Camping at Lake Eyasi and a visit with the Hadza

We wanted to go camping one last time before school starts in two weeks, so we asked around and two different people (both whose opinion we highly regard) told us we should go to Kisimi Ngede at the very north end of Lake Eyasi.   They were right.  I don’t think we’ve had such a great camping spot since we started car camping when we had kids over 6 years ago.  The site was huge!  It was also a shorter drive than we were anticipating which is certainly the first time that has happened since we came to Tanzania 6 months ago.  It took us just over 3 1/2 hours – not too bad.  One other reason we were excited about this area was because it is home to the Hadza.  The Hadza are one of the last hunter gatherer tribes left in the world and we were excited to maybe catch a glimpse into their life.  How lucky are we?

Lake Eyasi - near Ngorongoro Conservation Area

Even the kids were happy about only being in the car that long.

Our campsite.  Surrounded by palm trees with lots of vervet monkeys and birds to keep us entertained.

There really is a lake out there, but we are in the dry season now, so the water has receded way out. 

  The kids are happy and enjoying some more quality family time.

We did have a couple of camp visitors.  The vervets were around a lot, but this was the bravest one that came up to try and steal some of our scraps from breakfast.  The striped hyena walked past the outskirts of camp.  He didn’t seem too concerned that we were there.  We also saw our first bush baby; it was even carrying its baby – usually we only hear them screaming at night, but this time we went out just as sun was setting to see if we could find one.  After the sun went down, if we shined our light up in the trees you could easily find glowing sets of eyes staring back at us.  Turns out that Ashlyn is an expert spotlighter. 

Here we are with our camp host – he’s giving us some tips before we go visit the Hadza in the morning.  After talking to some other folks we decided it probably wasn’t the best plan to head out for the super early visit to the Hadza where you head out hunting with them (before which they usually smoke a lot of marijuana).  So we opted for the later visit after they return from the hunt.  Turns out there was still a lot of smoking, but at least we didn’t have to wake the kids up to try and keep up with a bunch of hunters. 

This is a hadza ‘house’.   They usually sleep outdoors but will sleep in this hut if it’s raining or, as in this case, you need to give birth.  This story, unfortunately, does not have a happy ending.  Our guide asked the girls where the mama was that gave birth here about two weeks ago.  They told us that the baby died and the mama was crying and went off into the bush.  The baby is buried right inside the house (see the wet spot just inside the door?).  The guide told us that since the baby was less than two weeks old they buried it inside the house.  When people die and they are older they usually just leave them outside and then move camp.  They will bring a new kill from a hunt back to where the deceased is (I gathered it was to draw carnivores).  Very sad.

 

One of the younger males who was quite adept with a bow and arrow.

The men sitting around after their unsuccessful morning hunt.  The entire time we were there, they just sat around and smoked.

Matt getting some hunting lessons. 

Apparently, they need a little more mjThe women took us out to show us how they dig for roots.  The ones they found for us looked a lot like sweet potatoes, but the inside looked more like a radish.  There is a lot of water inside and it tasted a little bitter.  Ash and Anderson were brave and tried some, but they did not like it nearly as much as the little hadza kids (they both spit it out which made the hadza kids giggle).

   

Our visit this trip was ‘hadza-lite’; Matt and I hope to do an overnight at some point with a Hadza troop to really get a better feel for their lifestyle.  It was still cool to get a glimpse of their life in person.

For more on the Hadza, there was a great article in National Geographic in December.  I was glad that I re-read this before we went.  It really helped me understand what was going on.  http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/finkel-text

Summer (winter) Fun in Arusha

At the fancy grocery store in town they have this bungee jump thing in front.  The kids talked me into this outing.  The little adrenalin junkies that they are, they loved it.

This is the mama that I buy a lot of my fruit and veggies from.  On this day, I thought her stand looked particularly nice.  She was honored that I wanted to take a picture. 

 

Elizabeth putting lots (and lots) of braids in Tierney’s hair.

Eating second breakfast at our new picnic table (built by Mama Jackie’s brother, Matthew)

This weekend we are headed camping to Lake Eyasi.  We are also looking forward to having the Banks back on Monday night. 

School starts in two weeks, but who’s counting?

