Monday 29 August 2011

Tanza Week 2

Day 6. Woke up at 5am in the pitch dark and cold of Ndarakwai camp for the last time. We said our farewells to the staff then got the coach to Arusha. A good 3hour drive. There we changed some more currency and got into our Toyota Land Cruisers which we'd be in the next two days on SAFARI!!! The group split into three but I got on really well with the bunch in my jeep so it was awesome. (To be honest the whole group are really lovely so would have been happy anywhere) In Arusha we stopped off at a supermarket quickly where I bought the all important flannel! (Washing inches of mud off with just your hand and a bucket was pretty hard work!) Stocked up on snacks and bits there too. Then we had a long ride down to Tarangire National Park. Best Day Ever! Saw some impressive 400 year old Boaboa trees which were SOOOO wide! Godfree, our driver and guide, was really great at stopping and telling us about everything. The park was incredibly vast and so much to see! Zebra, wilderbeast, dikdiks, Elands, Impala, giraffe, elephants, buffalo and lions! Seeing the first elephant was incredible then the lions were awesome! We witnessed a big stampede as the lions hunted the zebra and wilderbeast! It was immense! Lots of monkeys, warthogs, mongooses and baboons everywhere but nothing jumped up in our van or anything. They were all pretty passive - must be pretty used to safari people by now I guess! That night we stayed in a pretty cool camp site up by the rift valley. There was a very impressive sunset over the mountains with a very purple haze. The facilities were the best of the trip here. Proper beds in the tents, showers and toilets which worked. Although only if you were lucky enough to time it right when the generator was on like me! Woop. After dinner we joined some local dancers in a good old sing and dance! Fantastic stuff.

Day 7. Woke up to some impressive bird calls and amazing sun rise. Got back into our safari van with Godfree and off to the Ngorogoro crater today! Best Day Ever. Took us 45 minutes to get to the national park but a slow 20km of bumpy tracks to the ridge of the crater then down into it! Spectacular views of the mountains, forest, vast plains and maasai villages though. Pretty cold up here this morning. I was actually wishing I had a jumper! Went past a cactus which has milk inside which could blind you! Saw some really amazing things this day. Thompson Gazell, warthogs, zebra, wilderbeast, Martial Eagle, HIPPOS! Loved that, they were sleeping in a little oasis with a heron perched on one of them! There were flamingo on the alkaline lake and we saw them flying too! Grey crowned cranes, white stalks, sacred ibis, Hyena, Kori Bustards, Hartebeast. A serval (Cool little mini cheetah thing) More lions and waterbuffalo, ostriches and best of all a black rhino! There are only about 100 in the whole of the wild so we were pretty lucky to see one! There was a big lake where we ate lunch with tens of hippo just chilling out in which was really awesome cool. I also saw my first of many GIANT butterflies. I mean really big. Like everything out there actually. Just missed out on seeing a cheetah as we went past a group of jeeps who just saw it walking from a carcass now covered in vultures (which are enormous by the way) and hyenas. The journey back to camp was even pretty good. The views were incredible. It was weird because you see that sort of thing on the tv all the time but seeing it with your own eyes was just phenomenal! We stopped at a big souvenir shop on the way back and I did some recreational bartering but didn't buy anything. Gwyn bought a cool chess set which we played later on. Had a good night having a laugh with everyone back at camp Haven Nature. Couldn't believe it was only day 7. We had done so much by now it felt like months since we were in Godalming.

Day 8. A very average day compared to recent excitements. Mostly spent in the jeep getting all the way to Moshi. There we stayed in the back garden of the keys hotel just outside the main city. We had toilets and a kitchen/mess area thing but the showers didn't work so great which was a blow. Staying in same sorts of tents as first week. We could use the swimming pool though which was fantastic for cooling off. It was a lot hotter in Moshi than up in the mountains! Very stuffy.

