BACK HOME AGAIN IN INDIANA

When I prepared to come to Africa for the summer, I expected that it would not be exactly like home.  I even suspected that certain aspects of it might seem a mite "foreign."  So now, it is with great relief that I can tell you an important discovery:  My time here in Moshi, Tanzania is just like being in Indiana!!!

Really?  You're going to be like that?!  I can see from your expression that you're 110% sure that I am wrong.  Because when it comes to me and the truth, you assume that I will always make the extra effort to get farther away from truth than seems humanly possible.  Well, this time you're wrong.  It really is just like Indiana here.

Exhibit 1.

 As I have mentioned previously, I have a bunch of chickens living in my yard (as well as a commercial chicken farm across the street).  Which means that every morning, I am greeted by a chorus of "cock-a-doodle-doo's" from a bunch of roosters.  So how is this reminiscent of my home in Indianapolis?  Well, if you pick any random New Yorker--let's say, for instance, Spike Lee--he will tell you that everyone in Indianapolis keeps chickens in their yards and gets up at the rooster's crow.  (Although Spike may dispute that, like here in Moshi, I also have a flush toilet in Indianapolis.)


Exhibit 2.

This picture shows the "Finnish mud cake" that two of the Finnish volunteers made for us last night.  It was delicious, by the way, tasting a lot like a big brownie.  So how does this make me feel like I'm still in Indiana?  Well, not the cake so much as being in a group of only Finnish people.  Because we can all agree that Indiana is almost exactly like Finland.  Too cold in the winter.  Too hot in the summer.  Surrounded by neighbors with (well justified) feelings of superiority.  And, of course, the most obvious similarity of all.  Full of people who speak a language that cannot be understood by anyone else in the world. 


Exhibit 3.

 "Whoa!", you are saying right now.  "Where did he get that picture of Indiana in July?"  Wrong.  But a totally understandable mistake.  Nothing says Indiana like a picture of a corn field.  And, of course, the ever-present Indiana banana trees mixed in with the corn.  But the truth is that this is a picture I took this morning about 5 miles outside of Moshi.  Hard to believe that two places so many miles apart could look so eerily similar.  (It really freaked me out at first, I'll confess.)  If it wasn't for the fact that their corn is already 7 feet tall, I'm not sure I'd ever cleared up my own confusion about being in Tanzania  .  .  .  I mean, Indiana  .  .  .  I mean Tanzania.

 Exhibit 4. 

 And now, the most compelling evidence of all--also photographed this morning on my jog from Moshi to the entrance to the Kilimanjaro National Park.  As I got up above 4000 feet above sea level, here's what I saw:

Yes, that is exactly what you think it is.  Row after row of coffee plants.  (If you look closely at the nearest bush, you can see the red coffee beans.)  Coffee is a major crop in the highlands of Tanzania, just like in the highlands of Indiana.  In fact, although I have never been on the grounds of Highland Country Club in Indianapolis--at least, that's what the Governing Board of Highland has paid me handsomely to say, and I'm sticking to that story--I am confident that the "rough" of the golf course there consists totally of coffee plants.  I'm sure that there are readers of this blog who can confirm that fact, except for the problem that admitting to reading this blog would be grounds for expulsion from that--or any other--country club in Indianapolis.

Anyway, I'm sure the combination of the words "coffee growing" and "Indiana" need no further linkage.  While Tanzanian coffee is generally highly regarded, there can be no question that Indiana grown coffee is known by gourmets around the world as having a reputation that can only be matched by Indiana grown wine.