The Agrinautica

Wednesday, October 21st, Day 17 - Moshi is a very peaceful town on the slopes of Mount Kiliminjaro. It is one of the most "suburban" places I've seen in Africa, with broad tree-lined streets under arches of overhanging jacaranda trees, whose purple-blue flowers float down to the ground.

   Moshi feels very safe. Usually. Finding myself in a pitch black street, the overhanging jacaranda blotting out the moon and stars, with three large dogs growling at me, it didn't feel so safe. I tried to continue on my way but every time I turned from them they'd start lunging at me. I considered walking back to the hotel, only half a block away now, but that would lead me back towards the epicenter of the area the dogs seemed to be guarding. I could barely make out their shape in the dark, but I'd seen them earlier in the day watching passersby warily from a neighboring yard that wasn't fenced -- I wouldn't say positively they were german shepherds but they were that shape and size, and now they were growling at me in a way that clearly meant business, in a dark deserted street.

   I tried to continue on my way and the pack leader made a snarling lunge for my back foot. I turned around and looked at it sternly, raising my arms a little to look bigger, and it crouched back growling angrily. Is this how I'm going to die? Mauled by domestic dogs in the peaceful town of Moshi?? I asked myself.



   The previous day I had left Dar Es Salaam by bus. It took approximately ten hours to get from there to Moshi. The bus ride was mostly uneventful, passed two crashed trucks, saw baboons two or three times. I noted that sometimes we would pick up someone selling nuts or drinks, typically somewhere we had to stop like a weigh station (they seem to be on the borders of every Tanzanian region), who would go up and down the aisles trying to make sales and then get off at the next weigh station, presumably catching a bus bound the other direction. The bus crew seemed to know these people very well. A related observation is that the busses always have a "crew" of two or three persons in addition to the driver, and even trucks in Africa seem to always have several people in the cab. When the cost of labor is insignificant compared to the value of the vehicle, might as well.

   Arriving in Moshi I went through the familiar routine of catching a taxi, who said he knew the hotel I wanted to be taken to but then did not, and tried to charge me three times what I knew it should have cost. The hotel I stayed in was the gaily coloured little place called Blue Acacia, with a lovely seating area out in front and a pretty garden. I have no pictures from this time because my DSLR battery was dead, power was very inconsistent, and all pictures on my phone were lost with the phone (yes I'll probably gripe about that in every single entry about this trip).
   Being the top reviewed location in town on tripadvisor and other sites, the hotel attracted all the travelers who were "in the know." And Moshi itself primarily attracts people who want to climb Kiliminjaro so there was a steady stream of fit young people coming in, meeting with their guides in the evening, and heading out early the next morning.
   That evening before it was dark I trotted down the street to the nearby Thai restaurant I'd been looking forward to getting back to for the entire last year. It was still there, with its tall thatched roof and spacious open patio (see interesting roof under-structure on right), but it was under new ownership and no longer a thai restaurant. It was good though and I ended up eating there twice more during my brief stay in Moshi, and every time the owner came by and chatted with me.


   It was this restaurant I was trying to reach for a late dinner the next night when I found myself beset by aggressive guard dogs on the street. I found that if I faced the dogs they would stay back but as soon as I turned they'd start lunging for me. I ended up mostly backing down the street until I reached the corner, which they seemed to regard as the extent of their territory. There I crossed one of the major streets by a round about and proceeded down a long dark block towards my favorite restaurant.
   It was around 10pm and no one was about. This block seemed to have construction sites on both side, which were darker than the night. As I walked down the street I was acutely aware in fact that no one was about, and the construction yards were full of places one could hide. Moshi is a very safe peaceful town, it really is, but it also strongly occurred to me that it would just take one unscrupulous thug who might be hanging around the construction yard at night to see a muzungu alone in a deserted area on a dark night and think it might be very profitable for them. I looked at my feet, instead of my sturdy black combat boots I was only wearing flip-flops for this little jaunt, which would severely hinder both running and kicking. I walked carefully, spinning around at any sound in the night.


   That morning I had lazily awoken enjoying a rare opportunity to sleep in a bit after 6am bus trips the past few days (two and a half weeks in and jet lag was still causing me to be pretty wakeful in the morning though). Enjoyed the complimentary breakfast of pancakes and fresh fruit. Despite being a coffee producing area they don't know how to brew coffee around there though. I was excited to actually see a coffee percolator but the coffee was insanely weak -- another guest later told me she saw the staff reusing the used coffee grinds.
   I was torn for awhile in the morning because there were still things to see in the Moshi area (despite my having spent a week there last year), notably a hot springs, and I felt like I should make the most of it, but I also really felt like spending a day relaxing in this beautiful place. Finally the latter idea won out and as other guests went off to climb the mountain or see the hotsprings I took my jolly sweet time eating breakfast and generally "chilling."
   That afternoon I walked downtown to look for somewhere that might sell a new lensecap for my camera. Since they get a fair number of tourists doing the mountain there's the accompanying annoying gnat-like hangers-on downtown, trying to hook tourists for their travel agency. As I walked along several tried to engage me in conversation but I kept going. One followed me for a fair ways trying to start a conversation with me in a friendly manner despite my ignoring him and walking along at a brisk pace. In Egypt I learned you can't say one word to these guys or they'll never leave you alone, but nowhere else I've been have they been as bad and I deigned to answer a few basic questions from this guy so as not to seem like a complete asshole ("where are you from?" "California" ... "here on safari?" "nope" ... "let me take you to my safari agency" "nope" ...) eventually he gave up but another one picked up his place in less than a block. The town's not big and by this point I'd gotten to one end of town and was headed back the other. Went through the same basic questions with this guy, he really wanted me to stop by his travel agency or let him book me to go to the hot springs. When he asked me what I was doing and I said I was looking for a lense cap he said he knew someone that sold them (of course) and since he claimed it was the direction I was going I let him guide me to it. Of course the guy didn't have them, tehre didn't seem to be a camera shop in town which I was rather disappointed about since it seemed likely enough in this kiliminjaro hub.
   I then let the guy guide me to a bus company office since I did need to get a ticket for a bus the next morning. It was kind of interesting because the posted rate was about twice the price I ended up paying but after talking to my "guide" the ticket agent said that the guide had arranged the lower price. (I think it was like $15-$20? I dunno all my notes were on my phone) After that I was headed back to the hotel, even though he seemed to have gotten me a good deal I was still anxious to shake the guy. About a block or two from the bus station the man said goodbye and with a handshake he was off .... and I was shocked! I was thoroughly entirely expecting him to put it hard to me for payment for his assistance -- and I wasn't opposed to it since he had gotten me a good deal on a ticket but I had still been not lookign forward to the issue coming up. And then he was gone and I was left wishing I _had_ had a chance to give him something. Now, he _probably_ got a cut from the ticket sale, even with the reduced rate -- especially since he could honestly say I was planning on going with a different bus company, because I had been, and he'd brought me there instead.

   Had lunch at the former thai place on the way back to the hotel, chatted briefly with the owner and continued down past the construction yards, across the big road, into the leafy green suburban neighborhood where some neighbors dogs lazily watched me go by, and back to the hotel.

