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  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Back at school

    December 19, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    In 2015, with the motto “start small, start now”, Steven Saning'o founded the Kyosei Training Centre Foundation and began teaching English and computer skills to 10 underprivileged students.

    Having dropped out of the Tanzanian educational system himself at a young age, Steven understood the difficulties children without school certificates face . He was lucky to have family able to support him and cover the cost of restarting his education; but he couldn't help noticing that many of his friends and peers were in the same predicament without the support of a family network to help them. High school fees, failed classes, poverty, unawareness of the power of education, family challenges and cultural issues, combined with a “one-shot only” policy in Tanzania that does not allow students a second chance in education, threw up enormous challenges to the youngsters trying to improve themselves.

    In 2009, having successfully completed school and subsequent vocational training and armed with a passion to provide a proper educational foundation for children to support his community, Steven set out to teach the power of education, provide support and create long-lasting change. Initially he worked in the private sector gaining experience, but within a few years was inspired to launch his own free programmes in his own school.

    The Kyosei Training Centre is located in rented premises whilst the new school is built. They have some nursery school pupils, and some who have gained a post-school vocational qualification. The majority of their students are trying to improve their exam scores at different levels in order to complete their schooling with a Secondary Advanced (High School) certificate.
    John is one of the ex-students who is now teaching at the school. We share a room in the dormitory compound.
    The 2 x 20 year old girls are Danish volunteers with better English skills than many Brits.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Roads Scholar

    December 20, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Tanzania is located between 1 and 12 degrees South of the equator.
    The country is renowned for what people dig up. Even before Dr. Leaky uncovered Lucy and evidence of numerous pre-Homo Sapiens peoples, foreigners have come here to take the 885,800 sq. km. of land away. (The 61,500 sq. km. of water doesnt seem so attractive at present but I'm sure that will change.)
    For example, it is the 4th largest gold producer in Africa, and thanks to Tanzania China International Mineral Resources Ltd (TCIMRL), the third largest African producer of iron ore. Coal, soda ash, gypsum, salt, phosphate, and lately graphite, (very large fields have been recently discovered, across the country,) are also extracted in large volumes. Enormous quantities of uranium are being exported with the help of Russia’s Uranium One Inc.
    They have pretty stones as well: diamonds, amethyst, aquamarine, garnet, ruby, sapphire, tanzanite and tourmaline. "Tanzanite" is actually the mineral "blue zoisite". The Tiffany and Company marketing team thought this was too boring and trade marked the name "Tanzanite" for it, referencing the fact that it has been found nowhere other than Tanzania. Nice blue colour.
    Its no wonder the Germans marched in and took over, followed by the British. Both of whom inhibited the creation of manufacturing industries that might compete with their own, limited the education of the people and excluded them from the civil service.
    Despite the best efforts of Julius Nyere, who led the country into independence and whose vision of African family based socialism outlined in the famous Arusha Declaration, (famous here at any rate,) managed to annoy the capitalists, the socialists and the communists, the wealth of the country still today does not flow back to the 50 million inhabitants, most of whom rely of subsistance agriculture for their survival. 2017 figures show a labour force of 24.89 million, of which 66.9% was in agriculture, 26.6% in services / tourism and a paltry 6.4% in industry earning themselves a mean income of 2805 USD per annum. The UNDP Human Development index ranks them 159 out of 189 countries.
    Julius can be lauded for many things, like improving the ratio of highest to lowest salaries from 50:1 in 1961 when the British left to 9:1 in 1976, but in my mind one thing stands out: he united the country without the bloodshed other African countries experienced. This is the most genetically and tribally diverse parts of Africa, reflecting the long time that people have been here. Starting 3.6 million years ago, our earliest known ancestors Australopithicine, wandered around Laetoli, closely followed by Homo Habilis in the Olduvai Gorge and they have been here ever since. . In modern Tanzania there are numerous tribes, covering all 4 main African language groups: Khoisan, (who arrived > 6000 years ago,) Cushitic, (who came from Ethipia 3-5000 years ago,) Bantu, (arriving 2000 years ago from the Niger delta,) and Nilotic speakers from the Sudan who came in the 15th - 18th C. One way he achieved this aim was by making Swahili, the lingua franca of the Omani run East Coast trading route, the offical language.
    They managed to stay out of the clutches of the World Bank and the IMF until 1986, when the Western powers imposed "structural adjustment", driven by large aid donors who directed the Tanzanians into grand but unsuccessful development projects.
    The financial sector in Tanzania has expanded in recent years and foreign-owned banks account for about 48% of the banking industry's total assets.
    As an example - one which has been repeated all round the world - this road to Nairobi has been built with infrastructure development funds. As you can see from the massive traffic loads, it should be a dual carriageway and that is what has now been ordered. Unfortunately, most of the country has no feeder roads for they highway.
    My motorbike is on the 10m access ramp and the standard road system can be seen. Graded, hardpacked road surfaces would not be a problem. These mud roads are simply scraped onto the bush and become unusable as soon as someone spits on them.
    The drain on the side of the road in town is an example of the size required to keep the road surface relatively free from flooding or washouts.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Totally Loco - motion

