Pool Party in Tabora, Whoohoo!

Eleven weeks into my stay in Tanzania, the Sparkle Princesses and friends were invited to tobacco friend Marc’s backyard pool. It felt a spontaneous luxury vacation: pool, beer, water polo, itunes playing on portable speakers…aaaaaaaahhhh.

Above are Steve, me, and Jonathan posing in the water.

Teaching synchronized swimming to two of my favorite blokes, Craig and Steve.

The lot of us relaxing by the pool: Bradley, Marc, Christine, Jonathan, me, Craig.

Houston We’re Ready for Launch

That’s Zituni setting a world record for how far she could fire the rocket into the air by the child-inspired force of jumping on the purple pump. This was a loaned gift to HAPO by our friends Steve and Jonathan, the Brits building the new Anglican Cathedral on the main road in town. Thank you so much Steve and Jonathan. As you can see, the kids, big and small, LOVED it.

Jonathan, Siwan and some of the children watch in awe at the rocket’s red glare bursting in the air.

 

Mama Sekasua gives it a go.

And being a big kid myself I had to fire up a bit of fun as well.

Sparkle Princesses Take Tabora

 In our final weeks in Tabora, the HAPO girls or Sparkle Princesses as we were called (because we “brought sparkle” to our friend Steve’s tenure in Tabora), were on a very busy social schedule. From the goodbye parties – not ours mind you - to the welcome back parties for friends passing through, well let’s just say we made good use of the coffee from Arusha to keep up our sparkle. Photos of friends below.

 

Me, Siwan, Sanne (goodbye Sanne!), Bradley, Faye, Christine at Tabora Hotel, surprise surprise.

A big night out at the Tabora Hotel, again. Can’t turn down the chance to do the hankie dance. (Front row: Siwan, Mike, me. Back row: Bradley, Faye, Jonathan)

 

Ride home after the hankie dance night at Tabora Hotel.  From left to right: Mike the wildlife NGO guy, Siwan, Faye, Christine, me, & Steve the builder of the new cathedral in town.

 

Switching it up a bit, the Sparkle Princesses visited the Golden Eagle, an Indian restaurant in the center of town. Left to right: Christine, Faye, Bradley the tobacco guy, me, and Mike NGO man.

Me and Bradley camping for camera

Slideshow for the Watoto

In our weekly meeting last week it was announced that we have received enough funding at this point to double in size from 12 orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs) to 24. Thank you to all who have helped make this possible. Your generous donations will provide a daily meal for these impoverished children as well as school uniforms, bookbags and school materials.

But before we integrate the new children into the programme the volunteers thought we should do something special for the children already part of the programme, just for them before they have to share the attention. The kids love digital cameras because they get to see pictures of themselves instantly. So what better gift than a slideshow of them using projector that plays on one of the walls in the classroom. But this would require having a projector. Gayo needed his to run a computer class for the diocese which meant we had to turn to our other group of wazungu friends, the tobacco farmers. Sure enough they came through…with a clandestine operation unbeknownst to the owner of the projector, Hank. Thanks Craig for making it possible. Thanks Hank if you are reading this. Much appreciated. We cried. The children were midly amused.

Me, Craig, Siwan after the tobacco man delivered the goods.

Midly amused by the slideshow

 

Shadow puppets were a big hit

You Can Get ANYTHING in Tabora…if you know the right people

It’s good to know the right people in Tanzania, like Mike. We like Mike. That’s not Mike. That’s Paneesh who runs the Oryx petrol station in town. Mike’s NGO gives him a lot of business with their gas gussling landrovers that take them out into the bush to catch illegal poachers. And that means that when Mike needs a favor, like say purchasing and transporting Tanzanian coffee from Arusha to Tabora while he lived in the bush, favors come through.

However, once we had the world’s most delicious coffee (a description I’d keep even if we hadn’t deprived for 11 weeks of drinkable java), we weren’t sure how we could brew it. It’s not like we had a myriad of modern appliances like a coffee maker. How could we recreate a french press or even a coffee filter?

How about we cut a bottle, line it with a piece of clean window screen, rest it nossle down and let the coffee brew in hot water for a few minutes before we pour it into a cup. Simple enough right?

 Wait, how do we open the cap without the boiling coffee going everywhere?

 That’s me being burned.

Ok, so what about pouring the coffee and hot water into a bottle (in tact) and then pouring through the screen after a few minutes? Oh right, plastic bottles melt. On to plan C.

What if you put coffee and hot water in a thermos, let it brew, and then filter it through a tea strainer into a coffee cup?

 

Wow that was easy. Third time’s a coffee charm.

Back to Tabora

On Monday morning we caught the train from Kigoma back to Tabora. The train was actually in the station at 7:30am, the scheduled time of departure. Impressive. And it left the station at 9:30am. Not too shabby. And then it stopped for no apparent reason multiple times along the way. I was sure I heard a loud hissing sound like we were losing some sort of fluid like, oh I don’t know, maybe brake fluid. The train did jerk a bunch whenever we had to stop to pick up goods from the roadside vendors. Who knows.

As usual my sidekick Siwan and I had no idea what was going on at any particular moment. We kept the door locked and broke out the wine in a box we purchased on the black market of Kigoma. Below you can see our wine glass – plastic water bottle cut with the always practical swiss army knife to make a nice shaped glass albeit rough around the edges. Thirteen hours later we arrived in Tabora and were met by friends at the station. It was a great trip overall, a real adventure.

Waking up early to catch the train home.

Unexpected Day on Lake Tanganyika

After the monkey business in Gombe we jumped back into our ship kidogo (small) and enjoyed the beautiful day with a swim - in a bikini no less (Tanzania is still a rather conservative country) – and preparing Captain George’s catch of the day, a slew of nondescript fish for the big dinner our shipmates had invited us to that night. Siwan’s expression says it all. Ewwwwww.

Halfway through a lovely ride the boat died. Tehari. Kaput. So imagine this, we’re an hour away from Tanzania’s most remote national park, Gombe. We’re an hour away from the nearest city, Kigoma. To the west we can see the Congo. To our east is a remote lakeside village without access to simple things like roads. We choose the village. For the next 3 hours I sat on a rock in a bikini and a kanga (a piece of cloth you drape around yourself in a variety of styles) and sang kiswahili songs with the curious children while every man in the village took apart the engine. Our personal belongings like money, my mother’s expensive 35mm camera, and our passports were in that defunct boat. We kept our eyes peeled to the investigation 50 feet away. Tired and hungry, mind you we had seen not a bite of food all day, we also began to look around for the best spot to sleep for the night. The big rock under the trees by the clothesline looked good. But at last a sweet bibi (grandmother) gave us each 1 piece of chipati (greasy flat bread) and shortly after the boat was in working order, enough so to get us home as the tide came in. Yet the enthusiasm for a fun dinner was lost after the mechanical frustrations, typical for men, and the dinner invite revoked, typical in Tanzania.  

Kwaheri village!