Just got back from the coast this Tuesday and it was so freakin’ beautiful. We left last Friday to spend Easter on the beach, and it was definitely worth the trip. On Friday, my friend Asa and I took a six-hour bus to a large-ish village called Muheza located in the Usambara Mountains. There, we met her Canadian friend Brownwen, who is doing research on nutritional health in the mountains. African buses are ridiculous; there is no limit to the number of people on board and everyone is sweating tons and of course chucking their trash out the window. At one point we got off to go to the bathroom and the aisle was so stuffed that people were literally pushing us to our seats like we were in a human jigsaw puzzle. Asa and I switched off holding a three year-old girl, who, by the end of the trip, peed on Asa (which the mother denied). The view of the countryside was beautiful; the red earth and the Maasai men herding their cattle later contrasting with lush, tall green mountains and small houses on sisal plantations (a plant that looks like agave except it grows to about 8 feet tall and is used to make rum).
The hotel we stayed at in Muheza cost about $9 and was pretty decent, except the guy running it kept asking me inappropriate questions like if I want to have a baby (babies) with him. Of, course. I watched Sesame Street in Swahili (haha) and drank fresh cream with chai in the morning which was lovely.
On Saturday we woke up to drive to the beach (Brownwen has a car she uses to do research in local villages), and literally there was monsoon-style rain from the night before until about mid-morning. Luckily by the time we got to Tanga (which means “sail” in Swahili) the weather had improved. Tanga is one of the bigger towns along the coast, but definitely doesn’t seem like a city. We had lunch in Tanga at a nice yacht club on the beach in the wealthier area where the houses look almost Spanish and there is pink bougainvilla everywhere.
From Tanga we had a short drive to Pangani, but it felt longer because it was all dirt roads. Because of the rains, the road had flooded in places so the car had to wade through large ponds at some point. The red earth and the lush, open countryside was such a beautiful sight. It really made me want to take more road trips around Eastern Africa, preferably in a car and not a crazy bus. There were some cute monkeys hanging out on the road and also on the campgrounds where we stayed.
The place we stayed was called Peponi (only $5 per night). It’s especially nice because it’s not all developed and concrete. It’s run by a South African family and mostly has a lot of expat families. We camped out about 20 feet from the beach, under an open palm leaf shelter because of all the coconuts falling from the trees in the night. At night, there’s also a lot of bush babies, which we have in Moshi, but not as many. Bush babies are primates that are smaller than monkeys and have giant eyes and make freaky sounds in the night. Other than camping, there were less than a dozen “bandas” or cabanas, which were sweet little houses made of palm leaves, and all had porches and hammocks outside, with working bathrooms and bedrooms inside. The flowers and the smell of everything reminded me of Hawaii and I really didn’t want to leave! There was a small pool and a nice little restaurant on the property, with a bar shaped like a boat (!), that had wonderful food (lots of fish, fresh fruit, real ice cream, etc). We mostly read and took long walks and ate delicious meals, which is my idea of a perfect day. The Indian ocean is so warm it’s almost hot. I wore 50 spf sunscreen religiously but somehow still got sunburnt. In the morning, the tide goes way out (close to a mile), which freaked me out because I’ve watched too many documentaries on tsunamis. The surrounding villages mostly rely on fishing and their boats (dhows) are hundreds of years old and made completely out of wood. On Monday, we went on one of the wooden fishing boats and it was such a thrill to be on a sailboat that wasn’t made from plexiglass. We stopped a few miles off shore and went snorkeling, which was nice, but there were these microscopic jellyfish that kept biting me, and then, not so microscopic ones about two-inches tall. It must have something to do with the warm water because the last time that happened to me was when I was 16 in the Caribbean.
Monday evening we headed back to Muheza, and on Tuesday it was back to Moshi. Needless to say I am already fantasizing about this avocado, mango, prawn salad I had at Peponi….back to beans and bananas. I would love to go back there or maybe take a weekend to travel to Mombasa. I loved being on the coast and feel like I could haved stayed there for awhile. I’m also pretty thankful to have gotten out of Moshi for a weekend because I was going really stir crazy. The kids are also out of school so there has been a lot more work for me…they all want attention and tutoring and balloons and stickers and one of the 14 year-old boys wrote me a letter last week asking me to adopt him, which was very sweet but stressed me out a bit for the obvious reasons. Obviously, there is no way I can adopt any child right now, but I’ve thought about it 10 years or so down the line, although life is impossible to predict. Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that I’ve come into these kids lives only to eventually leave them and possibly disappoint them again like their families have. It’s hard to think about. Everyone wants a family, even if it’s a really messed up one, even if you have to construct it yourself from strangers and friends. These kids are no different. I feel like a part of their constructed family at times, but mostly I’m just busy trying to babysit 40 children.
Hope all is well with everyone.
Amani na upendo,
Whitney
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