Back to Amarula

Impressions along the road and within...
Sunflowers among the cassava, sunflowers dried out brown, corn; dead standing, millet, sorghum. Baobabs worn and scarred. Bee hives, both modern and the traditional hollowed out logs hanging from the trees. Cattle and goats on the move, some friendly herders, soot blackened landscapes, scorched trees, deep sand in dry river beds, children waving, others; impassive. Gigantic boulders worn smooth clustered on hilltops, trees as far as the eye can see: acacia, miombo, baobab, other acacia, going brown and others blooming as the dry season  begins.
 Returning to a loved place has been enlightening. Overcoming or at least attempting to understand the cultural differences due to language and religion has stretched my comfort zone, tolerance and occasionally patience. Context as I experience it, in  layers of cognition and insight continue to teach me how little I know. And how educated, sophisticated, motivated and inspired by my consciousness and the myriad abundance I am. Juxtaposed to individuals, children and adults, who can spend the day managing a mixed flock of goats, sheep and cows wandering through a landscape with not much forage. They find what they can. My capacity to understand concepts, consequences and a sense of a bigger picture is limited by my exposure, use and access to information. How much of what I or anyone knows or can use is actually useful in any given circumstance, is dependant on situation, environment, ecosystem ….
Technology is seductive, I am so enrolled. I use a phone and camera to take pictures; a laptop to articulate my thoughts, a reading device to do research and entertain myself on long flights and the internet , when I can find it, to share this with you.
My ability to justify my actions in moral and ethical terms is so caught up in complication it goes way beyond complex. And I’ve maintained and believed I was living a simple life all these years.
Meanwhile, back to what’s actually happening here.  I am overlooking a vast plain to the east dotted with relatively short trees, again as far as the eye can see, eventually reaching the Indian Ocean. The two fellows employed by my host have recently returned burdened by loads of firewood ‘kuni’ they hacked out of, hopefully, dead trees, with a machete, out of earshot, down the slope towards the dry river. Wood being the primary source of fuel for cooking, we will be sauna-ing Finnish style again and then sitting (if the wind dies down enough) around a  campfire. Something I would imagine no one around here would consider a useful pastime unless dinner was being cooked.
The landscape here is so compelling, Walking through the surroundings brushing dry basil stalks, crackling leaves,  drinking in the vistas, the familiar and the novelty. The temperature is certainly amenable, although sitting in a moving car with the windows shut against the tsetse flies can sure build up a sweat. Thankfully they restrict their habitat to few places. I'm glad to be here, again.

Deep in the heart of Tanzania

Tsetse flies and rock art.  One morning we left Amarula camp  and headed south to Kondoa where we did a bit of shopping; ginger, bananas and some fabric… somehow I’m unable to resist, I did however limit my purchase to one. We sat in a small “tea shop” beneath the now leafless Baobab at the centre of town and Elke chatted with a fellow who turned out to be a teacher, hence his relatively passable English. The town has grown, prospered even, since or during the time the Chinese were here building the highways. When they left I’ve heard, they took most of the donkeys and dogs in the vicinity, After two years there are no shortage of loose dogs scrounging around  and I saw plenty of donkeys being herded by Maasai.
After Kondoa we headed west into the terrain of red dirt roads. Not far out of town we came across masses and I mean masses of plastic bags and bottles where it’s been dumped and is now being (you don’t want to hear this) burned. Thankfully we soon left that behind, passing through dry, farmland interspersed with majestic Baobabs.

Crossing a dry river bed on a bridge with schoolgirls playing some game we began to climb through Miombo bush, the leaves on many trees crisp and folded. Surprisingly (at least to me) there are numerous trees blooming at this time, beautiful purple blossoms, puffed out clusters of white and yellow on a type of Acacia along with some other shrubby looking tree coming out with tiny  red flowers that I took to be fuzzy caterpillars as we hurtled along. And we were because the Tsetse flies were doing the damnedest to get inside the vehicle. Many of them. Their bite is rather vicious, I felt one through my sock. They were maintaining speed with the vehicle, landing on the windows, the hood of the Landrover and searching out all the openings we hadn’t been able to plug with tape or cardboard. Once inside they buzzed around the driver especially but I had my share. The women in the back were swatting them as they landed on us, against the windows and whenever they landed.
Today we returned to the edge of their range and drove up through a burnt landscape, the trees scorched, the grass gone and soot and ashes among the fallen leaves swirling in little whirlwinds as we picked our way towards some grand looking rocky outcrops. Earlier we had collected a Ranger from the Game Reserve office to accompany us. He carried an automatic carbine rifle for our safety inside the Swagaswaga reserve.

