Monkey and Boma

Today we are at Tarangire Nationl Park where our friend designed the visitor center. We were comparing animal densities and grasslands with the ranch and nearby WMAs. A lot of talk about grass. And we saw 100s of elephants, zebras, wildebeasts, and impalas.

Afterwards, we went to a cultural boma that is affiliated with AWF. This is a small group of Maasai huts were women make crafts to send their kids to school and allow tourists to visit. The kids were speechless. We were greeted by 10 Maasai women and their kids and goats. They sang for us and invited us to enter their thatched roof, cow dung and mud walled huts. They were completely dark inside and about 20 feet in diameter. The wife and her children live in the hut and the husbands (who have many wives) live in separate huts nearby. All the husbands were out tending their cattle. Needless to say we were compelled to buy things at their nearby "gallery."

Last night we had delicious pizza at an open air restaurant. After dinner, the kids were playing in the garden and saw some vervet monkeys. While Charlie was pointing at one, the monkey picked a fig, threw it at him and hit him in the mouth. Then it laughed. Charlie gave the vervet monkeys at Tarangire a wide berth.

We will add pictures soon. We are out of town with limited computer access.

Arusha National Park

By Charlie: Yesterday we went to Arusha National Park. It took us 45 minutes to get to the park. The first thing we saw were giraffes. Near the end of our trip Doug told us that when giraffes fight they bang their heads onto the other giraffe's side. We got to see them doing that. That was one of the last things that we saw that was really interesting. We saw a rare monkey called the colobus monkey. It is very furry. The fur is black and white. We also saw some vervet monkeys. The next thing we saw were buffalo. After that we ran into some people whose car was stuck. We had to push them down the hill thinking that would get their motor running. But it didn't. Finally, Lucas (our driver) cleaned the wires which made it start. We also saw some trumpeter horn bills, also called silver-backed horn bills. We even saw at least 52 baboons. The males started fighting in the trees. It was very impressive. The babies hung on their mother's back while their mothers walked miles and miles and miles to their destination. We also saw zebras. I can't say how many of them there were, but there were at least 40. We also saw a bee eater in the marsh. It had a yellow breast and blue head and green wings. The other bee eater was called a cinnamon breasted bee eater. We saw a water buck with long horns and warthogs with tusks maybe as big as your hand. We saw one Kirk's dikdik and 2 hippos. We saw some other birds but I didn't know the names of them. And that was the end of our day.

Finally, a post

From Angela: Adding to this blog turned out to be far more complicated than I expected. We have very slow, occasional, dial up service at our apartment and internet cafes are not a good option. We'll come to Scott's office when we want to post something. His office is a series of small metal buildings with tile roofs surrounding a very attractice garden courtyard. It is very nice by Arusha standards and it turns out his office is actually a corrugated metal shipping container. Who knew?

Africa is so much more Africa than I expected. I was completely overwhelmed on the first day and by the morning of the second Annie started throwing up. We eventually took her to a medical clinic that was very nice. They said she had an infection and put her on antibiotics and she seems to be getting better. She now looks even skinnier than before. We have had to force her to eat pesto noodles, Twix bars, Gatorade and milkshakes. Charlie said she should eat them because at home she wouldn't be so lucky.

While Annie and I stayed home and recovered, Charlie, Scott and Doug worked at Manyara Ranch (owned by the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust) and saw a variety of animals: zebra, lion, elephant, giraffe, wildebeast, Grant's gazelle, impala and ostrich. They saw a boarding school in the center of the ranch (900 students - 90 per PHE size classroom)to the perimeter. Very primitive. Four kids to a desk. The Maasai graze cattle over long distances across the savannas. Their red and purple robes are impressive.

Arusha is a fairly large city. The main roads are paved but everywhere else is dirt. There are people walking everywhere. The kids were fascinated by the women carrying things on their heads: large baskets of bananas, enormous plastic bags and 5 gallon plastic buckets. The people wear all variety of clothing. There are women in traditional African dress, strange combinations of used Western clothing, and people in traditional Maasai dress. There is the smell of something burning at all times. Sometimes it is just women roasting ears of corn on the side of the roads, sometimes burning grass or garbage. It always changes. There are not as many tourists as I expected to see. Most seem to be European or South African. Most of the Americans get off the plane, re picked up by guides, and go to the bush.

The poeple are very friendly. We are picking up a few Swahili phrases. Enough to get by. Our Apartment is OK, very quirky. I'll describe in more detail another time. Clean, but no where for the kids to play. So we are looking for something else.

Today was our first day out as a family. We went to a swimming pool, playground and sportsbar complex. We were the only Americans. The kids played with several other kids who seemed to speak a variety of languages. Charlie said one girl said to him, "Hello, Noseltweek." We have no idea what they were saying, but they seemed to play okay for a while. The more I get out, the less intimidating it is.

This kids did not want to write because they are playing in the circle drive in front of Scott's office while the Maasai guard watches them. We will add pictures the next time. I hope to add more on Monday. Tomorrow we are going to Arusha National Park.

6 Days Left

I can't wait until it's time to go to Africa. There's only 6 more days. When I'm there I hope I'll catch a big monitor with my friend Doug.