The Voyage Home

I apologize for the delay in this entry. I try not to flatter myself, but I would presume that at least some of you loyal readers would be interested in my transition back to the rat race that characterizes the American lifestyle.

My misgivings about African transport are well justified and the return legs of the trip on the Dark Continent were typical of that third world experience. After bidding all my adieus to the staff and Paul and Darcie on the morning of my departure, Marico, Nancy, and I boarded the Landcruiser to drive to Tanzania. My flight was actually the day after our departure from Matoso, but considering that it was relatively early in the morning, we figured it would be better for me to spend the night in Musoma so that there would be no delay on my part to miss our flight. Before reaching the hotel, we stopped at the airport so that I could verify the departure time. No one spoke any English which is often the case in Tanzania but eventually I did find the flight schedule. It said that departure would be at 10 am.

We went to the hotel where we dropped my stuff off in the hotel room. Then we decided to have a bite to eat before Marico and Nancy headed back to Kenya. None of us had anything to eat that day. We ordered our food, and then lo and behold 2 hours later we actually receive something to eat. And believe me the quality of the food was not worth the wait. It was a similar experience at the Nyanza Club in Kisumu. It seems that if you eat in a "fancy" hotel, service is supposed to be atrocious.

I slept well, woke up, and had my first hot shower that did not come out of a bag. I ate the provided breakfast and met my taxi to take me to the airport. When I got there, nothing was going on. There was no one waiting, no one to take my ticket, no one that had anything to do with getting passengers on a plane for travel. The taxi driver suggested that we go to the Precision Air office that was nearby. And so we did.

When I got there, the person did not speak any English and the taxi driver had to help translate for me in his broken English. It seemed incongruous that a person who has computer skills, who interacts with people who book international flights at least to other destinations in East Africa like Kenya and Uganda where not everybody speaks fluent Kiswahili, where the instructions on the tickets and manifests are all in English had more difficulty communicating with me than the Taxi Driver who does not necessarily need English in his field of work.

Finally, the lady gave me a ticket that had a different time on it. I stopped at the airport again to verify that I had not made a mistake. Indeed, the schedule at the airport and the actual schedule were 3 hours different.

The people at the hotel took pity on me and actually let me nap in my old hotel room despite the fact that they had already made it up. This long part of the story is to highlight the many facets of "TIA" (This is Africa) - incompetence and disorganization juxtaposed with friendliness and kindness. What an interesting place.

At the airport, the people charged me extra for my bags because I exceeded the weight that they normally allow. These rules disregarded the fact that I was an international traveler. I actually did not even have enough money for the charge. So they took everything except for approximately 2 dollars and just re-calculated the weight for the other passengers that were underweight and it all worked out. Jeez.

Once that plane took off, I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Getting to Dar Es Salaam was going to be the most difficult part and it was. The rest of the trip home went fine. The Dar-Amsterdam flight was so empty that I could stretch out in the row; the Amsterdam to Detroit flight was completely full; the Detroit to Indy flight was full but very short. And then I was able to see Amy for the first time at the baggage claim. The prize at the end of the journey for a weary traveler. However, I think Amy would have preferred a shorter hug so that she could breathe.