Back home

The travel back started with a mirror image of the day I arrived. Unplanned events with a taxi driver. Three months ago Dora helped a friend of hers get some extra income. Now that I knew the prices I could negotiate a better price for the taxi. 30,000 shillings, less than half of what I paid when I came. However, the best deal doesn't help when the taxi driver doesn't show up and my biggest night mare came true. I called him twice. Once five minutes before he was supposed to show up and he sounded sleepy. The second time I called him at 5:10 (he was supposed to be at the hotel at 5:00). I told him he had to be there in five minutes, otherwise I'd take a different taxi. He said OK, but wasn't there and I was lucky another taxi stopped by and gave me a reasonable price. 40,000. With me now needing to have to go to the airport desperately he could have asked for more. I didn't show it, though and that may have influenced his decision.

The taxi didn't look promising (the engine turned off when he stopped to ask me if I needed a ride). The driver also slowed down to a crawl every time there was oncoming traffic, blinded by the light. Fortunately, the ride took only 40 minutes, as he had said, so I was still there with plenty of time.

We had a short hopover to Mombasa/Kenya. Unfortunately, there we had to exit the plane and re-enter. At least it gave me the chance to buy some overpriced water. The dudes at the Kili airport were just as stupid as in Europe and took all the liquids, including a sealed juice bottle. Sigh. I gave my juice to some workers, emptied the water and still managed to sneak in a 300ml bottle of some carbonated lime drink. They did catch the juice in my Aluminum bottle as well, so next time it's time for a lead bottle, I guess.

Now I am back. It's weird. When I left the area looked like this.





Here is another display of fall colours:



Now all the leaves are gone, but it's not as cold as I had expected. In fact I am not sure why people ran around with bulky jackets, but maybe I was just longing for some cold after three months of no cooling off.






Here is a shot from approximately the same angle as the previous one:















And here is some proof there is snow in the mountains...

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.

The yesterday after tomorrow

What did I write yesterday? "The last day. I can't believe it!"

Yup, better don't believe it! I am waiting on the day when someone can explain to me how many days each month has. Could we agree on 31? Then my calculation of leaving the next to last day in January would have yielded 30 and would have been right on target. Instead, I used 30 as a base and came out with a scheduled departure of Jan 29... I checked my plane ticket this morning and it clearly shows I am leaving on the 30th, not on the 29th. Ooops.

It's nice, of course, to have an extra day! I am not complaining, except for the fact that I have to contact the taxi dude.

Waiting on a sunny day

Sunday, Jan 28

Finally another rainy day here. It was about time. I took the opportunity to go for a run. I had two 'conversations' on the way. The first one I am not really sure what it was all about. Two Massai warriors were trying to tell me something. I think one said something about dala-dala, so they may just have suggested I take the bus. I must have looked rather tired or awkwardly running...

15 minutes later – I was already on my way back – I heard someone say "Good morning." I looked up and saw an old woman, slightly hunched over, on the other side of the road. She asked "Why are you running?" That's a good one! I replied "For exercise." She was laughing at the answer: "Ha Ha Ha." Since we were going opposite directions that was the end of the conversation. But it brought me full circle to the beginning, when I was describing how former professional runner Dieter Baumann had similar experiences in Kenya.

People do things with a purpose here and I enjoy it. I have often tried to do the same in the US and use my bicycle to run (or bike) errands. That saves me from having to go for exercise. I did a tremendous amount of walking while in Africa, but couldn't really run most of the time, as it was too hot during the day. I took buses and taxis only for the absolute minimum necessary. I will have one final taxi ride to the airport ahead of me. For a long time I thought I would either stay in the hotel next to the runway or maybe try to find some private accommodation. But one seemed too expensive and the other too inconvenient. I now found a taxi driver who will give me a ride for 30,000; the minimum, according to a German who had been here for a while. I had to do some negotiating for that one.

And more negotiating today when I bought a football shirt. It's really funny – all the shops seem to be local and single shops. But somehow they are just one gigantic chain, I guess. I went to one shop. They didn't have the shirt, so I walked on to the next. They didn't have it, either, but one guy told me to wait and off he went. Then the guy from the first shop came over also and told me to wait. Next were two other guys that all of a sudden dashed off in two different directions. They came back a couple of minutes later, almost colliding with each other. The next thing was hilarious, as they were fighting for position in front of me (only guys three and four; I never saw one and two come back). They started yelling at each other – not even handing me the shirts, so I could inspect. I told them "Easy" and they calmed down somewhat. I liked the shirt from guy #2 better and asked for the price. "25,000." Oh, the same shirt was offered in the Mzungu store, generally more expensive, for 15,000. Fortunately, I also knew that the shirt sold for 8,000 in Arusha. So I said 8,000. He went down to the 10,000, while another guy now kept yelling 15,000. Hmm, strange; the guy who has the shirt said 10,000 and some other dude tries to convince me to pay 15,000? I repeated "8,000" and the guy shook his head. So I tried to hand it back to him and he wouldn't take it! I finally just hung it over his shoulder and walked away. This usually does the trick when they do want to sell it. And yes, he came after me and said. "Give me money." I double-checked. Yes, 8,000.

