PHOTOS FINALLY!! of Moshi...

I finally have the time (holidays, moving etc.) and my Wi-Fi set up, so now it's possible for me to upload the photos!!! I thought about going back to each post and inserting where they should be. Instead, I am going to add the date at the end of the post it relates to if you want to go back and read its corresponding text or story.

In Moshi we stayed at a B&B, rather than at some of the local hotels Paul's classmates were staying in. It gave the boys and I some space to feel more at home during the day and the use of a kitchen. These two were the staff there who made ALL the difference in the world to us, and especially me. I even tear up now writing this, thinking of how much they mean to me. Grace cleaned and made our breakfast, Ben was the gardener. We, I, learned so much from them and they were so warm and kind. Moshi was our first African city. Now I know that it's a small, easy city, but it didn't feel that way at the time. Then, it felt very, very intense. They offered me comfort and help on how to navigate to get what I needed, as did the owner (from the UK but married to a Tanzanian man) who would stop by from time to time. (See post Monday, September 2nd)

This is from the Tinga Tinga tour I arranged for the boys. The man between the boys, Materu, is the artist who very kindly and patiently stepped them through painting their own (what they are each holding) Tinga Tinga painting. Behind L is Jon, our guide, for the day. (See post Monday, September 2nd)

Grace would escort me to the market in town. This is the guy I bought my dry goods from. One day, I saw a mouse running down the wall. He also sold small, dry fish. I wish I'd taken more photos at the market but it felt too invasive and I wasn't as comfortable taking my camera out. It was pretty intense the first few times I went, then I got the hang of it, but I was always so grateful for Grace being with me. This is the one and only time I didn't drag the boys around with me. They'd stay with Ben at the B&B, otherwise, they were with me all the time.

This is one of the signs at a well known hotel. I didn't make sense of what it mean until I found the bathroom, see below.

Here is the door to the ladies bathroom. In Asia you commonly saw a photo of a toilet or a squatty potty so you knew (or could choose?) which one you would be using. This is the only photo I saw like this. BUT there were many more amusing signs IN bathrooms telling you what to do or not do, which I wish I'd gotten photos of . Paul has some in his photos from his travels. 

This is the deaf collective that sewed and sold items around town. They were so incredibly sweet. I LOVED talking to them. I finger spelled in Swahili then they'd tell me the Swahili sign, then we'd compare the English to Swahili sign and then they'd correct me when I got confused. I went back and visited 3 times. I wish I'd found them sooner. The boys were too shy to sign to  with them much. I brought them fabric to make me some bags (I am holding one in this photo).  

This is Henry. He is one of the boys MOST FAVORITE of Paul's classmates (they liked all of them quite a lot but Henry truly is one of a kind and held a special place for them). He and the boys had a kebab eating contest one night at this place, Taj Mahal, a Muslim restaurant in town.  They had really good kebabs. I loved the Zanzibar pizza (thin dough with veggies and an egg folded into an envelope-like square, and grilled). Once I asked them how many they made in a day. I would see them start to clean and set up when I ran with two of Paul's classmates at 6 am and they'd be cooking still at 10 pm. They told me they sold around 350 Zanzibar pizzas in a day. By the way. O held his own here but Henry won out. The next day O said he felt like he was being punched in the stomach from the inside out. 

The first weekend we had in Tanzania was our only full weekend with Paul as a family. We did one day safari with him and then a day trip with his classmates to a snake park. This was a really cool place that used the admission to the snake park to fund a snake bite clinic. I can't find the picture (as I am writing this) of all the dried spit inside the glass from the cage of the spitting cobras. This is a picture of when you are a "bad" mother and let your child be pet by a caged rescue baboon. (See Monday, September 12th)

The boys and I went to swimming pools as much as we could. This is the YMCA pool, where we went the most. I liked this sign. I took this at the start of the trip before I really had learned much Queen's English. Swimming costumes are bathing suits in case you were like me, and confused. The other piece of this is cultural. You do not go around exposing your legs (above the knees in particular) so to be respectful you would only be in this one area with your swimsuit (or costume) and not the rest of the building. Granted, there was just a fence and people sat all around and just watched the swimmers.

This is a super sweet local boy the boys were friends with, Brian. We hung out here with him and he would text me asking when we could next come to meet at the pool.

This was the death climbing wall at Zumba Land. Their idea of safety is different, of course the kids loved it. I did ask the manager one day, since the staff would come over and chat with me, if a kid had ever fallen (you could just fall to your death on that edge). She said "no, if they can't climb they don't go." I guess the people in Tanzania govern themselves with common sense, different than the American public. (See Monday, September 2nd)

Here are the extent of the kitchen implements that were available at the B&B. I became better at cutting things in my hands rather than with a cutting board. 

One weekend when Paul was busy, I arranged a cooking class for the boys and I. One thing we learned was samosas. It took us 3 hours total to make them and about 5 minutes to eat them. These classes were at the edge of a coffee shop parking lot and the security guard kept coming over and chatting, it was cute.