Weekend and Coffee Hike

This past weekend was very festive...After our cooking class with Wilfred, we relaxed and headed out with 3 other volunteers to our favorite "mzungu" (white people) bar in Moshi called the Watering Hole. The bar is decorated rustic and with an African feel, it is full of Europeans and Americans and we always meet interesting people there...many are headed on safari, are teaching English here, working on a phD in AIDs/public health. On Saturday, we were some of the first customers there and we had one of our best nights yet. We are now very good friends with the bartender (a German guy named Olaf) and by the end of the night a drink had been named for Catherine ("the Cathrita"-a margarita with beer in it). We paid a little respect to Michael Jackson by listening to his greatest hits all night (who knows how many times we listened to "Man in the Mirror"). Olaf even agreed to open the bar for us on Sunday night (usually they are closed).

Sunday morning came too soon and we woke up early to go on our 9:00 AM coffee hike. In our sleepy daze, we were quickly surprised to see an old white van pull up to the Home Base to pick us up. This was no ordinary van- it was blaring Swahili rap music, both the interior and exterior were covered in old, poor quality photos of American rappers (Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and even Beyonce), the seats had been covered in electric green fake leather, and the ceiling had broken disco lights hanging. Our guide, a 24 year old athletic-looking guy named Oscar got out of the car wearing a tight black shirt and ARKANSAS RAZORBACK pants....so random and hilarious!? We knew then that the day would be interesting.

On our 30 minute drive to the coffee hike, we listened to the same Beyonce song on repeat. We drove through the mountains as rain sprinkled down and quickly realized that the van wouldn't make it up anymore muddy hills, we would have to walk. All 7 of us got out of the car in a small village of wooden/mud shacks and for the first time in my life I felt like a total alien...we were completely surrounded by about 300 Tanzania children, women, and men wearing church clothes and staring at us. The activities of the entire village seemed to stop when we walked out of the car...clearly these people had rarely (or maybe never) seen white people before.

We started the trek to where we would be tasting the coffee. We hiked for 2 hours through the thick mud and our shoes quickly became heavy stilts of thick layers of mud. We fell numerous times and at one point Catherine completely flipped over on her back (covered head to toe in brownish orange mud). It was hilarious and we laughed basically for the entire way...imagine the stares we got as white people walking on dirt road all completely covered in thick layers of mud. Beyond the stares, we also got plenty of swahili yells from the men leaving the homeade banana beer pubs. Oscar was singing and walking briskly the entire way and we took a milllion pictures of his Raorback pants.We were high up in the mountains surrounded by some of the most beautiful scenary I have ever seen (miles of banana trees, corn fields, and mist...Kilimanjaro was in the background).

We finally arrived at Oscar's wooden house in the mountains. All of his family lived in this hut (mother, father, brother, cousins) and they were very friendly upon our arrival. It was an amazing experience to see the coffee from berry to cup. We picked berries from the plants right outside of Oscars house, removed the seeds, removed the shell, roasted the seeds, ground roasted beans, brewed the coffee and drank it. Honestly some of the best coffee I have ever had! Oscar sang and made up songs about every step of the coffee process ("twanga, twanga, twang" means squash). We were told that the coffee beans were always the job of the men and women tended to the bananas...after this experience I understand the hardwork of the coffee process, but I LOVED the experience.

Next we hiked an hour hike to a local waterfall through the mountains, trees, and streams. The waterfall was tall, huge, and so clear. To see this landscape in comparison to that of the dry, flat Serengeti is incredible! We hiked 2 hours back to the vans and drove back to the Homebase totally covered in mud 8 hours later....quite a long day, but definitely and incredible one!