One Less Red Colobus

My time in Africa is winding down. Ruth and I are doing some tree surveys and other non-routine work for the last few days. Two weeks ago Aloyce watched a leopard attack and eat one of the red colobus monkeys so we’ve been looking over our shoulder quite a bit in the forest. I can tell you that my naps in the hammock have not been quite as restful. Other exciting but not so happy news, Ruth and Aloyce saw some poachers kill a duiker with dogs and spears last week. Alan and I were following the other colobus group at the time. Ruth called her contacts at the National Park and was able to give the names of each of the poachers as they were recognized by Aloyce and are from Alan’s village. We haven’t heard what happened to them yet, and while we hope that the warden raided their house that night and caught them with the duiker, this is dubious. Around the homestead, Wadudu’s puppy is getting bigger and Ruth can’t stop picking her up even though I try to warn her about the fleas, ticks, hookworms, roundworms and other nefarious creatures that infest dirty puppy blankets.



The bugs have been out of control lately. If we’re not being bitten by mosquitoes we’re being attacked by tsetse flies or sweat flies. I was definitely surprised though when one day I was swarmed by butterflies! I think that they were drawn in by the mustache magnet.



We had a short day in the forest last week so we took the opportunity to visit Magombera village and Aloyce’s home for the first time. Along the way, we spotted some lucky kids and taught them how to throw the Frisbee that Angela sent us.



Aloyce’s father is renowned for his knowledge of the local trees. He knows which wild forest trees and fruits are edible, which are used as medicines and which are poisonous. He taught Aloyce and his other sons everything that they know. So we have him to thank for all of the guidance and information about the forest that Aloyce has given Ruth. Without Aloyce, Ruth’s research really might not be possible. People come from all over the area to consult with Aloyce’s father. Even Arafat, the director of the Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Center has gone to him for forest medicines. We were really happy to finally get to meet him! And we brought beers which made our visit that much better! Aloyce’s father likes to spend his days sitting under the shade tree in their yard watching his grandchildren. He doesn’t go into the forest the way he used to and has earned his rest. Apparently he was once bitten by a Black Mamba and survived.

Angela mailed Ruth some Barbie toys that Aloyce shows his daughter Escola how to use, while grandpa relaxes watching from his favorite spot.


Aloyce’s house was set up nicely. He shares a well with his father, his home is secluded and surrounded by his fields and a large variety of shade and fruit trees and he built a separate small house for his kids. He also had lots of chickens and ducks which roamed the grounds eating all the bad bugs and providing fresh eggs, although many of these died recently from the intense heat. Most of the structures in Katarukila and Magombera are built out of this red brick which is readily available. Aloyce built his own house, by himself, in just a few days.

Aloyce’s farm


Kid’s house!


Well, we had a few things to give away while we were in Magombera. Sister Sarah my good friend sent us two soccer balls, and we still had one left from Ruth’s aunt Carolyn’s last package. Thank you SO much, friends, for all of the neat stuff that you sent us. Receiving these care packages was a great treat for Ruth and I. One of the soccer balls went to Magombera village c/o Aloyce who holds the ball that everyone in the village comes by to borrow. We gave him one a few months ago that has already been played out.



The other two we brought to the Magombera primary school. Once again we were swamped by happy curious kids, many of whom have never seen a wazungu before.





We had to sit in the principles office for a while



But were soon let out to enjoy the day and watch a handball game by the girls and a regular soccer game by the boys- using the new soccer balls from America.



This Bug Of The Day is a doozie. It buzzed my head this morning while I was brushing my teeth. It was definitely trying to get out of the house as you can see by the last photo, but I was able to capture a few images before it sawed through the bars with its forelegs and escaped.

