The coffee farms along our drive were beautiful with their red beans ready for harvest. We learned that it is customary to plant tall trees throughout the coffee plantations because the leaves from the tall trees provide fertilizer when they fall and because the tall trees drip water onto the coffee plants below.
As we entered the town of Mto Wambu (which means 'Mosquito River') we were slowed by a herd of cattle being driven directly through town on the main road. Harry asked one of the young boys pushing the cows along, "What happened here?" The boy explained that the cows had invaded his family's farm and eaten their crops so they were taking the cows to jail. Shortly after that, we drove by the police station and I wondered where they were going to keep all those cows in that tiny, one-room structure with no adjacent property. Harry explained that the farmers did this in order to pressure the police to find the owner of the cows. The owner of the cows would then be required to pay a fine to get his cows back. Because money is so difficult to come by, the owner would then be much more careful with his cows and hopefully the farmer wouldn't lose any more of his crops.
On our way up the moutain to the Lake Manyara Hotel we saw some incredible trees called Boabob Trees. Harry said they live to be a thousand years old. The tree itself is somewhat squat, but their trunks are enormous, interesting, twisted masses. The grounds around our hotel are the least manicured of any place we've been. It's situated atop a rift wall high above Lake Manyara. We had grown accustomed to our baboon friends at our last hotel, but there are no 'tumbuli' (monkeys) here. There are, however, many species of brightly-colored birds, sweet-smelling jasmine and a troop of 'ngurochiro' (mongoose). The Yellow Weever makes nests that are suspended from the tips of the Acacia tree branches, and those nests were everywhere around us.
The view of Lake Manyara from our hotel
After lunch we drove down the mountain back to Mto Wambu to take a walking tour of the town. Our local tour guide took us first to the community hospital. We had an interesting chat with the man who runs the hospital. They have very little funding but they do the best they can. He explained that more people die from typhoid fever than anything else. Of course, many of the people dying from typhoid fever are immune-compromised because they have AIDS, so they do a lot of teaching about AIDS as well.
From the hospital we walked through a banana farm where we ate a red banana that our guide pulled from the tree. It was different from a yellow banana, but still very tasty. There were some small huts among the banana trees where local craftsmen were working on their paintings and carvings. We spent some time watching several men carve figures from mahagony and ebony, and we bought an ebony elephant with a raised trunk -- a symbol of good luck, we later learned. When we left the wood carving hut, we came upon some small children. I gave each of them a piece of gum and they posed for some photos with John. Then they held our hands and walked with us along the dirt road. We did our best to communicate with each other, their native language being Swahili. But as I have discovered, it's very easy to make a connection with children through non-verbal communication and our new friends were a delight.
Our next destination was the local bar. It was a mud hut with a roof over a tiny outdoor area where there was a bench and a small table made from a tree trunk. We were offered a sample of the local brew: banana beer. It tasted like fermented bananas, not beer, and all I could think about was how I hoped we wouldn't get sick from passing a single cup among the three of us, a cup that was washed in the local water and "beer" that was probably made with local water. But it would have been incredibly rude to decline it, so we each tasted it and hoped for the best.
The "Bar" and small amounts of the grains that go into the banana beer
Within the neighborhood, people had small mud barns for their milk cows and goats. It made me sad to see cows tied up inside tiny stalls with no sunlight, but I guess everyone was pretty concerned about that fine should their animals go wandering. All of the structures (houses, barns, etc.) were made from sticks and mud and little bits of rope to tie the sticks together. Several of the huts we saw were in need of repair, their mud walls having been worn down during the rainy season.
Our last stop was the market. Farmers filled the booths with the fruits of their labor. We saw vegetables we'd never seen before, all of them grown locally. And lots of dried sardines were being sold. To my surprise, there were no live chickens for sale.
Cooking sardines
It's not really possible to evoke the wonder, the amazement, the shock and the appreciation for the way these people live by telling someone about it. And as much as this journey has affected me, I needed John to understand it first-hand. Mto Wambu is a tourist town so it has a different feel to it, but the way of life is similar enough to the other places I've been. So I was really glad that we did the village walk because it gave John a chance to see a little of what I've been exposed to for the last 6 weeks.
We capped off our day with an after-dinner drink by the pool where the view of the Milky Way and millions of stars was spectacular.
