As we were leaving the tribunal we had to sign out of the courtroom and just as I turned away i heard a voice say:"Excuse me." and a large man in a uniform said:"Is that the hand you write with?" I held up my left hand and tried to look a little humiliated and I answered:"Yes it is--left hand." and he laughed out loud. I said, jokingly: "Are you laughing at my writing hand?" and he replied, still laughing: "Oh no, I would not laugh at your hands." I laughed back at him and said: "oh yes you are!" and he was still chuckling as we got into the elevator.

The left hand is not used for eating or writing or pretty much anything else here...it's the hand you use to...ummm.."clean yourself" after a bathroom break, and it's considered very uncouth to use it for anything else. I tried to use my right hand as much as possible, but I was still surprised when this fellow mentioned it. I guess in the hotels and touristy places they are used to seeing us heathen North Americans.

More Tidbits.

Speaking of toilets, we have had bad toilet luck on this trip. Every place we have been to has either had horrid sewer gas smell toilets, or "running water all night long" toilets, toilets that don't flush unless you hold a lever in a certain position for a long time, and the best was the NgoroNgoro toilet that burbled and bubbled all night long. I actually thought that someone was in our bathroom having a bath, it was that loud.The bubbles were actual splashes. I guess we should just be glad that it was only water that was bubbling up. But it's little disconcerting to always be hearing noises and flushes and smells when no one else is around. It's that hotel ghost again.

The speed limit here is 80 km if you have a government car, but if you are a tourist, the speed limit is pretty much what you want it to be depending on your circumstances. If you are late, especially if you are late for a plane, well, then you can go as fast as you need to. How accommodating is that?

There are no fences to mark the property lines off the highway. You know how there will be a farmers fence running alongside the highway at home to keep his land fenced in? Not here. There is a small cement post about 2 feet high and maybe 12" X 12" every 200 or 300 feet and on the front of the post it says "End of Road" meaning that if you are walking down the highway (as hundreds and hundreds of people do daily) then you can walk on the strip of land between the marker and the highway, but not behind the marker.

Men walk hand in hand here, a sign of friendship. I like to see that.

I finally got to try the local dish "ugaali" I think I mentioned earlier that it's a very bland sort of porridge type dish made from corn flour. It can be runny and soupy, or thick and gooey, or mixed with beans or lentils, or so thick that you slice it. It was very tastless and I didn't care for it at all, but I was happy to have a chance to try it. Our taxi driver, Abdalah likes it a lot.

I was sad that in Zanzibar I didn't have a chance to hear the call of the muezzein (sp?) but as we were getting ready for bed the last night in Arusha, I could hear the sound echoing through the fading twilight. We were on the other side of the hotel for the first time, and it's where the locals live and also where some of the mosques are. So that made me really happy! It's a haunting sort of cry, and I always wanted to hear a "real" one. However, it certainly didn't lull us into a deep and dreamless sleep. The neighbour had his TV on so loud that at 2 AM I had to phone to the front desk and ask them to phone him and have it turned down. I mean 2 AM?? That's a little excessive. Then of course at 3 or 4 AM the rooster down the road started his yodeling and then a few dogs had to chime in and before we knew it, it was 6 AM and time for Chad's wake-up call! Yikes, I was tired that morning.

The Mystery of the Bedside Lamps aka When Lamps Go Wild.

Before I go to sleep at night I like to read and I really like a nice, bright light to aid me in doing so. Not so much to ask in the grand scheme of things. This trip has been not so fun;, bed-side-lamp-wise.

In Dar es Salaam, in that beautiful hotel, there was NO bedside lamp, just a big floor lamp with a cord too short to reach the bed, so it was twilight all the time by my pillow.

In the Impala, in our many rooms (I think we may have been in 6) they have small wall sconces above the beds that had a 40 or 60 watt bulb. You couldn't move them at all, or take the sconce cover off. One room had a "real" lamp on the table beside the bed, but the slightest motion would cause the light to flicker and go out. Even a sudden sneeze in the direction of the shade would cause shudders and darkness. I even changed bulbs with Nicoles lamp (since she has some sort of otherwordly night vision and can read in the near blackness) but that did no good.

In Haydom we were simply afraid to turn on any lights at all, for fear that the flying creatures would know that we were inside and afraid of them...shhhh...

The 3 safari hotels had nice little lamps mounted on the wall above the bed, the kind that pivot and swivel, but they would pivot and swivel in every direction except over the pillow! I'd have to point it towards the wall and dangle my head off the bed and hold my book in an unnatural position and end up taking Advil for pain.

Finally, though, on our last night at the Impala I had a lovely & bright lamp beside my bed and I had a new book to read as well. "I can't believe I have such a great lamp." I said as I reached out to reverently and gently touch the shade. The shade promptly tipped over, the brass connection where the bulb screws in snapped in half and a huge blue spark flew out and the lights and the TV went dead. I won't even tell you the word that flew out of my mouth.

We called the front desk and explained, I think I heard Nicole say something about her roomate who just short circuited the room and possibly the whole hotel and maybe even Arusha itself and that fuses are probably blowing and burning as we speak.. A maintenence man was at our room in minutes as we hastily threw on some clothes over our PJ's. Right away he started to re-wire the lamp, which sort of worried us as it had broken in half and had bits of blackened, melted brass stuck to the bulb. We hastened to tell him we didn't need the lamp fixed, just the circuits so that we could use the other lamp and perhaps the TV as we were enjoying the BBC news. "Oh" he said "Is already fixed." and he went to turn on the TV, which Nicole had unplugged so as to save us from an electrical death. He bent down and had to reach past a suitcase to re-plug in the TV, he sort of had to rest his head on the suitcase in order to get to the plug into the socket. As he was fumbling around, we saw, to our HORROR that there was a navy blue bra on the suitcase, about an inch away from his eyes!! OUR eyes must have bugged right our of our heads at this huge faux-pas and as Nicole was closer she grabbed the blue bra and threw it on the bed. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, then he plugged in the TV and quickly left. We looked at each other, stunned and then burst into hysterical peals of laughter. I won't mention who left a navy blue bra lying around so carelessly.

Next morning as we were packing I decided to wear my green bra and pack the pink one, the only 2 that I brought with me.

Honestly though? I have never laughed so much or so heartily as I have on this trip. We are always in fits of laughter and never more than a few hours go by when one or the other or both of us are uncontrollably hysterical. I'm sure people think we are a little insane with our constant cackling.




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