In the evening I went to watch the football Africa Cup of Nations on TV again (without wearing the football shirt..). The games are really fun to watch. There is less tactics, much more technical brilliance and sloppy defending than in Euro soccer, which leads to high scoring games. Yesterday Cameroon won 5:1, today Angola clobbered Senegal 3:1. My favourite player is from the Cameroon team. It's not his hairdo, his looks or his skills I notice. But come on, you gotta love a guy called BIKEY!!!

I managed to stay healthy for the three months here, but now in my final days I am apparently getting sick. Not that I have any symptoms like fever or anything. But today I packed! Two days ahead of time. Very suspicious for a last minute guy like me. Of course I am only 75% done, as I still need a quarter of my things. All I know, hoewever, is that it's not normal.

Tomorrow is the last time I will head to KIDT. I bought some cookies and juice and will hopefully be able to demo the biogas, if the system is ready.

The last day. I can't believe it!

White men can run

I had a field visit at Camartec today. It's fairly easy to get there: Take a Dala-Dala from Arusha to Tengeru (about 20min), then take another Dala-Dala (about 5km over unpaved, rough roads). Well, as I got off in Tengeru I noticed the Dala-Dala was completely empty (remember, they only leave when they are full). Since I wasn't sure how frequented this route was I decided to walk and hop on the Dala-Dala when it drives by. But after one kilometer I had enough and started running. The darn Dala-Dala never passed me and I got to the Camartec office reasonably early.

My trip was as always planned very well in theory, with C'tec having visited all the sites already to make appointments (something I tried to prevent, as I thought they may tell them what to answer). Well, I didn't need to worry, as they assembled a list on the fly. I actually got to alter it during the trip a bit. My prof had also promised some money for this trip, as they wanted quite a lot. I was really interested in visiting sites that were dormant, to find out why people are not using them anymore. This should help in coming up with strategies for the future. Of course the guy insisted that all their plants are working. But nothing that a little money couldn't fix and so I promised him good cold cash if he suddenly remembers where the non-functioning plants are. That jogged his memory :)


At one plant he pointed out that "in this area we have 20 plants and one or two are not working. The others are fine." And at the same time admitting that he had trouble finding those one or two places as "I haven't been here in 15 years." Hmmm. Follow up is a problem and I'll add this to my thesis...

Leakage was actually a problem, as seen in the picture. But most of those plants had been around for 15 years or more. Actually a pretty good track record. I doubt it is representative, though...

Later in Arusha I went to the market, looking for something my mom had requested. I couldn't find that, but I got a real treat instead. The vendors had most of their stuff on blankets, straight on the ground. They were next to the street. I came across an intersection that was almost deadlocked by four or five cars. I say almost because one guy backed up and was apparently trying to untie the deadlock like the Gordic knot. A loud bang, some honking, angry shouting. Then the 'hit' taxi driver got out to inspect the damage on his vehicle. It's beyond me how he managed to find the "new" dent among the 2,000 old ones and why this one really mattered that much. At the same time another taxi tried to get through and with the space being tight decided to roll over the "stand" of the Mango lady. Fortunately, she spotted the problem and quickly rescued here yummy fruit from becoming unusable juice.

Yesterday was also memorable. Mfinanga didn't show for our 10:00 meeting, so I decided to head to Arusha myself. But he managed to board the same bus eventually, having arrived some 45min later. Phew. Two "wazungu" from Germany also boarded. The woman had been doing an internship for her studies in Morongoro, working in a place for disabled children. She really enjoyed it. Pretty cool. Then we started and all of a sudden voices got louder and an older men and two younger ones were in a pushing and shoving contest. Eventually, the old man got off, fairly angry. But the other two kept wrestling and shouting. The bus finally stopped and while I thought the one guy was trying to prevent the other from getting off (with the aggressive conductors here fighting for customers it wouldn't have surprised me), it was actually the other way round. That dude was holding on to the door so the conductor couldn't open it and throw him out. Eventually, there was some more wrestling and one passenger hitting the conductor, as it got too close for her comfort. The dude was finally thrown off under much laughter from the "audience." It is moments like that when I regret not having taken a full language class.

