So it was New Years Eve and it was hot. Perhaps we are not used to it after the baridi sana (extreme cold)of Kilimanjaro. Saw our Volunteer Handler on an infrequent visit to Moshi. He passed me a Nintendo Game I had a mule bring out to Tanzania…’Oh yeah…my kid brother will love this’ I said unconvincingly. Our handler, a former Kilimanjaro Porter, did however approve of the Kilimanjaro photos we showed him.
We tootled off home and I burnt out my eyes playing Sonic the Hedgehog for hours…I mean I sat at home and thought about deep development-related things. Then we heard a goat loudly bleating. The wife and I went outside to see a handsome, white goat tied up to the side of the landladies’ house. The goat had no food or water. We gave it some grass which it eagerly chewed. One of us named it ‘Cudsley’. Ok, it was me. In retrospect, perhaps I should not have named it.
Because just then our landlady came out and graciously invited the two of us to a family feast her family were having on New Years Day with Cudsley as the star attraction. The wife looked green, I looked shy and we said we would be happy to come.
I spent the next few hours were spent consoling my tearful vegetarian wife that Cudsley was probably going to a better place and that it was a real treat for this Chagga tribe family to devour him. His poor twitching little brown speckled ears...
The rest of New Years Eve was a fairly mellow affair having dinner and a drink with an American friend. As we sat in ‘The Cool Bar’, I was a terrible listener to the conversation, my attention transfixed by the Wrestling ‘Friday Night Smackdown’ show playing on the TV in the bar. I am a bad friend…but how I do love catching wrestling in Africa. Its so wrong, yet so addictive. I blame videogames for giving me a short attention span...
After a few more drinks, the wife did one halting dance to ‘Shaggy’ then we called it a night. We must be getting older. Started to doze off before midnight, but got woken up by fireworks and revelry. Roll on 2011. My resolution? To settle back into NZ life and do boring adult things for a bit.
Nothing changes, on New Years Day
U2
It was New Years Day Proper and Cudsley was suspiciously silent. And a lot of smoke was pouring up from the side of the house. After a halting, poor effort run for marathon training, the wife made some fudge and I lazed around (playing more games) before we headed to the lawn party at 3pm. The family and friends we met were all very gracious about these random wazungu crashing their annual get together.
But…we got sat at the kids table. Nothing changes. At first the kids were shy but they soon opened up and with great English and enthusiasm. Picture the wife and I and high school/university age kids talking about soccer, wrestling, NZ versus Tanzania demographics, malaria, home brewed alcohol etc etc. A couple of the 16 year olds we were talking to were engaged…um….I was politely congratulatory…All the while bits of Cudsley in soup, meat and ribs form was circulating as I ate double helpings so the wife would not be seen as rude. The kids were laughing a lot at the scruffy muzungu guy shoveling fatty bits of goat rapidly down (and dropping it on his clothes). The kids also loved the wife’s fudge and the fireworks-that a friend passed us- we gave them.
So as it got dark and we said our goodbyes to the family, I reflected it was not a bad night at all. However, it did make me miss my family being at a different family's gathering.
Back to work on Jan 3rd boo!! Two months to go, starting to look towards the finish line. Got final reports to write and some kind of human rights tool/dohickey thing to leave before I go. (insert Tui advert)
(Nativity Scene from the local Catholic Cathedral. Absent: Cudsley the Goat)
Good work on the Kili climb Manfred and Franatee - you rock. I would have liked to have tried Cudsley...
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