Spring Break from Hell

Oh my god! Where to begin… So, about a week or two ago, as some of you know, I was preparing for travels. During my packing I get a knock at my door. It was one of my fellow teachers with a sullen look on her face. It turns out that my best friend for a year and a half died in the night of malaria. Now Peace Corps told us this would happen and that sometimes people that you meet would pass away during the time you were here, but I never thought it would happen to me. Ok, so like other volunteers, I’ve had the experience of villagers dying and even a student. But my best friend!? It seemed so unfair and I still don’t know what to think about it. I braced myself for death around me, but doesn’t mean I don’t like it. He was the academic master of my school. He was recently married with a newborn child and had the most promise out of any of my Tanzanian teacher friends. We were talking about his university plans this year and our lives in general. But now he’s gone and it opens up this void where things I wanted to do I can’t.

So another sad part about all this was that I wanted to stay around for the funeral and procession, because it would be the first funeral in Africa that would actually mean something to me, but I was leaving to Zambia for Easter Holiday (Spring Break) a few days later. So unfortunately, and it pained me to do so, I gave all the condolensces I could but sadly went on my way.

During my long stay in the village, I also ran into the problem of money. I had been spending the limited funds I had because I hadn’t been to town in a long time and I had been using the money to buy cell phone credit in order to arrange the vacation long distance. Plus, it’s tradition to give money for funerals so I was only able to give a small amount with the promise of more later. Either way, it made a dent in my funds and I was using my last bit of cash to make it to town. When I arrived in town right before Easter it turned out to be a Muslim holiday so the banks were closed. The following day was Good Friday and the next-train. So here I am, train ticket bought and going into a foreign country and i have no money. None. I met up with Sarah later that day and found out she had many bus problems along the way. We tried to figure out the money issue, but since the banks and money exchange places were closed, we went to some more shady places. I wouldn’t say it was black market dealings, because I have never heard of stuff against currency exchange in shady corners as illegal, but it definitely wasn’t normal. Unfortunately, the money changers were not around precisely because of the holidays and after some cops eyed us suspiciously, we decided to move on. We went to the hotel and slept, trying to weigh our options.

We finally decided to just go to the train station even though we did not have any USD. We had heard that lack of Zambian Kwacha was not a problem and that all of the places we were going we could use USD. But all we had was TZ shillings. Unfortunately, we didn’t think we could exchange this anywhere in Zambia except for maybe Lusaka, but that wasn’t our immediate destination. There was always the border, and maybe we could get a deal, but we weren’t sure how the system was going to work and it was better to have the money beforehand, right? But that’s exactly what we didn’t have. We arrived at the train station with nothing useful and we were worried.

Luckily, we got saved by some volunteers from Malawi that were passing through on their way to Dar es Salaam. They had a bunch of USD and needed TZ shillings, and us vice versa. So, we did what anyone would do: we took our wallets, money pouches, and various money storing devices, and took them into the bathroom of the train station. As we entered the bathroom, the Malawian volunteers groaned and fidgeted. This ancient bathroom of the train station came complete with one large pissed-stained urinal and two moldy tiled stalls, the likes of which I best not describe for you. “Let’s make this quick,” they said to me and I nodded in agreement. We began taking out our wads of cash and cell phones (for the quick currency conversions) and money began changing hands. Each of us every so often glanced our eyes towards the door to make sure no one was coming in, but of course as the door groaned, we realized that we hadn’t watched closely enough. I quickly slid myself at the door and planted my foot at the base and stopped the entering person. He pushed harder, but I slammed my body against the door. I mean, heck, we had hundreds of dollars in the open. The Malawians were shoving their cash into their pockets as I battled the guy at the door, each of us never seeing the others face. I heard a pound of finality as the guy stopped. I turned to my wide-eyed companions, and with my body against the door, we made the switch. Stuff was where it needed to be.

We left the room as secretly as we could, but you can’t do that very well if you are 4 white guys in a train station full of Africans. The commotion had been heard and we were all wondering who the guy was who was trying to force his way in was. There were too many eyes on us to know for certain, but we kept watching each others backs.

The train arrived about an hour later and there was only really one guy that kept staring at me, but after staring back at him and confronting him in Kiswahili, he left us alone. Didn’t seem like he meant trouble. Never can be sure though. We boarded the train, and I got a room full of tourists- a British man who lived in TZ and a Korean university student. Sarah got a room with a Zambian family. And we were off. We were so glad to finally be on the train, that we had been planning and scheduling on for a month or so, we just gleefully walked around and explored it, and eventually just settled in for a meal.

After the meal, we were reaching close to the Zambian border and we found out how the system worked. The currency exchangers got onto the train and were asking everyone who wanted to change. We took some time debating with one guy about rates and money and finally made an agreement close to international rates of that morning. We began to fiddle with our hidden money pouches when it happened: the man from the train station showed up and came closer to us. Suddenly I realized it was only us in the train compartment along with the money changer and the man from the border. “Shit,” I mouthed to Sarah. We threw our clothes back over the money and stood up, thanking the man hastily and trying to walk away. The man grabbed my arm and I turned and faced him. “Let go of me,” I said. “Give me the money,” was all he replied. I thrusted my arm and punched him in the shoulder. “Get the fuck away from me,” was all I could think of, completely abandoning the drive to use Kiswahili. He began to inch closer and more desperate and then suddenly he stopped with a shift in his eyes and began to step backwards. He gave one of those laughs like the always do when they are caught in a situation they can’t win and want to joke it off. “No problem, no problem.” And with that he walked away. I turned to Sarah, who now had a pocket knife and a look of terrored fury, and sighed. A dining car staff member entered the door behind us, opened his eyes wide and stood still. We reassured him by putting the knife away, and made our way back to our cars.

The rest of the way was mostly sleeping and relaxing except for our heated argument with the immigrations officer. She argued that we had to pay more than we knew we did. She stated that she wasn’t stealing our money and if we disagreed we could get off the train. After complaining and wanting receipts, she complained to her supervisor about us, who then informed her that, in fact, we were correct. God, it never fails to happen.

So, after reaching Kapiri/Mposhi, we decided to just grab buses all the way to Lusaka and Livingstone. The rest of the vacation went pretty smoothly, except for the bus crashes, almost falling into Victoria Falls near the edge (pictures coming soon), and jumping off bungee jump like stuff in a third world country (isn’t this the place where first world countries send their old and used equipment? Not sure, but maybe). I can’t spend too much more time online writing lots of stuff because my time is limited, but I do hope that by this point you have realized that my entry is dated for April 1. If you happen to see this a different day- woah, sorry for you. But considering this all is based loosely on reality, it makes you wonder how much is real and how much isn’t. Doesn’t it? I guess the only way to know would be to call me, but considering I’ve only received one phone call in 1.5 years, I’m not expecting much. Thanks for reading!