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Published: February 24th 2010
Dining Room
The furniture was made by the carpentry students at this vocational training centre.We seem to be back into the zone of dodgy internet connections and no wifi so I am not too sure when I will get this up. Perhaps, if I am lucky in Dar Es Salaam, before we move off into Malawi.
Two weeks in Tanzania is not really enough but then you could always spend longer in most countries and, I guess, you can always come back at some time. Zanzibar, just for instance, is a place you just might come back to if you were looking for an interesting place that is not going to tax you too much in touristing, but could be quite dangerous in terms of developing your capacity for laziness and generally lolling about.
This post takes us from Karatu in the north down to Dar Es Salaam and across to Zanzibar. An interesting week. We have visited a sort of orphanage for street kids, a community education project, mountains - Kilimanjaro - and beaches, travelling along some pretty good roads for the most part and getting ourselves set for the next stage into Malawi and Zambia.
The Amani home in Moshi provides an option for street kids from Moshi and Arusha.
There are apparently reasonably high numbers of street kids around. We were told that, as with most countries, some are forced out of home by abuse. Others though take a decision to leave home because their family is too poor to give them any chance of an education. They leave home when they reckon that they have some capacity to earn in the, apparently often mistaken, belief that they will be able to earn enough to give themselves an education. As is the case in most places, drugs and substance abuse is often a factor and kids of 8 - 15 really don't have that many earning possibilities even here. Boys can make money carrying things about. Girls, well their possibilities are less palatable.
Amani has a moving population of kids partly due to the nature of the issue and partly because there is a strong emphasis on returning kids to their families. Where a kid is returned, Amani will often relieve the family of the need to pay for the extremely important education of the kid along with some other costs. We visited because Dragoman and Guerba - which was bought out by Intrepid some time ago -
It was halfway up a hill
There are lots of good names on the shops is a founding sponsor of the organisation. The place seems to be well run and to be achieving results for the kids who pass through. Success is not there in every case but there does seem to be more success than failure. Personally, I was impressed at the independence and intensity of the kids. They are people who have coped on their own, perhaps not well, but they know that they can. Not needy at all.
The Community Education Project has been developed on the foothills of Kilimanjaro. By the way, we didn't make the climb. One of our number did do it and had to skip the Serengeti to do so. The project provides for a range of resources for the primary schools in the region - a library, teaching resources, a meeting and seminar room and computer rooms. All very good and well presented. The resources look lovely until you look at the numbers - 8 primary schools of over 500 each use facilities that would be in any average primary school in Australia. Obviously, better than nothing though and nothing would be what is there without the provision from outside the country.
The vocational education
A lot of work for a drink
Some of the thirstier members of our group helping the local ladies press sugar cane for the local version of konyagi element of this project was small, in terms of student numbers, but impressive in that the 19 students so far enrolled, along with the very few staff, had actually built most of the buildings and the furniture themselves. Dormitories are nearing completion that will allow a further 65 students to be enrolled. Again none of the money is sourced within the country other than the fees of students. One does wonder at the reaction of people back home if they were told that they would pay a substantial amount in fees and, at the same time, get stuck into the construction of their own work benches and even buildings.
The Rift Valley along from Kiliminjaro south must not always be as fertile as it is further north. It is still farmed intensively but now thousands of hectares has been given over to sisal plantations. A massive area of monoculture doesn't seem completely sensible but perhaps that is the best that can be done. We eventually moved up out of the valley up to Leshuto in the higher land. Cooler and much more rainfall here. Stayed at what is said to be the oldest hotel in the area - the
Spot the animal
And they really do change colour Lawns. Colonial type place. Large rooms - Janet up-graded to a very large, even opulent, room. We made do with the tent although we are starting to expect showers that work, green grass, hot water and shade.
At Leshuto we had another walk around the hills, this one for a little over 13 km but a lot of it up and down. Our guides were pretty good and were able to discuss the way of life of the villagers in the area as well as providing a lot of information about the local vegetation. The price of a wife here is normally around 12 cows so you do better with daughters here than you might up in Sudan or Ethiopia where it was significantly lower. You do better with light skinned ones, of course. Tried to get a price on the Danish girls travelling with us but the guide said no one here would have a chance of affording them.
