Posts Tagged ‘people’
Хакуна Матата | Hakuna Matata
Friday, June 4th, 2010
Хакуна Матата – какая замечательная фраза
Хакуна Матата – не сводит с ума
Это значит не беспокоится за оставшуюся часть дня
Это наша беспроблемная жизня
Хакуна Матата!
Даже с рекомендательным письмом, нам пришлось потратить несколько дней в Аруше чтобы получить наши разрешения для посещения национальных парков. Пока разрешение оформлялось, мы решили быстренько сгонять в Найроби, пока не закончилась наша кенийская виза, чтобы забрать вещи, которые мы там оставили на хранение.
Полдня в автобусе, и мы в очередной раз в доме Патрика Лумумбы, нашего кенийского КаучСерфинг-хоста. Домработница нас помнила, радостно встретила и поселила в комнату. Мы сразу же занялись переупаковкой вещей. Нас ждал неприятный сюрприз: мы нашли многие наши вещи раскиданными по полу комнаты в пыли. Собрав все в одну кучу, проверив ящики стола, и даже заглянув в другие комнаты, мы нашли практически всё: камера, вспышка, зарядные устройства, диски с резервными копиями наших фотографий и т.д. Но наш ноутбук исчез. Как оказалось, комната, где мы ночевали в прошлый приезд, и где мы оставили свои вещи в закрытом бауле (предварительно спросив будут ли они там в сохранности), это комната десятилетней дочки Патрика. Дочка учится в школе-интернате, поэтому дома её обычно не бывает. Неделю назад она приехала на каникулы, и вместе со своей двоюродной сестрой открыла нашу сумку и стала играться с её содержимым. Домработница их застукала, и заставила сложить всё на место, но, тем не менее, в процессе, ноутбук куда-то исчез. Мы обыскали комнату ещё много раз, заглянули опять в другие комнаты, и ничего не найдя стали дожидаться Патрика в надежде что он нашел наш ноут и спрятал его подальше от детей.
Патрик пришел домой очень поздно, после одиннадцати. Услышав о происшествии, он просто сказал “О горе, что происходит в моем доме!”, встал, поднялся на второй этаж, и закрылся у себя в комнате. Все попытки до него достучаться были безрезультатны. После бессонной ночи, я встала в четыре часа утра, спрятала туфли Патрика (чтобы не сбежал!), и устроила засаду на первом этаже. В семь Патрик наконец проснулся и порадовал нас своим присутствием. Все что мы хотели, это чтобы он поговорил со своей дочкой, на случай если она спрятала ноут где-то в комнате. Как-то не верилось, что кто-то в этой семье украл у нас что либо! Патрик наотрез отказался об этом даже говорить, под предлогом, что само упоминание имени его ребенка, в любой связи с этим неприятнейшем из событий, его очень огорчает. То что в его близком окружении, возможно, есть вор, мало беспокоило Патрика. Он предпочитал изгнать подобные неприятные мысли, несмотря на то, как он сам признался тем же утром, что это не первый раз, когда у него и его гостей пропадали ноутбуки и деньги. Что-то что хорошо было бы знать ДО того как мы решили оставить незаменимую аппаратуру у него дома.
Казалось, единственное, что Патрик был готов предложить, это соболезнования, да и те неохотно. Такова Африканская логика – зачем тратить энергию на проблему, разрешение которой, в первую очередь, приведет к другим, более серьезным, неприятностям. Гораздо легче покачать головой и отбросить дурные мысли. Ведь если о них не думать – их нет.
Нас такая логика не устраивала. Из общения с Африканскими бюрократами я знала, что секрет успеха это повторять свою точку зрения чаще и больше. Честно говоря, я даже не знала на чем настаиваю. Мало вероятно Патрик сам зажал ноут – он просто явно не хотел быть вмешанным в неприятное дело, и все пытался увернуть от ответственности. Нам же хотелось, чтобы этот Глава Семьи сделал хоть что-то! И вот, после многих повторов и неудачных попыток выкрутится, Патрик неожиданно предложил дать нам в замену ноутбук из школы, где он работает директором. Мы и не знали что сказать. Потом, подумав ещё минутку, он решил, что лишать африканских детей казенного оборудования всё-таки не стоит, и предложил поехать в магазин и купить нам замену. В итоге, мы договорились, что он компенсирует нас денежно. Благо ноутбук был недорогой, купленный б/у через молоток.ру. Мы поехали в банк, дождались его открытия, и к нашему огромному удивлению Патрик отдал нам деньги.
