SECOND INTERLUDE I

REVERSE CULTURE SHOCK

The second transition from Ilboru to Seattle was an extremely trying experience, and I didn't really feel at home until it was almost time to leave again. The most tedious step is the first one, the drive from Ilboru to Nairobi. This entails walking down the hill to find a taxi, riding back to acquire baggage, going to town via the PC Training Site to store any possessions I wish shipped home in case I don't return–it's always tempting to believe I'm leaving for the last time–next a stop at a Nairobi-Arusha shuttle service to drop off luggage, and finally walks from there to the center of town for lunch and then back to await the inevitably late minibus. On this occasion my friend and student-safari-arranging colleague, Mr. Makonge, volunteered to walk down and obtain a taxi. He returned at exactly the specified time, which is a rare occurrence in East Africa, and then negotiated a price so low it embarrassed even me. Sponsoring the students' safari has certainly not harmed my status here.

There are now several choices of minibus service, each costing $15-20 for residents, twice that for tourists, and each claiming the title “Nairobi Shuttle.” It has taken some time for me to learn that the best one is operated by the UTC travel agency, and although it doesn't always reappear at the Norfolk to pick me up for the return trip–I've chased it across town more than once in a taxi–it does always deposit me at the Hotel on arrival, which is far more helpful because that occurs after dark. What I admire most about it, however, is that it is seldom even half filled.

On my last visit one of UTC's buses was out of service for a few weeks, so I had to resort to the second best, that operated by World-Wide Travel. The offices in Arusha are across the street from each other, the staffs collaborate, my title–“Professor” has recently supplanted “Babu” in some circles–had preceded me across the street, and I was even advised which seat to take, or try to; seating is strictly first come, first served. The Nairobi offices of these two companies are around the corner from each other, and for quite some time I didn't know on whose bus I had reserved space. The minibus was full this day, as has always been the case with this company, and that included all of the jump seats that completely clog the aisle. But the clientele was most unusual: included were a Japanese couple, he an engineer, temporarily residing in Durban, and eight young people who, I discovered much later, were from Singapore.

Namanga, the border town–there are actually two, one on each side–separating Tanzania from Kenya, is the dreariest part of any East African adventure involving both countries. By count of passport stamps, I can prove having passed through its shabby center 22 times. The second, seven years ago, was the worst, because then I was trapped for hours in the no-country region between the borders; the van that carried me from the slopes of Kilimanjaro was not licensed to cross over into Kenya, and the vehicle supposedly coming south from Nairobi to acquire me simply failed to appear. I finally persuaded the operator of some long-since forgotten minibus service to add me to his passenger list, which he most graciously did; I sat next to him on the drive, acquired much useful and interesting information, and was charged about one-tenth of what the individual “service” would have cost.

The Maasai are a proud people, and I still look forward some day to seeing them in a more isolated village where their true culture may still be apparent. But in Namanga all they do is aggressively hawk their wares, cheap tourist items. At least they appear to be straightforward in their conniving to liberate a few shillings from the passing stream of naive Wazungu. The young men who promote various currency-exchange scams here are nothing short of despicable, however, and they are definitely not Maasai. To them one can appropriately say, “Go to hell,” in as many languages as possible.

To facilitate Tanzanian border procedures, bus travelers fill in a single line of information on a form kept by the driver; the required data include one's occupation, which is how I knew the Japanese man was an engineer working in Australia, and it's also how the kids from Singapore knew there was a professor on board. Once identified I became an honorary member of their group, sharing the biscuits and sweets left over from their climb of Kilimanjaro–they had been forced to turn back at Gilman's Point because of snow and were more than a little envious of my having reached Uhuru seven years before–and their stories and songs and camaraderie certainly made my trip much less tedious. On leaving the bus to spend the night in a somewhat less than distinguished Nairobi hotel, each one stopped by to shake my hand through the open window and to suggest to me that Singapore was well worth a visit; it had changed a great deal since I was there over thirty years ago, well before they were born, they laughingly reminded me.