Town

Better late than never- here are some pictures from around our town. We go in from time to time to buy food and other supplies, to pick up mail or to fill up the car with gas. It’s only a ½ mile from our house so we sometimes walk there. Along the way is a troop of baboons who live on the side of road and are always foraging for grains that fall off the passing trucks or scurrying back and forth between the farms and the forest with stolen sugar cane in their mouths. Occasionally, you might see a group of red colobus or sykes monkeys or hear an elephant! Once you get there, this is what you find:





It’s not like going to the market in the US! There are no coffee shops, no movie theaters and no grocery stores and only maybe one or two other cars. It’s like a migrant town from the old west. Sort of like Deadwood without Al Swearingen, gold or horses. Not many white people either so of course all the kids stop and yell wazungu and everybody stares openly. Some parents go and get there kids and point out the wazungu to them like we’re some kind of strange animal. There’s one old man in the village that is usually drunk off his ass and is a major impediment to getting shopping done. He always opens a conversation with talk about Obama, but then inevitably dives into darker topics like blaming all of his troubles on white colonialism which of course can only be cured if I give him $ or if I buy one of the village girls, happening to walk by, from him. The worst is when he spots us as we pull up to fill up on gas since it takes 10 or 15 minutes to transfer the gas from the oil drum to the tank using a 5 liter milk pitcher. You know you have to just sit there and bear it for the duration. I think this guy provides entertainment for everybody else since he is never even restrained or discouraged by the business people who he interferes with when he gets between them and a paying wazungu customer. Everybody just chuckles and so we take it in stride as well and even if we have to completely ignore him or physically hold him back from getting in the car with us like when Carolyn and Caitlin were here there are no smiles turned upside down.

We buy most of our produce in the farmer market which can be reached through narrow little alleyways between the stores lining the road. We had trouble finding it the first time and were confused as we seemed to be passing through peoples’ yards to get there but sure enough within this warren of buildings there was a secret magical tunnel lined with fresh produce. This is where we get our food.




Finally, we had a chance to give away some more of those awesome soccer balls that Josh and Carolyn sent. Leonardi, who works at the monitoring center, and Ruth and I gave Josh’s old ball to the Mang’ula primary school. I really didn’t know what to expect, but when we told one of the teachers that we wanted to donate a ball, he rang the big school bell and hundreds of students poured out of their classrooms and ran to the assembly yard.



Then, he told us that he would like for us to give our gift in front of all the children and that they would sing us a song. At this point, while I was walking up to the assembly with the teachers, I began to have flashbacks.

It can’t be…. not again-


Flashbacks from the time that Maura, Bill, Julie and I visited a primary school in Fiji and at just the same type of assembly, after the one hundred or so children sang their school song and their National Anthem, WE were asked to sing the American National Anthem in return. It was considered polite, as we four were visitors, to sing a song in return for our hosts who had so honored us. So, as the whole school waited breathlessly for the Americans to display their pride and patriotism we huddled together and whispered in panic and realized that none of us knew the words beyond a few phrases like ‘this land of liberty….fields of grain….from sea to shining sea…’. We didn’t even know how to begin. It was pretty much the single worst moment of my life. There was no way to bullshit it. We couldn’t even hum it. We were complete losers. You could see contempt in the kids’ eyes. The music teacher caught on eventually to our dumbfounded looks and to add salt to our wounds, the Fijian children led us in our own National Anthem which they sang out loudly and clearly for us to follow. ‘Surely though, you can find one song that you know to sing in return?’ the teacher then asked us. Another panicked huddle ensued and we came up with ‘old macdonald had a farm…E..I…E..I..O..and on this farm he had a ------…’ sinking to the depths of our shame from which I never quite recovered. So what went through my head at this moment was….CRAP….I STILL haven’t learned the damn words to the National Anthem and lightening can’t strike twice can it?

The band was ready


The stage was set


And the kids sang out their welcoming songs beautifully (click to play the video)-



And just at the moment where GOD was going to strike me down hard for the comments I made two posts ago, my karma was instantly reversed by handing over Josh’s soccer ball to the head teacher and BUDDHA rescued me. I was asked only to say a few words- which I boldly enunciated in toddler Swahili, and the children cheered. Whew!

