Elite

I don’t wonder, standing here at the glass counter as the man leafs through my documents and the other passengers who were all cleared walk to the exit, if the bus waiting outside will leave without me, because why should I wonder, for everyone went through this counter and went their way, and I don’t wonder about that even when he asks me some questions because that’s pretty standard procedure, and perhaps I don’t wonder because he is chatty and friendly, but then he says come with me, and we walk through the hall with its executive but now empty waiting lobby with the national colors of the Tanzanian flag, the green, yellow, black and blue stark and bright and inviting, and we are now past our conductor who’s eating mahamari and chatting with the man who exchanges bundles of currency from his pocket for passengers seeking to change currency, and we enter the office and the man I’m with calls the other man boss, and Boss is in a grey suit and grey tie and famed glasses, and I sit down and even though Boss too speaks to me in that calm Swahili with that cordial cadence, those r’s sounding exactly between an r and an l, and when he asks me the same questions as the other man, then I wonder for the first time, and please wonder with me, whether I will see Dar es Salaam, that old city with the name that deserves a prize, the city of peace, and walk those same streets and bazaars that the Swahili novelists whose books I loved when I was younger, and will I get to see its interesting contrasts of the old and the new, buildings crumbling with sanctified age under the humid sun next to the blue skyscrapers shooting out of the shore of the Indian Ocean and piercing the blue skies, and will I eat jackfruit outside the Vodacom shop, and will I…but Boss is asking me why are you here? and how long? and where will you stay? and do you know anyone here? and where do they live? and what do they do? and what is their phone number? and can you call them right now? and can you show me the messages you have exchanged?…and I’m imaging whether I’ll see the national parks of Arusha, and as the Boss is looking at me and I’m looking at him, I wonder if might traverse the country and watch the small towns and villages speed by in one of the buses and watch the motorbikes and hawkers from the window and the green landscapes dotted with tall trees and what about those villages where you feel you will get lost in time, the ones with the mud houses and aluminium roofs that could blind you, I want that too, all of that, but I have to answer the big boss and I am giving him mono syllables yes yes yes yes no, three weeks, Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, vacation, passport here, free zone, East African Community, and I answer like this not because I am upset but because from experience the best way is to be calm and serious and not desperate but look like a seasoned tourist with options so I don’t look at the door or check my watch and I’ve crossed my legs and I lean back, and it’s best to suppress your sighs and to look the Boss in the eye, and if you are somewhere they speak English, its best to speak good English preferably with an foreign accent, even here where they speak Swahili more than English, and to throw in an unfamiliar word because that will mean you are educated and therefore trustworthy, but will I roll into Zanzibar with that speeding, big, red, white and blue ferry splitting the foaming sea among sleepy locals and excited tourists, as I talk to the fishermen going back home from Dar where they sold their fish, and will I stare at the oh so beautiful whitewashed waterfront of Stone Town and soak in its history and glory and pains and eat sweet halwa and drink dark coffee at that market that bustles with people and noises and smells and life and will I read that lovely essay by the poet Clifton Gachagua about Zanzibar at Forodhani Park and chat with a key maker about the contested politics of Tanzania and Zanzibar and the state of the economy and wonder how come I have not been here all this time, to this place that is more like home than any other, and will I ever see the young men summersault with devilish daring from the high pier into the water at that sunset many cross the world for as the crowd gasps and tourists snap photos of the action, smiling at the bravery of these boys but inwardly thinking oh how primitive these people, and will I get to be at the film festival in the old fort where slaves were once sold, and will I close my eyes in one of those hotels as the lady sings taarab and sways and sashays and goes into hypnotic ecstasy, will I do all those things to make me forget all that I carry with me to this place to forget, and will I…but now I know for sure why Boss is holding me, it’s not enough I’m Kenyan, in his eyes I’m Somali and that’s not good, and he is looking at my passport again, and will you wonder with me if he will be impressed by the American visa and is he thinking perhaps Somalis with American visas can at least be trusted not to blow up something, and will that be the only reason I might finally catch that bus and get to do all these things, will it finally, again be something special about me that flips the situation around, like the badge indicating membership to the Law Society or a call to a powerful friend at the last minute or my stylish suit, or the good English, and if it happens to be so again, should I take relief that I might be some sort of ‘elite,’ but what if I was not all these things, as many like me are?