paragliding!

a trip to the "big city" today with meghan, travis, slater, truck, and julia. Arusha is sort of a big city, at least compared to moshi. in the year they've been here meghan and travis have caught the death-trap bus into arusha several times mostly to eat and paraglide. after work friday we catch the bus, luckily we don't have to stand, head to the "arusha backpackers hotel," and straight to dinner.

after a brisk 5:45am wakeup call (from Juls in the bunk above me), we are quickly headed out to meet our guide Per ("pear"). one look at the piercing blue eyes and shockingly white eyelashes of this incredibly strong Dane, and i could tell he was completely mad. with the scars crisscrossing his arms and legs, he could have walked straight from an action film. throwing naive foreigners off a mountain and hoping they land safe is not his primary job. mostly he runs a safari business dustbusters where he takes naive foreigners off on motorbikes across the world. he has ridden his bike from denmark all the way to south africa.

our morning session was the "learning" part. ha. ha ha. instructions: strap this huge thing on, check your straps, run till you're running on air. for our first session, Par, and his helpers Jengu and Gifti, attached long leads to our front strap and ran ahead of as as "mules" to help drag us up into the air.

there is some expertise involved. you have to run holding the lines in such a way that the air would catch the glider, but in just the right moment you let part of the line go so theat the glider doesn't over take you or crash behind. we mostly listened for the shouting "let go!! let go!! why aren't you letting go?!?!?!

i do have some experience with running down the side of a mountain. this was only mildly more successful. the bushes surrounding us we're quickly deemed "chrisburgers" (chrisburger- one of the pubs in moshi). in fact it took me 4 or 5 hours to get off the ground only twice. the rest of the time filled with slamming my knees, dragging through the underbrush on my side, or the inevitable face smashing bellyflops. to be fair to myself, everyone else (minus travis and meghan, the experts who merely walked around helping the newbees) were only slightly more successful.

after a quick sojourn of peanut butter on bread and some incredibly sour cheese that had to be bagged and hidden lest the look of it poison everyone, we set out to a bigger bit of mountain to really test our skills. to a certain extent, this was actually easier as there was little running before the wind could catch you. it was however, terrifying. well for me who still was completely unable to land in one piece. i never fully graduated to the run yourself off the mountain level, which the boys attempted valiantly, if not quite successfully. i was perfectly happy having crazy Per grab my harness straps and throw me while i ran. even that didn't promise success to any of us.

though i found relaxing just about impossible while soaring in the air, on one flight mount meru emerged from the clouds, leaving me breathless as well. flying with the birds, gliding around...
even "landing" upside down suspended from a small tree was alright that time.

Restituta and Chrisburger

today was Resti's last day working at KIWAKKUKI. she is an amazing women. hard to grasp that we are the same age-a reflection of what i might have been in another time and place, she's my mother's "african daughter." KIWAKKUKI supported her as an orphan, put her through school from primary all the way to get her social work degree. instead of going for a higher paying job, she came back to the organization to help other AIDS orphans.

she was married last christmas and her husband has been living in another town all this time. it doesn't seem fair that he can't move here. when i asked, she looked at me as if i was crazy. Kichaa! (mad)
i'll miss her

karibu

every morning at KIWAKKUKI, the women headed clinic for HIV/AIDS and orphan support, we begin with prayer, song, and announcements. of course it is all in kiswahili so most of it is a blur for me. occasionally i have been asked to read the prayer--in kiswahili. it is always good to provide people with laughter in the morning. my favorite song is "karibu, karibu, tu ne sena..." literally - welcome, welcome, we are saying."

it is sung every time someone comes to visit, returns from a meeting or holiday. it becomes a bit ridiculous--everyone breaking out into it over and over, especially when you have no idea what is going on-who or what we are welcoming.

mmm a delicious "vegi burger" all the fixings of a hamburger, minus the hamburger itself. obviously, why was i surprised?

Maasai

he came running towards us as if we were the most exciting thing he had seen all day- the joy rushing off him in waves, overwhelming. we snatched to capture it.
when he got to us, his smile faded into puzzlement. he didn't know what should come next and neither did we.

Kili kisses the sun

human food, good to know

it took two of us several hours to make zucchini bread from scratch. pole. ("poh-ley" sorry)

to market to market

you don't see a lot of wazungu at the Kibilaroni market. it used to be quite dangerous, packed to the gills with people selling everything from 2nd hand clothing to live chickens. now much of the market has been cleared out and all the used clothing vendors have gone. they've moved to a new area of town, leaving the market for vegetables, spices, and dried samaki-fish. the fish is so smelly. stacks and stacks of dried, fried, and fresh fish of all shapes and sizes. there is the palm sized fried fish, the huge pyramids of snack sized barely bigger than your thumbnail, the nasty curled thing that almost looks like a giant cinnamon bun, and of course the enormous fresh tilapia and king fish glaring at you from their glazed eyes.

the lions, they are hungry

another trip to a swimming hole and the lions have been out.

in the poem of my life, i would sidle up next to the simba- take a communal nap.

this one was probably watching me lazily indifferent from a tree, contemplating my worth.

solastisi

kilimanjaro. beautiful

i'm freezing today. in africa. ha.
but then again, yesterday was the shortest day of the year here--the winter/summer solstice!
it has been cloudy and hazy, though there hasn't been any rain in nearly three weeks. the roads are as dusty as always. my feet are particularly grim as i haven't made it into the shower during the daylight in a while. by the evening we either are in a "brown out" or have no power at all. during a brown out, the voltage goes up and down erratically and lights, especially florescent bulbs flicker on only a few seconds every 5 minutes or so. the bathroom is pitch black by 730pm. we keep a flashlight by the sink and if i aim it just right, i can get it to reflect off the mirror and give me a tad more glow. it's just enough to show me the difference b/t the shampoo and conditioner. yesterday my itchy legs drove me to the razor-light or no light. luckily i managed without any scarring.

maisha misimko na coca cola!