Days 35, 36: Ahhh.

Kate and Greg had already planned some fun activities for my last couple of days in town, and we girls had plenty to do while Greg was working. Here I have to say again, God bless Kate Giles. After a certain incident, when a fierce African concrete drainage ditch tried to eat me and my bike, Kate surveyed the situation and tried to make the schedule even cushier. "After Dar Reality," she said, "we're going to see how the other end of the spectrum here lives." So on Thursday we had a giant breakfast while watching three episodes of Flight of the Conchords under the ceiling fans. Full and happy, we headed out fabric shopping. I know. I have mentioned this before- but it's great. In Zanzibar we were buying khangas, which are bright rectangles of cloth printed in sets of two, with sayings written on them in Swahili. They're not expensive, which is how I've racked up 12 pounds of fabric this week, according to the scale at the airport. They say that the khangas in Zanzibar tend to be sweet or religious in tone, while in Dar they can get a bit snarky. If you live with 7 other housewives in a Swahili house, for example, you might feel the need now and then to wear a khanga that says something like, "She ain't all that" to get your message across now and then.

So in Dar we went shopping for kitange cloth, also great. I have a thing for African cloth anyway, after getting to spend a month in Ghana studying African design. So we took a dala-dala to the fabric street. (This one was fun- I was leaning at about a 45 degree angle. When we got to our stop Kate yelled, "Katherine! Go towards the light!!" And I actually had to do a backwards pirhouette to get off.) We had planned to spend a fair amount of time shopping, but by the second or third store we'd already bought about 6 different cloths, splitting a few of them. Teal with crazy fan shapes, blue with a peacock pattern, red with black and white dots, a black and grey pattern that makes me dizzy- I love them all.

After fabric shopping, a visit to the custom pillow shop, then coffee at the
Kilimanjaro Hotel, one of the swankest spots in town. Presidents stay here, and we sat next to a magistrate and some ambassadors and a possible gangsta who pulled out a giant roll of cash at one point. Air conditioned bliss and serenity. I can imagine that, if this were all you saw of Dar, you'd have a pretty different slant than most. After coffee: swimming. And homemade enchiladas- have I mentioned that Greg and Kate make their own tortillas?

Last day in Dar, equally cushy. We went to on coffee shop for breakfast, and then strolled over to another and hugn out there, just because we could, then Kate scheduled me a massage with a friend whose husband teaches with Greg. So fabulous. After that I felt like I could face another overnight flight. Two more fun stops: first, a trip to a place called Wonder Welders, a workshop that puts disabled people to work as welders and artists. Their pieces are great- my only regret is that I don't have the luggage allowance for a suitcase full of steel. The Giles household is full of small welded warthogs- delightful. After shopping: Ethiopian food and African beer.

So, I certainly didn't see every facet of Dar. You couldn't do that in a place, even as a resident; we all come with our own perspectives, too. I just read this great book, West With the Night, written by East African bush pilot Beryl Markham. (She was a badass, adn flew with Denys Finch-Hatton and Von Blixen and generally did crazy things and lived to write all about them.) She writes that there are as many different Africas as there are people who have written anything about Africa. That's probably true of every place. Certainly, though, this place could be examined from any aspect- culture, urban design, politics, sociology, economics- you name the topic and it would be a complex and rewardign discussion here. It's very layered, and intricate, and I just saw the tiniest part of it all....

It's going to be such a surreal transition from East Africa to Rome.