Back form Magugu

I've been away from Arusha for the last two days. I went on a trip to the school connected with the Joshua Foundation started by Lynda Steevenson, but run by Tanzanian teachers in the town of Magugu called The Joshua Primary and Secondary School. It takes about 3 hours drive to get there, and a lot of it on a gravel road. Magugu is a hot little town, filled with people and cockroaches. The school is a pre-school, primary and secondary school, with form 2 being introduced this year. I went down with Lynda and a girl called Justine, the main reason being to take photos of every student there to send back to their sponsers (just like world vision does every year). We didn't finish the job, but got through a huge hunk. Its was HOT down there, nothing like this rather temperate Arusha which gets the rains coming down off Mt. Meru.

So it was a couple of days of pure African meals, and the accomodation Ngorongoru Hotel was typical of an outback guesthouse, with cockroaches which hiss at you when you go to use the log drop, not running water, and is a little notorious for theives. I enjoyed it though. The best part of the trip was just to spend time with all the kids, and practice a lot of swahili, especially saying 'Cheka' which means 'smile'. The kids really knew how to smile, too. They kind of exploded with huge cheesy grins. The kids struck me as being so unaware and naive, very amazed at the sight of Wazungu (Foreigners), especially if they were just new to the school, as the little kids might never have seen a white person before.

One of my friends, Immanuel, who I made at En Gedi, who is training to be a teacher, lives very close to the school and he came over and invited Justine and I to go to his house. Before we knew it we were being fed a full on dinner, with Ugali, chicken, and all. Justine, who was quite aprehensive of the whole thing was doing very well considering, until Immanuel seemed to expect us to eat some of the little fish called Telapia his sister had cooked. I wasn't feeling hungry after eating the chicken's neck, but he was obviously expecting us to eat a fish at least, so I suggested to Justine we split it. She said ok, and I cut it in half with my spoon, and gave here the top half, which was mostly head. She looked at me with a fixed grin and wide eyes, as if to say 'what are you doing', but I paid no attention and just did my part of eating the bottom half. Immanuel had no idea that we were struggling silently, and the whole situation was so funny I just about burst out laughing.

Anyway, there were many more interesting situations from the trip which I won't bother posting up here because I'm not feeling that well today, and have a tummy ache. I've had the Runs again, and although I'm gulping down the Charchol tablets which often do a good job of corking you up, I haven't had much fun the last three days. I think I have a cold as well, which is strange because it's definitely not cold.

Oh, yeah, we saw a dead Hyena on the road on the way back home. We though it was a pig, but as we drove past it was obviously a not a pig. Hyenas are huge and when they hunt in packs are more effective at bringing down prey than a pride of Lions, mostly due to their reliance on endurance and their extremely powerful jaws. I was surprised to hear from Lynda that they used to get Hyenas on the base a recently as two years ago! They used to wander up from the stream, walk up the path and get into the rubbish. Man!

Another thing to note is that the minnimum wage has gone up 300 percent since the beginning of Janurary which is crazy. Actually Engedi was already paying staff that and a little more, but the over all effect will thing in shops and food etc becoming more expensive in general the the very poor who earn less than 1$ a day will have an even harder time at buying things, or at least much more limited. It may not seem so bad, but its sure to have significant effect.