This question came up amazingly often during my first week in Tanzania, and I always answered with momentary silence followed by a stupid, awkward laugh. I reflected on this as I spent a good chunk of one early morning evacuating the contents of my bowels into a fairly functional flush toilet in a two-room canvas tent smack in the middle of the Serengeti, a chorus of wildebeest grunts accentuating each uncomfortable heave. Despite my digestive discomfort, there was a hot water bottle nestled in my bed, a plush bathrobe draped on a hook, and I was about thirty minutes away from having a French press full of steaming coffee delivered straight to my front flap. Here, I was rich – or at least rich-adjacent.

It felt sort of weird, this idea of being viewed as wealthy. I felt a complex swirl of guilt and defensiveness, tempered by the reminder that when I asked why there were going to be so many porters on my upcoming Kilimanjaro expedition, the answer was, “Everybody in Tanzania needs a job!” Halfway across the world, I was an eternally unzipped wallet. The Bank of Shawnté. A walking, talking dollar sign.

Except for at the moment, I wasn’t doing any walking or any talking – I was hunched over a cold toilet, groaning to myself, realizing the limits of my intestinal flora. I suddenly remembered the seemingly overzealous suggestion that I avoid all produce for my first few days in the country and immediately made a mental tally of the massive amount of vegetables I ingested in the name of hunger and in the hope of avoiding unidentifiable meat products.

Gurgle.

After some time, I reluctantly left my perch, packed my things, and staggered over to the Land Rover for one last game drive back to the airstrip. Once we touched down in Arusha, I bid adieu to my safari mates Debbie and Dan, then made a mad dash for the bathroom, where I was confronted with The Most Terrifying Thing given my current physical state:

The Drop Toilet.

Also known as a pit or squat toilet, this is basically a hole in the ground over which one hovers to do their business. Once you’re finished, you shake and spray – there’s usually a hose stashed in the corner of the room – or if you were brilliant enough to think ahead, use toilet paper that you smuggled in, then trudge the used bits out to a nearby waste basket for deposit.

Here at the airport, the setup was only vaguely civilized – cracked, wet tile and the stench of a thousand soiled diapers. Every square inch was wet with water or urine or some unidentifiable liquid other. I practiced squatting in various positions with my purse slung across my chest and my duffle balanced on my thighs, but upon realizing that I had no toilet paper and that the morning’s business was as yet unfinished, decided to wait for the clean porcelain familiarity of my sparkling hotel commode.

Waiting for me at the airport was a kind, quiet guy named Nico, a driver employed by the company I’d be trekking with on Kilimanjaro in the coming week. I was glad for his comfortable silence, a rarity so far in my chatty Tanzanian travels, because it allowed me not only to focus on clenching tight every inch of my war-torn digestive system, but also to think about all of the questions I’d been peppered with over the past few days. My drivers were all men, from my first airport pickup to my safari guides to Nico here, and their inquisitions were nearly identical:

Why did you come to Tanzania?

Do you believe in God?

Are you married?

Do you have children?

Are you traveling alone?

Intrusive and awkward? Sure. Malicious and judgmental? Not at all.

I came to Tanzania, I usually explained, because I’ve heard that the people are wonderful, the scenery is marvelous, the animals are magnificent, and because I want to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

I want to…well, I want to have an experience.

That last part sounds ridiculous, so in truth, I never said that out loud. Dear sir, I spent a Tanzanian lifetime’s worth of cold, hard, crisp, unwrinkled American dollars so I could drink hot coffee in a fancy tent, shit in a flush toilet on the Serengeti, marvel at a multitude of horned beasts, and traipse up a giant volcano. I want to experience your exotic culture and eat your exotic food and take pictures of your exotic scenery. I want to get away from my regular life for just a little bit and have an Adventure.

Instead, I piled on frothy platitudes about the Wonders of Tanzania and waited patiently for the next question.

“Do I believe in God?” [Noting the rosary draped around the rearview mirror.] “Wellllll, I’m a very spiritual person.” [Glancing at the dalla dalla ahead, where Tupac’s disembodied head floats above a neon pink splash of “GOD LOVES YOU!”] “Very, very spiritual, really.”

Once the driver replied with the usual praising of Jesus, I was then hit with the one-two punch of “Where is your husband? Where are your children?” In as many words, I replied that I was a childless singleton and patiently awaited the flood of gently pity-filled questioning that followed. “Ohhhhh, why are you not married? Why don’t you have children? How old are you? Do you want a husband? Why do you travel alone?”

