Trip To Mekete - Day 7

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I woke up after a nine hour sleep and feel much better. Sometimes I think the body gets you through the tough parts and then gives up when it knows you are done. The sneezing seems to have stopped and the chills seem to have subsided.



I went outside the hotel to look around and the poverty is abundant. Sometimes I feel that I am at this really elaborate theme park that would put Disney World to shame. They have taken care of every detail... the pestering flies, the relentless mosquitoes, the employees who walk slowly to beat the heat of the sun, and the restaurants that serve food strange to your diet. There are no rides and there are no exits where you can leave through to get back to your car and go to the comfort of your home when you feel that you have had enough.



This feeling came over me the last time I came home from a trip and it has reared its ugly head once again. Perhaps I have just hit the wall when it comes to travelling to the poor regions where they need our help. I know I can deal with it because there is an exit date for me. What continues to amaze me is that the locals will know of nothing else. For many of them, this is the way they will live for the rest of their lives. Some will live in beaten up homes, making a vegetable garden out of the postage stamp sized yard they have. Some will continue to wash their clothes in the stream at the edge of town. Others will be up before sunrise to boil water on a charcoal fire so that they can make soup for breakfast before the children go off to school, if they are so lucky to attend school.

We think that camping in a National Park is “roughing it”... Packing food and beer in coolers, sleeping in an expensive sleeping bag, and cooking over an open fire... we have no idea of what “roughing it” is really like. Sleeping on a cement floor night after night, children not washing daily and having caked on dirt and dirty clothes to live in... those are just a couple examples of “roughing it”.

We had breakfast in Iringa (more chicken soup to keep my cold a bay) and then we hit the road. It was a long but beautiful drive. There is a stretch of highway where baboons live. They are out on the side of the road and don’t seem to be afraid of the cars unless we slow down to take pictures of them. On the way through Mikumi National Park, I got a better picture of a giraffe to share with you... also a water buffalo that didn’t appear to be near water at all.

I am home and sleeping in my own bed again. The humidity is a welcome relief from the chill of Mekete. This week, I tie up loose ends so that I can head to Cape Town on Friday morning. Can’t wait. I need a break away from all of this.

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Photos

Water Buffalo at Mikumi
Apparently, these are pretty dumb animals. They usually hang with zebras. When the zebras run, the buffalos know to run away too.