Lessons in Socialism

And also how I ended up with my pants down in public

(This is one of a series of posts about my childhood as a missionary kid in Kenya. You can find other fun tales under the tag “Memoir.”)

“We’re going to Tanzania!” my mother announced. “But we’ll have to bring our own toilet paper because President Nyerere is a socialist.”

Julius Nyerere, the founding father of Tanzania, was a really nice man, like for real, with really bad economic ideas that set his country back decades behind next door neighbor Kenya. Without toilet paper.

I was around 12. I didn’t know what a socialist was, but I didn’t really bat an eye over the toilet paper supply. 1980’s Kenya, where we lived, wasn’t just a consumer paradise either. Still, we could almost always get toilet paper. It didn’t have the butt-cuddling softness of Charmin, but it was better than typing paper. Or nothing.

We didn’t just bring our own toilet paper. We loaded our car with sheets and towels and lots of food, even though we were going to stay at what purported to be a tourist hotel, on the edge of magnificent Ngorongoro Crater. Hmmm, intriguing, I thought. We had been to many game lodges in Kenya, and not only did they provide linens and food, they had high tea and multi-course meals and attentive waitstaff and Out of Africa-esque decor. Tourism was big business in Kenya.

“Jomo Kenyatta was a capitalist,” my mother explained.

Jomo Kenyatta was a capitalist, but he was also a corrupt dictator. But he had some really cool hats.

I had heard through the missionary grapevine that life was more austere next door. The missionaries all had gardens to grow as much produce as they could and guns to shoot their own meat (The missionary men loved Tanzania. Their wives would have sacrificed a limb for a grocery story of any kind). Some of them had cows and chickens. It was like homesteading or something. They came up to Nairobi every now and then to buy toilet paper.

Still, I thought maybe folks were being dramatic. Missionaries, and even their children, sometimes sound like they are competing in the Martyrdom Olympics. Jesus is the judge. “And first prize goes to the family who all contracted bilharzia because they had to bathe in standing water! Congrats!!!”

Our family, with our military-retirement-lifestyle, just accepted our last place finish every time and comforted ourselves by gazing at my mother’s Hummel collection. Every now and then we’d mention The Crack just to maintain a minimum level of street cred.

Essential for life in Africa.

We made the very long trek on very bad roads south, across the border, to the crater, climbing its steep wall to our lodge peering over the edge. We met some Tanzanian missionary friends there. The setting was stunning, like standing on the edge of eternity, a vast expanse stretching out beneath you, with a shimmering lake in the distance like a silver platter (We had those in our house, too. That’s not a boast, either, in missionary society, it’s downright embarrassing).

The lodge was…not a Kenyan lodge. It did have power, sometimes, and indoor plumbing. There was a toilet attached to the room, although I don’t think there was a seat attached to the toilet. But it was not Out of Africa. Karen Blixen and Dennys Finch-Hatten had not been hired to decorate. The food was likewise basic, and if I am remembering correctly, provided by us for the small staff to cook. But it was fine. It wasn’t bad at all. But we did need that toilet paper. Our Tanzanian missionary friends thought they had checked into the Ritz Carlton.

On the plus side, there were no other guests, and the wildlife was outstanding. As in, it was out standing right by the lodge. And I don’t mean a few monkeys and a zebra. I’m talking members of the Big Five, which is basically an elite club of animals that have both the means and motive to kick your ass until you are dead, and then some of them will also eat you. These guys remember that time you bullied them in a former life, a life in which they were also not nice enough to come back as human. And they aren’t gonna get there in the next life, either, and they don’t give a sh*t. As Oprah says, “Hurt people hurt people” or in this case they reincarnate with some horns or tusks or something badass like that and then they hurt people.

One of the most foul-tempered of the Big Five is the Cape buffalo, which has horns that look like a Swedish milk maid’s braids but the mood of a menopausal milk maid who has blown through her last F along with her last egg and who has heard a non-menopausal human make a joke about menopausal women (don’t overthink that, basically don’t joke about menopause unless you are in menopause). The Cape buffalo needs love, and also therapy, but there ain’t none of that sissy crap on the savannah, so really he or she just needs to kick some ass. And if your ass gets in the way outside a vehicle, he or she is grateful for the opportunity. You are going down.

Cape Buffalo was tired of your sh*t before you even had a large intestine.

So really fun to come out of the dining hall one night and see we were surrounded by Cape buffalo. They were spread out all over the place. I was prepared to sleep under a table somewhere, but the Adults thought we could make it back to our cottages. Granted a whole herd of Cape buffalo is happier than just one—like humans, their mental health suffers without connection apparently—or else being pissed off is just more fun in a group—but still, not a relaxing situation. And our rugged Tanzanian missionary friends didn’t have their guns on them.

They did have their rugged Tanzanian missionary moxie though, so we let them go first while we prayed to God we would live to see the Hummel collection again. We slowly but surely made our way around the edge of the herd and eventually back to our cottages while the buffalo lackadaisically chomped grass like potheads while ironically shooting laser beams of hatred from their eyes.

Once inside, I exhaled and collapsed on my bed. Then I heard a noise outside the window. I opened the curtain and found my face inches away from that of a Cape buffalo who was eating some flowers. I discovered that there is something that a Cape buffalo is afraid of, and that is a Little Girl Shriek, because it is indeed terrifying and can probably cause brain damage. The buffalo took off.

Overall, we had a splendid time in the socialist haven of Tanzania. We saw all kinds of animals, including a massive male lion over whom my father leaned out through an open window to get The Perfect Photograph. Fortunately, the lion was a capitalist with modeling aspirations and elected not to eat him.

On what was fortunately the last morning, I was sitting on the toilet tending to my needs and reflecting on the difference between capitalism and socialism. When all of a sudden, a Cape buffalo came bursting through the door like a runaway freight train loaded with socialist, menopausal milk maids.

Just kidding, but I scared you, didn’t I, admit it.

No, it was worse. It was a large, yucky rat, who may or may not have been menopausal but was definitely a socialist because he wanted my toilet paper without working for it. And I did what any normal girl would do, I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could. I ran out the door and right into the back end of a Cape buffalo.

OK, that is also not true.

No, it was worse. I ran out the door with my pants around my ankles, where our entire group was standing around saying good-bye. Honestly, death by Cape buffalo would have been better.

And that is why I am a fan of capitalism. Capitalism has brought us nice things and toilet paper and non-rat infested hotels. OK, some capitalist hotels have rats.

Incidentally, Tanzania began reforming its economy in the 1990s and now has spectacularly fancy, presumably rat-free tourist hotels—toilet paper provided—and many tourists. But you should still go to Kenya instead because it is better because I said so.

But both countries have Cape buffaloes who already hate you.