After hearing this round of questioning often enough during my trip, I settled on the belief that there’s some sort of government-mandated pamphlet issued to all drivers titled “How To Make Small Talk With American Women.” It was like a mobile version of Groundhog Day.

One morning late into my trip, I was in a van driven by a talkative man named Abdullah, headed towards the grassy shores of Lake Duluti for a canoe trip. When he asked if I was married, I blurted out, “Why does everyone keep asking me that question?” I mean, outside of family reunions, I’d never had so many people interested in my relationship status as I did in Tanzania.

Abdullah chuckled. “Well, because when we see a woman traveling alone and we find out that she is not married, we know that she is honest and brave, and we think she is a warrior to come to Tanzania by herself.”

Ohhhhhhhhhhh. I let loose a huge, strangely proud smile. I could be into this.

Not a half hour later, my canoe guide Emmanuel unsurprisingly drilled through the requisite conversational blitz and after I responded that I was unmarried and traveling alone, he grinned and exclaimed, “Ah, you are like a female Maasai warrior!” I wanted to high-five him in the most serious way, but considering we were about two feet away from a toothy monitor lizard the size of a small child, I thought I’d better keep both hands on my paddle.

In my glorious Wonder Woman haze, I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier with Victor, after I asked him if women ever became safari guides. He said that he only knew one female guide, and explained that women weren’t usually as tough physically as you needed to be in order to deal with the very real dangers on safari, especially considering the violent poachers that roamed the area. “African women just aren’t raised to want to be that way,” he shrugged. “In the Western world, especially in the United States, women are raised to be human beings, but here, they’re raised to be women.”

I realize how that might read, but Victor wasn’t judging me, or American women, or Tanzanian women, for that matter – he was just making an observation based on his life experience in contrast to that of the constant influx of tourists he meets, same as any of the other men I conversed with during my trip.

When they found out that I was traveling alone and planned to climb Kilimanjaro, I suddenly commanded a strange sense of respect from the local men. “Oh, you must be tough! You must be strong!” But was I stronger than the countless mothers and sisters and daughters I saw lining the dusty roads, packages piled on their heads and across their broad shoulders, the weight of the world hung from their eyes? Did these men look at them and think they were tough, they were strong?

I don’t know. I didn’t expect to be hit with a wave of feminism in the shadow of Kilimanjaro, but I would think about these things during my coming week on the mountain – my place as a female traveler, as a female “climber,” as a female no different, yet so very different than those who surrounded me at the moment.

Well, I would think about those things until I was preoccupied with other things, I should say – like gasping for air at 18,000 feet whilst clung to a volcanic outcropping, pants around my ankles, freely blessing the frigid flanks of Kilimanjaro with arcs of champagne-colored urine under a starlit sky.

Yes, sometimes there were other things on my mind.

(To be continued…)

<< Previous: AFRICA, PT. 3 – Just Call Me Serengeti Jones

It was 5:45am and I was shockingly refreshed. I tumbled out of my soft nest and eventually made my way to the open-air restaurant where Anthony waited with a cup of coffee. It was now 6:30am and my flight left in exactly one hour. Where he’d been lackadaisical the night before (“Oh, it will only take fifteen, twenty minutes to get to the airport in the morning. Get some sleep and we will leave at 6:30!”), he now seemed in an awful hurry (“There is no time – we must go!”).

Before we departed, I checked my extra luggage with the hotel and in exchange was handed a very, very, very heavy box: breakfast. Inside were two pre-cracked boiled eggs, a bag of sliced carrots and zucchini, a yogurt, an orange, two tiny bananas, mango juice, and a bottle of water. My stomach felt fine from the previous night’s veggie assault, so I inhaled the box’s contents, suddenly starved.

As we left the hotel property, I took in the surroundings that were invisible the night before and it was immediately clear that if there are two things Westerners have sold to Tanzanians, its Jesus Christ and Coca-Cola. The soda giant must pour loads of money into the area, because the familiar swoopy red logo is festooned on nearly every stationary surface, including mileage signs. Christianity is also very present, primarily on the brightly colored minibuses (dalla-dallas) adorned with phrases like “Magic of God!,” “Hand Of God!,” “Power Of God!,” and “May God Be With You!,” accompanied by renderings of very godly men like Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg.

Turns out you might need to have the word of God painted on your vehicle as some sort of spiritual auto insurance, judging from the general absence of road rules and overall atmosphere of four-wheeled mania. In the light of day, Anthony blossomed into a certifiable lunatic behind the wheel. On a road with two lanes, he casually carved a third, eliciting a chorus of honks and hollers. He wove back and forth with abandon, slipping in between semis painted with Coca-Cola logos, dalla-dallas overflowing with people and chickens, and pickups boasting unsteady hay bale towers and ferrying enough men that they conceivably could, if they chose, lift up and carry the truck itself.

