The Kilimanjaro Journals

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.

Around the neighborhood

On my walk to Amani today...

Mud! The muddiest section of street we have to walk through is practically in front of our house.

What we can see of the neighbor's house from inside our wall...

Corn and bean fields are everywhere! Thankfully there has been a lot of rain so crops are flourishing.

There are stark contrasts between a lot of the houses around.

Karanga (Peanut) River separates our town, Soweto, from where Amani is.

Rubbish

With 36% of the country living on less than $2 a day, it's extremely difficult for Tanzania to gain revenue through taxation. Without taxes there are few, if any, public services like trash collection. Joe and I were unsure of what to do with our garbage. There's a big metal barrel in our courtyard that had some trash in it so we just added ours and planned to burn it. Unfortunately, its the rainy season, so the barrel quickly filled with a disgusting fly-attracting scum liquid which would not burn. After seeing so many houses with piles of trash out the front we decided to just tip the barrel on to the already small pile of refuse in front of our gate. Sorry neighbors, for the stench. Today it didn't rain at all so Joe went out after work to try to burn the pile (still stinking but smaller and spread out by chickens and dogs). Some neighbors approached and informed him that there is a public dump practically behind our house! Someone offered to move our trash to the dump for a few dollars. So now we know. During this same interaction Joe also found us a gardener. As it is the rainy , the small patch of grass in front of the gate is nearly a foot tall and our bushes are expanding. He will come in the morning.

weekend - guests

This past weekend we had the men who helped Joe find our house over for lunch. We were expecting five, three men and two of their wives, but only three came due to sicknesses. On Friday I asked Melania to prepare pilau (a very common dish of spiced rice and meat) for ten. In addition I made mashed potatoes, sausages, greens and a fruit salad. Needless to say there was a ton of food and we are still eating leftovers. The guys were very nice and polite. Valle, the one that Joe met first, is amazingly talkative! He covered most topics you could think of and had a strong opinion about them all.

Later that night we had a couple of young guys that Joe also met when house hunting over for dinner (leftovers). Ziggy and Reagan are both 18 years old or younger and speak excellent English. Reagan had a long conversation with us about politics and current affairs. Despite their education and skills they are both surviving by being street touts, hanging around the bus stand all day trying to make money off of tourists. There just aren't any other job opportunities available.

Machame

Within Joe's first week here he met a South African girl named Lizzy. She's also working here and will be staying longer than most people who just pass through. Yesterday she took me to Machame, where she runs a volunteer project. Machame is outside of Moshi on the way up to the main Kilimanjaro climbing route. The atmosphere is completely different. There's a dramatic temperature drop and a much more relaxed and friendly feeling. They actually need blankets at night!

Lizzy and her volunteers work with local schools to help them build toilets, kitchens or whatever they may need. It was a real treat to see this other side of the area. She has a very challenging job of having to arrange the materials, housing, food etc for the entire project. Plus being a babysitter for these often first-time travelers!

Sorry no pictures... next time!

Memoria

On Wednesday I met my friend Jen and her baby at Memoria market. We are lucky that this market is just around the corner from our house. It is a huge outdoor maze of stall after stall of clothes, sheets and curtains. We see huge bags of clothes arriving and getting sorted through outside the market. Rows of sewing machines make repairs and get everything ready to sell. It seems like most of the things are used donations from America. It is the ultimate Goodwill shop with very reduced prices.

I was after a new set of sheets and towels for Joe and me. With Jen to help with the bargaining I had my purchases in no time. Melania (our house helper) was still here when I got back so she washed everything that afternoon.

Also, here's a picture of the mat we bought last weekend for the living room. Notice the dirty and mishapen cushions we will hopefully replace this weekend.

coconut!

To make a lot of the dishes I learned to cook when we were in India a couple years ago, you need freshly grated coconut. Joe and I bought this tool, called an mbuzi, or goat, at the local market. Mmm coconut.

Baby goats and turkeys

It seems that spring is in the air as we've been seeing lots of babies around--chickens, goats, puppies...

We often hear this neighborhood turkey and its mate gobbling around our house.