Driving Down the Highway

It was a beautiful evening to be driving along the highway between Duka Bovu and Kisongo, with Mt Meru ahead and the late afternoon light turning the dusty landscape golden.

 

Sunday at the School

Today was our first Sunday together at the school after our long Corona break.  The triplets and my student helpers were happy to have our Bible class together again.  After I finished Bible class, I went back to the library, which was busy today with many kids studying, reading and catching up with each other.  It's so good to see the library full of life again! 

(Above) Jackline and Edina, two of our form 3 students.  Below, Athuman, a form 2 student whose hobby is disturbing me and generally being underfoot in the library, is trying to look cool in a photo with me.  

(Below) Stephanie and Doreen, two of our form 2 students, took a quick selfie on my phone. 

In the evening, I went out to Kisongo to get some groceries.  It was a cloudy evening, a bit unusual for this time of year, and I got a photo of the strange light while driving back towards Monduli Mountain. 

 

Spectacular Sunset

One of the silver linings of rainy season is that clouds make for much more interesting sunsets.  Driving home from Arusha tonight, a huge storm cloud ahead of us looked like a towering mountain.  The pictures, taken through a dirty windshield while driving, but I wanted to share the moment of being astounded yet again by the beauty of the world.  

Just Another Day in Paradise

Another beautiful day here in Tanzania!  The clouds lifted over Mt. Meru, giving us a beautiful view from the grocery store parking lot.  Driving home at sunset was beautiful; I don't have a particularly good view of the sunset from anywhere I normally am at that time in Monduli, so I appreciate it all the more when driving across the wide-open areas on the way back from Arusha on shopping days. 

I always love the view of the road going straight to the mountain as we turn off the highway onto the road to Monduli. 

Kilimanjaro at a Great Distance

I'm not sure how well you can see it, but the mountain in the foreground on the left is Mt Meru, the second highest mountain in Tanzania, which we can see most of the time as it's just north of Arusha.  Behind it, you may be able to make out a shape in the distance--Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Kilimanjaro is more than 100 kilometers (just over 62 miles) away, a good three-hour drive, so it's almost never visible this far.  For that matter, as it's generally hazy around the mountain, it's rarely visible from a good deal closer.  But sometimes, when the sky is clear enough, and the light is just right from about five to six in the evening, from just the right places along the Arusha road, we can see it when leaving Monduli.  On Thanksgiving Day, the conditions lined up just right, the only time they have since I've been living here (but then again, I'm rarely going into town at that time in the evening).  

Monduli Traffic

This is the worst traffic jam I've ever seen in Monduli!  Eleven cows and TWO cars! :D  It's a beautiful first day of November, though!  

Rainy Season, day 3

Well, it appears that rainy season has come early; usually, it doesn't start until November.  However, in mid-October we started having afternoon thunderstorms come down off the mountain, which is a sign that it's coming. Fortunately, I finally got around to buying rainboots on Sunday, and I wore them for the first time today.

It rained lightly on Monday, but then it was cloudy both Tuesday and Wednesday but only sprinkled. Today it's raining steadily.

Lewis called and said he and Babadeo (Albert) were going into town for supplies for the school duka (store) and could pick me up on the way back to go to the school for my afternoon classes. I would be quite early, but my students needed a substitute for an earlier class time, so I could help with that (spoiler alert: that didn't happen). So Rebecca and I hopped in.

It's a long story, but the culvert between the school driveway and the, well, not paved, but hard-packed road running by the school has been out since before I moved here.  The local department of transportation were the ones who dug it up last time they were repairing the roads (at the end of the last rainy season, so around June), and they refuse to fix it back, saying that the school should pay to fix it (even thought they messed it up).  Anyhow.  We've gotten around the issue thus far by driving up the cow path that runs between the road and the school fence; there's a place without a ditch around the corner that we can turn onto it.  This has been a bit bumpy and involves the occasional traffic jam of cows (it is actually their road, after all), but has been workable all through dry season.

It will not work so well in rainy season.  We were in the big four-wheel-drive landrover, which is built for bad roads, so we gave it a try.  We made it about halfway around, sliding a bit (the mud here is like driving on ice) before we finally got stuck.  We managed to back up a bit and try a few running starts, but the mud was deep everywhere, and finally we ended up wedged at an awkward angle up against a very large jute plant.

Rebecca and I stayed in the car and observed the proceedings while Lewis and Albert tried various things to no avail.  Finally Albert walked up to the school and got the work crew who are building the new administration building to come down and help.  The group of men managed to rock the car enough that Lewis could get it unwedged from the rut by the jute plant, and then he managed to back us all the way back out to the road.

