Impressions

The wind bristles by. Across from this four story roof terrace, I look over the tops of buildings, lowering my gaze to watch the leafy branches of trees swaying in the breeze. The three trees in front of me are three different colors of green in addition to portraying three different textures of leaves, three different heights, and three different patterns of growth. However, in this early evening wind, they move together circularly, up and down according to the direction and strength of each gust.
Looking out past them and under them, I see paved streets and tin roof tops, gray, green, rust. There is a giant black satellite dish filtering the rest of the world into someone across the streets’ living room. Some of the roofs are flat, others tilted, but most shield square concrete buildings with grated and netted windows from both the scorching equatorial sun and the powerful seasonal rains. Along this street, a back road in Moshi, one of Tanzania’s tourism capitols, life progresses.
The backdrop to this dusty town where paved roads become dirt and dirt roads possess rocks enough to appear paved is Africa’s highest peak. According to her mood, locals inform you, she may or may not peek out from behind her misty shroud to show her snow topped face almost 6000 meters up in the sky. Whether or not Kili decides to reveal herself, the natural world around her is striking enough. As the sun goes down, the mountains to my right appear softly pink, their tone accenting the painted traces of clouds that appear in the otherwise intensely blue sky. To the left, from whence the sun has already retreated, the mountain ridges are a deep purple skimmed by bluish tufts of cloud. These layers reach the sky the way that ocean waves overtake the shore, naturally bringing together two completely different substances.
Below, people walk in the middle of the street I have yet to see used by a car, though there are many parked along its sides. Old pick up trucks, minivans, buses. Four wheel drive vehicles in the habitats they were designed for. White taxis of varied epochs solicit tourists or languish in repose on the roadside. It is less of a challenge to locals than to me to stroll the street in the correct way. I turn left and step out only to discover that the cars in my lane are coming from the right. A vestige of British colonialism. To this, I hope that I can adapt quickly.
The streets of this city advertise safari tours and household goods, banks, curio souvenir shops, and clothes. Men and women sit at ancient manual sewing machines on the street corner ready to create, darn or alter garments. As I pass they hail me with “Habari”. Nzuri, I respond, utilizing five percent of my twenty-word vocabulary. For my effort I am rewarded with a brilliant, white-toothed smile in a dark, bright-eyed face. I continue walking past stenciled signs revealing what is available along every block.
After seven days of experience in ‘darkest Africa’, I am shocked at how familiar everything seems. It appears that there is something about Africa, something so carnal, so native, so powerful, that it is difficult to misinterpret. Trees appear as I have seen them in the countless images I have encountered, the plains and deserts and baobab trees are just as I expected. I am confused by being in a place that is at once alien and somehow known. It is as if places and images already present in my subconscious have come to life. They therefore do not shock me, but how did they get there? Where did they come from? Are any of them mine? How will these preconceived notions affect what I do and do not notice here? What I do and do not judge? I suppose that only time will tell…