Birthday in the Bush

I had a spectacular 30th birthday extravagenza! Friday was a Tanzanian national holiday, Nane Nane, which conveniently made a long weekend getaway possible for the employed members of our Dar family (Cathryn, Chris and Nicole). We packed up Chris’s Land Rover (which was celebrating it’s 20th birthday this very weekend) until after midnight Thursday night. After a few hours sleep, Chris, Nicole, Cathryn and Brena (California’s latest emigrant to Tanzania) headed up to Saadani National Park. Brandt and I stayed behind to pick up Jeff and Gabi, two friends from Santa Barbara, who were flying in for a 5 week holiday in Tanzania. They were total troopers- from a 30+ hour flight straight to the bush for 4 days without a shower! Saadani is Tanzania’s newest national park unique for having both wildlife and beach all in the same park. Chris, who (a la Boogie) recently nicknamed himself The Kingpin, came through with the connections and got us permission to camp at the site of a future lodge that he and Cathryn will eventually be landscaping and saved us $20 per person per night(!!) on camping fees inside the park. The Santa Barbara crew rolled up in the afternoon to find the Land Rover unpacked and equipped with a cooler of cold beers ready to go for a game drive. We jumped right out of Nicole’s car and hopped onto the top of the Land Rover (there is a benefit to the completely lack of traffic laws in Tanzania) and headed off to the park. The game viewing wasn’t spectacular but we did manage to spot a lot of baboons, a few giraffes and a variety of hoofed critters.



We returned to “lodge” to find our path blocked by 15 Tanzanians unloading huge sacks of charcoal from a truck and carrying them to the sea for transport by dhow (traditional Swahili sailboat) to Zanzibar- a fairly suspicious activity to be going on in an isolated village that happens to be completely surrounded by a national park. Charcoal is the only source of fuel available to the average Tanzanian and it takes 4kg of wood to make 1kg of charcoal. The resulting deforestation is a huge and growing problem over here.



We enjoyed a delicious Braai (South African for BBQ) for dinner and chatted by the fire. Chris got us all going with a tall tale that when he went in to pay our park fees, the officials were concerned that we weren’t camping at an official campsite with an armed guard and that once we put the fire out and went to bed we shouldn’t get out of our tents for any reasons because there would be lions and hyena around. Poor Gabi. Brandt and I already had her worried about their belonging with our (true) tales of thieving and now Chris had her thinking she could become lion food if she had to pee. Welcome to Africa. We managed to work out that he was kidding before we went to bed so no one lost any sleep. I have to admit, I was strangely disappointed that there wouldn’t be lions roaming through our campsite. Saturday morning we were up early and off to a nearby safari lodge for a morning river safari. We cruised up the Wami River checking out hippos, crocs and loads of birds including the apparently rare and uniquely vegetarian palm nut vulture. This information also came from Chris and so needs to be verified by a credible source. The river was great! The only disappointing aspect being that we paid $40 each for what was advertised as a half day river cruise but was only 90 minutes on the water. Oh well. Africa Wins Again.

After lunch we went on another game drive on overgrown “roads” through beautiful countryside. There were signs of wildlife everywhere- matted trails through the grass, tracks in mud and lots of droppings but the grass was tall and we didn’t spot much. Up until recently this area was a game reserve with a huge poaching problem so the animals there are not as cooperative as they are in Serengeti where they know people and vehicles are not a threat. We did spot some giraffes and warthogs and the grande finale was a few elephants heading off into the bush as we were heading back to camp. I even got my birthday spanking in the form of a tree branch to the head while we were cruising around- I guess that's what I get for sitting on top of a Land Rover and looking the other direction.

Sunday morning we had a champagne birthday breakfast. My mom, always over the top when it comes to a party, mailed Jeff 4 packages of birthday loot to bring over to Tanzania. The birthday party was in full effect complete with Tanzanian and American presents and me decked out like a fool! Thanks again Mom for all the party favors.

