home (sort of)

Where's home? Where my stuff is. Or where my most important stuff is? Where I don't have to worry about leaving my laptop laying around. Where I don't have to wear shoes in the shower? Where I have a fridge and free water to drink. Where there is internet. Where the economy of service is not involved in my hello's and goodbye's. Where my stuff is.*

I'm back in Dar after a hilarious, if frustrating, day of travel. Everything went on time and according to plan, I just didn't really know beforehand what that plan was. I arrived an hour and twenty minutes before everyone where I took off told me I would. And then there was a stopover at Kilimanjaro that I didn't know about when I booked. And my journey from Bukoba started off in the sort of plane I had been afraid of initially -- maybe 15 seats, 1 pilot, 1 engine. We were told to sit forward in the plane (because all three of us passengers were in the back two rows, because no one wants to sit right up on the pilot and see what's going on), to balance the engine. Luckily the other woman traveling was as skittish as me, so we sat together and chattered. The man on board, an old hat at this, fell asleep. When I saw him sleeping, I figured we were going to live. I just don't like flying over water, I've decided, in an itty-bitty plane.

But then, returning to Dar was sort of bittersweet. My taxi driver friend and I had a nice time catching up, and he has friends who speak Kihaya (bonus! transcriptions!), but it was hectic, loud, humid, traffic everywhere. Dark, smoky with charcoal rather than woodsmoke. People around all the time. The things that exhaust everyone about Dar, really. In contrast to Bukoba, where the loudest things were (morning) the ibis on the rooftops and the, ahem, chickens crowing and (evening) Lina's nightclub, around the corner, which only takes Monday off from the boom-boom party. But it certainly was not hot there, or dry. My stuff was not there, and I was getting tired of not knowing really how clean things were.

I'm not really flying-phobic, but I do get nervous sometimes. There is a neat Andrew Bird** song about this sort of thing called "Fiery Crash". Everyone must have their own little mantra or thing they do, I think. I have a friend who taps the fuselage 6 times on his way onto the place. Another who has a double pina colada before boarding. I close my eyes and sometimes even fall asleep, remember that clouds make it bumpy, breathe out the shock of fear when the plane jolts.

Today, though, I was afraid at a more concrete level. I found myself thinking "okay, if this sucker goes into the lake, how do I save my data...my recordings...they can rescue wet hard drives, so should I go for the computer or for the voice recorder and camera?" And then: "Damn, I should've burned all of this onto CDs before leaving...". I thought fleetingly of how annoying it would be to loose the gifts I had bought (because yes, there were textiles and yes, they were inexpensive, so Merry Christmas, everyone!). But weirdly, I had this uneasiness, imagining losing all the work I had just done -- if I don't finish this project, who will? If I disappeared, the work would go, too. This will not happen.

But of course, as everyone does, I caught myself and snapped out of being morbid and into being chatty, and survived the 45 minutes. By the end, it looked beautiful out there, instead of just a long way down.

* = three continents, and a new apartment in Detroit, yay, Kolz!

** If I have not introduced you to Andrew Bird, let me take this opportunity to do so. He and Barack will take on your coastal anti-midwestern snobbery, eh. Even if they sort of prove the Chicago argument. But Andrew Bird produced a wonderful album in his granddad's barn, too!