Mo's farm

On Friday after the nursery, Mo (a guy who was born and raised in Tanzania to Irish/English parents) picked me up and drove me out to his farm. It's about 30km NW of Arusha back towards Nairobi and then off the highway for the last 10 or so.

Although it's not too far out of town, the difference is fairly dramatic. Along the way Maasai men were with their animals and small boys were doing the same, and when we got there, all was quiet. We had tea and African donuts (poor copies of American donuts) with syrup on – not quite as sweet as it may sound, but not far off! And then he did some work whilst I read about the Maasai in a coffee table book, then wondered round to take some photos.
Very calm and relaxing.

On the way down we stopped at the lily farm which is near his property and Goodlove gave me a tour of the place. Mo encouraged me to ask any questions I could think of about lilys, I could think of none – but you'd be amazed at how much there is to know about lily farming! The main fact I remembered is that to be export quality there need to be at least 3 buds per stem, below that they are sold locally, or destroyed.

Then we drove back to town loaded up with crates, carrots and mint. We had breakfast (at 5pm) in a quite fancy place owned by one of Mo's friends, then did some deliveries before stopping for a drink.

I went back home for tea, then headed out to a local bar to meet Elisa, Chris and baby Jacob and some of Chris' friends, who mainly work in the safari business. I think a lot of people who come here never go to the local bars, and to be honest, if I didn't know Chris, I probably wouldn't either, but it just seems strange to me that you would live somewhere and never go to a bar that 90% of the population go to, and just stay in the bars run by foreigners. That said, safety is always an issue and the colour of my skin suggests that I will be carrying something worth taking, so you have to be on the look out. After that bar we went to another much closer to our house and had another drink, though this bar was almost totally empty. People pour a huge amount of attention onto babies here, even teenage boys, so wherever you go with Jacob you get lots of people coming over to chat. The bar man (boy – he looked about 14) was playing with Jacob and said to Chris that he also wanted a Mzungu wife. Probably a good time to leave.