Adam Hooper's Blog

Last night I ran my final run in Central Park. Toward the end, I was struck by a sudden urge to sprint to the northern tip of the reservoir and revel in the midtown skyline.

I have stared at the skyline many times before, of course, but final occasions afford some unexpected ruminations. I peered at the skyline, the reflection of the skyline, and my memories of my last big departure: Dar es Salaam.

I had declared the city of Dar es Salaam—the city itself—somewhat unpleasant: flat, hot, dirty, stressful, and sometimes dangerous. My departure last year was painful exclusively because of the people I was leaving: it had nothing to do with the city itself.

New York, paradoxically, produced the same emotion. The skyline is inspiring and beautiful: Rockefeller Center, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building, and countless other edifices stand guard over their remarkable siblings, obscuring from view but still hinting at a vibrant, never-asleep city encompassing vagrants, aloof businesspeople, quintessential weeknight revellers, and millions of families and roommates and lovers and loners, all living their unique lives. Yet as astonishing as the city itself may be, it is lifeless in comparison to its shimmering reflection.

In the skyline, the Empire State Building is a feat of architecture; in the reflection, I see the friends and family who accompanied me to the top. In the skyline, the Chrysler Building towers impressively; in the reflection, I notice it from downtown on Broadway while walking to the subway after work with a colleague or two, at least one of us never failing to complain about the freezing-cold air conditioners, pedestrian-traffic-inducing male models, and revolting smells wafting out of a department store.

“We should hire models to stand outside our office.”

“Let's buy the scent, too.”

The millions of households are different in the reflection: they are millions of abstract sketches of the families I joined here: they hold their own dramas, their own video game championships, their own morning schedules, their own parties, their own life lessons, and, with New York flair, their own neighbours of undignified proximity.

Above the water, New York is a mosaic of cultures. In the reflection on the reservoir, the only culture is my own: the amalgamation of all of the above, it encompasses barely-understood experiences and half-unexplored relationships. Millions of others' worlds dance around mine like stars, all begging to be investigated.

And in this personal sense, my New York departure is strikingly similar to my Tanzania one. In spite of how objectively fantastic New York may be, the skyline is meaningless without the people who make it my New York.

Friends and family constantly ask me why I want to leave. Am I running from something? Am I running toward something else? I look into this reflection of my past year, and I see myself the year before and the year before that one: departures cyclically transforming into arrivals, two reflective experiences I would be self-depriving to forgo.

I am running for the sake of running, loving every minute of it.

A five-foot-tall transvestite, dressed in drag, walks up to me at the Posta Mpya public transit hub late at night in Dar es Salaam, happily yammering words I cannot understand. I smile and shrug, and eventually he moves on to his next comic victim, never missing a beat in his monologue.

Ni mchizi yangu, a passer-by jokes with me: a Swahili pun, in this context straddling the line between, this is my buddy and, this is a crazy person. Out of the spotlight, I am free to look around: I notice that a crowd is laughing at my accoster.

This is yet another little moment from my life in Tanzania which recently rushed back to me when I least expected it. My reminiscing usually begins with smells, sights, or phrases; but this particular memory of Tanzania came from a crazy person in New York:

I was walking to the movies with a friend. We arrived at the pedestrian decision point between hurrying north to beat the light or waiting a second for the light to turn so we could head east. A man loomed towards us, eyes fixed on the sidewalk, and loudly asked: Y'avalight?

Sure, enunciated my friend, producing a lighter and igniting it near the accoster's mouth.

The man ripped the device away and flicked it viciously, focusing his entire existence on the transferral of fire to his cigarette. Once finished, he gave it back roughly, muttering, vowel-free, tks.

The traffic lights decided our next move: east. This man trudged in the same direction, at our exact pace: worried, we accelerated. As the man finally faded from our world, we detected that he had veered into the middle of the intersection. The last thing we heard him shout was, Apbtkd!

That was scary, we agreed, after gaining half a block of insulation.

There was something different about this man: something which set him apart. What was it?

This enthusiastic smoker was hardly the first person in New York to set off my ingrained normalcy radar. Walking home from work one day, I spotted a black cat perched on the head of a man who was strolling down the street. One week earlier, some coworkers and I ate lunch in downtown New York while a man outside the diner patiently teed six empty beer cans into a line on the street, pulled out a driver, lined himself up, and deliberately, one at a time, whacked each can into traffic.