At the second school that we visited, Mlimani Primary, I made sure that Ruth was carrying the soccer balls! Maybe she knows the words to the song? Maybe she’s a better American? Just kidding, it was her turn anyway.



They called another enormous school assembly and the kids and teachers were super excited and grateful and no songs were sung and we were all very happy. One of these balls is from Carolyn and one is also from Josh.

Teacher accepts the balls from Ruthie-


Smiling on the inside-


One went to the girls and one for the boys-


This teacher looked mean but was really very nice and Ruth hugged her-


The kids cheered and Leonardi whipped them into a frenzy and gave a shout out to the Udzungwa Mountains Ecological Monitoring Center- Whoooop! Whooop! (click to play the video):



There’s one more ball from Carolyn to give away to Katarukila. Forgot last time, but here’s the Wadudu of the day. Thanks for discovering it Ruth!

October already

We’re deep in the dry season now, the little swamps in Magombera have dried up and most of the trees have lost their foliage. When we look out on the mountainside from our front porch we no longer see vivid deep green jungle but patchy browns and greens washed out by the flat white sunshine and the smoky haze created by fires from the farms and sugar cane fields and the dust kicked up from the road. A couple of weeks ago the monkeys seemed frantically hungry and were in constant flight searching for the few remaining edible leaves and fruits, but now the leaf buds and new leaves have begun popping out on some of the trees which were the first to change and they’re getting really lazy. It looks like the period of feasting is about to arrive.

Ironically, during this time of the year it appears that the popular thing to do is to set fires. Everybody does it. In the savannah area the fires are set to burn away all of the old grass and speed up the generation of new seedlings for the masai cattle to graze on. In this area, the farmers burn up the sugar cane fields, old crops and weeds by setting fire to their fields and yards. There are literally fires all the time. It’s used as a clearing tool. What has been surprising to me is how the forest seems to survive during the dry season with all the burning on its borders. When we’re in Magombera following the monkeys you can hear the popping and cracking of the big fires in the fields at the edge and we marvel that they never seemed to get blown into the forest. The fields surrounding the research station and our house were burned up last week. I took a picture of the front of the house during the fire:



And the back of the house after the fire:



It was smoky as hell for a few hours but the lawn in the front and the bare dirt in the back were effective enough fire breaks that there was never any danger to the house. Also, the roof is tin (or aluminum) so the embers had nothing to catch on. I am sure that the landscaping was designed with the yearly burning in mind and nobody bats an eye and business just goes on as usual. It seems that most of the big trees are impervious to the fires, but the bushes and small trees (and a bit of the lawn) go down.

Of course it’s not all that predictable either. A large portion of the Magombera forest actually was burned during the week that we weren’t working there. Alan and Aloyce say that it was a fire set by one of the neighboring villagers who wanted to have easier access to the river to fish. Also there are rumors that it was the masai (who get blamed for a lot of things by the farmers since the masai cattle sometimes graze on crops) or that it was a farmer who’s fire got out of control. Who knows what really happened. Considering the vulnerability of the small forest, containing unique species and surrounded by farms on basically all sides it’s tragic that a huge portion just got burned up for no good reason. The burn area thankfully is outside the borders of the range occupied by the two red colobus groups that Ruth is studying. We drove over to check it out yesterday and found that many acres were burned.



Most of the big trees are still standing but it’s likely that the smaller trees were destroyed which makes the forest vulnerable to being overrun by crawling vines and bushes. I can’t say really what it means for the future of that area, but it was sad to watch Aloyce and Alan walk through it muttering “pole mswehile” or “pole mpoloto”, saying sorry for the different tree types that were burnt.



