Farewell Tabora
Our time in Tabora has concluded and Tanya and I are flying to Zanzibar for much needed R&R. My Kili trek is off as I hurt my knee playing basketball, so I will be doing lots of scuba diving instead over the next two weeks. Tanya and I are going to get scuba certified in Zanzibar and then I will head to Pemba for more diving. We are really looking forward to having a chance to actually rest and take a breath on our sabbatical. We have been going non-stop for the last 2 months, so it will be nice to feel like we are on vacation.
What a great last Saturday evening in Tabora! Well the first half of the day was quite awful. We were in a mad dash at work, as we seemingly have been for the last few weeks, to complete our work to hand off to the incoming consultants. I woke up at 6 am on Saturday morning…the earliest I have been up yet and in time to see my first Tabora sunrise, which was amazing, as I began to get my work organized. Yesterday afternoon we had another great Brazilian BBQ with the Adrian and Claudio and then headed to the Orion for one last hoorah. We had a great send off party and we are going to very much miss our friends in Tabora.
Last day at work
Friday! Today’s our last day in the office (well, weekday – we’ll be back Saturday and Sunday!). We have tons of notes to type up and get our stuff together before we leave on Monday. Goodbyes are hard, as always. Hilda, the multi-tasking lady who works in our office (she does secretarial work, is one of the few people who has a computer here, cleans our office and occasionally comes to our house to cook for us) has been our best friend. Pasco, the public health official who sits next door, has been another good friend. Last weekend, we went to Pasco’s house for lunch and met his wife and sons and saw his house. They made us so much food! We ate outside in this little, thatched shack constructed in his front yard. I loved it! It was nice to be part of his family and life for an afternoon.
Earlier this week, we hosted a meeting with the district commissioner (DC) and the municipal director (MD) to present what MCI is doing and what the basic premise of our project is – Foreign Direct Investment can help stimulate domestic enterprise and foster economic growth. The DC and MD had invited over a 100 people from the local and regional government, business owners and community leaders like the Church pastors. About 60 people turned up, which was more than Cameron and I expected! The logistics were – “interesting”! All invitees received a hand-delivered letter inviting them to the location. The morning of the meeting, we learned the venue had no electricity. So the venue was changed and a sign and a person planted at the old venue directing attendees to the new one. The new venue looked like a crazy frat party took place there the night before and it was over an hour past the appointed time before everything was set up.
The meeting actually went really well. The DC and the MD explained why they were supporting MCI and we spoke about our objectives and findings thus far. We introduced the concept of a task force to enable public-private sector dialogue and had round table discussions at the end to get some ideas from the audience. The audience was great (minus a couple of snoozers!) and had lots of questions and opinions. Cameron and I were unsure whether we’d be able to pull off an hour and a half but instead, the meeting went on for three and half hours! Ofcourse, drinks and samosas made an appearance – thank goodness!
We’ve looked at sunflower oil processing, honey or beeswax processing, timber processing into furniture and building materials, textile manufacture, and dairy processing as ideas for potential investment here. We’ve also tried to learn about tourism and poultry hatching and meat processing. Hopefully, the team that will be coming after us will be able to determine, through demand and market research, which of these opportunities is most viable.
On another note, Zanzibar! Here we come! 
Health Update
Malaria 1, Cameron 0
I went to get tested for malaria this morning because I started feeling a bit ill. I went to this shady little clinic in the town center because the Anglican clinic where Dr. Jim and Dr. Ruth work is a bit far out of town and they get very busy. Luckily there was nobody in line at the clinic so I was in and out.
The health standards at this place were not the greatest. The “doctor” who pricked my finger wasn’t wearing any gloves and probably didn’t have any in the entire place and I’m sure the slide he wiped my blood on had been used a few hundred times before. But I had the results in about 10 minutes. My count is 2 parasites (which roughly means 2 parasites per 500 blood cells.) I then went out to Ruth’s clinic to get medicine to make sure I got what I needed. She absolutely loaded me down with pills. She has doubled my daily doxycycline dosage, and I am taking 8 Coartem and 4 of some other drug daily. Hopefully it will get knocked out quickly.
Tanya is counting her blessings and hoping that the odds are in her favor. We counted that 60% of us volunteers have had malaria thus far (and Dr. Ruth predicted 60% during our first week), so Tanya is hoping she will be spared.
