The Kilimanjaro Journals

Our Wedding

Yesterday was extraordinary. Libby and I stood in front of many of our closest friends and loved ones and celebrated our love for one another. The dedicated planning and attention from our friends ensured that the day was absolutely perfect. The weather was hot, but clear, and everyone seemed to have an amazing time.
We're certain to be posting many photos of the day soon. My good friend Kevin Finisterre has already posted some great photos he took yesterday. You can find them here (http://gallery.me.com/kevinfinisterre/100299).

The Impoverished Billionaires of Zimbabwe

 

I was at the Watering Hole, a restaurant/barclub/throwback to the colonial members-only clubs of Africa on Friday night, drinking with our roommate Adam. The place is this very chill place tucked away on the wooded banks of the Karanga river. As we were enjoying the Friday night after-work specials, a stout gentleman came in with the owner.

We all chatted about the weather and life in Moshi. The man explained that he was a white Zimbabwean, which started a very interesting discussion of the political madness that's happening there now (and for the last 30+ years). He brought out his camera-phone and showed us pictures of stacks of money on a table. It was the most money I've ever seen. "All those stacks of bills, mate," he said in his odd, not quite British accent, "won't buy my family food for a week!"

Inflation is so wildly out of control in the country that Robert Mugabe has been ruling/terrorizing that the government can't print bills fast enough. My new friend gave me this 5 billion dollar note as a souvenir. Notice on the front that the bill expires on 31 December 2008 and was just issued in May! This 5 billion dollars is equivalent to $0.20USD. Twenty years ago the Zimbabwean dollar was equal to a US dollar. The largest denomination printed is a 50 billion dollar note ($50000000000).

Not that having stacks of money on your kitchen table really does you much good now. The shops are all empty in this country.

Robert Mugabe won a run-off election on Friday to remain in power. It may have been the first one-man run-off election in history. His opponent, whom the majority of Zimbabweans voted for two-months ago was scared into dropping out by the Mugabe's oppressive regime.

It's a fantastic souvenir, a real poignant reminder of just how awful things can get when power is entrusted in such self-absorbed megalomaniacs, like Mugabe.

This is Africa!

Check out the photos from our one day safari at the Arusha National Park HERE!

May Day

The first of May is celebrated as Labor Day in Tanzania. Joe and I woke early to go to Amani to go with the soccer team to their semi-finals match. The team is made up of the older boys at Amani who mostly go to secondary school in town. A daladala picked us all up at the centre and drove us 20 minutes to the soccer field. In addition to the team we also brought the "spirit" crew, drums in tow. The ride to the field was probably the highlight of the whole morning, filled with energetic drumming and singing. Joe and I struggled to catch the words of their call and repeat songs.

We got to the field at 8:30 for a 9:00 start game. A crew of 2 men and a dozen young boys was busy with a long string and bag of powdered white marble lying the lines on the field.

Finally at 10:00 both teams and the field were ready and the game began. Amani had a great start scoring two goals in the first 15 minutes of the game. During half time the team sat in the shade, drank bottled water and ate powdered "energy" glucose.

Unfortunately the other team tied up the game and they had to do penalty kicks to break the tie. After a very tense few minutes Amani sadly lost the match. While the other team did rowdy victory laps around the field many of our boys were brought to tears. One of the teachers told us that Amani is the only team which doesn't bribe the refs and that's the reason that we lost. I surely hope that isn't true, but its hard to tell. So it became a very morose afternoon. The other team was quite obnoxious with their celebrating and there were surely no "good game" handshakes.

Just after the game ended we got a call from our friend (and new roommate) Adam saying that he had a car and was taking a group of people up to the Uru waterfall. We told him roughly where we were (not clearly knowing ourselves) and he said he would head in our direction. We started walking towards town to meet him. Just as I was becoming convinced that we were truly lost and stranded in the hot noon sun, we called Adam and told him we were near three silos. He saw the same silos and a moment later we saw his car coming down the road! Perfect.

Seven of us made our way up the bumpy dirt roads in a 4 door sedan to the beginning of a small hike to the Mataruni Waterfall. We walked on narrow trails through rainforest along the sides of Kili's foothills.

There were beautiful views of mountains rapidly diminishing into plains in the distance. As we got closer we could hear the falls. Adam had been here a few months ago and said they were nothing like the size they were now. At that time he was able to go behind the falls and not get wet. We stood 20 meters away and got soaked! It was truly awesome. We hung out on some nearby benches and then walked back. It was about 4:30 pm by then and the setting sun gave everything a sparkling warmth.

To round out such a full day, we came back home for a leftover dinner and then went to Glacier, a nearby outdoor bar. They have a covered area with the bar, pool and fussball tables and stage for Today's Sound Band, the house band. Then there is a huge yard with plastic tables and chairs spread throughout. Rounding things out are a treehouse, huge 4 person swings and bonfire. We had nice relaxing evening after a very full day.

