Nyumba yangu, Tanzania

It’s been a busy, busy couple of weeks for us, and we’re exhausted! We’ve done two long hikes since we last posted, both in the Uluguru Mountains which loom over Morogoro. The first one was a trip up to the village of Choma where Mustafa lives with a lot of his family. We enjoyed a refreshing swim in the local waterfalls and decided to climb up the rock face behind the waterfalls for a photoshoot with Mustafa and Moodini, who are obsessed with digital cameras!  We then carried on up-mountain to Mustafa’s strawberry farm – a tucked away paradise near the peak of the mountain – and were allowed to taste mulberries, strawberries and raspberries! We had such a good time with Mustafa and Moodini despite the large language barrier (filled with interesting noises like Wooooow, and Shure!), and a week later decided to do another hike! This time, our ambitions were higher, and we planned to take a hema (tent), way up onto a misty peak and camp at an old German hut called Morningside, or Moningi seiti as Mustafa pronounces it! We packed our bags to the brim with warm clothes and some cabbage and homemade berry pie (made with Mustafa’s berries which we were very proud of) and set off on the dalla dalla bus. Due to our lack of Kiswahili (improving as we speak!) and their general lack of English, we found it difficult to decipher through our communication of weird noises what exactly we were getting ourselves into. We were slightly shocked when Mustafa met us in town with nothing. No food, no bag, and no tent. We found however, that the tents and floor mats were waiting for us further up the mountain with Moodini, and Mustafa only brought a toothbrush. We bought some ugali  on the way up, and hiked for five hours until we finally spotted Morningside, and Moodini took the mattresses off his head and wanted a picture with it. We set up our tents in front of an old historical German hut inhabited by a Tanzanian named Saloom. As soon as we had finished piecing together the falling apart old Scout Jamboree tents, it started to rain. The first rain in Morogoro in several months, what good planning! And it wasn’t just spitting, it was pouring. Luckily, we were offered a cement room in the ruins which we could spend the night. We woke up at 5am the next day and hiked back down to Kihonda in time to teach our midday classes.

            In other news, teaching is going really well, and we are about to give the non-formal girls each a coloured plastic recorder, which they scream about everytime we mention it. They are really interested in music, and we have written out countless American pop music lyrics for them, ranging from Westlife to Justin Bieber to Shakira. We taught the girls how to make brownies, which they really enjoyed, and in return we got a Kiswahili exam!! We’re still waiting on the results for that, we’ll let you know! We also met other volunteers at the International School of Morogoro Quiz Night (which we failed), who have invited us with Polly and Martha to a Halloween Party next Saturday night. We’re starting to really settle in here now, and love Tanzanian life. Sorry parents, we aren’t coming home!!