One degree south of the Equator

For real, that's where I am. And you'd think it would be hot, but no, not always. Every day a puzzle. Should have packed more than one long-sleeved shirt. Gregoire! Research! (I love referring to myself in third person. I imagine the voice of J. Jonah Jameson from the Spiderman cartoon. Parker!)

We are 3,750 feet above sea level here on the grand shores of Lake Victoria and she's downright chilly at night, and when it rains, which it does regularly, it being the "short rainy season" (short meaning showers) as opposed to the "long rainy season" (March-April when it rains all day). But it's maddening because once the rain stops, the sun comes out and there you are wearing that equatorial sun like a lead vest once again. I'm either shivering or sweating. Maybe I've got malaria?

Anyway, here's what all that rain and sun means... green, green and more green. There's coffee here, pineapples, plantains and other banana varieties, eucalyptus trees, cyprus pine, day lilies (just like home!) cassava, sweet potatoes, passion fruit, mango, papaya. List goes on people. Read it and weep, whiteys.

And speaking of whiteys, I finally took a break from writing (five stories done already!) to get a little exercise and stave off utter obesity and constipation from so much starch in the diet. Our most lovely hotel is on a steep hill so I got some great views on the way down town and knew that on the way back up, I was going to throw up, er, I mean, get a good work out! Here's the view from up here to down there, in Bukoba.

So I'm walking around town on a Sunday in a very religious region of Tanzania thinking I could do a little shopping but of course, nothing is open. Gregoire! Rookie mistake! I'm feeling conspicuous, being the only white face around. People stare at you, and I mean stare, open-mouthed, head following you as you go by. And sometimes you hear it, once you pass. Mzungu. Basically it means "whitey." Some pale faces get offended and sure, it bugs me a bit. I mean, really, when some guy outside a shop starts shouting, "Hey, Mzungu, come to my shop. Mzungu! Mzungu!" does he think I'll actually go or is he just making fun of me? It doesn't happen often. The people of Tanzania are some of the warmest, most hospitable of any I've met anywhere. And a smile and few words of Kiswahili goes a long way in these parts. Still though, it's tiring being the oddball for hours on end. Kids following you in little packs, touching your clothes, wanting everything you represent: money, escape, prestige, Europe.

Say, wait a minute, is this what it's like to be... different? To be... foreign? Mon Dieu! What simplicity is home, where you look like everyone else or, in my case, slightly better than everyone else (titter, titter). How we are oblivious to the plight of the stranger, the one who talks funny and looks weird and doesn't understand anything we say. Me for instance, here. And a Tanzanian, for instance, in Miramichi. We should all feel this, people. It might build a little empathy.

OK, enough Kumbaya, I met a taxi driver yesterday who said his name was Honest. I yelled "Yer Lyin'" And he said, "What?" And I said, "Lying, not telling the truth." And he said, "What?" And I said, "Samahani, rafiki, ni sawa (sorry, friend, it's OK)." (At least, that's what I think I said. Maybe I said, "My cloud wears table shoes October." Or maybe even something rude.) He just kept driving. Probably thinking "crazy mzungu." Who could blame the poor guy?

My jokes don't go over well in Bukoba. Anyone here from Cleveland? Can you hear me at the back? Is this thing on?

Drove out to a place called Rubya, south of Bukoba through the most amazing green hilly landscape I've ever seen. Don't look it up. It's not on many maps. The place was positively lousy with plaintain and pineapple groves, grazing animals. The red-red earth made me think of PEI. Minus Anne. We visited a guy named Jonathan Coolidge from Boston who's been volunteering as a teacher for about 7 years. He made us stiff black coffee and he said stuff like, "When I was in Mongolia, Richard Gere came with the Dalai Lama to reintroduce Buddhism," and "When I was in the Ukraine talking to three hundred firefighters who'd helped put the fires out at Chernobyl." Dude was righteous. You know, in a good way. He gave us so much food for thought, I won't have to eat-think for weeks. Days like this just fill you up.

Oh, and here's a picture of a pterydactyl. I mean, stork. They're scary big here. (OK, future edit: I've been told by some people here that this is a pelican. I'll see if I can clear this up. Whatever the case, they're like helicopters when they take off.)

Night-night from whitey.