This is a long scene that I’ve deleted from my book because it falls into the category of a fun travel story, but does not move the already over long story forward. This is part of a trip Tisa and I took by bus in 2009 to see ancient rock art in the hills near the village of Kolo.
Swahili words I use are:
khanga: bright printed cotton fabrics often used as wrappers, singular or plural
mzungu: white person
kaka: brother, often used as an honorific
asante sana: thank you very much
pole: sorry
And Mzee Dudu, the real name of the man who took me shopping, which (almost) translates as Elder Insect!
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After a long, complicated bus trip with Ahmed, the guide Tisa had hired, we disembarked in late afternoon in Kolo. We found a charming village of dirt roads lined with small rectangular houses of reddish, rough-finished bricks that looked as if they could erode away entirely over the course of the next rainy season. We walked a few hundred yards past the requisite row of concrete block shops, under billowing shade trees to a much more modern-looking house of white-painted concrete with a corrugated metal roof and a large roofed porch. This would be our headquarters, rented from a rich local man who spent most of his time in Dar es Salaam. Mzee Dudu and his wife Mama Ali met us at the gate and introduced themselves as the caretakers.
Tisa and I claimed a bedroom and carried our bags inside. As I unpacked, I realized with dread that I had forgotten to pack tampons. The box was sitting on the bedside table back in Arusha, where I had placed it and said to myself, “Don’t forget these.” It was unlikely that I could buy tampons outside of the big city, but I should be able to find sanitary pads even this far out in the countryside. Tisa suggested I should ask Mama Ali, and he offered to translate for me.
We found Mzee Dudu and Mama Ali sitting outside their house across the driveway. Both were in their seventies. Mzee was stringy and tough-looking and smiled at us around a missing tooth in the corner of his mouth. Mama Ali was plump and wrapped in bright khanga of three different prints. It was embarrassing to talk about sanitary pads to these traditional elders whom I had just met, especially Mzee.
But I was desperate. I instructed Tisa to ask if there was a pharmacy in Kolo. There was not. Then he asked if any store in Kolo sold sanitary pads. Mama Ali looked puzzled for a moment, then told us no. Mzee Dudu jumped to his feet and spewed an eager stream of Swahili. He waved his arms and pointed toward a small motorcycle at the corner of the house.
Tisa translated for me. “Mzee is offering to take you on his motorcycle to the next village, seven kilometers in that direction, where there is a pharmacy. But you will be riding alone with him on the motorcycle. He doesn’t speak English. Will you be afraid?”
I looked at Mzee. He smiled and gestured toward the motorcycle. I outweighed him by at least twenty-five pounds. And he radiated eager helpfulness and goodwill. “Let’s go!” I said. “Twende!”
Tisa cautioned, “Be back before dark. Maybe it’s not safe at night.”
Mzee started the motorcycle and I swung my leg over the seat behind him. We putted off down a bumpy, wide dirt road, weaving between holes and crossing ruts. Scrubby, scattered forest rolled back through dry grass to low hills in the distance. The lovely yellow light of late afternoon bathed the landscape as we passed through it.
Three women carrying bundles on their heads approached up the road on foot. Mzee slowed the motorcycle to a crawl and called out Swahili greetings. The three looked up, eyes wide in surprise. We sped up again. A man approached on a bicycle. Again, we slowed and Mzee called out greetings. This time I added my own Swahili greeting to the mix. Each time over the seven kilometers that we encountered another villager, Mzee slowed or stopped, exchanged greetings and chatted. Each time, his neighbors were obviously surprised to see a mzungu woman riding pillion behind Mzee Dudu.
We rolled into another small village, with one shop fronting the road. Mzee stopped the bike, and we dismounted. Mzee marched into the shop and I followed. He made a loud announcement to the female clerk behind the counter and the half dozen men sitting inside drinking beer and sodas. A moment of stunned silence followed. Then all the men erupted in loud laughter. The clerk looked down at the floor and laughed behind her hand. The men called out some loud remarks in Swahili. Mzee maintained an air of dignity. He told me in Swahili that this store did not have the goods.
