Flycatcher

I walk to Moshi town. There is no pavement except on the main road of central Moshi. That’s a general rule. You walk by the side of the road, in mud or on grass, making your way around potholes. The most common plant is bougainvillea. They must thrive on rain and humidity, They look quite lush, happy and laid back, with no signs of stress. They are so abundant and strong that people use them as garden fences which makes me very jelaous. I think about the bougainvillea plants that died in my gardens over the years and the small weak replica of a bougainvillea I have right now in my courtyard that I wrapped with plastic sheet to protect from rough winter winds of Eressos. That poor thing is a faint shadow of its supreme examples here.

 It is raining. I take refuge at Union Cafe which is right opposite coffee bean farmers union. There are some tourists in the shop. Coffee is good.

Streets of Moshi are filled with street sellers and tailors! Tailors are lined up side by side on the one and only pavement of Moshi with their sewing machines. They all look very busy. I try to get the strap of my backpack sawn while I have the chance but he turns me down. “Come back later. I am busy now”.

These street tailors must be a sign that people can not afford new clothes. The other popular street profession among others like selling fruits, fixing shoes and bags, selling second-hand shoes, shaving, and selling meat that they carve out of skinny cows that hang from trees, half-sold, is “shoe-washing”. And it is a well-thought idea with a bright future. The fact that there is hardly no pavement, or paved roads for that matter, and being in rainy season make it impossible to keep your shoes clean. The soil of the area is a deep shade of red and your shoes are always covered with a thick layer of red mud. So you hand your shoes to these shoe-washers and they brush your shoes with soapy water and rinse them. Your shoes are as good as new.

I realize being white is a big disadvantage if you want to walk the streets like common people instead of taking an air-con minivan to your destination. What they call “fly-catching” (which makes me the fly in this content) is a profession of bringing clients to shops that sell souvenirs, articrafts, or safari tours and possibly taking a tip from the shop. Local boys walk up to you and start a conversation. They are very gentle and polite (at least at the beginning) that you start answering their questions. Then they slowly steer the subject to what you are planning to do, whether you would like to do a safari or visit this shop or that. They do not give you a moment alone. They stick to you like a fly actually. I was walking with one of the better kind when he pointed Kili to me. I looked up ahead of me and there it was. Casually, but clearly visible from center of town -not more than ten minutes- behind houses, trees, and thick electricity cables, very beautiful, but scary. “There you are” I say to myself. “I will conquer you!” The whole idea of summiting a mountain is a romantic concept. And because it is a romantic view, when I clearly see the snow on top of the mountain, I think that it looks beautiful, instead of the realistic view of "how am I going to survive on that snow?"

I go back to Karibou hostel and try to mingle with other backpackers who are sat around a table in the terrace, but go back to my room soon after. Not very social today! I pick up all the half-dry stuff that I left lying around the room out of courtesy to the only other person that is staying in the 6-bed dorm. I get in bed with my book, looking forward to a peaceful night, but no!  Ten minutes later two Spanish couples walk in. 
The whole picture of peace and quiet changes now. It is full-house.  Anyone who stays in dorms knows that in a mixed dorm, one of the most annoying things besides drunk friends stumbling into the room at 4 o’clock in the morning chatting away like there is no one sleeping, is the snoring of men, sometimes solo and base sometimes accompanied by other men contributing in their own style.  I remember countless times that I got out of bed to shake the bed of a snoring boy bacause this wakes him up slightly and hopefully he changes the position of his head and stops snoring. I know I am not alone in this because whenever I shook a bed like that, I have seen many people with sleep-deprived eyes looking at me from their beds and making a silent gesture of clapping hands or thumbs up.

Well, I was expecting the snoring, but I got the other one. They left and came back to the room drunk at 3 o’clock in the morning chatting away. They left the room 4 hours later so they really did not have time to sleep deep enough to snore.