   This is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, I had started repeating myself earlier when I met the dogs and it was still going through my head as I cautiously made my way down the dark street. Many times I thought about just going back but the dogs made that prospect unappealing.
   Fortunately I made it to the golden glow of the restaurant without incident. Unfortunately, they had just shut down their kitchen.
   "Ummmm, could you call me a cab?" I asked the owner, "it's a bit sketchy out there," he was shocked I'd even attempted to walk around out there. Moments later he came back with a taxi driver who I believe was just finishing eating there anyway. The driver drove me back to the hotel, which took merely a minute or two, and declined to even charge me for so short a trip. He seemed nice, I took his name and number down for next time -- now lost with my phone.


View looking up from the main road at Kiliminjaro (picture from last year)

Thursday, October 22nd, Day 18 - Early the next morning I took a taxi down to the bus station, got on a small shuttle-bus (as opposed to the greyhound style coach buses I'd taken to and from Dar Es Salaam), the Moshi-Arusha-Nairobi route seems to be entirely done by these smaller busses for some reason. It took us two hours or so to get to Arusha, where we had to board a different bus, and who should be on that bus, and not only that but with an open seat right next to her, but the girl I sat next to on the Nairobi to Arusha leg two weeks earlier! This was a bizarre coincidence especially since we hadn't discussed what days we were returning, and I'd been playing my return entirely by ear, and I would have taken a different bus line anyway if that guy hadn't intervened! She got a mention in the earlier entry just because she was the source of the hot tip that Uber works for getting rides in Nairobi (you get much better rates that way I really recommend it!). She had also stayed at the Blue Acacia when she was in Moshi in fact! But she was on an opposite circle from me, starting in Moshi and ending in Arusha before returning to Nairobi.
   And then we arrived in Nairobi, or as many call it, "Nai-robbery," as I would soon find out...

( Pictures from in and around Moshi last year )

( Relive last year's adventures! All entries tagged Moshi )

Thursday, October 15th, Day 11 - This morning I'm sitting under a large acacia tree eating baobab porridge. I don't know what time it is, there's no electricity to charge my only time piece, my phone, but that's okay because I'm pretty sure no one else knows what time it is either. Baobab porridge is kind of like rice pudding, but not as sweet -- they have no ready supply of sugar. I'd like to tell you I'm eating out of a gourd or calabash but its actually a pink plastic bowl. I missed the truly authentic life by about fifteen years I think. Around me are the Hadza, the "last of the first people," traditional hunter gatherers. They sit around me in home made chairs of sticks tied together with antelope leather. The men are wearing mostly jeans and t-shirts that had been donated to thrift stores in the US. The women wear simple dresses of colorful African fabric. Nearby there's a low hut that looks like what we'd call a wigwam in America, it's in actual daily use.



   "So if you don't mind my asking, what is the typical yearly income around here?" I ask the one young man who speaks some English, I need to establish a "baseline" income to compare to later, this will be important in future fundraising, to be able to point to an objective benefit from the project.
   "We have no income."
   "Has anyone sold anything outside the village in the last year?"
   "No we don't have anything to sell"
   "What about those cows?"
   "They belong to our Maasai neighbours, we are just hunter gatherers."

   You read about them, you see them on national geographic, but its kind of shocking to find yourself right in among people who have an annual income of zero dollars. Every morning they range around the area looking for fruits and nuts. One afternoon we were going to do some beekeeping training and I noticed all the young men were absent. "Where are all the young men?" I asked.
   "They're hunting" was the answer. And not with guns -- It wasn't uncommon to see them walking around with bows and arrows (wearing jeans and a t-shirt that might be emblazoned with the name of the cheerleading squad of some midwestern high school).

   It had been a long journey here: by air from Los Angeles to Dublin to Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to Nairobi (Kenya), bus across the border to Arusha (Tanzania), then I'd gotten a ride with the governor of Singida Region to Singida, followed by a day-long journey with local government officials to the furthest little town we could reach by car (even then after driving on a rough cattle track awhile), and finally, the next morning, hiking three hours to this village. Now my intrepid translater, Neema, and I were here deep deep in the middle of nowhere, until the local government officials should (hopefully!) come pick us up the following Sunday. With no way to communicate and having experienced all sorts of flakeyness in Africa already, all week I was very much crossing my fingers when I thought about my pickup out.

   My purpose out here? To teach them beekeeping. The governor, Dr Parseko Kone, had given them almost 300 beehives (out of his own pocket I think), but there was no one available to give them any training whatsoever. So they just hung them in trees and hoped for the best.
   The first half of the day they pretty much dedicate to finding food, so training had to wait until the afternoon. I'd spend much of the morning sitting under the acacia tree reading a book (Richard Henry Dana Jr's, Two Years Before The Mast). In the afternoon the first few days I "lectured" about bees and answered their many questions, and then we got to the fun stuff, opening up beehives! Young men who weren't interested in learning about beekeeping seemed to spend the evening playing soccer on a nearby pitch of land that had been cleared for that purpose.
   A local beekeeping supplier here in California had donated a whole bunch of bee suits to my organization (Bee Aid International), which greatly helped. Since the beehives are all up in trees, one of the young men who particularly excelled at tree climbing would have to climb the tree first, attach a rope to the beehive, and lower it down. They put the beehives up in trees like this as protection against honey badgers.

   Last month I was in Guinea where the villages were all close together and enclosed by a fence, the "village" here was quite different -- it was more like a loose grouping of huts, all pretty much just out of site of one another through the thorn bushes and acacia trees (about 100-200 yards apart). Almost every dwelling seemed to consist of both a dome shaped wigwam hut and a rectangular structure either made from locally made bricks or mud and sticks. I'm told there are more Hadza who still live an entirely traditional lifestyle, but they avoid other people and keep moving deeper into the bush.



   Dr Kone had also sponsored the construction of two pumps and commented when I talked to him afterwards that ground water is plentiful there. "But I don't want to give them too much water, or else the Maasai will push them off their land." I already saw Maasai herdsmen hanging around one of the pumps, where they had constructed ponds to collect the water so their cattle could drink (see above). Dr Kone's plan is to get the idea of land ownership more firmly established among the Hadza before risking having them pushed off the land by the Maasai. You see, not only are they hunter gatherers with no income, neither they nor the Maasai have any tradition of permanent land ownership, both groups have always been nomadic.

   I really enjoyed the evenings, when Neema and I would go to the village chairman's dwelling place for dinner. We had packed in our own spaghetti and beans, though the Hadza were very willing to share what little they had with us (at one point I thought I was eating chicken until I realized the foot, which was still attached, was much much too small for a chicken -- I think I ate a sparrow or something). The food would be cooked over a campfire (is it a campfire if you live there?), and I've always loved campfires. The sun would set into the acacia forest and an amazing number of stars would come out overhead. ...and then the modern world would interject as the chairman had a radio he'd turn on after dinner and his kids would all gather around and listen to the tinny cacophonous music, which usually drove me away.



   I wish I could give more day to day details but my phone, on which I was keeping my notes, was later stolen, and I have the memory of a gold fish.

   After several days Neema and I had drank all our bottled water and all the bottled water they sold at the little shop someone maintained there (a closet sized kiosk of mud and branches stocked with a few sundries and had to resort to drinking soda (which the shop had in greater supply) -- #thirdworldproblems.