“I’m sorry for the crazy driving, but you drive crazy in Los Angeles, right?”

“Um, not quite like this.”

Then, after careening onto the dirt shoulder, past a line of rumbling trucks:  “Oh, this is illegal, I hope the police don’t see me!”

By the time we arrived at the airport, I had a slight case of lockjaw from forty-five minutes of clenching and I was about ready to throw up the twenty pounds of food I’d eaten. I made my flight with two minutes to spare.

Joining me onboard the tiny Cessna was an extremely pleasant Irish couple, David and Louise. We made small talk and marveled at the scenery below – first, volcanoes, then Maasai farmland, then the Serengeti, where we watched masses of wildebeest hoof across plains dotted with zebra and giraffe. The duo deplaned at the Lamai Airstrip to start their adventure, while I sat with our surly South African pilot waiting for another couple to board. After twenty long minutes passed, I wandered over and introduced myself. In return, I received a nod and a slow exhale of cigarette smoke. I took a more direct line of questioning:

“Soooo, how long have you been flying?”

Puff. “Six months.” Puff.

“Oh.”

As twenty minutes stretched into thirty stretched into forty, I watched a troop of baboons scamper around the airfield, wrote several pages in my journal, flipped through the in-flight magazine, and downed two bottles of water. Suddenly, I had to pee with a ferocity usually reserved for bladder infections. I scanned the area: there was the surly South African leaning against the plane, the baboons frolicking in the grass, and David and Louise enjoying an afternoon snack on a portable picnic table complete with checkered tablecloth, surrounded by at least six very attentive safari employees.

“Are there any bathrooms at the airstrip?” I asked Señor Chattypants.

Puff. “No.” Puff.

I tried not to think about peeing, but as you know, once you have to pee, it dominates your thoughts. I started to think about the people we were waiting for, who were now nearing fifty minutes late for their – my – plane. I considered joining the baboons for a wee, but thought better of it. I considered going behind the Cessna, but thought better of it. I considered hijacking the plane, but thought better of it.

My increasingly agitated thoughts were interrupted when the latecomers finally arrived, nearly sixty minutes tardy to the proceedings. They were middle-aged and spoke with a thick New Jersey accent.

“Oh my gawwwd, look at how small this plane is!” said the woman, who smelled of Aquanet and was clothed in a thick layer of cheetah-print fabrics.

“I’m sorry we were late, but we just haaaad to see one more crossing at the Mara River. I’m suuuuure you understand,” said the man, who was wearing one of those vests with all of the pockets that looked to contain nothing save for a few pieces of lint.

I shrugged my shoulders and pretended not to speak English.

When we landed at the Kogatende Airstrip a mere five minutes later, I bolted off the plane in search of a toilet, but was intercepted by a pack of gentlemen who quickly located my bags and directed me to a safari jeep containing four middle-aged Malaysian-Canadians (including the group’s ringleader Annie, who started most stories with, “When I was a young girl in the jungles of Borneo…”), one Maasai spotter, and one extremely happy guide named Good Luck who cheerfully exclaimed, “We are going to see some animals!”

I pushed aside the stabbing pain in my bladder as I struggled to process the parade of animals we encountered in our sixty minute drive to camp: gnarly wildebeest, elegant giraffe, lazy hippos, elegant antelope, adorable oribis, playful klipspringers, dirty warthogs, stunning zebras, beautiful impala, and one very secretive leopard.

I am in Africa. I am in Africa. I am in Africa.

The surreality continued at our remote installation, a collection of large canvas tents arranged in a semi-circle on acacia-studded plains populated with zebras and wildebeest. As soon as we jumped out of the jeep, we were showered with hospitality – hellos and hot towels and drinks and snacks – and then I ran for the toilet. Peace at last.

After dinner, we ventured out into the golden light in search of the big cat we saw earlier; when we arrived at our destination, a large pile of boulders, we had the extreme fortune of seeing real, live leopard sex. Do you know what it’s like to watch two leopards doin’ it in the wild, within spitting distance of your fairly unprotected person? I’ll tell you what it’s like – it’s insanely awesome. The dominant man-leopard flexed, grunted, and circled the submissive lady-leopard with a sort of hip-hop swagger, then positioned himself and went to town with a powerful staccato rhythm, staring out at his audience as if to say, “Who’s your daddy?”

We saw a lion that evening, too, but it was just lounging around, so it wasn’t nearly as exciting.

