We were supposed to leave Nairobi at 6:30am, but leaving on time is never the case here, so we ended up leaving at 9:30am. Our first stop was Moshi, which is pretty close to the border, but was still a good 8 hour trip. The bus ride was sooooo dusty, hot, and extremely bumpy (the kind of bumpy where you fear that you might actually hit your head on the ceiling of the bus). Also, there are no bathrooms on the bus, even though they may drive HOURS before stopping, and when they did stop, they just pulled over. This means we had to squat in the bushes, which wasn't so fun, but another part of this experience nonetheless. When we got to Moshi we walked around the quaint town for about an hour and got some really good street food, whatever it was. Pat and I LOVED this town because of how small, yet busy it was. First of all, the people in Tanzania are known for how welcoming and kind they are, which couldn't be more true! Everywhere we went people were saying hello and starting conversations that by no means were shallow or "small talk". Moshi is also known as a town where people come to stay if they are going to be heading on a safari or going to Mount Kilimanjaro. We stayed at the Salesian house that night which was also very nice and welcoming, and left early the next morning to go on yet another long bus trip.
We headed off for Morogoro at 8am and were supposed to arrive there around 5-6pm. The drive was so beautiful and scenic, it reminded us a lot like Hawaii because of all the palm trees, green hills, grasslands, and the heat/humidity. We really enjoyed this drive since we were able to see SO MUCH of the countryside. For maybe an hour you would see one type of land/community and then you would eventually switch to something completely different, but each area was amazing in a different way. It was also really interesting to see a sort of "middle class" since we have yet to see that in Kenya. We see two extremes here, poor or extremely wealthy. We have not been to so many places in Kenya and know that when you get more into the countryside you will see this, but living in Nairobi and seeing the surrounding areas only allowed us this point of view. Although many of these communities were small, they seemed to really work together. About 4 hours after we left Moshi our bus decided to break down in a town called Korogwe. No one said anything or made any announcement, so we figured they were on it working to fix whatever problem there was. One hour passed, then two, and then we got hot and fidgety from sitting so long and not knowing what was going on. We got out of the bus and hung out with the pre-novices, brother Eric, and some local kids.
Side note: while in Korogwe, the whole community of kids came out to see all the travelers since they didn't have much contact with the world outside of Korogwe. They were so intrigued with all of us and we got to play a little with them. We ended up seeing one of the boys shirts as he turned around and it was a Nomar Garciaparra jersey! First of all, Pat went to the same high school (St. John Bosco - a Salesian school) as Nomar and knows the Garciaparra family. Secondly, we were in the smallest town in Tanzania, the world felt too small. We have a picture of the boy, but you cannot clearly see him, let alone the jersey, but you get the point.
We decided to go on a walk and check out the small community. Brother Eric, Pat, and myself decided to look for something to eat so we made our way up this little dirt road. On the way we saw signs that had World Vision on them, so we were going to visit there. The townspeople told us to just keep walking uphill and we would find it. After 45 minutes of walking uphill, we thought we should turn around and check on the bus. We got a call from one of the pre-novices that was still by the bus who told us a bus had left from Morogoro one hour before, which meant the bus was still 3 hours from getting there and picking us up. So we ended up finding this bar/restaurant and got some soda and Zege (this is chips (fries) held together by a fried egg. Zege means cement in Swahili; fries are rocks, eggs are cement to hold it together).
Five and a half hours later we started again on our trip to Morogoro.
Bro. Eric, Martin, and Francis at the bus station in Moshi
Katie, Francis, Charles, and Bro. Eric hanging outside the broken down bus in Korogwe
Garciaparrrrrrra
Bro. Eric and Pat
Pat and Bro. Eric on our walk to find food/World Vision
Katie and Bro. Eric (it had started to rain)
Mount Kilimanjaro!!!!!
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