Life in Africa III

As I have no broadband, it takes a long time to upload pictures, which is the reason I don't do a lot at a time. But most are of things outside my projects and I hope it might stimulate people go go and look for themselves.

I was lucky enough to given a fee pass to Tarangire National Park and for the people travelling with but our first visit there was with Big E who negotiated his way in there. We were looking for a water source for a water project to Mswakini Primary School.
This photo taken from the Tarangire Safari Lodge shows typical savannah. I remember my old geography teacher telling me that savannah is grassland with trees scattered so you can ride a horse.

I do not possess a telephoto lens, and my camera could be classed a a 'cheapie' but I did take some photos I was happy with. When you first visit a national park, you take your first photos, but later there are always better opportunities.

The Twiga is the national animal of Tanzania and well chosen. Graceful animals. I once watch some drinking, very cautious of lions and splaying their front legs so they could reach down more easily.

There are ostrich farms in Tanzania and it is possible to buy ostrich stakes, which very tasty. In the wild they seem to be very cautious so it is difficult to get close to them - and they can run! Never saw one with it's head in the sand though!

Mama Baraka did not like the concept of Big E using project money for his bar, so to 'keep her quiet' he allowed, and funded a chicken project for her. He built the coop for her and arranged the chickens from Mama Kuku who had the big farm at Moshi.
The first crop of chicken is reasonably easy, but by the time we were there, disease had started to creep in. Big E had pretty much run out of money, so we helped Mama Baraka with the vet fees and dawa - drugs. We ended up helping fund feed and then marketing. It was only a profit for her because she wasn't paying the costs.
Note the tie-up between KFC and KF Ostrich?
You will see elsewhere that we highly regarded Mama Baraka!

Stonetown, Zanzibar should be on everyone's bucket list! It must be remembered that the island is 90% Muslim and by going there you accept their culture. I have seen tourist men and women wearing skimpy clothing that is an affront to the locals. Otherwise tourists are very well accepted. I have written about Zanzibar previously - it is one of my favorite places.

We always stayed at The Haven guest house and could not have chosen a better place to stay. We have recommended to many people and have not heard a bad word. The rooms are comfortable and clean. The breakfast was a treat for us as well.

The romantic in me means that I expect to see Sindbad at every turn, and I am very much attracted to the dhows and the fish market. The port was a bustling place and full of interest.

As you would expect in a Muslim area, there are Mosques to server the local populations [and no doubt, visitors] and it certainly adds to the colour of the place when the call to prayer is sounded. In modern Zanzibar, the call to prayer is by loudspeaker, but I did spot this minaret but I have no idea if anyone calls out from there.

The Maruhubi Sultan's Palace [ruins]shows what life was like in the past - I'm not going to tell you about that, but encourage you to go and have a look yourself.

Suleman took us for a spice tour in a rickety old car - you could see the road through the floorboards! He was good though and now his tours are more up-market. He makes it an adventure. A very nice man, but a lookalike for a Sindbad baddie!

Times have changed so suspect you are not allowed to get so close to the rare Colobus Monkey. We were lucky to sit within a group and I was able to touch the tail of one. Actually in the hope there was a loose hair that I could take with me. It didn't happen.

Maroroni Primary School

Sometimes we were able to see Mt. Kilimanjaro and this photo was taken near Maroroni, but it is the only photo I have with any reference to Maroroni and I do not know why. I rarely took photos myself because I was doing my work and did not want the extra responsibility to take photos because it spoils the moment.

Maroroni is closer to Kikatiti which is a large market town and it is where condition are more conducive to growing crops. There is a large common grazing area cum football ground and the school is set just elevated slightly. Tending to be drier just around the school it had that look of glaring yellow soils and it was stony.

There was a line of teachers' accommodation set a little apart, these were one room affairs.
The doors of the classrooms faced to the north so they were in shade most of the time.

Our seminars there were successful as were the planting, but they were hampered a little because of the difficulty of digging the holes. Water was also an issue though there was a large concrete tank reservoir closeby. Mostly water came on a timed basis.
We did not supply food aid to this school because it was a lower priority than the other schools, although there certainly was hunger there at the time.
Generally everything went well with Maroroni Primary School and the kids were great as were the teachers although I guess, unremarkable.

