Adventures on (and off) the road!

Another two day trip – at least, that’s what we planned (Thursday – Friday last week). First stop Matamba. We reached this little town safely, met with the relevant people and dropped some things off for them, had lunch (in the VIP lounge resplendent with comfy chairs, posters and even a radio which we immediately turned down) and continued on our way. We knew the trip to the second town, Makete, might not be so easy, but the scenery was spectacular as we passed through Kitulo National Park (about 2600 metres above sea level, 8530 feet) – an area preserved particularly for its flowers which were evident all around as the rainy season has begun and turned everything a beautiful fresh green.

However, in the midst of these awesome surroundings we hit a terrible patch of road where we got stuck – grounded. We eventually got ourselves out (digging, jacking, stones etc.) but by then it was too late to continue so we decided to turn round and come back by a track running alongside that bad stretch of road. This went fine until we hit a patch of soft sandy soil where we just kept getting wheel spin and slipping. We tried everything that we could, but failed to proceed, so while waiting for help we kept ourselves warm in the car and watched an episode of ‘The Good Life’ on my laptop (which I had anticipated watching in a comfy guest house in Makete)! Eventually reinforcements arrived in the shape of 3 colleagues, by which time it was dark and cold. They had a go too but also failed and got it stuck even worse than we had! In the end we called it quits and abandoned the vehicle, getting home about 1am. Friday I then returned to the scene with folk from a garage who (after first getting their own car stuck) eventually managed to tow our Land Rover out. Our journey home took us down a road with 60 hairy hairpin bends, but we reached the main tarmac road safely. Surely nothing else could go wrong? Well, just a little hitch – we got a puncture. The garage guys whipped the wheel off and replaced it in no time and we finally reached the office in one piece, to my intense relief!

The travels continue

I spent the first week of December in another of the language areas, travelling around every day to visit different parts. Another beautiful region, very green, farms everywhere growing maize, potatoes, beans, bananas, avocadoes, tea… I drank gallons of tea (which was a challenge as I don’t like it) and soda and ate lots of good Tanzanian food (chapatti, rice or ugali, with beans, green leafy veg, cabbage and occasionally beef or goat meat) – people’s welcome was wonderful to behold. I also had a wonderful taste of home when, much to my surprise, we came across some blackberry brambles!
When using public transport it was scary to watch the conductors running alongside the minibus and jumping onboard, and jumping off again while it was still moving ready to persuade people to use their bus, to take their luggage and help them aboard.
During our travels, we were recording people telling stories in their mother tongue. Despite not being able to understand a word (except for the odd Swahili one that slipped in) it was fascinating to be involved in this and to meet with people of all ages, especially wazee (older people).

Off road

The last two days of November I went on a two day trip to one of the language areas that we work in. It was a beautiful region, very green from the frequent fogs, which also enables the people to farm all year round. I had great fun driving our project’s Land Rover over all kinds of terrain – dirt roads, paths barely wide enough for the vehicle to pass, fields and even a market with sellers hurriedly moving their merchandise out of the way.