04/30/10 There were many times on this trip I wish I had this book with me like you do, dear reader. It has many helpful tips, from farting to catch a cool breeze in hot climates, to holding a strangers hand in an elevator to let them know they are safe, and to always, always, remember you have two choices while traveling – find the humour in challenging situations or lose your mind. As you guys have been reading, I often managed both. One helpful tip I will give you right now is in this very paragraph. If you want to tell someone to fuck off but are too polite to do so, simply point their eyes right here – fuck off! – then nod approvingly. You are welcome. My fingers would have been pointing at that very sentence multiple times on this day in the capital of Tanzania. It was the early evening and we were sitting in a local pub after a cumulative eight hours of waiting for various services throughout town. I was so exhausted from the heat and lack of food that I starred gawk-eyed at small plant with tiny green leaves near the bar labelled “Mimoza” in a handwritten note. A cool breeze from a nearby fan shifted the leaves, which opened and closed, before reaching our table. The humidity mixed with my hunger, impatience and agitation, putting me in an invisible headlock as I collapsed on the table. I did my best to focus on the breeze and enjoyed it to a level that I can confidentially state that few humans have reached in history. I was not quite sure when, but this may have been the moment in my life when a house fan changed from a mere friend to a lover. As we watched patrons enter and leave before we even received our food, I found myself picturing the horrid cooling positions I would attempt if I were alone with the fan. It was such an ugly visualization that I wished I would have envisioned it in my younger years. I would have saved the image permanently in the section of my brain used to prevent premature ejaculation. But let’s start a little earlier. At 11 a.m., the waiter at the Jambo Inn came by the table 10 minutes after we sat down. We were the only patrons in the restaurant and he watched us walk in. After dropping off two menus, he was out of sight for a further 15 minutes. When he returned and we asked about what interested us, he told us nothing on the menu was available. We left. Customer service was strange in Tanzania - and it did not end at the Jambo Inn. We returned to the Brazilian Consulate to receive our passports and hopefully our travel visas. The Tanzanian employee I had been communicating with for months informed us that the visa service was not up-and-running presently. We spent extra days in Dar es Salaam to receive our Brazilian visas. The last time we met him, he told us to come back in five days to receive the visas. I had emailed him months prior to ensure our visa applications would not be a problem, even before I left Canada, which he confirmed back then that it would be no problem. To make matters worse, he refused to give us back our passport photos and filled applications, which he had no use for since he could not process the visa applications anyways. We had to battle to get the passport-sized photos back, required for the application when we would apply again in another country. Hours later at the Dar Express bus company’s ticket office, I waited in a three-person sized lineup for half an hour, with zero reaction from staff, not even an eyelash flicker. Losing her mind from the stone frozen line and condensed heat, Boxie-boo waited outside. The lineup was making us both dizzy with heat exhaustion and frustration. Finally at the front of the line another 45 minutes later - after basically battling off locals every few seconds who tried to skip the line - I was told I had to use a seating chart to pick our seats. I immediately pointed at two random seats, to which, the clerk replied that there were only two seats available. “If there are only two seats left, then why hand me the seating chart?” “To pick your seats,” she replied. “Thank you for clarifying,” I said. She reminded me of one of those socially awkward guys in high school, the kind of guy who will correct your statement incorrectly, then wink at your girlfriend. We gave the Jambo Inn’s restaurant another try for dinner, basically out of necessity, as we had both heard and witnessed tourists get mugged. Pointing at a photo on the menu, Boxie-boo asked how much the dish cost. “We don’t have that. It’s a photo,” the waiter matter-of-fact replied, looking at us like we were stupid to even think something on the menu could be available. I was so tired and hungry at the same time, I felt each one of my cells dividing individually and exploding, drip by drip, like rage dropping from a runny faucet. I knew this was one of the last straws. I decided to throw a small tantrum, and then continued to put up with this bullshit and all future bullshit received. If I did not leave the restaurant, I was at risk for smashing something or accidentally spilling an entire bottle of vodka in my mouth. “I miss Canadian service,” Boxie-boo said. Even further, we were both starting to miss common Canadian courtesy, from organized ticket lineups to the overly polite nature of our homeland, to receiving the same prices of others without having to barter first. “We are so dumb to try to order from the menu,” she added, shaking her head and laughing. Unfortunately, her amusement was short-lived after an hour waiting with no communication from our waiter. She looked ready use her fork as a tool for a testicular examination. We decided to leave. Although it was dark, we were rather experienced backpackers at this point and figured we would walk a couple blocks over to a pub that seemed popular, and this is where I found myself, examining a small plant with more interest than I have for nipples. The leaves on the plant seemed to open and close in the breeze, the same way I shifted and collapsed in various positions in my chair. During our next one hour wait, we watched takeout orders fly out the door every couple minutes. We watched African and Middle Eastern locals come in after us, then eat, pay and leave while we continued to wait. Since I maintain a lifelong grudge against anyone at a restaurant who orders after me yet gets their food first, I now have many enemies in Tanzania. We waited. And waited. After an hour and 15 minutes, a Happy Meal sized portion came. A black gentleman to my left - who arrived an hour after me - received the exact same plate at the same time as me. We ate rather quickly, our stomachs burning with hunger and portions sized for babies who just stopped breastfeeding. And then we waited 20 minutes for the bill, at which point, we were told they had no change. Then we waited some more. Hell would freeze over before we were tipping. Days later, I went online and looked up the plant name Mimoza. The name derives from the Latin word mimus, meaning “to imitate.” It was given this name because of the way it folds its leaves when touched. I thought back to plant and I, both of us collapsing in the minimal breeze from the house fan, and presumably, the two of imagining the various ways we would have our way with the fan, when I realized, the three of us had inadvertently engaged in an imaginary threesome. That’s all for now. Thank you for visiting Page59.com.
