Adventures in adventures

Adventures in adventures

Nana on safari - day one, Mount Meru, Arusha National Park

They arrived and we are on safari; happiness is written on everyone’s face.  Arriving safely in Dar just before midnight, Patrick, Mom, Kevin and Donna were dog tired but very happy to be here and away from the snow and cold of the north.  A quick trip to the Research Flats, because we will be back in the morning for a 11 AM flight out to Moshi/Kilimanjaro.

Masai Giraffe

Arrival night was lots of fun, with our real Christmas moment finally arriving.  Lots of hugs and stories were shared during the Christmas gift exchange, along with the enjoyment of fresh fruits, left over curry, and of course Roberta’s Christmas cookies. It was difficult to head to bed even though it was 1 AM, but the looming 8 AM taxi departure was calling.

The morning arrival and happiness continued with the first out, just after 6, was Roberta and Patrick hoping to find the ververt troop on campus.  Donna and Kevin followed them in search of quick adventures and a self-tour of the campus, quickly followed them.  Meanwhile, Bill, still finding it difficult to extract himself from the pull of work, found time to polish up his LPSC abstract one last time in the small amount of time before breakfast.  Nana took time to enjoy bed before breakfast. 

Kilimanjaro Colobus Monkey

Our Dar to Kilimanjaro flight was super.  We had great views of Dar, the Indian Ocean coast, Zanzibar, the coastal plains of Kenya and Tanzania.  There was heaps of fun photographing the propeller of our plane while in flight; the lighting and high tech cameras allow Patrick and Kevin the opportunity to stop the propeller in flight!  Upon deplaning we all welcomed the lost of oppressive Dar humidity and smiled when we meet Charlie, our safari guide, who was waiting for our arrival with his fabulous safari vehicle.

Shortly after packing the car and having a Patrick-generated break we head out to Kiboko Lodge and our plunge into the bush.  Our first two nights are at this lodge operated by the Watoto Foundation and run by former Arusha street boys who are housed, trained for working at the Lodge and then schooled in various occupations.  It is a wonderful setting with its own papyrus swamp and its own hippo (or Kiboko in Swahili).  As the sun set on this first night we all had our first sighting of the hippo and plenty of birds (weavers, bubul, bee-eaters, shrikes ibis, starlings) and the many color sight of life in Tanzania and the warm and welcoming people of Tanzania. 

Well we’ll finish the first and highly successful day with a long list of first sightings that brought wonderful smiles of delight.  Most of us enjoyed a brief hike to the crater rim inside Mount Meru, and trip down to the sacred tree and back to the car where Nana was waiting, unhappy knowing that she too could have made the 2-mile trip.  (Ya, gotta love her reality!)

Adventures in Dar

Adventures of the week

Obama picture on the corner of
Old Bagamoyo Road near the
US Embassy in Dar Es Salaam

Well it is only a week away before family arrives.  It is all coming to a close as far as teaching and a year’s worth of work.  It is with mixed emotions that I face the end of one year and beginning of a new one.  I hope to change my ways, in a positive direction, but am not always successful.  Life is a work in progress.

The past week was full of exciting happening and lots of new experiences.  After putting in some hard hours for six days we decided that on Sunday we were going to at least do something different.  After a good 30 minutes of planning earlier in the week we decided to go to the Kariakoo market in downtown Dar Es Salaam and then on to lunch.  

Now this is no small feat, in that we have to book a taxi (with Shukrani’s help again) and then buck up to haggle in the market place even over a 5-10 cent savings on the price of corn or spices.  The market was great.  Lots to see, smell (especially so in the dried fish part of the market), taste, and enjoy. When Roberta and I walked the isles of the market many of the merchants would light up and call out “habari mzungu”.  A friendly and warm greeting that also carries with it an open acknowledgement that you are someone with lots of money.  It is always a good gesture and works occasionally to pull us over to their displays.

Proud merchant standing by his wares in the Kariakoo Market

The market is a wonderful visual impact with an amazing array of foods, handyman to artisan quality crafts and a wide variety of practical goods.  We bought some baskets, wooden spoons, pumice stones, kangas and other goods.  Although we shopped the food markets on Saturday we visited the veggie and dry goods stalls and picked up some vanilla and spices.  Now Roberta can finish her Christmas baking! It will be a place to bring others when they visit.

