First days;Bagamayo and the shamba (farm)

The dalla dalla was a mite tight. At first we were sitting on the left side together then Elke noted that would be the side the sun shone on. I moved and sat beside a woman. Then the woman in front of us sat where we had been so Elke and moved into that seat. then the woman moved to sit beside the woman I had sat beside. Rules/customs around men touching women. I swear I didn't touch her!

So onward towards Bagamayo stopping , well barely, with the fellow at the door calling “Bagagmayo” then we speed off. Arrival at the bus station. Elke tells me it is new, been here only a year, lots of taxis buses, bajajis and piki pikis. She knows a good spot to get a beer, the Florida Inn. We sit upstairs overlooking the street, eat chips mayai and drink a Savannah (apple cider from SA) I am in culture shock I think. Isn't this supposed to be a town? It seems more like endless small apartments at the side of numerous roads, I am finding it hard to get my head around this, There are lots of people, few in uniform but no one seems overly threatening or amazed to see me. Well some of the kids and the older men are sure staring, but if I smile or lift my eyebrows or say “Mambo” I get a smile back and “pao”

Elke is eager to get back to the Baobab Shamba so we hail a bajaji and hurtle past numerous storefronts selling almost everything one might need as well as little displays of mangoes and pineapple, tomatoes, potatoes, cassava and bananas. The traffic coming to town seems to consist mostly of bicycles loaded down with piles of 3 foot sticks and huge bags of charcoal 4 or 5 to a load. They aren't riding as much as pushing them along.

The road into the shamba is rather rough , sand, ruts and huge bumps winding its way through the cattle corrals, mango trees and cashews. There are few people here. Elke wasn't expected for another couple of days so we set up our tent and say hello to Gabriel and Kenneth then wander around looking at all that has been built and where it all rests.

Over the next few days I begin adjusting to the heat. The other volunteers show up on piki pikis each morning, the crew making bricks starts work at 7 and toils away with a few breaks till 5 or 6. In the hot sun. I do not know how they do it. I walk around with sweat dripping off my nose barely moving and these guys are chopping into the clay bank with their hoes which are offset, the blade about a foot long, mounted like a pick with 5 foot handle.

Then add water and sand squish it up with their feet and load it into the forms, carried over to the drying area, flipped and slipped out. These bricks will be fired sometime soon. After about day three we had an enormous rainstorm in the night and a lot of the bricks don't look so good now.......

There are also some other men, fundis is what all these guys are called, mixing sifted sand, cement and water then pushing the resifted and mixed mix into a brick press. They show up about every other day and work all day long punching out these bricks, laying them gently in rows to set in the sun.

We have come into Bagamayo a few times now; spent the night at Francesco's Christmas eve, had dinner with Amy, Kirsten and Christina at the Millennium , walked the beach, swam in the Indian Ocean, it is so warm!

I commissioned some earrings in ebony, came to town on market day...OMG! The number of people, the quantity of goods... I so wanted to take pictures, but, not recommended!

Bought some fabric, a wok(for the shamba) and a few carved bowls. I have been restraining my spending impulses but enjoying the different beers. They quench the thirst like nothing else, except maybe “Stoney Tangawizi” the local Ginger Beer.

Arusha to Dar Es Salaam

It was our time to go, Sean was flying out to Nairobi to meet his girlfriend and go safari, Seppo off to Finland for Christmas and we were scheduled (or so we thought) for arrival in Bagamayo in 36 hours. Juliet had arranged our bus tickets to Dar and when Seppo dropped us off it looked like we might take the early bus. No go, our tickets said 9 and that’s what bus we were getting. Unfortunately our seats were between windows, fortunately the bus had air conditioning and the temperature was now 31C. Unfortunately the air conditioning broke down. At one point it was, according to the on bus info display, 42C. We stopped twice in the middle of ..somewhere so folks could go pee and a couple times before Moshi to pick up passengers. At most stops including the weigh station locals held up offerings to the windows. In the 11 hours we sat on that bus we got off once for a 15 minute lunch break, fried/roast chicken and chips. Elke bought some plums and the bus lady dispensed soda pop and water. At one point the bus slowed and at the side of the road were a number of people. Down below, the earlier bus to Dar upside down with a tarp draped ominously over the front windows. Yikes! We also saw a bus face planted into a building and tanker truck laying on it's side in the ditch. We drove through heat and torrential downpours, fields of sisal, palms, bananas and African scrub, and almost everywhere there were people walking along the road. By the time we got to Dar our taxi driver William had called concerned we were in that bus that had flipped. It was now dark, the traffic made it almost impossible for the bus driver to pass anyone and we had slowed right down. With the windows open we could smell the many odours and scents wafting through from the settlements towns and bus stops we were driving through. Folks were getting off now, a feeling of anticipation in the air as Elke warned me Dar's bus station was chaotic and good place to get pickpocketed. I stood my ground when assailed by taxi offers, especially since Elke told them we already had a driver. We hauled out our stuff from under the bus, the two packs and the big basket with the incredibly fragile cargo (really? You won't believe what this pot has been through already!)

