ninakuona kama pweza kukujibu sitoweza

ninakuona kama pweza kukujibu sitoweza

: i see you like an octopus- able, i am not to speak to you.

i won't see angela again :(

YES. awesome. "kangas" are african cloths with patterns and traditional sayings, or "learning" sayings. women sometimes use them for making clothe-eds, but mostly wear them wrapped around their other clothes, their waists, shoulders, heads sometimes. they are good for spreading knowledge, so i am told.
mostly they say sweet things or godly things, but often there are absolutely ridiculous things-- that is completely unfair. they say ridiculous things to an mzungu that doesn't know the truth about life, or kiswahili. but i still love them. i've been seeking funny ones, but it is hard to explain to someone that you want a kichaa kanga. kichaa, after all, is a rather bad description only now rampant in kiwakkuki, not in most of moshi. "funny" or faraha doesn't really translate either. i kept getting "god love us" or "good friendship is beautiful"

that is not funny. this is funny: Chokochoko mchokoe pweza, binadamu hutamweza If you want to poke (provoke) someone, then poke an octopus; you will fail with a human being
i found a list of translations on line with some absolutely fabulous kangas. there are so many great ones it is hard to choose a favorite, but this is def one of them:
Siku ya kufa nyani miti yote huteleza The day a monkey is destined to die, all trees are slippery.

Valentina took me around town last week to find these fabulous kangas from my long print out. it was, well, an experience. i was happy to bring laughter to town that morning. every place we went vale would yell out the kiswahili and laugh hysterically and then everyone would laugh at me back. but sadly my kanga translations were from about 20 years ago. :( POLE! no one in town had them any more. we even wrote some of them down for a man to look in dar, but no luck.

in the meantime i also went to one of our favorite cloth shops and tried to beg him for funny kangas. no real luck. though he whispered that a while ago he, and everyone in town, had gotten a shipment of kangas that said--and he lowered his voice further- "if you cover your genitals, you will never have children" shocking. i think that one is pretty fabulous. but for all my begging he swore he, and everyone in town, had sent them all back to the manufacturer, they were just too risque for moshi. oh well. i did pick out a couple of somewhat funny ones, including
Jogoo la shamba haliwiki mjini
a country cock doesn't crow in town. made me think of ny.

but the best bit, is that mr. shaw mistranslated one of the kangas. he had told me something rather lame, even though the dada working for him had pulled it out thinking it was funny. i bought it anyway, feeling guilty for having them search through everything. after having a skirt made from it, i forgot the translation, so this weekend, after scouring my dictionary with no success, finally asked greg for what my skirt says: ninakuona kama pweza kukujibu sitoweza ~ i see you like an octopus- able, i am not to speak to you.
fabulous. i will wear it to the airport!

sneaky! last night under my net

roof riding

roof riding

riding on the top of greg's car with a huge herd of elephants. 5 minutes earlier these elephants were close enough i thought i would pee in my pants.


it is good to get away from moshi for a day or two. it is fantastic to go on safari. john, mother, greg, terry, and their little boy nikoli and i headed out to tarengarie national park for the evening.  it was fantastic.  this beautiful park is largely unvisited, and as such the park fees have remained affordable.  it is full of the most beautiful bao bao trees and tons of elephant as well as other animals. 

simba looks tired

we stayed at greg and terry's friend's lodge, which has cabins right on the cliff overlooking the river. terry, greg, and nikoli are also hilarious company.  terry climbed up on the roof of the car barely 10 minutes into the park and i was happy to join her.  with her up there, it was hard for mother or john to feel it was unsafe, though i can't imagine they would ever have allowed me to if she hadn't nonchalantly climbed out the sun roof.  for the next 24hrs it was impossible to drag me off it.

many watoto out in the park today

clinging to the railing for life as we tore through the dust was just about one of the loveliest things i have ever done.

unbelievable really.  must be cgi.

african halloween

african halloween

there is no african halloween, though i did read about something in south africa.

