And like that, two months have passed since I left home,
though I could be persuaded to believe that it’s only been a few weeks. I left
Samburu a week ago with the usual torrent of emotions that start forming days
before I go but are shoved back down and dealt with once the place is squarely
in the rear view mirror, and rarely a moment earlier.
After almost 20 trips, my final 24 hours in Samburu has
become terribly predictable, which is ironic given that all of the days leading up to the final day are full of unpredictability. To
begin, the word of mouth network in this community is thorough, flawless, and
usually short on news; something as simple as "that one mzungu is leaving tomorrow" can make it into the pipeline. So on the day before my departure I’m often greeted
by people – some whom I don’t know well -- with some variation of “I heard you are
leaving tomorrow. Safe journey!” At some point during the harried part of the final
day, when I’m trying to wrap up a long list of loose ends and good-byes,
someone will contact me with a questionable explanation for why I owe them more
money. These instances are usually short-sighted and grounded in a corrupted
slate of ethics that could rival the U.S. tobacco or banking lobby. A few weeks
ago I paid the entry fee to a local conservancy for all 14 of my students
during our field course. The amount due was
given in dollars but I paid in Shillings based on a widely-accepted exchange rate
around here of 80 Shillings per dollar. The
transaction had gone smoothly at the time.
On the day before I left the country, I was chased down and told they use a rate of 85
Shillings and therefore I owe 200 more Shillings, the equivalent of about
$2.50. When I note the suspiciousness of this timing, it’s met with empty
stares as though it’s me, not them, who is being questionalbe. On the spot, I
called a lovely (and impulsive) woman at the bank where I have an account – she divulged her love for me in an email within 24 hours after I opened the account,
which I took as an extraordinary level of customer service -- and she told
me the rate that day was 80.8 Shillings. The money-grubbing conservancy manager
told me they "round up” which didn’t make much sense in the world of rounding
up, to go from 80.8 to 85. I don’t participate in these debates for long because there’s less logic in
the discussion than a Rick Perry speech. I could just put it off for the day and leave,
but people love gossip and trash talk here so that’s the tradeoff in leaving
behind a perception to some that I skipped out on a bill of $2.50. It’s just easier to pay it, make a silent
pledge to deliberate about supporting the place in the future, and later on deal with the effect has on
my hopes for this place.
More comically, there’s always the same woman – I’ve never known
her name – that finds me in town on my last full day to ask for start-up funds to
open up a shop for her latest entrepreneurial idea which has varied between
selling tomatoes, fixing motorcycles and washing people’s hair. She wears a wig, and she’s often drunk. I assume it’s her inebriation that explains
why each time we meet the wig sits a little bit differently on her head.
Sometimes it’s situated forward and low over her forehead causing the wig’s
bangs and her eyelashes to become entangled, but she often treats the irritation as a
housefly and bats at her eyes to shoo it away. Other times the wig is a little further
clockwise and tilted on her head causing her to look like her head is tilted to
the side, as though feeling quizzical about something. Once it was just a big mess,
like birds recently had a fight in it.
Our interaction is always friendly, quick and my response is never in
her favor. She always accepts my reply with a smile and says “maybe next time,”
and staggers along.
By late afternoon on my last day I stop with the loose ends
and accept it’s not all going to get done. The simplest of tasks rarely takes
the time it should, and that quickly compounds throughout the day when you have
a dozen things you had hoped to take care of but are barely half way through
and it’s the end of the day. Instead, I take a final game drive, typically with
more kids in the car than I realized I had allowed. I think I have six or seven, and half-way
through the drive I look back and see 14, some of whom are not familiar but
give me gigantic grins when we make eye contact. The rangers at the entry,
dressed in their issued camouflage and large guns draped across their bodies,
smile widely at the scene as we approach and open the gate with no questions
about the children I have temporarily abducted. They know what I’m up to and
never charge any of us a fee.
