It took just a couple of days for us to gather the money for Noel’s windows. We even have some money left over for drapes! When things get moving on the actual installation of the glass (this is Africa…), we’ll post some new pictures of Noel’s house.
Please hold off on any more donations for now. We have do a new project in mind, so stay tuned!
Thanks again.
Our night watchman Noel has been building a house for his family. It has taken him 5 years so far, and he is nearing the final stages. All he needs is the glass for the windows. Samantha and I went to visit him at his old house, which is right next to his new house. It is a 10 minute walk from our house, through the shambas and banana groves on the side of the mountain. His new house is impressive. It has three bedrooms, is made completely out of cement, and when it is ready will be very comfortable. A dream for Noel and his family. Noel estimated that he can get the money together for the glass (about $450) in two years if there is no bad luck (funerals to pay for was the example he provided me when I asked). Samantha and I gave him half of the money so that he could get started. Of that half, half (a quarter of the total if you are counting) was a gift, and the rest he will pay off by bringing us fresh milk every night. He has two milking cows that his wife milks and takes the milk to sell.
Samantha and I are going to try to raise the other half by asking you to donate to Noel’s cause. Just use the donation button below that will take you to my Paypal account. If we can get about 20 people to give $10 each, we should be in great shape. Feel comfortable to donate as much or as little as you want. If you would prefer to send a check e-mail me and I can send you a US address that you can send a check to.
If you do make a donation make sure that you e-mail me or leave a comment here so that I know where the money is coming from. I would like to keep you informed with how Noel’s house is doing.
Thanks.
When Samantha, Sofia and I came back from our Easter holiday, we found an inch of water pooled in the corner of our living room. The rains had arrived whilst we were gone, and tour poor, tattered roof had been pounded for days and days. Our neighbors told us about the sheets of water that had fallen for days at a time. And so Sam and I mopped up, called in a roof fundi, and got on with life. It continued to rain for another month. The fundi continued to come by and patch up the latest leaks, and slowly slowly (like most things here), we stemmed the rain inside the house. Outside it kept on. Our garden has been growing at a rate that makes Samantha and I laugh in amazement as we see plants seemingly double in size in a fortnight.
All very interesting, but what has really suffered here is the Ilboru road. Famed for its dustiness in the dry season, for it’s number of cavernous holes and craters in any season, and for the raging torrents that roar down it during the rains. This year the rains really tore it to pieces. It makes me happy in a perverse way, because I amortize the cost (not small) of our Land Rover with every single trip I make up and down the hill. In any other car the ride becomes 15 bone jarring minutes of heaving and lurching, hand gripping the door handle for dear life.
The Land Rover lives for roads like this. Of course, I would like to roar up and down the hill all day, toying with the deep ditches on either side of the road (carved out by the rain, not by man), but the road gets pretty busy with taxis (like the one creeping along in front of me in the pictures) and people. With people on foot there is an unpleasant dynamic that exists. The road is a sea of puddles, and it is virtually impossible to drive down and not hit a puddle. And so as you approach people on foot, they stop and look at the path you tires are taking, trying to predict how much mud is about to leap up from the ground. I find myself trying to avoid puddles more that I try to avoid other cars. So, if you are intrigued by all of this rainy nonsense, come and visit Samantha and I between March and May, and you too can experience the Ilboru road in the rains!
On Saturday morning (the 3rd of May) a group from school set out from Arusha for the base of Mount Meru. Although the mountain sits literally on top of the town, we climbed it from the other side, meaning that we had to take an hour drive into Arusha National Park to start our journey (at the Park Gate if you are using the map). There were four teachers and ten children on the trip. The children were all in the same year, and were about 14 years old. It was a great group to climb with. They were a fun group, have all known each other for many years, and were determined and fit as well.
On Saturday we walked through the National Park, past giraffe, wart hogs and buffalo. We had an armed ranger, Peter Matthew, who introduced himself as “the gunman”. He was to keep us safe from an eventual buffalo charge. Charles (another teacher) and I had our own plans, scouting out trees that we could climb up and ditches that we could pile into should we face a charge. ” Unbuckle and bolt” was the name of the strategy. We were all carrying packs that weighed in at between 30 and 35 pounds, so our options were limited.
The walk gradually became a climb, going from the lush flatlands up into the jungle of the lower slopes. We walked for about four hours until we reached Miriakamba Huts, where we spent the first night.
The next morning, in the brilliant sunshine, we set off for the second hut, called Saddle Hut. Like the first day, I was a thousand meter climb. Previous groups wad warned us about the dreaded steps, of which there are reputedly almost two thousand.
