Now That's What I Call Hate Mail

I took a quick trip to Dar last Thursday-Saturday to do my application for a Chinese visa - I want to go back and visit OYY during our 11-day break between Terms 2 and 3. I tried to have someone else do it for me, but the Chinese embassy refused to entertain the application unless I went in person to do it.

So I taught for the first two periods on Thursday morning, then took the latest bus from Iringa to Dar, which is a long trip already and was made longer by the fact that the bus engine kept overheating. But driver stopped several times to let the engine cool down, and finally in a town called Morogoro we switched buses...but not before waiting there for an hour. So we didn't get to Dar until about 9:30 at night. But I got to my guest house just fine and retrieved my papers from the person who had tried to apply for me.

Incidentally, Dar is quite hot. I've been in hotter places, like Texas in the summer or Australia in January/February 2009, but both of those places usually have pretty low relative humidity. In Dar, because it's coastal, this is not the case. The air is humid, so you just start dripping sweat when you're outdoors. It just makes the air conditioning in places feel that much better.

I took a taxi to the Chinese embassy on Friday morning, waited in line for an hour or so, and then handed in my application. The guy looked it over and said it was fine, so I asked if I could pay for the "rush processing" and pick it up later in the afternoon. His response: no, because the embassy does not offer the rush option for Americans...just for everyone else. Rather than fight the system, I just asked if my friend could pick it up for me and the employee said that was fine. So I once again left without my passport and took the second of what would be many, many taxi rides throughout the day.

I was charged with locating various objects for the school, so I took the opportunity to explore the various large shopping malls/plazas around Dar. Most of them had pretty much the same things, but I found most everything I was looking for and got to practice my Kiswahili with all of the taxi drivers I talked to. By my count, I took 9 taxi rides in less than 36 hours. Well, 8 taxi rides and 1 bajaji (motorcycle with a rickshaw-type seat attached) ride.

Anyway, I found one item that made me laugh out loud during my shopping explorations, and I took pictures of the varieties of that item:

It says, "Just to Say That I Hate You Really Very Much. You may say I have the wrong attitude, my nature is rude, my mentality is crude, or, I am prude-"

"Whatever you may say, all I say is - I Hate You."

"I Hate You" greeting cards!

I only saw them in one supermarket, but there were 7 different ones. I took pictures of all of them, and I just had to buy 2. They were only Tsh 1500 (about $1.15) each. Here are the rest:

"I Really Hate You."

And inside:

"Your anger and rude behavior makes me realize, How much I Hate you - You have always brought pain into my life. I Hate You."

Incidentally, I do not take responsibility for the errors in punctuation and capitalization. I'm just quoting them as they came. Next:

"I hate you for hurting me, and taking away my smile. I Hate You"

"To say that I Hate U"

inside:

"Just get out of my life for, I don't care where you go - go to Mars, Or, go to Hell, wherever you go - will suit me just as Well!"

"I Hate You so very much"

"Life goes through a phase of leaving and enjoying every moment, now life is going through a phase of regretting because of you. I Hate You."

"I Hate You more than words can say"

"I can't believe I am going to say this, but I have to say that I hate you for what you have made me go through and for the pain you've caused me. I Hate You."

"I hate you when you said you will call, and you never called at all. I Hate You."

I seriously laughed out loud when I saw these right next to the "Get Well Soon" cards and the "I Love You" cards, and pulled out my camera to record the sentiments that were printed. I bought 2 just to show people (I don't have any recipients in mind, don't worry).

So I had a nice time exploring Dar on Friday - it's the first time I've actually been able to spend more than a few hours in the city on my way to or from the airport. And I got the visa issue sorted out (I think...knock on wood), so it was successful as well.

I'll be sure to post about my visit back to China in April!