    December 21, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 25 °C

    I took a selfie on a piki-piki on the road to the new school.

    Clumps of motor-cycles wait in strategic locations to grab piki-piki fares who jump on the back like this lady - no helmet provided. In this case she has been re-assured by the petrol tank declaration.

    Dalla-dallas are ubiquitous and cheap: the 3km trip to town from our lodgings costs TSh 400. Usually Toyota Hiace vans with seats for 18 people, they can be seen everywhere running their own bus routes into town, crammed with as many as 26 people inside. If you can't fit inside, hang on the outside or get a tow. Same goes for the piki-piki ride - only 3 on this one.

    Slightly up market are the Indian made tuk-tuks who want TSh 1000 even if they manage to get 4 people inside.

    Dalla-dallas like to flaunt the rules of the road. Here we have one trying to drive up a one-way street.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Filling the gap years

    December 22, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    In 2017 Tanzania’s population was estimated at 51.5 million, of which almost two thirds (63.8%) were below the age of 25, (mean age 17.6 years.)

    This year nearly 22 million pupils will be enrolled in school - the numbers I have found seem to vary according to the source. One reason is that an unidentified number of children are never registered with the authorities; hence the current introduction of a national identity card without which no SIM card can be obtained.

    In 2016 the average number of students per teacher was 135. During the last 4 years the number has dropped a little: many teachers have been trained which is why the surge in demand has not made the figures worse. But there is still a huge gap so any child that falls behind or drops out is abandoned. Hence Kyosei and its new school.

    The new school is half an hour outside Arusha in a development area on a plot measuring 90m by 80m. I know because I measured it: believe it or neither seller nor purchaser bothered to do so before!

    The road next to the school should be built in 2020, and electricity and water connected around then. In order to start teaching as soon as possible there is a roof fed tank to collect rainwater, and I have spent some time specifying and getting quotes for a small solar power installation, (which is more than they have funds for.)

    I liked the view of Mt Meru.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Walk on the wild side

    December 28, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 15 °C

    This is Mt Meru which towers over Arusha. We squashed into a dalla-dalla to the Northern outskirts of town and went for a little walk in the rain to visit a waterfall.

    Looking back towards the city - it holds about half a million people and growing - is an amaizing experience. OK, that was a bit corny, but it is what they grow at this altitude.

    Some buildings are still round houses built with wattle and daub. Although eminently suitable for this climate, cheap and ecological, people regard concrete as more advanced and that is what they use nowadays.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Water drops

    December 28, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    This waterfall in the park was our destination.
    The volunteer team is two Danes and a Bavarian led by John, a Tanzanian teacher at the Kyosei Traing Centre.
    He took us on an interesting route: I wish he had warned us about the kilometre hike up the stream bed though, then we could have brought appropriate shoes. I'm afraid my tender little muzungu feet were very red by the time we could put our shoes on again.
    The waterfall was pleasant enough and refreshing. If it hadn't been raining as well we could have lazed around for a while. Anyway, the party of rather large Kenyans coming up behind us - can just be seen in the photo where we are descending a bamboo ladder - obliged us to leave so they had room to enter the grotto.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Tanzanian wildlife

    December 29, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Everyone knows that Tanzania is famous for its wildlife. The plains of the Serengeti are filled with flocking tourists, herding animals and solitary carnivores posing for their photos. One of the largest group are the toy Otas, usually peaceful but capable of running their prey to the ground with excessive bursts of speed.