I felt I gained some insight last weekend, as I discovered some people who seemed to blur a line between me and crazy: the coffee lady and the junkies.

The coffee lady came first. While trekking across a Brooklyn Bridge laden near collapse with tourists, I was perplexed by the common phenomenon of otherwise sensible people stepping in the extremely clearly delineated bicycle lane; even more comical were the reckless bikers who would yell, ring bells, shout warnings, and swerve, but who would adamantly refuse to decelerate to avoid their witless obstacles. As I approached the Brooklyn side of the bridge and the tourists (curiously averse to stepping past the centre of the bridge into a land unexplored by the gawking masses) receded, I spotted an approaching woman, eyes scanning the inches in front of her feet, mouth muttering incomprehensible phrases, with a coffee on her head. Two thoughts sprung to mind: first, that the wind was bound to blow this poor woman's coffee away; and second, that here at last I had found somebody who respected the bicycle lane.

The junkies appeared on my return to Manhattan, at the direct centre of the Manhattan Bridge footpath. Three of them were lolling over one another, backs against the side of the bridge, eyes dead. After months honing my ability to avoid subway screwballs and street psychos, I knew the footpath would bring me within a foot of these social deviants and I braced myself for the worst; but as I walked past them they gave me a completely normal New York greeting: eyes staring straight ahead, no words spoken, no sign of acknowledgement. And while they were doubtless well past the point of making a rational decision on the matter, I was nonetheless set aback by this one stab at normalcy.

I suppose the interesting feature common to the coffee lady and the junkies was their similarity to myself. Just like me, the coffee lady walked in the proper lane; just like me, the junkies observed social etiquette. Instead of being a different species, they became ordinary individuals with one bizarre twist: the coffee lady is normal except for the cup of coffee on her head (which, I assume, she replaces after every errant gust of wind); the junkies are normal except for the abnormal chemicals they recently absorbed.

Perhaps the smoker just needed a cigarette really badly, and perhaps we caught him at an unfortunate time as he tripped and thus stumbled into the middle of the intersection accidentally.

And come to think of it, why do I refrain from wearing a cat on my head, driving empty cans into traffic, and dressing in drag at a bus stop in Tanzania? These may not be normal activities, but when I give the matter a bit of thought, they sure seem like fun.

Part of me feels inclined to wait for the first snowfall, strip to my boxers, and run down Broadway shouting, I like pizza! at the top of my lungs. Call me crazy, but I somewhat doubt I would be the first to do it, and I suspect several so-called normal people would agree with me.

My website, for whatever ludicrous reason, comes up as the #1 Google Search result for Kisambaa.

Since I am now considered the authoritative source on Kisambaa, I should explain a bit about it: it is the native language of the Sambaa people in Tanzania, who live east of Arusha and just across the border from Kenya. How are you? in the afternoon is onga mshi, and the correct response is tiwedi. I do not know the formalities for morning, nighttime, thanks, or farewells. In fact, I know practically nothing about Kisambaa.

I found a website called Ethnologue Report which says 664,000 Sambaa people exist. I would take that website's information with a grain of salt, however: its entry on Swahili suggests that Kiswahili only has 540,000 mother-tongue speakers, while in reality Zanzibar alone accounts for 1,000,000 Swahili people and I expect a significant subset of the younger population of Dar es Salaam (population 3,000,000) also speaks Kiswahili better than any other language.

Factoid: most native Kisambaa speakers know Kiswahili as a second language.

Factoid Number Two: Since I am writing English, I should really be writing Sambaa instead of Kisambaa (for the same reason I would write French instead of Français); but if I had done that to begin with my website never would have been the #1 search result.

Beaches being beaches and white people being rich, some Maasai warriors earn a living making crafts and selling them to tourists. I have a Maasai friend who used to do this.

Saturday afternoon, Alex, Caitlin and I found ourselves relaxing on a beach at Cholo's, an incredibly chill beach-side bar. Cholo's, as Caitlin's Blog explains, is run by what we refer to as impostafarians (Rastafarians minus their religious beliefs). It may be the most relaxed place in all of Africa.

On this particular afternoon, we were disturbed from our relaxing by a raised voice. looking up, I saw a Maasai warrior attempting to sell his crafts to the tourists fifteen feet away. The voice we heard was that of one of the Rasta owners of Cholo's.