Most of the other non-Tanzanian’s in Tabora are working for the tobacco companies, so we naturally hang out with them at the Orion Hotel on weekends. Last Sunday we were invited to one of their BBQ’s. One of the guys is from Brazil, so he put on a huge Brazillian style churrasco feast. He built a makeshift slow roaster out of bricks and put charcoal down in it. The skewers of meat laid on top across to coals to slow cook. He must have cooked 10 or more huge skewers of pork, beef and sausage as well as potato salad, fruit, and fresh vegetable salad. We ate meat and more meat and drank beer from about 2 pm to 8 pm until we all had meat sweats and were ready to go into a food coma. It was a great time and we all over ate and over drank but luckily we ate enough to keep the beer at bay.
I am definitely with Tanya on feeling like our time here has gone by too fast and our work here feels unfinished as we are leaving in about a week. I need some time to relax on the beach and recharge, but I would certainly be up for staying and working with the Japanese team when they come in a few months to complete the report…but I need to get back on the payroll and I really miss taking a shower.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I can’t believe our time in Tabora is nearly over. Time has really flown by!
After being here for two months, I finally feel “settled in.” I feel that we now know the right people to be able to ask questions of and how to ask them. Even something as simple as having a meeting here is different. Early on, when we went into meetings, we’d take the initial awkward silence as an indication to start on our purpose and launch into our questions. Now we’ve learned to wait through the silence (which is only awkward to us!), sign guest books, wait for the formal introductions and sometimes, for the meeting to be formally convened before we launch into anything!
We’ve had scores of meetings and now we’re trying to make as much sense of it as we can, organize our data and get ready to hand it over to our successors. Unfortunately, people here are really slow at getting back to us with anything and we can’t take our American response-time for granted! Barely anyone uses the phone or the internet for anything. For example, if we heard about Joe Schmoe that might be interesting to talk to, we first need an appointment. How do we get an appointment? Find someone in the municipality that knows that Joe and have him go to Joe’s office to get an appointment as opposed to calling or emailing because no one wants to use their cell phones.
At this point, we don’t know if Joe actually knows anything so we can’t really prepare for this meeting. So we meet Joe anyways, figure out what he knows and then try to ask him questions. Everyone here wants a questionnaire so we make one and then usually, someone has to physically hand deliver this questionnaire. It then takes a few weeks of following up (sometimes in person) to get answers, if any. Time’s fluid for everyone but us. Come 3:30 pm, and all the offices are ghost towns. Though Cameron and I have been working almost as much as we would when we’re in Chicago – 7:45 am until about 6 pm at the office and then may be some at home – plus there’s no “water cooler” to hang around here!
It’s really hard to pass on little tid-bits of information about this place that we have found out from living here for two months; information you will never know unless you live here and understand what hardships people here face every day. Some of the information we’ve gathered through talking to people staying in the hotels or casual, off-the-record conversations are very interesting and have given us a lot of insight into the historical, cultural and political aspects of Tabora and how they’ve all played a role in shaping the type of place it is today.
One business owner told us that it’s so hard to run his business that the only reason that he does it is because it’s a personal labor of love. I really hope we don’t lose this kind of information in translation and in putting together a nice, official booklet profiling Tabora. I have to admit, that I’m frustrated at the prospect of leaving here without feeling like I’m done.
On a lighter note, for thanksgiving this week, about 8 of us are planning to do an “Indian feast” catered by a lady who apparently makes great Indian food. I’m sad I’ll be missing black Friday – I don’t know why though – It’s not like I usually pull myself out of bed to go shopping out in the cold, crowded stores when I’m in Chicago! But I will miss our thanksgiving “tradition” of the lunch buffet at Rezas – my favorite Persian restaurant in Chicago with the awesome kebabs (which go with the turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing and pumpkin pie just fine!) Happy Thanksgiving All!
Chimps, Rainbows & My First Summer Time Birthday!
On Friday we flew into Kigoma and arrived at our super sweet hotel (read hot showers, electricity, comfy beds, air conditioning and flat screen tv’s!!! – I showered three times that day just because I could!!) On Saturday we took a two and a half hour boat ride to get to Gombe Stream National Park. It’s the smallest national park in Tanzania (only 52 sq km) and was made famous by Jane Goodall who pioneered chimpanzee behavioral studies here in the 1960s.
