From anywhere in New Zealand, it is a relatively short drive to the sea and you just know it is just beyond the horizon. It takes a mind adjustment to realize just the enormity of that is the continent of Africa. From Arusha we were heading West and the sea would be over 2000 km as the crow flies. We only went a token distance to the West.
The track is narrow from Kwa Ugoro towards Valeska and about half way along the journey there is a farm complex Loti told me was owned by Ethiopians. There were derelict workers quarters because the farm had grown cotton in the past and now they grew maize, beans and farmed dairy cows. At one point the farm was managed by an Australian guy who was married to a Kikuyu woman. They caused trouble by blocking off the irrigation channel to Valeska and as usual the Valeska people took retribution and it was the farm workers who were in the firing line.
Beyond the Ethiopian farm the savannah dries out and the road becomes very dusty and the natural vegetation becomes Acacias. At a certain point, there are two houses - and I tried hard not to cause too much dust to drift - a track takes off to the left toward the village of Valeska. Where the the road we had been following goes on to, I have no idea - perhaps 2000 km to the sea!
I have already posted about the building of the school and the successful environmental programme - the tree plantings at the school stand out, but I find small gains satisfying.
In the yard of one of the farms I noticed few trees planted with margarine pottles [actually Kibo vege oil] placed beside the tree as we had to the school kids to do. I stopped a called out 'Hodi' to announce I was there and this Bibi came out. I asked her how she knew to use the Kibo pots to irrigate her trees.
She told me that her granddaughter had shown her, and she had been taught by a white man. Now if you listen to popular culture, children have their place and adults do not take much notice of them - I don't believe that for a minute and this just proves it.
There was a mosque in the village, and we supplied trees for planting around the building and I thought that was important as well.
I have said elsewhere that the first Head Teacher can take the credit for us carrying out the building work, and I felt it unfair that he was demoted and moved away - maybe he requested it, I have no idea. His replacement from Kwa Ugoro was absolutely fine to work with as well.
Most times we called there it was dry, dusty and sun's glare was strong. If I had a load of cement I would pick up some boys from the school and they would unload it at the Head Teacher's house where storage was safer. The boys were covered in cement dust but did not seem to worry, I could imagine the difficult of soap powder lathering up to clean the cement. It is likely that the boys did their own washing.
Loti's sister lived just on the Maroroni side of Valeska, and we often called in there so Loti could chat to her. The dry was difficult for them and to help out Loti took his niece back to his home place to care for her. Well, I took her and the girl was a Std. VII leaver but with no other immediate prospects. I have no doubt that having the girl living was difficult for Loti and his wife, just as it was for the young woman. The area from Valeska towards Maroroni is Maasai country and we interacted with a number of families through there with some making good progress with their plantings.
The road becomes stonier and less dusty and there are a few Baobab trees. One small boma we arrived at there seemed to be nobody around, and no response to our 'Hodi, hodi!'
As we were leaving, five young men, dressed in black and faces painted white, charged out of the Acacias at us - quite startling to us.
They wanted to catch us because they wanted us to supply them with trees! As well there was a brother further on who would like some trees - his name was 'Jehoshaphat'. We called on Jehoshaphat and his new fife was also very keen to plant trees on their shamba.
On the road we picked up a woman who requested for her small holding and she too was on our list of regular households to call on.
I spotted on woman walking along the road with an axe, and on asking she told me she was going to cut down a tree to use in the repair of a building. I gave her a speech about the need to plant five trees before you cut one! She smiles and said she would plant as many trees as I cared to supply. I took her five trees of assorted species and she planted them and cared for them.
There seemed to no village structure for these people and we called on them regularly to look at their trees and in the season supply others. Usually we did not have the time to work in a village household by household and I enjoyed the interaction with them.
There is a junction where the road sort of doubles back to Maroroni and the other heads straight as an arrow for Kilimanjaro airport. There are the pylons and wires of the navigation system for the airport and I could see why Kilimanjaro is an expensive airport to fly into - the insurance cover is so high! On this road is Samaria Primary School and some distance away is Lostiti Primary School - porini, wilderness.
Maroroni Primary School sit just a little elevated from the rest of the village. It is back among the Meru people and where there is more adequate rainfall, thus better cropping conditions.
The road on to Kikatiti is generally good save in the wet season when small lakes appear and driving becomes more tricky.
Just as the road approaches Kikatiti [and the main road] a wide flat area with a tenancy to be boggy has made the road to divide in a search for better traction. When we left Tanzania 2004, most of this area had bee built on.
Two things about this area.
There is often a stock auction here and one day a man driving perhaps fifty goats caused me to slow down and pick carefully where I was driving. One sickly, skinny goat fell down in front of the Landrover, and I went right over the top of it! The man came to me accusing me of running over the goat, but as he demanded money, the goat got up and walked away. I had not run over it, I had straddled it.
One woman who had built a new house was in a wheelchair. I have no idea of the circumstances involved but she asked me for trees to plant in her yard. Each time I visited [and sometimes with fruit] her trees were growing and she seemed cheerful. Never asking for financial assistance. She was quite happy with her lot.
Baobab tree with beehives hanging in the branches. One boma had a Baobab growing in their yard. How cool is that!
Maasai men put on a show for our visitors. They had just slaughtered a cattle beast and I was interested to see what they had done because I have butchered deer pigs and sheep. The men consume most of the meat and the women use the offal and entrails.
We gave Neema a lift home from school to inspect the trees she had planted for her father. He had requested a lot of trees assuring me that they would be well cared for by Neema. She was rightly proud of her achievement.
This Maasai woman was proud of her trees, she was the senior wife in her boma.
