hash, not hashish

hash, not hashish

every other weekend is the moshi Hash. the term was unfamiliar to me, though it is an international phenomenon. A hash is a running (though you may walk) trail set by the Hasher of interesting and difficult paths, including false trails. the "hounds" - runners follow a trail marked by spots of flour or sometimes a check marked by an "x." at the check you have to search for which direction to go to pick the trail up again. it all can lead to mass confusion, even once the correct path is found by the front runners. they are meant to leave an arrow pointing the way to the next flour but the arrow never seems to stay put, so you get lost anyway. at the end of the whole thing you celebrate with beer, though we always have other things as well as moshi is a family town. :)

this was only my second hash as i have been paragliding or climbing or at pangani for the others. the first one was a very beautiful walk though a valley and up and down some steep ledges- all through a rural area called Machame that i am unfamiliar with. this one was set from a friend of our's house in moshi proper, but again through an area that i didn't know existed.

having run earlier in the day with john, i contented myself to walk along with Rick (a brit phd student who studies "mwoh-squitoes" as he calls them. ew. kcmc has the best center for malaria research in at least East Africa. doesn't make me feel better about not taking malaria meds while i'm here. he actually pays people to go spend the night in this hut they have built to test different repellents with "wild" mosquitoes.)

Greg, todays hasher, had set a rather difficult path, spreading the flour quite far apart so you really had to search for the next spot. he also put 2 sections straight through the river. fun and challenging if you can jump from rock to rock, but not so fun if you are a "wrinkly" as my mother is now calling herself and all the old people we know, including the pair of octogenarians visiting our friends Kay and Russel that mother was keeping time with. they all managed the first slippery slope into the river bed, but when several young women went sliding off the rocks into the river, everyone paused.

so here we were-the walkers-half the younger across or nearly across, me in the middle, all the wazee (old) on the opposite bank. huge rocks, a deep fast current in cutting the trail. probably for the best, they decided the wrinklies should stop and climb straight up the bank back to the last pasture. all well and good, except that Barney, Kay and Russel's fabulous huge dog that i love had already carefully bounded his way over half the huge rocks. Barney, though he adores hashes and quivers near to heart attack at the thought of them, very faithfully runs back and forth checking on them throughout the trail. there was no way for him to go one way and them another unless he was leashed. so they called him back again. but the rocks were not made for crossing both directions.

just as he reached me, his back feet slipped and he went careening into the water. the current immediately swept him backwards down the river. he paddled and paddled as we all started shouting, but the current was too strong. he managed to grip his little front claws on a small rock, but was too exhausted to pull himself up. i looked down at his soaked, petrified face peering up through the water, his toenails scratching helplessly on the small rock as his huge body swam against the current.

i plunged in. stupid perhaps, but what can you possibly do? leave him? there was no way to haul him up as he was. the current grabbed me, pulling me past him, but i managed to get hold of a boulder just behind barney. lodging my body against the rock i could wedge myself underneath barney's flailing legs, letting him rest. russel meanwhile climbed down over the first rocks, kay right behind him. once he had caught his breath russel pulled his front paws up and he was able to use me as a step ladder. barney gone, i slipped myself, flying back, the water up to my shoulders, and had to grab hands to catch the rock again.

though he was out of the water, we still had to get him across the river one way or another. deciding he couldn't make it backwards we sent him on across to the young people. with his leash around my neck, i half swam, half climbed the rest of the way across. kay decided she better come to, just in case something happened--dogs are feared terribly in tanzania, even though he is completely sweet.


i'm glad those of us that did made it on as the trail had all sorts of fun, confusing bits. at one point we had to crawl belly first through some hedges near the hidden prison. but i'm also glad the wrinklies turned around. break a hip in moshi and the only thing to do is fly immediately to europe or america to be attended to. seriously!

happy bday baby

happy bday baby

a little singing a little dancing
some very funny birthday card--all the more funny because they were meant in total seriousness.

pole, hapana Harry Potter. :(



there is a man in a town an hour's scary bus ride away who swears he will get one before the end of the month. i said you mean before the end of this month?? before august?? and he promised... you never know!

thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes!

Machame: KILIMANJARO

the kili climb is fast approaching. Machame route. July 11th- July 16th

READ my climb up kilimanjaro here

http://shangala-bangala.blogspot.com/

river crossing

the water was too low to dock our little motor boat so we had to go on to the river crossing in order to pull up on shore. the coast of tanzania, including pangani is relatively muslim. i imagine to this group of people boarding the river shuttle, along with the bus, were wondering the same thing that our captain asked mother: "Mama, where are your clothe-eds?" Pole. her beach cover up was awfully risque.