Gombe and Kigoma are flanked by Lake Tanganyika which makes up the western edge of the country. Arriving in Gombe by boat while passing some amazing scenery was a beautiful experience by itself- you can see all these lush, tropical jungles blanketing the hills at the edge of the lake – dotted by a couple of small fishing villages. The hills rose into the clouds and the whole scene looked like it belonged in a movie (or “Lost”). Across the lake, are the silhouettes of the mountains in the Congo and Burundi.
Once we arrived and checked into the little lodge, we met our guides and headed off into the jungle (I love that word!) to look for the chimps. It was quite exhilarating to trek through the green jungle – trees and roots and weeds and weird mushrooms. We trekked up and then trekked down through a pretty steep part – had to hold onto the trees and roots to not slip!
The guide make chimp calls to find the “tracker”. The tracker’s job is to follow the monkey family around all day long and when a group is looking for the monkeys, they just have to figure out where the tracker is. So we found our tracker and sure enough, the chimps! We ended up following this group of chimps – about 15 of them for the next 2-3 hours.
The chimps were absolutely amazing! We were often just a few feet away and they were completely unfazed by our presence. The brothers and sisters fought each other and beat each other up just like my sisters and I used to – it was quite funny to watch! And then we saw several mating sessions and the guide explained how the brothers try to protect their sisters from mating with other male chimps. Some chimps were just lazy and lay around on the ground yawning and scratching themselves. Others helped their buddies pick lice or ticks or fleas. I was just in awe of being so close to them in their habitat! It was just too wild!! (pun intended!)
We aren’t allowed to be too close to the chimps or see them for too long because they are very prone to catching human diseases. So we had to head back and then the guides took us to see a waterfall. Another trek in a different direction (saw some baboons and red colobus monkeys), crossed quite a few streams and just as I asked if we were there yet, we were at the base! What a sight! I decided that I could not pass up the opportunity to stand underneath it since I don’t know when such an opportunity will present itself again! So I did it – fully clothed! The water was freezing cold and I was screaming like I was on a roller coaster!! But it was such an incredible experience!!!
After that, we trekked back down and went for a swim in the lake and did some cannonballs off the pier! The water in the lake is crystal clear and all you can see are a few colorful fishing boats bobbing around in the distance with the Congo mountains in the background. We saw 2 rainbows at the same time – I’m taking that as a good omen for a double good year! We hung out on the beach for a few hours learning silly songs from one of the doctors and watching the sun set into the lake. Got some presents, which was very exciting (this day was getting better and better!) and some drinks followed by a great dinner! After that, we had a lovely bonfire on the beach until the embers were all that were left of the night.
You can read about our harrowing journey back on Cameron’s posting – it’s all funny now in 20/20!
p.s. if you’re so inclined, you can “adopt a chimp” through the Jane Goodall institute. Worthwhile cause, I promise.
The Odyssey
Let me start by saying that this is an epic blog. But please bear with me to read it because it was truly an epic adventure that needs to be told in such detail. It was both an amazing and horrible experience as you will read. We left from Tabora at 10:45 am on Friday and arrived back at 6 pm on Tuesday evening….
We took our second safari this weekend to Gombe Stream National Park. This is the park where Jane Goodall did her research on chimpanzees. It is located near Kigoma, which is about 650 km west of Tabora. Tanya’s birthday was on Saturday, and she definitely had a birthday weekend she will never forget.
The same crew attended as the Katavi safari (Nic, Dave, Elisa, and Perminder – the UK Doctor’s, Zach – the school volunteer from Oregon, plus Tanya and I) and one of Dave’s friend’s from the UK flew in for a visit and joined as well.
We flew from Tabora to Kigoma via Air Tanzania on Friday morning. It was a very short flight, less than an hour; however, for the return trip, the airline does not fly directly back to Tabora (it goes via Dar es Salaam), so we decided we would give a go at the train on Sunday evening for an overnight trip back.
When we landed in Kigoma it was like we had flown into to a different country. It is very mountainous and tropical-feeling and a really beautiful town on the lake. The city itself seemed more developed and industrious than Tabora. The shops around town seemed to be selling nicer goods. They have a port which delivers goods to bordering East African Countries and with the Lake itself and the surrounding national parks of Mahale and Gombe it provides for a nice tourist destination.
