Tanzanzibar
By Cristian Cuomo
At the threshold of forty years I felt it necessary to realize one of those dreams for too long kept in the drawer.
So I decided to rely on a group of unknown guys, a tent, a sleeping bag and a camera.
The wait was long, the many doubts, the expectations many more, it is August 17th and Tanzanzibar discovery is about to begin.
Twenty hours have passed since I closed the front door, hours spent between taxi seats, train, flights and waiting rooms but it is already August 18th, it is 5 am local time and the impact with the Kilimanjaro’s international airport immediately makes me understand what is Africa, the essential, poorly organized and hakuna matata.
We load our luggage from the window of a bus visibly tired to grind miles, I take place side window right with my fuji polished to ready to capture the first moments of my trip but I'm wrong side because here the commonwealth has brought three things: the language, the egg for breakfast and the right hand drive.
First stop Arusha a city where the chaos is the master and unfortunately I will have to see for a few hours but enough for me to understand that this is the Africa that I want to know. Arusha puts tension on a white tourist even in the day let alone in the evening. The hotel is on a road full of traffic made up of cars, jeeps, buses and pik-ups overflowing, carts and moto-taxis, of people selling anything at every useful place, but especially colors confused by the dust that leave you stuck .
Africa is color and must be told. With the utmost discretion start making the first timid shots. There everything has a price (one dollar), even a photo.
I do not remember his name but he is one of the first who welcomed me at the exit of the hotel. He wore a beautiful and colorful shuka maasai, he wanted to sell me marjiuana but he was not lucky but I gave him my first 5000 shellin because he sang a Swahili song that would later become the soundtrack of our journey "Jambo Bwana".
It's a welcome song and starts like this: Jambo, Jambo bwana. Habari gani? Mzuri healthy ...
The next morning the journey to the safari begins. Tarangire, Lake Manyara, Ngorongoro, Serengheti (Seronera), Serengheti (Lobo), Lake Natron. Lots of beautiful creatures unmindful of the continuous visits, so much savannah with its quiet, its landscapes and its silences disturbed by jeeps that like crazy ants roamed in search of predators.
On this traveling trip to northern Tanzania, the connecting roads and the few rest stops were the moments when I began to observe and reflect on what we call civilization or Western lifestyle and the questions were not lacking.
I asked myself whether it is right or not that, in reality millenarians, like the Maasai, where pastoralism is the main source of sustenance, a child must learn the craft and shape himself to be useful to his community or follow a process of schooling that allows him to aspire to a different role within the same. Perhaps both but probably one excludes the other.
Africa asks you a thousand of these questions and often you find yourself at a crossroads that creates a stall of thought and views.
The journey continues between dust, red earth, colors and landscapes in which the eye is lost along with the thought.
Ten days have passed and tiredness begins to be felt ...
It's time to collect our things ... gift my most beautiful pen (a BMC software gadget) ...
... and start again.
Zanzibar
Zanzibar!
Zanzibar in the imaginary is the island with white milk beaches, palm trees full of coconut, breathtaking sunsets and a sea of a thousand shades of blue. Yes, of course this is absolutely true, but it is also the island where African and Asian culture come together in a mix of colors, perfumes and inevitable contrasts.
Zanzibar is also and above all what you cannot see, what enchanting and comfortable resorts hide in the eyes of tourists. And I saw like that.
It's time to go back home, to everyday life, to a different photograph of asphalt, steel, cement and glamor windows. Goodbye Africa.
