Pole pole

If anyone needs a recommendation for a passable hospital in the Arusha region, we could point you in the right direction. After one stabbed hand and a weekend spent in and out of the hospital with one of our housemates, we’ve emerged with one stitched hand and one of our housemates on a plane home. (Business class I might add) At the moment, everyone is doing well though. Knock on wood.

Besides the time our household has spent in hospital runs (I myself haven’t had the chance to visit the hospital yet which I think I’m ok with) we have been go, go, going from meeting to meeting to briquette batch to kiln to meeting to airports. Wow. So a quick run down from where I last left off in order of occurrence:

Press briquettes, VICOBA meeting, open the kiln and briquette some more, discuss the destruction of the world by meteor, build a kiln with Vision 4 Youth, wander around the masaai craft market, press briquettes, find a trail of blood leading into the house at the end of which is James and his sliced hand, get questioned by an immigration officer while walking down the road (good times), check out the nane-nane festival in Arusha Town, ride on a dala-dala with 30 people on board (still haven’t broken the 30 people barrier), fly to Kigoma on a rather sketchy airline which felt a bit like a roller coaster ride toward the end (we landed in three bounces, Tucker swears we were on one wheel at one point), see Lake Tanganyika and realize just how much I’ve missed lakes, chill at JGI, set up a meeting with someone at JGI, fail to have that meeting at JGI (in his defense, the man was filming with National Geographic all day. In which case though wouldn’t you say that you’d be busy and that you couldn’t meet? Ah well. Karibuni Tanzania.), have that meeting on Sunday at JGI to discuss DHE’s future work with JGI (yay), the morning we return to Arusha Emily and I head to V4Y to pack and burn their kiln, met a wicked cool Aussie who has been couch surfing around Africa for two years and plans to head to Brazil via boat at some point, make briquettes, make charcoal, visit the women in Moivaro to hear their assessments of our briquettes, make briquettes, teach two guys who I met at the wood shop, but neither of whom actually work there, about the briquetting process, make more briquettes and briquetting molds, sleep.

Busy busy. As our Tanzanian friends would say, pole pole. Slow down! As of today, we only have one week left in the Arusha region to finish our work before we fly to Zanzibar for a few days and then head home. So we are packing up the days.

To elaborate on a few moments. Kigoma is spectacular, hot, and mosquito filled. I had just started getting over my bites from the beginning of the trip in Dar which I may have scratched a bit when, bam, hello Kigoma mosquitoes. Besides the pesky buzzing pests, Kigoma is wonderful. It is one of the biggest or the biggest city in Western Tanzania but that doesn’t tell you much because the city is quite small, one main street lined with one to two story store fronts surrounded by hills covered with sprawling suburbs. Everything is coated with a fine layer of red dust.

Ok power’s out and no battery. To be continued…