It was clear the Rasta was drunk: he began to shout, toka! over and over again. (Toka! is an extremely rude and emphatic, get out!) He had somehow acquired a Maasai stick (a half-stick, half-club just over a foot long). He used the stick to try and rally nearby dogs to his cause: the peaceful dogs were comically unhelpful rounding up the Maasai. We had to turn away and laugh.

The Maasai stood his ground, clearly displaying that he was unafraid. The Rasta stormed off, repeating toka! with every step. The Maasai seemed to be waiting for the Rasta to calm down so that he could comply while keeping his self-respect.

But the Rasta drunkenly decided to turn back and argue his point once more. A couple of other Maasai who were strolling by came to investigate; a couple of Rastas also appeared to see what their co-worker was up to.

All parties (minus the drunk) seemed to understand each other. The drunk looked quite happy to have company: he used his friends to hold him back while he lunged at the Maasai. His friends gladly played along, restraining and disarming him.

The Maasai all watched.

I should interject: Maasai warriors are almost invariably armed and skilled. If one Maasai warrior were to square off against all three Rastas, I have no doubt the Maasai could send them running. Or kill them. With three Maasai, the prospect of a fight is a joke. All six parties (yes, even the one with addled senses) knew this.

It looked like everybody was satisfied. But one of the Maasai must have muttered a taunt, because all of a sudden the Rastas leapt into action. One ran and fetched empty beer bottles and hurled one at a Maasai. The throw was hilariously inaccurate: it sailed harmlessly into the sea. Had the throw been more accurate, the bottle might have hit us (ten feet away from its target).

Another Rasta with a makeshift weapon received a threatening lunge from a Maasai who had unsheathed his blade. This, too, was ten feet away from us.

The Maasai proudly walked off together. The inept bottle-thrower tried his luck again, receiving a threatening, unflinching glare in return.

We left.

I can draw many morals from this story. One moral is that there is some element of tribalism in Tanzania (though I still blindly contest the tensions do not run as deep in Tanzania as in Uganda or Kenya). Another moral is that even after six months here, I can still experience something completely unexpected.

The real lesson, to me, is more internal: I was siding with the Maasai.

Why? I can rationalize all I want that the Maasai were acting less childish or more diplomatic; I can argue the Rastas had no right to behave the way they did; I can even claim that the Maasai would win if the situation erupted into violence.

All of these reasons, though valid, are dishonest. I sided with the Maasai for the reason I wrote in the first paragraph: I have a Maasai friend. I picked sides before there even was a situation.

Whose side did you pick?

Challenge: I never wrote all I could and this is my last Challenge-inspired entry. Include five sentences I dreamed up which I had anticipated publishing (because I thought they sounded powerful and exciting) but which I never turned into blog entries.

I can buy a camera lens with as wide an angle as physically possible, but it will still be too narrow to capture reality.

I could argue that a wider camera lens would actually project less information. A mountain framed by a banana tree; a misplaced Habs jersey; a lopsided dala-dala; a motorcycle hanging from a tree: pictures merely project ideas, not reality. More information would obscure the ideas.

Similarly, my blog can only project narrow ideas: it cannot reflect reality. These Challenges I have been using on my blog have been helpful in reminding me of that.

What is reality? I will never know.

What is my reality?

My reality is a veritable rat's nest of hare-brained ideas. I prod at random thoughts until I arrive at conclusions. Then I hack away at my conclusions until I get new, even more random thoughts. It strikes me that if there is such a thing as sanity, I want nothing to do with it.

In Tanzania, my business (publishing magazines about HIV, gender, and sexuality) is everybody else's business. My engineering mind was not trained for this kind of interactions. Can I say I am networking with interesting people if they will never be able to contact me? Should I call a child with HIV a client? Everybody is connected more strongly than anybody knows. Maybe we are all part of the same company: I am in the learning department while many other people are in the suffering department. And if the world is the biggest company ever, what does that tell me about upper management?

What is your reality?

Your reality is probably quite similar to mine: you eternally struggle to find your place in a world which seems to be treating you like one six-billionth of itself.

What is their reality?

I wager it is almost the same.