We bounced along slowly on the corrugated roads of Samburu
National Reserve in my beloved Bush Car, stopped to peer at all animals great
or small, giving each one equal viewing time as my subtle way to teach them
that all animals are amazing, though elephants always get a little more time
because of their curious behavior, and it’s funny to see kids vacillate between
utter excitement and complete fear as an elephant walks within 30 feet of the
car. I indulged in the beautiful colors
of the Samburu sky at dusk with a group of kids who rarely get to see the
wildlife in the park so close to their home, whose mothers most likely had no
idea of their whereabouts and likely weren’t worried about it. That’s just how
it is around here, for better or for worse.
I dropped all of the kids off in a central location
afterward, and they all ran home in different directions, perhaps excited to
tell their mothers and friends about riding in a car and seeing wildlife, or
maybe because kids just like to run.
I left the next morning for Nairobi, and as usual, I felt
mixed: accomplished and reassured that it’s
not entirely ridiculous for me to invest myself in a place 9,000 miles from
home, uncertainty if this place will ever truly be better someday, and humility
at how good natured, hopeful and hard-working many people here are – especially
young people – despite an environment in which they could understandably be
precisely the opposite.
And then it was off to Mauritius, an island 2,000 miles off
the African mainland, due east of Madagascar, former home of the extinct dodo
bird, and with the world’s #2 rated air quality. It’s also where four of my first 24 hours
were spent in a customs and immigration office sitting on a stool without my
shoes and with four officers looking at me while one held an envelope marked
“confidential.”
According to one index of good governance of African
countries, Mauritius received an 88% rating and an overall #3 ranking of all
countries on the continent. I learned
this a few weeks ago while preparing for my trip here, and I recalled this fact
to myself while I sat on my stool, realizing there must be a reason it
didn’t receive the #1 or #2 ranking on good governance, and perhaps I was in that gap between #3 and the two positions above it.
For U.S. citizens, visas to Mauritius can be acquired on
arrival and there’s no fee. So I was a
bit unhinged when things started going amiss when answering the questions at
the visa counter. Why was I traveling here? To facilitate a workshop. For whom? The Durrell Institute of
Conservation. The what? I repeated the
name. Who’s your contact? Jaime (last name omitted).
What’s his phone number? I have no idea.
Where are you staying? Pereybere Hotel. How are you getting there? I
don’t know; I’m figuring that out after
your interrogation.
He scanned my passport along its edge on his machine. The
machine wouldn’t read it. He tried again. Still no luck. He looked at me as though somehow I had
something to do with this. He typed in the information manually, studied his
screen, and typed some more. And then some more. And then it wasn’t typing but
aggressively pressing keys one by one, like he was mad at the keyboard. People on either side of me were sailing
through immigration, barely breaking stride in the process with their big smiles and friendly greetings by the Mauritius authorities.
While looking at his screen he asked me if I had been to
Jordan. Yes, I was there in May.
Within seconds of my response I realize I had forgotten to
list Jordan on the part of the visa paperwork that asked which countries I had
traveled to in the past six months.
“I completely forgot. It was a last minute trip for five days.” I realized how absurd that might have sounded; who travels to Jordan "last minute?" But sometimes the truth is absurd.
“From May 16 to May 21,” he said sternly, in a clear attempt to
communicate that he had information in front of him that gave him power.
“See? Like I said, five days,” I said, in a vain attempt to
highlight my honesty.
He asked if I had an invitation letter on letterhead from
the sponsoring organization, the one he hadn’t heard about. No, I didn’t. I usually associate the need to have such a
letter as evidence that you don’t intend to defect to the country and remain
permanently. Really, no one coming through this agent’s line would need a
letter because he was doing a good job at making people feel like they want to
leave. But I remained cooperative though
unnerved at how many times I had to answer “no” to the next requests, like I was
a toddler who only knew the word “no.” Did
I have training materials I could show him? No (I had emailed them to be copied
here). Did I have written proof of an onward ticket? No, it’s all on
email. Is this bag your only luggage?
No, I have two checked bags. His face
showed suspicion that I was here for seven days but had so much baggage, and
explaining that I was on the tail end of two months of travel didn’t seem to
allay any of those suspicions.
