Tea Trip

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Marine Ball: We arrived a fashionable hour late, missing the cocktail hour, but in time for the Marines’ presentation. For their birthday celebration, they had a video about people dying in combat and then the most somber cake cutting ever (or, the ceremony could have been about honor, tradition, and sacrifice). Next came a huge buffet and continuously full wine glasses.

On Saturday, we met up with two other couples and what would turn out to be our nemesis (more about this later). Then, we headed out to the tea plantation in Kinihira, the capitol of the northern province. Upon arrival, we headed down the hillside for a hike through tea fields and a small village. On our way through the village, we stopped in a tiny store and someone bought vanilla wafers. We then had the idea on the way back to buy the inventory of wafers from the store and distribute them to the kids in hopes that the villagers would offer us banana beer. We succeeded in making a lot of kids very happy (and probably confused), but the quest for beer continued. After observing the natives take a small, steep trail, we followed suit and proved even more amusing to the locals. Luckily, this trail ended up near our hotel. On a whim, we stopped at the store and Jenn spotted banana beer hidden behind the door for sale for 60 cents a bottle (14% alcohol).

Back at the hotel the men checked out the “mini golf course” which turned out to be a very small course that could be completed with only a pitching wedge. Later we played darts and tennis while drinking tea, and it was very colonial. We then had a multicourse dinner, and Alex, Joe and Jenn tried the banana beer with floaties. It tasted like bad, expired juice mixed with whiskey, and we gave away the second bottle of banana beer to the waiter.

Upon returning to our room, someone had left the heater on and the windows open. Unfortunately, there were no screens, and there was a biblical locust plague in our bedroom. The last locust was removed at 5:30 am after much freaking out by Alex and apologizing by Jenn.

On Sunday, we started out the day with an extensive tour of the tea factory. Tea is made by gathering the tea leaves by hand, adding them to new, automated dryers, and either rolled into loose leaf tea or crushed into tea bags. The dryers are powered with huge train boilers and eucalyptus wood. The tour ended with a tea tasting.

We walked through a larger village to visit the peace gardens where the Arusha Accords were signed to formally end the genocide. As foreigners, we were quite a sight, and the whole village turned out to see what we were doing. Soon, we had a following of around 20 children saying, “Good morning.” Even on our drive home, the local people waived and smiled as we drove by. The area was very lush and scenic, but entirely covered in farms and crops.

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Comments

[Mom]

How lush
How beautifully green and lush the countryside is! What a contrast to the white snow that has blanketed our Alaskan landscape. I love the kid parade you started! That says a lot about how friendly people are over there. I can't imagine that happening here in the states without a parent calling the amber hotline to report kidnapped children. Thanks for giving us other snapshots of your travels.

[Kate and Mac]

Thanks for sharing
This is so...... much fun to see what the two of you are experiencing. Thanks for sharing.

[Riley]

catchup
Oooooh! I've forgot about this for a while because i don't have a reader, so i just read the last couple of entries. Do the kids there like gum? Anyway, this is super fun to read and i hope you guys keep updating it forever. Imma send it to heidi and my parents.

[Alex and Jenn]

Gum?
I assume all kids like gum, but it's a luxery I don't think many people can afford. The local gum here seems to last for about two minutes before it loses its flavor (banana, raisen, black current, eucalyptus).