Totally exhausted from teaching twice as many students as during the first year–I typically gave five eighty-minute classes daily, all without notes–and still suffering from the remnants of my post-safari malaise, I ran a few essential errands the next morning and then relaxed at the Norfolk for the rest of the day. I enjoyed its typical first-rate service at lunch, as I had the night before at dinner, and before going to the airport for a near-midnight departure, I spent an hour or two at the bar of the Ibis Grill, tasting a little wine and nibbling some snacks the kitchen provided, while awaiting the pianist's nightly rendition of “Amazing Grace.” It's getting better, but I doubt it will ever approach the performance in the Amboseli Grill seven years earlier.

It's shocking enough to go from the simplicity of Ilboru life to the pleasures of Nairobi, but that's a modest transition indeed compared to the big step up to the luxury of British Air's business class. I must confess that with the onset of age a very real, and conceivably near, possibility, I elected some time ago to desert economy class on long trips even if it means traveling less often because of the increased expense–a frequent flyer who flies less frequently? All of the electronic gadgetry available at my seat took a lot of time to master, especially since I was really much more interested in reintroducing my palate to Champagne, which seemed to be flowing from an inexhaustible source. Educated at last, I only had time to work part way through the various channels of classical music, and we were approaching Heathrow. On the second leg of the journey, I did take time to explore the many movie channels available, but the miniature screen on the seat back in front of me was just too small to make them of much interest.

Heathrow's duty-free shopping arcade a few weeks before Christmas, even at 5:00 a.m., provided a most emphatic statement that the holidays were at hand; there had been no hint of that yet in East Africa. It was also a most garish reminder of the material differences between the two worlds I now alternately inhabit. Rather than dwelling on this total misapplication of the meaning of Christmas, a holiday I have absolutely refused to celebrate for many years now, I retreated to the lounge for some coffee and a bit of newspaper reading.

Reverse culture shock really hit me in San Francisco, where I spent my first few days in the country at the Inn of the Opera and enjoyed three operas, in particular Tchaikovsky's Queen of Spades, which was exciting enough to bring tears to my eyes. The Inn is expensive but very nice, and its dining room is both surprisingly good and conveniently open after performances. The Caesar salad is excellent but huge; one can make a complete meal of the small portion. Dinner at the recently renovated Ritz-Carlton, in the company of two special friends, was also an exciting experience. And by now the crass commercialism of Christmas was tolerable, if not comfortable. The lights on the trees in Union Square did seem both incongruous and anachronistic, however, in the bright sunshine. Recently arrived from tropical Africa, I was indeed fortunate to encounter temperatures in the high fifties. The only outer garment I have along for use in my two worlds is a Gore-Tex parka.

Two observations of great impact on me were the cleanliness and freshness of the air and the intensity of the city traffic. I could hardly believe how crisp and fresh and cool the big-city atmosphere was that first morning. My forehead was still clean even after a half-day of brisk walking. In East Africa the benefits of a shower hardly last an hour; after that the dirt peels off the skin in layers, and overnight a substantial pile of grit accumulates in each eye, the result of the previous day's wind. I rubbed my forehead and eyes for many days before my subconscious was persuaded that we really were in our real home again.

But it was the car traffic that literally blew me away. Intellectually I knew that while in a crosswalk facing a “Walk” sign, I was not going to be struck by a car, not in California, and certainly not in San Francisco. Yet I physically cringed every time a car approached the crosswalk in which I was walking. The drivers always seemed to be approaching very rapidly, and they always seemed to stop just a few inches short of the white line. It was normal driving behavior, of course, but I required many days to adjust. Whether it was simply more reverse culture shock or the memory of that recent incident in Arusha, I'll never know.

Many tasks occupied my days in Seattle. The summer's medical procedures were repeated, and although they were more tedious and debilitating than before, the results were unambiguously good. My luggage had been broken into, quite likely during layovers in Heathrow, on each of the three previous crossings, and two pieces were now sufficiently battered to require replacing. Nothing was taken the first two times, and I had wanted for some months to replace the two long lenses that were stolen on this third occasion, so I don't mind their loss. But the set of ten Ilboru house keys plus keys to padlocks on four wardrobe doors that vanished with three or four dollars' worth of Tanzanian shillings will make my return to the house on the hill a bit awkward, particularly if the Peace Corps intends, as I fully suspect, to inject another tenant or two. There were family members to visit, personal and business matters to handle, and a host of twentieth-century procedures to relearn; it's amazing how much can accumulate when one is home for only a few days in two years.