Ironically this occurred just as it seemed that the villages were going to jumpstart the anti-woodcutter patrols. One big burn, set possibly by one knucklehead, does orders of magnitude more destruction than wood gathering. We did see red colobus monkeys foraging on the edge of the burn area, and perhaps since most of the large trees were still standing perhaps the area will quickly recover? I don’t know.

Lately, Ruth and I have been splitting up and simultaneously following Magombera groups 1 and 2 throughout the day. It’s interesting to see how their ranges compare and occasionally, like the other day, to see the two neighboring groups meet at the same trees. There’s usually a bunch of screaming and some scuffling and they move off again into their own areas. That’s about all that I can discern anyway. I am sure that Ruth can elaborate. Anyway, when we do the simultaneous follows my job is to track the other group, gps and tag the trees they go in and map their path. Alan goes with me and Aloyce with Ruth. Alan is not as experienced in the forest as Aloyce, so sometimes we wander a while searching for our way and Alan tends to make a lot more noise which can unsettle the monkeys, but we manage. We’re like the B-team. Not sure if Ruth will ever be able to make sense of my nearly illegible field notes when she goes to compile all the data, but it makes me feel helpful. It can be busy and challenging if the group is on the move and your running from tree to tree, but the other day we sat with group 1 at the same tree for 7 straight hours, and they only did a small amount of travel during the other 5. And it’s HOT, like no place else. It’s a challenge to stay entertained, I can tell you. Lately I have been combing through my past trying to remember events and names and places, so it’s been a great opportunity for me to exercise those unused memory neurons. For example, I’ll think OK today I am going to remember everything I can about the different jobs I had when I was in college. This train of thought produced to one of my top ten ‘pearls of wisdom’ listed below. Thank god Carolyn sent us the amazing backpack hammock after I told her how awesome they are for long backpack trips and hanging around in the woods. I was able to sling this in the shade under some low vines and bushes and rock back and forth just enough to keep a small breeze going through the heat of the day. Nothing like swinging in a hammock just out of reach of all the ticks and ants, especially compared to laying on the ground for hours. When you’re on the ground the sweat tends to pool underneath and by hour two that can pose a big problem. Alan’s eyes lit up when he laid in the hammock as he had never seen anything like it. Although Alan can happily flop down on the ground and fall asleep in minutes, I’ll still pick one up for him and Aloyce when we go back to the US for Christmas. They’ll be the envy of all the villagers when their chillin’ in their hammocks after work while everyone else is squatting in the dirt. I am sure that some entrepreneurial talent will figure out how to make a copy of these in no time. Here’s a picture of Alan getting a taste of the good life from which there is no going back.



I am going to have to place the backpacker hammock in my top ten obscure ‘pearls of wisdom’ list. Imparting this wisdom, acquired from years of experience, to some of Ruth’s younger friends earned me the nickname ‘coach’. Tragically, unless there’s an heir some day, all this priceless knowledge may be lost. Here’s how the always evolving list stands at the age of 38 (not necessarily in order of importance):
1) nobody knows nuthin’-including me, but you gotta have a theory
2) Winter big lobster in shallow reefs, spring halibut in Cardiff, summer yellowtail in LJ, fall halibut in Del Mar
3) Critical staples for daily survival- Green juice, green tea and Guinness
4) Need fuel for a long ass day? Eat a big bowl of oatmeal. Careful though. My dad never fed oats to his horses unless he was going to run them through the woods for hours. Same rule applies to humans so don’t try to sit in an office after eating this you fool.
5) An old canning jar once used to preserve cloves spiced apple butter makes a great scented coffee mug. Even better than a blue tin camper’s cup.
4) If life gets you down and you feel like a clown then for 10 days stop eating, drink a liter of salt water every morning to clean out the bowels and copious amounts of lemonade the rest of each day for energy.
5) Sinus trouble? Tilt your head over the sink and pour salt water up one nostril while letting it drain out the other.
6) Bike everywhere, ride steel if possible, ditch the mostly useless front derailleur, kill your TV.
7) There’s ultimately only one way to rid yourself of a scary fluorescent green fungus growing between your toes for many years- pour alcohol on it after every shower.
8) Double 6oz glass on the deck and single 6oz glass on the bottom- and use a super green dense foam blank. Anything less on a surfboard is criminal.
9) Rub olive oil on the old knees after b-ball or for any joint pains and stuff cotton swabs with warm olive oil in the ears to kill an ear infection.
10) Never camp without a small packer’s hammock
…which bumped out the old #10) Not sure if it’s a girl you’re kissing? Slyly check the back of the head for a bony protrusion at the base of the skull. If it’s there you’ve been drinking way too much. Sort of like closing the barn door after the horses have bolted though isn’t it? I never had any use for that one actually and it was relegated to the bottom of the list for years out of nostalgia for my hard working but not super bright old bud I learnt it from and whom I built scaffolding with in San Diego when I was in college. It may not even be true, but he drank a lot and placed great faith in it.

