Out with the old and in with the new

Out with the old and in with the new.

Today stared off different than any other day I have experienced. Other than the candle art and the double feature of the Big Lebowski (actually I think I have done that with Blake before) I met the strangest man I think I have ever met before. It started when I went to breakfast. While ordering an omelet an old man approached me. "The meats are damn good." And luckily I was already on my way to get some sausage and bacon because I had absolutely no idea what this guy had said through his barbaric Irish accent. I smiled and did what all Tanzanians do to me when they don't understand what im saying. "Yah yah." I sat down at the table they had arranged for me and Danny did the same. "Want some tea? Yah you do. Who doesn't? Pardon the African tea though. For a British colony they don't have a bloody, I say, bloody idea of what they are doing." Danny was from Ireland and was the only guest at the hotel that wasn't there for Safari or Kilimanjaro. He called himself a hunter. And as my hopes ran high to hear some big game stories I soon found out he hunted quite different animals. I found out Danny belongs to a big group of men locally called "sugar daddies". The prerequisites are as follow. 1. You have to be white. 2. You have to be above fifty. 3. You have to Have tacky safari guide garb so you look like a tourist when you go the bars. This group uses there white skin and facade to play off that they are millionaires so that they can get local African women into bed. Danny himself has three girlfriends. All Arushan. While I was eating lunch with him and Samili (the first one I met) at L'Oasis Hotel he would snuggle up next to her flirt. Lunch ended and as if I was watching cheating before my eyes, which it was, he told Samili that he was going to take me for a walk and that she should relax and take a bath. He wasn't lying about the walk but he took me to another hotel across the highway. There by the poolside was a woman. Not in a bathing suit. Not lying down tanning. But rather sitting up on the end of the lawn chair. In the usual dirt covered sandals with a blanket draped around her. Danny, this 64 year old balding Irishman went to her immediately and began apologizing. She had been waiting for him since the night before. He later told me that he went out and got drunk with some real guides and decided that he wanted to go to Samili instead of her. I love seeing people getting caught up in lies so I sat back while he pleaded his case in a terribly accented Swahili. I don't understand Swahili but I knew that the chances of "Mr. Chad Sir" being a native word were slim. He used me as an excuse. Saying he got drunk with me and after drinking some local Fire Water Gin he was too belligerent to find his way home so I let him into my hotel room. All these woman, whether they believe him or not, act like he's telling the truth because they want his money. Its really disgusting actually. Samili is 23 and is a single mother and this lady couldn't have been more than 25. And the hardest part of all is that all they get is a hotel room for awhile, that is if he wants them there, and the occasional lunch. How do I know that they don't get money? Well other than the fact that Danny told me that its better than prostitution because he decides if he helps them or not, Dannys third woman moved in with him in Ireland so unless shes a polygamist other woman don't get to share the wealth. And whether she believes it or not, she to probably acts like he's telling the truth when he says he's going to Tanzania to finish business and that he will be gone for a month. I hope shes burns his house down. Pushes his car of the the cliff I saw his house situated on when he flashed out his bragging pictures. When people think of Africans being taken advantage of they think of the Land Grab, the White mans Burden, and obviously slavery. All terrible things that are for the most part over and forgotten. But it still occurs frequently. Whether it be underpaid laborers or poor women like Samili. Its the new wrong. One things for sure, Im not giving Danny the link to my Blog.
-Chad A. Dokken


- Chad