Moshi A Land of Love, A Land of Beauty, A Land of Poverty, A Land of Hope
Chapter 1
This trip to Africa was brief. Two weeks consistied of making every moment count towards seeing old friends, catching up with things going on in the project and trying to keep out of making promises that cannot be kept. It was a time of wishing that I knew some information, and sorry that I know too much information. It as a time of feeing humbled by the number of friends who we have come to know in Moshitown, and by wishing that we had more right or better answers for the problems that have befallen so many of the people we have come to love. It was a time of feeling conflicted about many many things. And, yet it was home. How is it possible to describe the way it feels to wake up at 6:15 am hearing the African birds chatting away each and every day, to know that it is warmer at 6:30 than it will be at 9:00 am, or that today there will be rain when it looks the same way tomorrow and you somehow know there won’t be rain. How hearing the voices on the road during the morning and the singing at night (when it is Mambo Sawa Sawa) is part and parcel of this place you call home.
Our old pal Barney, Russel and Kay's, and then the Wilkerson's old boxer, looked so lost and then the new German family moved in and he is up wagging his tail and looking just as happy as can be. A more adaptable boy I will never know.
The sweet black and orange kitties who decided A-5 would be better than B8 until Jean came home, and I helped them migrate back to B8 with full cream!
It is avocado time in Moshitown. 4-5 a day fall from the tree. "Mind your head!" They are so good. An avocado a day does what? Keeps your HDL high.
Our Gardener Pauli has decided to make shapes out of our bushes, and his topiary have included a small table as you see with teapot and cup, and a seat (just like on the porch) and another bigger table in the back yard with chairs all around it. It is a little more abstract I have to say.
This feeling in no way belittles the feeling of being in Durham or Boone, but it is a different feeling, deep and content. To walk around the yard, pick some lettuce, look at the flowers, feel the grass, saunter over to B8 for a beer in the afternoon. To go downtown and spend 30 minutes chatting with the hardware store owner about this and that, to hear about his health and to have his son chime in and then to walk out and to see smiles on the faces of other friends in downtown Moshi. These are people we would never come to know in the US, but here in Moshi, it is just part of life.
This is my sweet daughter Cipe from Moshi, in her last months of pregnancy, and Sarah, John's Duke colleague.
One day after flying into Moshi and being picked up by our dear driver and friend Carol (with yet again no bags) we grabbed some clothes, ran down to Aleems for food, and headed for a hash to West Kilimanjaro. This is an area that you don’t often go to. It is a land of plains, hills, big farms, Maasai, wealth and poverty. Thanks to Sarah and Kermin, we ran or walked these hills, following flour prints in the sand and scree and gravel until the little Masaii boys had ground it out with their bare feet. Their joy at giving us opposite directions was equally met with our confusion and a little frustration. But this is a hash and people wiping out the flour marks are just part of the game. It was all-ok. As Simon said, this is the most beautiful land in the world (if it just had rain!) And that of course makes all the difference.
We walked by Masaii bomas where the mamas looked suspiciously at us but hoped that we would want to take their picture so that they could collect just a little money from these strange wazungus (crazy white people). But they greeted us if we shikamooed them, and Simon greeted each in Ki-Masaii and was solemnly greeted back.
The decorated Masaai with jewelry and bright checked cloth were rare on this hash because they were working in their boma, and not headed out to town or to visit with other bomas. But, each had at least one checked cloth tossed over their shoulder, and the children pushed their goats and cattle along looking for a small patch of grass, each laughing and calling at these strange people. Nicoli found treasures everywhere, rocks, special plants that needed his pocket knife. He doesn’t speak Ki-Masaai but does Swahili so he would give a little greeting to the boys who were shocked at this little mzungus who spoke Swahili fluently.
Nicoli watching everything on the ground for treasures.
Masaai were actually and are actually everywhere in West Kilimanjaro. They consider it their land, and actually consider that all land is theirs if they are there. The farmers have a difficult time because they lose cattle to the Masaai, but the Masaai don’t find this a dilemna because if the cow wandered a way and agreed to join their herd, then it was part of their herd. Work this out if you are the land owner. The immense poverty in the culture of Masaai is one of the curiosities to me. This is their life, at least for most. And as we ran buy or walked by, we all talked about it, most in disparaging ways. Why? Well, it is a very different culture than ours. Concepts of ownership and wealth are totally different, belief in other forms of medicine, gender, children, all are pretty difficult for Westerners, and even other tribes in the Northern Zone.
But, the Beauty was all around, and the Masaai share in our love of the beauty, too. We are linked. I just digressed I guess.
some beautiful flowers
happy hashers
The hash was the last for Liselotte and Martin. These two had been hashing for 6-8 years.
(Liselotte and Martin) Amazing. And now they are “the leavers”, too. Both leave a huge imprint in the story of expats in Moshi, and it is hard to imagine that they will soon be gone to Malawi where they will start their own imprint. What defined this couple? Hard to exactly know as they at first glance are pretty different. Liselotte- music, determination, seemingly easy going. Martin- seemingly very easy going, crazy, just on the edge…. Such a part of the Moshi that John and I knew and will miss when we return.
It is also one of the last hashes for Sarah and Kermin.
When I think of fun, I think of Sarah. Two more of the –oh well when we go to Moshi, we will drop in on Sarah and of course see Kermin. Sarah the hot Irish entrepreneur with Hostlehoff who put ingenuity to work and managed to start some girls’ programs, built an orphanage, mothered lost travelers, and could put just a few folks down the drain when it came to whiskey. Now the hole will be in our hearts when we travel back to Moshi and find them gone!
Because of my bad back, Greg had arranged that we spend the night on a big farm in a little guest house that had a lovely view. Since we had been drinking, eating tons of nyma choma (barbecue) breakfast and tour in the morning.
I felt like we were in a movie about the hard life on a huge farm in Montana, or oh yes, Africa. These were impressively hard working people, and all the kids are expected to work hard as well.
Farm animals
and we forded the river at a crazy diagonal, but easier than in previous trips. It allowed us to see a few more birds and buffalo as we drove up through the world of the “Lord of the Ring” forest until we came to the fig tree. Here is something that doesn’t change. You have to stand or sit on a car to show the height and uniqueness of the fig. (has anyone been to Sequoia National Park and is the big Red drive through Sequoia still there?