    The Two-Tier Tanzanian economy is geared to these rich pickings, picking up a significant contribution to the debt repayment plan. For example, just to cross the Ngorogoro park on the way to the Serengeti costs USD73 each way. That is more than I paid for an annual National Parks pass in Australia. Most prices though are carefully calibrated to be the same as in Europe. I found a real, brewed coffee the other day in a Muzungu cafe, (Tanzanians only drink sachet coffee,) which cost me TSH 3000 about 1 Euro 20.

    If you haven't seen a Game Park I suppose it is worth it. Having seen the surrounding countryside and numerous pictures of the Serengeti, I find it rather like an extended Longleat, with stately tents instead of stately houses. The Kruger in South Africa is probably a better bet and my favourite was the Hluhluwe Imfolozi Park, though I visited in the last century so who knows what its like now.

    Here anyway are some of the less frequently photographed animals, starting with the compound beasts Tiger and Nala, both desperate for attention and sympathy but uncertain medical condition.

    The Secretary bird was morosely hiding in the centre of town guarding the German boma, (fortified house,) that houses the Natural History Museum.

    I found the flamingo in a puddle outside the art centre. Is this called irony?

     I have no idea what the green creature is. As soon as it realised it was to be in a photo it accelerated away into the wild.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Pastoral interlude

    December 30, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 26 °C

    This is the local church. Couldn't help noticing the nice padded thrones for the celebrants / priests compared to the garden furniture for the others.

    We listened to a service here (obviously without taking photos) for a while. There were 3 choirs: one on the left and two on the right, each equipped with their own concert amplification system and excessive bass drivers. In a tin shed, for that was what it was, albeit with textile decorations, the sound was percussive to say the least. Now I know why the congregation sways unsteadily to the beat.

    The choirs each had their own uniform, distinctly African patterned, and sang gospel songs in Swahili. Occasionally, the priests got a look in. Most songs were of the call and response variety and one in particular reminded me of some old Italian harvesting songs. I was waiting for some polychoral antiphony but the choirs sought complete independence.

    It sounded great to us. Maybe we had been traumatised by the blast from the past we were getting every day in the form of Boney M "By the Rivers of Babylon" being broadcast at least 4 times a day, interspersed by their other 1970's hits.

    Luckily one of the ex-students still living with us had a better supply of music, for example Prince Indah "Maria" is a typical example of a modern Tanzanian song. Wouod Fibi another. I also admit to enjoying Rosie Muhando, though judging from the looks on the young folks' faces this would be like saying in the UK that you liked Nana Mouskouri.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Nostalgia

    December 31, 2019 in Tanzania ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    Here is a trip down memory lane for Mancunian graduates.
    Alas, the staff looked blankly at me when I asked for a pint of Robinsons.

    In this economically disadvantaged part of Arusha - in fact the world - what we once called poor, there is an absence of evening entertainment for the masses, most of whom do not have a TV at home. Many bars have TV rooms though, so what fills the gap, at least for the boys, is the English Football League enlivened by on-line punting (if you soccer loving shin kickers will forgive the rugby term,) on the Tanzanian football pools.

    And the team of choice for many is Manchester United. When United played City a few weeks ago, the noise rivaled that of Manchester itself.

    The girls on the other hand spend hours plaiting and re-plaiting their hair.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    True Native culture

    January 1, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    Most Masai warriors are photographed in the bush wearing a red blanket, holding a staff and pricking liking startled gazelles. So here is the real thing; the man who started the Kyosei Training Centre, Steven Saningo, a Masai man who himself only just managed to complete his education.
    It is his birthday today and the girls had to drag him kicking and screaming outside to have buckets of water thrown over him; for this is the custom. He was so reticent a week ago when it was his sister's turn to get soaked.

    His wife Riziki runs the accommodation side of the project, looking after a varying number of children / young adults who are unable to return home each day. One of the unmentionable things about having a child is that one loses one's identity. In Tanzania this fact is acknowledged by ever after calling the mother by the name of her firstborn. It is considered respectful to call her Mama Lau. Since I am older than all of them I am allowed to call them by their names, so I do.

