360 Degrees Longitude (26 page)

September pressed for details and learned that the cow was a traditional bride price. Without it, his marriage prospects were bleak.

Ishmael had Rastafarian dreadlocks and wore a Bob Marley T-shirt. Had I met him in other circumstances, I might have judged him unfavorably, strictly based on his appearance.

We learned that the Usambara Mountains are filled with orphans. The day-to-day existence of the average African is full of hardships that the typical U.S. suburbanite can't fathom. For example, Ishmael lost his mother to a horrific bus accident. In two short weeks we had already seen the aftermath of two ugly accidents and had also witnessed how overcrowded trucks and buses become. Shortly after the accident took his mother, Ishmael lost his father to malaria. September remarked, “But malaria is so easy to treat!”

Ishmael replied, “Yes, but people are used to being sick here. We eat bad food and our stomachs hurt and we get chills. He didn't know he had malaria. My father finally went to the clinic, but it was too late.”

 

Katrina's Journal, October 31

Normal morning. Today is our last day in Lushoto. Tomorrow we return to Dar and then we fly to Mauritius. Since it is Halloween, we went out looking for some candy in the little shops around the town square. There was none to be found. After asking at a couple of shops I started to feel like a spoiled kid who demanded sweets
.

Living in the West, it is easy to be lulled into believing that wealth can be quantified by trailing zeros on a bank account or by possessions. In Zermatt there seemed to be a Rolex dealer or a specialty chocolate shop every other door along the main street. Although I may not be a Warren Buffett or a Bill Gates, by world standards, I am still counted among the richest, and before I arrived in Lushoto, I would have described myself as a charitable person. But it was in Lushoto that I became the beggar, and the people of the town demonstrated a kind of charity that was frankly foreign to me. It took Lushoto to make me realize that what I lacked couldn't be purchased.

What I remember most about Lushoto is not looking over the Great Rift Valley nor the beauty of the forest nor the colony of African albinos we met. What I remember is receiving aid from those who had little to give with no thought of how they might be repaid.

November 2–November 26
Mauritius/Japan

A
s we cleared the security checkpoint for our flight out of Tanzania, we came upon the customary large, clear plastic bin of items that had been confiscated over the months. I never understood what the purpose of this display is … is it a deterrent against bringing tweezers on board? By the time a passenger gets to this point, his or her luggage has already been checked. It is a little late to be reminding people how nefarious tweezers can be.

Jordan studied the objects inside the bin, fascinated by the different items that security felt obliged to confiscate. In a loud, boisterous voice Jordan commented on how stupid it would be to try to hijack a plane with, say, fingernail clippers. I was worried that he was drawing a bit too much attention to the subject.

Obviously some passengers just have different objectives in flying than simply going someplace new. It would seem that someone had been planning a picnic at thirty-three thousand feet, because nestled in with the Swiss Army knives, fingernail files, and hair picks were several ordinary table forks. What's up with that? I could understand how someone was caught off guard with a Swiss Army knife in his pocket, but a bunch of forks?

Less than an hour later, we were airborne and enjoying the in-flight dinner. I mean,
really
enjoying it. I realized that this was the best meal I had had in longer than I cared to remember. I was just thinking of how pathetic that was when Jordan stood up, held a metal fork above his head, and yelled from across the aisle of seats:

“Hey, Dad, look! The airline gave us metal forks with our dinner! If someone wanted to hijack a plane with a fork, they could just use this one!”

Right at that precise moment I took my metal fork and used it to skewer a green bean, and popped it into my mouth.

Only it wasn't a green bean, it was some kind of pepper. I pride myself on my tolerance for spicy foods, but the green bean that wasn't a green bean was in a category by itself.

As Jordan was shouting about hijacking a plane with a fork, I was gasping for air and holding my throat with one hand and waving a fork madly in the air with the other. I was desperately trying to form the word “water,” but people in the vicinity were starting to react to the situation with alarm.

Why is it that airlines pass out all of the dinners and time it so just when you're finished eating, they come back around offering you something to drink? Most people I know enjoy their drink
with
their meal. It was some time before I could actually get water, first being obliged to demonstrate that I was to be pitied rather than feared.

“That's your father for you,” September summarized. “Eat first, ask questions later.”

We stepped off the plane in Mauritius without the accoutrements of handcuffs or leg shackles. It was the perfect temperature that's only possible in the tropics, where the air is warm, yet the breeze is pleasantly cool with a hint of salt spray. To top it off, we found that in Mauritius they sell fireworks in the grocery stores. Really big ones. How can you not love a place like that?

Mauritius is a tiny dot on the average globe, situated just above the Tropic of Capricorn and 530 miles east of Madagascar. The dodo bird, we discovered, is Mauritius's claim to fame. Our taxi driver from the airport was an Indian gentleman with a perfect French accent. I find it a bit unnerving when the person I am talking to doesn't have the accent that my stereotype has assigned him, for example, Africans in London with their perfect British accents, or Harley riders who talk like Inspector Clouseau.

“Ze French,” said the taxi driver, “when zey first come to Mauritius, zey love to eat ze doo-doo. It ez delicious to them.”

“How is that again?”

“Ze doo-doo, zey cannot fly and were eezee to catch. Ze French eat all ze doo-doo, so it eez extinct.”