Day 9. Started our project work for the week. We were based up at a school 20 mins up the road from the hotel walking, in the hot hot hot! We got set the task of making more furrows. This time for drainage for the playing field so they don't lose all their grass in the rainy season. Such hard work getting rid of the roots and the soil was pretty solid as it was just compact red dust basically! It was great to be in amongst all the kids though. They were all pretty crazy. Trying out their English on us was funny. "What is my name?" but we did our best to speak some swahili to them which we'd picked up from the camps staff. Walked back to camp for lunch for nice lunch of rice and fried fish. Headed back to the school for 2pm where we whipped up some cement to fix rocks to the side and bottom of our new ditches. It was so hot I had to stop and seek shade and water every few minutes. Sam and I got chosen to give an English lesson to the kids on Friday morning which was exciting so we went to meet the teacher and find out what we'd be doing. On the way back we walked the kids home, they all wanted to hold hands and things and made a friend called Barrack Obama. He was 10 so much just be coincidence! Straight in the pool to cool down at camp. Met lots of people who has either just been or about to climb Kilimanjaro. Did some much needed clothes washing. Most of it was stained brown by now from all the dirt everywhere! Charlie H's birthday today so had another little party which was good fun! Saw a goliath beetle which was like a massive stag beetle the size of a water glass! insanity!

Day 10. Sausage and beans for breakfast! What a result. Had quite a few mozzy bites by now but no malarial symptoms so the tablets doing the job or just been lucky! Saw some hornets sleeping on the floor on their backs then wake up and take off. Very odd. Massive, scary things but so common that we were just used to them by now. The goliath beetle of yesterday was found decimated. Apparently by ants... Don't want to angry an African ant! They are big boys. Bit of cloud cover today to my relief! Still very sweaty though. Today I did lots of woodwork for the new dining hall. We built window frames and a shelving unit. It was great how limited health and safety or any sort of useful tools there were. The nails were really soft and we just had hammers, chisels and hand saws so most jobs took ages. Putting the shelves up was fun. I had to just climb up 8ft off the ground and hammer the top shelf in while sitting on it with no support! Great stuff. The local carpenter, Bando, didn't speak much English but we still learnt so much from him about carpentry. He could do one handed press-ups on his knuckles... What a legend. Managed to get the frisbee out and play with the kids for a bit before sam got out his football which would inevitably win them over! Still great fun though as they all just charge after you or the ball with no game rules just chasing essentially! Shakira one of the staff was very funny that day demanding I get her water and things. She didn't speak very good English either but enough to have a good giggle. Swam again back at camp. Played a quiz that Adam and Amy (our teachers) had sorted. Good fun.

Day 11. Had to lug some bags of heavy cement up to the school this morning. I did more carpentry when we got there though, building a few doorframes and a door. Much hotter today so glad to be inside. Saw a snake on the way back for lunch (flat and dead on the road though) lunch was lush, rice and beef stew! I always found I was more hungry at lunch and not at all at dinner. Explain that?! That afternoon we finished our door and I made a special stool. Had to finish it off back at camp though. Had a kiswahili lesson with Anderson and planned my lesson with Sam for the morning. He learnt 'if you're happy and you know it' on the ukulele. We all played card games and had a good fun evening. (Forgot to mention there was a bar at the hotel we could go and get drinks from so that was great)

Day 12. Best Day Ever. Sam and I had to leave for the school early with Amy and Adam to teach Temu's class. Amazing experience. There were about 25 kids aged 8-11. We introduced ourselves in swahili then took the lesson in english. They had little old text books which we set work from. We were looking at the daily routine so we read and did actions for things then got the kids to read out loud to us. Then there were some questions we set and went round marking. They were all so attentive and wanting to learn it was amazing. Some of them were really very good at English too whereas others struggled more. We did our happy and you know it song and they all joined in with the actions then a girl called Mary sang us a song in English. She had previously been to international school and was by far the best at speaking. She told us she wanted to be a pilot! After the lesson we were back to work cementing the drainage tracks. Cloudy again this time which I loved. Didn't even put on any suncream! After lunch we carried on as before then, since it was our last day, we all gave out little bits and bobs to the kids and we basically started a riot. My arms took days to recover from the scratches! It was mental mad! After that had calmed down a bit though we arranged for the worlds largest hokey kokey. I've never shouted so loudly in my life! There must have been at least 200 kids and us lot in a bit circle! Brilliant fun. Then the children sang their national anthem which was really sweet. I gave Temu my stool and she was very grateful saying 'now I will never forget you'. What a sweetie. Straight for a swim back at the keys hotel. Had another swahili lesson with Anderson. Much better this time, we had a good laugh too. Nice pasta and tomato sauce for tea. Went out at 11pm to a club in town called Club la liga. 10 mins drive in 4 taxis. Such an immense club, massive dance floor with screens and speakers everywhere. DJ's booth was a VW van and we just danced away. However I had a bit too much Konyagi (Locally brewed gin) so was a little worse for wear by 2:30 and I can't really give much of a description of what happened after the dancing! Great fun though I'm sure!!

