Time to say good-bye

I brought in Cookies and Juice for the people at KIDT. It was a nice farewell. I wanted to demonstrate the biogas, too. But yesterday Vicky from COMPACT was unavailable. She was the main person for my thesis here and was needed in attendance. And today the biogas storage tank was empty... Joys of technology. I think sometimes the storage tank is empty in the morning because Mfinanga puts a weight on top. Oh well.

I quit early and went to the town Machame in the afternoon. I didn't know what to expect other than it's one of the routes up to Kili. Turned out there is a hospital and I ran into a Nebraskan. We had lunch together. Everybody calls him doctor, pastor or teacher, and as he pointed out "I am neither." He has been there for four years and is doing administrative and organisational things. He initially came for three weeks, then got infected with the "Africa bug" We'll see if I am next in line...

After lunch I walked up to the Kili Nationalpark gate (four kilometres). I had a quick look and went back. Half way back down I realized school was out as tons of kids came up the mountain. There was a lot of greeting, waving and smiling to be done until I was through. One (non-school) kid ran after me for a couple of hundred metres. His mom (or some other relative) was coming the other way, up the hill and laughing her head off. When we met she picked him up and prevented him from going further. Still, everybody was laughing. The kids wear school uniforms here, btw. The sweaters are either dark blue or held in the Tanza flag colors (black, blue, yellow green).

I then got in a bus. Mamma mia, that dude was screaming down the mountain like there was no tomorrow and for a while I thought there isn't. Then a guy entered that I knew from KIDT. What are the chances to run into him with all those dala-dalas and some 20km away from Moshi? We had a good chat. Then the driver overshot his stop completely. I felt sorry for him. But then the stop came and he explained to me that I have to change to a different dala-dala, free of another charge. That never happened before and I don't know what the reasoning was for that. At any rate, the other dala-dala was emptier, more modern (not that I care for A/C, which fortunately was switched off, but had an overhead luggage net) and the driver was driving reasonably well.

All in all a nice afternoon to cap off the stay here. I will enjoy a nice dinner and some football on TV tonight and hope that the stopover in Mombasa will be alright (apparently yesterday several people were killed there in the post election unrest, including a member of parliament and two German tourists).

Kwa Heri.