This day’s walk took us about four hours as well, and all along the way were buffalo droppings. Like a cow pat really. Nothing very exciting, except for the fresh ones, that indicated that there must be a buffalo quite close by. I was ready to unbuckle and bolt. The steps took us through more forest, and through the trees we had an amazing view of Kilimanjaro, sitting on a sea of clouds.
We arrived at Saddle Hut by about two in the afternoon, had lunch, and then went to bed. We had to get up at one thirty a.m. for the last climb up to the summit. We set out a little after two, and soon we were scrambling and climbing our way around some pretty steep slopes. To get to the summit of Meru you have to make your way around the side of the mountain until you can get at the peak. It is a strange shape, sort of like a letter C, hollow in the middle except for a spectacular ash cone. Several times on the climb we walked along ridges that were about two meters wide and dropped away for hundreds of meters on both sides. On the way up, at night, we didn’t really notice. On the way back, we noticed.
We summited at about eight in the morning, all of us. No-one had to go back. I could certainly feel the altitude in my lungs, but no-one felt any sickness at all. There was a three or four hour stretch when Charles and I entertained one another by talking jibberish. That must have been the altitude. Once we reached the summit, we all spent a minute remembering our friend Leebeth, who died earlier this year. The day she died, Meru was covered with snow like no-one had ever seen it before.
On our descent we reached Saddle Hut by one in the afternoon, all told an eleven hour journey. After resting for a couple hours, we walked it down to Miriakamba Hut again. Thirteen hours. I took a shower, the coldest shower of my life, and felt like I was ready for bed. The next morning, we finally crossed paths with a buffalo. He was only twenty meters away, but was sadly not interested in us. I was unbuckled and had picked out a tree already. You see, for us to be safe the gunman would have to drop the buffalo dead with one shot. My father always told me that a wounded buffalo was the deadliest animal that you could ever meet in Africa. The walk back to the car was only about two hours long, but by now our calves and thighs were really asking for a little clemency. We made it down, into town, and I came home to find that Sofia had grown and was more beautiful than I could remember. I had missed her and Samantha so much over the four days.
This week-end I am climbing up Mount Meru, hopefully to the summit. Socialist Peak. I will be back on Tuesday, and will be able to post a photo or two and tell about the trip. I expect lots and lots and lots of rain. We shall see. Leaving Sofia and Samantha behind is difficult.
This is the sort of thing that I thought I would be writing about on my little blog. The rains are here, the BIG rains, and the road down the mountain is worsening with every drop that falls. A year and a half ago the president (Jakaya Kikwete, lest anyone out there should think that there is only one president in the world) was due to visit a church up the road from us, and so the road was graded beautifully. Since then, no one of any importance has come by, and the road has suffered. Add to the woeful state of the road the woeful cattle driving skills exhibited by the Maasai morani and the result was that we were late for school.
Last night in the UK our friend and colleague Leebeth died after being very sick for a few months. She lived in Ilboru as well and was a neighbor of ours. We shall miss her very much. Last night it also stormed all night, and this morning Mount Meru was crowned with snow. Even the old timers here say that they have never seen the mountain like this.
We had a long, long Christmas holiday this year. Three and a half weeks. Samantha and I were excited just to be around Sofia. No other plans. Sofia was 5 months old and three and half weeks with her represented a considerable portion of her whole life up until now. We ended up taking 2 safaris (a safari in Kiswahili is a trip of any kind, not necessarily dressed in kaki shorts with wide brimmed hats pointing at wild animals). First we went up to Marangu, a small town pretty high up on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. It is as far as you can go without paying the $60 per day park fees. It is also where my great grandfather settled in 1902. We relaxed, looked at the ruins of one of Nonno Giuglio’s houses, and of course played with Sofia.
With two and a half weeks of holiday under our belts we decided to head off to Lushoto. I am writing from up in the forests of the West Usambara Mountains (old school, pen and paper). one night before we return to Arusha. Being in Lushoto gives you the feeling that you are up somewhere in the highest of the highlands, when truth be told the elevation is the same as it is in Arusha. The people here are the MSambaa, and of course, the language is therefore KiSambaa (Maasai, Kimaasai, MChagga, KiChagga etc.). At the turn of the century (last) the germans came up to Lushoto, and enchanted as they were by the cool weather, the dense hardwood forests, and the incredible abundance of bird and wild life, they settled. They established Lushoto as their mountain retreat from the oppressive heat of the coast. The birds and the weather are still here. There are small patches of “protected” forest around, but on our hike through the forest we saw plenty of cleared areas and men sawing down trees.
