Click here for a map of Tanzania. You can zoom in or out, and you can drag the map to see different areas. Karatu is in the north between Kilimanjaro and the Ngorongoro and Serengetil.

Here are lots of photos of our time in Tanzania:

Blacksmiths of the Datoga Tribe
Bushmen
Chris’ House, school, and community
Colobus Monkeys on Zanzibar
Dar Es Salaam
Swimming with the Dolphins
Driver Ants and Mangrove Swamp
General Interest/Miscellaneous
Karatu
From Karatu to the Airport
Ngorongoro and Serengeti Wildlife Parks
Olduvai Gorge
Tembo Hotel
Zanzibar Spice Tour and Stonetown Tour

I believe this will be the end of additions to this blog. It’s pretty complete Here is a link to Chris’ blog.

2. Nobody wears glasses – probably because they are unaffordable.

2. The people are abysmally poor by our standards but just as happy as any other group.

3. The people are kind and helpful.

4. Kids sometimes ask for money, but almost no one else does.

5. There are no Christmas or post Christmas sales – yay!

6. One can get by and be happy with almost nothing.

7. It’s a basically healthy diet there: fruits, veggies, protein (rice and beans make a full protein), starches, hot fresh milk served every morning.

8. Only white, crumbly breads are available.

9. Water is a big issue – in towns vendors deliver five gallon containers to homes and businesses from human pulled crudely built carts.

10. Transportation from most used to least used: walking, bicycles, daladalas (busses), motorcycles, taxis, personally owned vehicles.

11. Paved roads are rough and quite rare. Speed bumps are huge and one must come to a virtual stop.

12. Non-paved roads are the dominant form and without a Land Rover or Toyota Land Cruiser don’t even try driving on them. In fact sometimes don’t even try driving on them with such a vehicle – 2′ deep muddy ruts or even deeper washouts don’t work. Some spots are a sea of mud.

13. The plane we boarded to leave Tanzania and return to the US on seemed indescribably luxurious compared to what we experienced the past three weeks.

14. Smooth surfaces to walk on anywhere are totally rare, even in the big city of Dar Es Salaam.

15. Things in good repair are rare.

16. Doors everywhere stick.

17. Rainstorms are awesome, especially with the thunder and lightning.

18. Everyone walks slowly. No one jogs or runs.

19. People are very clean and dress well. It’s a cultural expectation.

20. Women’s dresses are gorgeous and made of patterned African cloth.

21. Men wear dress type pants (no jeans ever) and usually non-colorful cloth shirts. The traditional Masai are always in their robes.

22. Tennis shoes aren’t worn. The shoes you do wear will be reddish-brown from the soil.

23. When not at Chris’ house we stayed at local hotels, called guest houses, in the towns instead of tourist hotels. They were clean and a huge bargain, and all but one included breakfast. $20/night maximum.

24. The big game parks are totally awesome.

25. Baboons are thieves.

26. It was not good but was exciting being stuck in the mud for two hours with a pride of lions 600′ away. Fortunately they looked full and content…

27. It was also not good being on a flood plain during a huge rainstorm, watching the water rise before your eyes.

28. In Chris’ area of northern Tanzania most people are Christian and there are many small churches.

29. Christmas music was on radios and TVs everywhere in Chris’ area. I can’t tell you how many times I heard “Jingle Bells.”

30. High Point of the trip – just living in Chris’ house for six days.

We flew from Kilimanjaro airport to Amsterdam on KLM, and were delighted to see the plane was mostly empty (how rare is that these days?!!). So we each got to sleep on our sides on 3 seats, a definite luxury. If you’ve not been to the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam before and have a chance to get there someday, you should know that the stores there are fantastic for buying fabulous chocolates of many different European manufacturers. One time when traveling through that airport I brought an extra bag along and filled it with chocolate purchases for gifts and later use. Our final flight, on Delta from Amsterdam to Portland, was uneventful though it did seem to take forever.

And now the pics from the trip from Karatu to Kilimanjaro Airport – Mt. Kilimanjaro was covered in clouds so we didn’t get to see it

Not far from where the bushmen currently were is a family community of people of the datoga tribe who are blacksmiths. They make silver and bronze bracelets, and some awesomely effective looking arrowheads which they sell to the bushmen and others. They use a minimum of tools, work on the ground outside, have a forge with bellows that are simple and ingeniously designed, and often use their feet to hold a piece of metal they are working on. Check out the cool bellows they use to heat the metal in the forge in this video (sorry about the finger in the way…)

The women in the family gathered inside their mud house with us and demonstrated skirt making and grinding white corn using two flat pieces of stone. A song was sung by the women to encourage the woman dong the grinding to keep up her pace. Here is a video of it:

The Bushmen

One morning we went to visit a community of bushmen. These people are totally nomadic and independent of society. Borders have no meaning to them. They live in temporary, primitive shelters because they follow the animals. The men hunt in the morning and then after cleaning the carcasses of animals they kill they dry the meat in strips on branches. Check out this video of using bows and arrows.

The women go digging for roots. Here is a video of them digging – note the reddish potato-like tuber – it had just been dug up.

The group danced for us. Here is a video. Next Chris and I got pulled into the dancing – check out our style in this video. It may take a little while to load up.