But if you have never left the comfort of the West, you are missing an important mindset. Poverty and disease are rampant in sub-Saharan Africa. Get-rich-quick schemes are often glorified get-other-people-poor schemes. Even the most timid mzungu learns that pushing and shoving is the only way to board a dala-dala here in Dar es Salaam.

Personally, I do not blame Tanzanians for behaviour I can never understand. I see a potential for learning more about myself and my reality.

So far, I have never heard somebody's life story and thought, I would certainly never act that way if I were that person. Every time I hear somebody claim otherwise because of insignificant misunderstandings, I wince.

What is common to everybody's reality?

Different though different people's realities are, everybody's reality is composed of the same three universal truths: love, fear, and Bob Marley.

I see potential. Let's get together and be all right.

Challenge: I do not really think like this all the time, and I am certainly not thinking like this now, but there is an element of truth in here. Write only thoughts which occurred to me before I decided to make a blog entry out of them.

From time to time, I go to a fancy restaurant. I spend the average Tanzanian's monthly salary in a single night, savouring a beer and food that reminds me of Montreal. It is refreshing, but it makes me feel guilty. For instance: in Uganda I once ate two meals' worth of steak dinner in two hours; this was the evening after working at a school where the children get one meal a day of beans and ugali (like rice, minus the texture and flavour and cutlery). Even Dickens would be unable to emphasize the poignancy of my social superiority.

I cherish my meal, all the while thinking disparaging thoughts about my dinner companions, every other white customer in the restaurant, every other black or Indian customer in the restaurant, the restaurant's owner, the restaurant itself, and even the concept of restaurants.

No wonder this country is underdeveloped, I ruminate. All the people around me are not developing it! The wealth changes hands between the rich, and the poor get nothing. Even the people in the poverty-reduction business take part in the farce. I should know: I am one.

The next day, I double my efforts at work, as payback to the people whom I will never meet and whom I am supposedly helping. But then, what about the day after that? If I do not keep up my double-effort, that means I could be working faster. Any time I spend on break is time I spend not helping people—people who cannot afford my laziness. I skip breaks and shorten my lunches. I doubt I will ever know if these efforts are fruitful; but can I really risk taking my time?

Once upon a time I did not know or care about any of this. Now I do care and I still do not know. I roam the streets to get time to myself to piece together my thoughts; but I am always interrupted by friendly neighbours and passers-by. Can they not see that the minutes I spend talking to them would be better spent thinking? I am only here for six months: every second is precious!

Of course, this is simply culture shock. At this point my thought process is already abstracted far away from any sick and dying and vulnerable people. I simply must come to terms with the fact that saving lives is a nine-to-five desk job.

And once the stress has built up high enough, I might treat myself to dinner at a fancy restaurant.

Challenge: whet the appetite with mention of money in every paragraph.

In Tanzania, much of the business culture revolves around what is called a per diem: a payment for putting somebody out of his way.

For instance, one week I attended some training. I was paid a per diem food allowance for every day I spent away from my home. The concept makes sense: after all, were I not paid, I would have had to finance myself, which I cannot afford to do. If the coordinators had not offered me per diems, I would not have offered my time.

I was also a bit careful. In my week away from home, I managed to horde away the equivalent of $10 Canadian. I did so by ensuring everything I bought was as cheap as possible. My per diems were small, but my expenditures were smaller. I need that $10, and I do not feel that my actions were particularly dishonest—even though, in the end, this $10 which used to be somebody else's is now mine.

But hold on. Am I not rich? I am a mzungu; my potential wealth has no limit. If I, the mzungu, am strapped enough for cash that I will only go to a training if there is a per diem attached, imagine what Tanzanians will do.

Thus is born the per diem culture: for any formal business meeting and for any training, per diems are expected. Pay-offs vary wildly, and attendance depends on the pay-offs.

Now, flip the coin over and picture this from an organizer's perspective. A meeting is hard enough to organize: to find a time and venue which works for all attendees, to prepare the topics of conversation, and so on. Throw these per diems into the mix: an organizer in Tanzania must determine how much each attendee will need. Are you training teachers? Are you discussing policy with government officials? Are you inviting journalists to a press conference? These cost money. If you bid too high, you waste money. If you bid too low, you could be shunned. You may advertise the fare before the event occurs, but actual attendance will only be revealed at the beginning of the meeting. (Or, because the culture encourages tardiness as well, an hour after the meeting begins.)

