Partly I write this under the vague delusion that people actually expected a follow up to the termed “Banana Saga” (knowing full well that you few readers probably don’t even recall said incident).  Regardless, I will press on as if you do.

A few nights ago I was invited up to the luxury tented camp (a 10-minute boat ride from our humble abode) to be wined and dined by some tour group.  After singing for my supper alongside two fellow researchers (“baboons are nifty…blah…blah…blah”), we had a lovely barbecue dinner, gin and tonics, and a Tanzanian attempt at cake.  On the return journey Anton, the man in charge of the baboon project here at Gombe, found himself deep in conversation with a young man who seemed to be just along for the ride (the boats always seem to have a lot of peripheral passengers whose destinations and motivations are murky at best).  When we docked back at camp, blindly leaping out onto the sand because it was 10 PM, the young man began to talk to Kara and me as well (Kara is the new chimpanzee researcher here).  Soon he asked our names and introduced himself as Mayo.  A bell tinkled in the back of my brain.

“I think I’ve met you before,” I told Mayo.  “Really?” he asked.  He is apparently still in high school (though easily 19 or 20 years old…not uncommon here), and his English is quite good, considering.  “I think you gave me a banana,” I said.  I had debated about saying this at all, since my usual policy with young Tanzanian men is aloof indifference lest I be followed and pestered every free moment of the day.  Mayo’s squeal told me that maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.  Before I knew it, he was hugging me (not really a culturally okay thing to do), beyond excited that I remembered him.  Not wanting to be rude, I made small talk with him while the three of us walked to our house and then we sent Mayo on his way (he wasn’t quite sure where he was), him promising to find me tomorrow to show me where he was staying (I told him I had to work ALL day).

The next day I told Anton that our young companion in the boat had been the same young man who gifted me a banana all those months ago.  “I think he’s a strange one,” was Anton’s reply.  Apparently, Mayo was reading a book by flashlight (or phone-light) in the boat last night and told Anton that he spends much of his free trim reading novels in English.  Tanzania doesn’t really have a reading culture, so this in and of itself is strange.  Anton also suggested Mayo’s manner of speaking and general behavior was a bit odd, a bit singular, though certainly not in a bad way.  Based on my banana experience I had to agree.

Later that day while I was typing away at home, I heard a, “Hodi!” outside my door (people say “hodi” when they are approaching your house and want to come in…regardless of whether or not you want them to come in, you are obliged to say, “Karibu,” which means “welcome”).  Standing up to look out my window I saw that it was Mayo and I did a sort of internal eye roll at myself because, really, his visit was kind of my fault.  Certain Mayo would be one of those clingy young men who would eventually end up telling me that he loved me or asking for money, I was not very welcoming.  I tried to look very busy and didn’t invite him inside.  Unphased, though, Mayo proceeded to explain that he was heading back to school the next day and then he pulled a piece of paper out of his fanny pack and scribbled his email address for me.  Handing this over he said, “When we first met, I gave you a banana.  And now that this is our last meeting…” again reaching into his fanny pack, this time producing a slightly overripe banana, “I have brought you a banana.”  I have to admit that this made me laugh.  Mayo certainly has way more game than the average young man I come in contact with here.  Then he gave me his bracelet and claimed that if I wore it, he would always remember who I was because he would recognize the bracelet (a roundabout way of saying, “Because, you know, all white people look alike”).  I thanked him and, quite to my surprise, he smiled, turned around, and left.

The following day I climbed on a boat for town to run some errands and, lo and behold, Mayo was there again.  He reclined in the prow, reading a book, and I chatted with Anton, who was off to town to collect Jane Goodall, who would arrive the next day for her semi-annual visit.  The water was crazy choppy, tossing our little boat around, with big gusts of spray dousing us from the port side.  The people seated there pulled a tarp over themselves, but whatever the tarp didn’t stop, flew over their heads and straight into my face.  Soon Anton, Deus, and I, all seated near the rear, were soaked.  Mayo, to deal with the spray, put on a white ski mask (“like a ninja,” Ashura, the woman who cooks for us, said later (you’ll be happy to know that the Swahili word for “ninja” is “ninja”)) and continued to read.  Moments later, a Tanzanian flag handkerchief sailed through the air, a gift for Anton and his dripping face from Ninja Mayo.  Half an hour later, when the spray got really bad, one sailed toward me.  Ten minutes later, Ninja Mayo vaulted himself to the stern of the boat to help the driver bail out some of the water (he was sent away) and Anton and I took to referring to him as “our hero”, somewhat tongue-in-cheek.  But by the end of the ride, I began to feel a bit bad about giving Mayo the stiff arm.  He is undoubtedly the mostly oddly chivalrous man (boy?) I have ever met, and downright crazy by Tanzanian standards.  No doubt he would have been an interesting person with whom to have a conversation and it became abundantly clear as we pulled into Kigoma that his motivations were neither overtly lascivious or greedy.

As we stood dripping on shore, Mayo asked if we might take a picture, so Anton snapped one of the two of us and then I took one of him and Anton.  Then, before we knew it, Mayo had shouldered the weirdest collection of luggage possible — an oddly square canvas bag flanked by two large plastic tubes with unidentifiable bits hanging off them — and disappeared into Kigoma, his reasons for being in Gombe as mysterious as he himself.