We mounted up and drove away, leaving the laughter in our wake. Mzee told me over his shoulder that there was a bigger village another seven kilometers away. The afternoon light was fading, and we drove a shady road along a boulder-paved stream bed, dry now during this time of year. After another stop and three more slow-downs to showcase the mzungu on the motorcycle, we rolled into a larger town with two separate rows of shops.
We marched again into a store. Mzee again made his announcement, again to be greeted with stunned silence followed by raucous laughter. Again, this store did not have the goods.
We stepped outside and Mzee spotted someone he knew, and called the man over. After a brief consultation, Mzee informed me that store, over there, would have what I needed. We walked over and entered the store. Mzee made his announcement again, his unshakable dignity still intact. Two men standing inside laughed. Mzee ignored them, chin raised high. The female clerk said to me, “Yes, we have pads. Which one do you want?” and gestured to a shelf.
Triumphant, we drove out of town on the little motorcycle. Mzee chatted to me over his shoulder, asking if I had children, if I was married, what country I was from.
“Mimi ni Mmerikani,” I told him. I am American. “I have no children. Tisa is my husband.” In Tanzanian terms, this was not quite a lie. Unmarried couples who felt some commitment routinely referred to themselves as “married.”
“Ah! Kaka? Your husband?” I could hear the approval in his voice. Both, I imagined, because of my improved moral status in sharing a house with Tisa, and because I, as an American, loved a Tanzanian.
He pulled the motorcycle over in a spot where the road lay against a jumble of boulders in the stream bed. “There is rock art here,” he told me. “Do you want to see it?” Mzee led me a few yards through the gray rocks, then pointed out a faint red stick figure of a man on a rock lying flat in the stream bed. I could just make it out, but it was enough to awaken that shiver of recognition that a fellow human had left a message here thousands of years ago.
“There are more,” Mzee offered. He pointed downstream.
“No,” I said, full of regret. “It’s almost dark. We should go.”
As the evening light faded, we stopped at a petrol station to put air in the tires. And to chat with two women and a man whom Mzee introduced as cousins. Then we made a second stop at a different petrol station to fill the tank. Mzee waved and called out to several passersby as the tank filled. We made brief stops twice more to greet passersby. Just as the last streaks of sunset faded over the hills, we rolled into Kolo and up to the gate of the guest house.
Tisa jumped up from the porch. “I was starting to worry,” he said, in English.
“No need,” I said, dismounting from the motorcycle. “Mzee took good care of me. It was a beautiful ride.” I turned to Mzee, “Asante sana, Mzee.”
Tisa said quietly, in English, “Did you give him some money?”
“I bought the petrol.”
“Ah, that’s good.”
We retreated to the house for dinner and a good night’s sleep.
Early the next morning, as we waited for breakfast, Tisa said, “Come with me to buy phone credits.”
We walked a hundred meters from the house to a small shop. As Tisa bought his voucher, I scanned the shelves behind the counter, where I saw stacked packages of sanitary pads. I elbowed Tisa and pointed with my chin and said, “Look!”
“What?”
“On the shelf. Sanitary pads.”
We both laughed.
“Pole, Barbara. You didn’t need to take that long ride yesterday.”
“I loved that ride. I’m so glad we didn’t look in this store!”
After breakfast back at the house, we found Mzee Dudu waiting at the gate with his motorcycle. He offered to drive me to the rock art sites. Tisa and Ahmed translated for me that I really wanted to hike, but it took a few iterations to fend off the proffered ride.
As we walked out of the village toward the hills, Tisa said, “Last night Mzee Dudu told me that his status in the village will go up now that everybody saw him driving an American visitor on his motorcycle.”
“Really!” I said. “I don’t know about that. I think he’ll be hearing jokes about shopping for women’s things for a good long time.”
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