Advertisement
Published: January 24th 2006
Champagne
Champagne to welcome us to MoshiThis is a journal of the trip my family and I did to Tanzania. My family consist of myself, my husband Paul, Scott 14 years old and Anja 9 years old at the time of travelling. We visited my sister Harriet and her family consisting of husband Jon-Erik, Ossian 17 years old, Vidar 14 years old and Carita 12 years old. Both Harriet and Jon-Erik work on different projects in Tanzania. Tanzania also has a strong background for me as I spent a lot of my childhood there, as my father was involved in various projects in the country. So this trip is as much a revisiting of my roots if you like, as showing Tanzania to my family. I wrote this diary mainly for my fellow alumni from International School Moshi (ISM), so I may sometimes give reference to people known mainly by ex-ISMs. Apologies in advance for that!
Thursday 3rd February:: We had a very early start. My friend Anita very kindly offered to take us to the airport as she insists she likes doing it whatever the hour and was not put off by the fact we had to start at 4.20 in the morning. Luckily I had bought tickets with KLM and they go from Bristol Airport, so the car journey was no more than 20 minutes; much better than getting to Heathrow at any time of day.
We had packed an absolute minimum amount of baggage so only had 15 kg all together to check in plus another bag of 10 kg of presents for Harriet and family. We also had each a small back pack for the flight and the video camera as hand luggage. I loathe having a lot of things to carry when travelling, and I knew space would be an issue as we had long journeys to make by car. Shoes always take up the most space, so we were wearing the bulkiest ones. Scott solved the problem of packing them on the journey back as he conveniently forgot/lost his beloved Vans somewhere in the bush!!
I was tremendously excited about this trip. It is 20 years since I was last in Tanzania, and I really couldn't wait. Paul and I had been to South Africa last summer which fuelled the need to get back to East Africa and was actually a very good re- introduction to the continent. Very different of course, but Africa nevertheless. I am sure that there are many places in the world that people long for; I know my mother is constantly pining for our summer place in Finland when she's not there. Africa seems to be universally a place that leaves an ache when you are away and although the ache may diminish with years it is there, dully throbbing away at most times for us who were lucky enough to grow up there. 20 years is too long to stay away.
I was of course very keen to show my children where I grew up. I had even organized for them to go to my old school, International School Moshi, for a day, to experience the strangeness of boarding school. They put up no protests at having to go to school at half term, so I figured they understood it wasn't really for real.
We were also to spend the two weeks with my sister Harriet, who had taken as much holiday as she could. The last days we were to spend at her home in Kibaya, on the Maasai steppe, and go with her on some field trips to surrounding areas. I don't know the middle of Tanzania at all, as we lived in the Southern Highlands (Mbeya) in the 70s and I went to school in Moshi. Paul was also very excited at seeing East Africa. He has grown up in West Africa, which is quite different again.
As it turned out our two weeks were enormously busy. I thought I would have time to write a diary everyday, but that did just not happen. The only thing I wrote was a bit on the plane going to Kilimanjaro. This is it:
'We are flying over the Sahara. It is unbelievable. It is so vast; the sand dunes going south to north, clouds leave shadows, tiny fluffy clouds. It just never ends. The time is 5 pm Tanzanian time, 2 pm GMT and we have another 4 hours to go. More cloud is coming now and soon I will not be able to see the sand anymore. It must mean mountains coming; must be South Sudan or northern Ethiopia. I hope I'll be able to see the mountains later. I remember once flying over Ethiopia in the morning when the sun went up and I've seldom seen anything more beautiful.
We are going to visit Harriet for 2 weeks. I booked these tickets recklessly last September and picked February as there is a half term for the children and Paul. Harriet's children also have half term from ISM (International School Moshi), although a shorter one, but it means we'll be able to see them a little more, as they are boarders at ISM normally.
Those clouds are gone now. The country was higher just there, but now it's totally flat again and the dunes are gone. Anja has woken up, just in time actually as the hostess is bringing us ice cream of all things! It is quite hot here, so it's very welcome. KLM is absolutely brilliant. Lots of space, friendly crew and the food was good. Shiphol airport was great; clean and lots of shops. Paul bought a CD/MP3 portable player.
Time is now 18.25, the sun is still up and we are now definitely flying over Ethiopia. It is very hazy outside. Scott is watching Sky Captain, Paul is sleeping, Anja reading her magazine and I can't help but write. This is a trip I have been longing for, even more so since last summer's South Africa trip. This will be a little different as we're not spending so much time in the National Parks, but more in Moshi/Arusha, Dar and Kibaya with Harriet. I can't wait for the wall of heat to hit me later tonight when we arrive at Kilimanjaro. I have to admit I ache to see Mount Kilimanjaro again and I will probably cry when I do so.' Sorry guys, that's the end of diary writing. I will still write it day by day, but retrospectively.
We landed on time at Kilimanjaro. The heat really did hit us coming out of the plane. My first impression was that the airport was larger than I remembered; of course it's been added to since then. Lots of dudus by the lights. Lots of sound. The arrival hall was packed; we were amongst the last to get out as usual. Why do people stand up immediately and then queue for ages to get out? We went to the toilets and they were so clean!! I was most impressed. Then we saw Harriet and family behind the glass window and they looked so well. The whole family had come out to greet us. They have two cars so we piled into them and I was happy about our lack of bulky baggage. The majority of cars were 4WD Land cruiser types, very different to the old days when the Peugeot 404 and Land rovers seemed to be most popular.
We headed in the dark towards Moshi. Because the children were off school there wasn't space for us all to sleep at Jon-Erik's house, so they had booked us into the Uhuru Hostel pretty much next door. Jon-Erik's house is quite close to ISM, just off Lema Road. Again I was impressed with the road from the airport to Moshi and also by what I saw of Lema Road. The access road to the house was more like what I remembered; dirt, dusty and full of deep grooves. Jon-Erik served up champagne to greet us; bliss drinking this on his veranda, in the balmy night. Anja was delighted with his two dogs; Rafiki and Sweetie. These dogs do not come inside as they are strictly there for guarding duty. Jon-Erik has 3 askaris, one of which is a Maasai from Kibaya. He is the brother of Sintei, whom Harriet knows very well. The children just loved the dress he was wearing and I must say he is a very handsome man. Both Jon-Erik and Harriet speak Swahili and I was really surprised at how much I had retained of my own Swahili, at least in the understanding part of it. I thought I had forgotten absolutely everything apart from your basic Jambo, habari stuff. Not that I ever was in any way fluent, I am sorry to say. There was no doubt however that Harriet and Jon-Erik were much better received because they know the language. One person when we were in Dar said to them 'If you know Swahili then you'll have no problems in Tanzania!’ True or not, it certainly helps.
Anyway, we had to get some sleep as we had an early start tomorrow morning, and Harriet and Jon-Erik took us to the hostel. This was a great little hotel, basic but clean. In the old days we would stay at the YMCA, but Harriet said they don't use that anymore. We had two rooms, and the children loved the mosquito nets they were to sleep under; what a novelty. It was actually new to me, as we never used mosquito nets in Mbeya or at ISM. I seem to remember sometimes using one if we visited Dar, but generally speaking we risked the mosquitoes.
I put on the alarm clock for 7 am as I was really keen to see Kilimanjaro in the morning. During the day it would be covered in cloud, but Harriet assured me it would be clear in the morning. And so ends our first day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0292s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jim Bob
non-member comment
Rad!