Article and Photos by Tony Mangia
There weren’t too many countries in the world accepting visitors when I made a concerted effort to escape from my COVID-19 cocoon at home this past spring. Then, after languishing on my own throughout the summer, a September window of opportunity to get away from the isolation arose, and I broke out my cobwebbed passport and made plans for Tanzania.
My previous plans for an overseas expedition in April were dashed — like so many others were — when flight limitations, the fear of contacting and, possibly, spreading COVID or finding myself stranded in a foreign quarantine ward were, for lack of a better phrase, at a fever pitch.
So, during the summer months, I watched as coronavirus cases spiked and subsided around the globe, even wondering if I would ever be able to travel overseas again without all the excess baggage a person would now need to bring along — namely COVID plus all of the concerns, and even guilt, associated with it.
In all honesty, traveling with the pandemic scare only added to my sense of adventure and the urgency to leave.
Meanwhile, I waited patiently, somberly gazing at my computer screen, reliving photos of my past faraway journeys and researching all I could about the virus, until I contacted a doctor friend (an infectious disease specialist) who assured me it was okay to travel, but stick to the standard precautions like masks, hand-cleaning and social distancing. As simple as those well publicized safeguards were, her professional reassurance and tone went a long way in helping to make my decision. So, after months of anxious, self-imposed seclusion at home and, after Tanzania re-opened its borders, my mid-September take-off couldn’t come soon enough.
And it would be worth every bit of the precautionary frustration and health advisory red tape just to break free of my tiny quarantine bubble.
My September-October itinerary would include a two-week animal welfare volunteering stint in Arusha sandwiched between a seven-day climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro and four-day safari in Serengeti National Park.
Looking back, I don’t know what was a crazier idea — going to Tanzania and attempting a world-class climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro or just going to Tanzania during a world-wide pandemic in the first place?
But also, in retrospect, the global virus — which had basically kept us all locked up at home — was a catalyst fueling a desire to challenge myself and take more risks, especially anywhere far away.
And what better way to isolate and break the boredom of self-quarantine than making a solo climb on the deserted trails of a lone mountain?
Talk about taking social distancing to an extreme.
And the volunteer program, well … who knew what to expect dealing with that?
I did get a seasonal flu shot in advance and, after being informed I would be physically handling many different animal breeds in the volunteer program, I considered getting a rabies pre-exposure immunization, as well. But that injection’s timeline — three shots spread out over 28 days — didn’t fit my schedule or my macho sense of immortality. So that inoculation was, quite irrationally, ignored.
So, despite that bit of recklessness, the trip was on. I packed the normal essentials plus those hard-to-find-over-there extras: headlamp, batteries and baby wipes. Then I added some new first-time carry-ons — including about a dozen face masks, rubber gloves and a half-dozen, pocket-sized bottles of hand sanitizer — to what I usually pack in my luggage.
A few maddening domestic flight changes by the airline (Departure from Dallas, then Chicago, then New York City) in the pre-flight weeks and having the overseas take-off pushed back (from Thursday to Friday) and Tanzanian airport rerouted (Dar es Salaam Airport was restricted because of COVID) to Kilimanjaro International only days before takeoff turned my whole departure into a convoluted logistical mess. And when I finally got to the Tampa check-in starting point, an agent then asked for my “negative COVID test.”
Of course, I hadn’t gotten one.
I had planned on getting the nose and throat swabbing, but when I called a couple of local community drug stores about getting tested before my travels, their response made it sound like if I didn’t show any of the numerous COVID symptoms, it was a waste of time. So, since I didn’t even have a runny nose, I didn’t press on further for a test.
The airline boarded me anyway, after a temperature scan, but with a warning at check-in that I might be refused entry to Tanzania on final arrival without the negative test certificate in hand. The thought of being turned away from or quarantined in Tanzania wracked my brain during the 29-hour ocean-hop from Florida to JFK to Qatar and finally to Kilimanjaro.
The anguish would all be all for naught.