After a stunning sunset, we returned to camp and were escorted to our respective tents as insurance against any predators dragging us off dingo-ate-my-baby-style into the night. Outside my tent, which was the last structure before the neverending wilderness, stood two men with spears. Spears. They nodded soberly as I thanked them. Not too long after, I snuggled against the chill and fell asleep to a chorus of howling hyenas.

Lala salama.

Good night, Tanzania.

It’s hard to think that anything in the world could possibly top leopard sex (it really was that fantastic), but I woke with an open mind. Wrapped in warm layers, I slowly drained a cup of powerful coffee and watched the bleating wildebeest eat their way around the grass outside my tent as the sun rose. I felt like both observer and participant, no barriers between myself and the wild African morning unfolding in my midst. It was one of the most magical feelings I’ve experienced in my entire life.

It wasn’t the only magic the day had in store. I joined Toronto newlyweds Debbie and Dan, and led by our fantastic guide Victor, we began the day’s safari drive with a bit of exciting bloodshed as we came across two lion cubs feasting on a fresh wildebeest carcass. Here I realized just why I was so enthralled with the previous day’s leopard sex – it was a display of sheer power, unlike anything I’d seen in any zoo or on any hike. It was fierce, feral, and undeniably beautiful. I reveled at the concentration in the cubs’ eyes, the blood on their chins. One moment they were buried deep inside the beestie’s abdomen, the next, gnashing at its hide.

Afterwards, we rolled past a veritable encyclopedia of the African animal kingdom en route to scouting a wildebeest crossing of the Mara River, part of their famous annual migration. Along the way, I had to pee – and as you may have guessed, there are no Porta-Potties in the Serengeti.

Victor was reassuring: “If you are separate from the jeep, a lion or buffalo will see you as prey and will kill you, so just keep your back to the jeep.” I looked out at the vast ocean of hoofed animals and didn’t see any lions or buffalo. “Um…okay.”

I nervously slid along the vehicle, made my way to the back, and positioned myself underneath the spare tire. I’ve never felt as exposed as I did with my bare buns hovering mere yards away from an assortment of large creatures with horns. In retrospect, I feel you haven’t really lived until you’ve squatted behind a Land Rover in the Serengeti.

Back in the relative safety of our metal cocoon, we arranged the departure of Debbie and Dan, who were heading off to have a romantic lunch at some fancy locale, and Victor and I settled in to wait for the wildebeest crossing. When it finally began, we raced to the river’s edge and I watched with fascination as hordes of beesties transformed into a lemming stampede, rushing down the embankment and splashing through the crocodile-infested waters of the Mara River in an unparalleled frenzy.

As the excitement wound down, Victor suggested we venture closer to the Kenyan border, so we drove Indiana Jones-style across a flooded bridge and through rolling hillsides filled with beasts of all sizes. There were ostriches and zebras and lions and waterbucks, and miles and miles of open landscape stretching out to a vast horizon. I stood at the border and felt insignificant, understanding my miniscule place in this enormous world.

That evening’s communal dinner was filled with excited chatter – What did you see? You won’t believe what I saw! – which slipped into serious discussions of what led to each one of us occupying our chairs that evening. A Vancouverite named Cliff offered up a Steve Jobs quote (from his speech at Stanford University’s 2005 spring commencement ceremony):

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path; and that will make all the difference.

I went back to my tent and mulled over the day, the week, my life. I followed my heart and my gut when I planned this trip, not knowing what I would experience or feel, and so far I’d spent my time in Africa appreciating every moment, not concerned about the next. I felt content and full of gratitude as I once more fell asleep to the symphony of the Serengeti.

Then I woke up the next morning with the worst diarrhea of my life.

(…to be continued…)

<< Previous:  AFRICA, PT. 2 – Takeoff

>> Next: AFRICA, PT. 4 – Tales of Gastrointesinal Fortitude

all pictures are by Shawnté Salabert

Feeling only marginally refreshed, I found a spot near the boarding door and surveyed my fellow passengers. There were a few younger people with overstuffed backpacks, but most everyone around me blended into a pale, middle-aged blur of beige, khaki, and affluence. I didn’t conduct a scientific survey, but I’d wager that at least 60% of those present had a Tilley hat attached to their person in some way, shape, or fashion. There were also a lot of brand new cargo vests on display, which made me wonder – why do they need all of those pockets? I made a silent bet that some of them never even put one single item into one single pocket of their vest during their entire trip.

I suddenly felt very alone, and in my tired state I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I began pondering this emotional dilemma when I felt something at my back. I turned to see a short, stout elderly woman vigorously shaking her hand at me and speaking in what sounded like rapid-fire Russian.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand?” I said, throwing my hands up in the universal gesture for “I dunno.”

