Weekend travels

Kisamo is paradise. Imagine four houses in sight, each painted to blend in with the banana leaves that surround them. Wooden window frames, nearly the color of ebony, and windows tinted with just the right shade that the sunset is reflected in them. Tiny streams, trickling water from the mountaintops, and children gathered to collect this water in little yellow jugs. They greet us was we pass them on our way to Mama and Baba Christian's house.

Rena acts as our interpreter - we arrive bearing a kilo of sugar as a gift for the parents of the house, but six children are present to greet us and parents are nowhere in sight. We wait for three hours in the living room. Each thirty minutes, we urge Rena to ask the oldest sister, Aisha, whether she expects her mother home soon. Each time, Aisha convinces us to wait - mother Christian will be home any moment.

In the mean time, a neighbor notices us sitting inside the house at the front windows. He enters the living room and offers to buy us sodas while we wait for Mama Christian. Rena and I have Fanta Orange. Jake has a bottle of Kilimanjaro water.

Mother Christian arrives, prepared to cook us lunch; Mama D has alerted her to our travels. We partake in rice, beans, and cooked spinach. Dessert consists of an orange slice and a watermelon slice for each of us. We leave the house together in search of chipsi (french fries) and locally brewed beers in Kiboroloni, the town at the base of Kisamo, near Moshi. We find a 'restaurant' (more of a chipsi stand, also serving alcoholic beverages to plastic tables and chairs in the open air). We partake, and happiness ensues.

We take the daladala back up the hill (mountain, I should say) to Kisamo. It is a wonder that these daladalas survive so many trips up such treacherous terrain. I thought on several occasions that the twenty-something people packed into this tiny minivan would tumble over the edge of threatening rocky ledges, and that this would be our terrible end. But no - the daladala drivers are experienced in such twists and turns. I hold them in high faith now!

Mama and Baba Christian gave Rena and me a room separate from Jake for the night. We slept well after a dinner of traditional Chaga (the tribe native to Kisamo) banana/bean porridge.