Our  long day of traveling was about to reach a tragic climax.  We were tired up to this point and we had no idea what a disaster we were about to experience.  Remember, we went from Lilongwe, Malawi, to Lusaka, Zambia, to Nairobi, Kenya to Stone Town.  On this leg, I was in charge of the travel arrangement.  My friend Nick lived and worked with me at Bowles Hall in college.  Because we worked for the university administration and were in charge of disciplining offenders in this 200 hundred person, all-male residence, we felt set apart from the others and formed especially close friendships.

    I have no friend in the world like Nick.  Quick as an athlete, a thinker and especially in the way he works with people, I am deeply blessed by him.  Nick worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the most remote site in Kenya.  After graduating a year after him, my friend Scott and I on a whim flew out to Kenya and against all the odds managed to surprise him.  Because of this experience, Heidi (who herself was planning to go to live in Kenya) took a special interest in me and we began spending a great deal of time together on long walks along Laguna Beach.  Nick and I spent a lot of time together during the years I lived in Southern California and as we both did doctoral work in Massachusetts.  Nick can negotiate.  He can meet people who are totally different from him and learn about them, always asking just the right questions.  He has great technical gifts too and did amazing work for the UN in coordinating food aid to Somalia.  Over the years we have had many good times together from cross-country skiing San Diego to swimming in the Indian Ocean to surfing in New Hampshire while Lulu his old girlfriend watched Micah on the beach.

    Anyway because of my connection to Nick, I was in charge of this leg of the journey.  Heidi always worried about this.  She knew that we were arriving very late at night and that we might have trouble getting a visa or a hotel without prior reservations.  I wrote to Nick about my concerns and he didn’t write back.  Finally, he told me not to worry, that he would be arriving a week early and would make all the arrangements for us, that we would have the time of our life.

    Heidi was still skeptical.  At our going away party in Durban, I received an email from Nick saying he was looking forward to seeing us on Sunday.  Sunday didn’t sound quite right, so I tried to ask Heidi about it, but got distracted by the other partygoers.  I pasted our arrival information into the return email, but since the other flights weren’t included neither was the date of our arrival.

    So we arrived late Saturday night, went through immigration control and customs, and then walked out into the warm humid night.  The airport was almost entirely empty with a few cars parked on the dirt road out in front of the terminal.  The palm leaves clattered together in the wind and there was absolutely no sign of Nick.  All of our fellow passengers were picked up and left.  I asked the airport officials for a phone, but by the time we got money for it they were gone.  The last tourists there were from Denmark.  They lent us their phone but the number I had was wrong.  As they were locking up the airport doors, Micah and Melia were trying to sleep on the duffle bags in the dust.  Heidi was really mad.  Before this she pretty much told me that I had gotten us into this and had to get us out, but now, she sprang into action.  She worked out an arrangement for the last cab to drive us around Stone Town looking for a hotel that was open and not totally full during this busy season.  The children felt deeply alarmed that we had no place to stay and almost on the edge of tears.  I reached a pretty low point myself and felt totally responsible for this whole disaster.

    On the plane Heidi and talked to two Muslim ladies next to her about the nicest hotels in Zanzibar.  We visited the first of these and they had a room!  From the street, it was a beautiful looking place, but the only room they had had only two single beds and cost $450 per night.  By this point Heidi was good friends with the driver.  He drove us further into the center of town, stopped abruptly on a narrow street, then he and Heidi went off down a dark alley together leaving me with the children in the car.  Micah our border collie completely lost it at this point.  I felt so badly and Melia was her normal buoyant self thriving as she saw all the new people.

    Heidi came back to the car as I helped the porter carry our heavy bags down the alley to the Chavda Hotel, and then up to our room on the fifth floor.  It felt like penance on a very hot and humid night after long travels.  The hotel’s exotic wooden furniture and finishings with huge doors with massive spikes on them, and the stained glass windows and the tile work are all unlike anything that I have seen before - Arab, Indian and African.  I couldn’t sleep at all that night out of guilt.  After all the places I had been to and all that had happened I couldn’t feel comfortable.  The taxi driver had really helped us to find the best place for us in all of Stone Town.  Heidi told me that I owed her for life because of that night and I still agree.

    The next morning I finally found a shop where I could make phone calls. And connect to the internet.  I called every phone number I could find for Nick and emailed him.  Because there was no voice on the answering machine, I didn’t even know if I had gotten through.  In any respect I went to the open top floor of the Chavda Hotel to join the rest of the family for breakfast.

    Melia is still offering serious resistance to taking her malaria pills.  I cannot believe how she fights.  We have to physically restrain her.

    The rooftop restaurant is one of the most magnificent places I have ever been.  Among a narrow maze of alleys, this place is far above everything with a spectacular view of the ocean, islands and city.  We ate pineapples, papaya, mango, apple bananas, and some strangely cooked eggs and juice.

    Then we set off along the very narrow streets of Stone Town.  We saw ancient stone and coral walls about four stories tall, with dark interiors behind heavy ancient doors or barred windows.  Women in flowing Muslim costumes, men gathered at the alley intersections taling, children playing soccer, etc., all life is happening here on these narrow streets.  I really hope that I remember this –that while I am sleeping at home in California, I will know that there are all these things happening in Zanzibar.