We finally managed to park at the clinic; from there we can walk through their back garden to a little gate that opens onto school grounds back behind the classroom building.

We're three days in.  Is rainy season over yet?  

Sunset over the Savannah

I often keep my phone ready when in the car, because it seems there’s always something beautiful to find.  Tonight we were driving home from Arusha right at sunset. We had already turned off the main highway and were on the road to Monduli. It was beautiful tonight because it’s that little window of time right before the rainy season in which there are clouds to make the scene more dramatic but it’s not yet completely overcast all the time.  I love the sunset light over the savannah.

The View from the Shopping Center Parking Lot

A few more photos for you today...I don't think I'll ever get tired of photographing this mountain.  It was especially clear this evening when we came out of the grocery store at Sable Square (a shopping center built in a South African style that is on the outskirts of Arusha in our direction).  Mt Meru's rocky peak was glowing in the last of the evening light, so I snapped a few shots with my phone.

Here's a zoomed-out shot of Mt Meru in the distance, from the grocery store parking lot.

Driving home in the sunset light.

Up to Monduli Juu

The road up to Monduli Juu

On Tuesday, Beth, her kids, the Short girls and I drove up to Monduli Juu.  Juu in Swahili means upper or higher; our town on the lower slopes of Monduli Mountain is usually just called Monduli (or sometime Monduli Chini, which means lower Monduli, if we need to specify), while the Maasai village up on top of the mountain is called Monduli Juu.  The school is along the Monduli Juu road, so we passed it on our way. The road quickly becomes quite steep just past the school as it winds upwards.

Sometimes elephants come down the Monduli Juu road late in the dry season as they risk coming closer and closer to towns to find water; they've been seen almost to the school in particularly dry periods, but we didn't see any.  Probably for the best, anyhow; while elephants aren't usually particularly aggressive animals, they are large and often nervous at being out of their usual area further from so many humans and have been known to charge at cars if they feel threatened.  

It's late in the rainy season, so there's been little rain since May.  The fields are dry and gold this time of year.

Farmers working in a field along the way.

The town of Monduli Juu, up on the mountain

The landscape up on the higher parts of Monduli Mountain.

 Our destination was the home of Ralph and Twyla Williams, a Canadian couple who are missionaries up there.  Twyla often teaches jewelry-making classes as well to help some of the local women supplement their incomes, as there is a lot of poverty in the village there.  Twyla often invites the kids up to do crafts together; they made some bracelets today, but made plans for her to teach the younger girls to knit or crochet sometime soon.  

They gave me the tour of their home; in the two years they’ve been there they’ve planted quite a few fruit trees and done several projects to improve their home.  

A beautiful plant in the Williams' yard

Twyla helping to get a thorn out of a shoe.

The view from Ralph and Twyla's front yard.

 I especially enjoyed the drive up and down the mountain for the views on the upper slopes (going up) and the views out over the savannah (going down).  As always, I took quite a few photos!

Almost back to the school.

The Road to Monduli

My favorite shot on the drive from the airport to Monduli...that's Monduli mountain there; the town of Monduli is on the lower slopes.  I've made this picture the header for the blog.  

Drive to Monduli

I enjoyed the drive from the airport to Monduli, despite being tired and feeling gross after sleeping in my clothes on the flight; the landscape is so different here and I took plenty of pictures out of the windshield.  We could see Mt Kilimanjaro from the area around the airport, but there were clouds so we could only see the lower slopes.  Just seeing the base of it gives a good idea of how big it must be, though.  I look forward to seeing it better someday in clearer weather. 

did pass near Mt Meru, which is just north of Arusha, on the way as well; it wasn't terribly clear today but more so than Kilimanjaro.  I'll be close enough to that one to get plenty of chances to see it, though.  It's the fifth highest mountain in Tanzania.

We passed through the city of Arusha, the closest large city to us (and I believe it is the third largest in Tanzania), and then on towards Monduli mountain.  The landscape between Arusha and Monduli is mostly flat with sudden large, barren hills jutting up out of nowhere; it's clear we're well into the dry season (there haven't been significant rains since May and won't be until at least November).  The land is dusty, with brown, parched grasses and the occasional scrubby tree or bush.  It's barren but beautiful.  While I'm not looking forward to the mud of the rainy season, it'll be fun to see this desert-like land burst into bloom.  

And finally...pulling up to the gate in front of the Shorts' house.  I'll be staying in their guest house for a while.