free day in moshi

Today was my first free day in Moshi and I think I made the most of it.  The lodge where I'm staying is quite a bit outside of town, but I decided to walk instead of call a car.  It took me about 45 minutes and it took a bit of coordination to not get hit by cars and motorbikes that were driving and turning from the left lane of traffic!  It is also very very dusty here.  It doesn't rain much and the roads are primarily dirt, which means lots of dust in the air.  I don't see many people walking around breaking into handkerchiefs like I remember from India - I wonder why not.  Anyway, I made it into town and went to a coffee shop that I heard had wireless internet (so far I've been accessing the internet through a data card which gets a maximum download speed of 40mb/sec - in case you're wondering it takes about 60 seconds to load a webpage and about 5 minutes to upload each of these blog posts...oh, how I miss highspeed).

Well, the internet wasn't working, but the coffee was really good.  I was talking with the project manager, Berny, who told me that even though Tanzania grows some of the best coffee in the world, Tanzanians don't like the taste of it.  So, most businesses only buy the cheap, instant coffee because it's not worth it to them to spend the money on the good stuff that grows next door that people won't buy.  It's pretty crazy.  But the coffee place I found caters to the tourists, and had the good stuff (expensive too at about $1.50 for a latte).  I stayed there and did a little work on my computer using my data card and then went for lunch at a place recommended in the guide book.  It was obvious that they get most of their business from tourists using Lonely Planet because the place was packed with white people - it was nuts! They offered as a side dish either rice, chips (french fries), or ugali.  Ugali is the local staple and I hadn't tried it yet.  It's made from corn flour and water and cooked until it's like dough consistency.  I asked for it, and the waiter said "no, no, you want chips" and I said "no, I really want to try to ugali."  Finally, he agreed.  I wouldn't say that I either liked or disliked it.  I would describe it as grits with the consistency of a stiff polenta.  It tasted like grits too.  I suppose that's not surprising since grits are made from hominy which is a lot like corn (or maybe it is corn, I don't know).

On my way out of town I stopped at the "hot bread shop" which is basically a bakery.  I had been craving something other than chicken, which is all that my hotel restaurant can seem to cook.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I ate donuts and pastries for dinner and that they were delicious!

I thought I had the route back to the hotel memorized when I left town, but apparently I had gotten a few turns wrong.  I found myself wandering, rather aimlessly, along unmarked dirt roads in the general direction that I thought the hotel was.   A boy came up across the road and we started talking as we were walking and we had quite a nice conversation.  He was a calculator salesman who was making sales calls to the tourist hotels.  He was very nice, but seemed genuinely concerned that I was almost 27 years old and was not married.  I really think he felt bad for me.  I tried to tell him that things are a little different in the U.S. but that didn't seem to alleviate his worry for me - ha.

He was very nice and even helped ask some people walking by if they knew of the road that my hotel was on.  It turns out that I was right all along and just turned one street too early.  Not too bad.  It was nice to have a 15 minute conversation with him though.

Back at the hotel I ran into the girl who is usually working in the restaurant and since it seems that I'm the only one staying at the hotel we talk almost every day.  She commented on how much she loved my shoes (reef flip flops with silver piping).  I told her that I would give them to her on the day that I left if she wanted and I swear I've never seen anyone's face light up the way hers did.  It was a good day, but I'm beat.  So much walking and dust, an oxygen mask sounds pretty awesome right now - ha.