Day 13. 'Rest and Relaxation' day today. Thank goodness because I was tired! Had to wear the policeman's hat of shame today. It was really hot too which was a disaster. Also we went into town shopping and so I got some pretty interesting looks! Bit of a waste of time unfortunately going into town. Although good seeing a few things it was mostly all just really basic market stands and we were walking round for ages and it was so hot and all we wanted were souveniry type things not everyday things that the locals get. But oh well, the view of Kili was pretty spectacular! Then on the way back we found these really good souvenir shacks where these guys had done really great art and craft things. I bought a couple of paintings and bracelets and things which were all really cool. That night I had to do a few forfeits 1. Dress as my favourite safari animal. 2. Paint yourself as a zulu and sing I'm a little tea pot then 3. Do the makarena... Crazy times. Had another good night getting Konyagi sachets a plenty from the bar and Anderson gave us another fun quiz.










































Tanza Week 1

Hi - I decided a blog would be a good way of letting everyone know what I got up to out in Africa. Firstly, it was the best thing ever. So amazingly beautiful and an experience that I'll never forget so thank you if you sponsored me in any way to go. This is going to be long so I'll do a conclusion at the end if you don't have long!... :o)

Day 1 Monday 4/7/11. The journey out from Godalming was a bit of a disaster for me as I had a nasty stomach upset so spent most of the available time in airport toilets etc. But we all got there in one piece! 13 students and 2 teachers from Godalming College and 1 leader from Camps International who are the travel company we went with. The flight was 8 hours to Nairobi then an hour from there to Kilimanjaro but unfortunately a bit of a wait in between flights. Interestingly, the clocks at Nairobi were 3hrs 10mins ahead of our watches but in Tanzania they were just 3hrs... Strange!

Day 2. Still pretty poorly but the excitement of being in Africa took my mind off things for a while as we travelled from Kilimanjaro airport, at first along dead straight roads then for an hour along a sandy track with vast expanses of wilderness surrounding us, to a place in the complete wild to the west of the mountain called Ndarakwai. It is a camp in the middle of an open ranch where all the animals are free to roam etc. It was amazing. The camp staff were all really friendly Tanzanians who welcomed us to our new accommodation of three man tents, drop pit toilet and bucket showers! Was still very ill so stayed in camp as the others went exploring and looking for fire wood and collecting elephant dung for a task the next day. While I was sat reading I saw some bright blue and orange birds, baboons, vervet monkeys and then giraffes came up to the camp too! Amazing!