Dried goods at the local
supermarket; we haven't
yet tried it though

It was Saturday evening and we needed a walk before sunset.  We put down the laptops and books and headed out for our hike.  Shortly down the road towards the big fields we came across a couple of waiting cars along the road with a well-dressed group of people all happy about today’s wedding.  When they saw us we became their immediate center of attention.  As we approached the pleas began, we were to have our picture taken with the newlyweds, as a picture with wazungu on your wedding day is said to be good luck. [If you ask me, this is a tradition that began shortly before we arrived.]  Nonetheless, the happiness and enthusiasm was infectious and we joined in.  They hauled out the newlyweds and there was lots of greetings and smiles.  
Some camera focusing began, but then we needed to go a little way across the field to the downed tree and pose for the Kodak moment.  Following that was the big group photo with the entire wedding party (including lots of cute little kids decked out in their wedding finest), with some five or so cameras flashed away and recording the happy moment.  

The "lucky" Newly Weds on their wedding day

The other fun news of the week was Roberta’s computer lab class where she wanted the students to calculate the relative composition of the continental crust as compared to the average composition of the solar system on a Si-normalized basis.  [Trust me on this one, you don’t want to know if you need to ask.]  There are some 35 students in the class, about 15 computers, one room, two lecturers (Roberta and Shukrani) and just one air conditioner (this latter item being both essential and not up to the task).  So she leaves the comfort of the office on Friday at 10 am to give a 1-hour lecture, then a short break, which is followed by a 1-hr lab practical on Excel.  She comes back to the office after at 2 pm; she is wearing a soaked shirt and saying I need to take a shower before her departmental seminar, which is scheduled at 3 pm.  We headed back to our place for lunch, which I prepare while she is cooling down and washing off.  The lab class was a big hit.  For most students, this was their first time using Excel.  Lots of time was spent just getting underway.  However, by the end of class, the sounds of computational pleasure were erupting all around the room. They were happy that they could do so much more with excel than with their calculators.  A  new door was opened wide a many new ideas were planted.

Roberta's Geochemistry class in the computer lab, Dept of Geology, UDSM

Tis the season

Tis the season..,

Yes, even though we are not enjoying the special Christmas season weather that Minnesota had and now London is enjoying, we are feeling in the spirit of the season.  Our local Mlimani shopping center has a Christmas display, which includes snow!

I finally switched sun hats, no longer am I wearing my Greg Chappell cricket hat from days of Oz, but my African bought Santa hat!  Walking across campus one lunch time down to Geology I overheard the crowd (mostly young ladies) singing Jingle Bells behind me.  I joined in with dance to their tune and this brought smiles to all around us on campus.

We were surprised and happy this past week to find a Christmas tree in the breakfast area at the Research Flats.  It seems that our array of visitors and locals are getting into the season.

The Research Flats has lots of different folks here for varying periods of stay.  Kidane Asmerom, from Eritrea, has been here for more than two years.  A mathematician who teaches mostly grad courses in the Economics and Applied Maths has been here longest.  We are next after being here only a month.  Kidane some time ago established himself here with a satellite dish.  We review NFL football results on Monday morning and occasionally trash-talk college football (he got his PhD from Penn State).

Looking at our Flat (top floor) from the breakfast dinning area

There was David Williams from Auckland.  He was here for a few weeks teaching law to group of East Africa’s top post-graduate thinkers.  David had great praise for the next generation of African leaders.  In fact, just before the course ended, one of his students became the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in Tanzania.  Leonart Tonell, a Geographer from Stockholm, was working at Ardhi University (adjacent to UDSM).  He was the first guest we entertained for a tomato soup and cheese lunch.  And then there was Beverly Vaughn, a Stockton College (Atlantic City) opera singer, who is irrepressibly happy and full of presence.  She sweeps into a gathering and leaves an impression. Beverly had more colorful dresses than anyone I knew who was on the road.  We would find ourselves wondering – how many suitcases did she travel with?  We never did find out.

This week we had arrival of our Christmas tree

During the last few days we had an onslaught of twenty-year-old Chinese girls who are here to learn Swahili.  You could have fooled me; I could have sworn they were completely fluent.  They are full of energy and a happy crowd.  Saturday afternoon the six or so had several young Chinese men visiting and there was lots of partying, but respectful. 

Lest I forget food… We have had lots of good meals lately, but this last week Roberta made a great navy bean and vegetable soup. The stock was made from scratch and it was beyond yum.  We are really missing good bread. Our local supermarket has some decent bread, but it’s availability is a bit of a mystery (generally once every month).  So yesterday, when they had it, we stocked up (not much else to put in our freezer).

