Moshi – Day 1

A very kind family in Billings, who knew I would need a couple days off this summer, gave me some money and told me to “do something fun.”  I decided to spend the money on a cultural tour of Moshi which is a town 2 hours east of where I’m volunteering here at Neema Village in Arusha.  I chose to take my time away from Neema in the middle of my three months here. Yes, it’s hard to believe I am already half way thru my stay!  Two Neema volunteers, Abby and Lexi, and I just returned from this amazing trip.

Moshi is the smallest city in TZ !  It is full of great history pertaining to the Chagga tribe along with tons of random fun things to do in and around the city!

We started our tour off by visiting one of the 9 gates to Mount Kilimanjaro National Park. At 19,341 feet, Kili is the highest mountain in Africa. Hearing stories of people who have climbed her makes me want to try it myself one day! After that, we headed to a local coffee plantation. I loved all of our Moshi tour, but the coffee tour portion might have been my favorite part! We saw the coffee bushes, learned how the beans are dried, and watched some beans be roasted over an open fire. It only took about 15 minutes for the beans to turn from green to the “normal” color you think of when you think of a coffee bean – shiny black! I felt so relaxed as I sat and watched the coffee roast over the open fire. This was the PERFECT way to start off the day. 

We each took part in hand grinding the coffee beans. We sang a cute little coffee song while grinding the beans.  Remind me about this song the next time you see me in person and I’ll sing it for you :). Ha! 

Talk about a fresh cup of coffee!  

As we waited for the water to heat up, we were given a mixture of coffee grounds and sugar to eat. They called it “coffee chocolate” and it was pure heaven. 

After our coffee, we went on a small hike to a nearby waterfall.  I love the outdoors and this reminded me a lot of Montana. The clean mountain air was very refreshing. There’s something about a good walking stick which makes me feel like I could hike anywhere! Baby bananas –  look at how pretty the colors are!!

We couldn’t get over how pretty these little wild flowers are! I am so thankful for the chance to meet these awesome ladies and spend so much time with them this summer! 

Everyone asks me what African food is like.  All I can say is the meals are very well rounded with grains, meats, and veggies. Here’s a picture. 

After lunch we went to visit the Chagga caves.  As recently as the 1960’s, the Chagga tribe would climb into these handmade caves to hide from other tribes.   The Chagga would go down into these caves where they would hide for months at a time. There is a room where the women and kids would spend the day praying their enemies wouldn’t find them. Here are the girls and I “praying” in the cave. 

As you can see, our first day was full of lots of fun adventures!   Our tour guide company dropped us off at our hotel around 5:30 PM. This is the view of Moshi out of the window in our room. The room was very clean and this was the best night of sleep I have in the past 2 months. Since we know how to be safe while in TZ, we decided it would be ok to venture out on our own for a little walk and to find dinner. We came across the best Italian restaurant EVER! We shared two pizzas and a slice of chocolate cake.  We’ve learned that eating out takes a long time here in TZ so we asked for our cake first!!Here are pictures of the kitchen and outdoor eating area of the restaurant. 

Now, it’s time for me to go feed some babies here at Neema so I’ll post about the 2nd day of our Moshi tour later.