Sunday in Ngarash

It was a beautiful afternoon, so I walked home from the school today.  It takes me about an hour to make the walk if I'm not rushing.  I'd like to walk more often, but going in the morning I'm usually in a hurry, and other than on Sunday, it's usually dark by the time I leave.  It's mid-dry season here, so it's getting pretty dusty and the grass is brown.  It's still pretty cool (highs in the low 70s, so in the 60s a lot of the day, which is as cold as it gets here), though, although it should start to warm up soon. 

I like the area between the school (in the Ngarash neighborhood) and town; it's mostly farmland with the higher slopes of the mountain on one side and long views out over the valley and distance smaller mountains on the other. 

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.

 

Easter Break: Shuttle bus from Arusha to Nairobi

From the bus window: the scenery just north of Mt. Meru, driving from Arusha towards the Kenyan border

Here in Tanzania, most schools close for a two week break around Easter, and I’ve been looking forward to it.  Over a long weekend in the middle of the two weeks, most of the missionaries associated with churches of Christ here in Tanzania are heading up to Nairobi, Kenya for an Intermission Retreat.  Missionaries from all over East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi) are coming.  I’ll explain a lot more about Intermission when I write about the conference itself, but for now, let me tell you about the days leading up to it.  

Local Maasai women walking along in northern Tanzania

Most of the crowd from Monduli and Kisongo are driving up on Wednesday (it’s about a seven-hour drive), and then the conference will start on Thursday afternoon. However, I decided to head up a bit early since school is out and I’ve never spent time in Kenya other than at airports.  The first thing most people think of to do in Kenya is to go on game drives in one of the National Parks, especially in the Maasai Mara (the Kenyan half of the same reserve as the Serengeti), but that area of Kenya is not that far as the crow flies from where I live in Monduli and is a similar landscape.  Also, we’re going out to a park on Saturday as a group from the conference.  I wanted something different. 

Maasai sheep herders out on the open savannah north of Arusha

When people think of beaches and tropical coastlines, Kenya is usually not the first country on the list, but it does, in fact, have miles of beautiful beaches.  Now, I like beaches, but I get bored after a day if there’s nothing further to do than just sit on a beach.  I found Lamu, an island with hundreds of years of history and a unique culture. 

Getting somewhere is rarely quick here in Africa, so I broke this trip into two stages. Today, I took the afternoon bus from Arusha to Nairobi.  Beth, Michela, and the kids drove me into Arusha, and we stopped for lunch (at one of my favorite places, our one-and-only Mexican restaurant) and a bit of shopping before my bus at 2.  The bus usually take around six hours, depending on how long the lines are at the border and whether there’s traffic going into Nairobi.  

From the bus window: there are a few small, rocky mountains near the border

The drive isn’t bad; it goes mostly through countryside and the scenery north of Mt Meru towards the border is beautiful in a stark, wide-open sort of way.  We ran through some rain just out of Arusha, but the sky was clear by the time we reached the border. 

I splurged a bit and got a place to stay for the night; I've slept in plenty of airports, but tomorrow I'm flying out of the domestic airport, which I've never been to, and I found a fairly expensive place not too far out.

The rest area that the bus from Arusha to Nairobi always stops at, just over the Kenyan border

I saw a rainbow as we drove through southern Kenya

Southern Kenya in the afternoon light

Southern Kenya from the bus window

Driving through a small town in southern Kenya 

My guesthouse room in Nairobi

Ngarash Juu

Some days I'm really struck by the fact that I live in a beautiful place.  Today was one of those days.  I went with Tammy and the girls up to Ngarash Juu, a neighborhood of farms up on the slopes of the mountain up over the school, to visit some people who live up there.  It was a beautiful sunny afternoon, and the view down over the fields and to the valley below was stunning.  

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.