However one issue cropped up: A friend of ours was posted to Maroroni from Makumira. This was a posting that looked underhand to me and I well knew the situation.
I have said elsewhere that the local Mratibu, education coordinator, has power to make recommendations to to the district office making the system corrupt. Space was needed at Makumira for an incoming teacher, and our friend became a victim envy, so she was posted the school that would cause the most disruption.
I decided to take our friend to Maroroni the meet with the head teacher and after explaining to him that our friend had three children, he agreed that the posting was not appropriate and wrote a letter. She was posted to a closer school.
I have written about this more fully in book form and may yet post it.

This demonstrates the difficulties that can occur.

Kwa Ugoro to Kitatiti - the long way

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.

Life in Africa 2

We lived for two years under the same roof as Big E's family, and of course you become involved with their life, family and activities as well. Here is Big E's mother who had bad cataracts and went to the big performance of a touring evangelist. His name eludes me but they generally play on poor saying they will perform miracles. Sure enough this old Bibi returned saying that her eyesight was restored - within a week she could not see again.

Our close neighbor, Mama Veronica, had her mother living with her and she took care of the family cow. This old woman would cut a trunk of a banana 'tree' and carry it off for the cow. Chopped up it is nourishment, but not a total food for zero grazed cattle. It has a high water content and the trunk is very heavy.
Famously I used to dance with her and nobody recognized that I have two left feet and little rhythm. They were polite!

Nai spent a lot of time with us, helping with language, telling us stories and watching what we did. As parents she was allowed far more leeway than our own kids, but she was a joy.
Nai enjoyed dressing up and getting her picture taken.

Olotu and his mate Eddie made some mud bricks to make a kennel for a dog that Olotu wanted to acquire. I actually 'encouraged' them to relocate the kennel ways from out bedroom window because I knew that the dog would bark! The bricks were made from the spoil of the soak pit for our bathroom. They put a lot of effort into this work. The Dog had pup and I helped thin them out - there is a story elsewhere.










Glory was a cousin of Big E's and she invited us to her brother's confirmation. Glory's mother was the sister of of Big E's mother and they were alike. They lived way up the Sanawari road, higher up the mountain. Thaday, like most who have these celebrations did not look happy but the was led to the high table by women and girls led by Mama Baraka. We ended up in a room with Glory who had stashed some beer and wanted us to down a bottle of Konyagi - we passed on that.

Fish farming is a good source of protein, but it takes some effort to build the pond and manage it. The fish are the small telapa but those ponds that have catfish in them to thin the population, have more sizable fish. The fish are well liked and are deep fried and even the heads are crunched up! The small fingerlings introduced into the pond are called 'mbegu' the same word used for seed. Harvesting is usually a team effort.

Ritual and tradition is important to the Maasai. There is much preparation required for a circumcision ceremony in the Mkonoo village.

A young girl carries her sibling through the fields at Mkonoo village. Life is not easy in such areas and responsibility is expected from a young person to look after their juniors.
At Mkonoo I have been 'lost' because we could not see over the maize so there was no horizon to get our bearings.

Across the road at Engorora, we worked with a committed fellow called 'Francis', who was a friend of Joshia. He asked us to help with a water project which would have to pass across this dry creek bed. In the end we strung the line high, between the trees. It would have been too difficult to bury the line safely.

Kwa Ugoro

On the way to Valeska, the road passes through the village Kwa Ugoro - that is if you pass through the Dolly Estate. There is a small market are on the back road of Usa River, beside a small bridge and the dirt road takes off from there. Through a coffee plantation which is shaded by some large Grevillea and Casuarina trees and beside an mfereje, irrigation channel, that went all the way down to Valeska and beyond. Past the big Mzambarau trees and the coffee plantation's workers quarters.
The owners of the coffee plantation were Greek and over the years we travelled through there, a son, we were told, built an new house and planted a new coffee plantation with the shading Grevillea a little further down the road, before the bridge that was the entrance to the Dolly Estate.
Subsequently with partners from Zimbabwe, they have bought the Dolly Estate, blocked access to the village populations, closed down the school - to be relocated - and set themselves up in a fashion that has taken advantage of a system that allows such things.
The awfulness of this is demonstrated when there was a severe drought and particularly the people in the Ngarenanyui and Valeska/Lostiti were desperate for water, these guys were spraying water on the road to keep the dust down!

