Moshi Seminar

I'm back to my routine of writing here at the internet cafe. A friend of mine just emailed me saying that he hasn't read my post on Rwanda because "the jury is still out on that whole 'reading' thing"... They must be sequestered at the Four Seasons. Anyway, this post will be (a lot) shorter than the previous one. Sorry..? Additionally, thanks to anyone who has written a comment, sent me an email, or used ESP to tell me that they enjoy my writings. Last week when I was at a Peace Corps seminar, several other volunteers came up to me and told me that their parents read my blog and appreciate it. Cool.

I should write about that seminar. It was last weekend, in a town called Moshi. If you all pull out your maps of Tanzania that you keep stored next to your computers, you will see that it is in the north-central part of the country. If you look more closely, you will see that it is right next to a triangle shape. What is that? Yes, consulting your legend, you recognize that is a mountain. What mountain? Why, only the tallest mountain in Africa- the notorious Kilimanjaro. Every morning I awoke, and as I staggered towards my tea and Spanish omelette breakfast, this juggernaut of a mountain loomed over me. Do a google image search for "Kilimanjaro"; its kind of an anomaly, rising solitary about the flat expanses of savannah that surround it. Kilimanjaro is a gentle mountain though, and only towards the top are there steep defiles and cliffs. From what I've been told, most of the climb is easy walking. Also, Kili accounts for the only reason that Tanzanians are familiar with the concept of snow- it is wearing a perpetual white cap over its bald grey head. In fact, most Tanzanians use the same word for 'snow' as they do for 'ice'. Contrast this with Aleutians, who have like eight words (trust me, I speak Aleut). I suppose I will try climbing it before I go home, it would seem like a crime to being Tanzania for two years and to never climb Africa's giant. Maybe I can con a visitor (ahem, Scott Boyd/Ivan Shiras) to scaling it with me...

The seminar itself was pretty mundane. We spent a couple days working over the finer points of proper reporting (paperwork!). Our seminar facilitators were relaxed though, so it wasn't as grueling as it might have been. The best part of going to Moshi was seeing some of my friends from last year's training. I might've mentioned this before, but training was a lot like pledge quarter in the fraternity- a group of people put in a (generally) challenging and foreign situation and expected to adapt. Bonds of friendship form more easily during periods of duress, and so most of our group of 37 (at first, now 34) trainees became fairly close. Then, when we were placed at our sites, we were torn from this pseudo-family we'd formed,alone once again. For this reason, the times we get to see the others from our training group are highly cherished; it's like a miniature homecoming each time. That being said, I certainly didn't get much sleep during the three days we were in Moshi. The seminar began at 8am most days, and we would be up until three, four, five in the morning, talking and venting, reminiscing and telling stories. By the end of the seminar, I was a bleary-eyed grump monster. One huge bonus for us Bukoba volunteers is that Peace Corps now transports us by plane. Oh man, what an improvement. We were booked on an early morning flight out of Moshi into Mwanza (the city on the other side of the lake from Bukoba), and I felt like evil had invaded my core as we made our way to the airport. Once airborne, I alternated between periods of nausea with feverish sweating and chills with cottonmouth. There was no doubt- I was going to be sick. Eventually, I made my way to the lavatory (is that word used anywhere outside of ships/planes?) and made it my headquarters for the rest of the flight. It was pretty funny- I was inside, getting sick, and the flight attendant was outside telling me how amazed he was with my Swahili (we had a little conversation through the door). I've never gotten ill like that on a plane before; I don't recommend it.

After getting into Mwanza, we were expected to immediately change planes and take off to Bukoba. However, Precision Air (a misnomer if there ever was one) had overbooked the flight, so they had to put us up in Mwanza for the night. I was fine with that. Mwanza has great restaurants and stores, plus I just wanted to sleep. They booked us (Jodi and I) rooms at the New Mwanza Hotel, one of the swankier hotels in town. I walked in, turned the A/C onto "maximum freeze", and fell asleep for probably six or seven hours. I woke up in the late afternoon, and turned on the TV. Hello, whats this? Yes, they had HBO. It came from Southeash Asia, right when I woke up, they were just beginning to broadcast "The Goonies". It turned out to be a pretty good day.

The next day we hopped the flight back to Bukoba. The plane with took us was piloted by a huge blonde fellow who must have been named Lars. No other name would've fit. We were in a single-prop plane which fit 12 people. I've never flown in anything that small, it was pretty cool. A passenger was even allowed to sit in the co-pilot seat (Lars rolls solo). I entertained myself by watching all the instrumentation; below, it was the same blue view of Lake Victoria- an ocean without whitecaps. The landing was fun, as the Bukoba airstrip is built adjacent to the lake, like a spoke. At first, you think "We are too low! We're gonna hit the water!" But then Lars pulls you in for a pillow-soft landing.

That's all I've got for today. My brain is tired. Also, if there are a lot of spelling errors, please forgive me. Some of the keys on this keyboard don't seem to work without being smashed by Mjolnir.