words fail me

So there’s a restaurant here called Addis in Dar. It’s everyone’s favorite “last night in Dar” dinner place, what with the atmospheric lovely candles and short recline-inducing Ethiopian chairs, the terrace and stars…and the really wonderful food. But I sort of had my last night in Dar last night, with friends over for drinks, sundown, and bat-watching on the terrace, and figured I could do without my beef tibs and my misir wot. I didn’t want to load too much into my last night, with all that there usually is to do.

True to Dar form, last night, or yesterday, we had a power outage. If I buy groceries, the power will go out. I came home with two bags full of beverages which needed refrigeration stat, and my best hope was chucking both into the freezer upon coming home and hoping enough cold would hang around to make it work. Oddly enough, a guy I talked to earlier in the day told me not to worry, and that the power would come back on at 6 or so. Everyone always has a prediction for when the power will be cut or return, and they’re never right. When, right on the dot at 6, and 4 guests into the little party, the electricity surged back on, I got one of the best text messages I’ve ever gotten, from a rubber-stamp-maker* I had just placed an order with on Morogoro Street. It read:

“HI..MARI.I.TOLD.YOU.THE.POWER.WILL.BE.BACK…AT.6:00.PM…ARE.YOU.HAPPY? FROM…RASHID.rubber.stamp.”

I was indeed happy, Rashid-rubber-stamp, and everything ended up fine. We went out for decent Indian at a place I like which is downtown (saving the taxi ride to places like Addis in Dar) and sat around telling all the good jokes we knew. I had the odd experience of forgetting parts of my favorite ones in mid-joke, and then, as usual, losing it halfway through the punchline, but the crowd was friendly. We later walked home past the street of Hindu temples, where the next-to-last-night of nine nights of dancing was happening. It was a lively, lovely side of Dar that I never get to see, sequestered after dark, but it was nice to roam around.

And so today, the last full day in Dar, was all sorts of crazy to match the niceness of last night. My bag was full of ants this morning. There was a meeting in progress and no power when I arrived to finish my work at the archives. The transcriptions were not done, the map was not done**, the translations were not done, the ride to university was useless. The woman in the archives was unhelpful, it was hotter than hot mid-day. But, the laundry got done, a gift got finished, I met a new American researcher who I liked, and I got an orange on the street and sat on the terrace for my last evening. The kids next door came out to say hello, and we said goodbye, which was great. I had just seen two of them on the street, getting out of a car, and we had a funny moment of mutual excitement at being nearby one another instead of 40 feet away, 8 stories in the air. Why I was leaving was beyond them, but we had a few minutes of silliness before they went inside at the call to prayer.

And so, then, what is the relevance of Addis in Dar? It’s where you go when you want good food and don’t want to think too hard, and so after meeting with translator number two (who arrived when I had showered precisely half of my body only, at 8 p.m.) and realizing how incredibly expensive fieldwork in two foreign languages looks to be, and ALSO figuring out some of the packing puzzle, it was the destination of least resistance. We told my friends where we were headed (they were at the opening of the “European Film Festival” - ?), and Katja and I arrived to enjoy a really lovely dinner.

Friends arrived, and we had the usual run of the Scandanavian corner and their dirty humor and a good amount of people watching. My Swedish friend caught an older American-sounding guy in action in the corner of the terrace, offering to buy someone or other their dinner. Swede piped up that the guy could buy him dinner, which brought said guy over to josh around, rub Swedish friend’s freshly-shaved bald head, and tell us that he was a) Canadian, b) building a $200-million dollar hospital somewhere, and c) instruct the waiter that he should bring the Swede whatever he wanted, on him. He also gave us a card indicating that his activities were based in Kigoma, not a booming hospital-building metropolis (where I wanted to go, darn it), and that he was indeed Canadian. He gave the card to the Swede, because the Swede is an architect, and hey, hospitals were being built. The Canadian also mentioned something about Interpol, too, and sub-contracting.

We sort of breathed a sigh of relief as he exited (such a man does exit, really), because the guy had that crazy air of zany ex-pat (I thought Mr. Kurtz, honestly) who might just sit down at your table and tell you about whatever guns he ran into Congo or what worms came out of his feet or something. Had a good laugh all around, tried to figure out just what his deal was, and then, well, champagne arrived. He bought us a bottle of champagne. Mostly the Swede, really, but it was hilarious. The Canadian had already left by the time the bottle got to us, and so we raised a toast to him, and that was that. We also raised a toast to Mom (happy birthday, Mama!) and to Dar, and then ordered ice cream. I am now convinced that we should just rub someone's bald Swedish head now, whenever we want free champagne. Or find a Canadian.

It was such a weird Dar moment, though. I had a sense, earlier, as I was sitting on the terrace with my orange, after so much had gone wrong, that Dar giveth, and it taketh away. Much like many cities. It was such a nice night, but so hard-won. They ask a lot of you as you’re moving through and surviving, but then the most incredible, odd things can happen.

And so, tomorrow, at 4:50 p.m., Emirates will fly me away. I watched the plane go over today and thought "I'll see you tomorrow, gorgeous." But I know I'll be glad to come back. And now, I am going to sleep.


*if you are legit, in Tanzania, you have a stamp.

** my cartographer apologetically explained to me that he had planned to work on the map, but he had eaten some tomatoes the night before, and “had been shooting all day”. I was not sure whether it was descriptive or onomotopaiec or a Swahili-ism, so I just didn’t think about it till later.