Tuesday, August 23

Up again before the sun and on the road for game viewing.  In the early morning sun, we drove past a Maasai boma – a group of mud huts in a stockade built of tree limbs and brush – to keep the livestock in and the wildlife out.  As we passed, men and women were heading out – the women to fetch water and the men to graze the cattle.  The boma blends into the surroundings so well that it is almost invisible. 

Today’s travels took us into wide open spaces, to an alkaline lake, and to the Kenya-Tanzania border, where we stopped by another Maasai boma.  The ride back to camp provided a real African massage – lots of bumps and lots of dust.  William joined us on this outing. 

Animals: Maasai giraffe, kori bustard, zebra, Grant’s gazelle, and Thomson’s gazelle.

Birds:  Fish eagle, vultures, Marabou stork, yellow-billed stork, saddle-billed stork, avocet, Egyptian goose, African spoonbill, gray-capped weaver, white-headed buffalo weaver, red-billed quela, and yellow-vented bulbul.

Morning Highlights:

Massai giraffes 

Maasai warrior walking near soda lake  

Marabou stork at soda lake – most common of Africa’s storks. 

Saddle-billed stork, standing and flying - unmistakable red and black bill, with yellow saddle. 

Egyptian geese – colorful bird - better to look than listen - it sounds like a Cairo taxicab. 

African spoonbills – distinctive long, spatulate bill. 

Brunch was waiting upon our return.  Here are some of the camp staff.

After lunch, we headed back to Arusha.  All of the camp staff all came out to see us off – we were treated to a lovely serenade! 

We stopped at the Olmoti-Elerai Clinic, which just opened in June of last year.  The clinic was founded by two American women who wanted to help reduce the toll of complications in childbirth.  In addition to funds raised in the U.S., their work was supported by Willy Chambulo, local hero and owner of Kibo Guides and Tanganyika Wilderness Camps.  (Our travel company, Overseas Adventure Travel, contract with Willy for guides and lodging on this trip – more on Willy later.)  The government pays for a doctor and local midwife to staff the clinic, but they still have huge needs – transportation, supplies, drugs, housing for the staff.  The doctor says the major medical problems he treats are malaria, pneumonia, and eye infections.

The road to, around and in Arusha is an education unto itself.  The most overwhelming impression is the endless dust – it covers everything and everyone. 

Out in the countryside, we see lots of scraggly, sad-looking cattle being herded from one place to another in an endless search for food and water. 

Also dried-up cornfields – sometimes with people working to gather up the dried stalks, sometimes with livestock munching on whatever they can find. 

It looks pretty dry now, but there must be some flowers in the wet season, because there are bee keepers in the area.  These hollowed-out logs hanging in trees are bee hives – safely out of reach of wandering animals.  

Several small towns and villages lie along the road to Arusha – they appear and disappear rather suddenly – just a strip of buildings and then back to dusty fields again. 

Most folks travel from place to place on foot; we saw people walking everywhere we went.  Car ownership is rare, but a few lucky folks – even an occasional Maasai warrior - have bicycles to speed things along.

Public transportation mostly takes the form of a mini-bus, known as the dala-dala.  Dala-dalas are operated by the driver and a conductor, whose duty is to collect money from the passengers as well as luring potential customers onboard.  The dala-dalas are informal and will stop along the way to let passengers climb in – there is no maximum number of passengers allowed and they always seemed to be packed with people going somewhere.

Water, or the lack of water, is a big issue in this part of the world.  Nearly half of Tanzania’s population lacks access to safe drinking water; hence high mortality rates from dysentery, typhoid and cholera.  We often saw people going to and from the nearest water supply – sometimes just a ditch or a creek, sometimes a pipe or even a well. 

We were fascinated by the women carrying things on their heads – not just water, but firewood, bananas, baskets of laundry, whatever needs to be moved from one place to another. 

As we reached the outskirts of Arusha, we stopped at Safe Water Ceramics of East Africa (SWCEA).  SWCEA is affiliated with Safe Water Now (http://www.safewaternow.org/), an organization which promotes the use of unglazed ceramic pot filters to purify water.  The SWCEA factory is managed and operated by local craftspeople.   

The filters made here use a technology that has been around for 200 years; the process is simple, effective and sustainable.  A round-bottom ceramic pot is made from a mixture of clay, sawdust and colloidal silver.  This mixture is molded into the pot shape with a rim, using a special press to ensure consistency.  The pot is the kiln-fired, which burns out the sawdust and leaves micro-pores coated with silver to kill bacteria.  The finished filter is placed in a plastic storage bucket with a spigot for dispensing the filtered water. 

 How amazing is that?  The SC contingent was much impressed; we, along with our colleagues from Ohio, purchased three filters to be given to a family or community in need.  They’ll be shipped to Karatu, where we’ll help present them to their new owners.    In this picure, the folks on either end are the local shop owners.  The woman to Margaret's right is a potter from Vermont - she and her family (husband and 12-year son) recently arrived here to spend a year.  The son is enrolled in the local school; the husband and wife team are working as volunteers in the pottery/clay filter shop.

And then we’re on to Arusha town – a city of nearly half a million people, all covered with dust.  Lots of folks seemed to live their lives along the side of the busy road – markets, factories, restaurants, and lots of people busy going somewhere.  We found little appealing here, and our guide assured us that we would NOT be going out in the town, at least not without him to escort us.

 Our home for the night is Olasiti Lodge and Garden Park - it is rather like a sanctuary (or maybe a fortress) amid the noise and bustle of the city.  The garden is filled with colorful flowers and the lodge is shaded by jacaranda, bougainvillea, and acacia trees.  What a delight to wash off the dust and hand over our dirty clothes to be laundered.