With all those experiences today I was feeling a bit blue at times. Once, when I checked out of Monjes Guesthouse. After all this was my third stay with them and they all remembered me. Also, later on the way home, when I came by Mt. Meru, for the last time this trip. I had to think back about the great experience I had walking up there and the mountain was as beautiful as ever. A few days ago I was looking forward to coming back, but right now I am not so sure. Things aren't strange anymore as they were in the beginning and I feel like I am blending in pretty well. Now just someone tell those taxi drivers I do not need a car to cross the street...

Living on a prayer

I read a scary paragraph today in a paper called "The Citizen". It contained the sentence: "...with nearly 90% of the people unable to get a single meal a day." This would reduce the Tanzanian population to about 10% fairly soon.

All joking aside, the report is fairly grim and says that 90% of Tanzanians have only $2 for food per day. How much do you get for $2 here? For example, a loaf of bread and about ten bananas, having enough left over to get a cup of tea somewhere. As I mentioned earlier, this area is somewhat richer and doesn't feel the pinch as much. There are quite a number of overweight people, actually. But my trip, especially the train part, has brought me through some poorer areas, where there is not as much food and things are grimmer.

The 300 stooges

(Train trip from Mwanza to Dar on Jan 1st, 2008)

I had checked in the morning to see if there was an opening in First class, to no avail. The reporting time was 17:00. I spent the day getting some shopping done for the trip and also visited the fish market that I had noticed when I first arrived. It looked far, somewhat at another shore of the lake, but ended up only a twenty-minute walk. For hygienic reasons my diet is a little restricted right now. I cut out milk products (too many power outages) and meat (not sure about how they handle it - probably not EU standards, while on the other hand I am sure it is mostly very fresh; picture a chicken walking into a restaurant and it'll end up on the "plat du jour" in no time). I decided to keep fish (samaki) in the diet, but after seeing the fish market, I may get second thoughts, too.

Fish was piled up some 3-4 feet high. Workers were handling it while standing on it - some barefoot, some with shoes. Vultures and other pesky birds everywhere, not to forget about all the flies hanging out. One guy was loading a trailer. Oops, there went one fish past the trailer, right into the dirt. With all that keep in mind the fish here is eaten with the skin (and, as mentioned before, with eyeballs), so yes, I was a bit concerned with people standing on the fish). Talked to a nice fellow and he assured me that that fish is mostly sold to Uganda and the northern parts of South Africa (huh? Would that be North South Africa???). Alrighty then....

Since January first is a holiday most restaurants and shops were closed, but fortunately the pizza place was open. So I went there for the third time and filled up my stomach. At 17:00 I headed over to the train station. Tons of people there, but nowhere to report. The ticket booths were closed. People kept telling me about a black board where the names would be listed (including if I got my upgrade to first class), but I couldn't find it. There was no train either, which I figured was a bad sign for a 18:00pm departure. Soon the news made the round that there was some problem and the departure wouldn't be until 21:30.

Eventually I found the list. It wasn't posted until maybe 20:00 or so. I didn't make the upgrade to first class. Oh well. There were no lights in the train, but at some point I decided to just board and go to bed. One guy was already there, but I still got the chance to claim a bed on the lowest level. I am always afraid of falling out of an high altitude bed. Just like in a Euro-sleeper, there were three bunk beds on top of each other, on each side, for a total of six. Eventually the others came too, carefully making sure to shine their flash lights always straight into my eyes, just to ensure that I wouldn't go to sleep before the party ended (or started?). Finally - I think around 23:00 - we started moving.

I woke up to a nice sunrise while lying in my comfy (?) bed. We were in Shinyanga. It is hard to belive that the train must have taken about seven hours to cover a distance that took the bus maybe three or four. Because my luggage, albeit locked, was sitting underneath my bed, I felt a bit uncomfortable going to breakfast, although once we got moving again I figured at least nobody could jump in and take the bag and jump out. The breakfast car was two cars up. They served sausage, omelette and bread, together with tea. The tea was pre-sweetened and the plate of food included a big hump of salt. My brother would be in heaven, but I am not too fond of either and learned to order my teas "bila sukari." However, this time it was already stirred in. Sigh.