In response, I received more angry Russian and a strong slap to my backpack, which was nestled snugly against my back.

“Hey! Excuse me! Why did you just hit my backpack? I can’t understand you!”

This time, she returned my inquiry with a disgusted look and proceeded to stand directly behind me, her forehead gently resting on my offending pack. Completely confused, I inched forward…and she followed. Someone nearby snickered.

I turned around again. “Pardon me, but would you mind giving me a little bit of space?”

More Russian. One more backhand to the pack.

Perplexed and frustrated, I was about to relinquish my spot in the waiting area when a younger man rushed up to apologize. “It is my mother,” he said in broken English. “I am sorry for her.” With this and no other explanation, he led her away to an open spot several feet ahead where she spent the last ten minutes before boarding turning towards me in 30-second intervals, her face set to various levels of loathing.

I was incredibly grateful that she was nowhere to be found when I finally boarded. Instead, my seatmate was a young twentysomething from Atlanta named Susan who was returning to Tanzania after spending a few months back home with family. Curious, I asked what she was doing in Africa and she replied that she spent over a year volunteering with the O’Brien School for the Maasai, which educates several hundred children from a nearby village. As she explained the school’s mission, I snapped out of my airport fugue and back into reality:

Tanzania. Maasai. Africa.

In eight hours I am going to be in Africa.

***

Once Susan fell asleep, I stared out of the window and after some time, realized from the flight tracking display that we were coasting over Northern Africa. From where I sat, the slice of Egypt below appeared an unending, undulating canvas of pinkish sand, and I wondered how Tanzania would look from the top of Kilimanjaro.

In between daydreaming and a few tiny naps, I tried to learn a serviceable amount of Swahili from pages I’d impulsively torn from my guidebook and shoved in my purse on the way to the airport back in Los Angeles. I mumbled the foreign sounds under my breath, tossing words like habari and kwaheri against my tongue to see how they felt, grateful for the pronunciation guides printed alongside them. When Susan woke, she taught me what turned out to be the most useful word of all, “mambo,” an informal greeting I would end up using upwards of two hundred million times a day.

As the plane finally dipped through the night sky towards Kilimanjaro International Airport, I felt adrenaline flood my weary body; this was as awake as I’d been in the last twenty-four hours. I strained to see anything at all, but it was just too dark. With a quick jolt, we were on Tanzanian terra firma. I followed Susan off of the plane into the warm, heavy air and peeled off a layer. It didn’t seem like I was in Africa; was I really?

Inside, I shuffled over to the visa line, waving Susan goodbye and promising to call her if I had any free time during my trip. Now I was a stranger in a strange land, running through my limited Swahili in my head, hoping I didn’t lose it in my mental chaos, hopeful for the chance to use it as soon as possible. Nobody knows me here, and I know nobody. Mambo, Tanzania, mambo.

The line crawled forward and as I turned a corner, I saw the cranky Russian lady and her son waiting a few rows back…and she was standing nose to zipper with someone else’s backpack. It was fascinating, like watching history on rewind – the pack’s owner gave her a few sidelong glances, then reacted exactly as I had half a day before…and the old woman reacted as she had earlier: angry Russian, backpack slap, repeat. It was mesmerizing to watch this unfold, almost an out-of-body experience. Or maybe that was just the jetlag.

Preoccupied with the drama, I almost didn’t notice that it was my turn to step up to the window. “Mambo!” I said a bit too loudly to the unenthused man behind the window. I waited for “Poa,” which Susan explained was the typical response, but all I received was silence and an impatiently outstretched hand into which I nervously deposited some paperwork, my passport, and five brand new twenty-dollar bills. Apparently government workers in Tanzania aren’t all that more excited about their jobs than government workers in the United States.

Within thirty seconds, the hand shot back through the opening in the window and flung one of the bills back at me with no explanation. I felt strangely offended as I studied Andrew Jackson’s face. I knew Tanzania required all U.S. bills to be intact, unmarked, and from 2006 or sooner – and I meticulously inspected all of my cash before I left home. Nervously I scanned the twenty until I found the tiniest of tears along the edge. Seriously, buddy? Seriously? Exasperated, I rooted around in my bag until I found my emergency stash, then covertly slipped out another twenty and placed it into the hand, which retreated back under the window as if spring-loaded to retract under the weight of perfectly unblemished money.

Bingo.

Visa in hand, I blew through customs and exploded into the muggy night under the weight of two weeks’ worth of mountain-going, safari-seeking luggage, scanning faces for any sign of familiarity. Who was I kidding?

