A typical week in Moshi

A Typical Week in Moshi

This was an uneventful, typical week in Moshi for the Ramers Family. After our exciting excursion to Arusha, we spent Sunday afternoon lounging and resting. Bedtime is early here, as the sun sets around 7 PM, the malaria-carrying mosquitos come out, and there’s not a whole lot to do. So, we all hit the sack around 9 PM and sleep through the noises of the night (most of the time) until about 6 AM, when Christian’s alarm clock goes off, followed by the roosters, chickens, various birds, trucks on the road, and people walking by our house. I usually hide under the sheet until the last possible moment. Lately, Diego has been getting up with Christian, giving me some peace and quiet until almost 7 AM. My morning coffee (one half a small French press pot) is waiting for me, and as I attempt to wake up, I notice the cooler mornings are really the best time of day here. Soon it will be very, very hot, with little breeze until the later afternoon when it may rain. Evenings don’t cool until middle of the night, so we always have sheets to pull over us when the breeze cools down our bedroom and reaches us through our mosquito net tent.

Christian heads off to work around 7:15 AM, and Diego and I have a leisurely breakfast. On Monday morning, we needed food, so I hired a taxi to come pick me up and take me around Moshi to get much needed groceries. Later that afternoon, my girlfriend called to invite me on her weekly shopping trip (she has a car), which means I paid the $10.00 cab fare for nothing. Oh well! Now, well stocked with food from two shopping trips, I settled in to make a feast for dinner. Tuesday is playgroup, and so Diego and I walked to our friend Janine’s house, after which I got a ride back home (up the hill), bought some bananas from the ladies who carry baskets of bananas on their heads near our house, and decided to make some banana bread (since I didn’t have anything smaller than 2000 shillings with me, I had to buy two large bunches of bananas – about $1.80). Christian got me a decent recipe on the internet; my requirements were simple ingredients that I have in the house, which is not much, and he delivered!

On Wednesday, my hardest day of the week to get through, I decided to take Diego to the pool to go swimming in the morning. After an unsuccessful venture down the road to buy eggs from Uptown Market, a small place where we eat pizza on Thursdays but also has a small store and sells market eggs on Wednesday mornings (I arrived too early at 9 AM and the place was closed), Diego and I walked to the Impala Hotel (well, I walked and I carried Diego in my Tagalong backpack.) Boy, do I get a lot of stares wearing that thing around here! We were joined around 11 AM by Janine and Lucas. Diego and Lucas played nicely in the pool, and then we all had a small lunch poolside before walking home around 1 PM. Later that afternoon, an ex-pat dropped by a full car load of old toys for Diego, and it was Christmas at House A-6! I washed up everything, and Diego couldn’t wait to play with his new loot! The new cars and trucks and tools have been a hit! Christian is teaching Diego how to play baseball, and I am teaching him golf with some plastic equipment. Some of the toys are more baby toys, and I’ll save them for playgroup then probably give some to my House Mama for her baby daughter.

Wednesday night we went to a birthday party of sorts for a 3 year old Tanzanian boy who is a friend of our friend, Susan. Susan invited us so that Nicol and Diego could play. We arrived a bit late with a little toy car wrapped in shiny wrapping paper, and Susan had baked a banana chocolate mango cake. Yum. Nicol’s mom made a beautiful spread for dinner – rice, noodles, pork and fried fish. We ate cake first, though, sang Happy Birthday, opened presents, and then ate. After reading some books and watching the boys play with their cards, we headed home. It was nice to be in the home of a local Tanzanian and to meet the entire family. I cherish these experiences here.

Thursday was a slow day at home, with Pizza Night at Uptown. There are a few more visitors here – Dr. Nathan Thielman, one of the lead investigators from Duke, who spends most of his time in Durham, but comes to Moshi from time to time to check in on the progress of the research here. Also, a lovely guy named Diego from Argentina who used to be an attending at Duke before he took on a job in Brussels with a pharmaceutical company, Tibotec. Their stories and energy brought new life to Pizza Night, which can get kind of monotonous for me at least, since I don’t really find the pizza all that good.