P.S. Our multi-day safari to Lake Manyara got put off... it was too big of an undertaking with too little planning done! Instead we had this full day on Thursday, a relaxing day Friday and did a one day safari at the Arusha National Park on Saturday. It was amazing! I promise pictures soon...

wednesday outing

On Wednesday afternoon I went on a little adventure with my friend Lizzy. She had been asked by a lady in the U.K. to "check in" on the school that her charity is funding in a village outside of Moshi. In a sense, we were "secret shopping" the school. Checking to see that what they were telling the charity was accurate and that everything was running smoothly. A bit of an odd request, but it made an interesting outing for us!

Lizzy is also the proud new owner of a truck! So in our own wheels we made our way up the road in the direction of the school... we hoped. All we had was the name of the village- Timbirini and the general area it was in. At one fork in the road we stopped and asked some women if this was the right way to Timbirini. One lady misunderstood us to be offering a ride there and hopped in the back seat! This worked out well for us because she was able to tell us exactly when we arrived. There aren't any signs announcing the villages. With our eye on the diminishing fuel gauge we climbed higher and higher into banana tree forests. Finally the lady said we had arrived and sure enough, one of the few buildings on the road was a large warehouse type structure with "Uru District Vocational Centre" painted on the side.

We were welcomed graciously by one of the teachers. The principal of the school was out for the day, but this lady's English was great and she was very happy to answer our questions and give us a tour. It is a vocational school for secondary (high school) students. They either study tailoring or carpentry as their main subject and also have classes in English, math, science and technical drawing. The students all come from surrounding villages and their tuition is paid by the British charity. A lot of them are orphans or come from single parent homes.

The school also has a room with about 20 computers in it, but they didn't appear to be being used. Although they didn't say so, we got the impression that they didn't have a qualified computer teacher. On the chalkboard in the computer room were written out steps on how to double click to open a program.

We wrapped up our visit and carefully maneuvered our way out of their small driveway. Back down the hill into town, first stop gas station!

It's Official

This morning I had my probationary review. Valerie reviewed my work in the past three months at Amani and gave me a report of my strengths and areas to be improved upon. Then, she offered me a two year contract.  It's not exactly exciting - there wasn't any concern that my work wasn't appreciated here - but it feels good to have been validated with a contract and our conversation was very pleasant.

In other news, Libby and I are planning to rent a Landrover next weekend and make out for the wilds of the Tanzanian bush. Our friend Adam from Colorado who works at the Kilimanjaro Porter's Assistance Project studied Natural Resource Management and spent nearly a year living and working in Kenya's National Parks. He came up with the idea that we should run over to Lake Manyara National Park some weekend, leaving the local tour guides behind and just camping in the park.

Most tourists who come to Kilimanjaro race through the many wonders at break-neck speed, trying to see everything in two weeks. Up and down the mountain in 6 days, into a truck with 42 other middle-class sunburnt pleasure-seekers to the Serengeti, Ngorongoro or Manyara (often all three or more), zipping across the Savannah for a few minutes glimpse of a Lion, Leopard or Hyena. They can have all that.

We're planning to head out on Friday morning. We should arrive at the park in a few hours time (Manyara is under 200 km from us - full of elephants, giraffes, lions, hippos - 200 km!). We'll probably camp just outside the park, where the sites are just $5 a night, rather than inside where the sites are $35-50 per person. It's not going to be a cheap trip - nothing to do with tourism is in Tanzania. But, we will be saving on paying a tour company.

Art Classes

A couple weeks ago I started teaching art classes at Amani. I have 4 scheduled classes over 3 days per week. My first week there were a lot of field trips and extra things going on so every time I showed up for my class there were no kids! Finally on Friday the teachers had a special meeting and the kids were free. Instead of going into the classroom we met in the dining room. This turned out to be a mistake because instead of just having the "Starter" group, I had any kid who felt like drawing. It was basically chaos! We had fun though, gave up on much structure and just drew and colored together.

Since then I've been in the classroom with the kids for 40 minute blocks. They are really well behaved kids and I think they are really pleased to have the chance to do art. Amani hasn't really ever had a qualified art teacher before (although the jury is still out on whether or not I'm qualified!).

I have quite an extensive collection of supplies to chose from. My challenges now are deciding on projects we can do in 40 minutes and which can work with the number and ages of students I have. The class size ranges from seven to twenty and the ages, while are generally split in to older and younger groups, are also quite mixed just depending on the level of the individual child. There is a 16 year old in my Starters class, the rest of them being around 8. He wasn't so excited about the leopard with construction paper spots and a pipe cleaner tail!

Bragging

Today I did yoga on our front porch while looking at a pristine view of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

But after just half an hour...

...it was gone.