Driving Sugar

I am amazed at how well the kids are doing this summer staying at home.  Since they have never before been in a situation where they had weeks at a time at home, I was nervous about what they would do all day especially since Birch and Cole and the rest of their school friends all went back to their home countries for the month.  The girls pretend they are twins and try to dress the same in the morning.  Ashlyn spends a lot of time playing the big sister role for Anderson and has picked up a bunch of Tierney’s tricks to try and manipulate him into doing what she wants.  Anderson has been great about sharing Mama Jackie’s time, too.  Anderson is going pee on the potty a lot more (might have something to do with the gummy bears..in Kiswahili candy is “pipi” – pee-pee.  So he gets pipi for pee-pee; the kids think this is hysterical).  The weather is starting to feel a bit warmer especially in the afternoon, and I’m sure it won’t be long now until I’m complaining about how hot it is. 

Driving out for a sundowner (bench seats in the back)

It’s a little harder to drive than the Land Cruiser

TCB driving

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Matt got some airtime on BBC about TNC’s project in Northern Kenya (web, TV, and a radio segment).  They were there to help design a science inventory in a cloud forest there.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10450433 .  Cool stuff.

Meet Sugar…

…our new Land Rover. Matt doesn’t care how well it drives because he says it looks cool. Two benches in the back and wires to hook up the iPod – what else do you need? I must admit that it does look cool, but I don’t think driving this manual transmission vehicle in Arusha traffic would be much fun. Off road I’m sure it’s a whole different story.

Poor Anderson has been dealing with some nasty bites. Our best guess is fleas – I just can’t get him to stay away from the dogs b/c he loves them so much. We haven’t seen any new ones for a few days, so hopefully these can heal and we’ll be past this yucky event.

Here is our current skull collection which includes elephant, cow, wildebeest and zebra. The dogs see it as one giant chew toy collection (especially the horns). I really hope we can figure out how to get them back to the US with us.

I forgot to tell the story from the police stop on our way back from the beach a couple of weeks ago. I think Matt has mentioned the random stops and how sometimes you get pulled over for nothing and sometimes the police check dates on registration, insurance, etc. Well, so far we have been lucky and not gotten ‘caught’…until now. On the way back we were driving about 20kph over the speed limit and got caught with a radar gun (in our defense the speed limit had just decreased and we were slowing down, but still..). Anyway, when the fine officer of the law pulled us over he said “You can pay 20,000 Ts and get a receipt or you can pay me 10,000 Ts and I will delete it from the memory” (About $14/$7). Seriously?! I had always thought that the requests for bribes, incentives, etc would be much more subtle than that. So Matt says to him “so I can pay more to pay the fine or I can bribe you?”. The officer nods his head. On the side, Matt and I were having a philosophical discussion on what we should do. I wasn’t convinced that even the 20,000 official fine was going to make it back to the gov’t (and I’m cheap); Matt couldn’t stand the idea of paying an outright bribe. The officer was joking and smiling the whole time. Just business as usual for them.

(And, no, I’m not going to tell you what we did).

Kuku, Siafu and Punda Milia (tena)

Chicken, Ants, and Zebra (again)

The chickens are now month old and much heartier to withstand Anderson’s play style (and he can no longer fit all 13 chicks into their food bin).  We are trying to let the chickens/chicks out every day, so the dogs learn not to chase them.  Today the dogs didn’t even care that they were out, so we’ve come a long way from the day we picked up the dogs when they grabbed a chicken and dragged it into the bushes. 

Chicks are one month old

This type of biting ant seem to be out a lot right now.  Anytime we are out for a walk we have to really watch not to step right into these ant highways.  It really is fascinating to watch.  They totally clear the path to create these roads.  They can very quickly crawl up your legs and bite – pretty painful.  We’ve had to pick them out of Tierney’s hair (thankfully not today) – ouch. 

Siafu

Fini and Paul invited us over again to go for a hike from their house.  Since I wasn’t the only one with a husband out of town, I invited Kiyah and Rebecca along (they each have a one year old girl). We hiked to the top of a hill and could see all of Arusha (while avoiding the biting ants).  When we got back to their house the cattle (and therefore the zebras) were back from grazing, and we came prepared with our own bread for the zebras.  It was the hottest day we’ve had in a long time, so it was nice to have tangerines from Fini and Paul’s tree and have lemonade made from their own lemons (and we all got to come home with lettuce from their garden!). The kids and the zebras seem to be much more comfortable with each other than the first time they ‘met’ each other. 

(Couldn’t load the longer video I wanted, so I’ll have to settle for these two shorter ones)

Ash feeding the zebra

Tierney feeding the zebra

Somehow I think we’ll survive until Matt gets home on Wednesday.