К счастью, никаких важных данных и фоток мы не потеряли, т.к. всегда стараемся иметь несколько копий наших жестких дисков именно на такие случаи. Без ноута, конечно, будет очень неудобно. Нам предстоит много работы над фотографиями и видео, а оставшийся у нас, один на двоих, малюсенький нетбук, не перенесет не этого, ни наших сор кому первому он достанется. Купить достойную замену за возвращённые деньги тоже нереально. Вернее можно, но не в Африке. Ну ничего, главное не забывать что могло быть и хуже… Хакуна Матата.
Hakuna Matata! What a wonderful phrase
Hakuna Matata! Ain’t no passing craze
It means no worries for the rest of your days
It’s our problem-free philosophy
Hakuna Matata!
Even with recommendation from the Tourism Board, it took a few days of paper-pushing in Arusha, to get our permit for National Parks. While waiting for the papers, we decided to make a quick dash to Nairobi, before our Kenyan visa had expired, to pick up the thing we left there for safekeeping.
Half a day by bus, and we are back in the house of Patrick Lumumba, our Kenyan CouchSurfing host. His housekeeper recognized us, and put us up in а room. Immediately, we begun repacking, аs we had to leave early next morning. However, we got a nasty surprise. We found a bunch of our things scattered on the floor of the room and gathering dust in the corners. After checking every room of the house, under beds, and even in the desk drawers, we finally got our things back together: a camera, an external flash, various chargers, and a backup drive with photos. Everything, but our laptop. As it turned out, the room, where we stayed and were told to leave the bag in, is the room of Patrick’s ten year old daughter. She goes to boarding school, so she is rarely home. Apparently, she came home for the holidays, and together with her cousin opened our bag and started playing with its contents. The housekeeper caught them, and ordered to put the things back in the bag, but somehow the laptop had disappeared. We looked everywhere in this room and others, but it was all in vain. All we could do now was to wait for Patrick. Our last hope was that he found our notebook and hid it somewhere, away from the kids.
Patrick came home well past 11pm. Upon hearing about what happened, he simply exclaimed “Oh no, what’s happening in my house?!”, went upstairs, locked himself in his room, and wouldn’t answer the door. After a sleepless night, I got up at 4am and set up an ambush downstairs, hiding his shoes so that he wouldn’t slip out. Finally, at 7am, Patrick had graced us with his presence. All we were asking him to do is contact his daughter and ask if she had hidden the laptop somewhere in her room. Patrick would hear nothing of it. Apparently, any mention of his daughter in connection with this incident greatly upset him. He wasn’t much worried by the fact that his house had somehow been exposed to a thief. He would much rather prefer just not to think about it, even though, as he told us then, this wasn’t the first time that his or guests’ laptops or money had disappeared. Now, why couldn’t he mention this BEFORE we left our important irreplaceable gear in his house!?
It seemed, all that Patrick could offer us, was his reluctant condolences. African logic at its best – why bother solving a problem, if it would only create more problems. It’s much easier to shake off bad thoughts. Problems don’t exist if you don’t think about them, right?
This logic didn’t quite compute. But from my previous dealings with African bureaucrats, I knew that I just need to repeat myself over and over again until I get what I want. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted. I don’t think Patrick or his daughter swiped our laptop, but I wanted him to take at least some of the responsibility as the head of the household. Finally, after going over the same issue over and over, Patrick suddenly offered us a solution – he would give one of the laptops from his school. We were surprised by such abuse of power by a school principal, but hey – TIA! A few minutes later, Patrick did realize on his own that it wouldn’t be fair to deprive kids of a chance to learn the ever important computer skills. Instead, he offered to take us to a store and buy us a replacement. Eventually, he agreed to just compensate us monetarily, considering our laptop wasn’t very expensive as we bought used of a Russian auction site. We took a taxi to a bank, waited for it to open, and, to our great surprise, Patrick gave us nearly the full amount we agreed on.
Fortunately, we didn’t lose any of the important documents or photos, as we had made a backup just before leaving. But this is a humongous inconvenience. We have a lot of work to do, that the tiny netbook we have left can’t really handle photos and video. Nor can it handle our fights as to who gets to use it first. Buying worthy replacement in Africa, doesn’t seem possible, at least not with the money we got back. Well, could’ve been worse… Hakuna Matata.
