ago I'd get the opportunity to shake hands with the man I viewed as a symbol for all that was wrong in the world, I would have recoiled in disgust.

George "Yo, Blair" Bush?! The man who redefined the meaning of the word "axis"? The man who once said the problem with the French was that they didn't have a word for "entrepreneur" in their language? The man who actually used the word "crusade" in the early days of the global struggle against radical Islam? Guantanamo, what? "Mission Accomplished," what? Abu Ghraib, what? "Kenny Boy," what? And a RANGERS fan? WHAT?

Maybe I've sold out since college. Maybe I've just gotten soft in my old age. I know that my 20-year-old self would be disgusted with present day me. But I don't care. I got to meet George W. Bush on Monday, and I was damn excited about it.

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You could see the gears in motion behind those eyes, eyes that once looked into Vladimir Putin's own and "got a sense of his soul," but that I never dreamed would be fixed directly upon me from less than a foot away. But it wasn't me that was causing Bush's gears to get in motion; it was what I was wearing on my head. For almost as soon as we started shaking hands, W's gaze shifted upwards, coming to rest upon the words printed on the red, mesh trucker hat I deemed appropriate for a meeting with the leader of the free world.

With our state flag as a the backdrop, these words caught his attention:

TEXAS PROUD Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

"I wore my special hat for you, sir," I said, knowing he was about to ask.

"Boy, I tell ya. Until I saw yer hat, I thought the word 'Sesquicentennial' was some kinda Indian chief from one of those John Wayne movies. That's good stuff, Bayless. Good stuff."

Those gears, they were a clickin' all right. Our handshake still going, he asked in that unmistakable good ole boy accent, "Where you from?"

All that was missing was the word "boy" at the end.

"Houston," I replied. My heart was racing. I couldn't help it.

"Really?" He kind of paused: the hat had worked. His eyebrows raised a bit: I was racking up points now.

"Yes, sir," I said, stupidly (read: maturely? wisely?) missing an opportunity that 20-year-old me would have been all over. If I'd really had a pair, I would have come back at him with a Borat voice: "Nooooot!"; then finished him with more Borat voice: "Premier Bush! Strong, like Stalin."

Apparently ole George approved, because he went from the handshake straight into the shoulder slap -- as in, the patented, George W. Bush shoulder slap. The one he gives to awkward, non-Texan dignitaries the world over. And for me, someone who also loves to dish out the shoulder slap myself, it was pretty cool. He still didn't call me "boy," which I wanted to hear more than you know, but we did get to see the "Bush Face" -- the one where he looks like he's trying to make the random three-year-old kid sitting four tables down laugh, while his/her parents have their backs turned to his distorted facial expressions that can only described as downright goofy. The Bush Face is kind of like how that judge once described pornography: you know it when you see it.

"Yes sir, my name is Bayless Parsley."

The Bob had sworn that if President Bush met a Houstonian with that name, it would just click. The Bayless family and the Bush family have roots that go way back to the days before George H. W. got into politics -- my grandmother still gets their Christmas card (my favorite was in December 2003, when George and Barbara wished "Peace on Earth, and Goodwill to All") if you want proof. But judging from Dubya's reaction, or non-reaction, to put it more accurately, it didn't appear as if anything had clicked at all. So I got more specific.

"You're friends with my uncle actually. Jim Bayless."

Still, nothing. But he did his best to pretend.

"Oh, well give him my best, will ya?"

I thought to myself how many people must "be friends with George Bush." I can't even remember the names of half my graduating class from Strake Jesuit, and that was about 165 people.

"Yes, sir."

My heart was still racing. It was hard to breathe, let alone make chit chat. Just take a peek into my thought process as this was all going down if you want to try and understand why: I can't believe George Bush just gave me the shoulder slap. I can't believe I'm excited to meet this joker. I can't believe George Bush just gave me the shoulder slap!! I can't believe I'm excited to meet this joker!!!

"Now my niece lives in town, and I want a nice, southern gentleman like yerself to look after her, ya hear? And no monkey business, either. I've got satellites watchin'.... oh I'm just kiddin'! Heh heh."

"Are you from Texas, too?" he asked Hunter, who was standing directly to my left.

"No, sir," Mwindaji said. "I'm fortunate enough to not be from there."

Even my 20-year-old self would have been shocked that Hunter could show so little respect to our Commander in Chief. Who does this kid think he is, Stephen Colbert? It's one thing to hate on Bush for turning "USA" into a four-letter word, but it's another thing to hate on Texas.

