Das rollende hotel

Das Rollende Hotel

Today we saw a rolling hotel.  It was huge 18 wheel truck, modified for tourists.  The front was like a coach bus, and the back was a three or four decker dormitory.   It held about 20 German tourists. The driver looked like Dog the Bounty Hunter. They sleep, eat and travel on the bus from one location to the next. 

I have never experienced this sort of industrial tourism. Our friend and driver Hussein says that most Americans are interested in 5 star accommodations in Africa—big resorts that cost hundreds of dollars per night.  We stay in backpacker hostels that cost $7 per night or so, serve more or less local food, and are proudly no frills.

I’d bet that the advantage of industrial tourism is that it is predicable, comfortable (in the mental sense), and familiar for tourists.  You can have German food, German beer, German language guides, etc.

At the same time, one of the best elements of being cheap is that you meet and interact with lots of Africans. You work with them, hang out in the lobby together, go to local markets, and really try to absorb some of the wisdom that Africa can teach you.  So for the patrons of das rollende Hotel, or the Paraa lodge, or anywhere that has a pool or a golf course, here is some of that wisdom:

1. Relax. It’s OK.

This goes for anything from the time you are eating dinner to the fact that you’ve been to the toilet 14 times today.

2. Things that are serious are not that serious.

Today Paul accused Hussein of being unprofessional because he (I won’t say, but it was sort of like the time he showed some biscuits to a Baboon on the road, and got it to leap up on the hood and try to grab them through the windshield. ) If a surgeon took a selfie while holding your pancreas, that would be unprofessional. Accusations of unprofessional behavior are very serious. Paul was serious.  But he also laughed about it.  I don’t think the members of the AMA would also find the pancreas selfie amusing.

3. The same thing can be good and bad at the same time.  Mining limestone for concrete with a huge jackhammer directly underneath a nice tourist resort is very bad. It is annoying and loud and obnoxious. And also cement is good, necessary, and expensive. It’s good and bad.

4. Wing it.  Want a house? Then find some stuff and start building. Cut small trees in the woods, and carry 12 ft long logs home on the back of your bicycle, on a road that is approximately 8 ft wide.  You’ll get there.  Also if you need a coffin, it fits conveniently on the back of a motorcycle.  Holding an election? Don’t bother consulting the history of the world in planning it you, just do what you think will work.  What’s the recipe for vegetable stew? What have you got?

5. Work between 0 and 18 hours a day. Make work a social thing. Spend more time chatting with folks at the shop next door than stocking or selling things. Leave the shop unattended for a while. Treat each sale as if you have never sold anything in your life, and don’t understand how money works.  If your truck breaks down, park in the middle of the road, sleep underneath, use burning logs as flares, and roast some corn while you wait for assistance.

6. Have long talks with people you have never met. How are you?  Well, to be honest, my kids are driving me crazy. Oh yeah, try traveling in a foreign country with 8 teenagers?  Continue for 20 minutes or so.

7. Never multitask. If you are boiling potatoes, just sit there and watch them. Start cooking 20 minutes after dinner guests arrive.  Even if you’re, say baking bread—it’s OK if you don’t eat till 10 pm. See number 1.

8. Make lemonade. Were you evicted from your forest home? Nearly executed by the Interhamwe? Enslaved as a child soldier? That’s the past, forget it, move on.

9. Just do stuff.  Jump in 100% even if you have no idea how to do what you are doing—you’ll figure it out.  So many people in Uganda start schools, or development organizations, or guesthouses, or businesses on what looks like a whim. That’s fine. Maybe it will work out, maybe not.

10. Just trust people. It’s OK to hand a baby to a stranger through a car window like it was 40 lbs of bananas, and walk away. It’s OK to sleep at someone’s house. 

11. You don’t need insurance, documentation, warrantees, a car mechanic, zoning laws, restaurant inspectors, hand sanitizer, anything in a bathroom besides a hole, electricity (except for your mobile phone), child seats, seat belts, welding masks, shoes, walls, deodorant, hot water, forks (you have one on the end of your right arm), anti-malarial medicine, or a rolling hotel.

12. You should always have: two spare tires, a bike pump, a grill made from a car wheel, 40 lbs of bananas, a machete (even if you are 3 yrs old), a stick for whacking cows, goats or children, 50 liters of diesel, something to sell or hand through a car window, a pen, a piece of cloth for carrying a baby, a bottle opener, three pineapples and a bicycle.