 Eventually he directed us onto a side road then up the slope to where a few examples of Rock Art were visible on the massive boulders perched there.
 Red ochre paintings of humanistic figures stretching the imagination as to why and when.
 The local residents, Hyrax, apparently appreciate the spot as the ground was deeply littered with their ‘berries’. An occasional fly managed to make itself known  as we made our way back to the vehicle but they were hardly a concern, until we began driving. Did they think the vehicle was an elephant? Although we were in the game reserve all we saw were a number of exotic looking birds a family of baboons, a few monkeys, and one Hyrax up on a branch as we drove by underneath.

Arusha and then south

Back with friends at their property staying in their guest house, well off the road. It will be a pleasant place to rest, write and visit among the trees in the heat of the afternoons. After unloading all the luggage that evening we walk out to a local bar for  beers and chipsi mayai (French fried potatoes in an omelette) , a common meal around here.
The pikipiki(motorcycle) drivers open up as they race up and down the road making for difficult conversation. The daladala’s (minibus) choked with passengers returning from town, dropping one or two in front of us, all turning to stare at the sight of wazungu’s (white people) in the neighbourhood. And a constant stream of people walking both ways either side of the road.
Morning comes with the call to prayer and cocks crowing, a bucket ‘shower’ wash-up and discussion of what the day might bring. As it turns out, a lot of bureaucratic negotiations and waiting. Over the next few days things do get sorted out, we visit a few restaurants, buy some supplies  from an amazing store downtown Arusha - Gohils  and separate our luggage for the trip to SwagaSwaga.
Looming above us to the north Mt Meru influences the weather dramatically. Each morning the sky overcast and cool, by noon warming up enough to remove our shukas or sweaters and venture out to explore the neighbourhood.
The main roads are paved but in between there are dirt tracks winding their way through the neighbourhoods. Rutted and narrow they are “shortcuts” and have tiny businesses selling notions, fruit and what the locals might need instead of making their way out to a main road. Our host takes us on a bumpy tour of them in his attempts to avoid the chaos on the paved roads. The daladalas backed up, dropping off and picking up along the roads with pikipikis racing both ways on both sides of the road and in between. Along with taxis, safari vehicles, big beer trucks and delivery trucks.
Most things sorted we head out early one morning to Amarula Camp in Kondoa district. There is now a bypass road avoiding the crazy traffic downtown Arusha which takes us south and west through new development expanding the city. To my right  I spot a hill  with half it’s side being excavated. I imagine in a few months it will cease to exist. Below it there are caves being formed by the removal of soil. And below that large chunks of what appears to be the surface above having fallen once undermined. Not exactly the safest work environment.
These new roads make the journey smooth, we are waved through all but one police check and even that one takes only moments. Along the road, Maasai boys stand at attention as their herds wait to cross to water, women washing clothes, colourfully draped on the surrounding bushes, palm frond rug weavings hung from trees to attract buyers and miles and miles of open plain dotted with acacia. Corn and cassava, sunflowers and pigeon pea beside the shambas and bomas, cement constructions in the towns and metal roofs glinting in the distance.
We stop in Babati for lunch and then  drive up into the hills. The swathe taken away on either side of the road makes for better views as we proceed, black rubber all over the road from tires skidding on descent with warnings of the steep slope and tight corners. I miss the old red road although not the bumping and swerving. Some settlements have not changed much, others have grown although it's hard to say. At one point we leave all the settlements behind and are in a wild forest, densely packed trees climbing up the hillsides on both side of the road. Later we pass women sitting beside their clay pots for sale and frequently bicycles with water jugs slung across both sides.
Coming out of the mountains we have a great view of the valley and then the plains beyond the hills. The descent is steep, lined with candelabra cactus, some in bloom their tips yellow like they’ve been lit up, the road black with skid marks and signs indicating runaway lanes.
At Kolo we turn left onto the red clay road, dusty, familiar. I’m anticipating our destination. To the right  through the trees below the mountain, the river bed, dry of course and we descend  through a switchback that allows a view of the camp still green after the rainy season.
It’s anti-climatic. So familiar, but changed over the last couple of years, the Terminalia trees losing leaves, their seeds a bright red, the acacia dropping green bits in a circle around itself. The cottage comfortable in it’s familiarity but damaged by the weather.

Elke makes us dinner, we sit by a fire and later when our hosts return from visiting in the village I  sauna Finnish style, then sit out under the stars.