Despite a mandatory mask and face shield rule (even while sleeping) on all of the Qatar Airlines overseas flights, the jaunt over the Atlantic wasn’t too uncomfortable since the cabin was about half filled and I had a row of three seats to myself.
The only scare was when about fifty people entered my plane at Doha International dressed in full body HAZMAT suits — hoods, boots and some with goggles. At first I thought they were scientists inspecting the plane and then maybe a cleanup crew, but found out later they were transfers from a Chinese airline. It was spooky watching them wander around the plane. I felt like an extra in some futuristic Netflix show, but then thought to myself aren’t we all starring in a real-life sci-fi movie these days?
I landed at Kilimanjaro International early Sunday morning — where I would begin climbing the famed mountain of the same name the next day. And I was thankful to view the world without that face shield fogging it up once again.
Customs at Kilimanjaro was a breeze. Temperature taken, visa inspected and no negative COVID test necessary.
There wasn’t anyone wearing a mask once I left the Kilimanjaro airport and I rarely spotted anybody donning any sort facial covering for the rest of my monthlong trip, but more on that, later. Looking around, you wouldn’t know there was a worldwide health crisis from the comings and goings on here. I must confess that I stopped wearing one myself about halfway through the first day, although hand sanitizer was in my pocket 24/7 and I used it frequently.
I had already booked my week-long Kilimanjaro trek with Kessy Brothers Tours and Travel out of Moshi, Tanzania — an operation referred to and recommended by the doctor and her husband who scaled Kilimanjaro together last year. The brothers (two jovial siblings, who couldn’t look more different, except for their constant grins) also ran safari tours out of their office space.
That one day delay in my flight departure meant I would be starting my Kilimanjaro climb on a single night’s rest — and after a hasty, jet-lagged runaround in Moshi that morning.
First, there was business at hand (balance of trek cost to be paid in US dollars), then a brief orientation on the climb followed an extreme cold weather gear fitting (loaned out by the Kessy Brothers) before zooming around town attending to various errands (money exchange, SIM card, bottled water) and not a face covering to be seen.
I settled in at the Keys Hotel — a cozy resort which took way more COVID precautions than anybody else I had seen since arriving. The staff all wore masks and they even had an attendant at the gate taking temperatures before you entered.
After a late afternoon shower and then a pizza and beer lunch, I slept soundly until my morning pick-up to Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Machame Trail starting point — a 45-minute drive from Moshi.
My guide, Michael, told me mid-September was usually one of the busiest times on Kilimanjaro, but COVID had all but scared away tourists — even the adventurous ones. He somberly mentioned that he usually guides two treks a months, but my climb was the first one he has led since March.
If Michael’s forlorn comment hadn’t convinced me of his predicament, the actual trek would. I only met a German couple (Vanessa and Alex) and Jason from the US on the trails during the whole climb.
The Machame’s thirty-seven miles of up-and-down footpaths, dotted with many rock, gravel and scramble sections, are hailed as some of the most awe-inspiring trails in the world. The numerous panoramic views helped take my mind off the rugged hike while I plodded on.
It was during these moments, looking out onto the magnificent horizon alone with the unseen mountain’s silent power always looming, which lent themselves to quiet contemplation. These special instances, concurrent with the lack of internet and television, made it easy to forget about all the troubles in the world — including COVID-19.
A sort of social media distancing.
And during that inspiring, isolated, media-free adventure, it was easy to imagine that all of the world’s problems had vanished — COVID and all.
Out of sight and cyberspace, out of mind and fear mongering.
Returning to civilization in Moshi did little to quell my newfound lackadaisical attitude towards the deadly virus. The nonchalant behavior of the everyday Tanzanian people (maskless group gatherings in markets, offices and the numerous tiny pubs which are everywhere) made it simple to let down your own guard. From what I saw, the cities seemed to be running like normal and the lax attitude actually made it seem like those virus concerns did vanish while I was on the mountain.
All it took was one week alone, grinding it out on Kilimanjaro with my small team, to wipe away any sense of my old routine in life.
