There have been two very significant events in my life.
Firstly, when i was about 14 year old i came to Tanzania for the first time. I remember my dad pointing to a stretch of land across the ocean in Dar es Salaam and telling me about this island called Zanzibar. I'm not going to say that 'it was from that moment that i wanted to go to Zanzibar', or that the island he was pointing at was actually Zanzibar, but i will say that from a young age i knew Zanzibar existed as a piece of land in the ocean close to Dar es Salaam, and that i wanted to go there, from a young age.
Secondly, when i was about one or two my parents moved from Israel to South Africa. Instead of leaving me to fend for myself, they decided to take me with. A gracious decision with an even more extreme consequence - it meant i was probably not going to be a soldier, as South Africa subsequently abandoned conscription while Israel has not yet done so.
So how do these two seemingly irrelevant events link up.
Well, it was about two weeks ago that i left Nkatah Bay with the three Israelis and two Americans. We are driving in a 4x4 Nissan bakkie named Ian. Ian has two seats in the front and enough space in the back to fit the luggage, guitar, mattresses and bodies while still leaving enough maneuvering room to allow for making food, playing card monopoly (a genius game for those yet to discover it) and sleeping. After a few hours we arrived at the base of the mountain below Livingstonia - a small village ontop of a mountain overlooking pretty much the whole of Malawi. It was dark and the drive up the 22 180 degree turns with 50 meter drops onto rocks below was made pleasurable by the fact that i was not driving and that we could not see much outside of the windscreen.
Livingstonia is pure magic. We spent three days doing nothing. However when we were not doing nothing we were playing poker, eating Amit's mother cake that she had sent from Israel, and contemplating what we should do after doing nothing. We often did nothing after doing nothing, which was nice. This was fun and interesting but still does not explain the link between the two events.
From Livingstonia we drove back down the windy mountain - now realizing how crazy it had been to drive up this bohemouth of a cliff at night, and set course for Tanzania. By the time we reached Dar es Salaam, two days later, we had played a lot of card monopoly, gone through 4 iPod batteries and would have eaten even more of Amit's mothers cake if there was any left. I would have eaten my mother's cake, but she had only sent cookies, which we would have eaten if they had not been eaten a few weeks before. Since there was no cake we ate bread and water.
After one night in the local YMCA we decided that neither YMCAs nor loud generators that go all night and switch off at 6am were for us and we departed for Kipepeo - a beach just south of the city. It was here that events began to unfold. An exquisite beach, palm trees, hammocks, shallow water that lets you walk out 100m to the rocks during low tide, sandy campsite on the beach, chilled bar with fresh coffee and cold beers. The place would have been perfect if things didnt get stolen all the time and there wasn't only salt water in the taps.
However there were two more remarkable thing about Kipepeo beach. Firslty, it was not Kipepeo beach at all. After 5 days there of doing nothing, but swimming, soccer and cards, we discovered we were not at Kipepeo and had actually stopped at a different town and were too consumed with excitement and no cake from anyones' mothers, and had not reached our destination. I found this out when taking a dolladolla back to the campsite, only to be dropped at a place i had not been to before.
Secondly (and more connected to my story) was that i was one civilian hanging out for a week with 4 soldiers. Three Isrealis - a missile launcher, a combat engineer and a logistics officer. And one American (not the ones from the car ride) - a female navy seal. Now contrary to what one would expect, soldiers are just like normal people. They play soccer, eat cake, peal mangoes and listen to music. They did no gun cleaning, not a single push up, not once did i see any of them dog crawl to their tents or look for snipers in the bushes. Actually besides the hidden memories of war, knowledge of deep military secrets, and skills in fighting, guns and weaponry, you would never know that these 4 were soldiers.
Yet it made sense because we were not at war, we were on the beach. They were on holiday from war. During war they were made to fight people they did not know, tread water for hours wearing full military gear, injure themselves training for combat, and pretty much spend 3 -5 years of their lives hungry and tired. On the beach life was different and none of these activities were needed.
After a few days on the beach we packed up a few bags, left all the food we had bought for our trip to Zanzibar in the car and headed out by ferry to that little island i had been shown as a kid - Zanzibar. The 3 hour boat ride took only 5 hours and I had my face pressed up against the glass with excitement as we finally arrived at Stone Town, Zanzibar.
Zanzibar is beautiful. Stone cobbled streets, endless narrow alleyways leading you deeper and deeper into the vortex of markets, corner stores and mosques. Woman cooking on fires in the streets and smells of chipati and fish everywhere. There is a night market in which you can buy any type of fish imaginable. They cook it up right there in front of you. Its delicious and fresh, and then you move onto the next stall to be hustled by a fisherman selling you any type of fish imaginable. The houses have intricate wooden carved doors and windows and people hang out in the streets all day chatted, working and walking.
Two days later we headed to the coast, which is where i am now. Yoni has gone on a days boat trip to snorkel and braai. Or is doing his advanced divers course at a dive school owned by another Israeli. I am taking an Eitan day to blog, read my new book (Catch 22 - should shed more light on this post, for those that have read it), chat to my dad on Skype and head down to Kendwa to visit some friends. Tomorrow i think i'm going to go diving - i'm spoiling myself since i just got paid!
Yet having all this fun and being in such a pretty place has got me thinking about war. One gains a lot from war and from being in the solider. You gets to defend the honour of your state. You can fight enemies who will stop at nothing to burn your flag. You get to be written in history as some of the nameless faces who destroyed villages, split up families and saved your country from possible doom. You get to be remembered forever as a no one who contributed very little to a grand scheme that saved your nation and achieved very little.
The 4 soldiers are some of the finest people i have met. They are funny, generous, kind, and clever. These are the cream of the crop of humanity and its not surprising that they were selected for such important jobs. What is surprising though is that they agreed to do the job. They hate war, they way prefer soccer and cake, and in general life on the beach seems a lot better.
I have not had the honour of risking my life for bad political policies just yet. But i have seen what war has done to Africa and other parts of the world. Little of it is good. There is nothing civil about war. We get one life in which to do as much as we can, have as much fun as possible and contribute to the world. No one remembers dead solider. Politicians take the credit for young lives. In the grand scheme of things such as cake, mountains, reef diving, and cheap meals on desolate beaches; being a solider just doesn't seem worth it. But that's just my way of looking at things...
So how do these two events link up. Well, my parents left Israel, denying me of my legacy of being a nameless soldier. In return however they raised me and my siblings with a love for Zanzibar, peace and cake, even if it is from someone else's mother. And i guess, it was here on this island with these soldiers that i realized that that was probably a good thing.
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