The Lakeside and the Storm...

6th January 2010

As I had managed to get enough work done over the past few days I was having a couple of days off. The plan is to leave Bukoba on Friday, and travel through Mwanza, and onto the Serengeti. Stopping overnight at Serengeti before heading to Arusha for a night, and then on to Dar Es Salaam. This has left me to have Wednesday and Thursday all to myself.

I decided to branch out and become more independent so I decided to go for a walk into town. Once I had told Charles this he looked exceptionally shocked. I don’t think many people tend to walk from Ntungamo to Bukoba town! The drive to town is only 10 minutes or so, but the walk is considerably longer. The dirt road that leads to the professors house is about half a mile long so I finally made it to the slightly more significant road after a 5 minute slog in quite hot and heavy conditions. I had to avoid falling avocados as apparently the neighbours’ trees attack people by hurling fruit at them! I had gone another few minutes on the road that resembles a road a little bit more than the dirt track before more happening upon some more falling objects. A palm tree decided to shed some of the leaves as I passed. This even took a local person by surprise so I feel a little less like the world is out to get me.

It takes 50 minutes to walk into town from the house, and that is downhill. It was the first activity that I have done that actually resembles exercise in any shape or form. I was pretty tired before I had got to the internet cafe. After a short while of checking the emails and facebook, and a bit of blogging, I trotted down the road to the lake shore.

The shore has lovely golden sands, and the water looks very inviting. Part of me really wanted to jump in the lake and splash around, but rumour has it that there is bilharzias in the water. This is a nasty illness that causes those who get it some rather horrific pain. I decided that photographs would have to do. The clouds had stated rolling in at this point, and the weather was still very heavy. It felt very much like there was going to be a big storm.

I started the long trek back to the house, and halfway up the hill I was already sweating and had breathing patterns that I would expect if I was out running for several miles. It seemed that the more that I climbed the big hill the angrier the sky looked. I was about three quarters of the way home before the grumbling of the sky started. I should probably say at this point that I was approached by loads of random people who just wanted to say hi, and some kids who wanted to talk to me in English. “How are you?” is apparently the best phrase ever! Several people were asking me for money, but since arriving here I have made a point of only giving money to those who are unable to work. The Professor has told me that many young Tanzanian’s are too lazy to get jobs. They remind me of students, only without the education!

A few days ago I had noticed that the neighbour of the Professor put up a Swedish flag, but I hadn’t seen him. As I was walking up the hill, a guy on a piki-piki (almost a cross between a scooter and a motorbike) pulled over and said hello. The bloke who was being driven around on the bike was Tomas, the Swedish neighbour. The first things that I noticed were his eyes. They were ridiculously blue, it was as if the sky had modelled its colour on this guys eyes. He had a big mop of curly brown hair and was holding a rose plant (it wasn’t big enough to be considered a bush) whilst wearing a bicycle helmet on the back of a piki-piki. The whole appearance confused me. Conversation went on for a few minutes and I was invited over to his house for a beer in the afternoon. It was a lovely gesture, but sadly I didn’t take him up on the offer. After all, I will be leaving for Dar soon...he clearly wanted a friend for life, but I couldn’t provide that. (That last sentence may be something of an exaggeration).

By the time I had reached the dirt track, the lightning had started, and the sky was very dark. I had just made it back to the house when the heavens opened and the flood waters from the time of Noah were deposited in Bukoba. A little lamb was born a few days ago, so that had to be scooped up and hidden away from the weather. I wonder how lambs survive in the wild. The pine trees that I could see from the rotunda were being battered by the wind and the rain. It was a whopping storm. It was tremendously exciting from the confines of the indoors. I imagine that being out in the rain would have been a different story!

The rest of the afternoon and evening were spent enjoying the storm, and once that had cleared, a quick walk around the rocks whilst I was on the phone to the people at home. I did notice a very odd animal in a tree, it looked like a koala, but I am fairly sure that couldn’t be the case! I’ll have to do a bit of internet research to find out what it was!

And so there was the excitement of the day off! A thrilling read for you no doubt!