Views from the Internet Café

Internet Cafe named VIP. That's Allison (California), Me, and Holli (Oregon)

Sitting outside of the internet café, finishing a cigarette I look up and notice the colors that exist in my surroundings. Not only the visual colors but the colorful sounds: children playing and crying; birds singing; locals conversing in Kiswahili; the passing piki piki (motorbike); even the silent mzee (older man) riding his bicycle steadily but ever so slowly. The sound accompanied the beiges and grays of the mud and cinderblock houses; the browns of the wooden shacks with the yellow bananas and red tomatoes of the fruit and veggie stand underneath. Against the blue partially cloudy sky the colors are ever so vibrant. The hues of green in the trees took real shape and notice; the branches reaching, stretching to endless surroundings. I sat back watching and listening.
Bagamoyo is an oasis of color. Color is something that has always fed and inspired me intellectually, spiritually, and emotionally. The beauty that exists in the green leaf or the brown of the Baobab tree is very blunt. The sound of the silent mzee riding his bicycle steadily, but ever so slowly contrapuntally with the sound of the humming wheel barreller created a song that was pungent, poignant, saturated with energy that is only Tanzanian.
I stand up from the folding chair, finish my cigarette, say badaaye (later) to Frida, the manager of the internet café, and walk down the beige and grayish brown dirt road, wearing a white cut-off shirt and navy blue cut-off pants. I walk to the beat of Tanzania – adagio con moto (slow with fire). The children take note of the awkwardly dressed foreigner, singing MA-ZUN-GU. Always in the same three notes, MA-ZUN-GU…
I leave the internet café and head to the batik workshop. The view is breathtaking.