    And here is their 6 year old daughter Lauree, known as Lau, back from her boarding school for the holidays and livening things up.

    Steven's sister Mary has been lodging here whilst she finished her Secondary Advanced Certificate in November: now she awaits the results before deciding what career to pursue.

    Another resident is Luciy another impoverished student from the countryside hosted by Steven and Riziki. Hers is a sad tale of absconding from an arranged marriage and drifting around until she ran across the Kyosei programme. Since her English was non-existent a year ago, it will be a miracle if she gets a Pass mark in the exam; which closes off most options. Here she is cooking dinner for all of us in her room.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Grub

    January 2, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 26 °C

    The staple food is ugali which is some sort of maize flour paste and looks like homemade play-dough. Doesn't taste of anything but doesn't hang around either. At lunch we get with it some green leaf vegetable chopped up fine.
    Dinner maybe beans and maize or plantains and carrots boiled up fine . Often some rice is prepared as well.
    Fruit forms no part of the diet. Fish has been served a couple of times, and recently some parts of chopped up animal have been included in the pot.
    Conventionally we would use our fingers to eat, but enough uncouth volunteers have visited that using a spoon is not frowned upon.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    High Five

    January 4, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    It seems that everyone wants to see the Big 5 animals in Africa. So here they are.
    Some people include leopards and drop either rhinos or hippos, but I went for size.

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Chip off the old block

    January 6, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

    Nyunga Joseph Nyunga started sculpting in 1964. He studied all over the world: North Korea, London, Paris, Swaziland, China, Berlin and Finland. This statue is in the style known as Kimbuga, the Kiswahili for Hurricane.

    Kimbuga lives in the ocean and sometime comes ashore in tidal waves. When coastal areas have been denuded of vegetation and forest cover, Kimbuga can strike far inland causing devastation. So we must educate people about caring for the environment.
    But Kimbuga can also be good for us. When Kimbuga smashes into a mountain causing landslides, the minerals inside are released to us. If gold, diamonds and other precious metals are there, the people will prosper.

    Kimbuga has advisors, small creatures such as insects and amphibians that help in defense. There is a toad in one mnostril and a tortoise in the other. When they emerge come out it is a sign of rain. On the left forearm can be seen a chameleon; sign of variability, of impending change.

    The snail on the bottom lip signifies peace: touch it and it withdraws into its golden shell.Under the mother figure a baby emerges cautious about what it will find. An example of not rushing into things.
    -------------------------------
    The other carvings had no explanation.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Earth science

    January 7, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    Traditional building method in this area was mud and lathe, a wonderfully cheap and ecological medium. Unfortunately, this is perceived as primitive, an attitude reinforced by the decay caused through lack of maintenance.Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Cop the funny

    January 8, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    I found this sign in the prison superintendents office.

    The classroom furniture for the new school was made at the local prison workshop. They loaded it onto a 3 tonner - without any tie-downs - and we rode on the back to help unload it. The sight of 3 muzungus on the back of a lorry amused all the locals no end.

    The road is unfinished by the school, by which I mean rough. One girl naively sat on the spare wheel which was lying on the bed of the lorry: a sudden lurch bounced her so hard on her coccyx that she nearly fainted and had to recuperate lying in the shade at the first stop. I survived by hanging like a monkey with one hand on the roof bar and the other on the side one. Legs were simply pistons the truck used to launch us into the air.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    A big adventure