   When the appointed Sunday rolled around in the afternoon the government landcruiser did indeed roll in (it had found a road in but it took several more hours and was really rugged), and we bid everyone adieu. Hopefully I'll see them next year and we can build on the training.
   Neema and I got into the vehicle, it had been a great experience but living with hunter gatherers in the bush is a harsh life with few amenities and I think we were both ready to return to the real world (plus being out of food and water). As we drove off I looked forward to my next project in Zanzibar, but little did I know at that point I'd instead soon find myself stranded on a deserted island trapped between jagged cliffs and a tide that was up to my waist and rising ... but that will have to wait till next time [to be continued!]


A Hadza woman (L) and Neema (R)(my translator)

( More Pictures )

   I apologize for interrupting the blogging about about the Guinea project. I'll try to squeeze that in somewhere. But in the mean time, I'm out in the field!

Previously: So my primary goal for this trip is to reach the Hadza People, hunter gatherers in central Tanzania (Singida). My primary contact with this is a certain Dr K we shall call him, who works with them in some capacity. Previous to coming out here I'd checked in with him every few months, and in July before buying my tickets I called for final confirmation that I'd be able to visit them at this time and all, and he said "oh call back in mid september," which was frustrating since I was aiming to begin the project in late September, so I just went ahead and booked the ticket (and started developing fallback plans). In mid September I called again and he said "Call when you get to Nairobi," and I of course pressed him "everything is ready for my visit right??" and he vaguely assured me it was.

Days 0: Monday, October 5th - Arrived in Nairobi, called Dr K and told him I expected to be in Singida "Thursday or Friday." Hotel I booked (as usual, using tripadvisor on my phone on the way to the airport) turned out to be kind of dumpy, water didn't work at all in the first room they put me in, which was also tiny, but then I was able to convince them after the first day to upgrade me to a better one at the same price.


But the hotel did have this sweet roof area

   Had good times in Nairobi seeing friends. Was going to take the bus to Tanzania on Wednesday but ended up having to push that till Thursday. Thursday (yesterday) mornign I caught the bus at 06:45 in the morning. Sat next to a young lady from Buenos Aires who has been working for Air B&B in Barcelona. She revealed that apparently Uber (the app based taxi service) works just fine in Nairobi and she's been using it to get about! Also she said she uses tinder to find other traveling expats in the area, which was a startling revelation to our other seatmate (a Pole living and working in Dublin), but it just cracked me up because I had already noticed this use of tinder. I forget did I write about my tinder contact from Guinea?
Tangental Aside: In brief: in Conakry, Guinea, the only people on tinder were medical volunteers in Freetown, Sierra Leone, some 80 miles away. This one girl I talked to a little, and then after I got home to California she was like "was that you??" and I was like "when?" and she was like "that charming lanky gentleman on my flight into Atlanta who got pulled over at the CDC checkpoint and was headed to California" Turns out we "met" while 80 miles apart in West Africa and then happened to sit next to eachother at ebola screening some 1,500 miles west in the Atlanta airport and didn't put it together until a few thousand miles later... /end tangental aside

Arusha - As we rolled into town I looked up hotels on TripAdvisor, narrowing it down to one that was $30 a night with relatively good reviews and one that was $47 with really rave reviews. Feeling a little guilty for not taking the cheapest option I went for the more expensive one. I'm not sure I trust a $30 hotel anyway.

   Arriving at the bus stop the shuttle bus driver indicated a taxi driver that he had somehow decided to recommend and said to me "use this man." I asked him how much it would be but the driver responded with poorly composed unrelated questions (basically "you here for Safari?" "nope" "first time in Arusha?" "nope"). Once we were underway he tried to push me to let him take me to "my [his] hotel," which I think would have been $12 a night, but I had all too good idea of what kind of quality I might find at some $12 hotel being pushed by a stodgy taxi driver and just kept repeating "Mvuli Hotel" every time he brought it up. He didn't seem to know where the Mvuli Hotel was so I told him the address as found on trip advisor and watched the handy "distance" indicator to make sure we were steadily heading towards it (see all the fun advantages to having data connection! (my phone wasn't working in Kenya even though it should have).

   Arriving at the hotel he told me "50,000" ($25), which I told him "no way, I'll give you 25,000" He countered with 35,000, and I said "I'll be right back and trotted up to the hotel lobby. After I explained the disagreemenet the manager came out to talk to him ... and ended up paying him 20,000.

   Then I went to check in and someone brought me a nice cold glass of fresh fruit juice as I was filling out the form. I kind of liked that they didn't ask if I had a reservation or anything, just acted like they were magically expecting me all along, led me up to my room without even asking what kind of room I wanted. After the stress of dealing with a shady taxi driver this kind of "voila" service felt so nice. Room was beautiful nad clean with a balcony overlooking a banana plantation. As the girl who'd showed me to the room asked if I had any questions as she turned to go I asked how much it was, afraid a room this nice would be more than the price listed on TripAdvisor, and she said "$52" which is certainly close enough.

   Also I told the front desk I planned to continue by bus to Singida the next day and asked if they could help me book it. They said yes they would book it for me, and an hour or so later they called up to me in my room to say that they'd booked me a ticket, the driver would take me from the hotel at 5am and so they'd have a breakfast packed for me. Ticket would be 18,000 -- it would cost less to get to a city several hours away than I had paid the taxi driver to get here from the bus stop! They also asked for the number for my contact in Singida so they could call him to tell him I was coming. In summary, this is what I'd call five star service, from a $50 hotel! I am quite pleased with my hotel selection.

   As it happens I had already called my contact. Dr K, whom you'll recall I had informed of my arrival most recently just days ago, seemed entirely surprised when I informed him I'd be arriving the next day and said "oh.. I'm leaving tomorrow for Arusha, then I am to visit some Maasai and will return on Sunday." the line cut out before I could ask if we could meet up here or if he'd at least give me a ride back down to Singida. But as this happened immediately prior to the hotel calling up to tell me they'd bought the ticket I had to go down there and say "sooo about that"

   Suffice to say I wasn't terribly pleased with Dr K yesterday. He knew what day I was coming long in advance, if he couldn't be there he could have told me and I could have planned accordingly to not have four random days in Arusha. This is why I planned a month for a week long project though -- I know how these things go (#ThisIsAfrica)

   I had also developed three fallback plans in preparation for this one completely falling through and fallback plans 1 and 2 falling through as well...


Day 5: Friday, October 9th (today) - Went down to the front desk to ask what kind of day trip things there are to do around here, they listed several interesting things such as a "snake park," museum, and a waterfall one can hike to (I've jokingly remarked before that the purpose of traveling is to see waterfalls). I emailed my friend Simon in the nearby town of Moshi and he got back to me as well with some local events. My friend Krysten, an American who works with some people in a village near the Serengeti on a beekeeping cooperative, and is the one who originally talked me into this project, was also very helpful in giving me contacts of people she knows who can help me get around. In Africa your social network is really a lifeline.