Tags: city, people
Posted in Places»Africa»Kenya | No Comments »
Масай на берегу | Maasai on Shore
Tuesday, June 1st, 2010
Tags: island, people, view
Posted in Places»Africa»tanzania | No Comments »
На Занзибаре | Zanzibar
Monday, May 31st, 2010
Пару часов на пароме из Дар-эс-Салама, и мы на Занзибаре. Найти дешевую гостиницу в Каменном Городе оказалось непросто. На Занзибаре, вообще часто перебои с электричеством, но как нас уже предупреждали многие путешественники, еще задолго до нашего прибытия свет вырубило на много месяцев. Все гостиницы и рестораны работают на генераторах, с соответствующей наценкой. В итоге мы нашли относительно дешевую комнату в самом сердце Каменного Города, без электричества/вентиляторов/кондиционеров, но зато с туалетом – когда становилось жарко, просто заскакивали в душ.
Мы провели несколько дней, исследуя узкие улочки и набережную Каменного Города. На фоне заходящего солнца и возвращающихся в порт парусных лодок, местная молодежь устраивала соревнования по акробатике и прыжкам в воду. С заходом солнца, зажигались яркие лампы уличных торговцев едой. Тут предлагались шашлыки, разнообразная рыба-гриль и прочие морепродукты, индийские лепешки, и “занзибарская пицца” (больше напоминающая омлет). Запить это всю вкуснятину можно соком из сахарного тростника с лимоном и имбирем. К сожаленью, все яства и цены, в большинстве, рассчитаны на туристов.
На Занзибаре есть несколько неплохих рифов недалеко от Стоунтауна, но одно из лучших для ныряния мест, это атолл Мнемба на северо-востоке. На самом атолле есть очень дорогая эксклюзивная гостиница, но совсем не обязательно там останавливаться, чтобы понырять или поплавать рядом с маской и трубкой: любая гостиница на севере или севере-востоке острова может организовать сюда поездку. Сeвер острова, в особенности Кендва, очень удобно расположен. Тут хорошие пляжи где можно купаться даже в отлив, в отличие от пляжей на восточной стороне острова. Плюс тут хорошие рифы прямо под боком, да и Мнемба не так далеко.
Мы обныряли почти весь Занзибар, кроме самого юга. Ну и напоследок, решили ознакомиться с местной фауной. Когда-то, Занзибар был покрыт лесами, сейчас лесов осталось совсем мало. Лучше всего сохранился Джозани, кусочек леса, где обитают красные колобусы. Колобусы, это вид обезьян с четырьмя пальцами на руках, большой палец атрофировался. Красные колобусы намного более редкие чем черные, а Занзибарский подвид (самый симпатичный ) вообще больше нигде не водится. Тем не менее, их тут очень легко увидеть. Мы провели несколько часов наблюдая за этими симпатичными созданиями прямо у конторы парка, после чего отправились в лес в поисках интересных насекомых и прочей живности.
Подводный Занзибар | Zanzibar Underwater
Надводный Занзибар | Zanzibar Topside
Only a couple hours by ferry, and we’re on famous Zanzibar. First challenge, finding a place to sleep in Stone Town. As countless backpackers we’ve met on the road had warned us, Zanzibar had no power. Temporary blackouts are a common occurrence here, but this outage has already lasted several months, and it was supposed to take some more time to fix the underwater cable connecting the island to the mainland. As a result, all the hotels and restaurants are running on generators, and the prices had gone up correspondingly. We stayed in a cheaper place with no generator (and therefore no fans or air-conditioning), but the owner has put us up in the really nice room with an en-suite bathroom. When the heat became unbearable, we would just pop into a shower for a minute or two.
We spent a couple of days exploring Stone Town’s narrow streets and waterfront. At sunset, local kids would compete against each other doing backflips on the beach or somersaulting off the dock. As the darkness would fall, the street food vendors would light their bright lamps and setup their tables. You could get anything here from octopus kebab to lobster to dozen other seafood items. Also on offer – Indian naan and Zanzibar pizza, which is basically an omelet. And to wash all of this goodness down – sugarcane juice with lemon and ginger. Of course, this whole feast is mostly for tourists, so the prices are a bit higher than one would expect to pay for street food, but the food tastes great all the same.
Zanzibar also has a couple of good reefs only a stone throw away from Stone Town, but the best place to dive is the tiny Mnemba atoll on the north-east of the island. There’s a super exclusive resort (diving included) on the atoll itself, but you don’t have to say there to dive or snorkel there. Pretty much any hotel on the north and north-east of the island can organize a boat trip. Actually, it seems that northern beaches, especially Kendwa, are the best to stay at. The beach itself is nice, and you can even swim in low tide unlike most other beaches we’ve seen on Zanzibar and around Mombasa, Kenya. There some decent reefs to snorkel right off the beach, or you could take a boat trip to further away reefs and Mnemba is not too far.
