Tanzania

For anyone who thought that it was always perfectly hot and sunny in Africa, we can confirm that is a fallacy!  In Cairo we froze, in Sudan our innards boiled and in Tanzania we prepared for rain.  Camping on the Kenyan side of the border we experienced our first utter downpour, flooding our campsite and cracking the branch of a tree which tumbled on to a tent below (luckily vacant at the time).  In Tanzania we have experienced the rainy season in full, dropping its load on us day after day making our lives rather wet and churning up the roads.
 

The rich rusty earth of East Africa

Despite, and also probably because of, the rain we’ve seen how beautiful Tanzania is.  It’s wonderful to be somewhere greener and in fact for almost the first time we have been camping on grass (despite that being the way we traditionally think of camping in England, it is funny the things you don’t notice are missing until you find them).  We’ve ridden over constantly rolling hills with wonderful views of the lush green country, which combined with the rich rusty red sand and the blue hills lining the edge of the Rift Valley has made for some spectacular scenes.   For a couple of days we rode through an area harvesting sunflowers for oil and were treated to a landscape dense with the yellow spots of towering sunflowers.

 

A perfect view for a tricky jigsaw puzzle

We first entered Maasai country in Kenya, but the Maasai people also fill northern Tanzania.  They are probably one of the most well-known tribes around the world that continue to live in their traditional way.   We passed many Maasai on the road, the men robed in their traditional red and blue blankets, often carrying a spear; the ladies cluttered with beaded jewellery, with stretched holes in their ears and huge circular necklaces prone around their necks.  Reputedly a very strong people and staunch in preserving their way of life, the Maasai have an interesting relationship with the mass tourism industry.  Visitors are intrigued by them and they have found ways to profit financially from this in a way that interestingly both enhances and preserves their ‘brand’ as it were.  They do this through visits to their villages, performing traditional music and dance in hotels etc.  One result we noticed from this was that every Maasai we met was very clear that they will not have their picture taken, except for money. 

One day we passed three Maasai boys on the road, dressed in black with their faces painted in intricate white patterns.  This garb was a giveaway that these boys were in the middle of the ceremony which takes place as they enter manhood.  Lasting around three months the ceremony starts with circumcision (a group go through this process together), the boys then leave the village, living 20km or so away in the bush.  They spend the time healing from the procedure and fending for themselves; elders from the village visit intermittently teaching them about hunting and other key skills.

The children in Tanzania have been an absolute delight and not a single stone has been slung our way.  Even in the most rural areas, it is clear that this is a very young population [stat on the demographic?] They stand sweetly by the roadside, looking on in astonishment as we pass, overwhelmed by excitement when we throw out a friendly ‘Jambo’ (hello) and replying ‘Poa’ (cool) in perfect unison in response to our ‘Mambo Vipi’s (what’s up?).  Even the small smatterings of Swahili that we have bring those that we chat to great pleasure; our fleeting exchanges as we pass means that we often hear laughter and giggles following us as we pedal on our way.  

 

Clowning around with the village kids

 

We aren’t sure if education is a big priority for the Government, or its just chance that we’ve passed a lot of schools, but every village is overrun by tiny beaming faces in their uniform.  The learning style is one of learning by rote, which might explain why we are often greeted (at any time of day) by ‘Good Morning Teacher’, and not uncommonly (with no discrimination of gender) ‘Good Morning Sir’! We camped by one school that had over 1,000 pupils and only 17 teachers – the headmaster explained to us that the pupils arrive at 6.30 to sweep the playground and tidy the classrooms before the teachers arrive to start lessons at 8.00. Imagine that!

 

School's out

Perhaps being over half way and feeling that the journey is more achievable is making us more light hearted; perhaps it’s been that the roads have just been really fun to ride, or perhaps it’s that Tanzania is a warm and friendly place, but despite the rain it has been an absolute pleasure to ride through.