William brought the car around, while I stood guard, then drove us to our hotel. The power was out, we were unable to get any food, but beer was available. Our dinner of dutch cheese and crackers was wonderful as we watched the lightening crash around us and from the balcony stayed dry as the rain came down in buckets, drowning out the sound of the generator, next door. Have I indicated how hot it is here? We went to bed and lay as still as possible under the mosquito net. When the power came on later, turned on the fan and had a fairly good sleep.

Continental breakfast has to be an oxymoron or something, sheesh. Lucky for me there was fresh mango and papaya. It was Elke's birthday so something special need happen!. Walked along the road in a couple directions looking for beach access, finally finding it, already hot, we sat in the shade in front of a big resort /bar watching fishermen pulling in their nets and big dugouts being poled around as the tide dropped. Too early for beer we stopped at a bakery then after arranging to leave our stuff at the front desk, hailed a bajaji (3 wheeled taxi) and cruised on over to the Slipway.

All along the sides of the roads here and in Arusha there is nursery stock. Hundreds of pots of landscaping trees, fruit trees, shrubs and perennials. I am enthralled with the variety. If only I knew what half of them were! I want to buy some for the shamba!

Traffic here is crazy, but our vehicle is able to drive along the shoulder, whip into openings and avoid the standstill. Some of the roads are less than smooth, shall we say, once we get off the main tracks. Through neighbourhoods with walled compounds, the broken glass along the top only slightly less friendly than the barbed and electrified wires protecting some special people from something. We all have our ways of creating safety.

At the Slipway I see more white people in one hour than I have in the week I have been here. Off to the left looking North is the bay and many dhows, yachts and dugouts are anchored or beached on the sand. The tide is out and there are orange and blue crabs scuttling around below the walkway. I have promised Elke to take as many pictures of her as she has years today. Funny how difficult a task that can be... We meet her friend/volunteer Sally, have a drink, some lunch and tell stories. She has some suggestions for Zanzibar.

I am enthralled with the basket weaving, the beadwork and fabrics but we are both a little overwhelmed as we rush through the market hardly seeing anything. The basket weaving at one stall though has my attention. The sellers are insistent until we tell them we will be back. We need to measure the pot, although I am thinking of getting two baskets, they might nest together for later at home!

Another bajaji back to the hotel. William arrives, we load our luggage in his trunk. He will meet Caito and transfer it into his car as Caito has room for luggage not passengers. We take the dalla dalla to Bagamayo.

Kiliminjaro Airport to Arusha, late at night careening along in Seppo's Land Rover. The mountains a faint outline to the north, right hand drive, folks walking along the road. Seppo points out Mount Kiliminjaro, a faint smudge in the dark. Climbing out of one gully we swerved around an unlit tanker truck crawling up the hill, later a dalla dalla being pushed through some settlement in the oncoming lane no lights there either. And then, a room, a bed and I'm asleep.

Morning. I want to go outside to photograph the trees in the early light, but the door is padlocked... I hear Roni and join him watching cartoons from South Africa and who knows where else. Seppo takes me downtown, we spend the better part of the day gathering materials and arranging. Three bicycles, a sewing machine, food and unfortunately no roofing material. The trailer is too small for the 140 units of folded woven palm thatch.

I'm amazed by the burdens folks are hauling around. How ironic I think as I contemplate my own.

While I'm waiting for Seppo and Costa the builder to return with the bicycles the parking lady asks me to buy her lunch, flirting and engaging me in as much conversation as she has in English. I try my limited Swahili, making myself understood is challenging, the phrase book just doesn't cut it. All around me Masai men in their “blanket/shawl/robes are walking by individually and in groups talking on cell phones. On their feet everything from tire sandals to oxfords with socks. A fellow at the store/cafe across from me has a small hammer and is banging away at stuff onto a large rock while his friends/clients/cronies, look on.

