the wanderer
Monday, March 30, 2009
Mlima Yangu
From my diary... February 12th 2009
Sitting on the terrace watching the sunrise over Mount Kilimanjaro this morning, I am relishing this solitary viewing. The majestic mountain slowly unveils its silhouette as the snow-dappled peak glimmers blue.
A symphony of bird chatter welcomes it into the light, and the roosters crow unrepentantly, as if to announce to every other feathered creature that they are the true kings of this genesis jungle. It simply clarifies the word "cocky" for me this morning... While the rooster's crow is loud and distinctive, it still is no match for a lion's roar.
Soon, a plane flies slowly overhead and all quiets. This, surely, is the supreme bird.
The northern peak shines pink for a moment as the sun ascends, and a small band of clouds hovers mid-mountain like a protective dressing, guarding over the peak's majesty. I will be high above those clouds soon. I face the idea with little trepidation but much awe, and I wonder. What makes men want to climb mountains? What is there to be found up above? I do not know the answer, but I recognize the desire.
Perhaps we treat the ascension as a metaphor for everything else in our lives. This is the closest I can come to an explanation for now.
The sun has risen and the world is resurrected under the mountain's watchful eye. Down the street, children holler and sing as they make their way to school. The day's first dalla-dallas zoom by with dozens of passengers already on board, and the neighborhood's stray dogs give each other playful chase from field to field. Now the night watchman appears before me, interrupting my solitude, heralding the beginning of a new day.
Kili has awakened. ¶ 3/30/2009 03:50:00 AM 1 comments
Sitting on the terrace watching the sunrise over Mount Kilimanjaro this morning, I am relishing this solitary viewing. The majestic mountain slowly unveils its silhouette as the snow-dappled peak glimmers blue.
A symphony of bird chatter welcomes it into the light, and the roosters crow unrepentantly, as if to announce to every other feathered creature that they are the true kings of this genesis jungle. It simply clarifies the word "cocky" for me this morning... While the rooster's crow is loud and distinctive, it still is no match for a lion's roar.
Soon, a plane flies slowly overhead and all quiets. This, surely, is the supreme bird.
The northern peak shines pink for a moment as the sun ascends, and a small band of clouds hovers mid-mountain like a protective dressing, guarding over the peak's majesty. I will be high above those clouds soon. I face the idea with little trepidation but much awe, and I wonder. What makes men want to climb mountains? What is there to be found up above? I do not know the answer, but I recognize the desire.
Perhaps we treat the ascension as a metaphor for everything else in our lives. This is the closest I can come to an explanation for now.
The sun has risen and the world is resurrected under the mountain's watchful eye. Down the street, children holler and sing as they make their way to school. The day's first dalla-dallas zoom by with dozens of passengers already on board, and the neighborhood's stray dogs give each other playful chase from field to field. Now the night watchman appears before me, interrupting my solitude, heralding the beginning of a new day.
Kili has awakened. ¶ 3/30/2009 03:50:00 AM 1 comments
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The last few weeks...
Life in Moshi has slowed down again so I thought I would finally take the time to update this thing. The last few weeks have been busy with customers, friends visiting, French lessons, a funeral, and last but certainly not least, an unforgettable adventure on Kilimanjaro… I know a few people are frustrated with my lack of communication and I do apologize, but with no internet at home and less and less trips to the office for me lately, my email access has been minimal. It’s been refreshing for me to enjoy the day to day so much that I don’t even think about going online, but an update is due nonetheless.
I ended February with a solo trip to Tarangire National Park. It’s barely a 4 hour drive from Moshi and when my friends told me there were hundreds of elephants in the park at the time, I decided to make up for the disappointment of not seeing any elephants up close on my last trip. Little did I know just how many I would get to see on a 6 hour game drive!
We drove up on a Friday night and camped a few minutes outside of the park. It’s so pitch black out there at night that you can see the Milky Way, and it’s just breathtaking. In the morning the campsite’s cook made a lavish breakfast for 4000 shillings (about $3 US) after which we went on our way. Tarangire is known for its abundance of tsetse flies so our jeep was sprayed with what I’m guessing was DEET while we got our entry permit (I wish I could say it helped but I still got bit all day long – what a sting).