But my life in the city was not all work and no play. By Christmas week, which was surprisingly dry and pleasant by Seattle standards, the couple who shelter me in their home when I'm here and I were pretty much into the spirit of the season, so we met early one evening after a day in the city at the town's best oyster bar for that delectable appetizer and some Champagne–a 1985 Veuve Clicquot Grande Dame that probably would have been best drunk alone with a woman companion rather than with decapitated mollusks. But c’est la vie, and no offense to my hosts. Our dinner possibilities included anyplace that would take us, and we considered a wide range of spots, finally settling on the Dahlia Lounge, a very surprising one of two Seattle restaurants awarded top ratings by the Northwest's most prestigious equivalent of the “Guide de Michelin.”

My companions chose their food more wisely than I–my choice was made before coming to the restaurant, and I should have gone elsewhere for what I wanted or purged my mind before reading the menu–and thought the place probably deserves its rating. To me it was at best two-star–out of four–and that only because the owner's audaciously eclectic combinations of ingredients surprisingly often worked. There was no hint of presentation, very little sense of service–guests pour their own wine in four-star restaurants?–and I left, not dissatisfied, but with no need or intent to return soon.

The next morning I set off for town with serious intentions of getting the equipment I needed for a short visit to Costa Rica, but it was so nice outside that I just walked up and down this avenue and that for hours. I stopped occasionally to look for a few of the items I needed, and when the first pangs of hunger caught up with me, at about 1:30, I happened to be in the Pioneer Square area, home of Il Terrazzo Carmine, one of the restaurants we had discussed the previous evening. Wandering in through the back door, which confusingly faces the main street, I found a room nearly full of boisterous diners, but after only a short wait, the hostess seated me at the best “deuce” in the restaurant.

The menu was quite exciting and the service that combination of attentive and relaxed that is seldom found anymore; the owner prowled the premises unforgivingly, and the food was first rate. The four guys seated next to me were having a hilarious time, and I thought that I knew one of them; his voice, in particular, was so familiar that I wondered if he might have been a high school classmate. But no, he was much too young. Carmine himself kept wandering by to chat, and I suppose this helped stimulate my recognition of the man as the owner of another of Seattle's fine restaurants. It was an early favorite of mine, particularly for calamari, but I've not been there since the night before I flew off on one of my trips; that, however, is another of those likely never to be written stories.

The talk at the next table turned increasingly raucous and rowdy as the bottles of wine emptied. Their discussion of skiing in itself was fine, but first overuse of the f-word, and then frank discussions of who was doing it with whom, presumably on ski trips, led me once again to conclude that packs of little boys are dangerous in the absence of their mother superior. So, when the waiter suggested a Cognac after the meal, I adjourned to the bar to drink it.

There, at the other end of the restaurant, I rediscovered two interesting entities: grappa, and that most accomplished of Franklin High School graduates, the old curmudgeon himself, despite his denial in a December newspaper column, Emmett Watson. The former, at least used to be when I still had connections with the wine trade, the distillate of the residue from the efforts of Italian peasant wine makers; in recent years it has also appeared in very expensive bottles from distinguished vineyards. To describe the latter is almost impossible, but if you ever find it possible to treat me to some of the former at the IT bar, I'll certainly try.

That bar is right next to the kitchen–their axes are orthogonal–and the staff gathers there after work for a quick bite to eat before departing for a brief respite in preparation for the next shift. The hostess is also at the bar, talking to a few afternoon regulars, receiving the incoming wine salesmen, caring for the needs of her staff, reviewing complaints from the owner, and treating strangers like me very courteously; she even paid for the last grappa. Evidently a lot of clients had been pretty bitchy that day, and the staff appreciated my relaxed attitude.

I still say and always will: “Christmas, Bah Humbug!” But it is nice to be in my favorite city again.

W. Vance Johnson

23 Dec 93