Journalism is thought to be the first draft of history, and by this logic (correct logic), to journal is the first draft of experience. An event already past is often deeper when it is relived. I won't quote Eliot here. You know this is all true without him telling you.
I once visited Stone Town, Zanzibar. I took an hour plane from Nairobi and landed at its one gate airport sometime in the early summer of 2002. I had spent the year working for a Salesian Mission in Makuyu, Kenya. I was a Catholic whose Catholicism was not so much faltering but pummeled by what I saw that year, but this is a subject for another time.
Zanzibar was recommended to me by a man named Michael Wiemar from Malta. Michael was old world, charming, and the hardest worker I have ever met. He'd come back from construction projects during day covered in the thick red dirt that covers central Kenya. By dinner time, he was polished, sharp, and hansom in a blue double breasted blazer and a cravat. When Michael spoke, I listened.
And Micheal said that one of the last timeless events to be observed in the world (for he had indeed seen it, most of it) was to watch a Dhow inch across the horizon in Zanzibar.
It was enough to make me go, and I landed (by way of a travel agent recommended by the Mission) at a mega resort: coconut milk with a straw at the door and Swahili men in smart white uniforms waiting on me hand and foot. I lasted all of four hours.
I thought of Stone Town this morning, a town that was closer to the real fascination of the world than anyplace I've been to this day. Wilted in tropical heat, men build boats on the shore, bring fish to ready grills to sell, and sleep at mid-day under broad canopies of trees. I was happy to escape the resort and I was happy to land in Stone Town.
Nothing in Stone Town's history is repressed. If you choose, you can camp out in the rooms of the glorious Serena Hotel, but any venture out will show the Portuguese fort, the slave prison out in the harbor, and a warren of close knit streets in the Omani Arab tradition. Large multi-level British colonial houses line the shores, most with brilliantly carved Indian doorways. An Anglican church holds David Livingston's heart. People are very poor. Most women wear a veil.
I got robbed, or perhaps more accurately, scammed. I got lost, and it was not charming, existential soft lost-ness. This was post-9-11 Bin Laden poster and harassment lost. An old man took me from where I ended up with a concerned look: "You should not be here. I'll take you out."
That same day, I visited a Turkish Bath, bartered for illegal ancient coins in someone's house (don't get righteous, I didn't buy any), and spent an afternoon reading Billy Budd under a mosquito net in a place called the Green Hotel. I have exactly four photographs to record it all. One is of the cross over Livingston's heart. What a waste that I did not photograph one of those Indian doors.
That evening, I tried my best to be cheerful as the Dhows drew slow wonderful lines across the horizon. I bought single shilling portions of red snapper and other chunks off the grills. I actually ran into the man who robbed me and rose into a fit of anger with him, before just letting it all go, deciding that it none of this tournament of poverty and richness was worth it. All I remember of him was that he had a stern smile like a troubadour and AIDS inflicted lesions.
I got terribly lonely that night, and that is what I am thinking of now. At those times in my past, I always think of friends who can meet people on the street, falling into a bar or into bed with stories to tell. I've never had this talent. I am more of a brooder.
My solution was to cling to what I knew, and let no one tell you that it is not true, but if you are from the United States and you have never experienced hunger in your life, your essence is much closer to the Grand Serena Hotel than it is to the reality of Africa. That is where I went.
I ordered a beer as the darkness fell deeper. It was a night of pitch, not of stars. And there was nothing to illuminate the deck where I stared out over the shifting water of the Indian Ocean. There was nothing in the distance. Out there was Arabia, beyond that, India, and beyond that ...
And there was couple next to me, twisted into each other. I felt good for them, and only pity for myself. They did not notice me as they slowly got more and more ambitious, more and more exhibitionist. They decided in all that darkness to make love. I paused to confirm what I was seeing, drained my beer, and went back to Billy Budd.
I think of this now. I will think of it again and again. They make love forever. Billy is always on trial.