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Yesterday afternoon/evening in Moshi Town was a fun and tiring time. We met Stanley a 25 year old computer whiz who is one of the staff at MKombozi where Dave works at the Union Café. The Union is in a beautiful building – a left over from the colonial period and is a tourist Mecca. We walked all over Moshi for 3 hours, through shops and markets (think the farmers market at ground level). Sydney and I were able to complete almost all of our souvenir shopping. We are also now the proud owners of a Tanzanian cell phone so we’ll be able to call taxis and get ourselves unstranded if stranded. We talked about buying one when we first got here but Dave hadn’t checked it out. After discussing it with Stanley and having Stanley’s help talking to the vendors, we made the deal. We may never use the phone but I’ll feel better having it. When Syd and I went into town last week we depended on the nice people at Pristine (our safari guides) to call a taxi for us.Now we’ll be independent.
There were 2 weddings in town. The weddings are announced by a
procession of cars & trucks. One pick-up truck has a colorfully dressed band (western swing band style) playing in the back – trombones, trumpets, drums etc. there were also singers. The other truck has the wedding party and perhaps immediate family. The car with the bride and groom is festooned with bows and ribbons. Very festive. One of the sights I’m still not used to is the presence of large numbers of goats and cows right next to the road. The animals are tended by a person with a stick who keeps the animals out of the street. Often the person is a young child – say 6 or 7 years old and they stand right next to the road. This would be scary enough in the US but here in TZ (as in Kathmandu) cars assume the right of way and will pass slower cars on hills and with oncoming traffic alarmingly close. Motorcycles are sort of shoved to the fringe of the road. Today we saw guys painting the white stripe down the center of a 2 lane road (the only kind here) there were no cones to protect them. Their only protection was the white vest with
green day glow stripes they wore.
We ate dinner at a restaurant recommended by guide books and everyone here at the house – Indioitalian. As the name implies, they have an Indian menu and an Italian menu. I ate spaghetti, Syd had cannelloni and Dave and Stanley had pizza. There were white people swarming all over this place. I counted more than 50 eating dinner and there were only 4 of us from our house there. I haven’t seen that many muzungu in Moshi since I’ve been here. Of course, the part of town where Syd & I go for our placement is in the poorest of the poor section of town and the only muzungu there are our volunteers.
Last night someone in our group had the soundtrack from the Lion King musical playing – that was fun. That lead to going inside the living room area and watching the Lion King movie.
Today 5 of us went to Arusha National Park, about an hour from home base. Arusha is home to twiga wengi (many giraffes), elephants, hippos, zebras, bushbuck, warthog, water birds, buffalo, flamingos, monkeys, baboons and a few
cheetahs. Driving through the park was a lot like driving through RMNP only with acacia trees and strangler figs instead of lodge pole pines and baboons instead of marmots and squirrels! One of our first sights was a huge troop of baboons – hundreds of them in the open plain, walking, eating, carrying babies on their backs. One of the most spectacular things for me is the sight of 5 or 6 species visible together in one area. In a flat, grassy area sometimes called ‘Little Serengeti’ we sat and watched giraffes, zebras, warthogs, buffalo and gazelle all grazing, laying down or traveling through. A short while later we met a park ranger who led us on a walking tour. We traipsed through tall grass dodging sizable buffalo dung, through mud and crossed streams and were able to get up close and personal with buffalo and giraffe. The buffalo look like pictures I’ve seen of water buffalo, so I imagine they are cousins. The giraffes are, well they are so tall and strangely elegant. We saw one turn and scratch it’s back – and then pull vines off a bush and slowly slurp them like we might slurp spaghetti noodles.
They watched us with mild interest and went about their giraffe business. We lunched by a lake and then canoed for 2 hours, seeing giraffe on the hills, and Mount Kilimanjaro behind the hills. It was a calm, quiet time. Very peaceful. At the far end of the lake we found the resident hippo family. It is mating season and there are babies so we gave them wide berth. A male grunted at us so we exited rapidly, not anxious for an encounter with a defensive hippo! Driving out of the park we heard elephants crashing about in the bushes 10’ from the road. The foliage was so dense we could only catch glimpses but we heard a big trumpet and the sounds of bushes being smushed underfoot. Although they were never seen, they were so close. The tops of the bushes were swaying like crazy. When we drove around the corner we caught an elephant crossing the road and disappearing into the bush. It’s amazing that something so large can literally become invisible in a second or 2. We weren’t expecting to see elephant today. We saw elephants on every safari day! Woohoo!
So, that’s how
we celebrated Canada Day (we have a few Canadians here)/my brother Doug’s birthday! It was another unforgettable adventure. Our last week is here and we have mixed feelings about leaving. Four more days with the kids, a day of community work, and a coffee tour are ahead.
Hope the fires are abating and all is well with each of you.
Love,
Sharon, Sydney and Dave
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