Espresso Yourself!

Another fantastic day. We arrived at Njiro Cinema at 9 and left for a village near Mt. Meru (about 30 minutes away). We stopped at an orphanage for children under 5 first. Before going, we picked up 10 kg of rice and a huge bag of fruit to take (because it really is quite rude to go to an orphanage empty handed). Most of the "older" ones were out playing so we spent an hour with the babies. SO adorable. Justin (the local guide) told us that 60% of the orphans' mothers die from HIV and the other 40% are from various diseases and death during pregnancy. So sad. The orphanage is also severely understaffed. There were at least 9 babies and who knows how many toddlers with three house mothers to feed, change and look after all of them. One of the house mothers was telling us that because they're so understaffed, the babies often get no real attention or love. :(

After, we visited the local hospital, where we saw the AIDS Clinic (which gives out free meds to HIV/AIDS infected persons), a kitchen for families to make meals for their sick relatives and a funeral procession going on. Beate, wife of the couple who run Wild-Tracks (www.wild-tracks.com), told us about how the entire family (sometimes 100s) will come together to collect, clean and bury the body. They'll spend at least a week mourning the loss.

Later, we visited a private secondary school. The boys, who board there, spoke English quite well and were so friendly with all of us. They sang Tanzania's song, talked to us about their

computer labs and what they hope to become (an engineer/doctor and history professor in the mix).

Finally, we started walking towards the coffee plant nursery. Along the way, we saw banana trees, coffee plants and bean plants all along the most beautiful backdrop of Mt. Meru on one side and a view looking into the valley on the other. Along the way, Justin picked off coffee beans and taught us how they get the bean out. The picture below shows the outside covering (the big red blob) and the slimy, but sweet bean that's inside (two brown blobs). There's also another covering on the brown beans, exposing a gray-er looking bean that then gets dried for several weeks, roasted for 30-50 minutes (depending on what kind of roast - medium, french roast, dark roast) and then packaged (for whole beans) or ground (for espresso/filter drip/french press).

The nursery was also pretty cool. We met some of the members of the co-op where Beate and Frank buy their coffee. The co-op is now switching to organic coffee plants so they showed us the different stages at which the plants are growing (3 mo, 5 mo, 9 mo, 2.5 yrs). The chairman said that they switched from traditional Arabica coffee to organic because it requires less time/money to harvest them, they yield more (10 kg v 7 kg for traditional) and can be sold at a much higher price - an organic tree costing 500Tsh and a traditional tree costing 100Tsh.

Finally around 2, we started to head toward Beate/Frank's house for lunch. There was SO much food and it was SO amazing. Hands down some of the best I've had while I've been here (as I write this 5 hours later, I am still full). We started out with five plates of fruit, including pineapple, watermelon, papaya, mango, passionfruit, bananas, oranges and avocados. We all were stuffed after the fruit dishes but then came the main meal: ugali (like spongy cream of wheat), chapati, boiled bananas, rice, goat curry, spinach and a salad. Oh man, SO good! We ended lunch with some recently-roasted medium roast coffee and Norwegian waffles (Beate is from Norway and Frank is from Tanzania so we got the mixed food!). I'm not normally a black coffee drinker. In fact, I need quite a bit of milk / sugar before coffee is acceptable. This coffee though was so good with only a sprinkle of sugar.

When Beate said we could go see the coffee factory when we were already, there was no response. We were all so full that we had to sit around for another 10 minutes before getting up and walking around to another building next door (literally no more than 30 ft away). Inside, was a table with several jars, which Beate used to explain the entire coffee process and show the difference between the different roasts. Since it's such a small operation, their coffee roaster can only handle 4 kg of beans at a time. They then put the 400 degree beans in a box with wire on the bottom to cool off before sorting the bad beans out. They then package the beans / ground coffee in plastic bags, which they seal off and put in handmade bags with adorable designs (Kili, giraffe, zebra, safari, Maasai people, etc). The bags are finally tied off with banana fiber twisted into a strong string. Normally, 250 g sells for 4500Tsh but we got coffee included in our fee! Honestly, I thought the $35 for everything today was a steal. And if you're interested in ordering coffee, you can order online: http://www.wild-tracks.com/kaffe_eng.htm.

And now a nap before the big England v America game. Being in a bar here yesterday when South Africa played Mexico (Meksiko in Kiswahili) was amazing: the cheering, the clapping, the excitement was fantastic. The cigarette smoke from all the expats - not so much. Let's hope it's not as bad tonight...