[The next installation in my ongoing series of “Guest Traveler” posts by people I’ve met along the way.]

Name: Brian Triplett

Hometown: Davenport, Iowa (USA)

Where he is traveling: Brian left home Dec 30, 2006 and since then has been in 73 cities. He left with some savings and little more than a desire to see the world. Without a specific plan or itinerary, he has ventured across The United States [where he drove a random German guy—whom he met in bar in New York City–to help fulfill the man’s dream of seeing the Grand Canyon, only to have their car die a few miles outside of Las Vegas] to The Sundance Film Festival to a “honeymoon” in Fiji with a blond haired girl he randomly met in an airport to riding motorcycles through Thailand’s biggest waterfight to skydiving in New Zealand to camping on Fraiser Island to crepe eating in Greece to pub hopping in Ireland and now (as of this week) he has just arrive in Africa.

Trip duration: He has been on the road for over six months now….

Where our paths last crossed: Mickey’s Pub, Iowa City (USA).

Brian is a friend from college who is doing exactly the same thing as I—backpacking around the world. The difference between Brian and I (other than the fact that he’s an award-winning journalist and I’m not) is that Brian isn’t an obsessive planner. So, he arrives in each new country with no hotel reservation and often times no money outside of his lone ATM card. This has (and will continue) to lead him on some great adventures.

 

So to set the scene, as of today, he’s just arrive in Pugu, Tanzania in Eastern Africa, there’s no electricity, an inconsistent internet connection at the local internet cafe, and he may be the only white guy around for 50 miles. Brian knows how to experience life, he’s a fantastic writer, and if you follow along on his travelogue (Experiencing The Unknown), you may learn much from him…I know I have. Keep on trekking buddy, see you on the road.

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Brian’s July 2nd entry from his blog Experiencing The Unknown: “Go ahead and get on,” Raphael said as we waited outside the bus that would take us to town.”I would if I could,” I thought to myself. “Okay,” is what I replied. 

This particular bus I estimated had a capacity of 30 people. There were already at least twice that crammed into any place physically possible to store a body. I squeezed my way into an empty seat - a rarity - since someone was exiting just as I passed by. Raphael sat in the aisle across from me, no more than three feet away, yet I could not see him through the sea of Tanzanians. This is how buses work here.

A man in his 50s stood in the aisle right beside me. The way his body was positioned meant that his manhood rubbed against my left shoulder throughout the journey. Over every bump, and there are plenty, the rub was more like a thrust. I was somewhere between vomiting and laughing. When a seat opened up next to me, my close friend sat down. He was very tired today. I know this because instead of rubbing his man parts against me, he was now sleeping on my shoulder.

The man to my right handed me an English newspaper, a very nice gesture. I was unable to read anything but the front page and the left column of all the others since I did not have the proper space to unfold the paper. I was holding my left leg up with my left hand since it had fallen asleep without the proper space to expand. The man who handed me the paper laughed at my situation.

“This is Africa,” he said.

When it was time to exit, which seemed to take longer than it probably did in reality, we headed to an Internet cafe. No connection today. We headed to another. No connection. We then decided to accomplish our other mission for taking a pair of buses 45 minutes into town. I found an ATM. Out of service. We found another.
A line of 20 people. I said I would use it another day. So here I am, typing from the “third time’s a charm” Internet cafe in Dar es Salaam. Of course, the first computer I used didn’t work, so I had to swtich seats. I’ve never felt such a mixture of frustration and sympathy.

***

I’m short on time again. This will be a common theme it appears throughout my time in Africa. I hope you do not lose patience with me. Hopefully I will be able to provide enough anecdotes (not enough time to look up the proper spelling on that one) to keep you interested until the final project — the book — is released. Also, posting pictures is not possible, so please look for a slideshow from my time in Africa in early August.

***

In my previous life, Sundays meant laying on the couch watching football. In Pugu — a village outside of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — Sundays mean time for prayer and worship. Lots of it.

I went to prayer service in the morning yesterday, and then again in the evening, doubling the number of times I’ve attended church in 2007. Do you ever get the feeling people are specifically watching your every move even though they probably are thinking about what to have for dinner that night? Well this happened to me yesterday during prayer and worship service, although the only difference is I KNOW that everyone was specifically watching my every move. I was the only white man in the open-air church, and likely the only white man for miles around the church. So when I was asked to come to the front and say something into the microphone, people didn’t have to turn their attention toward me. It was already on me.

More on this later.

In the name of culture, I thought “What the hell” and participated in the rituals as much as I could, despite not understanding the Swahili language. I danced around the church with everyone (they don’t celebrate Jesus’ name like this in Iowa) and since I was a bit timid, my white-man dancing curse was worse than ever. I received many thumbs-up and smiles. Later on during the service, I was certain a fight had broken out. After chairs were cleared out of the way, I saw a girl having a seisure on the ground and people all around her screaming and pointing. Emmanuel, a kid my age from Zambia who I have become friends with, calmly said, “She has demons,” as if it was no big deal.

Later that evening, my time came. I knew it would come, I just didn’t know when. I gathered with the family I am staying with in the village in Pugu for dinner. Since there is no electricity in the house, we dine by lantern, which creates a beautiful atmosphere of silhouttes (also no clue how to spell this) around the room. It’s a shadow puppet’s playground.

After almost one week of meals with the family, it happened.

“Brian, would you please say grace?”

My time is ticking at the Internet cafe. All I have time for is to tell you the grace ended in contagious laughter throughout the dinner. Lines from my prayer are now repeated like a famous speech.

This is Africa.