I had a chance to hand out some soccer balls last week! One sent from Josh went to the little kids who bring our food over each day. Our cook, mama Rehema (we had to get rid of mama Sharifa), is one of three widows who were all married to the same man who only recently died. All three ladies live and work together nearby and they have a gaggle of kids who take turns bringing our food over. The soccer ball will find a good home over there.



Ruth and I crashed a soccer game in the field near the house carrying Ryan’s soccer ball and handed it over to a crowd of players.



Incorrect assumption # 329- the small twine ball is used only because they can’t afford a real soccer ball. Wrong. Here the players are explaining to me that on Tuesdays they play small ball soccer, and on Wednesdays they play with the big ball.



Of course they were happy to have a nice ball anyway. Note: I look kind of yoked and tall in these pictures though don’t I? It’s only an optical illusion caused by the smallness of the local Tanzanians. I had to measure my height the other day just to check because I’ve been feeling huge lately and in fact found out that I have actually shrunk 1 inch.

I handed out another one of the soccer balls Josh sent to a group of bike mechanics in Sanje village and had a great picture of it that somehow got deleted from the camera when we were in Egypt(sorry Josh). I can describe it though. It’s me looking all big and muscular dressed same as above, this time facing the camera so you can see that I am in my second trimester impregnated by chapatti and beans, and standing with a bunch of Tanzanians holding a green monster soccer ball with big smiles on their faces!

My plan for the rest of the soccer balls, including Carolyn’s is to bring some of them to the orphanages in Mang’ula and Mwaya and perhaps give another one to the kids in Katurukila. I’ll post the pics as soon as I get them.

Nobel Peace Prize for Obama? Wow. This isn’t just a prize for not being Bush. I think the Europeans are trying to encourage Obama to live up to all the hype, I mean hope, generated during his candidacy. To shame him into actually following through on his campaign promises. Just as Obama is adopting all the old Bush policies, the Nobel committee launches a preemptive strike on American imperialism, using the NPP as a weapon inducing shock and awe and confusion into the local population. It’s genius, employing our own tactics against us.