After a few days of diving around Zanzibar, we decided to check out some fauna above water, and visit Jozani – remnants of the forest that once covered the whole island. What makes Jozani interesting, is that it’s the easiest place to see red colobuses. Colobuses are very pretty monkeys with only four fingers on their hands, no thumbs. Red colobuses are much rarer than the black variety, and the ones on Zanzibar are an endemic subspecies. We spent a few hours right next to the park office observing the cute antics of these agile creatures, before heading deeper into the forest in search of bugs and elephant shrews.
Tags: island, people, underwater, view
Posted in Places»Africa»tanzania | No Comments »
Shooting Pigeons in Addis
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
not a minute’s rest. here I am being dragged out in my towel-sarong, right after a shower, to photograph a white-collared pigeon from the staircase of our raggedy hotel
Tags: people
Posted in Places»Africa»Ethiopia | No Comments »
Vazah in Madagascar
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
If you’ve got money you’ll travel Madagascar by plane getting a bird’s eye view of the rectangular patches of rice fields in all possible shades of green. If you wish to see what’s in between the protected areas and beaches that you most likely came here for, you’ll hire a jeep and maybe even ask your driver to slow down as you pass through a village, to take a quick picture of a local woman – her face painted with a special white, yellow, or orange cream to better the skin. But nothing will bring you closer to the real – not as cuddly as might seem from afar, but nevertheless real – Madagascar, as a two (three, four, five) day ride in a taxi-brousse (bush-taxi, Japanese minivan with seating for fourteen passengers, but generally squeezing in twenty or more).
Though in the last three years many Madagascar roads have been paved, locals still only seldom see a vazah – a white person, a stranger – crammed in with the rest of the Malagasies in a taxi-brousse. On one occasion, when a radiator blew in a our taxi-brousse, I passed the time showing a few local children the pictures from our guidebook. I was so enthralled with watching their reaction to images of chameleons and lemurs, I barely noticed that the whole village we just passed gathered to see what the vazah is showing. I looked up and found out that an amphitheater formed around me – smaller, braver by innocence children in the front, giggling teenagers behind them, and in the back, as if supervising but really curious, adults.
The pictures in the book soon became old news when I pulled out the camera. From our days on the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon, I knew children will be entertained by their own photographs much more than those of lemurs or monkeys. I didn’t think the adults will get a kick out of it as well, but women opened their eyes wide and stepped back a bit clasping their hands to their mouths, startled at first, but then also amused. Men tried to remain unfazed, as it is appropriate for adults of their age and stature in the community, but smiles spread across their faces when they saw themselves, their wives or children frozen in some funny expression on the little screen surrounded by silver buttons.
Tags: kids, people
Posted in Places»Africa»Madagascar | No Comments »
Vazah in Madagascar
Sunday, December 14th, 2008
If you’ve got money you’ll travel Madagascar by plane getting a bird’s eye view of the rectangular patches of rice fields in all possible shades of green. If you wish to see what’s in between the protected areas and beaches that you most likely came here for, you’ll hire a jeep and maybe even ask your driver to slow down as you pass through a village, to take a quick picture of a local woman – her face painted with a special white, yellow, or orange cream to better the skin. But nothing will bring you closer to the real – not as cuddly as might seem from afar, but nevertheless real – Madagascar, as a two (three, four, five) day ride in a taxi-brousse (bush-taxi, Japanese minivan with seating for fourteen passengers, but generally squeezing in twenty or more).
Though in the last three years many Madagascar roads have been paved, locals still only seldom see a vazah – a white person, a stranger – crammed in with the rest of the Malagasies in a taxi-brousse. On one occasion, when a radiator blew in a our taxi-brousse, I passed the time showing a few local children the pictures from our guidebook. I was so enthralled with watching their reaction to images of chameleons and lemurs, I barely noticed that the whole village we just passed gathered to see what the vazah is showing. I looked up and found out that an amphitheater formed around me – smaller, braver by innocence children in the front, giggling teenagers behind them, and in the back, as if supervising but really curious, adults.
The pictures in the book soon became old news when I pulled out the camera. From our days on the Rio Napo, a tributary of the Amazon, I knew children will be entertained by their own photographs much more than those of lemurs or monkeys. I didn’t think the adults will get a kick out of it as well, but women opened their eyes wide and stepped back a bit clasping their hands to their mouths, startled at first, but then also amused. Men tried to remain unfazed, as it is appropriate for adults of their age and stature in the community, but smiles spread across their faces when they saw themselves, their wives or children frozen in some funny expression on the little screen surrounded by silver buttons.
