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!