I went to the TGT club (Tanzania Game Trackers) last night to meet up with the Peterson clan.  Daudi, Thad, and Mike Peterson organized and executed my first visit to Tanzania, planning out the first three months of Lewis & Clark College’s time in the country.  We got to know them well as we bumped around the north under the auspices of learning about animals and culture.  I in particular got to know Daudi and Mike well because I was sick the whole time and they had to take care of me in my pathetic state.  This was all in 2003.  Then, in 2008, I brought a group of my own high school students to Tanzania and again the Peterson’s company, Dorobo Safaris, took the helm and, after the kids left, I passed a night in Daudi’s guesthouse.  So, despite the fact that they are all in their 50s, the Petersons are my best friends in Tanzania.  Anyway, it was Friday night and happy hour was in full swing, and I arranged to meet them at the swankiest club in Arusha.  Daniel, Craig’s Swedish field assistant for the Lion Project, joined me, later followed by Craig and Susan.  It was a party.

And then suddenly I felt like I had dropped into one of those odd dreams where people from your past start cropping up and you can’t for the life of you figure out why John Bacino from high school is featuring in your dream about robot attack dogs (a real dream from a couple months ago).  Only this time it was Africa themed.  Shortly after reuniting with Daudi and Mike, we passed a man and I double-taked before whispering do Daudi, “Is that that Mike guy who ran the lodge on Lukuba Island?”  Of course it was.  Mike had been a young American guy—maybe 24—who had been in Tanzania 3 months when a group of 17 hippie coeds and 2 bewildered college boys descended upon his quiet little island.  We were all in love with him.  We had been traveling together for 2.5 months, one giant pool of white estrogen, gasping for a little male cologne like fish out of water.  I doubt Mike wanted to resist, but I don’t think he had much choice in the matter anyway.  I was ill and spent a lot of time staring listlessly at the sandy beach, but I do seem to recall some sort of council of women that democratically decided who would get him.  And that was that.  Anyway, I approached Mike and introduced myself and thought he looked exactly the same, though he now had that accent that Americans get who have lived in Tanzania for awhile (Craig’s only male student, Dennis, has the same one).  He’s now working for a hunting company, doing conservation and poaching-prevention in one of the game researves outside the Serengeti.  We exchanged numbers in case Nate and I happened to noodle our way in his direction.

Shortly after seeing Mike I then spotted blast-from-the-past #2 (or 3, if you count the Petersons): Wis.  I met Wis (pronounced “Veese”, rhymes with “Reece”) while volunteering on a research project on the Nambiti Game Reserve outside Ladysmith, South Africa in 2007.  He had been a skinny 19-year old who had just finished a ranger course and was cutting his teeth in Nambiti.  We had discovered we both knew the Petersons and he had attended a couple parties we’d had at the research house.  Now, he’s back in Tanzania and working for a company that is setting up a diving site on Lake Tanganyika, quite a bit south of Gombe (he’d been working in Katavi National Park, one of our neighbors, before this).  He invited me out on a night on the town, but I declined, figuring that would look less than professional since I was staying with my adviser.  But we also exchanged numbers, you know, just in case.

I’m feeling very connected at the moment.