Day 3. Woke up in the middle of the night needing the toilet. I only mention this because of the experience of being out in the pitch dark (also gets very chilly 800m above sea level). The sound of the insects and animals was very eerie and spooky but the stars were incredible! I stayed out just staring at them for ages. Like nothing I've ever seen. So many to see and it just felt like I was in the lion king! That day we went to work down at a watering hole. It's a half hour stroll from the camp through the plain so we had a ranger with us. On the way we saw wild giraffes, waterbuck, impala and zebra! At the waterhole our task was to remove the loose rocks and try and make the edge safer for animals to drink from. It is on the main migratory route for the wilderbeast etc and is often used as a back up watering hole for the sick, pregnant and injured animals so hence the need for the safe edges. There was an awesome two storey tree house that the owners of the ranch had built which looked over where we worked and beyond. From there you could see the beauty of the place to a greater extent. mountains in the background, vast plains with animals roaming and flat topped canopies of the trees. I went up there and watched my new friends hard at work. (Still feeling poorly and by 11am the sun is back in business to a good 34degs) Feeling a bit better we next cleared the furrow/stream which fed the wateringhole from the mountains. A better flow of water will help the hole increase in size naturally. We all got very muddy and saw lots of cool things like vulture eagles and lizzards! Went back to camp for a big lunch of pasta bolognese but still no appetite for me. Played a bit of  frisbee and badminton. Got some pills off Charles (The guy in charge of the camp) to settle my stomach. Then we went up the road to make some elephant dung paper with the dung the others had collected the previous day. It had been boiled overnight then we had to clean it, drain it, pound it, mix it with shredded scraps of paper and wood glue and water. Mix then filter with a mesh to create a sheet. It was good fun and nice to be in the shade. The process is helping prevent elephant poaching as the by-product can be sold on so locals can make money in an alternative way to ivory. That night we had a party for Georgie's 18th. I made an improvised birthday cake from Werther's Originals, cereal bars and found a few candles! Made a crown of shame for Josh as his forfeit for being generally daft (That's our 'leader' by the way) He had done a good job of wearing a police hat all day and clothes inside out to be fair... Soup then stew for dinner. The beef tasted a bit lamby and stringy out there according to Gwyn anyway. Spoke to some of the other staff there, Mike and Smasha, both a really good laugh.

Day 4. Feeling lots better by now! Had a bucket shower in the morning with the warm, rusty and leafy water! (Warmest shower all trip though so don't knock it!) We went to a school which took us a while to get to on the back of a truck through all the sand. Everyone got nice and dusty and scratched up by the thorny trees! Anyway, at the school our task was to dig a big trench so they can lay water pipes for a new kitchen to be built. It was very hot work. The ground was hard so it required hoeing the top soil and grass then pick axing the ground to loosen then shovelling it out. After about 5hours we had a big ditch about 2ft deep and maybe 100m long. We were pretty chuffed. Everyone got really stuck in and we got to engage with some of the local men and kids who joined in. Played a bit of 5-a-side at lunch with them. Everyone was covered in dust and mud by the end of the day. There's a great picture of my mud-tan lines when I took off my shoes! Soup then chicken for tea then we had a proper party for Georgie round the camp fire. A good fun night!

Day 5. Hiked to a nearby Maasai village. It was very windy that day but warm already for the morning. The Maasai ladies had all gathered to greet us. 8 of whom were the wives of the tribe leader! It was pretty fascinating seeing their culture first hand. The clothing so boldly coloured and such intricate jewellery. Lots of kids wandering about (both human and goat alike) The poor guys had lots of flies all over their faces and things. I guess they're just used to it but the flies got very annoying for me. We asked them some questions via our two translators (English to swahili - Swahili to Maasai then back again) It was good fun. Then the women grabbed each one of us individually and took us into their home. A tiny mud hut but complete with kitchen, bedroom and living area... just super small. And pitch dark! There we made beaded bracelets. Well she tried getting me to do it but didn't speak any English at all and I couldn't see a thing so she just made it for me in the end. It was when she was hunched over the beads when I realised the whole time she had a tiny baby strapped to her back under her tribal dress. Amazing, it was like she didn't even know it was there! Anyway, I then bought some things off her but had no idea how much the currency was worth at that stage so gave them a lot more than everyone else managed. We joked that they'll be buying Ferraris etc with all the money I gave them! It was worth it though, fascinating people and culture! Taught them the hokey kokey and they all did some singing and dancing of their own which we joined in on. Back to camp for some lunch (Japati bread and bean sauce - very filling) We then went back down to the watering hole and dug out a lot of mud increasing the area of water. That was good fun. I loved it out there, just being in the wilderness with the zebra and warthogs just staring at you but also the fact our digging will be helping out the animals was a nice feeling too! Collected fire wood on the way back to camp then had a nice last evening at camp Ndarakwai. I would have liked to have stayed there longer!