but i love it. it is my favorite, and by god i am going to make it happen. 
"sweet", shangala bangala, and shy

i spent all my time preparing the decorations, so didn't have a lot of time to work on my own costume, which was a bit uninspired.  i had visions of grandeur as a frozen kili hiker, a chewn up safari camper, etc. but when i saw an adorable broom for only 800shilingi and a real sickle for only 2,000, i decided to go with the tried and true witchie poo.  haven't done that since i was about 5 yrs old. but in africa, where everything is a mystery, it was very impressive (and got bloodier as the night wore on, thanks to my home made blood!).  rose, our housekeeper and her daughter angela were very confused by my tossing out the best part of pumpkins. and pauli, our gardener thought the shrunken heads were funny--or at least he was laughing a lot--but did not think my witch outfit very nice.  kichwa kubwa!! mbaya hapana nzuri! (big head. bad. not attractive.- thank you pauli.)

then it was off to dada meghan for some serious decorating.  the decorations were mostly due to guido's indulgence, carting fake spider webs and some glow in the dark cheesy skeletons across the atlantic and to terry's joy of buying every strange thing that comes through the 2nd hand market-- but also due to my genius and perseverance and my willing slave evelyn.

rafiki evy is very scared

after dragging over all my supplies, jackolanterns and shrunken heads, we hung webs and ghosts, cut out bats, threw the funny "boo" tshirts and random costume pieces around. we even made popcorn, bad punch, and cheap candy--oh and the ridiculously good cookies from meghans kitchen.

suspiciously looking like one of the most important mzee at kcmc... mother was so proud
meanwhile, i seemed to think witches like to "grr"

i was most impressed by everyone's genius costumes.  several witch drs, some mummies, some bad puns, some nearly 7' tall school boys, terrorists with strapped on workable bombs, goddesses, wizards, even mr. president bill clinton, to name a few
they grow up so fast!

luckily no one was hurt in the process of this partying

--everyone made my evening. i only wish all my friends had been in town for it!

it is off to tarangarie for the rest of the weekend. one last dash in the bush before absconding from my african dreams.

where blessings come from

where blessings come from

i had a pretty shitty week this week.  shangala bangala in the least charming way. certainly all the mbaya sane matatas (shit, basically) were amplified by the countdown raging in my head and heart.  but that's life. right?

i almost didnt go running this afternoon, though i felt like a slug, because of a huge dust storm raging outside, pulling everything down in its wake. but at the last second decided some good music and some alone time might be a salve.

i let guido and jan run a few minutes before me, so as not to slow them down, then took off. i was lucky- the gusts of dust seemed to hit as i passed by trees and little homes, blocking it just enough so i could breathe.  when i approached the turn for the longer run, i contemplated turning around so as not to get caught out in either the open field dust or the approaching dark, but the sight of guido and jan tearing back down past me, spurred me on. 

wow.  when i made it up through the forest and turned the corner to the fields- the most beautiful sight i have ever seen.  a full rainbow coming straight out of kili disappearing in the clouds, then appearing perfectly down the opposite side.  mesmerized i had to run on into it, up the mountain.  at the top of my route, i stood transfixed by the sight, trying to drink in the details, burn them on my brain.  the rainbow became a double rainbow, spectacular. the sunset seared the furious wind orange. and kili revealed herself in all her glory.

kwa nini? why?  that moment is mine. and if it is to make up for the week, well i feel well paid for years to come.

tomorrow night we celebrate my favorite holiday!!!!
pretty good for practically no pumpkins in town and only a big putcher knife...plus the coconut shrunken heads are a nice touch if i do say so myself:

mbaya leo ~ bad day?

mbaya leo ~ bad day?

try meat. blame heart pain on bacon grease! why clear things up when you can choke tasty things down?

the "mnt meru"

bacon grease cooks the slabs

raw, cooked, it's all the same!

this message sponsored by your local swiss and african meat market

my happy place

what i see from a solo run

In the quiet of the shadow
In the corner of a room
Darkness moves upon you
Like a cloud across the moon