Upon arrival in Kigoma we went directly to the train station to purchase our tickets only to find that they did not have any first or second class seats available. We aren’t sure if they didn’t have any seats left or if the train simply would not be carrying any higher class, probably the latter, but either way, we changed our plans and decided we would be taking the bus back. Third class would be very dangerous for us to take and everybody highly recommended the bus instead. The bus would leave on Monday morning at 6:30am so we got to spend an extra night in Kigoma.
Dave booked us rooms at the Lake Tanganyika Hotel, and they sent a shuttle to pick us up from the airport. It was a beautiful hotel. It had recently been remodeled and just reopened in March. It was truly a great hotel that you would expect to find in the Caribbean or in the US. It has proper finishings, flat screen TV’s in all the rooms, hot showers, a covered outdoor bar like a cabana and a swimming pool overlooking the lake.
I think we all agreed that Lake Tanganyika is the most beautiful body of fresh water we have ever seen. The water was amazing clear and blue and peaceful. The lake is surrounded on all sides by mountains. The Congo is to the West, Burundi to the North and Tanzania to the East. The lake is about 50 km wide and the Congo looked extremely mountainous from our side, almost like the Hawaiian island of Molokai rising out of the water.
We arrive at around noon on Friday, and it was a lovely sunny day, so we all jumped right into our swimsuits, grabbed some beers and headed to the pool. Funny story, Zach was teaching the Brits how to dive into the pool because apparently they don’t learn when they are kids. He had to start out with the head down, arms above your head, bend your knees and lean out approach. Hilarious.
We all had properl hot showers that evening and basked in the warm water. I don’t think we were too worried about water conservation that night.
To get to Gombe Stream National Park, you have to go by boat. Dave arranged for a “speed” boat to pick us up at 8am. Breakfast was free at the hotel and I fully took advantage. I had two omelets, pancakes, sausages, bacon, French toast and probably 5 glasses of orange juice. I was not messing around on a free breakfast buffet in Africa. (We all did weigh ourselves on the baggage scale at the airport, and I have lost almost 10 pounds, so I needed the food.)
The “speed” boat had a 40 horsepower engine on it and it took us about 2.5 hours to get there. Not quite as quick as we were expecting for what we paid, and the crew member had to bail water a couple times during the trip as there was a small leak in the boat.
We passed many villages build on the hillside and on the water along the way which seemingly survived as fishing villages and there did not appear to be any roads in or out. I can imagine that the fishermen went to Kigoma to sell their catch and traded or bought rice, maize and other necessities for the village.
The shoreline along the lake was rather bare and we were debating whether it was due to the rocky conditions or deforestation from the villages, but as soon as we passed the sign stating that we had entered the park, the land became lush with trees. It was if we had passed from one ecosystem to the other in a matter of a few kilometers. We soon saw signs of the park with groups of baboons coming down for water and playing on the rocky beach.
We arrived at the park headquarters just before lunchtime and we quickly ate the packed lunch sent by the hotel before we took off to find the chimps. As we were eating lunch, a lone chimp came up to the headquarters building to eat some fruits from the trees. He was a lone male and we ended up seeing him the next day coming to the same trees to eat. But we were all amazed that within 15 minutes of landing, we were standing within 30 feet of a chimp and he didn’t seem to be too bothered by us at all.
The national park is set up with a small hotel/guesthouse with 5 rooms and a restaurant and bar. Next door is a set of officers for the researchers and then a small group of homes for the trackers, guides, researchers and other staff. The front of all the houses are covered with fencing to keep out the baboons. And the baboons are very smart. If anything if left unlocked, they will open the door to get in. (On Sunday morning, we were waiting just inside the hotel and we watched as a baboon came up to try to get in. He turned the handle to the door but luckily we had locked it. Elisa was sitting right in front of the door so she would have been in for a surprise.)
As we set out on our hike, it only took us about 15 minutes to find the chimps. Our guides used a set of calls to locate the trackers who are set to follow the chimps to help the tourists locate them. We quickly went off path and found the chimps; probably a group of about 15 to 20. We followed them for about 2 hours. They would move on to trees with new food and settle in for a while and we would be behind them waiting for them to stop. We got extremely close to them and were able to watch them interact and check each other for insects, and have quick and dirty sex. (We were following them along an open path and in the middle of the path a couple of them decided to stop for a quickie before moving on.) Nic and I got very close to a couple of young chimps as they chased each other up and down a couple of trees and presumably the older one was smacking the younger one on his head. It was really amazing watching them interact and they completely went about their business, ignoring our presence, even though we were so close.