It's like making fun of my mom. I can; you can't.

I can criticize things about Texas, but Mr. Queen City can't.

Outsiders shouldn't Mess With Texas.

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When I fished the Texas Proud Sesquicentennial hat out from under a pile of other American hand me downs at the Tengeru sokoni last August, "face time with George Bush" was not one of the potential windfalls I had in mind.

Looking like a badass: that was on the list. Representing: also a consideration. You know I was keeping it real, that much is obvious, but what no one probably ever could have expected from that hat was getting President Bush's attention. That was an audible called out at the line of scrimmage just last week.

As part of his five-day, six-country Africa visit that ends today, President Bush had penciled in an appearance at the Emusoi Center for Pastoralist Girls during his pit stop in Arusha. We just happened to have sponsored a girl this past January from Emusoi, essentially a haven for teenage Maasai young ladies who prefer an education to forced marriage and domestic abuse. In this world, it's all about who you know. The White House knew about Emusoi, and we knew Sister Mary, the American born nun who runs Emusoi.




Man, am I glad we sponsored Agness.

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Our new friend "John," a rare Mzungu aid worker that Hunter and I actually click with, empathized with the inner conflict I underwent on Monday.

PHOTO UNAVAILABLE.

He reminds me a lot of my best friend from my travels in the Balkans, Stewy. Add seven years and a few gray hairs; subtract a little bit of Stewy's intensity on matters Bush, and you've really got a match. "John" even looks like Stewy, quite frankly. Even had a mohawk back in the day, and likes girls from Uganda. But what they've really got in common is the fact that they really, really dislike George Walker Bush.

They're both Cali boys, after all.

"Man, I can't believe I just shook his hand like that, like an idiot," he regretted over the not cold beers we had after it was all over. "If my friends at home saw me, they'd be like, 'Maaaaan, why weren't you out there protestin' that shit!'"

My friends at home, on the other hand, will probably be upset that I didn't get them an autograph. Not a very liberal bunch, the ole gang from high school.

Earlier in the day, while we were waiting in the shade for Bush to arrive, I'd explained my situation to "John" by saying, "I'd probably be this excited to meet Stalin, to be quite honest." Strong, like Premier Bush!

But "John" was just doing what he had to do to better the NGO that he co-founded, based outside Arusha.

PHOTO UNAVAILABLE

(note: In no way shape or form am I saying that Bush could hold Stalin's jock strap when it comes to the "What a dickhead" sweepstakes. But it is funny to hear Borat say it.)

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I could go on about the way I felt inside about meeting this man. It was tough. It was amazing. It made me feel like a freaking hypocrite. It made me feel incredibly special -- the President actually talked to me. About stuff.

But that was nothing, as it turned out.

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"Bayless? I'll see if I can find him," we heard the old man who had been sitting behind us say into his cell phone. Hunter and I were chilling with Peter in the back; Bush had disappeared behind the hedges into VIP land.

"Niko hapa!" I yelled. "I'm here!"

Turns out the guy didn't speak Swahili. "They wanna talk to you on the phone!" he hollered back across the 100 or so guests still sitting in the shade, all Tanzanian save for us three and this old man and his wife.

As I walked up to answer, all I could think was, "Oh. My. God."

"Hello?"

"Is this Bayless?"

"Yeah."

It was Bush's 24-year-old assistant, who just happens to be friends with one of my St. Vincent's buddies from back in the day. She said the President wanted my contact information.

Huh??????

I guess he DID know my uncle!

I gave her my home address, my email, my phone numbers, my everything. Everyone was watching me, Hunter said, in awe. Who is this guy? Is he dating one of Bush's daughters? And the like.

I cannot explain it. He never called. What a jerk. Just stood me up like that. Men.

But still.....

I feel like a 16-year-old girl on the set of the Ed Sullivan Show. George plays himself. He wanted my phone number!! OMG!

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And still, we have not come to the coolest part.

"Those Maasai dancer guys said they want a picture with you," Peter told me, the interpreter his Maasai buddy named Grosper (his parents misspelled "Prosper" at the hospital, and now, he's ... unique).

"Huh?"

"I don't know man. Not Hunter; not me; just you. I think they think you're big time or something."

Big time because I'm big time boys with George Bush I suppose!