You're a-wearing all the silence
Of a constant that will turn
Like the windmill left deserted
Or the sun forever burn

So don't forget to breathe
Don't forget to breathe
Your whole life is here
No eleventh hour reprieve
So don't forget to breathe

 Keep your head above water
But don't forget to breathe

 And all the suffering that you've witnessed
And the hand prints on the wall
They remind you how it's endless
How endlessly you fall

 And the answer that you're seeking
For the question that you found
Drives you further to confusion
As you lose your sense of ground

 So don't forget to breathe
Don't forget to breathe
Your whole life is here
No eleventh hour reprieve
So don't forget to breathe

 Keep your head above water
But don't forget to breathe

Breathe....
~alexi murdoch

it is all a mystery

it is all a mystery

or a...

frustrating days.

there is lots of work for me to finish before i leave the country. more than i will possibly be able to finish, though i will try my best. 

nearly every person, wazungu and tanzanian alike, want to know why i am leaving...don't i like it? shouldn't i be getting married? shouldn't i stay home here? when am i coming back?

i already miss my friends here, and sadly we all begin to pull away--protecting ourselves from what we have come to know as the incessant ebb and flow of people in and out of town. i want to get angry, find fault, find a reason to move on.  easier to deny friendships, than admit we might miss each other.  but that is my own fault, right? usually, you just don't bother memorizing a person's name if they stay under a couple months. and here i am, staying on  for practically forever and then suddenly up and leaving with no warning.

we are a community of transients, especially those of us in our 20s and 30s. if you don't have a spouse and baby, and even when you do, few wazungu, expats, or half-tanzanians commit to putting roots in a place like moshi.  we form friendships, maybe lovers, but hardly with a clear understanding of roots and the future.  everything is for the now.

for the moment.

but when you leave the now, where do you go? and who do you go with?

no more hashish!

no more hashish!

it is hard to believe that i have completed my very last hash.  well, moshi hash.  i love hashing. there are 5 hash clubs in manhattan, which i am very tempted to look into, esp as our moshi hash is the "child" of a manhattan hash. but greg, the moshi founder, warned me to stay away from the ny hashes.  they are crazy, he said.  in truth, they do look a little crazy. a lot of drinking and running in the pavement city-- a bit different from the beauty of tanzania followed by a good kilimanjaro beer. 

how cute is this? the dog i mean. :p  elliot and ngome are alright as well :)

this, my last hash, was set by greg from his parents' house.  unbelievably beautiful as usual, but also a great hashing finish.  elliot was much too fast, bounding ahead with his puppies.  i was very pole pole as usual. but at least this time i had the excuse of john and my run to kibosho yesterday which so kicked my ass i literally laid on the cement floor for a good ten minutes before i could move again. then i just moved to my bed- a bad choice as i was drenched in sweat.  but oh well.

greg's adorable son gave channa and i a tour of the whole grounds, including his secret fort.  we were very honored. then after everyone left, greg and terry (his wife) had the gardener call out to the bush babies.  yes, that is right.  bush babies. with a little "whoo  whooo"  the bush babies appeared.  they grabbed my fingers with their teeny paws and ate bananas.  fantastic.
the flash was very scary.

rafiki

rafiki

sara teaches elliot about pumping mechanisms


i love sara. she is my rafiki. sara is a fabulous irish woman who, after studying in moshi decided to stay.  she runs her own hostel : hostel hoff, yes indeed named after david hasselhoff. if i was to stay in moshi foreveh we would have many more good nights.  she took very good care of me saturday night during adrian's goodbye party.  i was the unfortunate victim of some magical brownies, as were many others. after my other friends abandoned me--yes thats right! to their buckets of ice cream and cookies, twits! --she was still there to feed me coffee and laugh with me and only mildly at me.
 foot 2 afrika is her website.  if anyone is remotely interested in coming to tanzania--which how could you not at this point? i mean really.-- you should come and live at her hostel.  she has also on her own created several opportunities for volunteering because nothing in town suited her needs.  check her website out. come to moshi. :)

sweaty and nasty after hashing:

football, flour, and fudge

football, flour, and fudge

well, i didn't have anything to do with the football--soccer for my american buddies--i took myself on a long solo run instead.  (john's conference calls forced him into an early run.  but the sun has gotten so incredibly hot in the last 2 weeks, that any outdoor exertion b/t 11am and 4:30pm is pure torture.  i'd much prefer to battle the ditches and knobbly roads in the dark than to crisp.)

