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| Double-toothed Barbet |
We found out that Jenny has the week of 6-10th September off so we are heading to Speke Bay Lodge about 100 km east of Mwanza. This involves overnight crossings on the ferry which should be an interesting experience.
Speke Bay Lodge is on the lake shore and has large areas of dry savannah country. It is close to one of the main Serengeti National Park entrances and we hope to go on a day safari into the park although we haven't found one we can afford yet.
A fairly quiet week up on our hill but not so quiet down in the town. The campaign has just started for the national election at the end of October. Our fellow VSO volunteers, Michelle, Mark and Abraham live in town and their next door neighbour is the local candidate for the dominant CCM party. Campaigning involves driving flatbed trucks around town loaded up with huge speaker systems booming out heavily distorted music and political slogans. They occasionally drive up our way and are incredibly loud. We can also hear the noise from in town but it is not disturbing. Poor M,M and A have this noise going next door half the days and nights. We saw them for Friday afternoon drinks yesterday and they were looking decidedly frazzled. We've offered them sanctuary in our house on the hill - but I think our cold shower and squat toilet were deal breakers.
We've actually had some rain. On Thursday and Friday morning and again today we've had thunder rumblings and a few gentle showers. This has settled the dust a bit. I'm a bit disappointed to be missing out on the rain people tell me they've been getting at home. I heard today Lake Hindmarsh is full for the first time in decades. Hopefully Lake Linlithgow will fill up as well and still have good water level when we get back.
Our modem is working well. It's a bit slow but reliable. We tried skype-ing some friends recently but gave up because we couldn't hear them. Eventually we got a phone text message from them admitting their computer doesn't have a microphone! I won't embarrass them by naming them.
Jenny and Michelle finished their school visits this week. The last school was a privately run english language primary school. It was the only one they visited that had power. A couple of the government schools this week were particularly run-down, over-crowded and under-staffed. The next stage is to start developing programs to address the needs identified by the teachers they have met and then to organise the training sessions.
Jenny's motorbike arrived on Monday and is safely locked in our shed. Jenny hasn't received her training certificate from Dar Es Salaam yet so can't legally ride it. It may well stay in the shed for the duration.
On Thursday I was invited along with Jenny and Michele and Mr. Josiah (their boss) on one of their school visits. Mr J. assured me there was a nice patch of bush with plenty of birds. I assumed this was at the school so was a bit disturbed when they dropped me off at a bridge over a small stream in the middle of nowhere and said they'd be back in two hours. As always there were lots of people around but I wandered up and down the stream then across some rocky hills and no-one paid me much attention. The birding was quite good with Banded Martin, Winding Cisticola and African Pipit added to my list.
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| Winding Cisticola |
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| African Stonechat |
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| Crowned Hornbill |
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| White-browed Coucal |
Eight weeks have just flown past - 15% of our time is over. Before we know it the December-January break will be here and we need to start planning what to do with those five weeks. Anyone who wants to come and visit needs to book in very soon.
Bye for now…
Saturday 28 August, Bukoba
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