Pangani

not an optical illusion:

we spent the weekend in Pangani- an area that was once a prosperous port for the exportation of istle, a funny aloe looking plant used to make rope. there are fields and fields of the plant grown there, though it can no longer be shipped from town.

despite its economic state, this is surely one of the most beautiful, scenic places i have ever been.
we went snorkeling on saturday where the Pangani river meets the Indian Ocean. the river makes the usually crystal clear ocean a bit cloudy, but just past the mouth of the river it was spectacular. the boat captain moored our rickety wooden floating device on this "island" -- a bit of sand that appears in the middle of the ocean during certain hours of the day.

incredibly bizarre to have waves crashing on all sides.

my cousin, the masaai

oh say can you see

last night we had a party for meghan and travis to celebrate their year spent in moshi-their 3rd yr in medical school. we ordered their going away gifts before leaving for paragliding in arusha and yet managed to have nothing completed when we asked for them tuesday morning. TITS. This Is Tanzania Shit. (much more appropriate than the more common TIA, This Is Africa) the day turned into just about everything that makes one crazy about africa. trojan viruses on all the computers at work, unbearably slow internet, these promised gift orders that were blithely forgotten, even down to the obviously "kichaa" (mad) man who chased me down and even into my office, grabbing my arm- convinced we are getting married and he is going to take me to his uncle's land.

but after all that, the party was lovely. of the 60 people invited, only 26 rsvped, and 64 showed up. TITS.

today, Independence Day... I love july 4ths abroad. i feel much more patriotic surrounded by expats.

after some all american volley ball after work, Truck/Andrew had a big shebang at his house. of the crowd, only about 5 of us were americans. but the germans and dutch had hung balloons, and andrew's aussie roommate David was making "hamburgers". when we cut the cocoa flavored brownie cake one of the europeans made to look like a flag, the five of us made a rousing chorus of the anthem- much to everyone else's horror.

running partners

some of the children that chase after john and i, pose for juls:

international criminal tribunal for rwanda

from the witness: "You know, I would not wish you ever experience war in your country..."

"On or about the evening of 6 April and the morning of 7 April 1994 Joseph
NZIRORERA engaged in communications with Interahamwe militiamen in
Mukingo and Nkuli communes and exhorted them to start killing the Tutsi
population in Ruhengeri. Joseph NZIRORERA went so far as to instruct that
the killings should begin with one of his own children born of KIBERWA, a
Tutsi woman, to instigate militiamen and armed Hutu residents in Mukingo to
kill all Tutsi without exception, and instructed that this message be widely
circulated. "



when does life become a page in a text book?

after giving up my passport, cellphone, and recording devices, i was allowed into the UN''s tribunal for Rwanda held in Arusha. a maze of hallways and elevators took us to a particular floor where 3 cases were being tried. a set of translation headphones and i was escorted into the viewing area that allows the public to watch the particular trial. between the courtroom and the public is a thick glass wall through which you can see three or four rows of lawyers for the accused on the left, the three judges at a table directly in front, and the two rows of lawyers for the prosecution on the right.

sitting against the glass is the witness box, which can be curtained off so that the witness's identity is hidden from the public. also along either side of the witness, is a row of aids. hidden behind another glass wall on either side are the translators that continuously dictate into their language--french, english, or kirwandain. the public viewing is helped by multiple cameras that broadcast the lawyers, witnesses, judges, and admitted evidence on 3 screens for the public area.

the trials have gone on for years and years now. this day, in my room, was Joseph Nzirorera himself and his many lawyers. on the stand was a man, Jean Bosco Twahirwa, whose entire family had been killed. he had been forced to drive trucks that contained weapons for his employer, Nzirorera. Nzirorera's lawyers were very good, attempting to discredit this man.

he spoke passionately in his native kirwandain, his words piped into my ears at times by a young african voice and others by a dour old brit with a wry sense of humor. the defense attorneys kept harping on how these weapons came in on a plane and yet were not documented and the witness would laugh. it is hard to describe to someone unfamiliar with the ways of africa how business is conducted on a day to day business even without the presence of war all around. a little shilingi here a little shilingi there- this is how things happen. on and on the accusations were made that the witness was lying, that there was only his word about these weapons. why had he not reported such weapons at the time? to which he replied that "weapons were like fruit on the street" everyone had them, it was not abnormal to see such things.

the attorneys demanded he name names of others made to do such work and when he would not, or could not, they again accused him of lies

as he said: when they were being killed "we didn't know we would be on trial to report" but that "the truth will be known, this is only the beginning. it may take a hundred years, but the truth will be known... Where are we headed for reconciliation when people deny their responsibility? Council Robenson, it is your right to be prejudice to me. But i have no reason to invent what i know... If i am lying will that bring my mother and father back to me? ... You ask me to come and testify what i have seen. I am a witness and my conscious is clear."

how many ways to die

the view from the air:



view from the ground:

1. riding in the same type of bus that killed 20 people on the same route 6 days prior
2. sitting on someones lap to fit 5 people in the same shockless taxi while exhaust fumes pour in.
3. throwing yourself off a mountain
4. trusting a dane
5. riding/bouncing on *top* of a land cruiser going incredibly fast through the ditches

shower?:

6. landing/hanging in an acacia (thorn tree), the thorns piercing every 2 inches of you like a scene directly out of Saw (shangalabagala "hopeless" --i'm glad it wasn't me, poor julia.)
7. climbing on top and through said acacia with 8 others to detangle impossibly twined chute, hoping no one falls into it, is stabbed in the eye or anything else irreparable, or flung into the air if someone accidentally lets go of the bent trunk
8. riding on top of same land cruiser in the freezing, pitch black through downtown as people hoot and holler at you and occasionally try to climb up and join you
and those are just the obvious ones...

riding home in a smaller, less crowded bus with a rockin sound system:

even andrew/truck sleeps: