Another adventure to update you all on: a hike halfway up a
dormant volcano to see a 50m waterfall.
Clemmons, our tour guide for the day, started us about 12km
from our waterfall destination. The scenes weren’t like anything I have ever
seen before. I will attempt to describe them but there is no way I can describe
the beautiful landscape, no matter what mix of adjectives I use. If I were to
paint a panorama of what I saw yesterday, I would only need four colors: green,
brown, black, and white. Everything I touched with my feet or my hands was
either earthy brown or various shades of green. But, upon a close-up view, I
would add every other shade of the rainbow due to the wild flowers that were
sprinkled perfectly across the land.
The land we walked wasn’t a compilation of random backyards
it was village farmland. Each way you looked you’d see patchwork of various
gardens. What kind of fresh food
vegetation did we see? Maize, carrots, beans, red cabbage, Chinese cabbage,
avocado trees, sweet potatoes, brown potatoes, zucchini, COUNTLESS banana
trees, and my favorite of all… coffee bean bushes. Did you know that coffee
beans are sweet before being dried and roasted?
We also pick our own FRESH carrots…
We were told this while we sipped banana beer provided by
his friend since childhood who brewed the batch fresh that morning before we
all journeyed on our hike. It was an interesting flavor, very acidic but sweet
with bananas.
The taste didn’t matter because, according to Clemmons, banana
beer is a drink that brings people together. It is only served from one shared
cup. The people who share it are usually strangers who leave with a tummy full
of ndizi beer, and a new group of friends.
After 4 liters of banana beer gone, we taught our new
friends the game of Frisbee. We played with a bucket lid that some young
children (mtotos) were playing with. Our game consisted of 13 people, and our
goal was to get 10 caught passes in a row. We had so many good laughs at falls,
and fails before we finally reached our goal. We carried on down the mountain
through a number of villages, passing more farming land as the sun set at our
backs.
I fell in love with the
countryside yesterday. I once thought I was strictly a city girl until I
imagined my life in a small hut made from banana tree stalk, running through
the hills each morning before tending to my our fruit and veggie gardens.
This morning I woke up at 6:50a for church. I thought it was
going to be impossible to wake up, but I was reminded at 6:30a that our complex
has a roaming rooster. I was up and ready for mass at seven-thirty. Phabian
came to pick me up with Harriet and we were off to church. I was eager to
compare the differences between a mass in the states vs. Arusha.
For starters, I soon realized I was the only white person of
nearly 300 local Tanzanian people. As mass went on I realized that coming in
late to church is no problem. Rather than seeing a your average five late
families, the church began with the amount shown in the picture below, and grew
about four times that amount.
Of course, this attitude is something readily accepted here.
“Pole, pole,” which is Swahili for “slowly, slowly” is the motto here in TZ. I
read in the same tour book mentioned in a previous post that arriving 30
minutes late to an appointment is on time, and arriving an hour late is
acceptable. Those who know me well know that this place is absolutely perfect
for me and my bad habit of being late. Oh and the choir singing was magical. We
clapped during the songs, and there was no book to follow, the people in the
pews knew the words and sang along with ease. I wanted to dance along with the
musical artists! Their enthusiasm during each song persuaded me to ask Phabian
if we could sit next to them next Sunday.
The Swahili mass lasted two hours, which is double the time
of mass at home. Because I couldn’t understand the words I decided to say a few
rosarys on my new 2000 TZ Shillings ($1.30) rosary. The most interesting
difference to me was that all those volunteering to give money during the
offering and/or participating in communion just got in line when they felt like
it (no one was ushered to leave the pew during these events). Although, this
felt like disorder to me, all things continued without a problem. I had no clue
when to stand up to receive the bread…
Apart from the differences, many things were the same. The
progression of the mass was the same. I knew when the sermon was being given. I
kind of knew when to stand, sit, and kneel (thanks to watching others, of
course). I murmured the Our Father prayer under my breath in English when I
knew it was being recited. AND my VERY FAVORITE part of mass was offering peace
to those in the pews around me. To those of you reading this who are not
Catholic, that is when we offer those around us a sign of peace: handshake,
hug, kiss. In TZ this moment was so special to me. Church was a bit cold this morning but
this instant warmed me right from my heart out.
amani
na awe nanyi – Peace be with you
xo
miss
you guys.
Reading this renews me. You are an open mind. Take it all in. Life is beautiful.
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