Cairo

It’s been weeks since I was last in the forest and while Ruth is knocking out another one of her monkey follows in the National park today I’ve surfed the net, drank a big mug o’ cowboy coffee and tackled two bucketfuls of laundry. I’m sort of like a Mr. Mom, without a bunch of screaming kids, dirty diapers and a television blaring in the background. I can sip my coffee in peace while I read Russell Brand’s ‘My Booky Wook’-hilarious stuff in there. I’ve also been perusing some literature about women in Islam that we picked up at a mosque on our recent trip to Cairo- yes we went to Egypt! I am sympathetic to the fact that Muslims have been demonized by western media while we bomb their countries to pieces (not to peace), and was interested to visit the ancient mosques in Cairo but when we were led to the rack of religious propaganda on the side of the big carpeted worshipping area I was reminded how similar the three major religions descending from Abraham really are and how little use I have for any of them. Maybe that’s why god has cursed me with a swollen neck! Why not strike my unbelieving bald head down with a bolt of lightening…in fact strike me down now if I have wronged thee? OK, still here…for now. This would be so much easier to deal with than some obscure unidentifiable low grade infection that has me jumping from one outrageous diagnosis and treatment plan to the next. We drove 8 hours to Dar to see a doctor that could only tell me that it was probably a virus infection of some type in the sinuses and glands and that there was nothing they could do. The great wazungu soccer ball giveaway had to be postponed but I’ll soon get back to it because while the throat thing has kept me lying low and rubbing tiger balm on the old neck muscles and lymphs for weeks I think I’m on top of it. Two words-neti pot-Josh told me about this years ago, but I failed to appreciate the significance until now. What you do is add some salt and baking soda to water in a specially designed clay pot and pour it into your nose. Sounds preposterous, and it IS when done with an old plastic water bottle and half spilling onto your face, but it flushes out the sinuses like I just surfed Blacks for two hours.


Levitating using the trans-galactic power of the pyramids…Ruth just jumping

The Nile

Sunset felucca ride

The air pollution in Cairo rivals the worst in the world. Ruth and I had a clear view of the Egyptian desert spotted with tombs, pyramids and half buried geometric shapes until we descended into the black cloud hanging over Cairo. It was unbelievable really. How can people not realize that they have become victims of their own progress? How can they live in that blackness and mass of traffic jams and not realize that automobiles are destroying all that history and culture and their quality of life? A few trolleys, some pedestrian only greenways crisscrossing the city and tight emission restrictions and even wing-nut knuckle draggers would smile with ungrateful serenity. In Tanzania you have about 1% of the population driving automobiles, zooming up and down rural dirt roads running 99% of the population who are riding bicycles or walking off into the ditches- so clearly ridiculous. In Egypt, car ownership is certainly more evenly distributed among the social classes but it’s hard to see the benefit for perhaps close to ½ of the population who don’t have cars and push through the thick black air of the clogged city streets on their old steel Chinese beasties. This was the true test of the neti pot treatment. Ruth and I would wander around Cairo for hours and hours going to the markets and museums and pyramids and I’d come back at night and snort a salty mixture of black soot and snot out of my sinuses-come here Ruth for a kiss to celebrate our romantic vacation.


Massive

This guy got a little grabby so Ruth gave him the brush-off

Young (and old) lovers……Oh! My back is killing me-climbing out

The Arc of the Covenant is buried somewhere here I just know it

Our trip to Cairo was a little getaway I arranged for Ruth’s birthday and a chance for us to buy all kinds of crazy Christmas gifts for friends and family. We stayed in a small hotel on the 12th floor of an old building in the downtown area. We were blocks away from the Nile and from the Egyptian museum and only a few miles from the Giza pyramids. We went on felucca rides on the Nile, crawled into the dank air deep inside the pyramids and we spent two days at the museum wandering among the statues, sarcophagi and King Tut’s treasures. The place was packed with Euros. It’s funny because we went out of our way to dress conservatively during our stay since showing shoulders or knees in Cairo is scandalous. But, the tourist buses were unloading thousands of scantily clad blond Euro couples. Women in hot pants with butt cheeks hanging out and bikini tops and dudes all kitted out in the latest Euro beachwear. Tanzanian culture has conservatized us I guess, but we were shocked. I don’t know where they were staying or what else they did while in Egypt besides visit the pyramids and the main tourist market, but we never saw them while we were roaming around the rest of the city. Pretty much every local woman wears robes and scarves and maybe 10% were completely covered from fingertip to eyeball. I must admit that seeing only the eyeball made me quite curious just what the hell was under that hood? I figured that they must be at least sporting a face mask to deal with the pollution. That might be a great invention. Make a hijab with a breather hose/filter built directly into the fabric for Muslim women that live in cities with crap air.


