This is the Africa I dreamed about. 

We made it out of hellish Dar es Salaam yesterday and into the mountains. It's amazing up here in Lushoto. Forested, lush, calm, and cool. It seems like a paradise after the past month and a half in the city. This morning I spent 30 minutes watching a horned chameleon cruise around and eat bugs. He was so tame and friendly that he would crawl up on our hands and hang out, looking up curiously with his swiveling ball and socket eyes while gently balancing on his little two toed mitten feet. After that entertainment I sat on my bed and looked out over the greenery and meditated for a bit. Much to my amusement a trio of white breasted crows did an aerial dance with three large brown hawks in front of my window. I think I'm home.

Eastern Usambara Two Horned Chameleon

There are about 30 different Chameleons in Tanzania. They make up an odd bunch, with varied horns and head gear, different sizes and colors. I highly recommend you do a google photo search of African Chameleons. There are quite a few different ones up here in Lushoto. I will try and get a few to pose for your pleasure. 

On a walk through the forest we were followed by a flock of inquisitive Silvery Cheeked Hornbill.

I'm feeling much healthier now that I'm out of the heat and pollution. Nothing like cool mountain air and relaxing daily hikes through monkey filled forests to clear the city from the lungs. It was getting pretty bad in Dar. I guess it's usual to have to go through some levels of hell to make it to the more paradisiacal places. Not quite a trip through Dante's inferno, but a close human approximation.  Dar is the one of the fastest growing cities in the world right now. With no infrastructure, no running water for 80% of people, no housing, no trash collection, poor sanitation and sewage, no medicine and extremely expensive food you can imagine the chaos and suffering that ensues. Yet the exodus continues as almost an entire generation of youth swarm to the city. I shudder to think what it will look like in 10 years without an intervening miracle. 

Lushoto on the other hand is the polar opposite of the city. As I type this there are two brightly colored tiny tropical birds with long curved beaks doing a little mating dance on my window grate. I love this place. I've started treating a few patients. It seems that most everyone has health issues, which is status quo for having a human body. The difference is that they don’t have much access to medicine, and typically they can’t afford to see doctors or pay for the drugs they prescribe. Average yearly income here is $300. Gas prices are more than $5 per gallon and food prices aren’t all that much different than in the US. Needless to say I keep meeting wonderful people who have learned to live with all sorts of health problems that are totally treatable. I would describe some of these but I will spare the squeamish, as well as my own stomach, which is working on a big breakfast of banana pancakes made with cassava flour, finger millet flour, bananas, cow fresh milk and organic yellow yolked eggs. Even the food here is better. You can see it growing in little farms covering the mountain sides. Everything tastes so fresh and vital.  

Hanging out with my new friend. I like his hands.

A master of disguise

So far we have been too busy settling into our new house for me to do much leg work for the education project. Even so I have a few leads on some healthcare practitioners to train in acupuncture and TCM. There is one local doctor so far who wants to learn a little acupuncture and moxa. I have also started teaching a few patients how to treat themselves with moxa and next week I'm going to go visit a few tiny village clinics to show them some simple moxa techniques they can use for TB and immune compromised patients. We are off to a great start.

Two of my favorite South American flowers growing together on the edge of a wetland rice paddy. This intertwined entheogenic pair is Morning Glory (Ipomoea tricolor) and Angel's Trumpet (Brugmansia). I wonder if the locals know that these bushes induce visions.