In the West, we attend meetings and trainings with the aim of accomplishing things. In Tanzania, a seemingly thoughtful concept (helping to cover expenditures) has been inflamed to the point of insanity.

Challenge: look at the same thing from two perspectives, alternating on each paragraph.

In my house, on a shelf, there is a row of small, glass bottles containing an herbal liquid. I was told this is a cure for HIV. I was then asked, Adam, do you believe this medicine cures HIV?

In truth, I believe these bottles do not contain the cure to HIV. I believe there are likely many Tanzanians who put their trust in this cure, using it as an excuse to engage in risky sexual behaviour: in this way, this cure to HIV actually helps spread it. I lament the hypocrisy of a household reading an HIV-awareness magazine at the same time as advertising anti-HIV snake oil.

I found out later that it is not hypocrisy. Look from the opposite perspective: why would somebody who owns the cure to HIV read a magazine which claims it does not exist? Simple: the magazine is free and colourful, and a guest is clearly enthusiastic about it. Just as we might discuss various differences between Muslim and Christian beliefs, Canadian and Tanzanian weather, or Western and African television, so might we discuss the various belief systems about medicinal solutions to HIV.

At the heart of Science is experimentation and verification. We try something, see if it works, and draw our conclusions. This ought to fit in to any belief system: that is, if we give HIV medication to a hundred patients who have tested HIV-positive and more than usual are tested as HIV-negative after a week, then we clearly have something valuable in our hands. As far as Science is concerned, voodoo and spirits are fully plausible explanations: we just observe what happens. Science accepts everything that is real and denies everything that is not.

So does Islam. So does Christianity. So do the many local legends. If a certain legend says, applying the scientific method to determine the validity of this HIV medication will render the HIV medication ineffective, well, science cannot prove that claim incorrect. It all comes down to a matter of belief.

Do I believe this medicine cures HIV? I believe in Science. I want to see proof. In the meantime, I am highly sceptical.

I cannot prove why having proof is right: I simply take it on faith.

Challenge: write at least one negative and one positive in every paragraph.

The dreams have begun again. I am back home with my family and friends. Everything is normal, yet it all feels wrong. Somebody mentions Tanzania. I wake up, relieved.

I cannot wait to see everybody back home. Yet as the dreams suggest, I am reticent to do so. The reason is culture shock.

It is termed reverse culture shock when returning home. Reverse culture shock is, to me at least, far more difficult to handle than the forwards variety. Regular culture shock is realizing, in Tanzania, this child really could be funded through school for the cost of a cup of coffee a day. Reverse culture shock is realizing, in Montreal, this cup of coffee could be funding that child through school. Every object is seen through the eyes of somebody who does not need it; every statement is heard from people who suddenly do not understand.

Before hitting home, I will be using my opportunity to travel. All I need are my beloved backpack, my deteriorating clothes, and my passport. I look forward to meeting with new places and friends and foods and musics. I will doubtless run into uncomfortable situations, and I stand no chance of learning the fine details of any other cultures: these certainties are but refrains in the song of life.

Ten days remain until the end of my contract.

Challenge: write 1 word for each 1000 Tanzanian shillings I earn in a month. (CAN$1 is approximately 1200 Tsh.)

While talking with a local in Sipi, Uganda, I realized that he is wealthier than I am.

My student loan was at its zenith. The money I brought to Uganda was dwindling. I remember hoping to be thrifty enough to arrive home with $0. I succeeded.

Instead of paying off my debts and securing my future, I decided to keep on with my downward financial trend. I now have far less than $0.

Tanzanians do not believe this. White people have money, right?

I am solidly in debt. I have no co-signers. I have nearly no worldly possessions (by Western standards). My bank accounts are empty. I have no long-term employment. My expenditures exceed my income. Yet with my credit line, credit cards, loans, and contacts, I can easily gather $20,000 cash within minutes.

How did I achieve that $20,000 potential? I was born into a club: a worldwide network of mathematics which statistically rewards trustworthiness and punishes misbehaviour.

Bank machines exist in Tanzania. They give me money I do not have while serving luckier Tanzanians money they worked hard to earn. Credit cards exist here, too; but Tanzanians cannot get them. And my credit card has a lower interest rate than Tanzanian bank loans.

If I spent that $20,000 and declared bankruptcy, I would not be poor.