Dar es Salaam Diary

The highlight of this past weekend was a bit of cultural diplomacy in the form of Dar's finest and most frightening Halloween bash (OK, that was a direct quote from our text-message invite...). My housemate Michelle had just returned from the States, bearing candy corn, fake cobwebs, a pumpkin-carving kit, a giant trash-bag spider, and various other trappings of the holiday, so we were set.

The biggest challenge was choosing a costume. I wanted to be sure that it would be something that people who weren't necessarily familiar with the holiday would "get." My first thought was to go as a daladala (local minibus) conductor, since their trademark jumpsuits can be purchased on the side of the road, and my only prop would be a pile of coins to shake in people's faces. However, I worried that this choice of costume might be un-P.C. so I opted to go as the "Party Police," and outfitted myself with a nightstick (really a toilet-plunger handle), badge, and book of tickets with which to issue "beverage penalties."

I had an undercover partner in law enforcement, my friend Masse, who doused himself in cologne and hair gel in order to masquerade as one of the Miami Vice guys. Together we were able to keep things reasonably under control...

It turns out I need not have worried much about being P.C. as our party guests included two blonde American girls dressed as Masai warriors, and a number of African chiefs. (The latter costume choice was more acceptable, since most of the disguised were actually African. Indeed we had quite impressive Continental representation - Kenya, Angola, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa, in addition to Tanzania...)

The best costume prize was nabbed by an American who came dressed as the World Bank. He had come straight from a wedding, so made the best of his formal suit, accessorizing with a brochure he had produced to convince developing nations to sign their countries away. The brochure explained the benefits of a petroleum-based economy, among other things, and included some very, very fine print with the details of such an agreement.

In terms of cultural diplomacy, I think we successfully conveyed the spirit and meaning of Halloween, at least as it's currently observed in the States. Apparently when the U.S. Embassy threw a Halloween party last year, the local media reported on the event as a gathering of devil-worshippers!

A friend recently sent me an update with some of the latest gossip regarding parties and friends and crushes, concluding that it all might seem shallow to me now that I'm living in Africa. Similarly, another friend e-mailed a while back and said he was sure I was "doing a lot of good over here." While I appreciate being held in such high esteem, I can assure you that I do not spend all my time here mulling over global poverty and attempting to save the world. In fact, much of it is spent just hanging out and being silly. I also manage to stay relatively up-to-date on my American pop culture in the form of cinema (the Tanzanian premiere of Snakes on a Plane!!), music (a Jay-Z concert last week), and letters (old People and US Weekly magazines stolen from the American Embassy). Tho I do feel I have a bit more "authentic" perspective on the whole Madonna adoption debate...

This frivolity is of course all preparation for re-entry, as I'm headed back to the States in a mere 2 and a half weeks!!

A few months ago, my aunt commented that a significant amount of time had gone by since my last blog entry. She was not so surprised, however, and shared the wisdom of an Indian psychiatrist she met in Dharamsala, who had remarked to her that right after one arrives somewhere, the desire is to write a book about it; the longer one lives there, the less interesting the prospect becomes.

So I will excuse my recent absence as evidence of the fact that I've reached this point where the novelty of My Life In Africa is starting to fade. However, for the sake of historical record, my own vanity, and you, my devoted audience, I will not let this blog die!