I pulled up my departing flight information on my phone and
showed him that I did have plans to leave Mauritius.
“Why are you arriving on Air Mauritius but departing on
another airline?” he asked.
“Because it was more affordable.” It’s possible I sighed as
I responded.
He stamped my passport and waved me through without making
eye contact. I had weathered the questioning and felt relieved and barely had
anytime to enjoy the relief before another man appeared from an office adjacent
to the corridor and approached me, holding a badge and a clipboard.
“You’re in Mauritius to conduct a workshop about what?” he
asked.
No introduction. No context.
Straight to asking a question that instantly made me concerned, considering
I had left the only person so far with whom I shared this information about 10
seconds ago. The conversation was brief
and repetitious with what I had been asked previously. He also asked the question about why my
departing flight was on a different airline than my arrival flight.
“My brother works for Emirates but they don’t fly from
Nairobi to Mauritius.” He said thanks
but didn’t mean it, turned around and was in his office by the time I turned
around to look back.
Some time ago I remember reading about airline security
personnel being trained in behavioral observation of would-be trouble-makers,
and the kind of body language and physiological signs they look for. As I walked toward baggage claim I wondered
how to act like an innocent person. I needed to pee. I had a few cups of tea on
the plane. But I thought maybe that’s what guilty people do; they’re nervous so
they have to pee, or they try to pee away their guilt. I opted not to pee. I stood and waited for my bags, wondering if
guilty people stand still or shift from one leg to the other.
I retrieved my bags from the carousel and in the minutes
that passed while I waited, my nerves calmed down a little bit. People were sailing through the customs portion
much like they had sailed through immigration, barely breaking stride. But not me. I was diverted into a special
screening room so we could all figure out—me included -- what I was guilty of.
My bags were x-rayed and then given a
luggage colonoscopy. The agent pulled out my bag of dirty laundry and dumped it
upside down, and Mauritius lost its #2 air quality ranking on the spot as a result. He was
merciless and brave; he put his fingers in the pockets of shorts I had run in that
morning but stuffed into the laundry bag while still wet from sweat. He found
my portable scanner and set it aside. He pulled out my toothpaste, told me to
open it and eat some. He found another tube and told me to eat some from that
one as well, but it was suntan lotion not toothpaste so I refused. He placed it
next to the scanner. He removed the
insoles of my running shoes, and their air quality ranking dropped another
notch. He placed the shoes with the scanner and lotion. Mauritius’ customs
agents were building their case. I had planned to illegally scan Mauritian
documents while illegally protecting my face from sunburn, and all the while illegally
wearing shoes.
In my backpack, he found a manila envelope marked
“confidential.” The smoking gun. Except it was a recycled envelope from work.
There was nothing confidential about anything inside. It was mostly receipts. He
told me to repack the mess he created, and then
he picked up the pile of potential evidence in the Confidential envelope, and I followed him down a long hallway to an
office wearing socks but no shoes; they had taken those for inspection.
Three people joined us in a room that was barely large
enough for all of us. I should have asked for a cigarette. It would have completed my stereotype for the
scene: a blandly decorated room with only a desk and two stools, a metal door,
and an attitude by the officers of “we’re willing to stay here as long as this
takes.” The scene reminded me of SWAT
teams in middle class suburbs and campus police at universities who get excited
at the remotest of possibilities to feel powerful.
The questioning ensued. Why didn’t I know the phone number
of my contact here? Why did I give two different answers when asked why I was
using two different airlines? I said it
was more affordable to one agent, but explained my brother’s employment with
Emirates Airlines to another. They are connected answers, I tried to explain,
unconvincingly. If I was here to lead a
workshop, why did I have no training manuals? Why did I withhold “Jordan” from
the visa application?
“Why wouldn’t you eat this toothpaste?”
“It’s not toothpaste. It’s suntan lotion.”
“It’s in a tube that is like toothpaste.”