The road is paved for the first 2 hours. “Lonely” looking Masai standing watching their animals, cattle mostly and goats with an occasional donkey. Sometimes small children are standing sentinel. I wave and most wave back. All across the horizon I see their round mud homes in compounds, some deteriorating rapidly although it is hard to say....... some have bundles of grass likely for thatching the roofs resting upright like stooks of hay.

Seppo points out some bee hives logs suspended from the bigger trees. I see baskets, mats, round and square hanging from trees at the side of the road when the pavement peters out in to a construction zone. We crisscross the immanent highway dodging trucks, potholes and splashing through enormous silty washes from the recent rain. Then suddenly there is pavement again. At Babita we get bites and beer with some fertilizer thrown in the back as requested by someone in the village. Now the road is no longer paved, red, dusty, narrow and rough. We pass through farms, small settlements and mostly foot traffic, bananas and maize in the fields, mangoes and sugar cane for sale beside the road in little piles.

Up and over a small mountain where isolated cyclists pass men standing by the road watching goats or mostly us roaring past till we turn left at Kolo and spy the camp on the ridge below.

Elke is glad to see us! There is chicken in the cob oven and some sisters waiting, to checkout her husband.

The watchman arrives, husband and brother-in-law to these sisters who walk back down the hill to the village of Kondoya. He wanders off to listen to the radio and we sit by the fire drinking beer and making jokes about Canadian campfires.

Elke has the executive suite, a wall tent, twin beds pushed together. In the morning I fail to get up for the magnificent sunrise over the Masai plain,

After coffee and a little breakfast we head down with trailer in tow, unload bicycles, sewing machine fertilizer and tools. The women are very happy to see Elke's husband and do a welcoming dance which Elke joins in on. Then it is time to work and mix plaster for the store they have built. Old men come up to me and begin speaking Swahili, suddenly I am at a loss for words.......all around mostly men and children are staring at me (should I be taking this personally?) I get up on the scaffolding with a tarp to make shade so it dries slowly.

I experience Ugali for the first time, remembering to only eat with my right hand. Attempt to help putting sewing machine and bicycles back together. I sit with the women as they prepare the food on three rock fires whilst speaking to someone on their cell phones. They are all dressed in bright fabrics, swathed in layers of colour. Quite a visual feast. I am introduced to some formidable matriarchs. And I begin to take pictures as Elke creates a sign with two colours of plaster, I wordlessly ask if it might be ok... and am presented with poses, hamming up children when I show them the pictures on the screen. They want more, and an almost endless stream of family portraits and individual head shots begins.

We are only there for two days, obviously I have to come back, I don't get to see the rock art or the now dry river, the incredible rain, the amazing sunsets and the growth after the rain. I did get to see a monkey at the side of the road, a very large tortoise a strange unidentified bird and numerous lizards.

When it is time to leave the women all sit together in the shade and Elke expresses appreciation, asking what it was they have come away with. The women are very grateful and empowered and tells us so, insisting we return, wanting to know when.

Later we deliver the school supplies to one of the teachers, he gives us a short tour of the school buildings, no glass, just bars like most buildings here. We take some of the mandatory pictures to record the event. Empty rooms with benches to sit on and benches to work at, some government issue posters on the doors warning against aids. They did have a small garden area in the courtyard between buildings that was swaled to slow down the water, the soil is very sandy.

It is quite something (for me anyway) to see Mangoes and Papayas growing everywhere. As we left camp the next morning after packing everything away we drove a different route through even smaller villages along an even rougher track where the inhabitants were frequently cutting down the trees for whatever reasons. It was unfortunate to my mind, limiting their shade, reducing the ground water and opening up the land to greater erosion. It seemed like a step back in time as we cruised bumping and pitching past men in their jeballahs, children and mothers staring with undisguised wonder.

Seppo was watching for a road and when it appeared he wondered out loud if we would make it, by now too far in to turn back! It was rough like a streambed and then over broken rock up and up over the mountain through wild looking forest and seemingly isolated we saw folks trekking along and a gaggle of children who hid in the bush then ran away laughing, I think.

Emerging at the the top it was back down through the bananas and maize along the rough red road to Babita where once again we stopped for beers and bites. The lake there has hippos in it, but it seemed appropriate to continue on rather than go looking and not finding. Elke and Sean were soon asleep in the back as Seppo roared forward through the Chinese construction zone (guys standing around in hard hats telling the locals what to do) and back onto the pavement. And then we were back in Arusha at the Masai Italian cafe for more beer.