   I also learned today that my project in Nicaragua in November has to be postponed several months -- Nicaragua has this daft idea to build a canal to compete with the Panama, it's being pushed by some Chinese engineering company, and to do this they nationalized a large amount of land, which has lead to a great deal of unrest.
   As a result though, I no longer have to be back in California at the beginning of November, so I'm thinking of trying to hit all three of my fallback plan sites: (1) "Krysten's village near the Serengeti, to get to which I'll have to travel through bothe Ngorongoro National Park as well as the Serengeti, so that should be really interesting! (2) Pemba Island, the smaller of the two main islands of Zanzibar, where the local beekeeping cooperative has been very communicative and inviting; (3) Uganda, where a beekeeping development organization had reached out to me for assistance.

   Today after breakfast (complimentary in the hotel restaurant of course) I called Dr K again, to see if he wanted to meet up in Arusha and ask if he could give me a ride to Singida with him on Sunday, but it cut out just after he said "oh I'm not headed to Arusha right now there's been an accident and one of my assistants was involved..." leaving me now entirely unsure if he'd even be ready for me on Sunday ::bangs head against wall::

   Shortly later they called up from the front desk asking if I was still going on Sunday, if they should reschedule the ticket or try to get my money back (which btw they haven't had me hand them any money for it yet. Presumably quietly adding it to my tab, which is nice actually, not having to constantly shuffle money), so I called Dr K one more time crossing my fingers and this time got out of him that he will indeed be making a transit from Arusha to Singida on Sunday and can drive me.

   I ran downstairs to tell them, and then since they were just about to drive some other guests into town (town center is just like a mile or two away), I grabbed my camera and hopped in as well. I opted to go to the historical museum, which was pretty neat. I kept reading about the "boma" (fort) the Germans built in the early 1900s and was wondering where it was until it finally dawned on me that the museum itself was the Boma. Sounds like the German colonials were much more disliked than the British who replaced them after WWI. Museum also had a very nice ecology exhibition with really good photos of a very wide variety of local wildlife, almost all by this one Swedish zoologist Dick Persson, who had certainly amassed quite the collection of good pictures of all kinds of local animals it seems. I particularly liked that insects had not been neglected -- all too often local insect life is completely left off from nature guidebooks.

   After this I was standing in the entryway squinting at tripadvisor on my phone to try to find a good place to eat nearby when the museum receptionist came by and asked me how I was, when I mentioned I was looking for someplace to eat she immediately directed me around the corner of the Boma. I found a cute little outdoor restaurant there in the shade of banana trees and the "piri piri beef" (spicy beef) I had was absolutely delicious.



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[wrote the above, but then the internet never came back yesterday]


Day 6: Saturday, October 10th (today) - Went hiking up to a neat waterfall in the morning and after that went to sort of little reptile zoo with local large reptiles, inlcuding two types of large monitor lizard, two types of crocodile (Nile and narrow snouted (the latter an endangered species of Lake Tanganyika)), and a whole bunch of snakes (it's called the Snake Park after all), including some very large pythons. I thought pythons eating people was an urban legend but they said it was well documented and had several pictures of pythons with large human shaped lumps in them.



   Just talked to Dr K on the phone and tomorrow at 11 he should be here to pick me up!

So "Roadtrip Tanzania" took us from Arusha in the north down to Dodoma in the center of Tanzania. Google maps optimistically calls this a five and a half hour drive, but we took two days getting down there and on the return trip we drove pretty much straight through with barely even a hasty stop for lunch and it took us an entire day.

Dodoma is a relatively small city, / big town (pop: 410,956), but because it's in the center it is the capitol of Tanzania. Mizengo Pinda is the Prime Minister of Tanzania. And I don't know much about his politics but I can say this: he is a beekeeper. Not like Obama, who "has" a beehive in the sense that he had one put on the White House grounds, which don't get me wrong is pretty cool, but Mr Pinda apparently takes an active interest in his bees and has been known to go off on tangents about them at meetings. And he went to a bee conference and invited us all us bee people a soiree!

I think maybe to solve the world's problems, instead of concentrating on teaching poor people beekeeping, maybe I should start a programme to teach world leaders beekeeping. Can you imagine Putin and Obama sitting there glowering at eachother, as they do, until finally Putin says "hey what have you been doing to keep your bees from getting nosema?" and then Obama lights up and leans forward to explain his latest techniques. I could see it. ;D

Anyway near Dodoma is Mr Pinda's personal farm. He has over 400 beehives in sheds like the above, as well as acres of fruit trees (mango, guava, banana, pineapple etc etc).



My friend Shimon, from Israel, acquired a guava from the farm (with permission of the farm manager). He distributed the seeds to myself, our friend Doug (from Washington State), and himself, so we'll see if we can all have a memento guava tree ... though I'm not optimistic about the Washington one.



And this is where bananas come from. I knew that but I was surprised to learn that each banana tree grows in one season, makes one giant flower and one bunch of bananas, and then dies and grows again from the ground up the next year.



Also there was this cat I almost didn't see, resting on top of a beehive. I think of it as named Zuzu, though every hive is labeled that (don't know what it means).



Also this large lizard. I'm not sure you can get a sense of size from that picture but it was at least as long as my forearm.



And of course goats.


( All pictures from the farm )

   On the morning of Thursday, November 20th, our fourth day in Moshi, a funny thing happened while Doug and I were walking through town. A tout tried speaking to talk to me about buying some beaded bracelets he had allegedly made. He was a rastifarian looking fellow, and his red-green-and-yellow beaded bracelets looking extremely unexceptional. I wasn't interested, and as a rule I've found it's better to avoid entirely engaging in conversation with the touts because if you talk to them at all they'll never leave you alone. Doug was talking to someone else nearby though so I was stuck in his vicinity for a few minutes. It feels less rude to feign not to speak English than to ignore them completely, so I said
   "No espeakay englitz!"
   "What language then?" he asked, "espagnole? francaise? italiano?"
   "Svenska" I said, "jag prata ingenting men Svenska" -- I speak nothing but Swedish.
   "Hey. Yag heter John." he said putting out his hand. A passable pronunciation of "Hi, my name is John" in Swedish.
   "Du kan prater Svenska??" I asked in shock -- "you can speak Swedish?"
   He explained, in clumsy Swedish, that he'd had a Swedish friend who taught him some Swedish. His pronunciation was just good enough to be understandable, but I was really impressed. So I deigned to converse with him -- but only in Swedish.
   What's funny is that since everybody who can speak Swedish can also speak English the only use he could really get from it would be from other Swedish speaking people feigning not to speak English!

   In the later morning Simon came by to pick us up in his olive green land-rover. We filled the back with about a hundred saplings and headed up the mountain. Soon we were at the edge of the forest where the road ended in the decrepit remains of a bridge. Waiting for us were about a dozen of Simon's staff. Holes had already been dug all around the hillside. The plan was to plant the trees all over, but in particular along the embankment of the stream to prevent erosion.

   We busied ourselves hurrying up and down the trail like ants carrying the trees to their holes and burying them, carefully crossing the the flimsy bridge with our precious cargo. Presently everything all the trees were planted, our bare hands were covered in dirt, and everyone felt very accomplished. Our departure was delayed, however, by the discovery that our vehicle had a flat tire. While this was changed out Doug exchanged shirts with one of Simon's hard-working employees whose own shirt was very torn and dirty.

   Then we had to hurry down the mountain because Shimon and the French intern both had to get to Kiliminjaro International Airport (about 30 miles out of town) that day to depart.