Mr. Taxi-Driver must have thought I was having spasms as I was forced to stifle snickers as visions of doo-doo eating French went through my mind. I had always thought it was the Dutch who drove the dodo to extinction, which is what research later confirmed. Even though inaccurate, I can't help but like Mr. Taxi-Driver's version of the dodo's demise better, as the French are so delightful to poke fun at.

September had found an apartment in Pereybere, a beach town on the northern coast of Mauritius, before we had left California. It was the only preplanned break in traveling that we had made, and we looked forward to a week basking in the tropical sun and recharging our batteries. Test-driving the fireworks on the beach was an unexpected perk. Even though we could buy fireworks at the grocery store, every time I lit a fuse I couldn't help but think that this much fun surely couldn't be legal.

“Jordan and I decided we're staying in Mauritius,” I announced to September and Katrina one morning. “We're having some shirts made up patterned after the one you sabotaged in Turkey, and we're going to open up a hamburger joint.”

September was doing homework with Katrina and Jordan. Jordan was in on the ruse, and got a big smile and started squirming in his seat. He'll never amount to much in a poker game. September didn't look up from what she was doing and merely said, “That's nice dear.” Katrina started peppering September with questions. “They're not really serious, are they?”

“As far as you know I am,” I responded. “Before we left Istanbul I found a place on the Web that can make us anything we want. Just send them a picture.”

September started to look nervous. “Do we have a picture?”

“Oh, yes. You took one of me wearing it in Pompeii. It's a beaut. Having the shirts sent here made the most sense because we had an address. Little did I know then what a great place this was.”

After a few nights we had graduated to fireworks that would not have been out of place in many civic Fourth of July celebrations. As window-rattling booms washed over the island and trails of flaming flowers of gunpowder lit up the night sky, I would look over my shoulder, expecting the police to storm the beach in riot gear and haul me away.

Katrina was mildly amused by the fireworks, but mostly she busied herself baking cakes. As our departure date neared I told Katrina, “We ordered you a shirt, too. We can serve burgers
and
cakes. We'll just hide the plane tickets from Mom until it's too late.”

“Dad,” Katrina responded, “Mom and I love it here, too, but
we
want to see the rest of the world.”

When our departure date arrived, the custom Bill's Burger Barn shirts still hadn't arrived. Sadly, we made our way to the airport without them. We queued up at the Air Mauritius counter and handed the nice lady our tickets.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “this flight departed yesterday. I'll see if I can't get you on the next flight, but we only fly this route three times a week.”

What? Yesterday?!
I grabbed my e.brain and looked at the date. For several seconds my gaze shifted from our tickets to the display on my PDA as if by looking at them hard enough the calendar would magically roll back. “I guess I lost track of time and forgot what day it was.”

September looked at me in disbelief. “Did you make us late so we could get that package?”

“That's not something I'd do!” I protested. September looked at me like she wanted to believe me, but didn't know if she should. “Okay, maybe it is something I'd do, but I didn't. Really. I swear on the fish.”

Swearing on the fish was code. Shortly after we married, September's parents had a great practical joke played on them that involved a wading pool and a catfish. The blame was laid at our feet, and although it was something we would have loved to take credit for, nothing we could say would cause her parents to believe it was someone else. They don't believe us to this day. By swearing on the fish, September knew I was innocent of the charge of missing our flight on purpose.

Problem is, even by the time we eventually left Mauritius our shirts still hadn't arrived. Somewhere in Mauritius there are four Bill's Burger Barn shirts waiting for a grand opening.

• • •

“You remember, of course, what I said as we were leaving Europe.”

Katrina, September, and Jordan repeated sequentially as if on cue, “Yes.” “No.” “Maybe. I dunno. Can you repeat the question?”

“You guys need to get a life.” Four people sharing another's private space for such a long time creates a weird group dynamic, including communicating by quoting sitcoms. I ignored the bait and continued, “I said we will never fit in again. That is especially true in Japan.”

I have been explaining to Katrina ever since she was old enough to listen that she was just like our faithful Toyota Corolla—made in Japan and exported to America. And of course, it was while September and I were living in Japan, contemplating raising a family, that the whole World-the-Round Trip idea hatched. Being back in Japan was wonderfully comfortable.

More than a decade after we had lived there I was surprised at how much Japanese was coming back to me. It was wonderful beyond description to be able to communicate with the locals. Make no mistake—my Japanese gave me all the proficiency of the average toddler. But I found that my communication skills, no matter how crude, coupled with a credit card made a powerful statement.

Recalling our previous experiences in Japan, we were reminded of the saying that no one extorts the Japanese as well as the Japanese. When we lived in Japan twelve years prior and were making plans to explore the country, we found it was cheaper for us to fly to Hong Kong for the weekend than it would be for us to take the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Hiroshima for the weekend. So despite living in Japan for a year, we'd never made it to two places we really wanted to visit: Kyoto and Hiroshima.

Thus, visiting these places was a priority and we braced ourselves for the most expensive two weeks of our entire trip. But first, after twelve years of being away, we returned to Kamakura where the idea for the World-the-Round Trip began.

Kamakura is about an hour and a half south of Tokyo by train. An easy day trip from Tokyo, it's a popular tourist destination and, as an important cultural and historical center, was spared damage during the war. The giant Buddha that is frequently seen on postcards from Japan is just a few blocks from our former apartment.