moshi, moshi

hello i am in moshi (near Kilimanjaro mountain, which i spotted a glimpse of through the clouds, mole hill), for the next four days its off chasing lions and elephants on safari. hopefully i can post some pictures.

some random notes
- small world
i went to a cafe in Dar es salaam for dinner and was greeted by two individuals. Both could easily be cast in a movie about chess experts. very energetic and opinionated. one of the gentleman left early, the other and i started talking. he had been in kenya and had heard lectures about Christian Science, even knew the founders information. We had an amazing talk about so many things. especially churches.

- one example of the differences between malawi and tanzania is creativity. here they put decorations and words all over the buses. most of them have names. some examples are "because", "picnic class" "sickator" and my favorite, "best wishes". is that really the message you want coming from your driver. another interesting note, the bus that i rode on going to lushoto, see story below, had marijuana leafs on the windows. again, singer in a band, artist, maybe even fish store owner that type of relationship with mind altering substances is ok. but not a transporter of human cargo.

- its in the water
i spent some time with three biologists from Sweden. one of the guys told me about the fish, cyclid, that they were studying. it displays a characteristic only found in lake Victoria, that after birth the males stay around the family without moving on. Supposedly this makes a more efficient production. it is one big nuclear family very similar to the family structure to the villages that i lived in. but only in this area.

-lushoto
yesterday i was in lushoto which is a mountain area in between dar es salaam and moshi. the ride up the 36 km twisty road was a bit hairraising. Part of the twisty road is one lane and placed conviently by a 200-300 foot drop off. i dont think that anyone had told my driver about the one lane part. on the way up we were rounding a tight bend. the driver was "overspeeding" and was taking up most of the lane, in the middle of a turn we found another truck, larger, coming down the mountain doing the same. now this may seem a bit over the top but there was no physical explanation for what happened, our driver swerved towards the cliff to make room. we were off the road during the maneuver and ended up right back on the one lane road. I believe fully that God guided that truck to the right spot. My gasping like a scared little baby surely did not help.

instead of taking transport down i rode a bicycle down. mostly for the beautiful road and twists and turns. it is been compared to the alps of tanzania.

- if anyone is interested in tsavorite, i have not found any yet