Singing Children

Friday December 22, 2000

Arose about 6:00 a.m. Rus was up early too and I saw him our walking around so he and I did a little early exploring before our 7:30 breakfast time. At the end of the lane there is an extra large cottage and behind it a structure that was either built around the huge tree there or the tree grew through the structure. It was quite old and I’m sure had a “story” to go with it. We enjoyed the morning birds and sounds.

After breakfast we all went up on the roof where someone from Ranger Safari came to brief us on our trip. On a clear day you can see Kilimanjaro from the roof but it was cloudy for us. We started our day with a visit to a near-by school. It’s actually summer break and the children won’t officially be back in school until the 8^th of Jan. but a group came especially for us. The schoolmaster was a woman somewhere close to my age I imagine. She took us into each classroom. One wing of the school was being renovated. There are about 450 kids in the school and there is one teacher per grade (no matter how many kids are in that grade) - so the classes are large. The chairs and desks were really benches and a board to rest a book on. Some students from William and Mary had visited at some point and had painted some walls with information for science lessons…. Like the parts of the body or parts of a flower..... There was not much evidence of books although I did see some in the administrative room. We were taken into a large room that served as a meeting area. The children sang and danced for us - our introduction to the song of Tanzania. One girl in particular had such a beautiful voice. I got the address and information and would love to develop some kind of exchange with them.

From there we drove to a mountain top village. The road going up was lined with people coming and going. I couldn’t much imagine walking or riding on this dirt road in rainy weather! The community we visited was about 2500. You would never know that. The bomas were spread all over the sides of the hills mixed in the crops of bananas, corn and coffee plants. It was a tropical paradise. We’d be walking and all of a sudden we'd realize we were in someone’s front yard. Kids were everywhere and they followed us around like we were Pied Pipers. They are always watching us carefully and are quick to return a smile and to laugh with you. They are so used to being given pens or candy from tourists that they often ask or use hand signals indicating what they want. We came upon a couple of boys in an open area with their cattle and goats. They were entertaining themselves with a large homemade “koosh ball”. It was made of plastic sacks and tied with string. A NEAT TOY. They were absolutely precious and let us join in for a while.

We were given a tour of the community “dispensary” which they are quite proud to have. They say they serve about 50 people a day. They don’t deliver first babies there by choice but often do succeeding babies. I didn’t see much evidence of medical supplies. The “coordinator” of the village had met us there and we had tea at his house at the end of our tour. We spent several hours walking around heavily breathing…. the altitude caught up with us a couple times. We saw the school for this village as well but it wasn’t open either. There were 615 students in this one and again only one teacher per grade (9 teachers). They were quite amazed that I never had more than 27 children at a time.

The ride down the mountain was probably more interesting than the ride up. I find all the different kinds of dress so interesting. You can see the many cultural influences present in the area. There are always people walking no matter how far out into nowhere you think you are. We drove back to the Inn and had lunch and collected our baggage. Our travel today would take us out of Arusha and into Tarangire National Park. Driving out of the city we passed lots of local markets. We saw dense streets and population off the main road. We stopped at the Tourist Cultural Center. They had some lovely things but they were very pricey. We can’t buy anything because of our weight limit for our upcoming flight from The Serengeti to Arusha. The trip to the park was very pretty. It’s so interesting how the terrain can change. We passed Maasai bomas the entire way - right up to the edge of the park. You just always seem people walking out in the landscape or along the road. There are always young boys and men grazing their cows and goats for the day. We arrived at the park about 4:30 p.m. From the gate as Ben and Ephata were checking in we observed a herd of impala – then elephant. We turned left as we entered the park toward the elephant. We watched them grazing for about an hour. The herd was probably close to seventy in number. Lots of babies were in the crowd. The grass is tall and green… some were throwing the cool grass up on their backs. They are SO MASSIVE! We drove slowly through the park aiming for our campsite. We saw several groups of giraffes. They are so regal… their eyes are beautiful… they just graze and are watchful of us. They just flow along when they walk. The sky got darker and darker and added such a “dramatic” dimension to the scenery. We had rainbows and then lightning but it didn’t rain until about 8:00. We spotted another herd of elephant off on a distant slope and then a group of three males along the road. I think they were my highlight of the day. We were so close and got such a good look, they are so mammoth in size and the sky was so dramatic at that time of day.

