Songea is a beautiful place of rolling hills and occasional small mountains. Just a few miles outside of town the land becomes mostly savanna with thin patches of forest covering the mountains and small villages everywhere. These villages are mostly connected by village paths which are little more than hiking/mountain biking paths that criss cross the hills and are constantly intersecting with each other making a sort of rust colored web. Walking or biking on them is a truly unique experience, especially for a westerner, as these paths at times will literally pass within a foot of people's houses and cut right through people's farms. As a rule of thumb for every ten minutes I bike on one of these paths I greet around 10-15 people as you are constantly passing people sitting in front of their houses cooking, sewing, fixing bikes, drinking, or just gossiping and it's considered a bit rude to pass people, even ones you don't know, without at least saying hello as you fly by on the bike. This is a huge advantage over actually walking as when walking you'll have to refuse coming into eat, have a drink, or food on a fairly regular basis. Just as an example I stopped to speak with a friend of mine from when I was a Peace Corps volunteer and like 6 other people came over. I tossed out one of the two greeting I know in the tribal language here to an old man and he answered me, shook my hand, and said "Please wait here" and wandered off without further explanation. Even the Tanzanian I was biking with at the time had no clue what was going on so we just sort of shrugged and sat there waiting for him to return. After about 5 minutes he came back with two eggs and said "You know tukuoni (the greeting I had said). Please take these." and handed me the eggs. That same day we had to refuse lunch and promise to eat with them another day twice as we were behind schedule on surveying. It isn't a hard and fast rule that you MUST greet everyone you pass or they will hate you or anything but when you are walking within feet of people who are sitting on the doorstep of their house even in the US you would at least have to throw out a head nod, wave, or something so the same rule applies here just a little stronger and you are doing the above every 2-3 minutes if not more often instead of driving by in a car with the house hundreds of feet away and the people who live there inside it watching TV. It's just very different and depending on what mood your in is amazing or very stressful as sometimes your not really all that interested in a cross cultural experience and just want to get your work done for the day or enjoy the beautiful scenery and get lost in your own thoughts as you bike along. Since I haven't been here for almost four years I was thankfully in the mood for a solid cross cultural experience both times I went out with Joseph Mbawala (the well expert we're working with) and it was an amazing experience. It was like Peace Corps light. I already speak the language to a tolerable level, I already know more or less what I'm doing culturally, funding is already secured, and everyone I'm working with at the NGO has already done this twice with me and once with the PCV who replaced me so we are all on the ball and know our roles. All I had to do was cruise along on my bike with Joseph and take "before" pictures of all the sites and occasionally repeat what Joseph had already said concerning the fact that we will only come once with the lorry so it is very important that everything that needs to be moved to the well site be ready on that day and that it be somewhere where the truck can get to it. As you'll find out in a later entry that last requirement is really more pleading than a real request. Wandering around villages is always fun as you never really know what is going to happen but it is far more special in my mind when you can do that within a context. Having actual work to do gives you a reasonable answer when people ask you what you are doing there (out of curiosity not hostility) and automatically gives you a reference point for interacting with people which I love since I'm not very good at "how is the weather" types of conversations. As much fun as the Serengeti safari was I went on when I first got here (we saw a leopard from like 4 feet away and our truck was literally attacked by a heartabeast both of which are unheard of events) I think this was more fun.