in which we go to town.

Because "going to town" is a thing. I did not take any pictures today, mostly because Helen warned me that if you flashed your iphone in public somebody might try to take it off your hands. So there you go.

Yesterday Helen and I went into Moshi to get some groceries, an internet stick, and look for some seeds for Helen for the garden she wants to plant. The doctor’s compound we are staying at is maybe 5 km from Moshi proper, which is a 5000 T shilling cab ride, or about $3. We went to the Zantel store in town and I bought a usb internet stick with 6GB of data for Tzsh 50,000 and promptly used nearly 1GB of it on a video call with Paul as soon as we got back. Ha.

Anyway, we then walked around town for a good 45 minutes trying to find the outdoor market so Helen could buy seeds, and while we saw a good bit of Moshi, we never found the market and eventually gave up and went to Nakumatt, a grocery store in town to buy food for a few days. I bought peanut butter, raspberry jelly, and some bread, so no mom, I will not starve. I also got some fruit juice, toilet paper, and bug spray; just the essentials. Quirk about the store that reminded me of Sam’s or Costco: when you are walking out the door there is a guy checking the receipt, but instead of just marking it with a pen he has an official stamp he uses. We called Belda our cab driver and while we were waiting I went into a little curio shop next door. Belda picked us up and then he drove us to where the market is, and we are going to try to go back next week, now that we know where it is. The market looked crazy, I am curious to go next week.

Walking in Moshi is interesting because there aren’t sidewalks or anything, and there don’t seem to be any real traffic laws either, and pedestrians most definitely do not have the right of way. Even the shoulders of the road are rocky and uneven and pitted and difficult to walk on if you are looking up, which I don’t think helped when we were trying to find the market.

We came home and ate PBJ sandwiches together at our little dining table. Later that afternoon we went for a walk to a little grocery store 15 minutes’ walk down the road just to see what is there. There is a whole line of products from a brand called American Garden that for some reason was cracking us up. Like the label will say things like “US Mayonnaise” or “US style *whatever*.” Although then we realized that it’s like in the States with bottled curry sauce or something, when it says “Thai style curry.” On the way back we stopped and got some fruit from a fruit stand on the side of the road. Bananas were 1000 Tzsh for 6, oranges were 4/1000 Tzsh. Breakfast for the next couple days.

That night Helen invited me to dinner with her mentor and some of his colleagues. He was apparently the first person here for the Duke-KCMC collaboration, and lived here for 10 years. He’s here for a week this time, as he still does research in the area and is here on and off throughout the year. His colleagues, two British women, are involved with the same research project and split their time between Glasgow and Moshi. Very interesting people to talk to, and dinner was lovely too. I could probably take notes on entertaining from them: we chatted on the back porch for about an hour while dinner finished cooking, and they had nuts and banana chips in bowls to snack on; then we came in and ate, then there was dessert, then we moved to the living room and had tea to finish it off; the whole affair was about three hours. It sounds simple, but we never do that! Maybe we’ve been students too long, or our house is too small, or it’s just not common with our friends, but we don’t eat at home or in a friend’s home often at all. This article made me want to change that, though. But anyway, it was great, and the two women had apparently just purchased an oven for the house since they are there so often, and they roasted a chicken for us, which was delicious. Helen told me most of her cooking experiences at home have been mostly miss so far; she eats lunch at the school on weekdays for about 2600 Tzsh, has fruit for breakfast, and tries to cook or goes out at night for dinner. So eating in someone’s home and meeting some new people was fantastic. Overall, a very good first day. 

Just chillin in our front yard.

My bed.