Date: 2005-02-06
To: AFRICA!!! Georgia Peach meets National Geographic
Miles today: 0.0

You won't believe this, but Anna/Muddbutt is in AFRICA, a continuation of her life of adventure. Everyone wonders about Life After Trail. We'll be transcribing Anna's posts from The Dark Continent as she sends them. J. LiteShoeAnd now, from Africa.... Muddbutt:" have to tell you, this is very much like a thru hike, and all of the same rules apply. The dirt, trash, poverty, ....none of it matters when a bunch of friends are sitting around laughing! I just walked 2.5 km down a dirt road into town. Along the way I dodged goats and chickens, I greeted young women with huge bundles on their heads, I said "Shikamoo" to elderly women and listened as they laughed and laughed at my Swahili, and I high-fived children with giant grins and missing teeth. I ducked under banana trees, passed coffee plants, inhaled the smoke from cooking fires and roasting maize, and choked on the dust from passing vans loaded with people.I am in Africa. I don't know where to begin, and I am not sure I could begin to describe this to you, but I am going to try! After a long flight to Amsterdam, and an even longer one to Kilimanjaro, I found myself finally here. On my last flight, I sat with two guys my age from Sweden who were going to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. The last several hours of the flight we were over the continant of Africa, and we kept joking that there was not a light to be seen anywhere. As we got nearer the airport, it was still pitch black and we did not even see the runway until we landed on it. We climbed stairs out of the plane onto the tarmac and walked into the single building that Kilimanjaro calls an airport. Three customs booths, one luggage carousel.............we are definitely not in Atlanta anymore! My driver, John, picked me up and drove me the hour to the Moivaro Coffee Plantation. This is the hotel I am staying at til my program starts. Everything is very, very dark, and everything smells exotic. It is warm and breezy and I can not believe that I am actually here! When I finally woke up from my jet/lag/tylenol PM induced haze the next morning, I was sure that there had been some kind of mistake. There are exotic flowers and banana trees as far as I can see. I have never been to the Bahamas, but this is exactly what I think they must look like. As I sat on the veranda eating breakfast, I was surrounded by huge groups of tourists going on safari. They all looked like everything stuck on them the last time they walked through Banana Republic, and I have never seen so much khaki in my life. They were all wealthy, loud and demanding. This is definitely NOT what I had in mind! I escaped to hike up the mountain, and after lunch, I called John and asked him to be my guide into town. I waited for over an hour for him to come, and in the meantime Estianna, the woman that worked at the front desk asked me if she could ride with us. We sat on the front steps and talked and talked. She has a 2 1/2 year old daughter and she says all that she ever hears is 'mama, mama'. I grinned as I thought about my friends Nicole, and Lisa. There are some things that geography does not change! She also talked about being so tired, and not knowing whether she should take care of the baby, or the husband, or the parents, or the house.......I told her that it was the same for women in America and she brightened. 'Really', she said, 'I thought it was only in Africa'.I asked her if she ever took care of herself. She shook her head and said 'No, there is no time for that'. The conversation that I had with her is one of the most special things that have happened to me so far. When John arrived, we drove the long bumpy, dusty road into Arusha. Arusha is a fair sized city, and it has big government buildings and a great deal of commerce. If my conversation with Estianna was the most special thing, Arusha was the wildest thing! John took me to the market and walked me through. This is where the dime-store novel sentiment 'the smells of rotten fruit and a thousand unwashed bodies' was born. The stalls of fruit, vegatables, rice and beans were piled high and mashed together so that only one person at a time can walk by them... BUT, in Africa, there is no such thing as personal space, and we were packed in! Now I know what it is like to be part rock star and part circus freak! Arusha is a big tourist town, but John says that tourists only stay at the hotels...they never walk around town or through the market. I think a white woman is a pretty rare sight! Everyone stared and smiled and yelled to get my attention. Children reached up to touch me and crys of 'mama, mama' filled the air! That was what they were all calling me! At one point, it got a little overwhelming, and I felt a little panic rise up. But as soon as I noticed it, it was gone in a flash. This is what I wanted....to see the world, to experience other cultures. It was overwhelmingly cool!!!! As we made our way back to the car, vendors surrounded me trying to sell their wares, and women smiled at me. I could tell that I was the butt of many jokes as I walked by, but none of it was mean-spirited. People were delighted at my horrible attempts at Swahili and strangers greeted me and shook my hand. This is the warmest country I have ever been to! All of that was yesterday, and today, I left the lodge to go begin my program. The driver from Cross Cultural Solutions, (CCS), came to get me at the airport and took me to Rau, the village where I will be staying. Rau is outside of Moshi, a small town about an hour from the airport. Today is market day and as we drove, the streets are lined with people carrying their wares to market. There are Masai tribesman driving herds of cattle down the road, young boys hauling big wooden carts of maize, and women with giant bundles of green bananas on their heads. As we neared the compound where I am staying, the streets got very small, and wove between homesteads. Children are running up and down the street, high-fiving my hand as we drive by. I already love it here!!! The compound is beautiful and as I met the staff, they showed me around. It is quiet and peaceful until three of the other volunteers arrive. Three young college guys, one of them has already been here for three months, and the other two are here for eleven weeks. Along with Dana, a woman who is staying at the compound doing a research project on Aids, we all sat down to lunch. Later today we will start our orientation, but for now, I have a couple of hours free. After making sure that it was safe to walk into town, I decided to take off on my own and explore. Everyone that passes me stops to talk and they are so friendly! Here in the village, the only white people are CCS volunteers, so the locals are quick to approach us and talk. Soon after I left the village, I was joined by Gabriel, a young man that works as a Safari guide while saving money for college. After greeting me politely, he asked if he could walk and talk with me a while. I said sure and off we went. He told me about his family and how he used to teach English at the local school. He is obviously well known because everyone calls out and greets him. When I tell him that he is very popular, he just grins and puffs up. He lives next to the CCS compound and he says that everytime he sees me, he is going to come over and teach me some Swahili words. Sounds like a good deal to me! Well, I am sorry that this has been so long, and I have left out a million details!!!! There is so much I want to tell you, but I will save some of it for later. I do not know if I will be able to come into town everyday or not, but I will try to keep you updated as I can. This is all well and good, and I am loving every second of it....but I am chomping at the bit to get to the orphanage. When I finally get there, I will tell you all about it! Take care!!"