About a month before I was ready to get on the plane and head to Africa I shaved my head and stopped shaving my face. I did this for a few reasons but I think the main reason was more simple than the reason I told everyone: I did it because I could. I knew that for the next few months it would not matter how I looked. I was going to have no boss, no professors, no girlfriends, no need to keep my hair and beard neat. So, I let it grow.
About two weeks into the trip after a lot of talk Caroline and I decided to give ourselves a haircut. We were in a small beach village where hippos wandered the streets at night. Sitting around listening to music with about 10 other people we decided bring out the buzzers we had bought earlier in the day. I ran to the car in a torrential down pour to retrieve them from the trunk (3 hours later when we returned to the car we saw I had left the trunk wide open). We asked for volunteers to cut our hair and an English bloke named Mike who was working behind the bar stepped up to the plate.
I did not really know what I wanted to do with my hair or beard but I said I wanted it to look ¨crazy¨. Everyone sitting around wrote down their ideas on a piece of paper and we drew from a hat. It was to be a mohawk for my head and a fu-man-chew for the beard. Caroline started off with a mohawk as well and then shaved it all off.
I fell instantly in love with my new style. It was fun. It was something wild and outrageous and it did not matter. Well, in Africa it did not matter, and that brings me to the purpose of this entry. We had two weeks left in South Africa (including a short trip to Lesotho) before we headed up to Namibia. During those two weeks I did not get one comment nor one weird look. And for those of you who saw me upon my return... I looked awfully strange (see pictures below). The first comment I received was when we were crossing the border from South Africa to Namibia. The South African border guard asked me for my drivers license and passport which I handed over gracefully. She studied my picture and my face for a while and then she broke into a huge smile. She returned my documents and told me she loved my new style.
The next two weeks we traveled through Namibia and did not receive another comment nor sidewards glance - not too surprising however, we were traversing dirt roads through the most uninhabited country in all of Africa. After Namibia the road brought us to Botswana where things started to get interesting. In order to reach Botswana we had to drive south from the Caprivi strip through a Nature Reserve full of wild animals. It seems now that in the people´s minds, for the rest of the trip, I was one of those wild animals.
After crossing the border our first stop was a grocery store to put some kind of food in our bellies. It just so happened that we arrived on the grand opening of the grocery store. It was the first of its kind for, at the least, 100 kilometers. People had come from all over to see the newest addition. As we walked into the store everyone s eyes shifted to me. Unlike Thailand, where Thai people will never stare at another person, everyone stared and laughed. It was not so much that they were laughing at me... well, actually they probably were. But not in a malicious way. Little kids would stare and point, teenagers would slap me five, or pat me on the back, and girls would giggle and pass me furtive glances. -at this point my mohawk was about 3 inches long in the middle and shaved on the side. Each of the 3 parts of my fu-man-chew was extended from my chin about 2 inches.- The grocery store was interesting. When we got back to the car we laughed, empty handed because the grocery store was barely stocked, and marvelled about how things had changed since the first month.
We continued our journey to Maun which is the staging point for heading into the magical Okavango Delta. As in most of the rest of our travels through Africa, when we arrived in Maun we were the only white people around. The -tourist town- as it was described was nothing more than a reasonably large village that was falling apart- or had already fallen apart. The houses were made of beer cans and mud. You could tell that at one point someone had attempted to put pavement on the streets but were not too successful. We pulled in to a parking lot, parked the car, and got out to walk around. As we walked through the parking lot we could see people from far away looking at us. It became comical when we got to the crowded sidewalk. I walked ahead of Caroline and weaved through the people. Everyone, literally everyone, was staring at me with a huge smile on their face. People were laughing and poking their friends who were already staring. Girls in buses were yelling out of the window. Caroline had the best view of all walking a few steps behind me. She described it as if my hair and beard were a magnet pulling everyones eyes to my hair. As she walked behind me it was like a wave of people following me through the town.
This general reaction occurred throughout Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. While crossing back into Zimbabwe from Zambia I had an interesting interaction with the border guard. After trying for 20 minutes to get the border guard to let us into his country for free he asked me the name of my haircut. He said he wanted to have the barber give him the same haircut and beard. He gave me a piece of paper and had me write it down.
My nickname among most people we met in these three countries turned into -Mr. T-. I would be walking down the street and people would yell, -hey Mr. T- It was pretty amusing. People would tell me how much I looked like Mr T and I would usually respond, -yeah but he is more tan than I am-. No one ever seemed to get the joke.
As soon as we crossed back into South Africa people stopped commenting on my hair style. The different reactions to my hair style say something about the different cultures. I still had one more country to go to and that was my native country, the USA.
After being back in the US for a week or so I had a wedding to go to. After the wedding we were at a bar having a drink. I was sitting down outside by myself when a guy came and sat down next to me. He started talking to me and then he said to me -
Im a skinhead, do you know what that is.