Then it was time for Chris, Nicole and Brena to head back to Dar for work on Monday while the rest of us went out to the beach for a relaxing afternoon on the warm Indian Ocean. Monday morning it was time to break down and pack up camp. The Land Rover was fully loaded when Cathryn went to start it up. The battery was dead. Ahead of where it was parked there was a very very gradual and short slope to the mangrove-lined creek. If we could push it out of the sand it was currently parked in and get it rolling down the “slope” maybe Cathryn could pop start it. It was a pretty big IF. The four of us couldn’t budge the thing. We called over the 3 villagers that had been serving as our watch guards for the weekend. Nothing. Jeff dug out the sand from in front of the wheels and we advanced the car as far as he dug. With my new Swahili skills, I’d been acting as our spokesperson for the weekend. I asked them to bring more friends to help push. With I don’t know how many people, we got the car crawling down the “slope”. Jeff looked at me- there’s no way this is fast enough. I agreed. Cathryn rapidly running out of ground yells when do I try? Ummm…now? The Land Rover made a pathetic noise- this isn’t going to happen and then it miraculously reved to life. Birthday wish come true! We shouted and celebrated with high fives all around as Cathryn carefully navigated the grass trying not to stall the thing. We piled into the truck, gave a bag of candy to the villagers that helped us (wrappers immediately littering the ground) and were off.

The last task of the trip was getting Jeff and Gabi on a bus to Arusha so they could go on their tour-operated safari to the big parks. I assured them it’d be no problem flagging a bus down on the main road. We’d done it and we’d seen it done on every bus we’d been on and there are a lot of bus going between Arusha and Dar so I wasn't concerned. We get out to the main road and pulled over. The first few buses whizzed by without so much as slowing. Desperate for a shower and to sleep in a bed, Jeff and Gabi looked at me incredulously. Those buses were probably just full. Don’t worry, we’ll get one we confidently assured them. Sure enough, the next bus that came by pulled over. Let’s just say it was not one of the nicer buses I was hoping to get them on but it was going to Arusha and I didn’t want to take any chances waiting for another one. So in an unnecessary amount of hustle and bustle (the crazy mzungu had drawn a crowd from the village while standing on the side of the road trying to wave down buses), people were “helpfully” taking their bags and herding them chaotically into the bus as I negotiated the price with the ticket guy. Gabi looked back at me like a deer in headlights. It’s fine. Don’t worry, I shouted to her as I yelled the agreed upon price to Jeff. In a flash, they were gone. Brandt and I look at each other. They’ll be fine, right? Yeah, they’ll be fine. Back to the Land Rover- next stop, Bagamoyo.
After a shower and a nap, we rapped up my 30th birthday by unpacking the duffle bag of crap that we had had shipped (yay for www.CVS.com!!) or asked Jeff to buy and bring over to us. I’m sure it’s not normal to be sooo excited about deordorant, Kraft parmesean cheese and Hidden Valley Ranch dressing. We were so thrilled about all our American treasures that we arranged them up on the kitchen counter and took photos. Cathryn thought we had gone completely mad and maybe she’s right.

Birthday Girl!

On August 11th, 2008 Robyn will be celebrating the big 3-0!!   Make sure you drop her a quick note razing her about joining the over 29 crowd (and finally joining me in the wonderful 30-39 age bracket). Robyn won't be reading this blog for the next 5 or 6 days, because we will be heading up to Sadaani National Park for four days of camping with the hippos, crocodiles, monkeys, and lions. My job is to keep Robyn from stumbling into a croc pit or wandering into a lion's den.  

Happy birthday baby!!!

Riverside Swahili School

When Robyn and I first knew we were going to move to Tanzania, we decided to get the Rosetta Stone computer software program to learn some Swahili. Learning a bit of the language before hand would make the transition easier (how little did we know what was coming!!). We said we were going to practice three times a week. Well, three times a week rapidly declined into 3 times a month, and we showed up on Tanzania’s dirty doorstep (Dar) knowing how to say really useful things like the dog under the table and man and woman are walking. Since then, we’ve picked up some more practical bits and pieces and we were managing to get around on the dalas, give a cabby directions and buy fruit and vegetables the market, but that was about it.

At the end of June, knowing that the following two weeks were going to be slow at work, Robyn and I made plans to go to a Swahili school recommended by my Swiss co-worker. The language school is run by Tanzanians teachers and is affiliated with the Riverside Campsite, which located right on the Little Ruaha River about 20km outside Iringa. At $230/person/week for classes, 3 meals a day and a tented banda, the price was right and we were off on another journey. The experience was so refreshing, fun, enlightening that we decided to break this experience into a multi post blog on the surroundings, the people we met, and the trip home. This one pertains to the class stuff only.

