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Friday, December 24, 1999: Zanzibar
Our last day in Zanzibar. Needless to say, I got up a bit later than normal. Today was a bit of a lazy day. We went wandering through the market of Stone Town to track down some souvenirs. Our first store was a bust, as I tried to negotiate for everything we wanted all at once. Not the way to do things. When we couldn't reach a deal, we left and wandered on to the next store where, negotiating by piece, we were able to get most of what we were looking for, including a three-foot tall hand-carved wood giraffe for US$40.
We stopped in a store for a half an hour, where for 2,000TSh (US$3) each, Jen, Courtney and I had henna done on our hand. We lounged around the hotel for most of the afternoon before leaving for the airport. We had our first tragedy when the giraffe fell over, knocking one of its ears off. We'd fix it later with some wood glue, but I was a bit upset.
We got back into town right before sunset (and had another view, though a distant one, of Kilimanjaro on the flight in) and headed back to Ivonne and David's house for Christmas dinner, which was delicious. Ivonne had pre-ordered a ham. We settled in for the night relatively early, after a couple of beers. I spent some time reading through Keith Richburg's excellent "Out of America," his memoirs of his time spent as a correspondent for The Washington Post in Nairobi. It's practically required reading among the ex-pat community, and an excellent book. Favorite anecdote, that I'll summarize. An African and an Asian meet at an Ivy League school as undergrads and become friends. Both return to their countries and eventually become finance ministers. One day, the African man goes to visit the Asian man at his home. He is amazed to see his friend's mansion, three Mercedes, swimming pool and small staff. "How did you do this?" the African asks. "See that highway over there?" the Asian asks, pointing to a raised, gleaming new toll road in the distance. He smiles. "10 percent."
That's the difference in corruption. In many African countries, hundreds of millions of dollars will disappear for projects that never happen, and it's acceptable. In most other places in the world, such as Indonesia, corruption is similarly rampant, but things get done. In Africa, they rarely get completed. Given the wealth of natural resources and people, to say nothing of the location, there is much in Africa that could be far greater, far more accessible, if basic things such as highways actually happened.
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In keeping with tradition in Africa, we arrived about two hours early for our flight, only to find that the duty free was still closed, and the USAID surplus concrete didn't allow for much in the way of amenities. So we settled in with some reading material on some really uncomfortable chairs to wait for our flight. Kenya Airways Flight 491 took off right at 4:30 p.m., with the same layover in Mombasa. By the time we got to Mombasa, we were nearly crazed with hunger, having skipped lunch without quite realizing that there would be no place to eat at the airport. Luckily, a coffee shop (the only one there) had cheese sandwiches and meat pies that were almost good.
The African takes the lesson to heart and returns home. A few years later, the Asian man comes to visit his African friend. He is dumbfounded by his friend's palatial mansion, five swimming pools, fleet of Mercedes, yacht moored out back and his army of servants. "How did you do this?" the Asian asks. "See that highway over there?" the African asks. His Asian friend looks in the distance and sees only fields, and cows grazing. "I don't see any road there." the Asian friend responds. The African smiles proudly: "100 percent."
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