So, back to elephants… As soon as we entered the gate we were greeted by a herd of 12, including two calves that were probably around 2 and 5 years old and an old mama whose tusks were so huge she must have been around 60. The marvelous thing about being a lone customer is having the privilege to stop the car for as long as you like – so we sat and watched them eat and cool off in the shade for a good 20 minutes until they decided to cross the road just 15 feet away from the car and head into a more forested area.
This would set up the best game drive I could possibly have imagined. I lost count midday after seeing about 60 elephants, but my guess is that the total was close to 80. I watched a herd bathe and roll around in mud, saw two young bulls play fight for a good 15 minutes, and admired the way a moving herd surrounds the youngest calves in the group and vigilantly protects them. The elephant is the only animal here with no predators in the animal kingdom. Its quiet eyes and gentle demeanor radiate wisdom and grace and a sense of self-assuredness that is mesmerizing beyond words.
Of course there was a lot more wildlife spotted on that day – warthogs, impalas, bushbucks and waterbucks, giraffes, cranes, vervet monkeys (one of which stole my sandwich right out of my hand at the picnic site), baboons, mongooses (shouldn’t it be mongeese?), dikdiks, a martial eagle (largest eagle in Africa with a wingspan of 6 feet), a snake hunting secretary bird, a lion, and even a lone leopard lounging in a tree. I was certainly lucky that day, but the elephants are still the highlight of that trip.
Dave arrived from Los Angeles a few days later, and my mom had a young couple from Quebec staying at the house at the same time. They had just returned from climbing Kili and had a few days left before they headed to Zanzibar, so we arranged for them to join Dave’s safari, and I wound up going along as well. Over the four days we were gone we visited Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Eyasi (where we went hunting with the Hadzabe, a tribe of nomadic, pot smoking bushmen, and visited a small tribe called the Datoga, whose women have facial tattoos and stretched ears, and shrieked with joy when they saw mine), and Tarangire National Park once again. The wildlife was terrific and the company was great. Aside from the incredible opportunity to visit with the Hadzabe and Datoga tribes, the biggest highlight of that trip was seeing 5 black rhinos (one was a baby) in Ngorongoro Crater. My friends in town who are safari guides still can’t believe how lucky we were to see that.
A few days later I joined Dave on a day trip to Arusha National park, just 40 minutes away from our house. He and our watchman Baraka really hit it off, and so Dave asked if he could come along with us. My mom gave him the day off and Baraka got to be a tourist for a day. It was great – Arusha NP is truly underrated – we even got to do a walking safari with an armed ranger. Being 20 feet away from warthogs and baboons is cool, but being 30 feet away from a herd of water buffalo without the protection of a Land Cruiser is something else altogether! Thankfully our ranger said he’s only ever had to fire his weapon once.
It was great having Dave in town, not only because he’s a good friend and a smart man who has traveled the world, but also because he’s the only person from home who has seen what it’s like to live here, and how happy and comfortable I am here personally. He arrived just as I was toying with the idea of postponing my return to LA indefinitely. I have more work than I can handle here, a great circle of friends, a beautiful place to live, and a culture I appreciate very much.
It’s tempting to stay but I have to go back, at least for a few weeks, to settle some financial matters. I’ll also have to come back to Moshi, as my students are now required to be able to speak good French by July if they’re going to keep this contract with the travel agency in France. I’ve been enjoying teaching them and could see this turning into a good career for me locally. My container is set to arrive in mid-April, so I have to be back to deal with that as well. To be honest, I think I could easily live here permanently, but ever since I decided to stick to my April 9th return date, I’ve felt nothing but excitement about going back to LA. Life there can be much more complicated at times, but I spent so many years working at making that city my home and it’s not something I’m prepared to give up on yet.
I have to meet with one of my students in a few minutes so I think that’s enough rambling for today. My update on Kilimanjaro will be up soon... It deserves an entry all its own.
In the meantime, here are some pictures.........
¶ 3/29/2009 08:09:00 AM 1 comments
I ended February with a solo trip to Tarangire National Park. It’s barely a 4 hour drive from Moshi and when my friends told me there were hundreds of elephants in the park at the time, I decided to make up for the disappointment of not seeing any elephants up close on my last trip. Little did I know just how many I would get to see on a 6 hour game drive!