    January 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 18 °C

    I splashed out on a day trip to Ngorogoro to see some of the sites unique to Tanzania. It was going to be tight day with the sites to visit quite far apart.
    At 6 a.m. the ShikaTours manager, Jon, turned up with his driver Bakari so that we could accomplish everything in daylight hours. They came in a Toyota Landcruiser, a different car from that planned, but I thought nothing of it, even though the windscreen was cracked.
    We raced a couple of rusty buses 154 km down the road to the park turn-off in the spitting rain, exacerbated by non-functioning windscreen water jets. Everything in this region is focused on safaris: for the bus drivers the "East African Safari". The buses drive flat out between staging posts in order to be first to collect passengers, overtaking on the inside, on curves and over blind hills as the opportunities arise.
    For some reason I could not understand, my driver kept drifting off the lane and hastily correcting the drift. Perhaps I thought, it was because he spent a large part of the trip dialling or answering people on the phone. Our speed would slowly decline and one or both buses would racket past showering us in a muddy spray. Then he would accelerate and pass them again to repeat the cycle further on.
    His instructions were to stop for coffee along the road and eventually he did stop at a buddies trinket shop alongside the main road. He wondered off leaving me to find coffee in the warehouse, filled with the same stuff in the Arusha Masai Market. Alas there was no coffee.
    The next stop was at a hotel where the company obtains lunch boxes for its clients. There it was suggested that I buy a coffee for TSh 3000 - instant coffee that is, which normally costs TSh200. The driver said nothing so we left.
    We passed a Army checkpoint without stopping and then pulled up at the Tourist and Diplomatic police guard hut. Bakari disappeared inside and ten minutes later came out with a policeman who got into the back seat. He moved the car 3 metres into a parking space and they both got out. As the fourth Tourist Troopy came and went as we sat there, I wondered what was going on and enjoying the scenery.
    A few minutes later I was summoned inside to find the driver locked in a cage - with our day's schedule. He told me the problem was the cracked windscreen.
    I returned to the vehicle to practice square breathing: in, pause, out, pause on the count of four. It didn't really work though and when the policewomen came out in her white gumboots , (brand name "Polisi",) I was still seething. She asked me in surprisingly good English what the driver had told me was the problem.
    "No, no," she replied, "he's drunk" and proceeded to tell me about the size of the numbers recorded by the breathalyzer.
    "But don't worry, I will find another driver for you. Just wait half an hour."
    And, mirabile dictu, she did. Another driver turned up and we set off one and a half hours late, leaving Bakari in pokey.
    Another 15 minute drive and we arrive at the Park entrance. Another delay: our vehicle does not match the paperwork and there should be another person with me. Luckily, the new driver Ima was an old hand at this game and I had the receipt from Shika Tours so we lost only half an hour.
    Windows wound firmly up, we gently ploughed through the baboon pack tourist watching on the road and onto the park dirt tracks. I said I wanted to go to Laetoli where the oldest footprints in the world are located, but the driver just headed off to the Leakey museum without saying anything. He claimed later that it was too far and not accessible anyway.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Large hole

    January 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ 🌧 16 °C

    This old volcano, possibly larger than nearby Mt Kilimanyaro, erupted 2.3 million years ago to leave the world’s largest unflooded and unbroken caldera. Research suggests various hominids have occupied the area for some 3 million years.
    Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, the 600m deep crater forms part of the Serengeti ecosystem.
    People come here to see the animals of course. The resident population, estimated at 20 – 25,000 large mammals, is contained within a natural sanctuary with favourable rainfall and sunshine leading to abundant food supplies. Wildebeest, zebra, gazelle, buffalo, eland, hartebeest, elephant, rhino, waterbuck and bushbuck all eaten by leopards, hyenas , jackals and lions.
    The lakes, Ndutu and Masek, are both alkaline soda lakes, sustaining the swamp environment which complements the savannah plains.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Critters at large

    January 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    We didn't descend into the crater but skirted the side and travelled along the road to the Leakey Museum over the plains that eventually become the Serengeti Park.
    Our passage was interrupted by herds of beasts roaming around. Zebras munching contentedly by the roadside and giraffes blocking the road. Mr. Thompson appears to have abandoned his gazelles who seemed happy with their freedom. And of course, the stupid wildebeest who when startled form columns to canter away.Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Make no bones about it

