Last weekend we went out with a full complement of kids and a lot of our good friends to go camping in the Simanjiro Plains about 2 hours south of Arusha (maybe just southeast of Loiborsoit on the map below). You’ll notice the scale that it’s probably less than 50 miles…yep, took about 2 hours, but the roads were in great condition for being dirt the entire way. We saw zebras, wildebeests, giraffe, lots of ostrich, gazelle, and a dead mongoose. We were camped near lots of aardvark holes, but I still haven’t seen one.
It’s hot a dry, so we all decided one night would probably be enough out in maasai land with almost no shade and definitely no water.
(Nice shot of bridge under construction, Tanzania style)
7 kids between the ages of 6 11/12 and 4 on the roof of the car for a drive out for sundowners.
Our tent under an acacia tree….trying to find any shade we can.
We found the perfect replacement for a missing leg on the camp stove.
The maasai game scouts that watched over our camp and fire and helped us eat our food (but they wouldn’t touch a chicken dinner…only goats and cows for the real maasai)
That termite mound must have been there a while. I thought it was pretty.
And it wouldn’t be a true African adventure without our car breaking down at least once. It just stopped running in the middle of the road as we were driving down a hill. I’m sure the truckers truly wanted to help, but I also think they couldn’t easily get around us. Thankfully (?) we’ve now had enough car problems that Matt is now a car fundi (specialist) and was able to reattach the correct wires enough to get us home. Luckily we also have a real fundi that makes house calls and came as soon as we got home (on a Sunday).
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Matt left Sunday night for a long month of traveling. He’s back in the U.S. (California, Boston and Florida) and then he comes home for 2 nights and is back on the road to Kenya…appropriate levels of sympathy for me, please.
After school activities have started up for the girls again. On Mondays, Ashlyn has decided on ballet and Tierney is taking Lego’s. Tierney has private piano lessons on Tuesdays, and on Wednesdays both girls have decided to take Cartooning. I’m proud of both of them for their choices this term. I’ve also started back up with Swahili lessons…my New Year’s resolution was to use swahili more, so I’m hoping this will give me the confidence to go out and do that.
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