Day 42, 43 and 44

 Day 42

This morning we woke up to heavy rain so we had breakfast inside at MTAD for the first time.

Today we had arranged to visit Nkoanekoli Primary School which is in the foothills of Mount Meru. Robert picked us up soon after 10 and it took about an hour and half to get there. This school has 5 computers that were donated by an American visitor a couple of years ago as part of our School Computer Loan Project. The school have been using the computers and reporting to us every 3 months for all this time so today we have decided to hand the computers over to the school so that they will no longer be a loan, they will belong to the school. 

When we arrive it is still quite damp. We meet the Headteacher and ICT teacher and do the paperwork to show the computers now officially belong to the school. They seem very happy.

We then visit the computer room. As we walk we can see it is obviously lunchtime as all the children seem to have a bowl of beans. Inside a group of children demonstrate their computer skills. The children outside crowd round the windows to watch what is going on.

Our next stop is the Jifundishe Library Project which provides support to children who, for whatever reason, have failed or never taken their national exams. The project provides books and other resources to help these children study the syllabus. It is aimed mainly at individual study although there is also some limited teaching. Robert is on the board of this NGO and so wanted to call in as it was nearby.

The weather is still pretty miserable. On the way we notice the banana plantations where they also have coffee beans growing beneath the banana trees, a good use of space.

It is now well gone 12.30 and we are unlikely to get lunch anytime soon, so Robert stops at a local shop to buy some “bites” to take with us.

When we arrive we are met by Anande, the project manager. She provides us with tea and coffee and we have an interesting discussion 7with her while we eat our chapati and bananas. She then shows us around. There are certainly plenty of students studying both in the library and outside.

We are now very near Robert’s dad’s house so we call in here to say Hi. Robert’s step mum is clearly very pleased to see us. She welcomes us into their house and then goes and gets a kanga that she gives to me.

Robert’s dad has a small farm and so Robert also wants to collect a bag of corn while we are here. The farm is in a lovely location with great views of Mount Meru......when there are no clouds (sadly not really the case today).

After a fairly short visit we drive back to Usa River where we meet up with Robert’s friend Abdullah at a bar where we can get some food. It is now mid afternoon so we are all pretty hungry. The food here actually turns out to be excellent and good value.

We then leave Abdullah and drive back to Moshi. Robert drops us back at MTAD at about 6pm.

This evening we discuss some changes to our plans for the rest of our trip and manage another good Zoom call, this time with our daughter Emma and her fiancé Robbie.

Day 43

I think we have designated today as an “admin day”.

After breakfast we walk down to ACTT and then go with Robert to the Vodacom Shop to buy a data bundle and an international call package. We had hoped to get a better deal in the shop than we could get on the App, but this wasn’t the case. We then went to the bank and the supermarket to do a bit of shopping and then walked back to MTAD.

We spent some time this morning trying to contact KLM in order to change our flight home as we are now not allowed to fly into Bristol. We have also decided to try and avoid Dar es Salaam as it is a big town and so are going to fly back from Kilimanjaro. We obviously also have to co-ordinate this with the various tests we need prior to departure and book a quarantine hotel.

We are off to Mkomazi National Park next week for a couple of days and then on to the Usambara Mountains and then the coast. After that we are going to come back to Moshi and try and sort everything out for our return home from here, which will be much easier as we know the town and have lots of people who can help us here, if we have any problems.

So at present we think this will mean our return to the U.K. will be delayed by 9 days. However this morning both KLM’s website and the Government Quarantine Hotel booking site are down.

Later, having got an international call package we were able to ring KLM and have been able to change our Dar es Salaam to Bristol flights to Kilimanjaro to Heathrow, for no extra cost. So “at present” our plan is now to leave Tanzania on March 12th....but of course this may still all change.

We spend the afternoon at MTAD enjoying the local snacks we had bought to keep us going until dinner.

During the afternoon we were entertained by 3 Silvery Cheeked Hornbills. They were flying around the garden at MTAD for a couple of hours. However despite their size (approx 70cm) they were difficult to photograph as they just didn’t stay still and kept disappearing into the foliage.

Tonight we enjoyed dinner at MTAD. Some of the students are now working in the restaurant to get some practical experience and for the last 2 nights we have been served by a young girl called Janet. She did really well. It is great that these girls are getting a chance to learn skills that will hopefully enable them to get a job in the future.

Day 44

Today has been spent making the final preparations for the next part of out trip. Tomorrow we are off to Same where we will spend 3 nights so we can visit Mkomazi National Park. From here we will travel up into the Usambara Mountains for 7 nights and then we are travelling on to the coast at Saadani where we will spend another 7 nights. Our stays at the last 2 places have been extended slightly as we were originally going to spend our last 3 nights in Dar es Salaam before flying back to the U.K. However as I explained in yesterday’s blog we are now trying to avoid Dar and so we cancelled the stay there and added these 3 nights to the mountain and beach stays and will now travel to Dar on the last morning for a flight back to Kilimanjaro.

We have arranged to stay back MTAD when we are back in Moshi which also means we can leave a bag here. So, as this morning was rather damp we spent some time first thing sorting out our stuff and then repacking our 2 bags.

By mid morning it was drying off a bit and we managed a coffee on the terrace, though still under cover.

After this we walked into town, visited the bank and then headed to the Kilimanjaro Coffee Lounge for a drink only to find it was shut for refurbishment. So we looked for somewhere else and decided to try the Kili Kahawa Coffee Lounge, it was very nice.

From here we walked back to Keys Hotel where we got some lunch. We had thought about having a swim but there appeared to be a kids birthday party going on in the pool area so I am glad we decided not to bother.

This afternoon was spent at MTAD. It was very hot and humid so we didn’t do much!! 

This evening we eat dinner here. It is very quiet. Social distancing is not a problem. As always the food is good and so is the wine.