One month in

Well, I’ve been here a month, who would have thought the day would come. To celebrate I drank a Guinness and left the bottle in my room as a sort of marker, and then I buzzed my head, and let’s just say only one of those things ended up how it was supposed to (I’ll give you a hint, half my head is buzzed right now). No one tells you about the voltage differences with plugs around here, and no one tells you that the result of the voltage difference will be the clippers basically exploding in your hand. No one was hurt in the incident, except maybe my self-image for the next few days, but I’ll live.

            Crazy to think that I’ve been here a month, that a month ago I was sitting at Taco Mac with my parents before boarding my flight and eating a Philly Cheese Steak and drinking a Dr. Pepper. I am here though, and doing awesome. The Canadians have all left, Kate off to Rwanda and Hayley to the great barren moose country known as Canada. In their place a group of five from Idaho (I shall refer to them as “the Idahoians” hence forth) have arrived to keep me company so the house was not empty for long. We went to the used clothing market last week, or as I named it afterwards, “The Place Where Thrift Stores Go To Die.” It was a huge outdoor market where literally anything that was not bought at the thrift stores (mainly European ones) ended up here. You would think that the clothes that didn’t make the cut abroad would be shabby and unwanted here, but let me just tell you, there were some gems in this market. I for one, found a nifty sweater vest for only a dollar, and I’ve already proclaimed myself the winner of the tacky sweater contest at this years Christmas party. It rained right before we got to the market and so it was mud as far as the eye could see, and half the battle of finding the little gems around the market was trying not to slip and fall. We lost one Idahohian to the mud, a causality of bargain shopping.

While everyone finished up their shopping I decided to be bold and go into a small outdoor restaurant at the entrance of the market to try some of the cooked goat that was being grilled. I didn’t actually know it was goat, I just assumed it was by the look of the meat hanging by the grill, but who can ever really tell what raw meat really is when it’s just hanging there. Come to find out, it wasn’t goat. It was a cow, but still delicious. I didn’t know exactly how to order it so I kind of just pointed at the grill and nodded at the guy cooking, and he pointed back at me, and nodded as well. No matter where you go, it’s universal that when a man points at grilled meat, another man knows exactly what he’s talking about.

            There’s no language barrier when it comes to cooked meat.

            And there’s no language barrier when it comes to stomachaches after eating foreign cooked meat, but I’ll leave it at that. I’d do it all over again I tell you!!

            I spent a couple days at the orphanage with the Idahoians over the last week. A lot of fun, as always, but there is one highlight that stands out from it that I just have to share. Throughout my 23 years of life I’ve noticed a correlation between the older I get and the chances of running into people who have never heard of the Beatles diminishing. The more years I put under my belt, the less likely it is I’ll meet someone who’s never heard of the Beatles, simple as that. That’s when Tanzania will surprise you. I brought my Ipod to the orphanage one day and was letting Christopher and Juma listen to some of the music on it so I could see what kind of music they have been exposed to. Michael Jackson seemed to be their favorite, and when I put on Billy Jean they both went a little crazy and almost pulled the headphones out when they wanted to dance to it. I stumbled across the Beatles though, and kind of half serious (figuring everyone had heard of the Beatles) I asked if they had ever heard of them.

            They said no.

            I was shocked, but a prime opportunity had just come out of this situation.

            I never thought the day would come when I would get to see the reaction on someone’s face when they heard the Beatles for the first time, but I did this day. I played Help and Come Together for Christopher and Juma, and the sight was priceless. Both their faces lit up and smiles ran across their faces, and they started bobbing their heads to it and tapping their feet to the music. Christopher even stood up and started air drumming with his fingers. The greatest rock band to ever live struck again in Tanzania, and it was a really kind of surreal, but awesome experience seeing it happen.

            The Beach Boys were a hit too.

            We visited Mary’s home village as well the other day. We had to drive on muddy dirt roads up into the foothills of Kilimanjaro to get to it, and I strategically positioned myself next to the van door so that just incase we went careening back down the mountain and the breaks failed I’d be able to jump out before any serious damage was done. I felt bad that that was my game plan the entire time, but I made it a point that as I was leaping out I would at least yell back to the car, “I’m sorry!” That way there would be no hard feelings between the Idahoians and me. We made it, obviously, but at least I had a contingency plan in place.

            When we made it to the village you could tell that the air was much thinner and cooler than what I’m accustomed too. We were basically almost up in the clouds, and the village was hidden amongst the banana trees and foliage. The village was small, and the houses were just one room rock and wood buildings. One building was the kitchen, not much bigger than a bathroom back home, and the living house wasn’t much bigger than the kitchen. There was no running water or electricity and it was crazy to think that people actually lived up there in almost isolation. Mary’s relatives and the other villagers were excited to see us, and were very welcoming. They showed us how to cut down a banana tree and gave us the bananas as a gift for the rice and flour that we brought with us. It was definitely something that I had never seen before, but of course, I found myself laughing at a private joke. As we walked through the village the Idahoians and myself were snapping pictures of all the houses and pictures of the villagers and I just couldn’t help but think, “What if people were doing this at my house?”

            I just pictured people showing up at my house and walking into my kitchen armed with cameras and being like, “Oh, this is your kitchen? Can I get a picture of it?” and walking down to the basement and seeing me watch TV and saying, “Oh, look at that. Kyle in his natural environment, we gotta snap a photo with him,” or just walking into my bedroom and giving me candy and taking a photo of my reaction to receiving it. I know we were just interested in how others lived, but I couldn’t help but crack up at the irony of it all.

Muzungu, I tell ya.

            Alright, that is all for now. I’m going to go try and negotiate a half priced hair cut since half the deed is already done.

            Mom, the clippers you bought are broken by the way, just in case you didn’t realize which ones I was referring to. My bad. But I learned a valuable lesson from it all and that’s what counts.

Happy Mother's Day as well!!

And all future guests will be greeted like so

           
And please, do not forget the fundraising page I created as well. Any little bit would help! Thank you!
http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/kyletaylor/kilimanjarofundraiserclimb