Dar Es Salaam is the largest city in Tanzania and the capital in everything but the title. It seems to be a big sprawling African city with many new and modern buildings but many more older and more
The latest trend in housing
Blue roofs seem to be popular in this area of Tanzania basic houses and buildings. We were camped about half an hour outside Dar at the beach. It was our first beach for a while and we had had a long, hot drive so most took little time getting in. It was nice but a bit like a warm soup and a pretty lumpy soup at that. Plenty of plastic bags, a lot of seaweed and a lot of other muck stirred up by the tide. The camp was reasonable though. We are getting a little too used to nice camps after so long with the standard a lot lower further north.
You come across 'pinch me' places every now and then. Zanzibar is such a place. Too many books about pirates, slavers and such when I was a whole lot younger, I suspect. These days it depends on two markets - cloves and, much more importantly, tourists. The two key areas to visit are Stone Town where the Omani Arabs, Portuguese and English have made their headquarters in this part of the world over the centuries - and the top end of the Island where the resorts are wall to wall along the beautiful coast line.
Stone Town
is like a lot of 'old' cities around the world. Narrow rat race streets, substantial buildings under restoration, many tourist shops but, surprisingly at first, not so many tourists. The problem is power supply. The story is that the government here was advised some time ago that it needed to up-grade the system or it would collapse. They didn't and it did. The power supply has been down now for nearly 4 months and is likely to be down for a bit longer. A lot of very unhappy tourist operators around. Apparently there are tourists who are really not interested in hotel rooms on beaches unless they have air conditioning and fans. Have to say that they would have been nice.
But Stone Town, with or without power, is worth a visit. The former slave market is impressive/ depressing even though the site is now the Anglican Cathedral. Most of the slaves from here went to the Arab world where they seemed to have been treated marginally better than those who went from West Africa to the Americas. 'Marginally better' means that their progeny were automatically free and, when they were shacked up with a non-slave they took on
A different design
This mosque (green building) is nowhere near as elaborate as some, but like all churches and mosques, is more solid than the local housing the status of their partner. There were some interesting exhibits of the ships in which they were transported. The ships were often the same as those used to transport convicts to Australia. The numbers in the convict ships seem to have been a little smaller although it really isn't possible to tell without being sure we are talking about precisely the same ships. Pretty clear though that neither group had a lot of room to move.
All of the tourists here seem to be taken to Africa House which, in its day, was reputedly one of the best gentlemen's clubs in Africa. Beautiful location for looking out across the sea to the mainland and very nice for taking sunset photos. Beers were expensive and the service was slow. Shopping around Stone Town was your normal tourist fare with the addition of some more up-market jewellery places for the more discerning buyer. Janet has developed a - well earned - reputation in the group as the Queen of Shoppers. It took her a while to hit her straps but she is now well into it. I am not sure that even Barb would be able to compete, although, on second
Beach shelter
Our tent was right behind this. South Beach near Dar
es Salaam thoughts, perhaps she would. There is talk of needing a trailer for the truck.
We could have spent longer in Stone Town but the pull of a couple of days lazing about on the northern beaches proved to strong. Nungwi was as beautiful as any tropical beach island. We spent two great days sitting in the bar by the water, swimming in the water and doing all that you would normally do by, on or in the water. Many are sunburned, many have been sea sick sailing around in boats and there are just a few hangovers about. But none for us - this time. Too old and sensible for that, but we have found Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and that will lead to a disaster at some time in the future. I can see the signs.
And I almost forgot the Spice Tour. On the highest land in Zanzibar, about 100 meters above sea level, there is a spice garden. While our guide, Daniel, was excellent, I wasn't able to get completely clear how large the place was - we had an acres/hectares/from here to there type of discussion - but the land is owned and operated
Zanzibar
This was a fort in the old days. by the government and is given over to the production of a wide range of spices in what seems to be an organic garden. We had a lot of fun moving among the trees, bushes, plants etc tasting turmeric, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, the best ginger I have ever tasted, cardamom and others that I just can't recall and then had a feast of local fruit including pineapple, different types of banana, soursop, jakfruit, durian, guavas, coconut, a couple of different varieties of carambola (called star fruit here) and more that escape me at the moment. Some reeled back from some of the fruits but for us it was like being back home for a while. Most enjoyable.
We are now off towards Malawi and Zambia. Will try to get photos up for this and other posts as soon as we get a good connection.
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Pure Zanzibar
non-member comment
Glad to hear that you enjoyed your trip and by the sounds of it embraced Zanzibar for all that it is. Good luck with the rest of the trip. www.PureZanzibar.com