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For those interested here’s a link to a blog by Sanjayan (TNC’s lead scientist).  This was a trip that Matt was on – he has some great video of these lions as well as others from these night cameras.  http://blog.nature.org/2010/06/the-prowling-hour-encounters-with-lions-in-kenya/

Day in the life….

Well, not really a normal day, but what we did today.  We had Emily still here and the kids were starting to get on each other’s nerves after trying to create a circus together, so we started out by doing some science experiments.  We attempted to make homemade rock candy (this we actually did previously, but we did get to check out the creations today) and then we made color swirls with milk, food coloring and soap.  That project lasted all of 10 minutes, so I decided to give Fini a call and I invited us all over to see/feed the zebras and goats.  That turned out to be a great outing (especially since internet was out for several hours today and I couldn’t work until it came back this evening).

Rock Candy

Food color swirls in milk (soap makes the colors swirl as it tries to break down the milk fat)

Feeding the zebra some bread  

We are very lucky!

Usambara Mountains and Tanga (Beach)

We just got back from a week on the road. First we went to the Usambara Mountains and spent two nights just outside of Lushota at Muller’s Mountain Lodge. It was very cool and wet there, but the mountains were beautiful and lush. We got to go on a cool, easy hike to a waterfall where we stopped and had lunch. Our guide was great and made sticks for the girls that they could use as ‘slashers’ to break our trail. He showed them how to whip the stick to clear the leaves out of our path. We also got to see a couple of very cool chameleons.

Matt and the kids all bundled up at Muller’s Mountain Lodge

We still aren’t used to 7:30 or later dinners, so this is the snack that they could give us for the kids. I have no idea what it was, but they sure seemed to like it.

Bike parked near the start of our hike

Hillside farming in the lush mountains

Tin roof of house made from old oil cans (very resourceful)

Very cool, very spiky leaf we saw a lot on our hike

Waterfall lunch stop

Chameleon found by local kids

Tierney was very curious, but not so sure when he opened his mouth and hissed at her

Local kids were watching us watch the chameleon

Hike across a long log

Our cabin (?) at Muller’s

Gorgeous views

After the Usambaras we continued east all the way to the coast. A friend of ours from Arusha parents run a lodge at the coast, so that is where we stayed (Peponi Resort). When we got there it was cloudy and we were a little disappointed since we really were really (REALLY) looking for some hot and sunny weather. It did get much sunnier and warmer as the week went on, so we were all happy. It took us a few days to get into a rhythm, but finally got it all figured out…a nice mix and hand-off of working and relaxing. We had a great banda with a separate room for the kids – we ate all meals at the resort and the food was good. We were finally able to eat lots of seafood which was a great change for us. The kids had a blast exploring the beach, making sandcastles and going for a boat ride (and beginner snorkel). We got to see some men shimmy up the coconut trees and cut the coconuts down (done about every 3 months, so they don’t start falling on patrons heads). We heard bush baby screams at night and saw vervet monkey’s playing around Peponi. I even saw some striped mongoose stealing some garbage from the compost pile. I think we’ll definitely be heading back to the beach sometime. We also met a group of 3 students from University of Virginia and ended up spending a lot of time with them over the 5 days we were there. Two of them ended up staying with us in Arusha for a few days. Matt left for a week long trip the day after we got home and Emily was a champ at helping with the kids and they loved her. They were sad that she had to leave today (she was headed to work for a month at Lewa in Kenya – big TNC project and where we went on our spring break…small world).

Someone is sure happy to be at the beach (she wasn’t the only one)

Trying to fit in a little work before breakfast

Swimming makes you tired.

Heading out to the boat for the trip to sand island

Anderson fell asleep on the ride out and was asleep for ~5 minutes when a wave crashed over the side directly onto him…poor kid was shocked and then said “that was funny”.

Tierney’s first ocean snorkel (she loved it and got to see starfish and sea urchins)

Sand Island

Poor crab (next 3 pics)

T and Matt out snorkeling

Someone has to steer the boat

View from our banda

This is the sandcastle that made it through the night. The men raking the beach in the morning said “mzuri sana” (very nice)

He’s jumpin’ whether or not we’re ready

Low tide adventures looking for shells and crabs

Fresh orange bought roadside on the way home – yummy! (<$1.50 for a giant! bag ..probably 30+ oranges)

View of snowcapped Kili on the way home

One month down, one month to go (until school starts again).