Graduation

Nov. 13

This was the day one of the guys who works at the house graduated from  university. Nearly everyone living here sent to Moshi to support him. Moshi is the city at the foot of mount Kilimanjaro, and is about a two hour bus ride away. At the bus station there was a fight over us as customers, as usual. The buses here are basically glorifed dala dalas, and as many people are crammed on as possible. There is very little leg room. The whole time a low quality TV show in Swahili played, the volume very loud. When we arrived in Moshi, and dropped off all the other passengers, we paid the driver extra to take us straight to the university. There there were many vendors selling flowers and other gifts to give to graduates. We met Abraham (the graduate) quickly, and took some photos with him, then moved on to the ceremony. One of Abraham's friends served as our guide. The ceremony was long, and mostly consisted of long speeches in Swahili that we did not understand. Afterwards we took some more pictures and a small tour of the town, and saw a coffee farm there. Then we went to where Abraham is living. His parents both died recently, so he has been living with another older man, and different people have come together to help him through school. Some more of his friends were there, as well as his sisters. We had a cake, but in the Tanzanian way. This involved Abraham feeding a piece to each of us, oldest to youngest (of course I was last), then all of us would feed him a peice, but we just had the oldest do it to represent all of us, so Abraham didn't explode. Then it was time for lunch, noodles, sauce, and fried bananas, eaten with the hands. When we left, we got the whole bus to ourselves for a little extra, and it drove us all the way to the apartments. It was Andreas' birthday, so we had cake and then went out to the bar. All in all a very good day!