MISCELLANY

A quick review of my blabber on this site made me realize that I have completely skipped over the smaller details of this amazing adventure. And, Judy asked lots of questions about the food – have we managed to stay healthy and well fed at the same time?

The short answer is an astounding “Yes.” Because most nights we are camping we buy, wash and cook our own food. Every few days, when passing through a “big” city, we stop and stock up. There are supermarkets here that rival the ones back home, although there may only be 2 lightbulbs illuminating the whole store. We can buy just about anything in these stores: toothpaste, yogurt, passion fruit juice, saran wrap, snickers’ bars and Pringles. Fresh fruit and vegetables are plentiful and delicious. For breakfast we usually have fruit salad, toast, and/or either pancakes (from scratch) or eggs. And, the Kenyan coffee is substantive and gives a good jolt. Lunch is a sandwich of lunch meats, salad, tuna or pasta. Dinner is goat or cow meat, pasta or rice and sweet potatoes, which are white here, not orange. NO DESSERT EVER is served. I’ve continued with the vegetarian regime I started about 9 months ago and so haven’t had the meat, but Yosy says its delicious.

Although our stomachs have been behaving, we have signs of Africa all over our bodies: I have three spider bites, one each on my wrist, foot and finger. A prick of a needle takes out the pus and some antibiotic cream and a band-aid is all that’s then needed to cure. It doesn’t hurt at all and I have no recollection of ever being bitten. Low-lying acacia trees have 3 inch, very sharp thorns. I’ve been attached by these several times when making a pit stop along the road, and it hurts like hell until you disconnect yourself from the trees. They leave little red dots where they’ve stuck you, which look quite like a mosquito bite, so a few of these are decorating my rear end and arm. I woke up this morning with a scab on my forehead and have no idea what that is. Of course, we are quite tan, despite the gobs of suntan cream we’ve been using – we’re only 4 degrees south of the equator, so the sun is very strong. My feet are filthy and cracked – its hard to get them really clean and every day we are covered in dust. In fact, the hardest thing about being here is staying clean. Its over 95 degrees and showers only trickle down when available. But that’s the worst of it. NO ONE has gotten sick in our group (knock wood).

I finally saw, after a wait of more than 30 years, a baobab tree. There were pictures of the tree in the Little Prince, a book I read sophmore year in college French, and I loved the exoticness of the tree – they don’t resemble anything that we have in the US, nor have I seen them anywhere else in my travels. In the book, they look like old souls who silently watch and wait. They always stand alone and have thick wide, stump-like trunks – almost as wide as they are tall. The branches, which start fairly high up on the trunk, are few and far between and are also thick and very crooked. The branches are sparsely covered in green leaves.. I made the driver stop at the first baobab we saw. It was located off the side of a winding road high in the mountains of northeastern Tanzania. It looked younger and much spryer and happier than I had imagined. Contrary to the picture in the book, the leaves were plentiful and all shades of green. It is still, together with the acacia umbrella, my favorite tree and is unique in character and charm.

We visited a home for street children in Arusha, the gateway city to the Serengeti. The project was started by some English passersby and houses 76, mostly boys. (The director told us that the girls are harder to find – they are often sold as household help and remain hidden inside gated homes.)

Whenever I’m asked where I’m from, I now respond “The United States of Obama.” An African with no knowledge of English at all, will give a thumbs’ up sign and say “Obama,” when they learn where we’re American. Everywhere we go there are signs of Obama worship: T-shirts, photos, notebooks with his and Michelle’s picture on the cover, and even the “Obama Hair Salon.” They are very proud that a black person, one of their own, has made it so far. The Kenyans actually believed that things would change for the better in their country when Obama took office. They all said that “Obama will make things right” in Kenya. They, of course, have no idea of the problems Obama faces in the US and that his time may be otherwise occupied for a while.

We were in the foothills of Mt. Kilimanjaro yesterday and are in the Usambura mountains today (northeastern Tanzania). Between the two days, we trekked 8 hours – 4 today and 4 yesterday, at about 5,000 feet high, to experience village life. As we made our way up and down hills along dirt roads, we passed through one village after another. The area we are now in is called the “Galapagos of the Plant World,” for the diversity of the flora, and it did not disappoint. We passed through avocado and banana fields, corn fields and gumwood forests. We ate jackfruit (a cross between a pineapple, banana and melon) and ate sugar cane straight off the cane. The vegetation is thick and lush and no one here is hungry. As we passed through villages, we heard singing in the churches, childrens’ voices from the schools, goats doing whatever goats do, and cows mooing. It was noisy, but quiet at the same time. It was the sound of happiness and contentment despite the evident poverty. Extended families live close by and communities are strong. Life is orderly and expectations are clear. Everywhere we go people greet us with “Jambo,” (Hello) and “Karibou,” ((Welcome). And people here really do say “Hakuna Matata,” (easy, easy, relax). And, Mt. Kili, the highest mountain in Africa, with its snow-covered peak, looks over the whole place.

Continuing to head south