   That evening Simon invited us to a speaking event at the international school on the history of the Indian population of Moshi. It was very interesting. One tends to think of all non-ethnically-native-people's as recent immigrants into the area but as the presenter pointed out (a local Indian of course), Indians traders had been visiting the area of Tanzania for hundreds of years, with some Indian families becoming established in town before the turn of the 20th century, typically running retail shops but also engaging in a wide variety of other trades. During the colonial era more Indians immigrated in and were brought in to work on the railroads. By the independence of Tanzania in 1957 there were about 5000 Indians living in Moshi. However the government subsequently went through a communist period during which many businesses and even houses were nationalized. Many of the Indians had invested in property and found themselves now forced to pay rent for what they'd built themselves. Many left and now only about 500 remain in the city, a 90% reduction in fifty years.



   The next morning, Friday, November 21st, fifth day in Moshi, Doug had made plans to play table tennis at some club in town that he'd found out has a table tennis table. He has an extreme love for table tennis and travels about with his paddle and a table tennis ball. I wasn't overwhelmingly interested in this, but a German couple who was staying in our guest house had invited me to visit a coffee plantation on the mountain with them so I did that instead. The youngish German couple consisted of a woman who was a doctor, had previously worked in Namibia if I recall correctly as some sort of foreign service requirement of her university and had that pixie haircut that for some reason seems to be extremely popular in Europe, Despite the haircut she was rather cute. Her husband was a photographer and runs an advertising agency in Germany. He has previously spent a large chunk of time in continuous travel around the world, which he documented on his website www.outtabavaria.com.
   Our first order of business / adventure was to find money since I was out and I think so was at least Katja. There were several banks in town, which is fortunate because I think we visited five of them that morning. First one the ATM was out of money, second one the ATM just didn't like my card, third one wouldn't accept my five digit ATM pin code. Finally found one that would work, as a parade marched by on the street behind me.
   "What's that all about?" I asked the driver.
   "Oh it's the police"
   "Why are they marching?" I asked, to which he just shrugged.
   Then we were once again up the mountain, this time to a different location high on the slopes than we'd been to before. In a quaint little open air meeting area with a thatched canopy over it, like a large hut without walls, we met with Jehosephat, who would be our guide for the day. He explained how the coffee cooperative worked, and how the tours were also run by the cooperative. The small family run plantations rotated through being visited on the tours so that the money could be shared out evenly. Coffee was grown on small family plots, collected by the cooperative who gave them a set price, and then sold at auction in town by the cooperative. I think if the coffee was sold for more than expected the excess profits were rolled back into the cooperative. One thing that I found interesting was the fair trade coffee. Being a highly cynical person I've always been suspicious that "fair trade" coffee was some kind of feel good scam used by starbucks to sell coffee at a higher price and that it wasn't all it's cracked up to be, and have long wished to visit the actual fair trade growers on the ground. Well, as it turns out, here they were! Basically, some of their coffee was sold as fair trade and some of it wasn't. In this case there was no difference between the coffee sold as fair trade and the coffee not sold as fair trade, though they get a better price for the fair trade coffee ... which is rolled back in to the cooperative. In order to sell coffee as fair trade they have to meet certain conditions, which they do, but presumably there's other coffee growers which don't meet them and can't get in on this. So despite finally meeting the fair trade growers on the ground I still can't make real determination as to relevant the distinction really is. After visiting the cooperative building where bags of coffee beans were being weighed, we walked down the road a short distance, through a local market (pictured above) where women in beautiful local patterns were conducting their daily business down to the coffee farm that we'd be visiting that day.
   Being eternally cynical, I was also prepared to be bored, after all, "I've been to Ethoipia!," what can any other place possibly show me about coffee that will impress me? Well. Those gosh darn Ethiopians, you know, they had hornswaggled me by serving me such delicious delicious coffee that I overlooked the fact that they never actually showed me how they harvested the beans. So on this occasion I had a walk through of the entire process, from plucking ripe berries from the tree, running it through a shiny brass rind remover, pretending to let the beans soak overnight (we put the berries we had just rinded into a bucket of water and continued following along with some beans that had just done that), putting the beans out on a drying rack, grinding them (just enough to remove the outer layer of chaff at this point) and tossing them to remove the chaff, roasting them, grinding them (this time into a powder), and finally, brewed into fresh fresh coffee:



   After this we were served a delicious lunch of local foods back by the cooperative building (some kind of stew, some sort of mashed potatoes, and of course the ever present spinach), and then we headed back down the mountain.


   In our little guest house at this point we had Doug and I, the elderly French couple, the German couple, and a Brazilian fellow. And of course in a little house in the back Neema the housekeeper, diminuitive, cute, shy but sassy when pressed, engaged to a policeman in far away Dar Es Salaam, where she's from. And the guard lad who curled up in his maasai robe on the porch every night and I don't think had any other on site accomodations.
   The Brazilian lad had become bored with life in Brazil and determined he wanted to volunteer in Africa. It turns out, according to him, a lot of volunteer organizations want you to actually pay to join them (?!?). Now I think he volunteers with a school, and lives in the guest-house. I think living in the guest-house must be nice on account of meeting all the people who come through it ... though presumably there's cheaper housing options in town (if I recall it was $30 / room / night. For awhile Doug, Shimon and I were sharing a room because we're cheap like that). The Brazilian fella, whose name I don't recall but he's in all my notes as "the Brazilian fella" had a eukelele that he could sometimes be prevailed upon to play for us. Also, he was covered with an interesting variety of tattoos. Toby the German guy, being as I mentioned, a photographer, had him do a sort of formal photo shoot for him that afternoon. This resulted in this photo from Toby's main site.



   Though the Brazilian fellow had other plans that evening, he recommended a local bar/restaurant that would have local musicians that evening, and Doug and I walked down there in the evening with the German couple. Ironically before the band started the televisions inside were blaring a program about American country music, which at least Doug and I both found grated on our ears. Highlights of the evening involved the Germans teaching me you could mix ginger beer with beer to create a good drink, service being reeeeaally slow, and Doug meeting a prostitute outside. We'd found a ginger beer (non-alcoholic) called "stoney tangawizi to be readily available throughout Tanzania, which was a great joy to us both. I have a notable love for ginger and Doug seems to even exceed my love for it ... always ALWAYS having a piece of ginger in his fanny-pack which he'll take out and nibble upon on occasion. And while I for some reason find alcoholic ginger beer tends to be disappointing, mixing the stoney tangawizi with beer actually made for a good drink. Now as to the service, when the three of us, myself and the Germans, ordered our ginger beers, she brought two back, for them. When I tried to order one again she came back with something else, and I tried again also without success. Toby tried ordering one for me but she once again failed. Finally he convinced her HE wanted another one and when it showed up successfully he passed it to me. We had a similar problem with the food, it was really quite strange. It took at least an hour for our food to finally show up, we were just getting ready to get up and leave without it when it finally did show up.
   As for Doug, I've found when sitting with a group in a crowded restaurant in the evening he often gets restless and roves about. It was during one of these rovings that he apparently met the prostitute, who had been hanging out in front of the place. He returned promptly you'll be relieved to know, but reported that he asked her how business and she said it was slow. Now you know!
   The band was disappointingly non-traditional. It was some sort of jazz I suppose, and between you and I I'm not really into jazz. Jazz is like a story with no plot. I don't know where it's going, I can't get into it. After we finally ate our food we walked back up the street back to the guest-house. Exchanged jambos with the maasai guard-lad on the porch and went to bed under our veil-like mosquito nets.