Not me, the Mzungu tourist wanting a photo with the "wild African" Maasai. Oh no, it's the Maasai, most of whom in this picture don't even speak Swahili, they're that legit, wanting a picture with me! And they'll never even see the photo! Maybe they think this will bring them good medicine or something.

Of course, I obliged them. One even made me hold his Maasai beat stick to look more like one of them, or maybe to rub some of my power onto its handle. Presidential power.

This really isn't getting to my head, though.

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George Bush once looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and "got a sense of his soul." I looked into George Bush's eyes and got confirmation that he is that guy who you just wanna sit down and have a beer with, the Lone Star Series on TV in the background. I have to admit, I really liked the guy. Personally.

"I really cannot spell the word 'Afghanistan' for the life of me! Can you? That 'h' after the 'g' always gets me."

Politically, though, he's a joke. Or an embarrassment. Or a failure.

But our 60 seconds of shmoozing convinced me that he really is the way the media portrays him to be: simple.

Maybe not the best of presidential material, but definitely the friend-of-your-dad type, a guy you know is going to buy a ton of raffle tickets or Little League candy if you're a 12-year-old with the balls to call him up and make your pitch. If September 11, 2001 had been just another day, had "compassionate conservatism" not given way to "Bring it on," I could honestly see myself saying, "I like George Bush."

But like The Bob always says, "If 'if's' and 'but's' were candies and nuts, we'd all be fat at Christmas."

We gotta come up with a better saying than that. How about, "If 'if's' and 'but's' were WMD's, we'd all be dead at Christmas."

That's more like it.

IF ANYONE READS THIS TODAY, CHECK OUT THE TODAY SHOW TOMORROW.

You might see me in the background of President Bush's interview that he's giving at the Emusoi Center for Maasai girls; Hunter and I scored invites to his appearance there.

Hunter said I had to shave. That's fine, but I'm not cutting my hair: I've already told someone that I refuse to let George Walker Bush play the Delilah to my Samson.

If I do get to meet W, though, I only want the answer to one question:

"Are you really planning to give Roger Clemens a pardon?"

Goodbye, Patandi.

Seven and a half months in, and just like that, Hunter and I are starting over.

Writing the obit to the backyard that periodically smells of poopy farty pants.

We moved out of our house in Patandi yesterday. Not to anywhere; just out of our village. These days, we're renting a room at an Usa River bed & breakfast run by a Tanzanian widow's group called SIAFU (an acronym that spells the word for "ant" in Swahili; coincidentally, I found about five ants crawling on my sheets this morning). Everything we own, everything that our organization owns, it's all stored in that room and in the back of our car. Homeless, the search for a new place continues on. One that will provide a sense of security. If such a thing even exists for a Mzungu, or even a relatively well off Mwafrika in Africa.

"Nimezungumza na Mwindaji," Ras Munir, telling me that he'd spoken with Hunter, said through the lingering smoke of his cigarette, "na anasikia vibaya sana kuondoka."

I just looked at our neighbor, a 27-year-old Zanzibari by birth, the rare msela that Hunter and I allow into our house, and nodded. This was the last conversation I was ever going to have in our little nyumbani. If you had told me on New Year's I'd be peeling the decal of our NGO off our dusty, black gate by just after Valentine's, I would have called you kichaa.

Crazy, perhaps. But, as it turned out, prophetic as well.

I looked away from Muniri. Our nyumbani, the place we used to mean when we said we were going "home," looked now just like a house, a nyumba. Practically empty, it was the first time I'd ever seen it look like this. It takes more than a leaky refrigerator, some stripped beds, a wobbly table and three pieces of shoddily made furniture -- the same style couches and arm chairs that we saw left out in the rain two days ago at a roadside furniture store -- to make a house into a home, after all.

Seven and a half months. Three times the length of my stay in Belgrade, a place I thought I knew so well when I left for good last April. Six weeks longer than my entire stay in the Balkans, if you really want a comparison to show how long I'd been living in this house. Just like Hunter, I too felt bad about leaving. I felt awful about leaving. How could I not?

"Mimi pia bwana," I told Muniri.

And to think, we were being chased out of town by some goddamn punk thieves.

"Sijui kesemaje kwa Kiswahili ... nanii ..." I looked for the words in my new language to describe how I really felt, but I just didn't have them; sometimes, Swahili is just too limited. So I went with English.

"It sucks, Ras Munir. SUCKS. Umeelewa?"

He understood just fine.