The road through the Dolly Estate was interesting to me because it was an operational sisal plantation and we saw how the plants were grown and harvested. We passed by the factory area and where they hung the cleaned sisal out to dry.
Sisal is used in rope making and used to be used on ships, but nylon has taken its place, though it is on a comeback.
Just by the drying racks there was a wet crossing which was the mfereji and sometime it was much deeper than others, probably because someone upstream let more water through.

The road roughly followed the river [never really thought of a name before, I guess it was the Usa] and there were remnants of old indigenous forest and I used to collect seed from them from time to time.
Over the period we travelled through there [when the sisal plantation changed hands, the route we were encouraged to take changed] small farms became established. Maybe they were simply squatters or received their parcel of land through the ballot system that is used. Either way, I did not mind, but I supplied trees to them and over the years, we could see the difference. And the farms that were established were very productive.
The further you go from the mountain, the drier it becomes.

Eventually the winding, sometimes wet road reaches another wet crossing - that is somewhat tricky to negotiate - the road becomes a wide and stony like a hard pan or perhaps old beach and there are several tracks into the village of Kwa Ugoro.
The track we usually took was past the home of the woman we helped who had a child with malaria, and just past there was the area that became very wet at one time. We were ferrying a full load of cement to Valeska school and Loti thought the road looked solid - it wasn't and down we went! The only way out would have been to unload the cement so the vehicle was not bellied - but along came some youths. They would extract us for Tsh 10 000/- but Loti wanted to negotiate the price down. I thought it best to be out of there, so flashed the note and they had us out within half an hour.
There is a small vege stall just by the school and I was always surprised that there was no larger market there. You can bet there was, we just didn't it!

The school is set in a large area with yellow soils and always dry looking. The buildings, some made from local stone, are stained by the rain, splashing the soil up the walls and despite a few trees such as Mjohoro, Delonix and a species I did not know but possibly a Ficus, the yellow soil glares in the sun! Always it was hot when we visited there.
We found the teachers to be friendly and supportive of our environmental project but the outcomes from the planting was not as good as in other schools. The reason for this is probably down to the teachers because their roll is to motivate their charges; but water is some distance away and time collecting certainly was a factor.
We carried out extensive seminars and tree planting programmes over the years and the school was a recipient of the food aid we managed to provide.
During one planting season the older age group within the school took up to three trees to their home. This resulted in a few parent requesting more, which we were able to do.
Possibly the difference between the outcomes of Valeska and Kwa Ugoro [their conditions were similar] was that Valeska had materials to make tree shelters - shade because reflected heat.










The pupils of Kwa Ugoro prepare to receive a food allocation.










The kids happily with their food allocation.









The pupils gather to listen to my story.









Staff and prize winners - the guy in black became the Head Teacher at Valeska.










The prize winners - some of the trees did well by those who were motivated. The guy with the purple trousers was the Head Teacher at Valeska when we did the ground work for the school development and he can be credited with us going on with the project. Obviously for some reason he was demoted.









The Kwa Ugoro School Environmental Committee, elected by the pupils in a secret ballot. All but one are girls. They were a good bunch of kids.

Life in Africa 1

I have mainly posted items about my work and some aspects of what else was did in Tanzania.

From time to time I will add 'life in Africa' from my photo album and
some notes.










The dusty Sanawari road. Just up from the main Moshi - Nairobi road, we walked up this road for two years while we lived at Sanawari. Big E's bar was further up on the right and there was a shop that sold wild animal meat [zebra, eland]. To go into town we had to cross the main road and head down past Mt Meru Hospital and AICC complex. The crossing was often difficult and I used the term 'spaghetti junction'.
Just up above that old tree stump was the local fruit/vege market where we continued to purchase our needs through the years.











The Agency office was in the CEDAH complex almost beside spaghetti junction and opposite was this small shop and bar area. This area became a timber yard where I purchased materials for some of our building projects. The small fence in the middle of the pic is made from sisal stalks that have been split.
Sisal is harvest annually until it throws up a stalk and flower head, then the plant dies. It is either replaced or 'babies' at the base grow on.