I was blindsided by his comment and did not know what to say so I responded with a grunt that I did not know.
Do you know who the Nazis were
Yes I responded
Well, I am a current day Nazi
I could not believe what had just happened. I was ashamed that someone would mistake me for a Nazi. I have not really told anyone abut that conversation because I was too embarrassed. Needless to say, the next day I shaved my mohawk and my fu-man-chu. It is interesting, I traveled all throughout Africa and was greeted with smiles by my hairstyle and then when I get back to my own country it was seen has a symbol of hatred. Reactions to my hairstyle definitely say something about different cultures.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Zimbabwe
For the first 7 weeks of the trip I was trying to decide what to do about Zimbabwe. It is a country that I have wanted to see (there are not many that I don't want to see actually) but their political situation is far from stable. Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, is one of the most corrupt leaders in the world. He has illegal diamond minds in the southern parts of the D.R.C., he uses terror to rule his country, he drove has driven his country into poverty yet he continues to grow richer.
In the 1990s he started a policy of land reform to appease the veterans of the war for independence who were threatening to revolt. Before the controversial land reform Zimbabwe had promises to be the "the bread basket of Africa". It has fertile lands and good weather to grow a variety of crops. All the the farms however were owned by the white population. Mugabe started taking the land from the white people (who had stolen it in the first place) and redistributing it to the blacks. This became controversial because he was giving huge farms the country depended upon to veterans who had no education about farming. Long story short the new land owners were unable to farm the land, foreign investment pulled out of the country and inflation started at an alarming rate. Inflation got so out of hand that in the mid to late 90s Mugabe started a policy of price fixing. He told shop owners and manufacturers the price that they had to sell goods.
This in turn momentarily fixed the inflation for the consumers because their money could now buy products but the shop owners were often times selling at a loss. At this point any remaining foreign investment in the country pulled out. The situation today is scary. Zimbabwe has the highest inflation in the history of the modern world. There is no petrol in the country; if you want to drive through Zimbabwe you have to bring petrol with you because you will be unable to find it in country. The country is at a point where it needs a major change. Unfortunately change African style usually (but not always) comes with massive bloodshed and civil war.
Knowing all this beforehand throughout my entire trip I was going back and forth on whether or not I was going to go to Zimbabwe. I asked anyone who knew much about the situation their thoughts and they almost all said they would not go anywhere near the country right now. I am a very safe and cautious traveler constantly aware of my surroundings. For most of the trip I was sure I would not go to Zimbabwe but when we got close something inside me said it was OK. We were only going to go 75 km into the country to a town which used to be a big tourist center. We had heard that Victoria Falls was most amazing from the Zimbabwe side (the falls borders both Zambia and Zimbabwe) and we were eager to see first hand the state the country was in.
We filled up our gas tank, hid all of our valuables (we did not have many), and headed into Zimbabwe. We only saw a small strip of the country but it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a country full of baboon, baboons, and more baboons. There are literally baboons everywhere. At one point we had to walk through a group of about 30 baboons and some so close we could reach out and touch them.
We stayed in Victoria Falls which is a town bordering the waterfall it took its name from. The desperation in the city was rampant. People were friendly but it was obvious that they had nothing. We went into the grocery store only to find empty shelf after empty shelf. There was barely anything to eat. There is no ketchup in the country neither is there Coca-Cola.
Inside of Victoria Falls you have to pay for everything with US money yet you cannot get US money inside the country. There are two different exchange rates: the official and the unofficial. The official rate ( that which you will get at the banks, ATMs, and other government regulated places) is $1:30,000 Zimbabwean dollars. The unofficial rate is $1:2,000,000 Zim Dollars. The inflation rises everyday. It is a strange thing, you have to pay in US dollars but there are no US dollars to be found. You will never get change in green backs.
Between Caroline and myself we had about $200 USD which we had been traveling with for emergencies. Once inside of Zimbabwe we quickly found out we needed to be spending the USD. We spent about 5 days altogether in Zimbabwe and went through our USDs. We also had a couple hundred dollars in travelers checks. When we attempted to leave Zimbabwe to head to Zambia we ran into our first problem. We needed to pay $100 USD each for the visa to enter Zambia. We had no more USDs but we had our travelers checks. The problem however is that we could not cash our travelers checks inside of Zimbabwe. Long story short we convinced the Zambian border guards to let us enter their country illegally so we could go to a bank, get us money, and return to pay for our visas. Three hours later (and a couple of gallons of sweat) we returned to the border and paid for our visas.
We spent about a week inside of Zambia visiting Caroline´s cousin and his family. Upon return into Zimbabwe we had to buy another visa. We however spent about 15 minutes negotiating with the border guard to allow us to only have to pay half price. Eventually he gave in and we returned to Zimbabwe to retrieve our car and head back to Jo-burg.