But there – a placard reading SALABERT.
Pure, unfiltered, overtired relief flooded my entire body.
I was no longer alone in Africa.

The sign holder was Anthony and he was my one-man welcoming committee. I waited in the front seat and reflected on reality as he paid the parking attendant: I was sweating profusely in a modified safari jeep in a foreign country, ready to be driven to a nearby village by a strange man, with a soundtrack of cackling monkeys booming in surround sound. Surreality check.

After a few minutes, Anthony returned, slammed on the gas, and lurched from the brush onto a semi-paved road lined with pedestrians carrying all manner of things, mostly on their heads: bundles of wood and baskets of produce, bags of this and boxes of that. My new friend was a chatty fellow and with barely any prompting, I learned that he used to be a park ranger (but quit after two of his fellow ranger buddies were killed by poachers), then a guide on Kilimanjaro (until the cartilage in his knees called it quits), until landing at his current position.

Once disposed of his work history, Anthony turned towards me and asked what I later came to understand as The Most Popular Question Asked By Tanzanians Of Women Traveling Alone:

“Are you married?”

I paused for a few seconds – was this a trick question? Was it bad that I was traveling alone and didn’t wear a wedding band? I decided to go with honesty to see how it played out.

“No, I’m not.”

“Oh, yes, I understand – the men are snakes! They want the cake, they eat it, then they leave! How do you control the tomcats?” He threw his hands up and laughed. “You don’t!”

I guess Anthony wasn’t going to be judging me, after all.

“The problem with marriage in Tanzania is that because of our religion, you cannot get divorced, and that is why a lot of women die wondering why their life was so bad.”

Wait a minute…is Anthony a feminist?
Tanzania was already full of surprises.

Turns out my new buddy had several daughters and wants them to get an education so they can support themselves and not rush into marriage. He said that Tanzanian families used to be a lot larger, where the children were an integral part of helping out at home and in the fields – not unlike the situation my great-grandmother faced with her children back in the day in Arkansas, I told him. But now, families tend to be smaller because it’s very expensive to send children to school.

Some time later we drove past a ramshackle guardpost, a gaggle of women in colorful dresses, and a monkey or two, then pulled up to Rivertrees Country Inn, the de facto home base where I’d spend the first and last evenings of my trip, plus one night in between my safari and Kili climb. A swarm of helpful people descended upon my luggage and carted it away into the dark as I was greeted by a youngish guy named Samson.

“Mambo,” I squeaked out.
“Poa,” he responded with a smile.
“Habari za jioni,” I squeaked out.
“Nzuri, asante,” he responded with a smile.

Phew. My Swahili doesn’t totally suck.

In the midst of this exchange of foreign syllables, a waiter pressed a small glass of frothy pink liquid into my hand – watermelon juice. I studied it, thought for a moment about intestinal distress, then threw it back like a shot of tequila. I felt dizzy with excitement – I Am In Africa And I Just Spoke Swahili To Someone And They Totally Understood Me And I Am Drinking African Watermelons!!!! – but Anthony crashed my high when he turned towards me with stern eyes and intoned, “I’m sure they are very clean here, but you do not want to eat fruit or vegetables the first two days you are in Tanzania.” He gave me a hard look. “And definitely do not eat any salads they give to you.”

I looked at poor Samson, who was clearly trying to compose himself after this culinary insult. He straightened up a bit in his chair. “I assure you, we wash all vegetables with purified water.” Suddenly, all I wanted in the world was a vegetable. All vegetables. I spent over twenty-four hours on planes and in airports, eating things that were flash-frozen, vacuum-sealed, and reconstituted. Visions of glistening tomatoes and neon-hued lettuces danced around in my brain. I didn’t just want vegetables, I needed fresh, delicious Tanzanian produce.

So despite Anthony’s mini lecture about food hygiene, I ate fresh, delicious Tanzanian produce about ten minutes after he waved goodbye. Samson set the biggest, most incredible salad in front of me, studded with superhuman quantities of avocados, squash, onions, feta, tomato, cucumbers, and chutney. I shoveled in every single morsel, then turned my attention towards emptying a giant piping bowl of pureed butternut and potato soup, finishing it all off with a heaping plate of zucchini casserole. Vegetable smackdown complete, I then waddled towards my room, suddenly recalling Susan’s warning on the plane that people often gain weight when visiting Tanzania.

