d be me. While I find a certain pleasure and thrill, it is not all champagne and roses. Endless marriage proposals, serious attempts at cheating and a constant barrage of unwanted pity. The first two propelled me to a point in Zanzibar where I realized I didn't trust anyone. While I put on a strong face and a merry laugh to intercept the third, I have to admit it got a bit waring.I'll relay a few vignettes to help you sample the sweet, the salt and gall of a single woman traveling alone.
Introduction
10 October at 4:40 am. I'd gone to bed at 23:23 the night before, after finishing a memo for Urwego and cleaning up a dinner I prepared for a guest who didn't show. A bleary eyed Tom left me in Kigali Int'l airport, specifically charging his friend to take good care of "this young lady". Tom's special friend told me that his name was Amant, French for male lover. He stuck to me like a magnet...(which, in French, is aimant, one letter different. Very Strange). He smelle
d bad, sat too close, and tried to live up to his name. So my name was Grace. I was American? Yes. It was his goal to marry an American girl. He'd explained this to his mother. Was I married? Here I should have lied, but unfortunately I'm too truthful for my own good. He would marry me, he said. No, I said, quite emphatic. What? I didn't want to get married? Here the honesty, or at least the complete honesty wore out. Mr. Male Lover was too serious to pick up on a sarcastic response so I just started lying, or at least not adding the "definitely not with you" phrase to the end of my responses. In his case, a lie seemed kinder:Surely you want children. No.
What. You must want children. No.
Well, okay. You don't want children, but you must want someone to make love to you. I'll make love to you. No. (At this point, there were about a dozen people from my flight in the very quiet room...quiet except for this clearly audible conversation.)
Surely you want to make love. No.
I will speak to your father in three years. No.
Don't worry I have it all planned out. No. No. No. No. No.
I managed to shake him off with a distraction and ran away. (Quite proficient at running away.) Tom received an sms indicating that "friends" to try to "take care of me" were unwanted. I think I can manage to check into a flight on my own. Even in Africa.
Vingette No. 1
After collecting me from Kilimanjaro airport, Chilson took me to the tour company's office. He introduced me to everyone, including the manager, and then escorted me into a private room. Just he and I. Could I please help him out? He had underquoted my fee by $230. I starred. $230? $230? I could produce the “fully paid” receipt. He responded that he didn’t want to tell me of his mistake before my arrival lest it deter me from vacation. Well, he should have, I replied. I’ll be penny-pinching the entire trip as I hadn’t anticipated this additional costs and hadn’t brought much cash. However, IF he could prove me the validity of these costs and a breakdown of the entire quote, I would help.
He scurried out, to gather papers and his manager. She sat down with me to explain the quote, line-by-line. My two hour Lonely Planet cram course on the plane taught me enough to recognize the component costs she listed were fair. My accounting mind recognized that company “overhead costs” like labor, fees and rent would also need to be considered. I was convinced. Chislon had made a genuine mistake, so, even though I didn’t have to, I gave him $220.
Only then did the manager tell me that the Company had intended to take the mistaken amount out of his salary…and it was an entire month’s pay…this being pay for a young Tanzania man who went to high school in Minnesota.
I think I did right. I hope I wasn't cheated. It was quite a challenging transaction to navigate on ones own. No one to bounce thoughts off of. I had nothing but my own judgment and the hope Wonders was being honest with me. I thought about it every time I carefully measured my spending allowance through out the trip.
Vingette No. 2
Hyenas and human voices can sound quite similar to the untrained ear. My ear was d
efinitely untrained that first night in Serengeti. Hurama, my guide, would always tell me stories…usually before bedtime and usually because I prompted with too many questions. (I know everyone is surprised. Grace asking too many questions.) Well, I foolishly asked the “is the tent safe” question. (Better to never raise the question.) Response. If you do not take food into your tent, then yes it is safe. Hurama continued, one night in Serengeti, maybe one year ago, maybe two, a couple had forgotten to take all the food out of their tent luggage. The hyenas came to visit, attracted by the scent of easy scavenging. Rumbling with hunger and excitement, their sharp teeth sliced through 
the tent cloth. At the sound of the fabric tear, the couple awoke with a start. The tent filled with kafuffle. Confused by the commotion, the hyena took a bit out of the wife’s bottom. The husband, in his fury, grabbed the hyena by the neck and strangled it with his bare hands. They had to be evacuated by helicopter, bite taken out of her buttock.With that story rumbling in my head, I retired to my tent for another night of sleeping solo. I fell asleep easy enough, comforted by the gentle murmur of human voices. At 00:05 I awoke, jolted upright, cringing at the methodically growl not 10 feet from my head. It took me 5 minutes to realize that the growl was my neighbor snoring.
The second night in Serengeti I heard more than snoring neighbors. The wild world roared and cackled, moaned and hackled under the full moon. The hyenas ambled through our camp that night, calling to each other. I could even hear them sniffing around the edges of my little tent. I hunched in the middle of the two-person tent, cuddling with myself, and listening wide-eyed to the sounds of the night. A jackal wandered through camp too, 10 meters to my left with it’s higher, eerie shriek. Repeated, again and again. Lions roared in the
distance. The next day, I was a very tired woman.The final night of camping, in Ngorongora, animal noises began before the human sounds ceased. Puff. Puff. Puff. I really needed to pee... Puff. Puff. Puff. My guide had told me that I really needn´t be scared of any animal
except the Buffalo. The sound the Buffalo made was "puff, puff, puff." However, it wasn´t a buffalo that slammed drunkenly into the side of my tent. It was a zebra. I could tell by the strips. I summoned the courage to visit the toilet...and waited for dawn a tad more comfortably, curled up alone in the center of my 2 person tent.More Vingette´s and pictures to follow.
