Sundown After Sundown

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These past few days have flown by! On Thursday, we got our first lecture on agrobiodiversity, a fancy term that basically refers to the way farmers interact with the land and all of the plants on it. This encompasses not only foodstuff but also soil-enriching trees, grasses for thatching, etc. It's a fairly fascinating subject; too bad that we don't really get to spend time on it because of our busy schedule. On Friday we walked about an hour to see some farms and agrobiodiversity in action. It's much more amazing when you actually see it. I was impressed with the way things are managed and how much effort farmers are putting into their land even though it could be taken from them at any moment because of the awful Tanzanian laws.

Yet, my day was never really finished at 12. I'm not really sure what I did between 12 and 6 each day (besides some napping and writing a paper on Friday only to forget my thumbdrive in the computer lab and then return 5 minutes later to find it stolen - yes, I need to rewrite the entire 5 page paper now). At the end of each day, however, we went to see the sundown from different kopjes. These are the same kopjes to which we have traveled. Thursday's produced amazing sunset pictures, especially with all of the clouds in the sky. In my opinion, Friday's was even better. Maybe it was because we brought some wine to the top and relaxed; maybe it was just watching the sun go down over the lake and seeing all the birds swooping in and out of the big blood-red circle. Each sunset makes me think of the Lion King and, in all honestly, words cannot describe the beauty. African sunsets over Lake Victoria must be seen in person.

Saturday (that would be today), the city of Mwanza lost electricity. This began around 8:45 in the morning. At first we thought it was just SAUT and, since we lived in Dar for a month, we were completely ready for it. Then we began to realize that it was more than just the university and power was not going to return in 10 minutes like it often did. It did not return within the hour, or two hours either. We therefore decided to go into the city to use the ATM (banks tend to have their own generators) and purchase a few more things for the trip to Gombe (YES, WE'RE GOING!!!). We ate lunch in town with Barak, whom we met there. It was a good chicken sandwich lunch that stirred memories of home. It wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't that bad either. I enjoyed lunch more because a few of us talked with Barak and expressed our concerns with the program and how we hope it changes in the future. Barak then proved how hard he is working for us with the following phone conservation (we could only hear his side):

"Where's a good Thai restaurant in Arusha or Dar?" *laughing amongst the group*
"Thai food, like from Thailand."
"Thailand."
"THAILAND."
"THAI-LAND!"
"No, Thailand."
"Asia."
"Like Chinese food."
"Yes."
"Oh, that's right! That is a great place! Thank you!"

This good place is actually a Malaysian restaurant. Oh well, it's the closest we could get.

Anyway, tomorrow morning we are off to Kigoma. It's about a 12 hour drive by landcruiser (we're driving through Singida and then west, then south). We're staying the night in Kigoma. We're going into Gombe Stream National Park on Monday by ferry (probably in the afternoon), staying the night in tents, and walking around some more on Tuesday. We then will take the ferry back to Kigoma and stay over in the city again Tuesday night. We plan to leave by car on Wednesday and return to Mwanza. We will have class Thursday and Friday, and then it's off to the Serengeti! Basically, on Wednesday (or Thursday), expect a hyperactively happy entry (or two, most likely) because of Kigoma and Gombe Stream. :-D

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