After some time showering and divvying up what I’d take on safari and what I’d leave behind for the mountain, I shuffled over to the huge four-poster bed, wiggled past the mosquito netting, and curled up inside my gauze cocoon, feeling the weight of the day and the massive dinner pulling my eyelids lower and lower. In my fading consciousness, I registered the quiet buzzing of any number of unspecified and potentially disease-transmitting insects, the gentle murmur of the Usa River, the whir of the ceiling fan, and…

Oh my god, what the hell is jumping on the roof?!

To be continued…

<< Previous:  AFRICA, PT. 1 – Genesis

>> Next:  AFRICA, PT. 3 – Just Call Me Serengeti Jones

As it was with Kilimanjaro.

In 2010, along with my friends Casey and Rebecca, I decided to hike Mt. Whitney and spent months on end buried deep inside a glorious pile of mountain mysticism. Summits were sexy, and though Whitney was our desired goal, Kilimanjaro began seducing me from afar.

The first external record of my Kili infatuation was on June 3^rd that year. Casey emailed that he was organizing a charity hike up a local icon, Mt. Baldy, and I volleyed back that we should also consider a charity hike up Kilimanjaro the following year; “Dream Small” has never been in my vocabulary.

That same day, I emailed my friend Laura:

I’d like to put in an advance request to go on a trip together someday. Somewhere European. Or Buenos Airesian. I’m also thinking about climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa next year. Weird, right? Yeah. I know. Listen, if Jessica Biel can do it, I can do it.

Once you invoke the competitive playground spirit of celebrity comparisons, it’s essentially Game On.

From there, the fever grew hotter and more all-encompassing. I pored over message boards, devoured articles, nudged Casey incessantly, and generally fantasized about standing on top of Africa belting out various numbers from The Lion King soundtrack at full volume. But as with all great crushes, I was too chicken to take action, so my mountain madness was relegated to local ranges while I quietly pined for something more.

***

Many peaks and valleys later, about a year after we summitted Mt. Whitney, my mind wandered back to the enticing flanks of Kilimanjaro, courtesy of a handsome gentleman my friends and I refer to as “Mountain Husband,” or “MH” for short.

Yes, that’s a nickname for a nickname.

Allow me to explain.

MH is a total Sierran stud. He runs a mountaineering company, guides mountaineering trips, and spends his free time…mountaineering. He’s been on top of Mt. Everest several times. Sev-er-al tiiiimes. I first caught wind of this prince of the peaks through his talks about Mt. Whitney at a local sporting goods store; he was tanned and taut, smart and smiling – how could I not bat my little SmartWool-clad eyelashes in his direction?

Alas, between the fact that this alpine Adonis lives 80,000 miles away and the fact that he was not aware of my existence, a romance was not to be. Instead, I admired him from afar and leapt at any chance to gaze upon his hunky face and learn stuff about mountains. Thus I forwarded Casey and Rebecca information about an upcoming MH appearance in the autumn of 2011, along with the following message:

Please scroll to the bottom and notice that my Mountain Husband is doing a presentation on Kilimanjaro on Friday, October 14th at the West LA Adventure 16 at 7pm. I will be in attendance, and I hope you will, too.

Ever the crush-enabler, Rebecca joined me that evening and successfully Svengali’d multiple opportunities for me to engage with this granite god. From my middle school diarist brain came this play-by-play email to Casey afterwards:

Rebecca picked some strategic seats for us during the presentation (aka right next to the projector, where he ended up sitting all night, and I ended up feeling like a schoolgirl with a crush all night). At one point, MoHu stood in front of us, kind of fidgeting with his nalgene, sort of chatting while applying a fresh A16 sticker. It seemed he was attempting to engage us, so we became engaged. I told him of Michael’s comment that morning at work that my nalgene made me look like I was drinking from a mason jar. He found that funny and said it was important to stay hydrated, especially during his presentation. It was then that I held aloft a plastic cup filled with delicious wine and said, “I am.” He then inquired about my wine and we talked briefly about wine and talked about Chile and Argentina and Patagonia and my desire to climb mountains and travel and I got really red and I could feel how shiny my face was and after it was over, I promptly got an A16 sticker and like a schoolgirl, affixed it to my nalgene when I got home.

Yes, I am a dork.

And yes, that was a nickname for a nickname for a nickname embedded in that missive.

Sigh.

I wrote MH a casual (read: NOT CASUAL AT ALL) email via Facebook mentioning our monumental discussion of South American wines and my desire to join him in a romantic climb of Kilimanjaro at some point. He responded by giving me his personal email (!!!) and offering to climb with me in Southern California, which provoked an internal meltdown and subsequent declaration to my friend Mo: “I’m a bunny slope, and he’s a double black diamond. OMG. I’m mildly freaking out.”

(This is quite embarrassing.)

