The first was during my home-stay with a member of a Maasai choir last weekend. Her name was Catherine and she was young, beautiful, and not Maasai. Despite being a member of a choir that sings in Maa and is predominantly composed of Maasai, Catherine came from a Chagga family. After a wonderful performance by the choir, I walked home hand-in-hand with a Chagga dressed in Maasai robes.
The walk home was dark and treacherous as the two of us were dodging banana leaves and potholes in the dirt road. A few lights from neighbors lit the way, but with 5-minutes left in our walk the electricity shut off. The first few times that the lights went off in Tanzania, my reaction was to go into mild panic mode… (I’ve never felt comfortable in the dark). Since this is a normal occurrence, now my reaction is to stop where I am and look up. When the lights go out, the stars are brighter than ever.
We finally arrived at Catherine’s house where I met her mother and her young brother, Peter. After eating a delicious traditional Tanzanian meal and spending my first night there, several things surprised me…
1. They were Chagga
2. They were Christian
3. They ate dinner at 9:30pm
4. They had a guest room just for me
And most of all,
5. They didn’t have a shower, but they had a washing machine (the only washing machine that Mr. Stubbs has seen in his 5 years here)
Needless to say, it was not the weekend that I had expected, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything different. I went to bed on Friday night already feeling welcomed into Catherine’s family.
My Avatar experience began at 8am on Saturday. Mr. Stubbs (our music professor) organized for our group plus the members of the choir to hike to a waterfall in Mt. Meru.
In one of my first posts I mentioned that James Cameron should thank Arusha in his Academy Awards ‘Best Picture’ acceptance speech. Since he didn’t win the Oscar, I was only correct on one of those accounts. Nonetheless, I stand behind my previous statement even more now than before the hike. Despite my realization that Pandora is a fictitious land, I half-expected plants to glow when I touched them.
For the first 45 minutes we hiked straight up the mountain. We had a beautiful view of the city in which we’ve been living.
For the next part of the hike, I’m pretty sure we encountered most of the world’s biomes. There was grassland, rainforest, gorges, and even coniferous trees. Some of the locals showed us which berries were safe to eat along the way. The sun was shining and the ground was level, minimizing the level of falling potential.
As I learned from Avatar, the jungle plays tricks on those who enter it.
In order to get to the river where the waterfall was located, we had to hike down into the gorge, which is easier said than done. I had my eyes fixated on the ground to avoid plummeting until I heard a call from a monkey in a nearby tree. I was momentarily distracted and lost my footing, only to be saved by the Maasai in front of me (they’re super-human and never trip).
I made it down to the river and looked around for the trail. Unbeknownst to me, I was standing in it. We walked upstream for 35 minutes, potentially contracted various water-borne diseases. Whatever I may have contracted, the view was completely worth it. Drenched up to my knee in river water, I rounded the corner of a mossy rock and felt the power of the waterfall. The spray from the waterfall could be felt from several yards away, but the cool mist was welcoming to my sweat-drenched body.
We noticed a few people climbing up the rocks to stand on a natural platform underneath the waterfall. Thankfully, I had enough confidence in my step to attempt the slippery climb. I made it to the top and looked up at the tons of water falling directly over my head, close enough to touch.
As with most places we’ve gone, we were reluctant to leave. Little did we know that the hike back would be just as unique as the waterfall itself. The clouds released they’re very own waterfall ss soon as we reached the top of the gorge. Unlike most rains we’ve experienced, this one was consistent and heavy. Spirits remained high despite the fact that we were drenched from head to toe within fifteen minutes of the 3-hour hike back.
The trail quickly turned into a muddy river that was out to get us. I think it would’ve been more effective to sled down the mountain on a banana leaf, but others disagreed so we continued by foot.
The muzungus were falling left and right but the Maasai were masters of the land (per usual).
Catherine and I arrived at the front door of her house cold, dripping wet, and covered in mud. Catherine’s mom had a pot of boiling water on the fire waiting for my bath. The water was poured into a big bucket and I washed myself off as much as possible.
After bathing, Catherine and I sat around a small smoldering charcoal fire. As I learned, Tanzanians are very comfortable with silence. For two hours we sat, occasionally talked, and watched the rainfall.
That night we had a traditional Chagga meal for dinner. Catherine’s mom had prepared a large pot of banana stew with carrots, meat, and other goodies. Exhausted from the day’s activities, I went to bed.
After attending a 4-hour church service in Kiswahili with Catherine the next morning, I said goodbye to her and her family and headed back to Arusha with the beautiful blue and white kanga that they had given me tied around my waist. Catherine and I exchanged numbers and she promised me that she would teach me how to cook traditional Tanzanian food the next time I visit… she also made me promise that I would bring my dirty clothes to their washing machine. Those are two offers that are impossible to turn down.
The weekdays were full of class and schoolwork with fun interspersed at almost every moment. I can easily navigate through the streets of Arusha and I’ve also finally gotten the hang of daladalas (though I have not yet reached the point of mastering them).
Despite a heavy homework load and looming midterms, we all decided to attend a free showing of Avatar at ViaVia on Wednesday night. The first time I saw Avatar was in a sold-out 3-D-high-tech-high-definition-fancy-shmancy theater in Knoxville. The second time I saw Avatar was in a sparsely populated restaurant/bar with a Dutch pirated version of the movie being projected onto a full-sized sheet. Believe it or not, I think that I liked it the second time more. Both the movie and the subtitles were in English, but they rarely aligned. For example:
1. Jake Sully (the main character) translated into Jack Surrey
2. “Come to Papa” translated into “I’m coming, Daddy”
3. “The war is over” translated into “The weather was disappointing”
and the most outrageous of them all…
4. Avatar was “Affan an”… (seriously, it’s the name of the movie, how could you get it wrong?!)
Between the subtitles and the power spontaneously shutting off at pivotal points in the movie, my second time seeing Avatar was definitely unique. Not to mention the fact that at one point I looked around and saw a handful of Maasai warriors with shukas and machetes who seemingly looked apathetic towards the athletic abilities of the blue people of Pandora.
It was a paradox of epic proportions.
I’m noticing a trend.
1 comments:
the second time seems ghetto. in a really fab sort of way. ALSO, you totessss should have banana leafed it down the mountain. it would have been so perfectly eliza thornberry. ah well. next time. i think you should write some sort of dissertation based on the parallels you found...
luhhhve,
muffin
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