We stayed at Muller’s Mountain Lodge, and old two story German house. It was run by a group of young Tanzanians, who answered to a mysterious leader that no-one saw for as long as we were there. Mullers is outside Lushoto, and is nestled on a hillside, peaceful and beautiful. The grounds are filled with an endless variety of plants, flowers and trees. During the day we were often interrupted by the goat-like braying of pairs of silvery cheeked hornbills as they dipped and looped their way across the valley, back and forth all day long. For their size and prehistoric look they have such an effortless and hypnotizing flight. Walking through the forests Samantha felt the beauty of what was around us. I felt an even stronger sense of what this place must have been like only 50 years ago. Our forest guide, Francis, a 5 foot tall, wiry, fit, 72 year old MSambaa, told us about the forests when he was a child. ”so think that you could not see the sun. It was dangerous to walk in the forest. Snakes, buffalo, leopards.” Those days are gone. Zamani sana.
News in Tanzania
This book has been around my mother's house in Italy for a couple of years. The cover features a photograph, aged and sepia-toned, of the most fierce looking man you have ever seen, seated and posing for the camera. It turns out that the man is a modern day Civil War re-enactor. He is "hard core", meaning that he goes to incredible lengths to be as authentic to the experiences that true Civil War soldiers endured. He carries (and eats) rancid bacon with him, sleeps in the pouring rain, marches barefoot for miles in search of true authenticity...The book is ultimately about the connection that the South feels to the Confederacy today, a connection that seems to be getting stronger. I have never been south of Cincinatti. This was all new to me.
Matt's donation again. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died recently (a man in Arusha keeping you all up to date on cultural current events!), so I pulled this crumbling and yellowed paperback off my shelf. By chapter 2 (of 127!) the cover had fallen off. Soon I resorted to reading it like one peels a banana, discarding pages as I went. This is a book that left me wondering how beautiful it must be to have no filters, to write (or draw or whatever) with no concern about how ridiculous your creation might seem. So I won't write about the story, because it sounds ridiculous. In this book Vonnegut makes ridiculous images, events and characters into something beautiful. Rather Bokononist, perhaps.
Another of Matt's blind selections (blind to us). Matt is feeding us these great movies that we would NEVER have watched otherwise, and is giving us great cocktail party conversation. No more chatting inanely about the stunning flat note hit by the guy on Idol last night. Now I wax on for hours over a Tusker about about the terribly sad, desperate and lonesome men that are featured in Matt's films. Well, that is what I plan to do when I finally get to a cocktail party in my life. In this film Gene Hackman plays the above mentioned variety of man, a private detective/wiretapper by trade, who captures a conversation on tape that begins to affect him more and more as he listens to it, until it tips him over the edge. The usual Marello-sponsored descent into madness.
This came out of my collection without my knowing what the film was about at all. You see, I took Matt's 100 best films of all time and brought them all with me, not knowing what most of them are. It might have been a slapstick comedy with Jerry Lewis as the bungling pawnbroker. It isn't. This is an incredibly sad, powerful film of a Jewish pawnbroker in East Harlem slowly unraveling as his memories of losing his family in the holocaust begin to take over his mind. Rod Steiger is amazing, the music is beautiful (Quincy Jones), and the black and white photography of New York is great.
Before leaving New York I bought a couple mystery novels. I have never really read mystery, so this intrigued me. The book features Sugawara Akitada, a young Japanese nobleman who has fallen on hard times. He spends the book trudging through 11th century Japan's muddy streets, defending honor (his own as well as other people's) and trying to solve a crime.
This is the other crime novel that I bought. Set in Sicily, it is the account of Ispettore Montalbano's efforts to understand and go after the local malefattori. The police and the criminals all work, of course, Sicilian style. My highlight of the book is that each time the Inspector comes home, he describes the meal that his maid has prepared for him. Managgia la miseria, they don't cook in Arusha like they do in Sicily. 
Bradley gave me this, a fine old hardcover version, that I shipped across at book rate. I have never read sci-fi, but this was beautiful and sad. It is a great novel, set in a dark, Jetsonsy world.
This came in my bags. I find that when I leave the United States I immediately suffer a strange nostalgia. Not for reality TV, nor for the re4st of the bullshit. Maybe for what might have been? I guess you have to get out of all of the crap to be able to see the beauty. Anyway, I read this compulsively.
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