MoHu also sent me a gigantic packet of Kilimanjaro information and informed me that his company offered trips in February and June…and after diligently and excitedly reading every single word of every single thing he sent to me, I came to the sudden realization:

Climbing Kilimanjaro costs a bajillion dollars.

Well, damn.

***

I shelved my dream of African adventure for well over a year until this past March. Inspired by a patch of deep, deep thinking about what really, really makes me happy, I once more started swishing around the possibility and came to the conclusion that in addition to friends and family, I also need:

Travel. Nature. Adventure. Curiosity. The inspiration of The Great Unknown.

Mix those things up with a bit of hard-earned savings and an understanding boss and you have a recipe for Well, What Are You Waiting For, Woman?

And so I knew. It wasn’t just that my bank account was ready for the smackdown or that the guy who writes my paychecks was perpetually understanding of my flights of fancy – it was that my heart and soul (and hindquarters) were ready for this mountain.

Thus I devoured the internet’s cumulative Kilimanjaro content in an impressive flurry, chewing through blogs, route descriptions, packing lists, Flickr albums, and outfitter reviews at a feral pace. In my obscenely manic state, I created a digital empire of spreadsheets, tables, and lists. I ordered a multitude of Kilimanjaro and Tanzania-related books from Amazon. I priced out an assortment of air travel options. I started peppering “Kili” into most conversations, probably if anything to convince myself that I was actually going to do this thing.

During this adrenaline-stoked phase, I slowed down only to have a good think about a travel buddy. I batted the idea around with a few people, none of whom were ready to commit to my particular brand of mountain insanity, and in the process acknowledged that despite all the silliness about Jessica Biel and MoHu, this trip was really about something tucked deep inside of me…and I was going to go it alone.

There are a lot of fears that buck up when you make decisions like this: fears that I wasn’t physically ready, that I wouldn’t be able to afford the trip, that I would feel lonely, that I would find answers to questions I’d been asking myself for a long time and then not be able to deal with those implications.

So yeah – this was about more than just a mountain.

I spent the better part of two months with my head down, chewing through research and engaging with companies near and far until I finally chose an outfitter. When I did, it felt like the completely, absolutely right decision, ordained by the cosmos or something equally fantastical, as if delivered by a unicorn blazing across the sky with a rainbow shooting out of its butt, shouting “YES, SHAWNTÉ, THIS IS MEANT TO BE!”

As I paid the deposit for my trip, I almost physically felt the fear slip from within me, and the seemingly impossible dream became reality:

I was going to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.

In three months.

By myself.

***

The summer blew by in a flurry of sweat and commerce. I spent my time divided between work, mountains, and the overpriced aisles of REI, and watched as my bank account went from healthy to ohdearlordwhathaveyoudone. Typical entries on my calendar included “hike,” “climbing gym,” “squats,” “abs,” “stairs,” and “Yoga Booty Ballet” (don’t judge), and I’m surprised that none of my friends punched me after my constant declarations of “Sorry, I can’t do _______, I gotta get some elevation in this weekend.”

In mid-July, my buddy Anna hosted an awesome birthday slumber party in my honor. During a particularly heated round of Mall Madness, she interrupted our game with a blunt announcement: “This is your birthday gift.” With that proclamation, she flicked on the television and I spent two and a half minutes flooding my face with tears:

My incredible, loving friend MaryEllen organized and created the whole thing in secret; in addition to producing that amazing video, she encouraged friends near and far to chip in a few bucks to help with the cost of my trip – and their insanely generous contributions paid for my (very expensive) plane fare halfway across the world.

That was one of the most beautiful and humbling things I’ve ever experienced; I still reach for a tissue (or twelve) watching that video today.

The next few weeks passed in a blur. In the dwindling days of my pre-Africa life, I took stock of my situation – over the course of several months, my ab (sort of) developed a partner, I could go for a short run without completely blowing out my soccer-damaged knees, and I was able to motor up to my favorite high-altitude alpine lake without panting like a dog in the desert. I also now owned a metric ton of fresh gear – gigantic ski gloves, glacier glasses, a pee funnel…

Oh, don’t worry – you’ll hear all about that one soon enough.

My workload was covered, my cat would be watched, and I had a wad of crisp, post-2006 cash in hand (turns out Tanzania is a bit anal-retentive about these things); there wasn’t much else to do, so I spent my last weekend swaying in a hammock in the Sierras, watching the clouds pass and reflecting on what Africa had in store for me.

Then on August 14, 2013, I bid adieu to life as I knew it and stepped on a plane bound for The Great Unknown.

>> Continue reading: “AFRICA, PT. 2 – Takeoff”