other things

believe it or not (i know, you won't believe it if all you've heard so far is what i've posted on this blog), we do actually do things other than ride dalla-dallas and eat dinner. we work, for example. in fact, we work for far too many hours a day. we leave in the morning soon after it gets light and get back after dark. i'm not really sure what my house looks like by daylight. oh, yes, i did see it on sunday afternoon. that was nice. it's big and two stories and kind of off-white with two balconies and a multi-colored bush in front that looks like it's on fire.

saturday, we decided that we had to get out of the city for a while. Arusha is not nice. by this i mean that i can't honestly say, "Arusha is a nice city." it's sort of generic and has nothing to make it stand out (except a shop-rite, but it's too far out of the way and too expensive and we don't go there very often - instead we get our groceries at mr. price, which is on the way home). mainly, though, it's not a nice city because there are too many foreigners associated with the UN who have created a rich class of people who are easy to spot and easy to rob. so every work person we've met has warned us that we are about to be robbed and that's not a nice feeling.

to get out of the city, we went to a cultural tourism site at longido, which is a mountain and a town north of here toward the kenyan border. on the way, we had amazing views of mt. meru and mt. kilimanjaro as well as other really amazing scenery (hills, trees, cattle drives), which i would have appreciated much more if i had not been in the front seat of a 1983 peugeot station wagon (just like liberia) that was missing all or part of the following functional items: seat belts, speedometer, horn, rearview mirrors, radio, door locks, door handles, window cranks, floor. yes, floor. you could see through the floor to the road, passing at an alarming rate. the engine seemed to work and the brakes must have, because we are alive. there were 8 of us who hired the car and driver for the day. if you know these peugeot station wagons, you know that 8 + driver fits perfectly IF YOU HAVE A BENCH SEAT IN THE FRONT. this one did not. i had to sit in the middle of the front (carsick otherwise) but there was no middle of the front. there were two cushions squashed in over the emergency brake, which i had to balance on (no seat back). and the guys sitting in the back seat had to spend the entire trip bent over because the roof was too low. funny how these cars seemed bigger when i was smaller - weren't they huge in 1985?

longido cultural tourism centre is essentially a trading post: we give some money (a large portion goes to a village development fund that builds things like a school and a medicated cattle bath to prevent ticks), the village gives us knowledge about Maasai culture as well as lunch. we both come away happy. there was a lot of walking and hiking, which was exactly what i needed after being locked away in an office all week. i love landscapes - almost nothing makes me happier than beautiful countryside - and this was a new one for me but i thought it beautiful - semi-arid with a lot of thorny bushes.

the funniest part for me was when i sniffed the air and said, "i smell goat." we rounded a corner and there were goats. three of them were boer goats, which is what we imported to rwanda when i lived there. "boer goats!" i exclaimed, and pointed out their characteristics. the owner said they had gotten them from kenya. ha! the other interns are still laughing at me for not only knowing the smell of goats from a blind 100 meters away, but being able to point out breeds. what can i say? i know a boer goat when i see it.

at the women's market, buying bracelets, a woman offered me her baby daughter for 2000 Tsh ($2). the baby was cute, but i declined. i think she was joking. i hope.