Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Wheels, guests of honour and birding with 30 young girls

Jenny and I have bought Mark and Michelle's car.  We are now the third VSO couple here to own this little Suzuki and hopefully it will be as reliable for us as it has been for the others.

So far it has taken us into town a couple of times, Jenny to work on a couple of wet days and last Friday a long drive to a town about 60 km to the south-west for a school graduation ceremony.

Registering the car under my name was an interesting exercise.  We only managed this because Jenny's colleague, Mr. Josiah, came with us and handled most of the negotiations.  We had to visit the police, the Tanzanian Revenue Authority, a bank and a lawyer.  We got a road worthy certificate at the police but no-one looked at the car.  At no stage did anyone ask for my ID - and they normally ask for your ID (passport photo etc) every time you do anything here.  The lawyer only asked me to state my full name and compared it with that I had written on the form he was being asked to stamp.  We handed over sums of money at each stage but at no stage did we get a receipt.  I now have a Tanzanian tax file number but no-one asked for my ID!

Driving is also interesting here.  Central Bukoba is insane chaos and to be avoided as far as possible.  The number and variety of vehicles doing totally erratic and unpredictable things is beyond anything I've seen before except maybe in China and I was not driving there.  It is impossible to assume any driver, rider or pedestrian is going to do something because they regularly do something quite different. Road rules are completely ignored.

Once out of town things calm down considerably and on the main bitumen road heading south it is possible to relax.  The bitumen only takes you so far however and then you have to venture onto the more rural dirt roads.  At the moment these are dry and rocky but as the wet season progresses they will become muddy and rutted.  The hazards are the endless stream of people, walking and riding mostly, along the roads and their livestock.  Cars and trucks are fairly rare and generally not able to get up much speed in the conditions.

As I said, on Friday, we headed out with Jenny's colleague, Mr Josiah, to a primary school in his home district.  The trip down took three hours with a few stops.  Coming back was only two hours.  We were among the guests of honour for the graduation ceremony for 11 year 7 students who had just sat their Standard 7 exam to see if they could go to secondary school.  It was a pleasant occasion with songs, speeches and lots of greetings. Unfortunately Jenny and I had to leave early in order to get back to Bukoba as I had an appointment with 30 young girls.

Kiroyera Tours here are the local one-stop shop for tourism.  They look after accommodation bookings, tours, safaris, ferry beds and run a couple of local training and development programs.  They have had input from VSO in the past and have expressed an interest in guided birding tours.  I volunteered to assist in this and my first opportunity to help came last Friday.  William Rutta from Kiroyera and his trainee bird guide picked me up and we drove south along the lake shore to a training centre for young folk who want to get into the tourism and hospitality industry.  These were the 30 girls (and one young man).  They were probably all in their late teens and were all gorgeous.

We walked down through local shambas (farms) and the nearby village, down the cliffs to a nice beach on the lake - then back.  We stopped to look at any birds that showed and my binoculars and field guide were much shared around.  We saw some nice birds, they seemed genuinely interested and remembered what they'd learned when quizzed at the end.  It was a fun (if strenuous) afternoon and I hope I get the chance to do more of this.  William seemed to think it went well.  Some of the birds seen were Open-billed Stork, Little Egret, Hamerkop, Fish Eagle, Augur Buzzard, Ross's Turaco, Plantain-eater, Double-toothed Barbet, Tropical Boubou, Sand Martin, Angola Swallow, Sooty Chat, Dusky Flycatcher, Red-chested Sunbird and Vieillot's Black Weaver.  I wonder if the kids understood what some US and British mzungus would pay to see these birds in a couple of hours.

Wednesday 21 September, Bukoba

Sunday, September 12, 2010

A week off - the Ferry across Lake Victoria, Speke Bay Lodge and Mwanza

Usambiro Barbet
Last week was Standard Seven exams where all the primary school leavers sit a series of exams to see if they can progress to secondary school.  Jenny has explained this in her blog (http://wantingafrica.blogspot.com/).  In practical terms it meant that Jenny could have the week off because the exam period coincided with the end of Ramadan and Friday was a public holiday.  On the advice of the Tanzanian Bird Atlas chap - Neil Baker - we booked into Speke Bay Lodge for four nights. 



Black-chested Snake-Eagle

First we had to cross mighty Lake Victoria.  The MV Victoria leaves Bukoba three nights a week (Mon, Wed and Fri) and takes all night to get to Mwanza.  We had first class cabins and were quite comfortable but the toilets were dire!  The term "banana boat" could have been invented for this ferry (see pics on Jenny's blog). 









Verreaux's Eagle-Owl


Once in Mwanza ( the second largest city in Tanzania but still with a frontier town feel), we took a taxi to the bus terminal north of the city and quickly found ourselves on a coach to Kenya.  Two hours later we disembarked at the small town of Lamadi and taxied back to Speke Bay Lodge. 





















Hamerkop

Speke was one of the early European explorers of darkest Africa and Speke Bay is the south-eastern point of Lake Victoria.  It is also one of the closest points to Serengeti National Park.  Lots of safari companies run tours from here but the ones we looked at wanted far too much money for just the two of us so we opted out this time.











Little Egret



The four days at the lodge were very pleasant with great food, excellent staff and lots of interesting bush to explore.  Most people we met were passing through with one of the many safari company tours and I don't think anyone else stayed more than one night.








Pied Kingfisher


The birds were the highlight for me (Jenny seemed to enjoy them as well).  I ended up with 112 species.  Most of the european migrants species had yet to arrive so I thought this was quite a good effort.  No doubt I missed a few species because there were new ones every time I ventured out.







Silverbird

The highlights included:  Yellow-billed Stork, Black-chested Snake-Eagle, Grey-breasted Spurfowl, Spotted Redshank, Wood Sandpiper, Ruff, Two-banded Courser, White-winged Tern, Didric Cuckoo, Verreaux's Eagle-Owl, Blue-naped Mousebird, African Pygmy Kingfisher, Madagascar Bee-eater, Usambiro Barbet, Fischer's Sparrow-Lark, Rufous Chatterer, Grey-capped Warbler, Buff-bellied Warbler, Silverbird, Paradise Flycatcher, Black-headed Gonolek, Slate-coloured Boubou, Slender-billed Weaver, Black-necked Weaver, Blue-capped Cordon-bleu, Red-faced Crombec and Grey-capped Social Weaver.




Superb Starling


The sheer spectacle of the various herons, ibis, openbills, egrets, cormorants, fish-eagles etc settling down each evening was probably the thing we will remember most.









Swamp Flycatcher

Reluctantly we left Speke Bay and took taxis back to Mwanza and the Tilapia Hotel which was also very good with free wireless internet and a nice garden setting on a quiet bay in the lake.  Home on the ferry again Friday night.










Bye for now…

Monday 13th September 2010, Bukoba