Our crew of six had been setting up our campsite for two days…. (six for eight of us and then our two drivers)…. We feel a little pampered already. Our tents are big. two cots and two tables in each. Two chairs and a table are on the porch with two portable washstands and a hanging mirror. The toilet and shower area is connected to the backside of the tent. They had hot water waiting for us for showers when we got there!! The diner tent is just across the way – there they had a campfire and drinks waiting! Dinner was a little after eight. Pepper steak was the main entrée. The food was great! Umbrellas were waiting for us in case we needed them but the rain had really stopped by the time we went back to our tents. The staff is staying off across the back from the dining tent with our four tents across the way. Dick and Shirley have the end tent and a tree between them and Laurie and Linda. We were pretty much in bed by 9:00… it’s dark and there is not much else to do. We do have a lantern lit on the porch and one in the shower area, which stay on all night. I was awake about every two hours. I won’t drink a coke at night again! I LISTENED for noises and wanted to hear some but the campsite was quiet. Some said they hear lion about 4:30 a.m. but I never did. Birds started in about then and we couldn’t figure out what in the world it was. Helmeted guinea fowl are LOUD! They put a rooster in the shade and one does NOT need an alarm clock!!

Jane Wojecki

School Visit

Friday, December 22, 2000

Took cold showers since we did not realize we had turned off the hot water switch during the night. Had breakfast. Augustine of Ranger Safaris gave us a briefing about our Tanzania safari. Departed to visit a local Primary School. It was the holidays so not all the students were there. We had the head master give us a tour of some of the classrooms. Had 7 classrooms and has about 400 students. On the walls of the classrooms there were lesson plans painted on the wall and that is what the teachers teach from. The kids sang songs and danced for us. We tried our version of Jingle Bells. They were better singers. We left some ink pens and candy with the head master of the school. The head master told us that students completing Primary school must be tested to qualify for secondary school. Their school was in the top 10 of the area with about 150 schools in the area and only about 40% qualified for continuing on the secondary school.

We traveled back into Arusha and picked up a guide, Henry, who lived in a nearby mountain village above Arusha. We drove up a terrible road to the village. We were amazed how the village plants every space available on the mountain-side with corn and other crops. The whole village participates in the planting and harvest. We had some local kids walk with us. We got out of the van and walked approximately 2 miles touring the village. We walked for about an hour. The view was beautiful. Went by their Primary school and a small clinic. The village has about 2500 people and are scattered out around the mountain-side. Some of the boys kicked a home-made soccer ball which some of the group participated with them in kicking. The home-made ball is made up of plastic bags all wrapped up tight. We were shown some coffee beans during the walk. At the end of the walk we had a cup of tea at the Village leader’s home.

Went back to the Mountain Village Lodge for lunch. Ate and departed for Tarangire National Park. Good highway to the park. We drove through the business district of Arusha on the way. It was very interesting. Stopped at a Cultural Heritage display and market. Carvings and the local mineral Tanzanite were sold there. Tanzanite is only mined in Tanzania. Very pretty blue crystal. Prices were high in the market. Continued onto the park. Some interesting things seen along the route were women picking up stones on the side of the road in the fields to sell to cementing company to mix with cement. We left the paved road and headed down a dirt road to the park.

Arrived at the park around 5:00PM. Ben opened the hatches of the land cruiser so we could stand and look out the top of the cruiser. Started a game drive in route to our camp. Right inside the park was a large herd of elephants. We saw several big males. It was exciting seeing them so close and so many. We got pretty close to the herd and a couple of the males acted like they wanted to charge the truck. Our guide said they can be aggressive and knew what distance to stay from them. We got some good shots or pictures of two male elephants pushing each other around. Took many pictures and moved on. Came across another group of elephants, one of which did not like our presence and charged toward us. A couple of the elephants got a little excited and headed toward Rusty’s vehicle. We got some good action shots with the elephants right behind their vehicle. We came across some giraffes and even had a giraffe come right alongside the vehicle for some good pictures. We worked our way to our private mobile tent camp. Made it to our mobile campsite about 6:30. It was all set up and waiting for us. This is high class camping. There was a mess tent where a bar was set up along with the dinning room table and chairs. The table was all set and laid out perfect. There were 4 tents for the 8 of us with several smaller tent set up for the staff of 6. The canvas tents had 2 beds with very nice mattresses. There were night stands or tables behind each bed. There were netted windows and doors which made it nice sleeping at night with the windows open. We got there just before a rain storm hit. The camp setting was beautiful on a ridge under some Baobab trees. There was a fire going at the camp site but the rain messed the opportunity to sit by the fire long. We had a few beers from the bar. The tents had a shower and toilet right behind them. It was configured to be all one complete unit. You did a lot of zipping and unzipping of tent flaps getting in and out of the tents for using the shower and toilet. Laterns are set out at night at the front and between the tent and toilet and shower sections. In the front of the tent there was a porch with chairs and a table. Each morning they had water poured in canvas basins to freshen up. There was also a mirror hanging on the porch area. Our guides would dine with us and fill us in on the plans for the next day. Had great snacks before dinner and a great dinner.

The Hazels