    January 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    Yes, I know: we've seen it before in "2001: A Space Odyssey". Oldupai is the location of the first monolith in Arthur C. Clarke’s masterpiece. It is over 30 miles long and 295 feet deep. Oldupai is the Maasai word for the wild sisal plant Sansevieria ehrenbergii, shown at the bottom of the photo.
    Five different layers of rock can be seen quite clearly, and different types of hominoid have been found in each. Australopithecus Zinjanthropus (Boisei), Australopithecus Afarensis (like Lucy) , Homo Habilis, Homo Sapiens and Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
    When around 1930 the Leakeys discovered the remains of a 1.8 million year old skeleton of Australopithecus, (now renamed Paranthropus,) boisei, he became known as the Nutcracker Man, why I cannot tell. But his significance as one of the distinct links in the human evolutionary chain has ensured that this site has been excavated and researched since then, revealing an abundance of fossils spanning 5 million years and also a huge collection of stone tools, known as Oldowan, whose dispersion around the world has provided many clues to our species evolution.
    A few years later, Mrs L stumbled across a complete set of footprints preserved in ash estimated to be over 3.7 million years old. They are believed to have belonged to our ancestor Australopithecus afarensis, proving that hominid species walked on two legs during the Pliocene era, some 3.7 million years ago. They are still there, at Laetoli, but apparently covered from view: these are plaster casts.
    My loquacious guide insisted I photograph this bone left conveniently for tourists to photograph. But in fact, wherever you wander there are bone fragments to be found. Paleoecologists have determined that there was a spring and nearby forest nearby, explaining the abundance of eaten animal bones and explaining why it was such a good factory site.
    Alas, most of the museum displays are resin casts of the originals which appear to be kept in museums around the world. For their own protection of course. That does not take away from the experience of walking through such a significant place in the human story.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Barkan in the wind

    January 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Heading out from the Gorge we encountered concrete mile-stones marking the progress of one particular sand dune over the years. Actually, more of like 17m-stones, since that is the average distance moved annually since 1969. It is about 9m high and 100m along its curve.
    The local Maasai believe the black sands originated from Ol Doinyo Lengai or “Mountain of God”, an ex-volcano which is just visible on the horizon.
    An significant peculiarity is that the sand has a very high iron content and has become magnetised. The compulsory tour guide insists on chucking handfuls up to prove that it prefers to clump and drop rather than be dispersed by the wind. Unfortunately, thanks to the mornings rainfall, the sand is saturated and really solid underfoot; my footsteps on the dune leave no imprint. So the animated demonstration merely proved to me that mud drops in the wind.
    This type of dune is called a barchan or barkan and is begun by sand clumping around a stone as it is blown by the wind which comes predominantly from the East. Sand grains are blown up the gentle, windward slope in the usual way, but instead of flying through the air like spume off a wave, tumbles down the leading edge owing to each grains affection for its neighbour - magnetic attraction. As they are blown up, gravity tempts them to take a less vertical line. Over time this results in more sand on the sides than in the centre and thus the crescent shape.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Colonialism

    January 12, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    The Datoga were Nilo-Hamitic speaking pastoralists, who lived in this area more than 300 years ago, were displaced by the Maasai. Now there are around 42,200 Maasai living in the Ngorogoro Conservation Area, living off the flocks of cattle, donkeys, goats, sheep and selling honey to gawpers. During the rains they move out on to the open plains; in the dry season they move into the adjacent woodlands and mountain slopes. They may range wherever they like, but are forbidden to live or cultivate in the crater.
    This is a traditional Masai boma (fortified house) providing shelter for humans and animals against 4 legged predators rather than 2 legged ones.
    Running out of time now we returned to the park entrance. My pleas to visit the ruins at Engaruka resulted in numerous Swahili phone calls and eventually I discovered that Bakari had been released and the drivers would swap on the road. Again, my requests to go to Engaruka resulted in more Swahili phone calls and we continued along the road at 40 to 50 kph. By the time we got to the turn off for the ancient ruins there was an hour of daylight left and it was 55 km down a dirt road to the site. He told me it would take 2 hours to get there and I knew he would make it so if I insisted so I didn't.
    So, I only saw half of what I paid to see. But Shika tours refunded half the amount I paid which was good.    Read more

  • Roland RoutierRenault RoamingTraveler

    Buried treasure

    January 14, 2020 in Tanzania ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    The street outside the compound turns into a storm drain after rain.

    I could never understand why people gave me a funny look as I emptyed laundry and washing up water into this brick bed in the middle of the compound under the laundry line. Finally somebody told me. It costs money to bury people in municipal plots so householders frequently put their nearest and dearest - such a treasure - to rest in their gardens - or compounds.
    Oops!    Read more

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