I like Moshi. I've been there several times before. I still like the place. I see it as akin to Mecca. There are coffee houses. I went to a coffee house and ordered coffee and sat around reading a book! Because I can do that in Moshi. I went to an art exhibition with wine and music! The art exhibition had a little black kitten that kept sitting on the art, so I would scoop her off the art and she would be my shoulder cat. I can do such things in Moshi. And drink milkshakes. Also order things with lots of cheese on them. There is so much cheese in Moshi! While eating cheese and drinking milkshakes strange things happen like parades for no discernible reason.
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| The parade leader. |
There's also a big mountain near Moshi but it's so overcast that half the time you can't see it. I've seen it before. It's cool. This visit I was staying with RPCV now ex-pat Andrew at his nice house with kittens. His cat sometimes gets out and has babies. He has found homes for 3 of the 4 babies from the current litter, but the 4th was still there being cute. We sat on the porch and drank wine in the twilight and watched the kitten stalk chickens. Fortunately for kitten, the kitten could never work up courage to actually attack the chickens. I also got a call asking me to do a Peace Corps training thing in less than a week, but after some guilty feelings about not doing all the work I possibly could, I refused on the grounds that I was on leave (that I had filled out all the forms and gotten them signed for, even!), traveling without a computer, and didn't have enough time to prepare anyway for a vaguely defined training session on something something computers for health and environment volunteers half of whom at least probably don't have electricity. The Peace Corps bureaucrats then asked me if I could just send a powerpoint or other resources. Uh, no. I actually can't. Apparently "I am traveling and don't have my computer" is not a concept easily grasped despite all the safety warning emails we get telling us not to travel with a computer. Whatever, cute kitten is cute.
It was a delightful weekend with mine host. He had downloaded a game called Kerbal Space Program so we got to build rockets (that mostly fell apart or exploded on the launch), and attempt to send a space craft from earth orbit to moon orbit without crashing, and we actually learned things about orbital mechanics. We also spent some time with a group of British expats who explained to me the rules of rugby. These made significantly less sense than orbital mechanics. It's a pity that I could not stay until Monday, because the expats were getting a delivery of (I think) 3 dogs, 2 cats, and a cow. They had no real idea of how they were going to handle all these animals and when I left were excited to learn that the cow actually comes with rope, so they didn't have to buy their own rope. I wanted to see how the cow would be delivered, since to date my favorite cow transport method has been a cow in the back of a pickup truck with a single piece of twine over its shoulders. But all good things must come to an end. For my last night, Andrew showed me how to actually make a bonfire (since in Morogoro he had been present for a bonfire built by myself + a bunch of people who also have no idea how to make fire. Smoky the Bear made it sound a lot easier than it actually is.) and we had s'mores courtesy of a care package from my wonderful sister who knows exactly what to send a PCV.
Vacation, it is over, and starting this evening I and my counterpart are giving a 5 day (skipping the weekend) seminar on Linux. 2 hours each day. I'm really excited, also slightly nervous, and have been really busy trying to get ready for this thing. I'm not even quite done preparing the lectures, but I do have the weekend to finish the last 2 days. Wish me a good and successful capacity-building time of it, darlings.
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