Tags: kids, people
Posted in Places»Africa»Madagascar | No Comments »
Up the Amazon in a Hammock Jungle
Saturday, July 22nd, 2006
This is insane! Even for us… It is exactly what I expected, but nonetheless it’s nuts. The cargo boat is the usual size around here, about 16m x 4m (50ft by 15ft), as big as a spacious living-room. However, it is set up for about 200 hammocks that hang literally on top of each other. It is a fabric maze of all colors of the rainbow, impossible to walk through in a straight line. A jungle, that’s what it is. The Brazilian jungle on my left and right, and another, floating, in the middle. The only difference is that in this fabric jungle the bugs don’t bite as much and those hanging from these vines are less likely to drop a coconut on your head.
The boat was to leave around 7pm, but we got here a good twelve hours beforehand to snag the good spots. Nevertheless, my first thought was, “Great. No more room for us,” but a local woman showed us how it’s done, and in no time we were looking at our “beds” swinging not too far away from a pile of old life jackets. Satisfied, we left the boat to run some errands. There were snacks and water to buy, backpacks to pack, and another round of shots to be administered – doctor’s orders. For the past few days I have been sick as a dog, sweating like a pig, and, after running around town, I wanted to be shot like a race horse with a broken leg. I felt a bit melodramatic. Ever since we got off the freezing night-bus that brought us to Belem, I have been running a fever. Alex finally looked down my throat with a flashlight and said, “Alright. We are going to the hospital NOW.” Apparently my airway was about to close up. In the hospital the doctor was quick to give her diagnosis and suggest a treatment even before I finished describing my symptoms. “You’ll have to get a shot,” she said. “In the butt. Well, actually two – one in the butt and another in the vein. Well, technically four: three intravenous and one in the behind.” Splendid. Dreading the hospital by this time, we’d done some shopping first and, as I was getting worse and worse in the heat, made our way there.
By now, my fever was gone and my throat cleared up, allowing me to swallow food without pain, but my stomach and back were still giving me trouble, so I agreed to the shots. Unfortunately, this time two factors were against me. First, there was no room for me to lie down for the shot in the butt, as today, a Monday, everybody who failed to be cured by Sunday’s prier in church were brought to the hospital, so we had to do it standing up. Not a good idea. Second, this time the shot, painful as it is on its own, was administered not by a cute and careful male nurse, who managed to insert the needle with a minimum amount of pain, but a middle-aged female nurse passing by in a hurry. She jammed the needle in my butt cheek without so much as a warning. For a few minutes I couldn’t walk, and a sympathetic doctor walking past said, “Hurt, didn’t it? Well yeah. She sort of does that …” She bit her lip and made a stabbing motion to illustrate her point. “Yeah,” I thought. “That she does.” I limped back to the hostel and lay on the couch in the bums-up position, at least having some fun freaking people out when they asked what happened. “I got stabbed in the ass,” I would say, and hold a dramatic pause, watching their eyes widen and mouths drop open. “With a needle. By a doctor,” I would add eventually. Ha-ha.
( Read more on how we hung around )
Tags: people
Posted in Places»South America»Brazil | No Comments »
A street car named Olga
Monday, April 10th, 2006
The bummer: Spending a day killing time by making a map for a town that doesn’t seem to have one, only to find out later that two and a half hours away, in The Cave of Hands, there are color copies of a perfectly good map. (My map included.)
The highlight: Harry Nauta, a very nice English speaking local man with a Russian UAZ minivan named Olga. That made us think, wouldn’t it be cool to buy an old car like that in Russia and travel the world in it?
 |
 |
Tags: people
Posted in Places»South America»Argentina | No Comments »
El Chalten, Argentina
Saturday, April 8th, 2006
Weird time was spent in El Chalten starting from the bus that brought us there, where we met Genevieve – an Australian born who grew up in Hong Kong and lived alone with her ten year old brother from the age of twelve in a house of their own. Her story is extraordinary, although I don’t think I’m at liberty to tell it. However, I do have her permission to show you a tattoo of hers which is very appropriate for a citizen of the world such as herself.
( more… )
Tags: food, people, trekking
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
Up-up and away
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
There is pretty much nowhere to go when you are at the end of the world, unless you have three thousand dollars to grab a boat to Antarctica. But as the freezing Antarctic winter was at the door, the last boat of the season left a week ago. Therefore, up-up and away, back North, zigzagging through Chile and Argentina, we go.
( more… )
Tags: people, sailing
Posted in Places»South America»Chile | No Comments »