The park limits the amount of time you are supposed to spend with the chimps to protect them from disease so after about 2 hours our time was up. Unfortunately, we had chased the chimps well away from the base camp, so we had a long, hot walk back along the rocky shore of the lake.
We instructed the guides to take us to the waterfall in the park, so we hiked for about an hour. It was a huge waterfall, probably 60 or 70 feet into a very shallow pond. Elisa, Tanya, Nic and I all got into the waterfall to cool off. It was truly incredible. Tanya didn’t have a bathing suit with her, so she got in with all her clothes on, and I only had my boxer shorts on, but we figured we shouldn’t leave without experiencing the waterfall. It actually quite hurt with the water falling from so high up when you got right underneath the largest part of the fall. It was quite an experience.
On our way back to base, we came across a group of at least 20 baboons on the path. When Tanya and I hung back to take a picture, we got within less than 5 feet of one. We froze until it ran off and then laughed as we couldn’t believe it. They can be quite vicious and love to steal things so we were glad to move on.
After we got back to base, we all jumped into the Lake to shower off after a long days hike. We got the beer flowing early shortly after we got back to get Tanya’s birthday party started off right. We met a girl from Dublin, Jenny, who had been at Gombe for the last week waiting for a boat from Kigoma to take her to Zambia, but the boat had been delayed for over a week. Gombe is not a bad place to be stuck for a week. The beach at the national park is wonderful. You really feel as if you are on an island. Our guides built us a bonfire on the beach that evening to cap off a great day.
The park fees are paid for a 24 hour period, so Zach, Elisa and I got up and hiked up to Jane’s Peak at about 8 am the next day. (Tanya and Jenny joined us for 30 minutes of meditation that Zach led on the beach prior to the hike. It was unbelievably relaxing. Maybe I should start doing it more often.)
The Peak is where Jane Goodall used to hike to in order to locate the chimps. She would climb there and listen for their calls to determine where they had moved. It took us about 45 minutes to hike to the top and we got a great view of the lake and the park. It was exteremely hot and humid in the morning and we all had a good sweat, but of course our guide didn’t even have a single bead of sweat on his head. (You always know that it must be really hot if you ever see the Tanzanian’s sweat.) It was a great morning workout hike to break a sweat and relieve some of the hangover from the quality Tanzanian beer. From the top of the peak, we could see a huge storm system moving across the lake towards us.
When we got down, we headed for the boats and took off just as the rains began to fall. It absolutely poured on the boat ride home. The hardest rain we have seen yet in Africa. Luckily we had a tarp covering the boat (which I think is why we paid big money for the boat). The tarp kept out most of the water, but it was really cold and the lake was tossing our boat around pretty good. I think the crew member dumped at least 10 buckets of water out of the boat. When we got back to the hotel, we were all cold and soaking wet and ran right to the hot shower. I think we all took about 3 showers from the time we got back to the time we left for the bus. We were seriously taking advantage of the situation, but we deserved it after 6 weeks of bucket showers.
Now the real fun begins…the huge rains that swept through Kigoma were not good for the road situation. The manager at the hotel said that the journey would normally take about 9 hours in the dry season but 11 or 12 hours during the rainy season because we would have to drive slower. Mind you that the rainy season only started about 2 weeks ago and these are considered the light rains with the heavy rains coming in April- May. Granted we are in the Kigoma Region (which is about on the same level of development infrastructure wise as Tabora Region), the stats that Tanya and I read about the roads in Tabora stated that 95% of the roads (or all the roads beside the paved roads – which if you are keeping score at home is only 5% and none of the 5% we would be traveling on) are impassible during the rainy season. We figured that since the rains just started, we rolled the dice and assumed that we would be ok.
The story of the bus ride is completely true…I couldn’t make this up. I will try to provide as much detail as possible because it is completely ridiculous and one of the worst travel experiences I could ever come up with. Tanya and I undoubtedly win the worst KPMG travel experience award for the year. So here we go.
So the bus took off fairly promptly at 6:30 am (and the hotel manager was very awesome and ensured that the staff prepared us packed breakfast to take with us which probably saved us). The bus seats were meant for small East Africans and not for even medium sized Westerners, so a 12 hour bus journey was not going to be a good experience for me. The seats on American Airlines are luxurious compared to the legroom and seat width on this bus (and this was the luxury bus liner in Tanzania).
