The Night I Slept with a Princess

Arguably, the most enjoyable part of a trip is the planning for the trip itself. Generally, you've been working for months on end with only the occasional day off providing relief from the daily grind. The prospect of a whole week away from your boss while spending time in the wilderness, exploring a foreign land, relaxing at an all-inclusive resort, or catching up with infrequently seen loved ones, makes it hard to contain your excitement. You've planned the trip for months, and the time has finally come to enjoy the fruits of your planning labor. Then it rains. Your bags get lost. Everyone gets food poisoning. It becomes painfully obvious why those relatives are infrequently seen. Reality has let you down to the point you're disturbingly and somewhat sickeningly thankful to actually return to work. Expectation and Reality share an interesting relationship in that regard. When reality meets heightened expectations (see Tanzania safari), the fruits of your labor will never taste sweeter. When reality clashes with heightened expectations (see Morocco), you feel cheated and betrayed. Very rarely would you ever willingly put yourself in a situation where you would want reality to confirm lowered expectations. That just seems like a depressing waste of time. Which leaves the final relationship: an unimaginable reality stemming from lowered expectations. Or for the purposes of this blog entry: The Night I Slept with a Princess.
The journey/safari through Tanzania was an amazing high. It was one of those unique experiences which at any given moment could awaken and heighten all of your senses, and it didn't disappoint. But like all good things, it eventually came to an end. Upon leaving my parents and the rest of the OAT tour group, Sara and I made our way to our next hostel. Gone were the comfortable, spacious beds and elaborate buffet meals, and back into our lives were thin-mattressed bunk beds and meals whose main redeeming quality was free sustenance. It's a chosen reality to which we've grown accustomed, and to which we begrudgingly re-entered following 10+ days of relative luxury. We had low expectations for Arusha. It's a major African city, and like most of them, it's crowded, dirty, and a little bit hectic. Roads are a combination of dirt and pavement with less than seamless transitions between the two. Lane markers, if there are any at all, are merely a suggestion and not a rule. When not cheating death by driving at death defying speeds, traffic is often at a stand still as people will again dance with death by driving on shoulders and the wrong side of the road to avoid a back-up, only to create more of a traffic nightmare in so doing. Your lungs are constantly filled with dust. Ears are deafened by car horns, yelling, loud music, and church services. It's not a city for sightseeing, but is generally used as hop off point for other adventures in the area. It's a city, that for anyone who really knows me, knows I would hate. I wasn't looking forward to spending 4 days here, but it was an amount of time, we thought, which would allow us plenty of time to venture out to see Mt. Kilimanjaro and allow for a couple days of inclement weather should that fate befall upon us. We never did venture out to Mt. Kilimanjaro and it was due in large part to my night sleeping with a princess.

Seconds (not an exaggeration) after we arrived at The Green Living Planet hostel, located just off a dirt 'road' navigable by foot just as quickly as by car, we were asked by Benson, the hostel owner, if we'd like to go to a party. It seemed like a better alternative than wasting the rest of the day cooped up in the hostel, and we were assured we'd be back by 10-11 pm so we could begin to recover sleep lost as a result of dawn to dusk daily safari adventures. The party was at a local hotel, which also piqued our interest, for if it would have been at someone's house, we likely wouldn't have attended as we knew nothing about our host and his friends, and were all too familiar with the quality of the average African dwelling.

Five of us got into Benson's small sports car, 3 of us white and 2 of African descent (including Benson). His driving style was not unlike everyone else, which is to say, it was typically harrowing. Nevertheless, our dust crusted clothing notwithstanding, we all made it to the hotel unsoiled. In our heads, we figured we were going to be hanging out in some hotel bar for a few hours. Perhaps we'd drink a Castle, Serengeti, Safari, Tusker, Kibo, or Ndovu beer, maybe a Savannah Dry cider or some Konyagi (gin) concoction, eat a few appetizers and then call it a night. Sara and I figured to mainly converse with each other and perhaps the other 2 hostel guests, but that aside from the free food and drinks, it would probably be a low-key evening. Lowered expectations.

In reality, we found ourselves as the guests of honor at a First Communion party for a 10 year old girl named Jillian. She was the niece of the man who owned the hotel and apparently had asked her family that there be Mzungus (Kiswahili word for: white people) at her party as a means of increasing her status symbol. As we walked through the gated entrance, a large L shaped patio greeted us. String lighting and tapestries of pink and white were draped everywhere. A tented eating area to our right preceded 2 tables covered with trays of food. Rounding the corner was the open bar, and another tented area where Jillian and her 2 best girlfriends were sitting at the head table, a dance floor, and dozens more tables filled with family and friends.

Lavish decor for first communion party

All told, there were a couple hundred of her closest friends and relatives in attendance with every single eye focused on 3 mzungus: me, Sara, and a Brit named Charley. Like the esteemed guests we were, decked out and over dressed per usual in our finest hiking pants and travel shirts, we were ushered to the head table where Jillian, dressed like a bride in a dress which may have cost more than Sara's actual wedding dress, and her 2 best friends, dressed like maids of honor, sat and waited. Apparently, they had been sitting, eating, and waiting alone for us at the head table for quite some time because we were, of course, late to the party. But let's face it, everybody is late for everything in Africa. Once seated, we sat with her for the remainder of dinner, enjoyed a buffet meal and free unlimited drinks, screamed conversation to one another as we listened to country and other American music blaring into our ears from a speaker practically sitting on our shoulders, snapped some photos with Jillian, all the while enduring inquisitive stares from everyone in attendance.