I’m improving on my eggplant creations.  Last Sunday I didn’t have anything in mind, but heck that won’t stop me from cooking.  I sliced the eggplants and let them sit for about a half hour with a toping of salt.  In this climate, that is enough to make the moistest eggplant slices dry.  While the eggplants were in their absorbing state, the potatoes, garlic and oil olive were tossed, which they enjoyed before warming in the oven for ten minutes.  Before the next step I opened a 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa that is great (for $10) after it breaths.  While both wine and potatoes were underway I sliced the eggplant, added sliced mushrooms, and red pepper (heck, it was in the fridge) and after ten minutes I happily added them to the potatoes for another twenty minutes of baking.  We wished we had guests for the meal.  Smiles here continue and so too does the grading of homework and work on geoneutrino.

power struggles

 We are all creatures of habit...

Just outside of Geology Ververt monkey celebrating Tanzania's independence day (9 Dec) and enjoying their morning breakfast of moths.  The moths appeared in abundance the morning after the big rains.

We are adapting and feeling like we have a regular schedule at the university and in our apartment.  I’m teaching about 5 hours of geophysics a week and Roberta about 3 hours of geochemistry. (I’m catching up for lost time.  There was no scheduled class on geodynamics, but it was decided to have one, given I was in town and could teach!)  Each of these classes has its own unusual challenges.  For my class it may be the students who have the most difficult part; the concept of Bill teaching Geodynamics would just make Sash and Laurent cringe to think about those poor students.   [But, don’t worry there are only 13 minds that are getting such a perverse view of geophysics.] Roberta has some 30+ students (who are getting a great course on geochemistry), but teaching about s- and r-process production has not gone smoothly.

A weather front came to town this week. Monday brought some early rain (and later in the day a new laptop for Roberta), by Tuesday AM we were thankful that the intense overnight showers were, just that – overnight.  Not so on Wednesday.  The sky looked fairly ominous in the morning; we thought it was going to rain, but it didn’t on the way to work.  By mid morning Wednesday we got a good downpour finishing with clear skies overhead and clean, fresh air.  However, there was more to come. 

Geochemistry/Geophysics class room.

By four o’clock Wednesday afternoon it was time to teach geodynamics. But let me take a few steps back.  When we arrived at the office on Monday we were faced with trying to work in our office without air conditioning.  The week before we all experienced problems with loss of electrical power in different parts of the Geology building; it was a highly random process in its distribution and re-occurrence.  Monday was our day for no power in the office.  Fortunately for us, Peter stopped by and invited us down to the computer lab where things were almost normal.  We happily worked there during the morning hours and by the afternoon we had power back in our office. 

Roberta went off to teach just before 11 AM, it was going to be a regular chalk and talk.  A little later Peter came by with a hand-sized plastic box filled with pieces of bananas, mangoes and pineapple and a few toothpicks.  He said lets have a break.  We sat and talked about electricity, seismology (he had been a few seats away and was working on some seismic data from western TZ), and one of the students in the lab.  He kept offering the lady some fruit but she was not interested.  She was here getting her MS degree, whereas normally she is teaching at the University of Dodoma, Peter proudly announced.  He then said, she’s my granddaughter.  I was dumbstruck.  Peter is only in his early fifties!

There are many different ways to get into the Geology building....

Loss of power is just one of the teaching challenges.  You just don’t know when the lecture is going to be a chalk-n-talk lecture or if you might show some visuals. Richard (who will finish teaching the geodynamics course later in the semester) solved the problem by showing up with a brand new 50-meter extension cord.  Now we could at least find one outlet in the corridor from which we could run the projector and laptop.  Folks here are resilient; they don’t get upset, they just figure out how to adapt and continue.

So, it was off to Wednesday afternoon class with a threatening sky.  I must be some thirty to forty minutes into the lecture and heavens become unzipped. It was an official tropical rainstorm and the frogs were taking cover.  Continuing the lecture was a struggle as the noise from the rain outside forced me to stop.  Then students started marching their desks way from the windows and for a few second we lost lights in the room; the elements were taking over.  Fortunately, by about six, when I was finishing, the rain calmed down and we were able to brave the walk home with umbrellas.