While we thought that the bus was going to be safer than the third class train car, we had 2 police officers on board both carrying some kind of sub machine gun. With the many Rwandan and other refugees in the area, busses are a key target and an armed escort is required on all busses.
After about 4 hours on the road, the driver hit a bad spot in the road and slid off into the right side of the ditch. Clearly, we didn’t know what we were in for. The guys immediately went to work chopping down trees and branches and using hoes to dig out the mud in hopes of building a type of road of trees to support the tires. We tried many, many times to rework the logs, dig more, and we all got behind the bus to push it, but it was severely stuck. Our guys worked tirelessly for more than 4 hours of digging and cutting trees before a road grader came to pull us out.
Over the course of our adventure we learned that the guys have two basic ways of getting a vehicle out of the mud. The first: use a hoe to remove the mud around the tires which are in the deepest mud, then begin cutting down small trees and collecting small branches and palm leaves which will be placed in front of the wheels to act as a dry road for traction. The second: again use a hoe to remove the mud around the buried tires and this time use a jack to elevate the tire and jam rocks under the tire to act as the “road” for the bus. Although the buses are real wheel drive, they didn’t seem to always worry about making sure those tires had traction…whichever tire(s) were most stuck were the ones they worked on. And of course, we always had to push.
Not more than 15 minutes after, we had to take a shortcut through a village because a road was flooded by a river and of course we got stuck in a very muddy village road. Again, more digging and tree cutting, but luckily the road grader had followed us up the road, so we were only stuck for about 30 minutes this time. However, the chain kept breaking and things were looking bleak. After working to re-rig the chain and adding some tree branches, we all got behind the bus to help out the tractor and pulled out the bus.
We are in this tiny village in the middle of nowhere and there are teenage boys walking around with Bow Wow and Tupac shirts on. It was interesting to see the faces of the small children…some would smile at us, some would stare blankly and some would shy away, but by the end they were all eager to have their picture taken. It was probably a rarity for these villagers to see us in their town.
Now the next 30 meters of road was extremely treacherous so the grader continued to pull the bus along across the road. We all thought we were free and on our way, but of course not. With the grader pulling the bus around a corner, the bus slammed against an old tree stump and sank deep into some more mud. The wood around the Tabora Region is extremely hard and we worked for another 15 to 20 minutes to chop down this tree stump and once again pull the bus out.
Now again the bus is moving and the main road is only about 500 yards from the tree stump incident and as the bus is turning onto the main road it sinks into more mud and is stuck again. Now the road grader has to come again and pull us out. Of course we are professionals at this now, but we have probably gone about 20 km in 6 hours and we are all in disbelief that this is happening.
After another few hours on the road, we reach the Malagarsi plain. It is a huge open plain probably 3 or 4 km wide with a river running down the middle and the railroad track on our left (which we probably would have passed hours ago had we taken the train.) So everybody starts getting off the bus and (luckily the police officers are very fluent in English and keeping us informed about what is going on) we are told we have to walk with all of our luggage across this field because there is a bus waiting for us on the other side to take us to Tabora. The police officers would not be joining us because there will be 2 new ones on the other side and they will be heading back to Kigoma. At this point, it is about 6:30pm. We have been traveling for 12 hours with only our packed breakfast and very little water (luckily we all took some immodium to ensure we could make the trip without having to worry about going to the bathroom) and at this point we really have no food left.
The plains at Malagarasi (which is at about the halfway point home) are the muddiest roads we have seen yet and we saw that we were probably better off walking and changing buses than taking another chance of getting stuck. We can see the bus waiting for us on the other side, but as we are approaching, we see that the other bus has driven off the proper dirt road and onto the plain where it is stuck in the mud.
At this point, I am simply beside myself at the utter stupidity of the bus driver. If this guy is supposed to be taking us back to Tabora, why on earth did he drive an extra 20 meters off the road and into the mud only to be stuck? And why is his team of guys not working him back toward the road, but further onto the plain.
Another problem we notice is that it is not the same bus liner. Oh well, maybe it won’t be as nice, but we just wanted to get headed back to Tabora.