while i ran, the boys practiced football.  the  moshi team is quite good, or so they tell me. sadly i missed the most exciting game, when a famous pop tanzanian singer came to town to sing during halftime.  andrew even scored a goal! bringing respect to wazungu everywhere.

after my run- a pretty good one, i might add, despite having to force my own speed- it was off to elliot's to make mexican food. 

i love mexican food. i really love Torreros. i adore Cantina.  north carolina is one of the fastest growing areas for mexican immigrants (legal and not) and i couldn't be happier about the food they bring with them. 

as far as i can tell, there are zero mexican immigrants in moshi.  true, we have a great restaurant called EL Rancho.  But the chef it was named for never showed up, so instead they serve the requisite indian and chinese food.  the sign had already been painted, so they couldn't possibly rename it! 

when in dire situations, one does what one must. in this case, attempting to make flour tortillas and all the fixings by hand.  now i did just make a huge fabulous dinner for my friends earlier in the week, so i didn't feel too much pressure to contribute.  i left evelyn to the flour, and otto and vicky to the fixings, and stuck with a simple salsa.  elliot did his job very well, that is, ordering everyone around and commenting on the attractiveness of our dishes.  but by the time the football team showed up to eat all our hard work, we had gotten ourselves together well.  all that was really left was the toll house cookies elliot demanded of us. 

no measuring cups, no measuring spoons- raw whole almonds that had to be crushed by hand and toasted, and of course no mixer... well it was a bit of a mess, even after enlisting both rick and adrian to use their manly strength to finish my crushing job.  can i help it if it really seemed throwing the whole 24oz bag of chocolate chips into the mix seemed a good idea? everything else was such a mess why not?  the chip overload didn't help appearances all that much, but still they were delicious.  so there :p

and yet it was a very fun evening, though i had to forvce myself to go home eventually.  john and i are running to Kibosho saturday morning.  this run is about the length of the half marathon, if not a little longer, but the last 4th is straight up a hill and you want to die.  or at least i do.  :[  yuckkky! but have to do it, im running out of chances

musings while running

musings while running

i love when everything falls into place
only happens after i've given up the race
well i have eyes to see
i have life that's bursting forth inside of me.
so lets take the long way home
every moment i spend with you
lets make it slow, slow, slow
we'll count the moments as they go
~catherine maclellan

when you hear a song, is the message to you? or from you? is it meant for the moment and should you take heed? or is it just for the singer? or is it just chords?

when is my song no longer mine? i used to think when my songs and my play were performed for a crowd, they were still meant for me alone. but once everything is broken, do they now belong to a girl i've never met?

when the workers have all gone home, and it is just me and a 4 foot bird in fields of deep green coffee bushes, their little white flowers intoxicating, and the clouds clear, and the mountain is crisp and the vista suddenly extends forever and you can hardly breath for the beauty of it, is it for me alone? is it a smile? a blessing? a warning? or nothing at all? if i am not there to see it, if my heart does not skip a beat, is it meaningless?

if i am no longer yours, and your love is no longer mine, did i ever have it at all?

what is really mine? the few dollars-or shilingi- in my bank account? i suppose that belongs to the bank, unless i took them out and stuffed them under my pillow. but the pillow isn't mine either. it is my parents' or my landlord's... i once stole a thimble from a lost boy. that is mine. a faded painting with a faded promise. that is mine too.