The classes started at 8:10 am and went until 1:00PM, with a small chai (tea) break at 10:30AM. The teachers were used to teaching people who would be there least one month (missionary families stay for 4 months), so when Robyn and I showed up and said we wanted to learn as much as thy could cram into two week, they were kind of reluctant to accommodate us. This was a real problem at first-it wasn’t going to do us any good to take the first two weeks of a 4 month course. But after a couple of days realized that these Wamerikani (Americans) weren’t going to stop complaining and they gave in and adjusted.

I haven’t been to school in years and I guess my brain forgot what it was like to be pushed to its limit for 5 hours a day. I had a dull headache the whole time. I had so much stuff swimming around my head I could hear the water slosh. Regardless, I learned a ton. I hate to admit it, but Robyn rocked the house. She was a day or two ahead of me at all times. Even the teachers were impressed- asking her if she’d studied lingustics or something. I guess that that degree from Cornell might really mean something.

It was a great experience. Even though we had 5 teachers over ten days of class, all the teachers were great. They were friendly, patience, and knowledgeable. The patience is a necessary virtue, as they listen to foreigners butcher their native language 5 days a weeks, 50 weeks a year. I simply couldn’t do it without breaking multiple objects. So a big shout out to our teachers—Sayi, Mayi, Moshi, Ishmail, and Tunku. Extra props to Tunku, as he was the one who was stuck with us and taught us over the last four jam-packed days.

After two weeks at Riverside, I could proudly complete a 3rd grade level reading comprehension exercise and speak in simple sentences in past, present and future tenses! I still have a tough time understanding when a non-teacher speaks to me in Swahili, mostly because the words are slurred together and feel like they are coming at me at 100 mph. However, give me some time and practice, I will be an old pro.

Despite the obvious advantages of being able to function in the native language of the country I now live in, I think the best part about learning Swahili is that when Robyn and I are back in the States and we want to say something around other people and not have them know what we are talking about, we can bust out our sweet Swahili and say whatever we want. Slander in a foreign language—awesome!! Rafiki beware!

Geo-Science and Politics

The purpose of the trek to Moshi was to attend the meeting launching the United Nation’s International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE) in Africa. Since I’m sure you haven’t heard of it, IYPE is essentially United Nation’s sponsored campaign to raise awareness of Earth Sciences around the world. A few of the Tanzanian scientists I’ve met were involved in planning the African kickoff event and they invited me to participate. The meeting was held at a nice lodge resort at the base of Mt. Meru, Tanzania’s second highest peak (see above picture). About 200 government officials, scientists, and students from all over Africa attended. The Opening (and mostly scientifically accurate) addresses were given by Tanzania’s current and former presidents along with statements from assorted UN officials. This was followed up by a polished performance of a song about saving the world by a group of Tanzanian school children. It was all very impressive….and made me feel like I had somehow passed into an alternative dimension because it in no way resembled the Tanzania that I know.

I’ll spare you the details of the meeting and just cut to the cocktail hour(s). Brandt came down from the more modest lodge up the road where we were staying for a fraction of the price. We sipped on wine and watched the entertainment- a band of bongo drum players followed by a pretty amazing acrobat act. Eventually, I started chatting to the guy next to me. He turned out to a parliamentary staffer who was accompanying a member of the parliament of Zambia, who arrived and joined us about 5 minutes later. Brandt and I had a fascinating geo-political conversation with them for over an hour which ended with them changing their accommodation to stay at the place we were staying and plans to have dinner the following night. When they left, we grazed our dinner from the various appetizer trays, mingled some more and had some interesting chats about (the lack of quality) education in Tanzania, (the lack of) women in science in Africa and everyone’s favorite- American politics. Many Tanzanians are suspicious about Bush’s 4 day visit here back in February (does he want to build a military base here? is there oil somewhere?). Suprisingly, they are perhaps even more skeptical of Barak Obama. You’d think as Africans they’d be excited about the possibility of a black, half-African man as president of the U.S. Nope. And why? We don’t really get many straight answers on that one but it seems to be just the simple fact that Barak’s father is Kenyan. Talk about missing the forest through the trees.

After the all-star parade of the first day of the meeting, the second day was…interesting, but not because any cutting edge science was being presented. Let’s just say, we were back to the good old Tanzania that I knew. Everybody wanted to make a speech, sound smart, and show off how much they know (which was very little) by rambling on in front of the microphone. The result was one million words spoken and zero chance of these words resulting in anything.