Clothing given to them is often not used. They keep dogs around them to warn them of baboons. Baboons steal and make a lot of trouble.

The group we visited is a family cluster of about 22 people, which is a large family unit among them. There are about 10 such clusters in this part of Tanzania and they rarely cross paths with each other. Their language includes a lot of “clicking” as they speak, and this group smokes, including marijuana.

They were sitting around a small fire when we arrived, but since they get paid a little when tour guides bring groups around they put on a program for us that included starting fires with sticks, archery (I hit the target on my first shot and got roundly congratulated by all), dancing, and the women go off with us in tow and dig roots for their food supply.

This group racially looks somewhat different from the bushmen in “The Gods Must Be Crazy” movies but their lifestyle and language are much the same.

The Masai

To me one of the most famous tribes in Africa is the Masai, those tall, slender people dressed in beautiful robes, complete with their staff, who herd cattle. We saw many, many Masai in Chris’ area, and also in the Ngorongoro Park where we saw so much game. Another feature of the Masai is the large holes and stretching in their earlobes. The photo at the top of my blog is one I took of a group of men in the Ngorongoro Game Park.

In Karatu I saw many Masai walking along every day. Most were dressed in checkered robes that are a combination of red and blue. Many carry their sticks, but never once did I see a person use one as a walking stick. Rather the sticks seemed to be part of their persona. Often they had a hand on each end with the middle of the stick behind their neck.

There are some Masai who no longer live the traditional life. One of them is a teacher at Chris’ school, and he was dress in dress pants and a fine long sleeved dress shirt. It was fun to talk with him.

Most Masai seemed very serious and aloof. I did discover that they have a sense of humor on my way to the airport. There was a Masai man on a minibus with me. We were part of 10 people on the bus. As we drove along he and I were the only ones who spotted a kid on a little rise to the left of the bus taking a whiz right at the bus. He and I totally cracked up together; it was a fun moment.

My photos aren’t very good – I’ll see if I can dig up better ones from the other camera.

To see one example of a bowser and to have an enjoyable 1 1/2 hours watch “The Gods Must Be Crazy 2″ – the bad guys haul a bowser behind their truck.

Here is a photo of the river that is the water supply for the school, another of walking down the hill to the water, one of a man with 20 gallons of water on his bicycle, and another of a bowser on wheels somewhat similar to but smaller than the one that will be ordered to bring water to the school.

The riverbed from which water is obtained. Usually one digs to get to the water.

A brown water tank (bowser) on wheels. The one to be purchased for the school will ride on the school’s trailer and will be pulled by a tractor.

Walking down to the riverbed. After getting the water one has to walk back up!

This man has gathered 20 gallons of water and will use his bike to move it.

It’s a beautiful morning. The sounds here are the lowing of the cattle and clucking of chickens in and around the yard, wild birds, and occasional talking of the neighbors. No car sounds, delightful!

This village is several miles long and looks more like countryside than a village because everyone is a farmer with their fields by their homes. There are two “downtowns” separated by about 2 km. The downtowns are each an area with a few shops. The scenery is gorgeous, expanses of fields on rolling lands with the mountains in the background. The plants are vibrantly green. When the dry season comes in another couple months the plants will dry up and everything (and everyone) will become coated with the red laterite dust. Chris’ white shirts have a sort of dusty color permanently embedded in them…

Noon Christmas Day
Francis successfully drove us back to Karatu through the most amazingly horrible roads! Check out the road pics with this post. Amazingly the Land Cruiser made it through everything including one terrifically deep ditch as shown in the photo. All these photos are of the road – no wonder it takes 1-2 hours to go 13 miles! If the video uploads okay it will be of Francis driving a part of the road that was smooth enough for me to hold the camera somewhat steady…

We spent much of the day in a restaurant listening to Christmas music on the tv and ate lunch there while waiting for our hotel room to be ready.

Christmas music fills the air and it’s great to hear it!

In the evening we walked to Restiela’s home. We were served juice made of mango, pineapple, and banana when we arrived, then later ate pilau with meat, rice, tomatoes, and cucumber. We finished up with pop. Delightful, loving family, and we were very fortunate to be their guests.

Afterwards we brought a Christmas card to the headmaster of this school for him and his family. It was a neat surprise for them because Christmas cards are not a tradition here.

Next we took turns passing out and opening our presents to each other from under our little Christmas tree with its 28 battery powered lights. It was great fun opening them together! We have a family tradition of opening gifts on Christmas eve. This was a high point of the trip for all of us!

Then we brought chairs onto the front porch and enjoyed the night sky. We are in the southern hemisphere here but only 6° so some northern constellations are visible. The sun is in the north here which seems odd to consider. We heard church bells ring in the distance at about 8:30 for Christmas service, and we heard someone preach in Kiswahili through a megaphone (most people in this area are Christians.) During all this we heard a farmer running his tractor in a field even though it’s night time…

Now at the late hour of 9:29 pm we are calling it a night and going to bed. With kerosene lanterns as the only source of light it’s difficult to
read and do things, so we’ve gone to bed between 7:30 and 9:00 pm each night. Amazing how the lack of electricity changes ones life…

Merry Christmas everyone!

Opening our gifts by lantern light: