Manyara Ranch Post Burn, School, and Boma

From Scott (again, because I can't get anyone else to add to this silly blog): The wildfires have started now that we are mid-way through the dry season. Yesterday we visited Manyara Ranch (owned by Tanzania Land Conservation Trust located between Tarangire and Lake Manayara national parks) to conduct post -fire monitoring on a grassland at the southern end of the ranch that burned this week. We worked with Pastor Pasgamy, who has just been hired to establish a wildlife and habitat monitoring program at the Ranch. Several hundred nearby wildebeest and zebras watched us as we worked while hornbills and lilac-breasted rollers flew among the scattered trees and bushes.


















The burn (started of course by Maasai kids playing with fire) was a few hundred acres. Ranch staff and dozens of people from the adjacent villages suppressed the fire with "natural beaters" made from palm fronds.


After the monitoring was completed, we visited a 900-student boarding school for Maasai kids located in the middle of the ranch. Because of its location in the wildlife and predator corridor (regular encounters by elephants and lions in the schoolyard) and the deplorable building conditions, a new school is being completed by AWF on the edge of the property. Ex-teachers Carol, Wayne, and their cameras were a huge hit. The kid loved seeing their pictures, asking about America, and telling us about Tanzania. It was a very touching afternoon for us and a break from laundry day for them.














Next we visited a boma in adjacent Esilalei village. The women that lived there were arriving with bundles of hay on their heads for the goats in the compound. They showed us their homes and beautiful beadwork. Lots of hand-holding (and petting of Annie's hair) while getting to know each other. Charlie and Annie were more focused on the many baby goats that needed petting. Annie was lobbying heavily to bring one home.






















Like everywhere in Tanzania, Grammy was identified as an easy mark and followed by one girl with beads to sell. Unable to pass up another shopping opportunity she came away with a bracelet and a new friend.

The Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater

From Scott: This past week we went to Lake Manyara National Park, Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Conservation Area with Angela’s parents. It was great.

Things started out well for the girls the first night because we stayed at the Ngorongoro Farm House. Pampered luxury worthy of a Ralph Lauren advertisement. Greeted with juice, warm washcloths, and roasted cashews. Cabins looked like Pottery Barn meets Africa with blue tiled bathrooms/showers complete with a vessel sink. They were in heaven after being subjected to the roach motel (House of Angela - as they say here) back in Arusha.

We awoke the next day to an eight-hour drive on a dusty, washboard road. But the wildlife was spectacular. Wildebeest and zebra herds were migrating north towards Kenya. We were traveling to the northwest corner of the park to catch them as they crossed the Grumeti River. Along the road we saw herds of thousands of gazelle and impala.

Lunch at the entrance gate was a multinational experience with Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Norwegians, Brits, Africans, and a few Americans eating their park lunches. Charlie found a great bunch of agamas, lizards and chameleons competing for leftovers with mice and any number of birds.

After lunch, we saw a leopard relaxing in a tree.

That evening we arrived at our tented camp (10 tents) and were greeted by a very nervous-looking and tentative staff. Once we heard the loud, nearby mating lions we realized why. It was a little bit worrisome, since we had the last tent on the end closest to the lions. The staff escorted everyone as a group to and from their tents. On the way to dinner, they shined a flashlight beyond our tent and we could see the lions pacing and watching us about 25 yards away. The lions were so active earlier in the season that all the guests slept in one tent. Whoa. Of course on the way back from dinner we had to dodge a hippo wandering through camp. His munching and heavy footsteps outside our screen kept Angela up all night.

After the next morning’s breakfast, we went out for a more relaxed game drive. We saw huge herds of migrating wildebeest and zebras walking in long thin lines north.

When they reach the Grumeti River (filled with crocodiles and lions in the adjacent woods) the wildebeest all bunch up waiting for the leaders to decide if it safe to cross.
Sometimes they get spooked and change their mind mid-crossing. Some get injured. It is wild to watch.

In the afternoon after crossing through a tetse fly area (tough biters!), we returned to the hippo and crocodile filled river, watching herds come down to drink in safe areas. There was, of course, a suspended walking bridge over the river that Angela, Carol, and Charlie crossed, while 15-foot long crocodiles lounged below them. I wouldn’t go near the thing. We observed a lion pride from a distance while they awoke from their afternoon naps.

We left the Serengeti the next morning and headed to Ngorongoro Crater. On the way we saw the ostrich mating dance, spotted hyenas, jackals, a bustard (large ground bird), and the secretary bird (very large ground falcon).


The next morning we drove through a misty tropical forested canopy while the road descended steeply into the Ngorongoro crater. Even though it is filled with visitors, being in the large collapsed volcano filled with wildlife was worth it. The highlight of the trip was watching two cheetahs stalking a resting gazelle. Incredible patience; and when the gazelle caught on and stood up, they dropped and pretended like they didn’t care.

We of course ran into Bill Clinton in the Crater. As we passed his entourage of vehicles, Annie gave him a big “woo pig sooie” (the Arkansas Razorback’s call) - a big hit.

During lunch, everyone stayed on top of their trucks because a troop of black-faced vervet monkeys was stealing unattended lunches. Three climbed on top of our truck’s roof and almost got Charlie’s, snatched a cracker, but Charlie and Angela fought them back. Hilarious.

The in-laws arrive

From Scott: So Angela's parents arrived. They brought with them some survival gear for their stay. Brownie mix, pop tarts, cheetos, and a wide variety of sweets. As a thank you from the other houseguests, several roaches made it through the mosquito netting to join Carole in bed for for the evening. Aparently, the bare-footed fumigators will be returning to our place while we will be out on safari.

Tarangire National Park

From Scott: Last weekend we visited Tarangire National Park. I thought I would add a few pictures from the trip (with a few from other places thrown in). Tarangire River, baboon family, zebras, giraffe, white browed coucal, sunset over zebras and wildebeest.

Guest Blog - Kelly visits the Simons

Hi. This is Kelly Wassell, friend of Angela's, that went to Africa to visit the Simons. When they told me they were going to Africa, I jumped on the chance to go. While I was there, I stayed with them in the first apartment for a few days. What I was most impressed with was how GREAT the kids were. Arusha is nothing like Little Rock, nor anywhere that I have been. But the kids seemed to just take it all in stride. They had been there for 2 weeks, so all the sights I was taking in weren't new to them. So women with tons of things on their heads, Maasai men walking through town, didn't seem to faze them. And Annie and Charlie were great playmates. I can't imagine how Scott and Angela would handle things if they weren't. When we weren't walking through town, I got to play some things with them that I hadn't for 20-30 years, the dot game, fortune tellers, and string things like cat's cradle.

I also went on safari for 4 nights and had a wonderful time. I spent 2 nights at the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge. Before I could get in the conservation area, the Baboons greeted me and the other visitors. Thank goodness, I had the windows closed. They aren't afraid of getting in the vehicles and stealing food. I witnessed 2 grabbing the boxed lunches and making off with a sandwich and banana.

It was amazing to be in the crater and see all the wildlife just right there. Everything lives in the crater except giraffes, and I saw an example of most of it all except the shy leopard. And although I have been told it counts, I only saw the very back of what I was told was a black rhino. I love the zebras who hang out with the wildebeasts. Charlie and Annie especially loved my laughting zebra picture. I promised I would post it.

I then spent 2 nights in Klein's under Canvas, tented lodge. How wonderful to be in a tent right next to the Serengeti. We went on a night game drive after visiting a Maasai boma and then spent the next day in the Serengeti National Park. It just doesn't compare to a zoo, when you don't know what combination of animals was going to be around the next corner. The one thing we were assured of was seeing our fill of wildebeasts. If I saw one, I saw a million. It was part of the great migration. Just imagine the "lion king" scene, but slower. Amazing.

It's hard to describe the experience, but wanted to share a little of it. The national parks of Tanzania are amazing. I would highly recommend going to everyone.

And give the Simon's a shout.

They are there another 4 weeks and with the earthquakes and all, I am sure they would like to get emails from you.

Thanks for reading. And thanks to the Simons for letting me join them for part of their adventure.
Kelly

Beyond the Streets of Arusha

From Charlie: You know those roads, they are just smelly and icky wicky. Everyday we have to walk, walk, walk, and walk. My Mom is afraid for my Dad to drive and won't let him. So we don't have a truck. Pawpaw (who just arrived) doesn't blame her. The only thing I like about those streets is that there is a lot of interesting stuff around. So you never know what is going to happen. For example, Tanzanite and granite are the most often seen in shops. So far the Isuzus are kicking up a ton of dust and pollution right from the wheels and the tailpipe. We have seen quartz with inclusions in it. They're very rare. That's all I have right now from Beyond the Streets of Arusha.

New place and earthquake

From Scott: We moved from our apartment to a house this week. Kids needed a better area to play besides the apartment living room or the front area of nearby shops looking for bottle caps in the dirt (but more on that later). The house is located in an ex-pat area called PPF-Njiro and is run by the Tanzanian parastatal pension fund. House is very nice on the outside and has a great yard with lots of flowering shrubs and trees. I'll try to post a picture soon. The inside is well used and the problem is we have to share it. We are usually by ourselves during the day, but in the evenings, the cockroaches and assorted other insects come out. There are more bugs than the five tropical house geckos that inhabit our front porch can manage.


But the PPF site has a nearby playground, pool, and work out area. So we'll see.

For more excitement, each of the last three evenings, we have had little earthquakes. Yesterday evening it registered 6.0 on the richter scale and brought everyone out of their buildings. The government has issued an earthquake warning startng at 4 PM today. Everyone was to go home and turn off gas, water, and electricity and stay in open areas this evening. So, the adventure continues.

Street scenes

From Angela: I thought I would post a few pictures of Arusha town. All of these have been taken out the windows of taxis so they are not the best, but I don't take my camera out in town. In fact, I have never seen anyone with a camera in town.

The first is just a picture along the road to our apartment, the second is the Central Market (a bit intimidating and crowded farmer's market), the third is downtown Arusha and the fourth is, yes, a car wash.

Feeling better

Note from Annie: I am feeling much better. Now I know how to take pills and swallow them with water. Thank you all for sending me notes to make me feel better. Now that is the end of me being sick right now!

Lizards and snakes

From Charlie: I have been chasing lizards all over Tanzania. I have seen a lot of different kinds. The most exciting one was an red-headed agama (Kelly Wassell took this picture, my Dad's wasn't very good). One day I was chasing a striped skink at a house we were looking at renting. It was sticking its head through the drainholes in an outside wash basin. I picked it up by its chest and I carried it over to Doug. Before he got his camera to take a picture, it squirmed onto my finger and bit me! I let go and it was hanging in mid air from my index finger. I pulled it off and threw it into a bush. My Mom freaked out and wanted me to put a band aid on it. But I was like, no way, it doesn’t hurt at all. A week later I can still see the bite marks.


When we were at Lake Manyara National Park picnic area something interesting happened. Some people came and sat with us. They were from the US. Earlier they had seen a python that fell out of a tree. The grandma was very scared of snakes. At the end of our lunch, the people started yelling, snake! A small one had fallen out of the tree into their area. Everyone else insisted that it was a garter snake so she wouldn’t be so scared. I was thinking, “what do these people know about snakes. Garter snakes are never green. They are always brownish, tanish, and yellowish." I thought it was a Jason’s mamba. So we got our snake field guide and camera to identify it. It was a spotted bushsnake. Grandma ran into their truck.

And that was about it for our non-scary adventures that had to do with cool snakes and lizards.

Our apartment

From Angela: After looking at a number of rental houses, we decided to stay at our temporary apartment for the rest of our stay. It only has 2 bedrooms and sleeps 4, so when we have company it’s a bit crowded. But, it is within walking distance of Scott’s work and downtown restaurants and shops. And after seeing several other places, we realized how nice our place is.

The apartment is similar to one in the US with just some odd little quirks. All the doors have keys and locks on them, so when we arrived I kept opening locked doors to find the bedrooms, bathrooms and kitchen. We have a very small refrigerator in our dining room (with a lock and key on it, of course) and a very small stove (called a cooker) in the kitchen. Every appliance is plugged into a socket that has a switch on it that you have to turn on when you want to use it. The hot water heater has a switch in the hallway. Unfortunately, we thought it was a light switch and turned it off. When Annie was sick and needed a bath, I just thought we didn’t have hot water and boiled ten pots of water two at a time to give her a lukewarm bath. It took almost two hours. Later on I saw the light switch and after wondering, figured it out. You are supposed to turn it on when you need hot water and then turn it off after you’re finished.

Our apartment building has a very modern looking stairwell with tile floors and steps (we live on the 3rd floor). But each of the stairs is a different height and angle, so each of us has tripped more than once just walking up the steps. The top step is so tall that Charlie felt flat on his face running up the steps to see me after a day out with Scott.

We live right in town so at night there are a lot of noises: roosters crowing all night, dogs barking, music playing, cars, trucks, the sound of the big, metal gate to the complex opening and closing all night, and the prayers over the loudspeaker at the nearby mosque that start at 5:00 am. That is also the time when the drivers (and security guards) start washing all the cars in the courtyard to get ready for the day.

We don’t have a dishwasher or washer/dryer, so dishes and laundry are done by hand. There are women out on the neighboring balconies all day doing laundry and hanging it to dry. I have been washing some of our clothes in the bathtub and giving some to a girl here at the apartment building to wash. I have also hired her to clean our apartment, but this involves negotiating a price each time. The last time she cleaned our apartment she charged me 3,000 shillings – about $2.75. I was shocked and gave her 4,000 shillings. Unfortunately my laundry rates have now gone up. I learned my lesson. She does not have a vacuum so she cleaned our rug by brushing it with a stiff brush for what seemed to be 30 minutes. During that time, probably because of the spiral notebooks the kids had been playing with, she looked at me and said “Oh, Jesus Christ.” It was the only English I heard from her all day. Needless to say, I now try to pick up the little scraps of paper before she comes. I’ve also noticed that she and the apartment manager always take off their shoes whenever they walk across the 8’ x 10’ rug and then put them back on when they get to the other side.