Kids from a Maasai family show off the trees they are going to plant around their father's farm. He wanted Grevillea, but I think it would be too dry there for them.
The track is narrow from Kwa Ugoro towards Valeska and about half way along the journey there is a farm complex Loti told me was owned by Ethiopians. There were derelict workers quarters because the farm had grown cotton in the past and now they grew maize, beans and farmed dairy cows. At one point the farm was managed by an Australian guy who was married to a Kikuyu woman. They caused trouble by blocking off the irrigation channel to Valeska and as usual the Valeska people took retribution and it was the farm workers who were in the firing line.
Beyond the Ethiopian farm the savannah dries out and the road becomes very dusty and the natural vegetation becomes Acacias. At a certain point, there are two houses - and I tried hard not to cause too much dust to drift - a track takes off to the left toward the village of Valeska. Where the the road we had been following goes on to, I have no idea - perhaps 2000 km to the sea!
I have already posted about the building of the school and the successful environmental programme - the tree plantings at the school stand out, but I find small gains satisfying.
In the yard of one of the farms I noticed few trees planted with margarine pottles [actually Kibo vege oil] placed beside the tree as we had to the school kids to do. I stopped a called out 'Hodi' to announce I was there and this Bibi came out. I asked her how she knew to use the Kibo pots to irrigate her trees.
She told me that her granddaughter had shown her, and she had been taught by a white man. Now if you listen to popular culture, children have their place and adults do not take much notice of them - I don't believe that for a minute and this just proves it.
There was a mosque in the village, and we supplied trees for planting around the building and I thought that was important as well.
I have said elsewhere that the first Head Teacher can take the credit for us carrying out the building work, and I felt it unfair that he was demoted and moved away - maybe he requested it, I have no idea. His replacement from Kwa Ugoro was absolutely fine to work with as well.
Most times we called there it was dry, dusty and sun's glare was strong. If I had a load of cement I would pick up some boys from the school and they would unload it at the Head Teacher's house where storage was safer. The boys were covered in cement dust but did not seem to worry, I could imagine the difficult of soap powder lathering up to clean the cement. It is likely that the boys did their own washing.
Loti's sister lived just on the Maroroni side of Valeska, and we often called in there so Loti could chat to her. The dry was difficult for them and to help out Loti took his niece back to his home place to care for her. Well, I took her and the girl was a Std. VII leaver but with no other immediate prospects. I have no doubt that having the girl living was difficult for Loti and his wife, just as it was for the young woman. The area from Valeska towards Maroroni is Maasai country and we interacted with a number of families through there with some making good progress with their plantings.
The road becomes stonier and less dusty and there are a few Baobab trees. One small boma we arrived at there seemed to be nobody around, and no response to our 'Hodi, hodi!'
As we were leaving, five young men, dressed in black and faces painted white, charged out of the Acacias at us - quite startling to us.
They wanted to catch us because they wanted us to supply them with trees! As well there was a brother further on who would like some trees - his name was 'Jehoshaphat'. We called on Jehoshaphat and his new fife was also very keen to plant trees on their shamba.
On the road we picked up a woman who requested for her small holding and she too was on our list of regular households to call on.
I spotted on woman walking along the road with an axe, and on asking she told me she was going to cut down a tree to use in the repair of a building. I gave her a speech about the need to plant five trees before you cut one! She smiles and said she would plant as many trees as I cared to supply. I took her five trees of assorted species and she planted them and cared for them.
There seemed to no village structure for these people and we called on them regularly to look at their trees and in the season supply others. Usually we did not have the time to work in a village household by household and I enjoyed the interaction with them.
There is a junction where the road sort of doubles back to Maroroni and the other heads straight as an arrow for Kilimanjaro airport. There are the pylons and wires of the navigation system for the airport and I could see why Kilimanjaro is an expensive airport to fly into - the insurance cover is so high! On this road is Samaria Primary School and some distance away is Lostiti Primary School - porini, wilderness.
Maroroni Primary School sit just a little elevated from the rest of the village. It is back among the Meru people and where there is more adequate rainfall, thus better cropping conditions.
The road on to Kikatiti is generally good save in the wet season when small lakes appear and driving becomes more tricky.
Just as the road approaches Kikatiti [and the main road] a wide flat area with a tenancy to be boggy has made the road to divide in a search for better traction. When we left Tanzania 2004, most of this area had bee built on.
Two things about this area.
There is often a stock auction here and one day a man driving perhaps fifty goats caused me to slow down and pick carefully where I was driving. One sickly, skinny goat fell down in front of the Landrover, and I went right over the top of it! The man came to me accusing me of running over the goat, but as he demanded money, the goat got up and walked away. I had not run over it, I had straddled it.
One woman who had built a new house was in a wheelchair. I have no idea of the circumstances involved but she asked me for trees to plant in her yard. Each time I visited [and sometimes with fruit] her trees were growing and she seemed cheerful. Never asking for financial assistance. She was quite happy with her lot.
Baobab tree with beehives hanging in the branches. One boma had a Baobab growing in their yard. How cool is that!
Maasai men put on a show for our visitors. They had just slaughtered a cattle beast and I was interested to see what they had done because I have butchered deer pigs and sheep. The men consume most of the meat and the women use the offal and entrails.
We gave Neema a lift home from school to inspect the trees she had planted for her father. He had requested a lot of trees assuring me that they would be well cared for by Neema. She was rightly proud of her achievement.
This Maasai woman was proud of her trees, she was the senior wife in her boma.
Kids from a Maasai family show off the trees they are going to plant around their father's farm. He wanted Grevillea, but I think it would be too dry there for them.
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