We arrived home to no power and it was going to stay that way for the next 44 hours, coming back on by Friday lunchtime, but by then the fish in the freezer needed some breathing room and so too a few other items in the refrigerator.  The really good thing about not having electrical power was.., I forget, but the thought will come back to me.  At least the storm dropped the humidity and Wednesday night was nearly cold enough to want a sheet to cover you at night. 

The week finished on a high note, as there seemed to be full power back in the Geology department, the apartment, our teaching was over for the week and we could resume cooking and showers in the apartment. The electric stove and water pump were sorely missed.  To celebrate I prepared a dinner of tortellini covered with a garlic, butter and olive oil sauce, corn on the cob, sautéed green beans and red bell peppers and accompanied by a South African Sauvignon Blanc.  By nine o’clock we forget the week's challenges and headed off to bed.

morning view from our apartment

the computer aged

Okay I like being here, but it can be difficult.

 An African flame tree (Peltophorum) on our walk towards Mlimani shopping center.

It has been my observation over the last three decades that Roberta is generally a fairly calm person and in our relationship, I’m the one to loses it and cannot cope with computers.  Well TZ has changed that.  Okay, who among us e-mailing junkies, would not find it difficult to survive without a computer.  How about not having computer access during your “relaxing” sabbatical!  Are you kidding!

Roberta soldiered on, albeit it with less than her usual happy outlook.

 A yellow-headed dwarf gecko (Lygodactylus) that like collecting insects around the Research Flats.  We are grateful to these chappies, as they keep down the mosquitoes.

It starts with that wonderful MacBook Air slowing down in China and then a quick set of e-mails to Todd to prepare for a complete computer overhaul during our 3-day stopover at the University of Maryland before heading off to Tanzania.  There was the several days of happiness after arriving in TZ; MacBook Air going fine.  Then Bill leaves town and all hell breaks lose with the Air. Pleas to Todd.  It all looks bad.  Can’t work with the Air.  Roberta switches to the moribund Dell on the desk we claimed.  There was the earlier story about victory in downtown Dar at the computer store and how we were pleased after installing that 1 GB chip. Roberta was back underway, albeit with a Dell, but no longer struggling with her limping Mac. 

Roberta’s MacBook Air was still around and luring her to touch it, however, it seemed to have a dying HD.  Booting it up was as exciting as watching sediments deposit, but at least it hobbled along, as long as only one program was running.  That said, however, word-processing on that Mac was competitive with the speed of the last glacial advance over North America!  [I’m a geologist, what kind of analogies did you expect!]

Our walk across campus provides us with this beautiful array of flowers which thrive in this climate.  This hibiscus (Hibiscus) is one of many flowering bushes that line the walk down to the department of Geology; this one is outside the department of Zoology.

Over the last week plus, we have been coping with intermittent power supply problems (oh that’s another story; stay tuned), and so it was not out of the ordinary to have the power go out. However, I mention this because in this case it was not an ordinary power outage.  Roberta turns to me and asks - did your power just go out?  But then she notes the air conditioner is running.  Heck, she shouts, my computer just went out!  A high-pitched whine speaks and we wonder about fan or hard disk.  Call Peter (aka Todd in Dar); he’s always helpful. When Peter arrives we turn back on the Dell and he agrees, fan or hard disk.  The next day we haul the Dell to the “experts” on campus.  Yup, mother board died, but the HD survived, so at least a few files could be retrieved.  Peter, don’t forget to get the new 1GB of RAM back. Roberta is not yet in tears….  

At least by this time, the Todd/Phil team (the Mr. Fantastic Wrench team of UMD!) had been activated and a new MacBook Pro was about to come to life and become dressed out with the latest and greatest software, but first there was the wait for it to arrive at UMD, add the software, ship by Fedex and then the big wait – arrival in Dar.  Nonetheless, Roberta soldiered on, back to the old, nearly dead laptop.  She began working at a pace that would bring anyone to tears.  That didn’t mean I was prepared for an alien life form taking over Roberta, which forced her to raise the MacBook Air high into the air (I don’t believe the developers ever envisaged this name association).  Yup, she was about to crash the poor hobbling laptop to the floor.  Quick thinking and fast footwork by the in-office swat team averted the attempted laptop plunge.

Monday, it is a sadly underrated day.  This Monday, nearly at the end of the work day, Roberta, who stepped out of the office to have an emotional break (one needs them when using the above mentioned laptop), soon threw open the door with a big smile and a Fedex box.  Yes this story had a wonderful happy ending and she is back to being happy, calm and smiling.