We drove up on a Friday night and camped a few minutes outside of the park. It’s so pitch black out there at night that you can see the Milky Way, and it’s just breathtaking. In the morning the campsite’s cook made a lavish breakfast for 4000 shillings (about $3 US) after which we went on our way. Tarangire is known for its abundance of tsetse flies so our jeep was sprayed with what I’m guessing was DEET while we got our entry permit (I wish I could say it helped but I still got bit all day long – what a sting).
So, back to elephants… As soon as we entered the gate we were greeted by a herd of 12, including two calves that were probably around 2 and 5 years old and an old mama whose tusks were so huge she must have been around 60. The marvelous thing about being a lone customer is having the privilege to stop the car for as long as you like – so we sat and watched them eat and cool off in the shade for a good 20 minutes until they decided to cross the road just 15 feet away from the car and head into a more forested area.
This would set up the best game drive I could possibly have imagined. I lost count midday after seeing about 60 elephants, but my guess is that the total was close to 80. I watched a herd bathe and roll around in mud, saw two young bulls play fight for a good 15 minutes, and admired the way a moving herd surrounds the youngest calves in the group and vigilantly protects them. The elephant is the only animal here with no predators in the animal kingdom. Its quiet eyes and gentle demeanor radiate wisdom and grace and a sense of self-assuredness that is mesmerizing beyond words.
Of course there was a lot more wildlife spotted on that day – warthogs, impalas, bushbucks and waterbucks, giraffes, cranes, vervet monkeys (one of which stole my sandwich right out of my hand at the picnic site), baboons, mongooses (shouldn’t it be mongeese?), dikdiks, a martial eagle (largest eagle in Africa with a wingspan of 6 feet), a snake hunting secretary bird, a lion, and even a lone leopard lounging in a tree. I was certainly lucky that day, but the elephants are still the highlight of that trip.
Dave arrived from Los Angeles a few days later, and my mom had a young couple from Quebec staying at the house at the same time. They had just returned from climbing Kili and had a few days left before they headed to Zanzibar, so we arranged for them to join Dave’s safari, and I wound up going along as well. Over the four days we were gone we visited Ngorongoro Crater, Lake Eyasi (where we went hunting with the Hadzabe, a tribe of nomadic, pot smoking bushmen, and visited a small tribe called the Datoga, whose women have facial tattoos and stretched ears, and shrieked with joy when they saw mine), and Tarangire National Park once again. The wildlife was terrific and the company was great. Aside from the incredible opportunity to visit with the Hadzabe and Datoga tribes, the biggest highlight of that trip was seeing 5 black rhinos (one was a baby) in Ngorongoro Crater. My friends in town who are safari guides still can’t believe how lucky we were to see that.
A few days later I joined Dave on a day trip to Arusha National park, just 40 minutes away from our house. He and our watchman Baraka really hit it off, and so Dave asked if he could come along with us. My mom gave him the day off and Baraka got to be a tourist for a day. It was great – Arusha NP is truly underrated – we even got to do a walking safari with an armed ranger. Being 20 feet away from warthogs and baboons is cool, but being 30 feet away from a herd of water buffalo without the protection of a Land Cruiser is something else altogether! Thankfully our ranger said he’s only ever had to fire his weapon once.
It was great having Dave in town, not only because he’s a good friend and a smart man who has traveled the world, but also because he’s the only person from home who has seen what it’s like to live here, and how happy and comfortable I am here personally. He arrived just as I was toying with the idea of postponing my return to LA indefinitely. I have more work than I can handle here, a great circle of friends, a beautiful place to live, and a culture I appreciate very much.
It’s tempting to stay but I have to go back, at least for a few weeks, to settle some financial matters. I’ll also have to come back to Moshi, as my students are now required to be able to speak good French by July if they’re going to keep this contract with the travel agency in France. I’ve been enjoying teaching them and could see this turning into a good career for me locally. My container is set to arrive in mid-April, so I have to be back to deal with that as well. To be honest, I think I could easily live here permanently, but ever since I decided to stick to my April 9th return date, I’ve felt nothing but excitement about going back to LA. Life there can be much more complicated at times, but I spent so many years working at making that city my home and it’s not something I’m prepared to give up on yet.
I have to meet with one of my students in a few minutes so I think that’s enough rambling for today. My update on Kilimanjaro will be up soon... It deserves an entry all its own.
In the meantime, here are some pictures.........