my heart has many parts, the walls built thick with age. if i have given you part, when you no longer want it, do i get it back? or is it lost forever? does my heart grow bigger to make up for the partitions? or am i left with a little less for me each time? maybe those pieces still belong to others, not who they are now, but who they were then. the 6 year old, the 16 year old, the 21 year old... and yet just the right dart can somehow pierce the walls even now.

maybe it is better to save yourself for the mountain, the country, the perfect moment. at least they never change and you can always return and visit and even the coldest heart will beat.
 

not a pretty sight

not a pretty sight

with john making mad dashes crisscrossing the world, i was left to do all my running alone.

in my moshi guide i am writing for the new undergraduate program duke is attempting to institute, i have a special note about never running alone and being free to ask others to join you.  and of course there is my father heckling me from the states about the dangers. but i just haven't felt up to finding running partners recently.  i am trying to drink in my runs, painful as they can be, and with a good song in my head and the mountain peering down, i haven't wanted any distraction.
but no worries, john returns with the mad man guido -anyone who runs 100 mile marathons is indeed kichaa- and we will be a threesome again.

to be young and alive and healthy

to be young and alive and healthy

my life could be a whole hell of a lot worse.  it is pretty pathetic that that even needs to be said.
this woman was barely older than me when she died. wonder what from.

and yet this woman was nearly 100.  many, many people use to live into their 100s here. except the young people who have HIV. now the babies are raised by the bibis (grandmothers)

mother searches for the grave for the explorer Gilman, of gilman's point on kili.
she made herself sicklicking the gravestones.

nimelewa ~ fancy for

nimelewa ~ fancy for

i's is drownin'

testing the theory that if i drink enough kilimanjaro and serengeti the alcohol will sustain me back in ny.  this theory could be flawed, but i've not collected enough data yet.  i do concede that it might be a bad idea to take all my "proof" pictures while conducting the study. sends a bad image.

looking a bit normal...

nope. pretty smash-ed

la fiesta africa

la fiesta africa

dancing and rugby, what more can you ask for?


due completely to meghan impressive organizational skills, or perhaps due to her uncontrollable desire for la jacaranda food, she managed to pull together a huge  group for a last minute trip to arusha.  we even went in style in cars for goodness sake instead of the scary bus.  all for the sake of a rumor of salsa dancing.  meghan has much more faith in random posters around town then i do, but she managed to convince me to come anyway. 

see obviously salsa. he has a sombrero

growing up in durham, i don't think i once drove all the way to raliegh to go clubbing. to go to concerts, yes- to pick up my boyfriend, to get my best friend a stripper and throw her on a mechanical bull. but dancing? no.  here we were driving a good hour, stuffed in both rick and meghan's rickety cars just on the hint of salsa dancing.  strangely, we found several people had actually been to "salsa night" but no one could tell us where it exists. i suppose after the liquor and the activity getting to and from becomes a blur, maybe that's part of la fiestas strategy.  keep the allure.

happily, i kept my wits about me and now know the secret location.  not only that, but we found the movie theatre as well (though the Bourne is sadly gone and indian films have taken over the roster.)

a little scary.  must be all that wild dancing.  anne would be so proud.

why do i have such a big head?? why? kwa nini??


just getting things started:

meat anyone?

meat anyone?

i think we should institute this type of advertising in the states.  just paint right on the wall what you have inside.  the nicest paintings are usually the dishwashing soap adverts, but i do love the butcher. i mean it is hard to tell just what that carcass is in the window.

pyumps

the question is, which to do first?

holywood

holywood

thats right.

home is that tree outside my window

home is that tree outside my window

home is this quilt upon my bed
home is any place my love goes
home is where my heart can rest
~"home 235" robin & linda williams

home is also good bluegrass. i hope i can find some in new york.

the count down is officially on. for better or worse, i will indeed be going back to the states at the end of october. halloween is my current date. fitting, somehow. certainly the set up for a good horror flick.