Most shops are within a 30-45 minutes walk. I prefer walking to negotiating price with taxi drivers and explaining where we live. There are very few streets signs, no traffic lights and most drivers don’t understand maps. First I tried to explain which road I lived on and that didn’t seem to work. The next time I tried to point it out on a map and that didn’t work. After that I had someone take me to a major landmark in the center of town and gave him directions from there. If I don’t know a landmark, I am in trouble. I used to dread going to the large grocery store because it’s far away. But now I have my new favorite cab driver, Riziki who gave me his phone number. It makes everything much easier!

We have a nice, flat screen TV. We get four channels: Tanzanian parliament, Tanzanian parliament, VTN, and, wait for it, Al Jazeera. VTN showed John Tesh live from Red Rocks. We were rocking.

For decorating, I purchased two Maasai cloths to cover the tables. Red and purple to go with the black Chinese furniture. Combined with the mosquito netting it is a good look. It is not exactly the pottery barn style of 901 N. Oak, but memorable in so many other ways. Wish you all were here to see it!

From Scott: We are trying to upload pictures but experiencing glitches. We'll keep trying.

National Park Trip

From Angela: We had a fantastic trip to several national parks and protected areas in Northern Tanzania last week with Thadeus Binamungu and Tusime from the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF). I was so anxious to write about it when we got back but our e-mail has been down ever since yesterday.

We visited Tarangire National Park, Manyara Ranch (owned by the Tanzania Land Conservation Trust), Lake Manyara National Park, Burungi Wildlife Management Area, and Mt. Kilimanjaro area. They all had very different habitats and we saw so many different animals and birds. At each location we Scott had field and office meetings. While he was in meetings, the kids and I hung out waiting for him. We were oftentimes an unusual sight for the villagers.


Tarangire is a large park that looks like the Africa you expect. Endless savannas and grasslands with giant, ancient baobab trees on the slopes and filled with wildlife. The Tarangire River runs through the park. The park is known for the large elephant herd. We saw many family groups up close (check out Annie in the truck) but also saw giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, impala, baboons, rock hyrax and many birds. The wildlife migrate long distances between the national parks and conservation areas between the wet and dry seasons.

Next day we went to Burungi WMA (west of Tarangire NP) on Maasai land and met with the chairman of a village organization working with nine villages to secure wildlife corridors across their land in exchange for tourism revenue from tented lodges on their land. (The man bicycles 12 miles to work each way on a dirt road). The organization received $5 from each tourist/each day for use for schools, water projects, and anti-poaching patrols. While the staff met with him, Annie, Charlie and I drew a crowd of children watching us play cards on the front steps. Charlie eventually joined in a soccer game with a group of boys. He said they were very good. Looking across the miles of savannas surrounding the few village buildings, Scott said they probably got plenty of practice.

The next day we visited the north side of Manyara Ranch. Scott and Doug wanted to see a recently burned area. Charlie rode in the back of the game scout truck while wildebeest, zebras, giraffe, and cattle ran past. I could see his smile 100 yards away through the cloud of dust a 100 yards behind him. We scared a cheetah off a termite mound, which was cool.

Each evening we returned to a very nice lodge overlooking the rift valley and all of the sites we visited. At the pool, the kids leanred a new phrase - baridi sana - very cold.


Next we traveled to the slopes of Mt Kilimanjaro and met an elephant researcher (Alfred Kikoti with AWF) documenting elephant movements and securing their travel corridors between the Tanzania and Kenya national parks. At one site, the work crew went hiking up to an overlook with some villagers. They were viewing a wildlife corridor between Tanzania and Kenya the village designated as protected. Annie and I were stuck in the truck on the side of the road. We attracted a crowd of Maasai women who pointed and talked animatedly about Annie for half an hour. They don’t see many blond-haired girls in that area.

That evening, we stayed in a tented camp with a view of the mountain on one side and the slope down to Kenya on the other. It was amazing. They had showers and flush toilets they operated with buckets and lighting from solar panels. The Maasai sang before the dinner. Dinner was held in a large tented dining area. Warm washclothes were offered towash our faces and hands. During dinner bats flew overhead and between us catching moths hovering around the lights, providing great evening entertainment. We could hear jackals and hyenas while we lay in bed. A full moon illuminated Mt Kilimanjaro. Beautiful.

The next day we visited a defunct ranch on the other side of the mountain owned by the Tanzania National Ranching Company. It was overrun by neighboring villagers grazing cattle, farming, and diverting water from streams. We saw no wildlife. The Tanzania Land Conservation Trust is negotiating with the government and neighboring villages on establishing a conservation corridor and compatible grazing. During the trip, we experienced the dustiest drive of our stay so far. Fine volcanic pumice in a dry lake bed. The dust had dust. It was hilarious. All part of the adventure.