( All Pictures From Nov 20th )
( All Pictures From Nov 21st )

Tuesday, November 18th - Woke up in our lovely guesthouse and had freshly made coffee and pancakes on the porch, all prepared by the dear diminuitive Neema. Enjoyed a nice leisurely morning in this idyllic little guesthouse, sipping coffee by the garden and talking with the older French couple who were also staying there. They were apparently visiting a grand-daughter who was working for an NGO in town. The woman a retired psychologist, now writing a book, and the man a retired engineer, they provided engaging intellectual discussion and Shimon in particular would prove prone to engage in long deep conversations with them.

   Simon came to pick us up late enough in the morning that we were to make our first stop lunch in town. He led us to a little place that was sort of hidden away down an alley, but once we ducked into the unassuming entrance we found ourselves in a very pleasant open air courtyard shaded by trees with comfortable seats and well attended with locals. The food, all local fare, typically cost around a dollar per main dish, and Simon ordered things for all of us. First there was a hearty sort of bean soup, and then a dish of beans and corn that was quite good. It was accompanied, like every meal we'd had in Tanzania, with a helping of spinach. Popeye would like this place.

   From there the five of us (Simon, Shimon, Doug and I, and a cyclist friend of Simon's from Hawaii who happened to be on the tail end of a several-weeks visit) drove about an hour along the base of the mountain until we got to a place where a guy was making concrete hives. Or cement? I'm told there's a difference but they're the same to me. Anyway we pulled into a tree lined drive with just a few buildings nearby, and I remarked that from the looks of things you could think you were in England or Germany or America or anywhere else in the world -- the buildings looked well-built and modern, the tree-lined drive was nice and well maintained. Under an awning around the corner we found a small gaggle of men gathered around, with several hand-made molds strewn about. Hubcaps formed the two ends of the cylinder, and chicken-wire and plastic formed the sides before the cement was slathered in. The man who had invented these and was supervising it was a retired German professor who was the very spitting image of the Doc from Back to the Future. Same wild white hair, same mannerisms and exciteable exuberance for his numerous innovative ideas.

   In addition to the simple face of making cement beehives from molds, he had the additional innovation that the hives would be opened from the bottom rather than the more-normal top. He reasoned that bees prefer to climb upwards when smoked so if you open the bottom and smoke them, the bees will all climb out of your way and you can then inspect the comb from the bottom. He'd also taken to hanging shiney dangly things in front of the hives which would blow in the wind and get bees accustomed to movement and he claimed that hives he had put these near became so easy to work with he didn't even need smoke.
   All this seemed very innovative and he had such enthusiasm I'd be reluctant to rain on his parade, but we collectively had many concerns with his ideas and because promoting good beekeeping practices is what I do I feel I should share what we feel is wrong with these ideas. Firstly we were all concerned about the weight of cement hives and Simon's cyclist friend is a construction contractor and told us from his experience, cement that thin would very very easily break. As for the bottom-opening of the hive, that's great but in order to remove comb you need to cut it off from hte thing it's stuck to, which is always above it. Thus to harvest honey from a bottom-opening hive you need to somehow reach way into it to cut from the top, or "honey badger" it out piecemeal which would make a royal mess. And finally, that dangley thing -- bees see things blowing in the wind all the time. I really can't imagine hanging a glorified wind-chime in front of them would make a lick of difference. But like I said, I solidly admire his spirit.



   Next we traveled up the mountain to a house high up in the lush misty forest just below the national park line. Here a friend of Simon's (pictured above) had 450 stingless beehives. FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY, all lined up on his wall (also, pictured above). Being as stingless bees don't sting, this doesn't create the kind of insane menace having 450 normal beehives in very very close proximity to a house would. I'm not sure what the population of a stingless bee is (there's hundreds of different species, and I don't know which this was either, but I believe it was in the genus Melipona, for those following along at home), but they're much smaller than honeybees and the collective biomass of bees per hive is certainly less. They look like little flies zipping about, and even with 450 of them there it didn't LOOK like there was a lot of flight traffic. The other interesting thing is that stingless bees typically only forage over a 300 meter radius or so (as opposed to honeybees which have a 5,000 meter radius), so it was kind of amazing that the environment could support so many so close together.
   The stingless bees, in addition to not stinging, also never "abscond" or leave the hive (African sub-species of honeybee are notorious for saying "fuck it, we're out of here!" if you annoy them, which can be easy to do), and their honey is worth several times more (because it tastes unpleasantly tart and "medicinal," and is therefore commonly believed to BE medicinal). But they only make a few hundred grams each per year (as opposed to honeybees which, in a traditional hive make about 15-20 kilograms per year). To harvest, they crack it open, and pierce all the honeypots with a toothpick (did I mention, like with bumblebee nests, the honey is stored in honeypots?), and then tilt the hive to let all the honey run down and out a hole in one end. It is poured through a strainer and into a glass or bowl. The honey is much more liquid than honeybee honey, and can be drank from the cup like a liquid.

   Our purpose there, aside from seeing this fascinating operation, was that Simon had a deal with him wherein Simon would make hive boxes, and trade boxes for bees -- he'd give the guy a nice new empty box specially made for his stingless bees, and the guy would give Simon back a hive box full of stingless bees.

   From there we returned back down the mountain to Moshi. A few hours later Simon retrieved us from the guest-house again and we all went to dinner at this really nice Indian restaurant that had just opened in town. In addition to the five of us from earlier in the day we also had Doug's wife in attendance (originally from the United States, currently a professor at a nearby university), as well as the French intern (who was leaving the next day or so). The tables were once again out in the open air, lit by candles and dim lights that might as well have been candles, and with a reflecting pool behind us. Felt once more like far from suffering the hardships of Africa we were living it up better than comparable options in the States.

   Returned to our guesthouse for more intellectual conversations on the veranda. The night watchman, a young man of scarcely twenty, would sit on the edge of the porch wrapped in a his maasai robe. He didn't speak a word of English but he'd exhange enthusiastic "mambo"s with us ("jambo" is swahili for "hello," but after a few days in country someone let us in on the secret that "only tourists say jambo" and the locals usually say "mambo." The correct response to which is "poa," which is an equivalent transaction to saying "how's it going" "good!" apparently), and when the Germans showed up they'd share a companiable cigarette with this fellow we couldn't otherwise speak with. After the last of us went in to go to bed, he would cacoon himself up in his cloak on one of the lounge chairs on the porch.

