My First Visitor to Tanzania!

I had my first guest from out of the country! Rachel Gross suffered the grueling 14 hour bus ride from Dar es Salaam to Songea to stay with me for 8 days before we headed up north to do some trekking. Her stay at my house was the longest she has spent in one place since starting her journey around the world last summer. I would go crazy living out of a bag and moving every day for as long as she has! I think Rachel enjoyed settling in for a little bit and having access to my book collection. She read approximately a novel per day while I did school tasks.

I tried to give Rachel a little taste of life in Tanzania. We had a whole list of things we wanted to do and were able to check them all off.

1. Braid Rachel’s hair
2. Drink fresh cow’s milk
3. Cook bananas
4. Make coconut milk
5. Climb to the top of Mt. Matogoro
6. Paint my kitchen
7. Roast fresh corn on the cob over a charcoal stove

We did a lot of cooking. The banana soup turned out a little too runny, the spaghetti sauce a little too spicy, and the lemon bars a little too burnt, but it was all good anyhow. We also made some amazing okra curry, coconut rice, pumpkin leaves, corn-flour pancakes, chai and pineapple-mango-coconut juice.

Rachel also got to meet a lot of other Peace Corps volunteers while she was here. During her week in Songea she met 3 volunteers who spent the night as they were passing through, and two others on our hike up Mt. Matogoro.

Matogoro, which mystically overlooks Songea, has been beckoning me since I arrived. Rachel’s visit was finally the incentive I needed to plan an expedition. A student I know from Songea Boys, George, agreed to be our guide. I invited the other PCVs in the region as well as some volunteers at a monastery nearby to come along. It ended up being quite a large and diverse crew. When we finally managed to get everyone together and start off our party included myself, Rachel, and George, along with two other PCVs (Dawn and Mateo), another American, two Italian women, an Austrian, a German, and a Tanzanian guy that we randomly picked up at the bakery that morning.

It rained on us slightly as we started up the mountain, but by the time we reached the first peak the weather was gorgeous. In fact due to the rain, we had the opportunity to observe water cascade enchantingly down the huge rock faces near the top of the mountain. On the peak we shared pears, beef jerky and banana-peanut butter sandwiches as we took in the marvelous view of Songea and the surrounding valleys. Take a look at the pictures on my blog. It was beautiful.