It's so Modern!

(London, UK: June 25, 2007)

Ah, high speed internet. Don't get me wrong, I still use dial-up from time to time. For whatever reason my parents can't get DSL, so I use dial-up whenever I'm there. East African internet is not dial-up though, at least not as we think of it.

The reality is that the internet hardly works there. Sometimes it's just down for an undefined period of time (can be days). Other times certain sites come up, others don't. This happened to me continuously where I could log into one Yahoo account, but the other wouldn't work. Or the person next to me could log in, but I couldn't at all. Many times you could log into Yahoo, but not actually access your mail. So frustrating! At the best of times you could access everything, the computer wouldn't freeze, and it was only about 20x slower than broadband. It took me 45 minutes to place on online order through ebay while I was there. So here in the UK waiting for my plane to NY, I am living in the lap of luxury!

I wanted to say a little something about the transportation in Africa. For those of you reading our friend Liz's blog (she's in Ghana with the Peace Corp) you already know transportation is crap. East Africa is no different.

The first flight I took to Rwanda I needed to be there 2 hours early - no problem! I'll just leave plenty of time in the cab. Well, driving across Nairobi can apparently take nearly 2 hours instead of 45 minutes. So then I was stressed out - as I would be about being late. Typical Sara. So I go to check my bags - but Oh! Lo and behold the print out "confirmation" I have is not an e-ticket. I need to go to an office to get a paper ticket. Uh oh. So now I am panicked I will miss my flight. I get into the office and the fears are confirmed. There are two people behind the desk, and many others waiting. It takes 45 minutes for me to be helped. Why is that you ask? Oh, because one of the women decided to chat with a friend on the phone for 30 minutes without helping anyone, and the other woman took *forever* to write out paper tickets for people. Luckily, my flight was delayed by a number of hours, so I didn't miss it. I decided in the future to make sure to leave plenty of time when going to the airport, and I made them give me tickets for all of my flights then as well, so I should have been all set for future flights.

Ha! the next one from Kigali, Rwanda to Zanzibar had a layover in Nairobi. I got up at 4am to be on time for my flight at 6:45am - funny thing was, the airport wasn't even open 2 hours in advance of the flight (not very funny, really). So I check in for my 2 flights which are both on the same airline, get to Nairobi.... Surprise! My flight to Zanzibar has been canceled, but no one told me in Rwanda, where they could have rerouted me. Oh, but no worries the next flight was only 13 hours later. You can imagine my excitement to wait in a ratbag airport where people are allowed to smoke inside. All of my preparation was for naught there!

Then I wanted to leave Zanzibar, and thought it would be easy to get a flight out to Arusha, I had seen plenty listed on line. Ha again! I went to all 5 airline offices in vain the first time around. Three of them despite advertising flights, had none on Friday? Why? Why not. Air Tanzania only flew into Kilimanjaro, not Arusha as they had advertised. Precision Air had a wonderful piece of paper taped to the desk: Non-stop flight to Kilimanjaro 11am daily. Perfect! Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have that flight. But it's advertised right here on this paper! Yes, but that is starting sometime next week. Hmm... funny thing was the paper looked like it was at least a year old - tattered and stained. So I get a flight out on Air Tanzania, the reason they weren't flying into Arusha is because the airport is closed for 3 months. In typical African fashion they would never give you such useful information though. I had to figure that one out on my own.

So I am leaving Zanzibar and the security guy tells me the machine is broken and asks if he can search my bag. He also says in the same breath that I don't have to let him search it. So I say that I'd prefer he didn't since it was packed like sardines. He says fine he won't and just stands there. this goes back and forth a few more times (the machine is broken, I can search your bag, or I don't have to) and I of course am growing more confused. Finally another employee whispers to me "tip". OH, I exclaim, you want me to pay you money! Yes, he says. How much? He won't tell me how much. So I give him the equivalent of 3 dollars and pass right through security. Sweet! My first security bribe.

So having learned oh so many lessons I am sure that the charter to southern Kenya will go smoothly. I arrive 30 minutes early to the tiniest airport I have ever seen (it's one shack). they tell me to wait anywhere - funny thing is, there weren't any chairs, so I go sit outside on the steps. We were supposed to be there by 9:30am for a 10am flight. Seven of us. So I wait. and I wait... and suddenly it's 9:20 and no one is there yet. Then it's 9:30 and still no one. What are the chances I am in the right place if no one else is there on time? I call the tour company and they don't answer. Then I am in a complete panic (and I am sick as well, to top it all off). Where are they? Where am I supposed to be? What's *happening*?? I get a call at 9:50am about 100 grey hairs later: people are on their way, we'll be leaving soon, not to worry. TYPICAL AFRICA.

My last anecdote is regarding changing my return ticket to come back to NY 2 days earlier. My cell phone is long since dead (no charger) so I need to call from the hotel. Talk about expensive - 6$/minute. First I call BA, wait on hold for 7 minutes and decide to cut my losses after 42 dollars and still no live person. Then they call the local office in Dar Es Salaam for me. I go through the flights with the woman and finally I ask how much it will cost. Oh, she says, I have no idea. Well, how will I know then? She says well, we have a huge line here, I don't have the time to do it now, I can call you back? I explain I am on a hotel phone and she says she'll email me. When will you email me? Oh, I couldn't say. Today? Yes, by the end of the day. I wish I had asked when the end of the day was... Needless to say, no email, no nothing. I bite the bullet and call American Airlines. 1 hour (360$ later) i have changed my flights. I refused to pay for all of it though, I argued that I had only been on the phone 30 minutes, which was a lie. So my grand total came to 268$ for the phone calls. You can imagine my frugal self literally curdling over that.

Really though, of all of the travel adventures I am so looking forward to not smelling terrible diesel fumes constantly. I must have taken a few years off of my life inhaling the thick black smoke that permeated every single parcel of air. Apparently the diesel there has some other bad additives that make it smoke so badly. Regardless, it's overwhelming.

Off to NY now! I'll write once more to wrap up once I'm back stateside.