T.I.A. This is Africa

Well, we finally made it to Africa, more specifically Moshi, in Tanzania. Flying over the Masai Mara from Nairobi to Kilimanjaro, we passed Mt Meru and seeing the Serengeti I said to Juliet that I felt like I was heading home, without any justification whatsoever, as I’ve never stepped foot in Africa. Nevertheless I’ve watched Lion King enough to warrant it I think.

1. Our sunny neighbourhood

The last week or so in the Kilimanjaro region has been amazing, it’s difficult to describe Moshi, but it is a bustling town at the foot of Mt Kilimanjaro. We arrived in the late morning on the 4^th after a marathon flight from Auckland via Bangkok and Nairobi. We were picked up by a man technically associated with the volunteering company who had a sign saying “Nick Donovan x2”. His initial interaction with us gave us the illusion that he spoke English, but in reality his vocabulary was limited to greetings. We had no idea where we were going, but just had to assume he did. Which he didn’t, and he had to pick up a friend to show him where to go. Throughout the drive as we weaved through the streets, dodging trucks and wild barefoot helmetless motorbike drivers, we noticed that the trees were especially different to what we were used to with bright flowers, all of quite vivid purples, pinks and reds which look “fabulous” when they fall on the dark red coloured clay ground, this kept us (Juliet anyway) relatively distracted. We finally arrived at an pot-holed filled dirt road and after going down a couple of side streets came to a big black gate with an electric fence on the top, and broken bottles cemented around the top of the walls. After a couple of beeps the gate opened, and we were greeted by two friendly faces Deo, the “man on the ground” for the volunteering agency, and Eva the house boss. After getting the low-down on Tanzania, and quizzing him in a quick fire questioning mode, we were ready for Moshi.

On our first day Juliet & I ventured on foot into Moshi town which was a forty minute walk. Talking to the African people along the way was incredible, they are so friendly and helpful and their smiles really make you feel welcome. Everyone wants to teach you Swahili, and what I realized is that again, The Lion King has taught me a couple of keys phrases. The most common of them, “Asante Sana” Rafiki says when he’s singing “Asante Sana, Squashed Banana” which means “Thank You Very Much”. Also, “Hakuna Matata”, which you obviously know, I refrain from using this one though as the song gets stuck in my head (Rafiki means friend & Simba means lion also). The heat really took it out of us in town, and we got a bit lost, but couldn’t take out the Lonely Planet as we’d get swarmed by touts, so we wandered throughout the city. We came across a food market, which is usually an absolute sitter for good photos, so we ventured inside. You had your stock standard big sacks of grains, spices and other dried foods. Then I made (vegetarian) Juliet come through to the meat and dried fish section. There were lumps of meat that looked like intestines on tables with flies, and large fat deposits hanging on hooks as well as standard butcher goodness; the smell was admittedly rough though, and I was forcefully dragged out of there. On the way home Juliet bought some plums to hand out to beggars, but we only found one lady with some cute little kids so we ended up gorging ourselves on fruit when we got back.

2. Ichi removing the husks of the coffee beans in the village

3. Waiting for my coffee beans to roast on the fire

4. Surprised Juliet with an action Jungle walk shot

On our second day we had had enough of the intense heat, and we had heard about a waterfall deep in the jungle with an amazing swimming hole. Near the entrance was also a large coffee and banana plantation. To get to the plantation we had to drive through the villages in the jungle along a dirt road for about 30 minutes with our driver, Honest (the H isn’t silent). The coffee plantation was enlightening, I consider myself a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to coffee, so learning the process was a pretty cool experience. One of the workers who helped out in the husking process was a little boy named Ichi, he was only four, but he had the process down packed (it went flip, flip, flip, flip, shake, shake, shake with a little bum wiggle). Now if you think the Ponsonby baristas are alty, this kid was wearing a purple high school musical jumper, crocs and had red painted toenails, the preschool alty scene must be big here in the village. They roasted some of the beans fresh for us and manually ground it with a big stick, I thought they didn’t look like they had the capacity to do a cappuccino with chocolate (not cinnamon) on the top, so I refrained from asking and just had a long black. After our coffee we made our way on foot through the jungle, over hills and valleys of dense bush for about 40 minutes. As we approached the waterfall we could here thunder clapping, and looking up through the trees we saw that the clouds were black, and felt the temperature dropping. Just as we were getting in it started to rain, and not just any rain, tropical jungle rain with forked lightning and cracking thunder for dramatic effect. The water was on the more freezing end of the spectrum, but when we swam under the waterfall and sat in the cave it was sheltered and thanks to a borrowed waterproof camera (thanks Theresa), I got some pretty good selfies. The walk back was extremely wet, the path we took had turned into a river and was super slippery, and I had “I bless the rains down in Africa” stuck in my head. Once back to the car, the road was no better, Honest was busy texting on his phone as the car slipped and slid across the mud as parts of the road collapsed down into the valley, the stress of driving meant we stopped at a wee shack and had a banana wine, which smelt delicious, tasted average and really put hairs on your chest.

5. This little one stopped us to take a picture

6. Honest leaning on an invisible handrail

7. Jungle waterfall

7.5. Juliet under waterfall

8. Juliet escaping from the rain having some dried chickpeas

That night Deo’s fiancé Voice was graduating from University and was having a graduation party at a Lutheran Church in Shanty-town and invited us. It was an interesting combination of people, from the annoyingly chatty guy who Juliet got caught up talking to about his life story, to the strong silent, but everyone was very friendly and the food was authentic. A song came on towards the end of the night and everyone got up to dance, but it was like a line dance that they all knew, I tried to join in but I kept bumping into people, so I just reverted back to a bit of freestyle dance, wasn’t my best work.

9. Voice's (middle) graduation cake

10. Proud fiance Deo purposely posing like a sicko

Juliet said we weren’t allowed to do two water-based activities in a row so we decided we would volunteer at an orphanage. It was another scorcher of a day, so we set off down the road to an orphanage we had seen on our first day. We introduced ourselves to Mama Msamaria who was the boss of the orphanage; she has dedicated her entire life to the kids there and has made it a safe and loving environment. After a brief tour, the kids decided we were alright, and came over to speak English with us. I’d learnt to count to ten that morning in Swahili, so I was pretty quick so show off my mad skills, but after they started counting over 20, I shut right up. We finished the day with a game of football, Juliet & I were on rival teams, and let’s just say they were outclassed, 5-2 score line, however in scoring my 2 goals I picked up an injury that could come back to bite me.

11. Juliet hanging with the kids in the Msamaria Orphanage

12. More orphanage shots 

13. Everyone wants a photo

14. My football injury; trying to act tough

Although Juliet promised the orphanage that she was going to visit the following day, she woke up with a thirst for adventure. We came up with a plan to do a day trip to Arusha, which is the fastest growing town in the Kilimanjaro region. We walked to the bus station and jumped on a local bus that looked like it was heading that way as English was scarce. The bus was very crowded, I had a little boy behind me that kept patting me like a cat for the 90 minute ride, and I was purring by the time I arrived. The landscape was hugely varied between the towns; it was barren as far as the eye could see, until we got close to Arusha where it was cool, lush and very green. We explored the city basically, went to a boring natural history museum and I spent lunch winding Juliet up saying the orphans were probably crying by the gate waiting for her; we thought about gate crashing a wedding we walked passed but we realized we probably couldn’t blend in. We took the wrong bus home and ended up adding a couple of hours to our journey which meant we had to speedily walk back to our house as it was getting dark.

15. Bus to Arusha

16. Barren land between Moshi & Arusha

This week we are in school learning Swahili and Tanzanian history.

Tutaonana