Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25240
The fresh breath of the ocean fills our lungs and minds. Ancient sail across striped blue and turquoise waters, with black skies beh' them. The sun shines brightly off of the swath of white sail. As we wal into the small village of Nungwi from our bungalow, we '""m"tom,,,,, have to wade shoulder high through the waters when the tide is in Tiny jellyfish sting our legs and sides, while schools of thousands silverfish slither around our legs. When it is my turn to do the I find a scorpion in Lisa's sock. I brush my hand over his tail, H 11~:J::;;~~~~~~::-::~~.~~,.,:;~ ...... ~---.. - guiltily kill it with my sandal, afraid it might come back for more. rain comes down like a breath of waterfall. We dive down deep i the black waters, as dolphins dance around us. kindness and poverty, these thieves and misfortune. Fuck possession and material things that consume our lives and make others see us as better off when really there is no better off. We're all trying not to screw up, trying to keep our pathetic little heads somehow above water. Endless hassles from touts, a camera stolen, the rain pouring down like an evil curtain. Lisa is lying nearby, silent and sweating from fever. A rock flies in the window. Glass cuts my face. We laugh. 1_~lI"illll1 Ill·e~lI11S Fish tailing through the first rains of the season, a horny male elephant with flapping ears and a trumpeting trunk charges our jeep. the animals of the world are before us, galloping and munching and mating in the crisp green grass. Nights, though, are filled with nightmares. Lisa is talking in her sleep. ·Pictures," she says. I am nking of Uganda and the eight tourists slain there just a few weeks ago. I am sleeping, but I know that I am awake and that a guard is sitting on the edge of my cot with his gun. And now he is looking at me, moving toward me, laying next to me. My eyes fly open in the darkness, my ears strain back, as if they might hear better that way. I talk to myself for a time and finally convince my leg to move, to prove to the rest of me that there is no one in my bed. There is no one in the tent, apart from Lisa, dreaming about photographs. *Larium is a powerful anti-malarial drug given out like candy by silent doctors. The label warns of nausea and dizziness. But many people experience temporary, disabling side effects-severe enough to prevent them from carrying on day-to-day activities. Confusion, visual disturbances, anxiousness, panic attacks, convulsions, headaches, hallucinations and nightmares. One young man, after taking his third dose, jumped his second story hotel room window and is now a paraplegic. There numerous lawsuits against the makers of this lifesavingllife-threatening