And, with that, I reasoned that normalcy to Tanzanians was relative as to what was tangible and what was not. You didn’t see the virus, so there was no fear.
Even the English-language newspaper, The East African, I picked up reported that there were only 509 cases of COVID-19 recorded in the whole country!
Now, with even less concern about the virus, I headed from Moshi, via taxi, to my International Volunteer HQ (IVHQ) volunteer post in Arusha about two hours away.
Animal welfare was next on my itinerary and would become my eighth volunteer stint at different overseas outposts over the past five years. Volunteering is a proclivity where I now travel twice a year from four to six weeks and use as a basis to validate my travels.
IVHQ is a reputable organization with a variety of worldwide programs based out of New Zealand — six locations of which I happily already have under my belt with them.
There was a standard orientation and meeting with some of the volunteers in other IVHQ programs (mostly childcare) my first night at the main dorm. Not surprisingly, COVID restrictions and worries had narrowed down the usually larger number of volunteers in the hostel, but there were still about a dozen twenty-somethings from such distant locales as Mexico, Switzerland, England, as well as, the US already there.
IVHQ went to great lengths to safeguard its volunteers from the virus, as well their all-around safety, but when the vols were on their own, that was a different story.
What was surprising was that I didn’t see any of the volunteers wear masks (the invincibility of youth?) even when they frequented nightclubs and such. And, man, they did a lot of clubbing. Curiously, the long-term volunteers (some already there for months) insisted that they never even heard of anyone getting COVID during all of the time they were there. Go figure.
Although I was skeptical when I read that there were only 509 reported cases of COVID in all of Tanzania (who was I to doubt anything I read or heard from the media these days, especially in developing nations), but, according to my co-volunteers’ experiences and observations, it was hard to contradict the data.
Like almost anyone else going overseas nowadays, this was my first time traveling during a worldwide pandemic, so there was plenty of uncertainty and cynicism about statistics, masks, social distancing and what Personal Protective Equipment actually does.
Wearing PPE in Tanzania would become a moral and ethical conundrum made harder by the negligent attitude of officials and the easy going lifestyle of the Tanzanian people who shunned them.
The word lockdown didn’t seem to be in their vocabulary.
By now in Tanzania, I was only putting on a mask (which I kept in my pocket) when I visited a big-box supermarket — the only store or restaurant on my trip that required it — and in banks to exchange money. And, just like the volunteers here before me, I was beginning to think it seemed pointless to wear one when nobody else — including most of the staff at local medical clinics I had passed — was.
I tried to figure out what led me to start disregarding what were generally considered sound, worldwide COVID precautionary protocols — the same ones my doctor friend encouraged.
Back home in Florida, I was the good CDC soldier who always wore a mask at work, when I went shopping, the rare dining out or even just popping into the local RaceTrac station to pay for gas. I avoided most unnecessary contact with people and basically turned myself into a hermit in the process.
Why I ignored the same practices while I was in Tanzania became a mystery. Was it due to following the habits of the locals (When in Rome …), the lax enforcement of the rules by the government or just just the behavior of my peers (the volunteers) — although I was decades older and, supposedly, the adult in the room.
Over here, even by casual Sunshine State virus protocol, I was breaking pandemic rules, but I didn’t feel guilty … or immune either.
Maybe this perverse game of chance was a rebellion of sorts — a resentment of the months being shut in or shut out from the activities I enjoyed. Venturing down a path of social disobedience and against common sense because of politicians who told me what to do while not following their own mandates and now, in a foreign country, was where I, and all of the other tourists, actually felt the freedom to make a choice.
The funny thing? In Tanzania, the only time I felt like I was getting the social justice stink-eye was when I was wearing a mask.
Anyway, at the time, I was more interested in commencing with my volunteer work under the patronage and guidance of Dr. Evarest Maguo, chipping in during the doctor’s mission to keep both animals and humans comfortable and compatible in his home country.
Animal welfare in Tanzania seemed like a simple enough volunteer program to sign up for once I made the decision to “get away” this past fall during the pandemic, but I didn’t expect to find myself so involved in helping keep creatures and humans — including myself — safe in small, but rewarding way.
