ferry to dar es salaam

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now i am back in dar es salaam and by no reasonable means. everything happened all at once yesterday in one long wild second. the time came to go and i went with solid water coming from the sky, no gaps between the droplets of rain, turning the dirt road into a mud river and i ran in a crouch through the night, late night, until i arrived soaked in all of the individual elements of africa: hard water, cattle patty, ash, garbage, spit of ancient ladies, the spit of infant babies who spit like grown men, the spit of cattle and one giant dead spider carcass in my hair.

crossing through town to the ferry terminal so late alone in the rain brought to mind all the various horrible horrible horrible horrible deeds so heard about in these parts at the hands of evil men, how the swords wave through the air to amputate a wrist and a wrist watch with it, they are eight feet tall shining black all but those holy white fangs glowing in the dark and speaking jambo jambo. i ran! so wet that my entire being and soul was actually infact one with the water in a way that i was actually flowing down the street more than running. buildings on the brink of crumbling that is stonetown stood up high and tall on all sides dark and not a man or woman in sight, pitch black.

the ferry terminal looming up and under a half collapsed umbrella waiting hassan's good brother ali, hassan left the day before, we had already sent the bike off earlier, on the "new happy' cargo freighter, now it was our turn to be freighted across the channel. at night with water where my eyes should be i couldn't see a thing, millions of wet families jamming towards something resembling a boat, piling up the gangway, squeezing in, good ali and i made our way. not a square inch of the craft left uninhabited when alls told, red eyed marijuana junky deep brown skinned hip kids took the whole rear of the ship and commenced getting incredibly high and calling me a mozongo and things that fit in the place of nigger if things were switched, at least two hundred wild fellows going crazy with cigarettes and beer too, all over... i hid for my life but did eventually creep out to see the thing take off out into the sea and stood with them and eventually made friends and convinced them i was not a snake.

i woke up and we were there, in dar es salaam, in the morning... ali and i discovered a fat man in a suite rocketing around the port on my bike, an official... i said "ali, that is my bike he is riding...there" and he said "no, not same" and i said "yes!" and we caught him and showed him the papers...we got it back and took off, petrol isn't cheap, those big dirt holes he was taking couldn't be cheap either. hakuna matata though...

and now i am here, in the pre-war cement bunker structure that is now a YMCA...dinner across the street at the "king-food" gas station egg house, the best egg and chip in town, long limbed young men in oversized suits slink in with tiny shiny black girls and one with a faded batman t-shirt and a rip in the armpit, my bill came to 80 cents. i have my mozambique visa too, already... it would have not been so if it wasn't for a kid about my age with an afro with a pre-war poloroid passport camera with four lenses that took my picture on the middle of the road infront of the embassy while his buddy held a piece of white rag behind my head.

love jasper

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