Michelle in Moshi

Follow my adventures as I live and work in Moshi, Tanzania for the next year.

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Sunset in mountains! Mambo, Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

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Mountains! Mambo, Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

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Visiting placements for work. Making new little cutie friends. 

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Friday afternoon, a cold beer and a big mountain! Happy as a clam. 

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I went to Kenya

I accidentally went to Kenya. I went to Lake Jipe this past weekend, a lake that straddles the border of Tanzania and Kenya. We hired some guides to take us on a canoe journey through the lake with the hopes of viewing some hippos. 

We saw hippos! A couple of them. We also saw elephants and some baby antelope. We saw lots of birds too! 

While we're checking out the hippos, a man in a motor boat (!) that belongs to the Kenyan government insists that we go to the Kenyan side, get out of our boat and go talk to someone he works for. At first we were hesitant because we didn't want to get out of the boat and have them tell us we owed a fee for entering Kenya. Our guides said they knew the rules and everything would be fine if we didn't get out of the boat and step on Kenyan land. 

We really weren't given much of a choice so we headed towards the Kenyan side. First the guides got out of the boat to talk to the Kenyans. That didn't go so well, so we had to get out. It turns out there is a border IN the lake that you can't cross, our guides didn't tell us that. Martin, the customer service person at the campsite in Kenya, was a real sweetheart. We tried to give him a little money so the four of us could go back to Tanzania, but he wanted to show our guides a lesson and insisted we go back to Tanzania in a motor boat and he would keep the guides there. We felt uncomfortable with this decision but really didn't have another option after we spent a while weighing them with Martin. It really turned into a whole ordeal. It ended up that we were going to go back to Tanzania and find the guy who set us up with the tour, the boss of the guides, and he was going to communicate with Martin about how to get his employees back. The guides told us they had been calling him over and over when we were in Kenya, but he never picked up his phone. When we got back to the village we were camping at, this man acted like it was our fault. He also said he didn't hear a thing from the guides. The whole village got involved, telling us we needed to pay to go get them back. We paid for camping, for renting the boats, and gave a nice tip to the guides. We couldn't understand why they wouldn't just use the money we just gave them to get their friends back. There was lots of yelling but in the end we were rescued by two fifteen year old boys on motorcycles.

So we escaped the village wearing backpacking backpacks that nearly made us topple over the back of the bikes, but we escaped. A successful adventure. 

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Ladies lunching on top of Kindoroko. Lake Jipe way down below. 

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Lake Jipe, Tanzania

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Check out this wall of plastic water bottle planters. I think it's great. This photo was taken at the worst establishment I've ever been forced to give my business to, but at least they are reusing their plastic bottles to make pretty things. Eh? 

PS Don't ever go to the Malindi Guest House

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March

I can't believe it's March. I feel like my time in Tanzania has gone back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes it feels like time is moving really quickly, and sometimes it feels like time isn't moving at all. I was trying to think of why I feel one way or the other. 

Earlier this month, I went to a music festival on Zanzibar. It was like good, old-fashioned fun...or something. There was tons of travelers there from all over. Plus, I was with a pretty big group of folks from Moshi. Stone Town felt completely different because there were just tourists everywhere. But, it felt so good to listen to live music. That's something I can't really get in Moshi. You can go to karaoke night on Saturdays--sometimes dudes with nice voices sing John Legend. Or, you can go watch a congolese band play the same set every Friday including a real nice rendition of Country Roads. Classic. 

The music was just really fun. There was a band from Algeria that really took me by surprise! They were so fun and great. There was a guy playing electric violin and he kind of looked like a more handsome, less buff version of Vin Diesel.  

The festival was held in an old fort. It was the perfect size. Not too crowded. I'm really happy I went!

This month I'm going to be doing a little camping, some chilling, some working and maybe less sweating. I think it's almost rainy season! 

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It's here! This weekend! I'll tell you guys about how much I danced next week. 

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Doc had taught me the value of being the odd man out: the man who senses that there is an essential collective sanity to humans and who assumes the role of the loner, the thinker, and the searching spirit who calls the privileged and the powerful to task. The power of one was based on the courage to remain separate, to think through to the truth, and not to be beguiled by convention or the plausible arguments of those who expect to maintain power.

The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay

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What a funny tree!

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Ooh, purple! Just a pretty house in my hood with little boys taking turns popping their heads through the window yelling "MZUNGU!" at me. 

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YOGA!

A couple weeks ago I went on a yoga retreat (I posted some photos way back when, I think). It was just the best. It was a couple hours outside of Arusha, and we drove in a little Jeep on dusty dirt roads with lots of holes, and lots of other weirdly deep holes filled with water. We got stuck in a puddle like half the height of the car, and this badass chick (my driver!) jumped out and did something to her tires to make them four wheel drive. There was a tall truck behind us carrying loads of people in the back of it and then a bunch of schoolchildren on top of it. It was kind of like a double decker bus. The truck bus had to wait behind us while we were stuck. But, we got out of the puddle! And, the truck bus drove on. 

So, I spent Friday evening through Sunday afternoon at the most amazing, isolated lodge in Massai land. We did sunrise meditation, ate super delicious food, and did a couple yoga workshops and classes. I ate so much bread it was crazy. At the end of every meal I ate like as many rolls as I could fit in my stomach. It's actually impossible to find good bread in Moshi. Bread and cheese. Man, so delicious. We also had steaks, which aren't really a thing in Moshi. You can get like a hamburger in the shape of a steak. But yeah, some great meat. 

I slept in a luxurious massai style hut in a plush bed with a window that let me see Meru straight on if I woke up at the right angle. 

It was just a blast to do some yoga with a group of people again. We did some acro-yoga, partner yoga stuff and it was so FUN! 

I also saw lots of cows and goats and giant birds. 

Ah, I'm ready to go back. 

Come visit me and I'll take you there. 

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Life! Driving in the bush.

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The retreat was held on a permaculture farm/at an eco lodge. We got to tour the whole property and see how hard the staff works to make the lodge primarily self sustaining. You can see Mt. Meru in the back! If you turned around, you would see Mt. Kilimanjaro. 

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This was my view last weekend at a yoga retreat set between Mt. Meru and Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was magical!

Unfortunately, something is up with my camera. So, I'm going to be posting lots of iPhone shots until I can figure out how to get her fixed!