Our days were filled with house calls to a dog with mange here, another with kennel cough there. The other volunteers (Liam and Julien) and I found it harder to get used to bouncing over dusty, potholed roads to the assignments than the actual work, where we helped artificially inseminate cows or give worm medicine to a sty of pigs.
Dr. Maguo’s hand-on approach for volunteers even had me poking hypodermics into dogs’ necks and sticking my rubber-sheathed arm, elbow-deep, into a cow’s uterus checking for a calf in the womb.
Working with the doctor was the only time I wore gloves, and that safeguard was more about contracting whatever the animals had, than coming in contact with COVID-19.
Dr. Maguo’s real quest was to educate children and adults about the scourge of kichaa cha mbwa — or rabies as it’s simply known in the US — and promoting the mass vaccination of dogs to prevent it.
The volunteers drove to the village of Mto Wa Mbu with Dr. Maguo one weekend to assist at an open free clinic where locals brought in their dogs for rabies shots. The doctor does this about once a month in surrounding rural areas. The Saturday I worked, we vaccinated over 400 dogs for the deadly affliction.
Just a drop in the bucket when rabies is endemic — killing over 1,500 people annually in Tanzania — and stray dogs are as ubiquitous as the landscape.
Then other days, we made long drives to primary schools to teach the children about kichaa.
It was quite a scene watching swarms (and I mean hundreds) of rambunctious kids being set free from the maskless, crowded (four to a bench seat) classrooms all at once, then suddenly take plop on the ground, shoulder-to-shoulder, forming a sea of blue uniforms.
And there was the day we inspected a Masai livestock market outside Arusha where thousands of tribal herders and craftspeople mingled and bartered in great clusters.
All maskless.
After those couple of weeks working with a variety of domesticated farm, house animals and mingling with citizens, it was time to see untamed nature on safari.
IVHQ booked our safari with Tanzanian Host Experience. Two nights earlier, we were introduced to Ali and another guide who went by the solo moniker, Johnson, during an orientation on what was included (shared tents, sleeping bags, three meals a day and 1-1/2 liters of water supplied by them per day), what we should bring (jackets, snacks and cameras), what facilities the campsite had (toilets and semi-warm showers) and what we could expect to see (The Big Five). The cost — $700USD per person.
The pair expressed optimism about the dry-season weather and prospects for animal sightings, but apologized about the un-controllable absence of the dramatic wildebeest migration at this time of the year. Most of the migratory herds were were still heading south from Kenya.
No regrets were necessary for Mother Nature's ways.
As we boarded our safari vehicles, Ali reminded us about the scarcity of some breeds and mass migrations, but we should be able to see the Big Five — specifically lions, rhinos, elephants, leopards and water buffaloes.
Our guides kept up their positive outlooks despite their own tough times in Tanzania — the same difficulties the world was experiencing — because of COVID.
Like the herd migrations, financial hardships for the safari workers due to the lack of foreign tourists over the past two seasons, was something the men couldn't control.
This time because of mankind and not Mother Nature.
The virus had kept visitors away and Tanzania’s important safari revenue dwindled down to almost a fraction of what it normally is. I remembered hearing the same sad refrain while climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro two weeks earlier, when my guide, Michael, said his crew was also feeling the pinch.
Ali told us that this was his first safari outing since March. And being that we were headed into October, for that moment, it was a sobering timetable of how long COVID has affected different people and various economies all over the world.
But the trip to Serengeti would go on and not disappoint.
Giraffes and zebras mostly seemed nonplussed to see us when we stopped, poked our heads out of the raised roof and snapped photos amidst the wide open plains, It was a reassuring, and dramatic, reminder that the world is more than just household quarantine and isolation.
Our days were filled with jarring rides down dirt roads through the bush —plumes of rust-colored dust trailing the vehicles — spotting lots of giraffes, zebras, lions, water buffalo, ostriches and cheetahs. Monsterous pods of hippos seemed to gather in almost every body of water.