Crossing from Zimbabwe to Zambia you have to go through a place called ¨no man´s land¨. It is a strip of land 2 kilometers long between the two countries that does not belong to either country (hence the name). Along this road (we were traversing it on foot) there was a long line of trucks carrying goods into the country. The truckers were outside of their trucks guarding their goods. As mentioned before the country was full of baboons and in no man´s land they seemed to migrate. The baboons were taking advantage of the truckers situation and were raiding the trucks to get to the precious food cargo. The truckers were in groups throwing rocks at the baboons. It was a comical situation to say the least.
In the 1990s he started a policy of land reform to appease the veterans of the war for independence who were threatening to revolt. Before the controversial land reform Zimbabwe had promises to be the "the bread basket of Africa". It has fertile lands and good weather to grow a variety of crops. All the the farms however were owned by the white population. Mugabe started taking the land from the white people (who had stolen it in the first place) and redistributing it to the blacks. This became controversial because he was giving huge farms the country depended upon to veterans who had no education about farming. Long story short the new land owners were unable to farm the land, foreign investment pulled out of the country and inflation started at an alarming rate. Inflation got so out of hand that in the mid to late 90s Mugabe started a policy of price fixing. He told shop owners and manufacturers the price that they had to sell goods.
This in turn momentarily fixed the inflation for the consumers because their money could now buy products but the shop owners were often times selling at a loss. At this point any remaining foreign investment in the country pulled out. The situation today is scary. Zimbabwe has the highest inflation in the history of the modern world. There is no petrol in the country; if you want to drive through Zimbabwe you have to bring petrol with you because you will be unable to find it in country. The country is at a point where it needs a major change. Unfortunately change African style usually (but not always) comes with massive bloodshed and civil war.
Knowing all this beforehand throughout my entire trip I was going back and forth on whether or not I was going to go to Zimbabwe. I asked anyone who knew much about the situation their thoughts and they almost all said they would not go anywhere near the country right now. I am a very safe and cautious traveler constantly aware of my surroundings. For most of the trip I was sure I would not go to Zimbabwe but when we got close something inside me said it was OK. We were only going to go 75 km into the country to a town which used to be a big tourist center. We had heard that Victoria Falls was most amazing from the Zimbabwe side (the falls borders both Zambia and Zimbabwe) and we were eager to see first hand the state the country was in.
We filled up our gas tank, hid all of our valuables (we did not have many), and headed into Zimbabwe. We only saw a small strip of the country but it was absolutely gorgeous. It was a country full of baboon, baboons, and more baboons. There are literally baboons everywhere. At one point we had to walk through a group of about 30 baboons and some so close we could reach out and touch them.
We stayed in Victoria Falls which is a town bordering the waterfall it took its name from. The desperation in the city was rampant. People were friendly but it was obvious that they had nothing. We went into the grocery store only to find empty shelf after empty shelf. There was barely anything to eat. There is no ketchup in the country neither is there Coca-Cola.
Inside of Victoria Falls you have to pay for everything with US money yet you cannot get US money inside the country. There are two different exchange rates: the official and the unofficial. The official rate ( that which you will get at the banks, ATMs, and other government regulated places) is $1:30,000 Zimbabwean dollars. The unofficial rate is $1:2,000,000 Zim Dollars. The inflation rises everyday. It is a strange thing, you have to pay in US dollars but there are no US dollars to be found. You will never get change in green backs.
Between Caroline and myself we had about $200 USD which we had been traveling with for emergencies. Once inside of Zimbabwe we quickly found out we needed to be spending the USD. We spent about 5 days altogether in Zimbabwe and went through our USDs. We also had a couple hundred dollars in travelers checks. When we attempted to leave Zimbabwe to head to Zambia we ran into our first problem. We needed to pay $100 USD each for the visa to enter Zambia. We had no more USDs but we had our travelers checks. The problem however is that we could not cash our travelers checks inside of Zimbabwe. Long story short we convinced the Zambian border guards to let us enter their country illegally so we could go to a bank, get us money, and return to pay for our visas. Three hours later (and a couple of gallons of sweat) we returned to the border and paid for our visas.
We spent about a week inside of Zambia visiting Caroline´s cousin and his family. Upon return into Zimbabwe we had to buy another visa. We however spent about 15 minutes negotiating with the border guard to allow us to only have to pay half price. Eventually he gave in and we returned to Zimbabwe to retrieve our car and head back to Jo-burg.
Crossing from Zimbabwe to Zambia you have to go through a place called ¨no man´s land¨. It is a strip of land 2 kilometers long between the two countries that does not belong to either country (hence the name). Along this road (we were traversing it on foot) there was a long line of trucks carrying goods into the country. The truckers were outside of their trucks guarding their goods. As mentioned before the country was full of baboons and in no man´s land they seemed to migrate. The baboons were taking advantage of the truckers situation and were raiding the trucks to get to the precious food cargo. The truckers were in groups throwing rocks at the baboons. It was a comical situation to say the least.
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