Karibu... uh, I mean, thank you.

Every morning there are a stream of ladies  who walk past our hotel carrying bananas down to town.  This morning we decided to follow their trail and head up into the hills.  We learned a few things, one of them being that walking with bananas on your head is harder than it looks.  If you don't believe me go fill up a laundry basket with all the produce in your house and see how far you can go.  If that gets to easy try strapping your toddler on your back.  These women must be made of pure muscle.







As we walked to the end of the paved streets a man that was hanging out at a fork in the road said he'd take us around.  We walked up a steep incline where people live and farm.  

It is crazy because the land is literally a mountain and the women were sowing and hoeing on 45º angles. Even old women who looked to be 70 yrs. old were in there hacking away. Every person that passed talked a bit to the guy like they were old friends and probably laughed at us trailing behind him.  I got the feeling everyone knew everyone on the mountain. 

At one point we passed a school and the teacher was a man who'd crossed out path on our way up the trail.  He let us into his classroom and I asked permission to take some pictures of the children.  When I flipped the the camera around to let them see see the image they erupted with giggles.  I went around the class and took their individual photos with the same reaction every time.

We ended up meeting our guide's wife and child; clothes hanging on the line, some fierce looking ducks and a few chickens pecking around.  As we walked away from the wife who was cooking on a fire outside, I tried to remember the word for "thank you" in Swahili.  I said, "Karibu" and she responded in something I of course didn't understand but smiled sheepishly hoping she'd understand.  Halfway down the hill I realized that I'd said "You are welcome" to her, instead of "thank you."  Hopefully she got the idea...

On our way down we rested at a little river where an old woman was washing her clothes and laying them on the rocks to dry.  I was almost jealous of her serene washing environment and that I pay for my dryer sheets to have the "mountain fresh" scent her clothes, by way of being dried in a beautiful jungle mountain setting, would in reality have.