Crossings

The trains and track infrastructure in Germany make it possible to travel across the country with ease. Almost every small city connects with the rest of the country, the track itself designed for high speed with cement ties; a few wooden ones in the more obscure and less populated communities.
The countryside slips by  fast at 221 kmh from the flat landscape south of Berlin through long tunnels emerging into rolling terrain; farms and forests, villages and always near the cities, klein gardens beside the tracks,
Efficient, timely and orderly we reach our destinations and make our connections with time in between to find the correct platform, then haul our unwieldy baggage aboard, stowing it occasionally in the aisles when the train has no accommodation; regional trains ferrying commuters, the trains filling at one stop then emptying two stops later.
Sometimes there is old rolling stock sitting idle in the yards of stations, inspiring thoughts of restaurants, mini villages and other possibilities for the utilization of these long narrow well roofed ‘structures’. Shipping them negates any advantage…
Done with the train we take a taxi; up, around and over  Stuttgart to a hotel near the airport. In the morning we are ferried to the plane after being corralled with our fellow fliers, then on to Zurich where the observation deck provided  a brief respite from the ferrying and corralling.
On the plane most of folks sleep in between meals on the flight to Nairobi. The monitor on the bulkhead shows our progress in a revolving sequence including elevation, speed and times. Out the window we follow the coast of Greece then over the Mediterranean making landsight over Libya with  Tunisia way off to the right, a line of sand along the coast stretching back to mountains in the deep distance.
Cloud cover soon takes over and Elke spots a ginormous thunderhead building.  We’re at 33,000 feet or meters (hardly matters this high). This is the beginning of the dry season and those clouds are likely sucking moisture, not dropping it. Turbulence soon appears.
Stamped passports, luggage collected. Our driver holds up a sign with Elke Cole and away we go along with a couple of women who are staying out in Karen at a backpackers. They appreciate our assistance in getting there.
Downtown Nairobi, breakfast and wander through the market, a smoothie in a high end coffee bar, more exploring .
Luggage up on the roof of the bus, waiting, and then into the traffic. At one point I spot old (in this case) decrepit looking passenger railcars lined up waiting for trains that will likely never come. The Chinese have taken charge and built new lines and brought in their own rolling stock, making obsolete the existing infrastructure which looks unmaintained. We cross various lines  on our way out of Nairobi, the ties obscured with accumulations of debris growing all manner of weeds, the rusty rails all that’s visible except where the constant traffic shines them up.
 Arriving at the border a fellow on the bus, the only other mzungu skips the leaving Kenya line and goes directly to Enter Tanzania. We follow the pattern standing with the rest of the passengers wanting to get this over with and on to Arusha and beyond. He ends up being the least of our time restraints as the bus that arrived behind us, loads and leaves.The sun setting across the horizon red in the dust. Maasai ladies attempting to interest anyone in their wares, elaborate beaded jewelrysome of which is elaborate and beautiful. Darkness falls and our driver enters the vehicle with much body language and guns the bus down the hill not waiting for the guards at the gate to open it fully, giv’ener through goats and folks lining the road to make up for the lost time… Or maybe the traffic laws are different in Tanzania?

Workshopping

Back to a semblance of normal. A couple of good nights sleep and I’m waking at the usual 5 am, creeping out of bed and upstairs to boil ginger and write my morning reflections on the night’s journeys and the previous day’s events. Not exactly profound but occasionally useful. The dreams are possibly insightful, a rehash of the highlights from my unconscious perspective. Juxtaposing numerous events or enigmatic input in some conceivably metaphoric  result to entertain my brain and cause me to consider if or what has any significance.
Mostly I consider it filed away once written out and get on with morning meditation and preparing something for breakfast.
Our hostess has assembled a varied crew of workers both young and mature, and it’s been entertaining. Yesterday a long ditch dug to lay in an electric cable was  disrupting passage somewhat, piles of the sandy earth showing the layers of history. By mid morning a machine arrived to fill it back in after the electricians, who showed up much earlier, have done their job.
 Halfway through the machine operator makes a miscalculation and it falls over sideways smashing one of the glass doors. He jumps out safely but now we have a major problem. They spend the rest of the day employing the cobbing plaster crew propping it up with posts and firewood, levering it up in increments until finally it falls back upright.
During all this the sounds of an alpenhorn drift across the lake below, apparently the locals enjoy a good concert whilst rafting about. The applause is enthusiastic.
Earlier the crew had been chewing away at the excess cob on the walls and filling in holes preparing for the actual start of this workshop. Arriving a couple days early is good for smoothing the rough edges and getting grounded. The opportunity for swimming in the lake also looms temptingly now that most of the clouds (and cooler temperatures) have evaporated with the sun. Muddy cobbers will be availing themselves of the newly refurbished dock by days end and possibly entertaining the small flock of ducks who appeared  stridently paddling our way last evening.  They hung about paddling back and forth within arms reach to our amusement, then suddenly with no warning burst out of the water back across the lake.