Following the gab-fest, dinner with Mr. Member of the Zambian Parliament and his very smart sidekick was great. Beyond the fact that Zambia is south of Tanzania, I didn’t know much about Zambia. It was fascinating to hear about the State of Africa from an actual African politician, especially considering many of the problems in Africa stem from or are exacerbated by the unabashed corruption that has plagued the governments on this continent. Just as we were getting into it, Debbie, the petite Zimbabwean owner of the lodge rolled up and joined the conversation. She almost immediately went after him for Zambia (and every other country) for doing nothing about Mugabe. You’ve (hopefully) heard something about the scam elections, the violence and the inflation. We’ve met a few Zimbabweans here and the tales we’ve heard are so unbelievable that we should write a post just about that at some point. For now, I’ll just say this- in the 1990s Zimbabwe had a population of 12 million people and produced enough food to feed 16 million. Today, Zimbabwe has a population of 8 million people and they only produce enough food to feed 4 million. The rest of Africa sits idly by as what was once one of the most prosperous nations in sub-Saharan Africa descends into violence and chaos. The Bush Administration, with all its rhetoric about defending and spreading democracy through the world also sees fit to do nothing. I, for one, find that suspicious.

It was funny watching this little women destroy this Member of Parliament on a variety of issues. It is sad that those who should run the country, those that could make a difference, are not the ones in office. Following this interesting discussion, the MP and his sidekick invited Brandt and I to Zambia and then headed off to bed. Something like this would never happen in the States, we don’t have the money to spend two hours over dinner talking politics to a Senator or Representative. Though, I don’t think a lot of Africans would have the same opportunity as we had.

Overall, the experience was a good one. I saw the president and ex-president of TZ talk, had dinner with a MP from Zambia, and had a good laugh at some of the posturing during the talks of the second day. Beats an average weekend at home.

Six month-aversary!

We've officially survived 6 months in Tanzania! We're still malaria free but we will be celebrating the occasion with a ceremonial deworming. Yummy! In a way, it seems like we've been here a lot longer than that but I guess that's because it takes a week to do what can be done in an hour at home. It warps your sense of time. Anyway, to celebrate this great milestone, I thought I'd spruce up the blog with an interactive reader poll! I hope you all are as excited as I am! The first one is a big one. Brandt has begun the process of negotiating a contract to continue his work here while simultaneously applying for a couple of jobs back in the U.S. We've been living month to month in the best of times and day to day in the worst and our future is completely up in the air. We flip and flop on a daily basis on whether we want to stay or go. So we figured we might as well hear what our beloved family and friends have to say.

I also thought it was about time to change out the photo for one of us here in Tanzania. So now we have a self-portrait of us taken outside the little burger shack (and when I say shack I literally mean shack) that serves as Bagamoyo's take on McDonald's (it's not fast but it is real food so it's a good tradeoff I think). We've fallen about way behind on the blog but we're trying to get caught up and hopefully we'll have some posts up soon on our new life in sleepy Bagamoyo.

e-hugs,
Robyn

Arusha National Park

Robyn had previously been on an amazing one day safari (“safari” in Kiswahili means trip or travels) while she was in Mwanza, so I was all excited for my first opportunity to see stuff in the wild that I had only seen in zoos or on the Discovery Channel. After talking to the one of the owners of the lodge we were staying at, we decided that we would do a one-day safari into Arusha National Park. While the park is quite small (we saw most of it in one day), it offered an opportunity for a walking safari. Now, most people think of an African safari as a rough and rugged adventure. Typically, it is rough because the roads are so bad and rugged because of the bathroom facilities (poop in a hole). However, the safari companies just drive you around all day in the back of a jeep or truck and feed you like a pig, so you are often in worse shape coming out of a game-watching safari vacation than going in. That isn’t to say that they are bad, because they are almost always awesome experiences. But, if you have a chance for a safe walking safari, take it, it is worth the extra 20 bucks and effort to set foot to ground over here. So, we signed up for a 4 hour walk with an armed park ranger.

We were excited as we had a sneak preview of the park earlier in week. Luckily, our lodge (Mt. Meru Lodge) was only a 15 minute walk from the entrance of the park. There is no fence around the park but there’s an archway marking the boundary. On one side there are houses, a school, crops, children playing- a completely human-dominated landscape. On the other side of the arch, there were thick bushes, trees and about 20 giraffe. It was awesome! Some were no further than 10 yards away from us. They would just stare at us while they chewed their cud—often for minutes at a time. They are amazing, and huge, creatures. We decided to plop down on the side of the dirt road and watch them watch us. We spotted a small hill along the border of the park and we climbed up for a better view. Town on the left, herd of giraffe on the right. One really big one walked into path we had taken so I had to walk directly at him when it was time to go and hope he moved out of our way. Now, giraffe are essentially little more than a cow with long necks, long legs, and pretty spots. They seem to be relatively dumb and harmless. However, when you are walking towards one that is over double your height and is four to five times your weight, it is a bit daunting.