Nai sits happily in our house sporting the tiki [on her waist] we had given her. Nai is the daughter of Big E and she was a delight to have around. Because we lived in the same house but in separate parts, Nai was not supposed to 'bother' us but we did not mind her about. She would be called by her mother but she would always leave her sandals [malapa] behind - a perfect excuse to return!
We kept loosely in contact when we left Sanawari and I attended her Confirmation. I hear she is a mother now.









Helena was Big E's housegirl, or should I say, Mama Baraka's. Here doing the family washing at the water tap that sat on the edge of our 'front lawn'. Helena was nice young woman who tried to make us speak Kiswahili because she said she knew no English. Big E had her sweep the Msisiwe leaves from the nursery each morning - sometimes an onerous task.









The house cow was kept at the back of our house on a zero grazing regime. Food is brought to the animal each day, rather than the animal graze outside. The Heifer Project recommends this type of husbandry but it needs to be very clean. This one stunk because of the quality of food provided -the excess went rotten and the effluent was not removed. I saw many really successful zero grazing units and some that fed bio-gas units.










Rural roads are either muddy or dusty, and because it is a dry climate, mainly they are dusty and that red dust finds its way through most vehicles. The Maruti had a canvas canopy that was ripped, so we became covered. One trip to Likamba saw us particularly covered - the dust was 30cm deep and the poor folk we passed as they walked around the village were bathed in in this fine, red/brown dust!













I used to keep bees and have always had an interest in them, and of course I was interested in the bees in Tanzania. I had considered that beekeeping could become part of my assignment but decided that it might be too complicated to do well. However I did make a study of bees there and encouraged some people.
This hive is traditional, but other traditional hives are made out of logs and hung in trees. There are new styles that have proved quite successful.
If you disturb them [take honey] bees abscond quite easily, but on the other hand they populate a new hive quite easily.
Samson used honey to make a strong brew and together with medicinal uses, brewing is a major use of honey - there is not much toast. Samson collected puffballs from old [very] pit latrines and used the spore to attract bees to an empty hive; also to quieten them. He warned not to breathe in the spores because they a hallucinogenic - I never tested that.










Termite are an essential part of nature by utilizing organic material and creating holes for rain to percolate into the soil. If only they did not disturb mankind! I admire the way they go about their work but they eat young trees and poles for buildings/fences. They ate the Pinex ceiling board in our house - leaving just the paint! A thin layer of paint.
Break parts of a termite mound, wet it and it can be used for very good mortar between bricks. When you do that, the soldier termites rattle in warning with pincers at the ready! They fiercely defend their home!
Sometimes, as beside our house, there is a need to kill off the mound so the queen is dug up and destroyed. Now if a queen bee is lost, they will breed another, I'm not sure if termites can do that.
We replaced the roof of Manyata Primary School because all the rafters and supporting timbers were eaten by termites!










I had no idea that I would be able to cross the Serengeti, but some of my duties took me there. I drove through Ngorongoro Conversation Area four times and had a pass to Tarangire National Park. As well my work was on the other side of the Arusha National Park, which was a free public road until for most of the time and then I had to negotiate access.
I did not take a flash camera [don't own one] so my photos were never quite as outstanding as others, but later I was able to get quite close to a lot of animals. Above is a cheetah.










Lions shelter in the shade of an Acacia tree, quite close to the road across the Serengeti plain.










On a trip to Mwanza we managed to witness the Wildebeest migration. An awesome sight and at times we had to give way to them on the road. Officially 'animals have the right of way' and we respected that.










There is a small area near the entrance of Arusha National Park, called Little Serengeti because often animals can be seen there - some locals took unsuspecting tourists there and took a fee for park entry which was not applicable.
There are no big cats in this park and people walk from Ngarenanyuki to Usa River, but they risk buffalo attack.










While we lived within sight of Mt Kilimanjaro, she did not lift her skirt of clouds very often and many of our photos of her are unconvincing. The mountain claims a few lives annually because it is the highest mountain in Africa and the peak lacks oxygen.
I never climbed it - too expensive for a volunteer, and not my priority, though I would have liked to see the flora.
We did visit the gate of the National Park and visited the home village of Machoia, a teacher we knew, which was on the slopes of the mountain.
Nearby there is an area where Maasai gatherings are held on a very large scale. These are traditional meetings and perhaps festivals, where no doubt the becomes a mixture of genes.