   "We have a friend in common," says the Belgian woman. We're at a soiree hosted by the Prime Minister of Tanzania.
   "Oh?" I ask. In one hand I have a glass bottle of coke and in the other glass in which I'm trying to little bit little dilute the rum the server half filled the glass with. At the full moon party in Zanzibar I also ended up receiving a bottle of coke and a glass with rum in it when I ordered a rum and coke, apparently it's a mix-it-yourself kind of thing here.
   "Mamadou Diallo, the president of the Guinean beekeeper's association"
   "Oh, yes! I'm working with him to try to help them reach the export market"
   "Why?" she asks. I'm taken a bit aback, what do you mean why.
   "They're selling honey at $1 a pound, the grocery stores there were carrying American honey which they probably bought at the international price of $2 a pound, that doesn't make any sense. So I want to help them be able to meet the quality and volume goals necessary to serve these contracts"
   "Oh I actually think everyone should grow local and I don't support exports." she says. Seriously. With this self righteous look on her face that seems to have completely dismissed the idea that they could be getting twice as much money for their honey.
   "Where are you from?" she asks after the awkward pause caused by her last revelation.
   "California"
   "Oh that's why you're so special." At which point I think I found an excuse to extricate myself from the conversation and avoid her the rest of the convention.

   This was the end of the first day of convention. Doug and I had arrived the day before. Our hotel was a bit ritzy, more reminiscent of the monocal wearing pith-hat safari going Africa than the living in huts Africa I'm used to, but I'm always down for a new experience. Walking to the convention to register we'd quickly found that this is a town where the touts will attack like tse tse flies. "My friend, my friend! Where are you from? my friend!" They both try to sell you useless stuff they're carrying themselves, and try to direct you to shops where they can get a commission for bringing you, as well as just generally try to ingratiate themself to you and be helpful so they can demand a tip. Generally pretty irritating really. Zanzibar wasn't so bad, even though it seemed more touristy and seemed to have high unemployment (if they people sitting idly on their porches all day is any indication). I don't know if it's a measure of greater desperation here or what. This is also a regional tourist hub though, since it's the center of the "northern safari circuit," so maybe the monocle wearing safari goers make fat marks.
   One of the touts followed me all the way to the convention hall (about three blocks), and I was deep in the midst of ignoring him when he showed me a painting on a roll of canvas he had that I actually kind of liked.
   "How much?" I asked, without slowing down.
   "80,000 shillings" ($47).
   "I'll give you 30,000 for it." I said without looking at him, as we crossed the street.
   "70,000"
   "30,000, take it or leave it." the secret to negotiating is to really go in with a take it or leave it attitude. He eventually argued me up to 45,000, but I didn't have the money on me anyway, so I asked him his name (Garry) and said I'd buy it from him later when I had the money.

   The convention center is the building the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was held in, and there's still some UN offices in the building, so it's quite a nice building. Registration was a zoo though -- they had somehow lost all the important documents and I had gone to such trouble to scan and email them months ago so there was a chaos of chasing paperwork at the registration table, especially since the same thing seems to have happened to everyone else.

   The First Apimondia Symposium on African Bees and Beekeeping had about 550 attendees, roughly half were from Tanzania, most of the rest were from elsewhere in Africa, and there were maybe around a dozen mzungus -- white people.
   There seemed to be an interesting divide among the mzungus -- there were a few, mainly Apimonida staff (the world beekeeping federation), who brought a weird Euro-centric view with them. Not that Europe was better (though they often noted American beekeeping as an example of what's bad in the world), but that they didn't want beekeeping in Africa to change. To me it seemed like they thought it was quaint and delightful and shouldn't be changed. And us development beekeepers think we're "special," apparently, to use the Belgian ladies term.
   And then those of us working in development formed a second group. We don't think bees can be kept here the same way as in Europe or America but we think beekeeping here can be improved for the betterment of locals. These two groups divided into two camps that didn't really hang out. There were subtle arguments. Contradictory public statements. Palpable condescension from certain people.


   Dr Wolfgang talked about how smaller hives have fewer diseases. Beekeepers looked at eachother and said that's great but smaller hives produce less honey and we need to feed our families. Beekeepers complained about the arrival of varroa mites and asked how to fight them. Dr Wolfgang informed them mites are natural and if they just don't treat and experience the very heavy losses eventually, after a few years, only resistant bees will be left. One of the major beekeepers in Tanzania left in frustration.
   The perpetually smiling British Nichola made a presentation the major theme of which was that "all hives are the same .. and you should keep using logs because they're so natural," and many locals presented consistently saying that frame hives produce twice as much, but this seemed to wash right over Nichola, and she kept smiling blithely.

   There was a group from Boston, a representative of which enthusiastically talked my ear off about how all african honey should be marketed as boutique "asali" (Swahili for honey) in little boutiques in Boston. There's nothing wrong with that enthusiasm but that's only a practical market for a small fraction of they honey here. The relative local price here is actually pretty good, we just need to enable more beekeepers to produce more of it.

   We met Simon, a beekeeper and owner of a travel agency from Moshi, near Mt Kiliminjaro, who travels to California at least once a year to run an ultra-marathon (100 mile race). And James a young man from Singapore running a farm near Dar Es Salaam, and a beekeeper from Pemba Island (the northern island in the Zanzibar archipelago), and of course many many many other interesting people. At the end of day two a jolly mzungu with a bushy white beard introduced himself to Doug and I, he was Stephen Peterson from Alaska. It quickly became apparent that he was just like us, traveling the world enjoying doing beekeeping projects. I went into my email to email him something and found the address was already there. Soon he asked "why are we sitting here when we could be having a beer??" as the conference hall was emptying for the end of the day, so he and I and Doug and James (the Singaporean) headed down the street until we found a bar. Local beers are Serengeti or Kiliminjaro (if you can't climb it, drink it!), as well as Nduvo and a few more boring things such as Castel. Stephen showed us amazing pictures from a beekeeping project he'd done in Borneo, where people get around by boat during the rainy season and bees are kept on "rafters," planks set in trees the bees make their hives under. Doug and I asked him if he'd come with us on our beekeeping project in Nicaragua this winter and he enthusiastically agreed to (oh I'll be just coming from Cuba at that point anyway!).
   Then we walked down the street a few blocks to Khan's BBQ. While on the way a tout adhered himself to us. "Hello it's me garry, you were going to buy a painting from me!" Ah yes, I remember that. I can't quite recall what he looked like but I remember the name. I told him to come with us and I'd sort it out when we reached our destination. He kept telling us we shouldn't be walking down the street at night but we got to our destination alive. Khan's is a mechanics shop by day and a bbq place by night. It was really good, and the indian proprietor was very nice. When I asked to use the bathroom I was led inside to where his family member were sitting about the courtyard in saris.
   Garry the tout turned out not to have the painting I wanted anymore, and I wasn't interested in any of the ones he did have but I felt obligated to buy something from him since I'd said I would and he'd come down the street with us. That's how they get you. So I bought a smaller different painting.
   The next day another tout would approach me saying "hey I'm Garry are you ready to buy that painting??" and I both recognized him and the painting. So apparently I got tricked by a false Garry.
   I heard another scary story that the year before someone had had a taxi driver arranged to meet them in the evening and knew the name of the taxi driver. A taxi showed up and he said the correct name so she got in. She ended up tied up, beaten up, mugged, and left in front of a random hotel. So apparently getting them to say the right name is not enough here in Arusha.
   When it came time to leave, Khan regarded with horror even the idea that Stephen would walk the 200 meters down the street to his hotel at night. This seems to be a universal sentiment here.. not the safest town. Khan called us a cab though and talked to the driver to arrange for all our safe returns to our respective hotels.