Right, so is BenGay and hemorrrhoid medication but we don't eat it. Is this a requirement in Mauritius, that you must eat anything in a tube? Is that where we're hung up here? I considered eating the lotion so it would put an end to
what was sure to be one of multiple rounds of nonsense. Instead, I demonstrated
by putting the lotion on my hand. They all watched, as though something more
dramatic than a little bit of moisturizing would happen, and then they could finally haul
me away. It was strange, the five of us watching me apply lotion on my hand
like this was some kind of pivotal moment. Instead, all we saw was glowing
skin emerge. For a fleeting moment, I
felt like an Avon lady and wanted to ask “now how many of you want the full
skincare line?”
As requested next, I demonstrated how the scanner worked.
One of them tried it for himself, though I was certain he did so because he
wanted to try it for himself out of curiosity. Samburu kids have the same
fascination. We went from skincare
demonstration to scanner show-and-tell.
Then we got to the envelope stamped “confidential” that held
all of that non-confidential information.
They went through every piece of paper, every receipt. We relived most
of my entire Kenya trip, one receipt at a time.
Many receipts were written in Swahili and they asked for translation,
failing to realize the absurdity in asking the suspect (me) to do the
interpretation. Why did I have four receipts for the same guest house for four
separate dates? They told me this is odd
behavior, all of that coming and going.
We got buried in the minutiae of my travels. Yes, I went to
Dubai to visit a family member, and had a last minute trip to Jordan because
last minute travel is normal in an “airline family,” and yes I traveled to
Kenya where I bounced all around the country because I have teaching, research,
a non-profit and a safari company there. The opportunity in Mauritius came up
when I met someone at a meeting in Colombia in February to teach in workshop
about the social considerations of endangered species recovery.
I had
a moment when I wondered if my life was really as unfocused as it sounded when I verbally explained it, and made a mental note to do some thinking about it later,
perhaps when I had my shoes back.
I feared they would keep the envelope labeled “confidential”.
It held every receipt from two months of travel, and I would rather spend
months in a Mauritius prison then return to the university and have to look the
bureaucrats in the face and tell them I had no receipts. If they intended to
keep the envelope and leave me receipt-less, then I would in fact seek asylum
in Mauritius or wherever Eric Snowden settled; that seemed to be working for him.
Eventually, I was allowed to enter Mauritius though I don’t
think the decision was unanimous. I never found out what it was they suspected.
I had a beautiful week in Mauritius. I went scuba diving for
the first time in years, sea kayaked, hiked, ate a lot of bread and cheese
(Mauritius is former French colony), and soaked in the island lifestyle. The
organizations for which I taught – the Durrell Institute and the Mauritius
Wildlife Foundation – have some great people, the kind of people you want to
keep working with because of the professional fulfillment and fun that comes
along with it.
I’m en route back to the U.S. at this moment, on first class
on Emirates Airlines which is even more unbelievable than my business class
seat on the way over. The suite area fully encloses via electronic slide doors,
I was given a pair of flannel pajamas to keep, there are two showers at the
front, and a long menu from which I can order anything at anytime. This is barely reality.
I have a good life. No, I have a great life. And a lucky
life. Not because I have grilled salmon, a bowl of fresh fruit and a glass of
Bordeaux on the way shortly while I sit here in my new pajamas on the upper
deck of an international flight. Because I had the dumb luck to be born in a
country where you can set a vision for your life and chart a viable path to
achieve it; a family where achievement, independence and travel were nurtured
and encouraged; and the means to have experiences that help you realize just
how damn lucky all of this really is, including a job where you can earn the
opportunity to escape your routine and let your mind and body wander around the
world’s places.
I have about another month of sabbatical but the signs of
its end are emerging. Requests for meetings, emails from students about Fall
courses, a dog protesting my absence by jumping the fence periodically, so I'm told. My
clothes have only been hand-washed and dried for the past two months and are
getting stretched out; most of my shorts and pants barely stay around
my waist and my dad would be appalled at the sag. I
return home and will complete this sabbatical as fulfilled as ever, perhaps
with a clearer sense of purpose for my time on this planet, and assuredness that
things have worked out well in the big picture.
