From Africa

How do I begin to write of what is growing in me from my time in Tanzania?

I have pictures.

I could share them with you.

Here’s one:

And another:

And another:

Okay, one more:

I could just keep going like that. Elephants and zebras and lions, Masai men and women and kids. Locals and transplants. Serengeti and Ngorongoro and Zanzibar. Jungle, mountain, lake, ocean, plains. City markets, tuk tuks, mosques, beautiful people, disabled people, happy people. Gentle people.

And so while all of this and more is true of my experience here, what is churning in me more than the sights is a growing recognition of how it is that we have come to where we’ve come to as beings of this world.

Regardless of our geographic origins, our species is engaged in much the same struggles as the animals and plants and waters of our planet. We are both at war and in love with each other, with the elements of living together, males and females (and some male/females) of all shapes and sizes and colors and species. I’m awash with the immensity of it all. 

My time here in Africa, Tanzania mainland, and Zanzibar, is melting me open. I’ve cried more here in 3 weeks than in the past many years, while reading books and talking with both locals and my partner. Topics range from family and babies to death and suffering, all of it being tinged with patience. Locals are generous with pictures of their children back at home with a sister or a wife, a mother or aunt. They seem to pleasure in teaching Swahili to these Bee Bee’s from America, laughing at our silly pronunciation of the simplest things.

And I am painfully aware of the privilege that comes with me, old white lady from the US that I am. I was able, for a birthday celebration, to buy plane tickets and food and accommodation for a month on the mainland and here on the island. I was guided on safari and now here at Joy of Zanzibar. We are fed and pampered each day by Japhett and Devora and Precious and Loveness and Samwell and others whose names are harder for me to remember because they are harder for me to pronounce. I am comforted and I am uncomfortable. I don’t like being the pampered one.   

I have twice been felled by heat, overestimating my vigor when submerged in sun and warm waters. I’ve had to reckon with my own vulnerability, never a strength of mine. I have to acknowledge that my go-to has been strength, a way to fight against anything that stands in my way, perhaps, of doing what I set out to do and doing it on my own. I would prefer to rise as the champion underdog than to revel in comforts as the privileged pup. But in these hot instances I needed help to recover. Humbling, once again, and all part of the melting.

Now, as this time in Tanzania draws towards an end, I feel more. I’ve cried with the deaths or suffering or reminiscences of characters in the books I’ve read. I’ve lain awake with both hope and fear, hope for what might be coming and fear of the same. I’ve thought about what I want to do about it, what I can do about any of it.

My spiritual path reminds me that all of this is an illusion—time, bodies, money, Donald Trump, Gaza—and sometimes that helps. But then there’s the suffering which, while it may be an illusion that we’ve cooked up, it still contains pain and loss while we’re hooked to the sensation of it. Some of that suffering is my own but even more of it belongs to others that I care about even when I don’t know them.

What do I do about their suffering? What do I do about mine in the midst of it?

All I know to do is love about it.

My hope is that we reach more toward our gentler nature. I’m sure that is not a surprise to anyone that knows me. I, like my teenage idol Janis Joplin, have always loved love. I still do. It is the best of me. But it is not unaccompanied. I can be fierce. I can also ingratiate. I’m not defenseless and I’m not suggesting that we all need to lay down our spears and jump into one big pile. We can fight like hell too. We can pitch a fucking fit and, I don’t know, throw rocks, throw money, hurl epithets. Make sure they hear that we will not be coerced, tricked, bribed or drugged into complacency. This illusion is still one that we are living in and as one of its creators, I continue to require a voice in it.

So I write.