i don't know that i'm ready to go. actually, i know i'm not ready to go, not ready to leave my friends here. africa is the dream on the edge of sleep, where you waft between snatches of happiness and the growing weight of reality threatening you through your fluttering eyelashes.  i'm holding tight to the dream, pulling the mosquito net firmly over my head...

on the other hand, i know i have to go back. i have to work for a salary again. and i do want to get back on the stage. i miss it, my first love. hopefully, life won't feel purposeless and meaningless compared to the dream.


the google news feeds aren't doing a whole lot to help those feelings.

curious george  recalled due to lead. the washington plane crash  left no survivors.

    the woman didn't survive her fall out of the hot air balloon.    some idiot at Columbia U. left a noose for his african american prof. police have decided the school shooting in ohio wasn't random, even though the kid only wounded his victims, managing just to kill himself.   bush vetoed the child health care bill. course i don't have any health care at all.    yet another report of misfire and dead citizens in iraq   the only entertainment news: poor brits not only lost custody of the kids but is being accused of beating her ex hubby kfed. 

worst of all  banquet is recalling potpies. potpies!!! seems they're poisonous like everything else in america.

but to be fair, it's not just america.

 Ebola is threatening the border between the congo and  cough tanzania

theatre in the "third world"

much to my own surprise, we did indeed perform godspell friday evening.  i never thought it would come together and wasn't particularly sad about that.  but when push came to shove, the date was announced and advertised all over town.  seeing my posters along side painted mbuzi (walls that advertise goat), Celtell signs, the ubiquitous coke signs, and "massage" numbers, was rather hilarious.

it has been a little while since i've performed out in small town regional theatre, but the experience of performing in africa brought back fond memories...

all the matatas (problems) were really rolled up in to the biggest one:  at around 2pm the electricity went out for over half the entire town.  we tried to call the power company. no answer. we called everyone we knew who have good relations with the power company. nothing.  but, this is africa, the power always comes back.  4:00 we thought.... at 4:20 our neighbor said, oh it will be on at 5... 5:30... one of the performers tells us 6 it will definitely be on... SIGH we finally get in touch with the power company! 7 we will have power in town, they promise. 

the performance is set for 730 start. we show up, arrange the seating, check on the restaurant providing bar services... all the time wearing miner's headlamps in the pitch black.  desperately, we rig up the generator to contact from one building to ours and everyone cheers.  we turn on the amps and the mics, triumphantly. the whole system blows and we are in total darkness.  as the audience starts arriving, we are collecting as many flashlights as we can and even directed a land rover to shine its lights through the open doors. finally, using fishing line we get the generator working again.

by cutting all our stage lights for one small flood fluorescent, we managed to turn on only one amp and one mic.

the audience was full and we were awesome.  well, sort of.  for Moshi, were a phenomenon to be reckoned with.  elliot's we beseech thee rocked the house, shelly's recorder was perfect, and russel stole the show with his line "someone's got to be oppressed!" shouted in full Aussie glory.  i even hit my high A in bless the lord.  of course the generator died just when jesus died on the cross, but amazingly the power returned and the stage lights and all the equipment kicked on with the reprise of prepare ye the way of the lord. TIA

thank god we didn't put it off, because really, what better way to perform in africa?  and, despite all the requests, there will be no encore performance. and i mean it. :p 

leave em in the dark and wanting more.

jenny from the block

jenny from the block

last weekend was a rollicking "girls' weekend" in arusha. well, rollicking might be a bit excessive. in fact, we did not even hit up the brand spanking new "movie theatre" which i am told is showing the new Bourne. i cannot believe it. i cannot believe, 1) that it really exists or 2) that it does exist and we missed it. oh well.

we did, however, go paragliding. sadly, for me, the wind was incredibly strong. but meghan is a rockstar. she was taking off again and again with little delicate landings.

at least i didnt repeat juls' landing in the acacia tree, that would have been rather awful. i do have a rather painful thorn in my hand, but that was the Hash's fault, not crazy Per or his paragliders.

i miss my seester

i miss my seester

3:52 PM