One day, after a picnic lunch on a dried up river bank, we got up close and personal with a pride of lions — with about a dozen cubs — lounging around, indifferent to the close proximity of our vehicle, and more interested in hiding from the sun under a lone umbrella-shaped tree in the middle of nowhere.
We got so near to the cubs, it almost violated social distance rules, yet felt no danger from the blasé moms. It was almost impossible to not fantasize about jumping out of the vehicle to scratch their fuzzy ears — which of course, was forbidden.
Man, was I glad I took this trip.
The last day, there was a thrilling dash to see a rhino grazing along a horizon. Park rules prevented us from driving across the plains for a closer view of the hard-to-find beast, but it was a sighting, nonetheless. And my 400mm camera lens got me up closer.
Park rules seemed to be the only ones we were obeying.
After the safari, I had a flight back to the US on Friday night and didn’t want to go through all of the COVID-test anxiety I endured on the trip over. There were so many reports about the constant changes in state-by-state and city-by-city COVID quarantines that my head spun. Some US locales were waiving quarantine directives if you had a recent negative test, while others had no mandates at all. I wasn’t taking a chance.
My IVHQ managers told me I could get a COVID-19 test from the Ministry of Health within 72 hours before checking in and jetting back to the states. They said it would take two days from the actual test to get the results, so I arrived at the hospital at 9 am Wednesday — second in line to a travel agent from San Francisco. We were basically the only ones wearing masks. Nobody — including most doctors or nurses — seemed to have them on.
The testing area was a bleak, dirt pounded area down a hill from the white, cement, two-story hospital wards we drove through. The three large, canvas safari-style tents with old, rusting hospital beds piled in the corners made it look like some M*A*S*H unit ghost town — an out of the way place which must have served as temporary mass testing clinic when the coronavirus was peaking in the spring and left abandoned since the initial hysteria. Two converted shipping containers painted white — one left open with a padded gurney and COVID “investigation forms” scattered around the floor — served as the administrative offices.
The whole area seemed spooky and was probably, and purposely, set off far away from the general population of the hospital to prevent contamination. You could almost picture the lines of people here when the pandemic scare first hit.
Joining us later in line was a Tanzanian family headed to Kenya (A neighboring country with red-zone COVID rates and strict entry regulations) and another woman. It was almost two hours before an administrative person even showed up and another hour before the doctor and a medical assistant (wearing a mask and gloves) arrived to conduct the nose and throat sampling procedure. It was difficult holding back a sneeze while the long cotton swab was tickling my sinuses.
The results could be picked up at 6 pm in two days, but not before (The doctor was adamant, and almost hysterical, about calling for results beforehand) I made a $50 US payment at some sort of bank check-cashing outlet at a nearby strip mall and got my certificate number for proof of payment.
Waiting, testing and making payment was a tedious, all day process — typical of the non-rushed pace-of-life locals call Tanzanian Time. Thankfully, I had my IVHQ managers and driver to help sort out all of the logistic and language barriers — otherwise, it would have been futile.
Picking up the results at the hospital on Friday night was just as frustrating. After being misdirected to a leprosy ward (Just the words on the sign sent a peculiar shiver up my spine) and into an operating room theater (Thought of the Junior Mints episode of Seinfeld), among other miscommunicated instructions, my driver and I found the doctor’s office. He apologized that the results hadn’t arrived yet, with just hours before my plane took off. At the eleventh hour, almost literally, the test would come back negative and I made a dash for my midnight flight with certificate in hand — and back to the masks and face shields.
Amazingly, after a temperature check the Kilimanjaro International Airport, not a single airline employee or airport agent (through three more airports) would check me for fever or even ask if I felt well — never mind asking to see my negative COVID test certificate which I went through the trouble of getting.
In fact, when I arrived in the US, and without any prompting, I proudly held the certificate up against a plastic partition in front of the customs agent, who didn’t look up from inspecting my passport and let out a muffled “Next,” through his mask.
I was back in the world of social distancing.
Watch Movies Online Free Full Movie no SIGN UP
ReplyDelete