I spent most of the rest of the day on my bed, sometimes falling asleep, sometimes reading, but mostly just watching Tanzania fly by. It was just fascinating to see the different landscapes and I am glad I was sitting in a comfortable train and not in a bus, where half of my concentration is wasted on not getting bus sick. In Tabora we could get off and have lunch. It didn't matter that we were already five or so hours behind schedule. If there was to be a two-hour break it was going to be a two-hour break. I had met a nice fella during breakfast and we went to lunch together. I had of course again thoughts (first, second and thirds) about my luggage. In the end I had to trust the guy who was staying back. I have learned that most Tanzanians are very trustworthy, and especially when you travel together with them. Since I cut out the meat my lunch was rice and beans. There was plenty of it and I can't believe they only charged TZS800!

After stocking up on water our journey finally continued. I skipped dinner, as I had bought a loaf of bread in Mwanza. At something like 2:00 or maybe 3:00 in the morning we were in Dodoma. Since I had slept a bit during day time and went to bed ridiculously early I got out for a bit to stretch. When the train started again I was watching the stars in the night sky. It may sound boring but I was super happy by a simple pleasure like that.

In Dodoma a few guys had gotten off and a few on. I started talking to one "newcomer", but of course my Swahili only gets me so far. He asked me if I spoke French. Man, I can't tell you what a welcome change that was!!! He was from Congo and a really nice guy. We chatted a lot. We stood side by side on the window and watched the locals try to sell all their goodies at all those tiny little villages along the way. Depending on the region there was an abundance of supply in onions or coconuts or bananas or pineapples. There were kids, some not older than four or five, selling stuff (I have now idea how they would be able to reach up to the window, as even teenagers had to really make themselves long to get the money and give the food - sometimes the customers just throw the money out the window and the salesperson has to find it in the dirt). At one stop a guy made a last minute decision (even by my standards) to buy bananas when the train was already rolling! The lady who had them started running, got to the window but had no energy left to lift the yellow fruit up, so had to abandon her efforts under the laughter of about everyone else around her (she was smiling, too). And one of the very little ones, who managed to sell all his bananas in one scoop, ran like madman, celebrating like a football player who just scored the decisive goal in a final, showing his money to some of his peers, then ran off.

Paul from Congo and I were watching all this together and it was just so entertaining. Between the stops we would look at the pretty country side, sometimes interrupted by our conversation in French. At one stop I noticed he threw two plastic bottles out the window, right where a child was standing. She picked up the two bottles he tossed. I remembered that some people liked to collect those and got out my empty one. Paul directed me to throw it to the other kid that had appeared (he was so small I didn't even think he would know what to do with a plastic bottle). He picked it up happily. Then I saw more and more people throw bottles and more and more kids appear. They still ran (many barefoot on uneven, unpaved and rocky ground, I may add) as the train was already moving.

Then Paul told me we had to get of in Morongoro to catch buses. A freight train wreck was blocking the tracks. Paul, Peter - a friend of Paul - and I set down at a "cafe". When the first buses arrived, most passengers started to run, scrambling for position and fighting to get in line. Police was at the scene quickly to keep somewhat of an order! It was surreal. I am glad that Peter and Paul stayed relaxed. We kept sitting in the shade, while most passengers now had to wait in the baking sun. The boarding process took forever and not all buses had arrived yet. We watched as the police kept shuffling "line cutters" out of the queues. Even local TV decided it was worth a story! It was fun to watch several hundred stooges make fools of themselves. Then a bus parked somewhere else and we decided to go for that one. There was already a line, but we managed to get in, albeit with a lot of work. Other people kept pushing in from the side. Fortunately this turned out to be a bus that also had many police officers already boarded. I had noticed them in the train earlier, and they kept things somewhat at bay, though I am not sure that even we cut some people off, simply by trying to prevent others in cutting and following police orders on how to get into the bus.

Once inside I had to fight through towards the end of the bus with my overly wide backpack. People started putting baskets filled with chicken everywhere in the aisle. I sure hope they remembered which baskets were theirs, for the chickens all sounded and looked the same! I felt like I had just managed to fight through the front row of a Metallica concert. I was soaked in sweat, but as I sat I had a big grin on my face, seeing all the pushing and shoving and the chickens and roosters in baskets, some trying to hop out. After all what I just had witnessed was super comical and something not pat of any main stream tourist program.

We finally left, after a four-hour wait and with three hours left to Dar. The train wouldn't have been slower. There was a moment when everybody got up and looked to the right. Aha, checking out the freight train wreckage. I was amazed, btw, that our train didn't derail. Frequently it was bouncing up and down so much I thought we were going over speed bumps!

All the police personal on the bus didn't help and we got weighed along the route. Fortunately we passed - thank goodness those chickens were all malnourished.

The traffic in Dar was like LA. Sometimes we stood for minutes w/o moving. Maybe the train would have been even faster in the end...