Moshi, TZ - Home Sweet Home

May 05 2008 – Day 5 & 6 - Moshitown

We woke up at 5:30 and got ready to head out to the bus terminal. As it was still quite dark, Katie petitioned vocally to take a taxi. Luckily the night guard was able to find one for us and off we went. The bus was very nice and our tickets entitled us to free pops, water, sugar biscuits, and pipi. I don’t know what a pipi is, but if its free its probably pretty damn sweet. Driving out of Dar Es Salaam we witnessed some of the poorest areas of the city. There were massive slums filled with mudhuts and shacks without electricity or running water. We passed quite a few villages with mudhuts along the way, but none were overcrowded to the extent of the slums of Dar. Besides that, the scenery along the way was awe inspiring. The trip was interspersed with jungle and rolling mountains. About 40 KM outside of Moshi we witnessed the biggest mountain of them all – Kili. Truly massive. The 8-hour bus-ride to Moshi flew by and before we knew it we had arrived.

We had to wait at the station for Denis from the hostel to come and pick us up. While we waited we were hassled by a few touts, although they seemed to relent once we told them we were volunteering. As it’s the slow season right now, I imagine there is only a fraction of the touts around as there normally is, which is lucky for us. The hostel itself is located in a quiet part of Moshi, just outside of the main center. The hostel is in its own compound, guarded 24 hours a day by Masaai guardsmen equipped with spears and bow and arrows (and pet monkey). Besides having a monkey on the grounds, we also have 2 dogs, 3 turtles, a plethora of lizards and geckos and enough insects to feed them until the end of time. There are lots of palm trees on the land, as well as a banana tree and a nice big garden out back. Denis took us through the main hostel, and out back to where we will stay. Luckily for us we have our own room in a guest house shared right now with an Australian couple. We met the other 10 volunteers staying at the hostel and took a quick nap.

Amanda, one of the girls who runs the hostel, woke us up in a little bit for supper. One of the perks of Hostel Hoff besides its name and shrine to the Hoff, are that breakfasts and suppers are all included and cooked for you. Laundry is also included in board fees which makes it possibly better than home as you don’t have to endure passive suggestions that you should learn to wash your own clothes. We signed up to take Swahili lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays, another service offered here. The people seem really nice and I really think we will enjoy staying here. Over dinner we made some quick plans to go on Safari with the Australian couple within the next 2 weeks.

The next day we got up for breakfast and made a long overdue trip to the internet café (as most people reading this will know). Later we were shown around Moshi by Irene, a girl who works at the hostel as well as the organization we plan to volunteer for. Moshi seems like a very small and slow paced town. There are 2 main shopping strips, almost all tailors or shoemakers. Some are tailor/shoemakers. Finally she took us into WODEF to meet the people we will be volunteering with. WODEF as we’ve been told stands for Widows Orphans Disabled Foundation. The E apparently doesn’t stand for anything, or maybe something in Swahili. Nobody seems to know. Anyways the head of WODEF, Genesis (like the Bible not the gaming console), was a really friendly and welcoming guy. He seemed very pleased to have us there, and the feeling was mutual. From what we picked up from our conversation today is that we will be visiting different grounds around Moshi, both urban and rural and helping with different events. For some groups we will be visiting local entrepreneurs and help with business and marketing plans. For others we will visit with orphans and teach English. Although it would be nice to stay in one place and maybe make more of an impact, I think this is a great way to experience a lot of what Africa really is. Tomorrow we will go in and shadow a couple people for the rest of the week before starting to go out on our own with interpreters next Monday. Scary thought, as we haven’t really been given teaching plans and I’m not sure how relevant my Weighted Average Cost of Capital or Lease vs Buy lectures will be (sorry Sean Hennessey) but we will have to see. We headed home for our first Swahili lesson where we picked up some helpful knowledge for our day to day activities.

Tingatinga!

May 04 2008 – Day 4: Dar Es Salaam – Tingatinga!

This morning Jamie and I enjoyed our first proper African breakfast here at the hostel (on time!).We then proceeded (gross, yes I know) to take our first (cold!!) African shower.

With our full bellies and squeaky clean bodies, we hit the streets of Dar. First stop – trace steps to bus stop to be ready to roll tomorrow morning and then the ATM. We took out our lunch money and headed to “City Garden” – a Tanzanian restaurant near our hostel recommended in our tour book. On the way, our magnetic white skin drew plenty of touts – 2 that were particularly persistent. They began with the usual small talk then ever so swiftly whipped out their products and the bargaining began. Jamie had mentioned this morning that he wanted to pick up some tingatinga paintings (bright, colorful paintings representing aspects of African life) sometime during our trip and low and behold what do our two friends whip out – a vast collection of tingatina paintings. After a long sales pitch and history lesson for each painting, Jamie and I picked 3 that we liked (they are beautiful and very impressive paintings of Tanzanian tribes people). I had a ballpark figure of approximately 20,000 TNS for all 3 in my head and was ready to bargain. The guys started the bidding at 150,000 TNS ($150USD)!!! They continued with their elaborate stories of street life and expensive painting materials and we eventually budged them down to 40,000 TNS (Approx. $35 USD) which is the average price of a tingatinga painting in a market. So we haggled ourselves a pretty good deal.

So we were out 40,000 and thus our lunch money. In this particular area the touts were on us like flies on shit so we decided to head out. We wandered around in search of an ATM – we were bordering on dehydrated and we still hadn’t purchased sun block (we both got nice little burns yesterday). I was dehydrated and hungry and burnt. And needless to say – cranky. Good ol’ Jamie put up with me and we found an ATM and finally reached our haven. The food was delicious and the restaurant was quaint in an outdoor shelter with wooden safari animal décor.

We then headed to the local supermarket to pick up some water, bus snacks and sun block. I was a bit shocked to see that the prices of familiar products were the same as prices at home (Ex. Bottle of Dove body lotion - $11). To put this into perspective, a police officer’s monthly salary in Dar Es Salaam is $50 USD. So we stocked up and headed home, weaseling our way away from oncoming touts.

This evening Willy, our friend and tour guide from Saturday’s adventures, called us to see if we wanted to go to the 50 Cent concert tonight – we told him that we have an early bus to catch in the morning, but thanks (what we were really thinking – us two at a 50 Cent concert in Africa… !?!?). The city is very highly anticipating 50 Cent’s visit – 99% of the people that we encounter in the streets let us know about it.

We spent the rest of the evening reading (Jamie – Biography of Mao, and myself – The State of Africa), packing and recollecting the past 3 days’ events. Dar has been a totally amazing experience and I feel like we’ve both learned a lot in the past 3 days and are becoming a bit more Africanized each day and our Swahili vocabulary is expanding.

**Side note / funny trend – Anytime we tell people that we are from Canada – their response: “Vancouver or Toronto?” pause “Quebec?)” Because those are the only three places in Canada.

Looking forward to moving on to Moshi!