At this point, we have met one girl who is also headed to Tabora and speaks some English and she is informing us that we are taking this bus and once it is removed from the mud, we will be heading home. Now it is past 7 pm and it is dark outside. We are in the middle of an open field, where we know there are bandits and the police officers with the guns are with the other bus. We settle down on the dirt road (well most of us settle down, I am a bit wound up at the point and fairly anxious).
About 3 hours later, as we are all settled down ready to sleep on the road for the night, the police officers from our original bus walked over and instructed us to get on this different bus to sleep for the night. The bus is extremely crowded and hot and smelly and people are sleeping on the floor (and I was very thankful that I had taken the meningitis shot). None of us slept well (except maybe Elisa who could probably sleep through a rock concert). Maybe we got 3 hours of sleep but it was uncomfortable and anxious sleep.
Dave and I were off the bus at about 6 am trying to assess the situation…that and we are both over 6 ft tall so we couldn’t handle sitting down there any longer. The bus is extremely stuck in heavy mud. It also doesn’t help that all the buses are rear wheel drive but only the front tires have any tread on them – and this is true of all the busses we saw.
We had put some emergency calls into the leaders of Tabora the night before to inform them of our situation and they were ready to come get us in case we were really stuck, but we wanted to give the bus guys a chance to free the bus.
A local farmer with a tracker showed up at around 11 am to pull the bus out of the mud. The guys had done some impressive work jacking up the front tire and placing rocks underneath to provide support, so the tracker easily freed the bus…but once the bus was free, it kept driving across the field back to Kigoma. WTF!
Perminder was still on the bus and I think he was freaking out quite a bit and eventually jumped off before it reached the other side. I caught up to a guy who spoke English who told me that the driver did not agree to go to Tabora and was heading to Kigoma. Oh yeah, and all of our stuff was still on the bus. Perminder and I took off running after the bus across the field. I reached the bus first and began to throw all of our bags off the bus before they could get “lost”.
So now we are back at square one. Our original bus was going to have to cross the plain and take us to Tabora. We got on the bus and the driver did a tremendous job driving across the wet land but of course we got stuck literally 10 feet from the dry road. 10 feet and we are home free to Tabora….as if things could get worse. But the work again started to free the bus. Our guys started collected rocks and trees and removing the thick mud.
Of course the tracker that pulled the first bus out was on the other side of the plain working to pull out another truck that got stuck, so we waited for another hour for it to finally arrive. And when it did arrive and was ready to go, our bus driver had gone to the nearest village to get a drink and bite to eat, so there was no one to drive the bus out…simply unbelievable. As if only the bus driver could drive the bus….none of the other guys could drive the bus 10 feet to the road. So we waited another half hour for him to return.
In the meantime, Dave and I started walked toward the village which was about a mile up the road (and the driver rode past on a bicycle back to the bus which we were glad to see) to get something to eat or drink. Of course no one told us until this point that the village was so close or had anything to eat and drink. At this point, we had gone almost 30 hours with no food (after the packed breakfast) and very little water so the hope of a village was huge. We found a duka that had no water and only sodas. We drank the sodas so quickly that we nearly threw-up. When the bus came, we got the bus guys and our mates some soda and chapattis and we were finally on our way.
Amazingly, the rest of the road was in good condition and dry. We stopped in another larger village not too far away to get food and water (although ugali and fish was not looking too appetizing, I did drink 2 liters of water).
About 2 hours from Tabora, we got a torrential downpour and water began pouring into the bus from the window seals. Whole rows of seats were completely saturated. It was just one thing after another.
We finally made it back to Tabora at about 6 pm – 36 hours after leaving the Lake Tanganyika Hotel and had a feast at the Golden Eagle Hotel (one of our two dining spots in town). I had some groundnuts, some hush puppy-like things, a whole BBQ chicken, a plate of fried rice, a samosa, and some beef mishkaki….and a well deserved beer.
The British doctor’s have all done extensive travel in SE Asia and Africa and all said this was the worst travel experience they have encountered, so I guess Tanya and I got baptized by fire. It was such a great weekend, but the greatness of the Lake and Gombe seemed so far off after the trip home.
Funny thing is (or disappointing)…all the local Tanzanian’s that we told our story to did not seem too surprised and none of the passengers on the buses were rattled by the situation. Yeah they recognized that 36 hours was a ridiculous amount of time for the trip, but things like getting stuck in the mud, an overnight stay on the bus, and a long journey are just a way of life for them. Hopefully one day they will stop accepting the status quo.
(Pictures to come later)