Thursday, November 13th - On the third and final day, among the presenters was a chemist from Germany named Arne who spoke about a naturally occuring toxic substance that is sometimes found in honey from certain places. During the question and answer period I asked what it's effects were, and then he came to talk to me after he was done and we more or less immediately became friends. He was a friendly chap of about 36, with a shaved head and a red beard.
   There was also an interesting presentation from an Israeli researcher, Shimon (or I suppose these are Dr Arne and Dr Shimon) about how the wax comb in a beehive is like the hive's liver, absorbing all the harmful chemicals. I'd never thought to look at it that way.

   At the end of day, Arne, Doug and I walked down to the bar we'd found the other day, where, sure enough, Stephen (Alaska) had ensconsed himself with a bunch of Italians.



Friday, November 14th - There was a choice of one of three different "technical excursions" after the conference, a one day, two day, or three day trip. Doug and I chose the three day trip. We were divided into two buses for the trip, and Doug ended up on the other bus. I suppose this is just as well because we get along great but it couldn't hurt to spend some time apart. I sat up front with Arne and a researcher from Copenhagen, Shimon from Israel right behind me. Way in the back was Dr Wolfgang and a cohort or two of his. Doug said on his bus it was kind of the same, the two groups.

   Once we headed out of town we entered a sparse landscape with little groundcover other than sporadic individual trees. Not infrequently we passed clusters of huts and there seemed to be locals in maasai robes walking up and down the road, herding cattle, or riding bikes loaded with jerry cans full of water the whole way. Our first stop after about an hour was a national park that had many many elephants in it. I also found the baobab trees as photo worthy as any animal and got many baobab photos to sort through now for the best.

   Next we visited a honey processing and bottling facility. It looked very nice, though there were some mumblings among our group that the machinery (from China) looked overly complicated, and that though it was freshly polished there was dust on some of the moving pieces that would seem to indicate it didn't actually get used as much as they said it did.

   We arrived at another bee yard just as the sun was setting, and were greeted by a troupe of women doing a dance to welcome us, which was really neat. This area was very beautiful with beehives in amongst lush vegetation, and I regret that I don't yet have any pictures up to insert here. Some local teenage girls got very giggly.

   That evening in Singida we were divided among several hotels. Arne and I and Copenhagen, among others, ended up in a hotel that was very new, not even open yet. But the owner owns one of the bee yards we'd visit the next day.. and the beer was complimentary.


Saturday, November 15th - Visited several bee yards including some in the "Itiki Thickets" (sp?), where hives are kept among a distinct ecosystem of thickets of two kinds of plants, which make a honey known for being particularly good. At another bee yard we were once again greeted by a dancing troupe, and as the light was better I got a good video of this which I'll probably post once I get home. At this bee yard Nichola apparently managed to piss off some bees leading to the evacuation of the bee yard. Some people ran away, but more than half of us, beekeeping professionals all, walked out slowly in a dignified manner. I was pleased to receive several compliments on the way I continued calmly shooting photographs while surrounded by stinging bees -- though in reality keeping the camera in front of my face protected the one place I hate being stung: my nose. ;D

   Stopped for lunch (finally at like 3:30) at a local government headquarters. I thought it was interesting to note that the emblem of the local government area featured a tree with beehives in it. Lunch was actually pretty good local dishes (have picture, will someday post), though I just skipped the chicken entirely because I've found it tends to be too chewy here. They had some interesting baobab-avocado juice.
   After this we continued on the long haul from the Singida area down to Dodoma. For awhile we were driving along what appeared to be a ridge below which was an expanse of flatlands much lower down, then we came to a steep descent on which many broken-down trucks lined the side of the road -- and right in the middle of it a jackknifed gasoline tanker took up half the road!! Down in the lowlands the ground was flatter and drier looking. Still many baobab trees.

   Dodoma itself just seemed like a small town, which is weird because it's actually the national capital. It's one of those things where Dar Es Salaam is the biggest city and cultural and economic center, but is way off in the corner so the capital buildings were built in Dodoma since it's in the center. Dodoma is also just about the center-point if one were to journey overland from Cairo to Capetown. We all stayed in the same nice hotel in Dodoma. I think most of us weren't very hungry for dinner, having eaten lunch so late, but we all sat around and chatted at the dinner table over some beers.


Sunday, November 16th - After we checked out of the hotel we headed to the Prime Minister's farm. It was an impressive property with many different kinds of crops and good irrigation systems and fences and watertanks. He had about 400 modern frame hives which looked to be in very good condition. Again I have pictures that'll go up some day.
   Then we started the long haul northward. Having left the farm around maybe 10am, we were in Singida around maybe 2pm for a short lunch of fried chicken and fries, and then onward all the way back to Arusha. We were still on the road as the sun set behind a mountain behind us. Ahead of us we could see rain coming down and lighning flickering in the sky, and in between there were clusters of huts and trees and fields and the smell of rain on the evening air.

   Arriving in Arusha I had a problem -- Doug was on the other bus and we hadn't discussed where we were going to stay, except that we weren't staying in the Arusha Hotel again because it was too expensive. I'd hoped we'd all get dropped off at a central location but the driver dropped everyone at their hotels. I had him swing by the conference center, where we'd met to join the buses, but it was dark and lonely there and Doug certainly wouldn't be waiting there.
   Shimon from Israel encouraged me to go to the Lush Garden hotel with him, so I sent a note with Arne, who was going back to the Arusha Hotel, and proceeded to Lush Garden.
   Just as we arrived at Lush Garden, the last stop, the driver was able to learn from the other vehicle's driver over the phone that they'd dropped Doug off at the Palace hotel. The driver was grumpy about going back there so I just decided to stay at Lush Garden and chase Doug down in the morning. I called Palace from reception but they said he had just left to go look for me at Arusha Hotel. So I called Arusha hotel but it sounded like I was talking into a pipe and I couldn't understand a word he said, so I just had to put my faith in that he'd get the note.
   As it happens Arne apparently didn't leave the note at reception like I thought he would but had it up in his room for some reason. But When Doug came in he found Arne having a beer and was correctly directed, because he appeared at Lush Garden shortly thereafter. Shenanigans.
   Based on this I'm saying we're planning this trip just one step ahead at a time, and sometimes one step behind.

   While this was going on I was also emailing with Simon in Moshi, who had invited us to come to Moshi (Simon, not to be confused with Shimon). We arranged that he'd have one of his employees meet us in the morning and guide us to the bus stop. Shimon didn't have plans for a few days so we invited him to come with us. He wasn't sure, asked the hotel if they had a room for the following night, and since they didn't he decided to come with us to Moshi. We had an interesting time trying to pay for the hotel since Shimon and Doug both had some US $20 bills that they wouldn't accept as payment, but we ended up trading them amongst ourselves until we could all get the payment sorted out.

   A nice young man, Joseph, who works for Simon showed up and we all took a taxi to the bus stop. I asked when the bus leaves and Joseph said it has no time table, it leaves when it is full. As we arrived at the hectic and crowded bus station and pushed out way through the crowd, the Moshi bus was already moving. But the door was still open and we were able to jump on. It had to do like an 18 point turn to get out of the station area anyway. And we were off to Moshi!

[to be continued!]

[A few pictures up on instagram]