It sucks. No other way to put it. Hunter and I are basically starting over, almost two thirds of the way in. No matter where we go, we'll never build the same kind of relationships there as we were able to build in Patandi. And it's all finished because of those majambazi (a word I just learned the other day, which means "big thieves," as opposed to a group of wezi, just normal thieves. Majambazi just sounds way more menacing and evil; if you have Facebook, you'll note that my new residence, seeing as I don't really have one at the moment, is "Majambaziville, Tanzania").

I'm moving closer and closer to the attitude that volunteering to live in this part of Tanzania -- I know I always try to generalize for "East Africa," but in reality I have no idea if other parts are safer or not -- means taking on a certain level of risk. No matter who you are, you assume this risk. And here it is, clear as can be:

If you have possessions, some people will want to steal them. If you're white, those people will assume you have possessions.

It's 1 + 1 = 2 here, folks. And nothing short of the security detail President Bush is getting for his visit to my village tomorrow is going to change that.

(That's right, the same week we move out of Patandi, George W. Bush moves in. Him and his entourage are actually going to be going to my village and visiting the hospital there. Coincidentally, they fixed those annoying pot holes on the road leading up to it. Wonder if the maintenance and the presidential visit were related...)

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To tell the truth, though, yesterday's move had all the vibes of anticlimax. We'd known for weeks, since right after we returned from the holidays, that our move out of Patandi had been mandated by the powers that be. We hadn't even slept there since the night before I went to Dar, at the end of January, after the second attempt at a break in in 2008 alone. Asked not to broadcast any liquidation sales for would be majambazi looking for one last hit before the two Wazungu took all the booty out of town, we were forced to lie for weeks whenever we were posed awkward questions about where we'd been. Packing up was just like crossing the t's and dotting the i's.

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Besides, in my book, our time in Patandi ended when Biti, mchizi weeeeeetu, left.

"Hapa leo, kule kesho." Here today, there tomorrow. That's how I had life in Tanzania described to me yesterday by the director of one of the orphanages we work with.

And it is true. People here just disappear -- for weeks, for months, sometimes just for good. There is never any kind of warning. Just gone.

"Amis ameenda wapi?" I remember asking the first time I noticed one of my little homies from the village suddenly just not around anymore.

"Amis? Ameenda kuwasalimie familia," was the taped response. "He's gone to visit family."

That was in September. Amis ain't been back yet.

There isn't the same sense of "planning your life" in Tanzania, because you need to worry about tomorrow, not a five-year plan. In Tanzania, you just do.

Found a better job? You quit your old one by simply failing to show up any longer. Have enough cash for a bus fare to Morogoro to see your auntie? You're on the next one out of town, and you come back in four or five months.

It's exciting, in a way. Nothing is for sure. You've gotta hustle to survive. Nothing can be for sure. And life is more dynamic as a result.

Of course, the downside to this is when Biti switches schools, just like that. And all of the sudden, your best friend in the entire country -- the one whose visits are as a part of your day as the toilet seat -- just isn't there anymore.

I remember the night she came to say goodbye. Hunter and I weren't there, so she left a note with Julius, the Maasai askari we hired in response to the initial burglary. In all caps, she wrote on the outside of the folded scrap of paper, "Dear my gangsta's, Hatari na Mwindaji." I unfolded and began to read.

Here is the last part of what that letter said:

"I was really enjoying to be with you all the times, and things we do together and everything which you tought [sic] me, thanks for being so good and nice to me. I will realy [sic] going to miss you.

"There are so many people who come and go in our lives, a few touch us in ways that change us forever, making us feel better from knowing them. You have made a difference in my life, and for this I am grateful.

"Thanks for being you. And thanks for all good memories I have of you.

"Goodbye. Love, Biti."

This, from an 18-year-old Tanzanian girl from Patandi. In a language that is not her own, she brought tears to my eyes.

I grabbed my phone and sent her a text message telling her to come over and say goodbye in the morning, just so we could see her one more time. Five minutes later, I heard Julius opening the gate; Biti didn't want to wait until morning.




Biti cries about everything. And she cried big time that last night of chilling in our living room. But I still got her to laugh.

The next morning, she was gone. Two weeks later, so were we.

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When I heard someone knock yesterday, while Hunter and I were in the middle of packing everything up, the last person I expected to see was Biti.

I didn't even say anything, just opened up my arms for the bear hug.

"Nimetoroka," she said, smiling, standing on the other side of the gate as I moved towards her to wrap her up. She'd "escaped" from school, just for the afternoon, but just in time for one last goodbye.