Friday morning Diego and I helped clean up the house, then met Christian for some shopping in town. Christian got his first African haircut (not bad) and we walked around Moshi, which is beginning to grow on me. Well, at least I’m starting to feel more comfortable. I took my first dala dala (a mini van that fills up with people as it drives from KCMC down to Moshi) for a whole 250 shillings (1200 shillings = $1.00) – yes, cheap. It wasn’t so bad – a little squished, and this van’s brakes were grating on the tire, and the driver kept stopping too abruptly and everyone was yelling at him (well, that’s what we think they were upset about). Christian assured me that this dala dala was in great disrepair, and that wasn’t the norm. After our big venture out, Christian’s newly developed cold took a hold of him, and he came home mid-afternoon to sleep, while Diego and I went to Susan’s flat for a fish fry and BBQ potluck. It was fun with all of the people, but Diego who had not napped well today, was really cranky, and there were a lot of bugs around as we didn’t eat until well after dark. My general rule is as the sun goes down, I go in and the doors stay closed. So far that has been a rather successful way to keep bugs outdoors, and thus no mosquito bites for me yet! (Diego suffers from bites all day long if I don’t put bug spray/lotion on him – his blood must be much sweeter tasting than mine).

Saturday morning we all woke up when Diego decided it was time, earlier that we would have liked, and sat around reading for a good couple of hours while Diego played with his new toys. I can’t remember when I spent a Saturday morning reading for several hours. It was quite lovely! We then joined our friend Meghan for lunch at Crisburger, a decent joint for burgers and fries, a walk around Moshi, and then a trip to Kiboroloni where there used to be a huge 2nd hand market. The government moved out all of the squatters a couple of weeks ago to build apartments, so now there are some simple shops and, what we came for, some material shops where you can buy the local prints of kangas and ketengas (4 yard wraps of material). We bought one to decorate our living room with, one for table clothes back at home, and two that I will make skirts and Diego shirts out of. We can hire a seamstress here and for about $5 I can get a skirt made any design I draw. I have a skirt here that I really like, so I’m just going to have her copy it twice. The prints are beautiful, and while not necessarily typical African, I like them anyhow and will most likely actually wear them outside of Africa, which was the point. This morning, our House Mama, Ekaeli noticed the new fabric and was very much enjoying looking at the prints. I think this is what I will buy her as our parting gift – the most animated I have seen her was looking at the fabric!

Today is Sunday again and we are eating Christian’s delicious eggs for breakfast. Bacon is cooking on the stove (Christian swears it’s better than the bacon back home, but I remind him that we usually eat turkey bacon in the states), as we only have one frying pan. We are lucky that the electricity has been consistent now for a couple of weeks, so our cooking at home has been plentiful.

We spent the morning and lunch at the pool, eating some delicious naan and vegetable curry. The beer is expensive at the hotels. We are used to paying 1000 shillings and were charged 4000 shillings….no more beer at the Impala for us! Afternoon didn’t produce much of a nap for Diego, so Curious George and some baseball filled the time. It is now getting dark, and a light night rain moved through our compound. A beautiful double rainbow captured our attention, and then led us into bathtime for Diego and Papa. Zuchinni/potato gratin is warming up in the oven, and I’ve successfully baked two loaves of yummy banana bread (my first attempts earlier in the week were heavy and dense, but still bananalicious). I think tonight Christian and I will start watching season 1 of 24. We brought the first two seasons, hoping they would last for the 3 months, and since we’ve made it a month without opening the boxes, I am sure we’ll have plenty to watch in the evenings for the rest of our stay here.

All in all, a good week, and one that passed by relatively quickly. Diego has completely settled in, and is now the happiest kid around town with all of his toys, and I am at least more at peace this week (no tears that I can recall…they were daily for quite a while).

The house back in Durham is still set to close on April 19. The inspection is Tuesday, and we are crossing our fingers that the negotiations go smoothly with this event. The movers are scheduled for April 15, and my dear friend Tracey will be receiving our house contents into a storage unit in Seattle some week or 10 days after that. It all seems so surreal. I keep picturing myself returning to familiar Durham airport, loading up in my sister’s car and then driving to her place – not our place – and only going back to Barkridge Court to visit our former neighbors and say good-bye. I remember feeling this way about leaving our condo in San Diego, but I really didn’t like that place all that much, so I am having a much harder time letting go of our sweet southern home.

This week my parents arrive on March 30, and I will attempt to find yeast to make bread or pizza dough. We will also host our first dinner party for Travis and Meghan on Wednesday, and playgroup will be here on Tuesday. It will be another busy week, I imagine, and then the fun begins – a trip to Zanzibar (I can’t believe I’m going to Zanzibar….I remember reading some poem in college about Zanzibar and thinking it was so far off, so remote, that I’d never visit there…..), a couple of safaris into the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater, and many fun afternoons at the pool or around Moshi with mom and dad. Diego is especially happy that Aba and Abo are coming – he mentions them every time a plane goes by! And today, when one of his toys broke, he said, “Aba fixes it when she comes.”

Love and hugs to everyone back home, thanks for checking out our blog, and your comments are so great to receive – a little slice of communication goes a long way out here in Tanzania!

Love, Lauren