We spent the next few days at a scientific meeting (more about that later) and on Saturday it was safari time! Robyn and I ate breakfast and then climbed into our pimped-out safari van and headed off. On our drive to the point where we would start our walking trek we saw giraffe, water buffalo (mean looking animals), wart hogs (super funny when they run), baboons, and blue monkeys. Nothing like Robyn’s Serengeti experience, but not bad for an early Saturday morning drive. We finally arrived at the ranger station, grabbed our pack lunch and headed up into the forests at the base of Mt Meru. The first thing we saw dart in front of us was a dik dik, which look like tiny, elvish deer about the size of a house cat. I didn't even know anything like this existed. 

Well, we walked and walked and walked. I am not going to bore you with a step-by-step description, but I’ll list the highlights:

-Highlight #1--About 45 minutes in our hike, we heard a very loud snap in the forest off our right, like a small tree breaking in half. In the park, there are mountain elephants, and startling an elephant only means bad things. Our guide immediately side stepped, bolted his rifle, and told us wait. We waited in silence for a few, long minutes; my heart was pounding, ears straining for any noise, both hoping that an elephant would come rumbling out of the forest and hoping that no elephant was anywhere near us. We listened for a bit longer, then the culprit popped into view- colubus monkey. So we plunged into the thick forest to watch the colubus. We trekked a bit and then heard and saw these huge, beautiful, black and white, long-haired monkeys running and jumping through the tree canopy right over our heads. We were the only people around, so it was just us, the forest and the monkeys. It was incredible. They are apparently pretty shy as monkies go so this is why walking safaris are a must.

-Highlight#2--After about 2 hours, we came upon this really big, really interestingly shaped fig tree with a hole through the trunk so big that you could drive a truck through it. As we arrived, a troop of about 60 baboon showed up and all climbed up into the tree. Seeing 60 baboons hooting, hollering, and eating is overall pretty entertaining to watch. Figs rained down from the tree but luckily, Robyn and I avoided being pooped on.

-Highlight #3—After the baboons, the ranger got it in his mind to find us an elephant. We then spent the next hour tracking elephants. We were walking on paths through the forest and bush likely made by elephants, making sure to avoid stepping in the elephant dung. It is really intense to be walking in elephant footprints, it makes everything seem a bit more real. The guide was leading us quietly through the trail with his gun at the ready, periodically stopping to listen. Sadly we didn’t see any elephants, but it was a great time nonetheless.
After the walking part of the safari, we clambered back into our truck and saw the rest of the park. It was pretty, but saw nothing super interesting…

…Until we were heading out of the park. As dusk was settling in over the park, our driver saw it first. A leopard…about 30 yards ahead of us on the road. Our driver was excited as he has been doing safaris in the park for several years and this was only the second leopard he has seen. For the next 10 minutes, we slowly followed it; we would get to close, it would faint like it was heading for the bush, we would stop, then it would continue on. Awesome! The park was closing and we had to call it day soon. The leopard went up into the bush on the side of the dirt road. As we slowly drove past the spot where he/she had disappeared. We assumed she was gone, sick of being followed by our van. But there she was! Sitting just inside the weeds yards from our van. Holy shit! All I saw was its face and glowing yellow eyes staring at us. Robyn and I yelled at the driver to stop. We stopped about 8 yards beyond where it was hiding us. At first we said back up, but then realized that it could easily jump into the truck, so decided to stay put. After a few tense moments, it finally took off, and so did we. Overall, the safari was a great experience, we got to see things few people ever get to see. It is because of times like this that you fall in love with TZ.

Road Trip

Robyn and I decided that I would meet her up in Moshi following her week of work up in Mwanza. She was going to fly to Moshi, I was going to take the bus. I am detailing this trip to give you a sense of how travel via public transport works over here. To any Tanzanian, my journey would be totally unremarkable. However to me, it was an immense pain in the ass (literally).

