Who says the romance is gone?

Y'all might think that, after Deb and I have been together for more than 11 years, the romance
is gone.

Not true, my friends.

On Monday, August 13, Deb and I celebrated our 1-year GetDown-iversary.

We forgot. (Thanks, Mike L. -- aka Shaggy -- for sending a congratulatory e-mail reminding us.)

Instead, here's how we spent our anniversary:

We woke up and ate breakfast (included in the $13 we paid for our hotel room).

So far, so good.

We then attended court proceedings for an hour and a half.

Romantic, right?

We were in Arusha, Tanzania, where the International Criminal Tribunal Rwanda (prosecutions of those responsible for the 1994 genocide) is located. We attended the trial of the former Minister of External Affairs (accused of conspiring with other government officials and media outlets to perpetuate the genocide). We saw the defendant's attorney give opening remarks (in French, with a translation in English via headsets) for about 90 minutes, at which point there was a recess and we left. Here's a brief summary of what happened, though: the former Minister did nothing wrong. In fact, the defendant is a saint: he worked tirelessly to ensure democracy and human rights; every time something bad happened or some decision was made to execute people, the defendant was making speeches before the UN Security Council for food aid. But the most convincing arguments were those about the prosecution's lack of evidence. According to the defense attorney, the prosecution's witnesses were, by and large, illiterate. Therefore, not credible. Case dismissed.

We ate lunch, then got in a "shared taxi" (a beat-up old station wagon carrying 8 people, with about a dozen live chickens in a basket strapped to the roof) and hurled towards the Kenyan border. For some strange reason, the strong smell of gasoline did not dissipate the entire time, so we arrived at the border a little lightheaded.

We made it through immigration and arrived back in Kenya.

On the other side of the border, we took a matatu (shared minibus) to Kajiado -- about 65 miles away (which, naturally, took us close to 3 hours). When we got just to the edge of town, there was a loud "clang" and the brakes no longer worked. Everyone else got out, but the driver told us he'd take us to a hotel. We drove slowly. Luckily, the town was pretty flat.

We arrived at the recommended hotel. It was full. Walked to a nearby hotel. Also full. Walked a little over a mile, with our bags, to another hotel on the outskirts of town (escorted by an employee of hotel #2, who wanted to make sure we found a place).

I'll pause for a moment to describe this hotel. We walked in, and there were a few people at the bar. We found some guy with keys, and he told us that the price was 1700 shillings (about $26) -- very expensive. Then he said the price for Kenya residents was 1100 shillings. Here's how the conversation went:

Him: "Are you Kenya residents?"
Me: "No, not yet."
Him: "Because I can give you the residents' price if you are."
Me: "Okay."
Him: "So are you a resident?"
Me: "No, not yet."
Him: "Okay, I'll give you the residents' price."

We paid, and he showed us to the room. Then he said there's no water in the room (he then brought a 5-gallon bucket for us). When we got there, it seemed like no one had stayed in this room in quite some time: there were cobwebs in the sink, ceiling panels were missing, paint was peeling, etc. Whatever. We've stayed in worse.

We went out to find dinner, but since it was dark and we were more than a mile from the center of town, we tried to find something close. We made it to a little restaurant a few hundred yards away and ordered ourselves some beans, cabbage, sukumo wiki (kale cooked with salt and onion), lentils, and chapatti (a kind of bread, like Indian naan but greasier). The meal cost about $2.50. And that included entertainment: a DVD involving a Kenyan man, on a quest in the wilderness, who's attacked by snakes and nagged by his wife.

We went to sleep.

But wait, there's more.

The next morning, I wasn't feeling so well. Not well at all. I spent the next three days sleeping, communing with various squat toilets, and doing my best to force one or two bites of food into my mouth. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

When we left our room at the hotel, we went to find breakfast (which, according to signs in the hotel, was included with the room rate). Unfortunately, there was not a soul in sight. No one at the restaurant. No one at the bar. No one at reception. No one anywhere. Remember "The Shining?" Kind of like that. We started wondering whether the hotel existed at all and whether the people we thought we saw were, in fact, ghosts.

So in case you're wondering how we keep the romance alive: an anniversary with court, a five hour fume-filled drive, a cholera-filled meal, and a ghost hotel.