Esteemed mzungu guests of honor

Then the evening really got interesting. Once dinner ended, the entertainment portion began. Jillian and her friends were ushered to a table in the middle of the dance floor. Tables were cleared, the drinks were still flowing, and Sara and I sat and wondered what was to follow. Never would we ever have guessed that an extremely flamboyant man would scream gospel from the top of his lungs while frantically dancing around the stage like a kite in a hurricane. The fact that he was screaming gospel wasn't made known to us until later in the evening, but I'll get to that.

Gospel passion oozed from this energetic man

Once he finished his solo, a minister/MC for the event spoke Kiswahili and probably was saying some typical first communion stuff, whatever that may be. He then asked one of us to give a speech. A speech!? I was secretly hoping to be the one to give this speech, but as Sara and I were sitting in a corner and Charley, the Brit mzungu, was on the side of the table closest to the dance floor, he was chosen instead. Speaking British, to very few comprehending ears, he thanked everyone for their generosity and congratulated Jillian. He received a rousing applause, accompanied by the typical air raid siren sound emanating from the speaker which followed all statements garnering applause throughout the night, and returned to his seat.

The great orator, Charley

Jillian's god mother then read from the Bible, for what seemed like hours, while Jillian stared on blankly, as any 10 year old would be doing late on a Sunday night when someone reads the Bible to them after a huge meal and a full day of activities. Or was that me, staring on blankly, as any non-religious 35 year old would be doing late on a Sunday night, after a huge meal, many half liter bottles of luke cold African beer, and a full day of activities? Definitely both of us, but more so, the latter. 

Clearly enthused by the proceedings

Once that portion of the evening's entertainment thankfully ended, music started, and a procession of people, including me walked up to the stage to shower Jillian with monetary and other gifts. I believe I gave her a 1000 Tanzanian Shilling note (approx .60 cents). Tell me I'm not a good gift giver. When that ended, her mother was then front and center. The same thing was repeated. She was showered with gifts from the women in attendance. Then her father was seated front and center and he was showered with gifts from all the men in attendance. These communions are no joke. Jillian's uncle, the hotel owner and man who invited us to the event, then spoke some words, among which he thanked us for coming and told Jillian that these mzungus came here to celebrate you and your big day. Pretty sure I came for free food and drink, but the sentiment was appreciated. All the while, during these speeches and entertainment, goat was being served. Apparently, a goat BBQ, is traditional communion protocol. It was much appreciated because full glasses of terrible wine and Savannah Dry cider had replaced beer as the drinks of choice at our table.

Just as the parade of gift givers had finally returned to their seats, our flamboyant kite in a hurricane returned to sing more gospel. This time, the dance floor became flooded with people, including Sara and myself. We were dancing wildly to the Gospel, or, a catchy tune, as I prefer to remember it. Dance music then continued into the early Monday morning hours. We shared the floor with people of all ages who reveled in the glory that comes with dancing with world class mzungu dancers. The attire was what you would expect if you unleashed a large group of people of all ages in a second-hand store, told them to shop for a fun Sunday evening party, and then gave them 30 min to get ready. Everybody dressed like a clothing mullet. Some were classy up top with ratty footwear. Others had fancy shoes and Ocean City, Maryland (I kid you not), sweatshirt on top. Needless to say, every fabric ever invented, had full representation at this event. It was epic.

My wife dancing exuberantly to the Gospel

Benson, our hostel owner, with Jillian and friend

Clothing samples

My reward for excellent dancing

We danced. We laughed, We drank some more. We sweated profusely. We stuck out like sore thumbs. We closed the party down. Apparently, we made it back to the hostel, and I slept with a princess....blanket.

Totally unaware this picture existed until late in the next day

You never know how expectations will ultimately measure up to reality. We never did make it to Mt. Kilimanjaro. We spent that next day apparently recovering from something called a hangover. The following day, I dug a hole with a machete and helped plant some trees at a local African school.

Digging a hole with the best garden tool on the market, a dull machete.

Our last day in town was highlighted by a Dala Dala (a how many clowns can you fit into a car, crowded African van ride to town) to print off Turkish e-visas, and a visit to a local watering hole with a Merry Christmas banner hanging above the bar. Anymore, I find myself just as excited about going to a town/city for which we decided to visit yesterday as I do for a destination planned for many months ago. There's a level of excitement and intrigue in the spontaneous, relative unknown which doesn't exist in destinations you spent months researching. Months of planning leads to heightened expectations, and a greater potential for an unfulfilling reality. Seconds, minutes, and hours of planning is the shot in the arm a travel junkie needs for his next fix. Sometimes the high is realized beyond just the planning. like the first communion party. Other times, a destination seems exciting when reading about it, but falls flat in reality. There's value to be had in all of those experiences. Ultimately, it doesn't matter how you plan your next adventure. Just plan it, spend as little time living life's routine as possible, and don't always let perceived obstacles and expectations get in the way of what could be an amazing reality.