The buses for Moshi/Arusha typically leave from Dar between 7 and 10 AM each day. So I started my trip with a two hour dalla ride from Bagamoyo to Dar. I paid 1500 tsh ($1.30) for the 60 km trip. I definitely got what I paid for--I was cramped into the back seat, packed into a space over the left rear tire well, with my large backpack on my lap (and partly on the lap of guy next to me). It was an typical trip, down in just under two hours. I got to Dar, decompressed out of the dalla, and started my mile hike through mud and water holes that engulfed major portions of the side “road” that would bring me to the front steps of Chris and Cathyrn’s place. All of this was done in the dark.

I rolled into the haven of peace that is C and C’s house, unwound, and went to bed early since my day would start at 6 AM (which is very early for me). I awoke the next morning excited to get up to Moshi and see a new part of Tanzania. I walked out the door at 7 AM the next morning, and retraced my steps through the water obstacle course I conquered the previous night. As always, I got plenty of stares from locals, amazed as that a mzungu was actually walking and not taking a taxi or driving an SUV. I arrived at the dala dala hub of Mwenge and jumped on a dala for a short 20 minute trip to Ubungo to get a bus to Moshi.

So the dala stops about 100 meters outside of the bus station. Before my feet hit the ground, I was absolutely swarmed by people determined to help me find a bus. I knew this was coming, but it is still a bit overwhelming. Not really dangerous, just crazy. I just ignored them and plowed my way towards the station. As I got close, a woman in a uniform grabbed my left wrist. I told her twice to let go of me, but she obviously was trained in the ways of the Force to thwart attempts of getting her to release her vise-like grip. So she literally dragged my into a ticket office all the while fended off other people who wanted my business. So she succeeded in capturing her prey. However, she gave me a reasonable price (for a mzungu) of 17,000 tsh to get to Moshi, wrote me out a receipt, then sent me off with a runner who walked me to the bus. The bus supposedly left around 9:00, it was 8:30, so everything seemed to be on track.

Now, the bus station at Ubungo is complete chaos; buses, taxi, vendors, and travelers everywhere. The buses sit idling for hours, spewing noxious exhaust, as the operators try coerce anybody who drifts by to fill the seats so their bus can take off towards their various destinations. Here, you actually see bus line operators chasing other operators away from potential customers. It is a big, smelly, noisy chicken fight.

After sitting on the bus for 90 minutes waiting for it to fill up (apparently the departure time was just a guess), our bus finally took off. In 7 to 8 hours, I would be in Moshi. This is assuming no blowouts, breakdowns and/or accidents which are almost as frequent as mosquito bites.

As you have read previously, Tanzanians don’t exactly follow any rules while driving. Well, except for the “bigger car/truck/bus always wins” rule. So buses are one of the big boys on the TZ highways, and the drivers drive like it. Driving as fast as they can, potholes and speed limits be damned. They pass slower moving cars at will, often just squeaking back into the proper lane before careening headfirst into oncoming traffic. I find it best to never, never stare out the front window of the bus, it is simply too terrifying for your own good.

So I settled into my window seat and plugged into my I-pod. Over the next eight hours, the Tanzanian man seated next to me and I proceeded to get to know each in a very physically intimate way (at least to me). This middle-aged man decided to press his left shoulder, mid-section, hip, leg, and foot into my right shoulder, mid-section, hip, leg, and foot. If I shifted to put some air between us and regain my dignity, he would immediately shift to occupy said space. I don’t even hug Robyn this hard. I got annoyed and pressed back, but he never seemed to get the hint (btw, Tanzanians have a completely different idea of personal space than Americans). After the trip ended, I wondered if it was Tanzanian custom for him to ask my hand in marriage.

Anyway, over the first four hours we only stopped quickly for patrons to board the bus. At these stops, hoards of venders swarm the bus selling water, cashews, oranges, grilled ears of corn (presented on the end of coat hangers stuck into the end of a stick), gum, candy, bread, wooden spoons, newspapers, etc, etc, etc. It is crazy. This is how you mainly feed yourself over the course of the trip. To feel like a true local, just toss your trash out the window when you are done—you get extra points if you hit a chicken or a goat. Also, you must realize that there are very few opportunities to use the choo. We only stopped twice for bathroom breaks: once at a road-side food-stand area and another time when the bus just pulled over and people got off and ran off into the bushes (if you were a woman) or just pissed on the side of the road (if you were a man). Ahhhh..the joys of public transportation.

That about sums up a typical bus trip in Tanzania. I got to Moshi in one piece and feeling only slightly violated. We need to get a car!!!