Get me some dates

View out the window in the stairwell of our building (12 flight climb when the electricity went out)

Old lift into one of the buildings and the view at night from our balcony

Outside of the air pollution, Cairo was awesome. Since we were coming from Tanzania we had a pretty low happiness threshold if that’s the word for it. We were seeking some basic pleasures like toilet seats (for me since I squat poorly), air conditioning, some semblance of anonymity, fresh fruit juices and falafel which we read about in our travel guide and of course millennia of ancient Egyptian civilization which has survived invasion from Persians, Greeks, Romans and more recently from the rise of Islam (OK maybe it isn’t surviving this) and which, perfectly conserved by the desert air, has permeated and infused with enlightenment the day to day life. Unfortunately in Tanzania successive waves of conquerors, transient population, the unrelenting cycles of dry season/wet season and the temporary nature of the structures has left only shadows of the ancient cultures which were once here- shadows which are now rapidly eroding under the relentless flow of capitalism.


Shopping madness!!! How can we live without an antique sheep horn handled dagger.

Where’s Ruth? We got lost a few times in these confusing streets.

One of our navigational landmarks

I highly recommend visiting Cairo. For all my friends out there- take your ladies (or vice-versa) to Cairo. Ruth and I had a great time and aside from the black snot and swollen neck it might even be called romantic. Every single person we interacted with that week first asked us where we were from, then raised their eyebrows and then welcomed us to Egypt. Many said Ohhh! Obama! Yes! It’s the same with Obama in Tanzania. I can’t stress enough what a major shift in the overseas perception of the US that president Obama has made. Now, I can’t say that I agree with all of his policy decisions thus far, but our experience in Africa has been greatly influenced by his presidency. Regardless of who is president, Cairo is one of the safest cities I’ve ever been in. We could wander all over at night, kids were out on their bikes and families were out strolling enjoying the cooler evening air and celebrating the holy month of Ramadan. We happened to visit during Ramadan, which wasn’t planned and frankly made it really difficult to find a place to eat during daylight hours and nearly impossible to drink any beer, but interesting for many other reasons. There were big fast breaking food parties in the streets after the sun went down (we could never quite wait long enough for these) and everyone was out until the wee hours shopping for kids clothes in the shops downtown. We couldn’t believe the lines at the front of all the kid’s stores each night- it was almost like the parents, wearing traditional robes, were living out their western fashion dreams upon their children. For every kid’s clothes store there was a lingerie shop getting nearly as much business.


Working man’s bike

Another workhorse- notice the massive central break pedal on both of these bikes

These ARMS bulging from a tight fitting shirt grabbed me by the neck- and this other guy gave us chips

We met some neat characters along the way. Of course we didn’t speak any Arabic so our communication was limited but most people knew a few words of English. There was our toothless cab driver that wanted to be called Steve Mcqueen and drove like it and the guy we bought these awesome canvas bags decorated with Egyptian Cartoon characters from who bought us yams afterwards. There were the guards at one of the pyramids that insisted that I hold an AK47 and stand next to their camel for a photo - how could I refuse? There were the guys in the scarves market who were really friendly and one big muscle bound eunuch (OK maybe that’s an exaggeration) who grabbed me in a headlock in a totally friendly smiley way blabbering in Arabic while everyone around was laughing and I took a picture of his giant bicep. I have no idea what that was about. Maybe he wanted me to buy some of his men’s shirts for sale. But they were too metro-sexual for my taste. Ruth was trying to find a nice shirt for her bro Alex, but I had to put my foot down since the fashions were all like leftover off Back Street Boys costumes. The market streets were crowded and hectic and touts would do everything they could to pull you into their shops to look at their goods. We did our best not to get suckered into any silly purchases and now that we’re back in Tanzania it seems like we got some good stuff for you guys!

Wadudu of the day- Keep moving folks nothing to see here, just a couple of leaves.