Travel: Central Serengeti with Janna no kids

I did it, three days with no kids and only my sis. We even took a movie player out to watch movies in our tent late at night. Girly movies. FYI the movie Towelhead is not worth the time. Lions roaring outside the tent is better. We drank too much cheap African wine, road in safari car after safari car with our incredible guide Kumbi (An African with five daughters and no boys- and he is fine with it), got attacked by tsetse flies, drank more, ate a lot, looked at 1 million wildebeests. Great trip with Thompson’s safari.

Here we are flying in to our dirt road strip. Already wildebeests look like ants there are so many.

Our lodge.

Janna close to elephants and lions oh no!

Maribu stork peeing on itself as it eats insects in the recent fired grass that is hot.

Vultures eating a wildebeest that did not make it. See video below.

Leopard, Lions, and leopard and lion on same rock.

Cool Animals: black back jackals, eland, topi, and spotted hyenas.

The wildebeest crossing. Dumb heard animals that follow anything in front of them and moo all the time. Cool to see crossing see video below. One doesn’t make it at some time. Like National Geographic. FYI if you want a cool kids National Geographic show for your IPOD Meerkat Manor is Cole's new favorite.

Janna and Kumbi

Lesson: Sometimes the places closes to home offer the most sites.

lodge at tarangire

Travel: Home to USA

Went home to Maine for the TZ winter and died in the heat of Maine.  Target was an obsession at times for me and the boys.  Those damn dollar bins suck you in.  Anyway we enjoyed time with family, ate lots of good food, worked some, and saw lots of great friends.  Most of the pics are on David’s camera to I will add in once I get them.  Hard for the boys and me to be back in TZ for the first few days not just from jet lag but missing things that come so easy.  Houses seem soooo quiet without radio or TV.  Our inverter for electricity was broken on return and our water was out, but  we sold our house in Auburn finally so we are all happy!

Jeri running after Noah

 

Papa running after Noah

 

Noah catching up with the billy goats Birch and Cole

 

Nana watching it all from way up high by the lighthouse.

 

Funny Cole and exhausted Cole.

Adventure: Lake Natron Camping in Africa

Started on our 7 our- sorry 6 hours 15 minutes only David says- journey. We planned a camping trip with our own tents etc.. Three hours in and we have our first flat. As much as we travel in our Prado "named the green mjusi"- we only get a flat this trip. Matt and David fix the flat while a curious Masai woman watches. You can see the road??? below to see why we might get flats more often.

Here is some of what we see on the road. The birds are Kori Bustards. The largest flying bird Birch tells me. We also say giraffes, wildebeests, zebras and more but we have to see tons now to feel like taking pictures. The place was windy and dusty and we saw so many dust tornadoes.

We went to visit the flamingos and the kids got a special on-top- of- the- safari- car drive home. I have never seen car seats on the top of a car. I like the picture I took from the back seat. Our Masai guide has a great ear lobe.

On the way home if you stopped near any Masai bomas then million of women would run to sell you things. Paul even speaks Swahili and seemed a little overwhelmed.

Cool kids social study site about Masai for kids: http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/cultures/masai.htm

More pictures to come once I get David’s camera downloaded.

Peace Joey

Lesson: get involved in farming

 

The coffee is ready in our yard.  Bright red beans are ready to be picked and taste sweet if you suck on their skins.  The coffee ladies came through with their buckets and Cole ran out to help pick.  The women were very surprised.  Samuel our gardener and day guard was there to help Cole.

 

 

 

Lisa probably got this up faster.  But, the chicks have arrived.  Seeing new chicks born is much easier than seeing old roosters get killed. 

   

Adventure: A typical week in June

We started off on Saturday with the Karibu festival which is a festival for tour operators in TZ. Lots of hotels and safari companies in tents. But… there were camel rides, dancing shows, and a KK security dog show. KK is the company that is like our private 911 if our house gets broken into. We push a panic button and they coming zooming in- I guess with dogs.

Sunday was a bday party for one of our friends. He is from Israel. Normal party with too much candy, games, trampoline, and yes even a donkey ride because Zack and Efrat had to outdo the other parents we tease them. On the drive to their house we see rows and rows of flowers being farmed. Birch asked for this red flower picture.

Tues and Thurs are drives thru town to work. This is one of my favorite building signs. Traffic is always bad because you are fighting daladala buses, bikes, carts, people, safari trucks, giant buses and so on. Sometimes it is a 20 min ride to work and sometimes is is an hour.

This is the hospital I work at. Many people say it is a fancy hotel that is really just a hospital. It does look prettier than most African hospitals. It cost twice as much. 10,000 TSH to see me instead of 5000 Tsh. ( 8 dollars vrs 4 dollars). We have lots of equipment but sometimes lack soap, speculums, needles etc….. We have a lab but I can only check about 10 tests on a regular basis. I do have an ultrasound machine to use and a great tech, but the power surges break it a lot.

my exam room delivery room

ultrasound room lab

Typical Joey style. On the way home form my volunteer day I am being honked at as I try to park for the butcher to get meat. The parking is left sided. I have a giant, tall car. This little, tiny, hidden car that is parked gets in my car’s way and I scratch it. Ughhhh

How do I handle this in TZ. A TZ person may just drive away fast, but I am mazungu and everyone is staring at me. So I write my number on a piece of paper and insert it on the windshield waiting to be swindled for all kinds of money when I get a call back. But a lovely person texts me later that day and says “sorry that my car accidentally touched his car today and that the estimate for repairs is 90000TSH ( 70$) would I be able to help pay this.” Amazingly kind hearted fellow that made me rethink my assumptions about TZ people maybe trying to always find a way to get more money, time, stuff from me. Shame on me for my initial expat thoughts.

In the mornings me and some moms have swahili lessons with the secondary ISM swahili teacher.

Adventure: elephant up close

We are just about to finish the school year up. The kids are getting excited about the summer in Maine. We went to Manyara Lake and I decided to blog but then remembered David has all the photos on his computer. He is somewhere in Kenya on a "working" safari. Here is a close up video though Birch took of an ele....