Farewell to Africa

When I started this posting, I was smugly sitting watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean, from our hotel in Zanzibar. Who says that? Who does that? But the reality is that is precisely what I was doing. I was considering the then coming end of the first leg of our journey. Fighting through the engrained cynicism and curmudgeonly persona that I wear like the OJ glove, I was struck by this feeling that I may be the luckiest man alive. You know that’s not an easy admission for me. Happiness was always a state of modest discomfort for me. It required an admission of sorts that I was not prepared to make. I remember when I arrived in LA for law school, I used to relish in my reputation as the disaffected New Yorker. The Woody Allen of the latter day (before his marriage to his step-daughter). Oddly, one of my proudest moments in college was when the editor of my college newspaper referred to me as the “acerbic fuck.” That, to me, was the realization of my objective of escaping from being the nerdy Connecticut kid, the wannabe New Yorker, who never did anything wrong. Fast forward a bit, and there I was sitting watching the sunset on the Indian Ocean from Zanzibar.

Why am I the luckiest man alive? I’m certainly not the wealthiest nor am I the smartest or the most successful. I have, however, been able to live out a dream. It was my dream with Melissa to take a moment, maybe only a brief moment, but a moment nonetheless when I could, with my family, step off the treadmill to experience life in a different way. The reality is that there were a million reasons that we might have rightly decided to not take this opportunity. It did not come at the right time for us, financially. We both had to leave good and respectable jobs. We had to temporarily say good bye to a community that, more so in any time in our lives, we love. Our daughters were utterly opposed to the trip. And the list goes on and on. Over the years, when Melissa and I had talked about this trip, it always had the feeling of the what-would-we-do-if-we-won-the-lottery conversation. It never seemed real. Yet, I have won some lottery-if not the kind that pays the bills. Of course, part of me feels that it will all come crashing down in some awful sordid fashion and turned into a made for tv movie. I only hope that one of our friends makes the movie. However, in those rare moments, when I can push aside the moments of self-loathing or doubt, I cannot escape feeling. . .happy. Please don’t tell anyone.

Now, here I am on a plane en route to Dubai on our way to Bangkok. We are flying Emirates Air. Needless but embarrassed to say, I had some misgivings about flying Emirates Air and landing in Dubai. A friend of mine in college, who was an even more assimilated Jew than I, told me once that when he walked into one of the fraternities at school, the red “Jew light” went on. That’s a bit how I felt walking onto the Emirates Air plane bound for Dubai.

In reflecting on our time in Africa, I have found that I have fallen in love with Tanzania. Africa was always a place of romantic moment to me. It seemed truly foreign and exotic. Our blogs have discussed at length the challenges confronting Tanzania, the myriad differences between life in the US and life in Tanzania, etc., so I will not repeat. As we have said, people don’t avert their eyes as they walk past each other, people greet each other as if they really care about each other, the elderly are revered and respected. All of this in the context of indescribable poverty.

Tanzania has touched me in other ways that I did not anticipate. As a good liberal, I always mouthed the right words about racism and considered myself on the right side of the issues. Yet, I have always surrounded myself with people who act and look much like I do. In Africa, no one looked like me, except for my family and they usually cross the street when they see me. Here I never felt apprehension. Indeed, I felt that I made connections with Tanzanians that I simply would/could never make in LA. As I considered that, it occurred to me, in a real way for the first time, that racism cheats both the victim and the bigot. I certainly don’t think that’s a profound sentiment, but it provided me another prism though which to consider race in America. I also felt, again for the first time in a meaningful way, how crippling entrenched racism can be.

Finally, the relationships that we made in Tanzania with the locals, the other volunteers and the staff have been profound. I hope that we will be able to continue to foster these relationships as time goes by. Long distance relationships are tough, but these are worth preserving.

Now. . Thailand.