On Safari Day 9
Day 9… The convent prepared a big breakfast for us before we headed off for another long day of hiking. The scenery today was a little different; we were out of the dense forest and more into just lush green hills and terraced land (for farming).
As we walked by farms and small villages, we could hear people calling “Mzungu”! This is the word for white person and I guess 5 white people hiking over this terrain is not very common. It was usually children screaming Mzungu our loud and waving their little hands at us. Sometimes they were so far away, we wouldn’t even be able to see them so we just waved in the general direction of the sound… I swear they could spot us from the next mountain… MZUNGUUUUUUUUUU…. haha. Kids would sometimes even run up to us for high-fives or just to say Jambo (hello) to us. We felt like celebrities…. although, sometimes, small children would go running and crying when they saw us because some kids still believe that the “Mzungu will come and take you away if you are bad” (that’s what their parents tell them). So we made some kids cry but for the most part, they just wanted to shake hands, or walk with you for a bit down the road… they are really adorable.
Town after town, kids would do this and we passed a lot of small towns and many farms. Along the way today, we passed the market where these farmers would go buy and sell goods. There was everything from colorful clothing to lung fish. Everything and everyone is so colorful here and the market is so lively. Children swarmed us when we walked through the market but most people wouldn’t want us taking photos because a lot of the locals still believe that if we take their picture, we take their soul away. This was common in a lot of the places we visited.
There wasn’t much to get in the market other than neccessities (I guess this market isn’t a tourist trap, like most of the other markets we went to). Soon, we were on our way again, weaving through farms until we reached the next stop, which was a small town where they do a lot of pottery. This place was a little more tourist trappy… we watched some local women make large pots… no potters wheel or anything. It was amazing to see how they could make such a symmetrical pot with nothing other than their hands and a stone for smoothing. Just amazing. We left a small donation for their time and then went to another picnic spot for lunch. I love these picnics in the mountains.
Soon, we made it to Mtai, the small town that we were staying in … the guesthouse was a cozy little place. The doors were either really short or narrow… it was funny because the Americans are both really tall so they kept bumping their heads on the doors. The people are all really nice here… everyone likes to say hello to the white people… even the creepy person who wanted to take me to “the point”… haha. Sigh, people here are so happy… like they don’t have a care in the world… they don’t need running water, they don’t need electricity, they don’t need heat… they are all happy! Children were more than happy to carry buckets of water on their head to our guesthouse so we could wash off. It’s amazing how much weight the locals can balance on their heads… and it’s even more amazing how far they travel!!
Since there was no electricity, we went to bed pretty early… If you ever get a chance to go through rural Africa… DO IT.
Tags: Africa
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