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.

TZ5 an insect battle zone

A 5AM wake up to get more things prepared for a class presentation later today. 

Me teach geophysics? Give me a break!

Since arriving various faculty members here have been trying to talk me into teaching or co-teaching a class on Plate Tectonics and geodynamics.  This idea was in part nutured because Roberta is already doing geochemistry and I, in their eyes, needed to teach something.  Ugh.  Well several chapters of Turcotte and Schubert have been re-consumed, copious notes taken and we'll see what happens later today.

It was a pretty uneventful start to my pre-dawn day in our apartment - until I went to the bathroom.  This room is always a source of interesting African stories.  Prior to my visit to the room, I had already read some of my e-mails, including a suite of them from the '75-76 Kenya crew that were focused on retelling stories of the room.  Of course, Charlie's e-mail was focused on knowing more about the roach that stared Roberta down - a story from the weekend.  To answer Charlie, the beast was indeed smaller than a Buick, although it had comparable speed and maneuverability.

The beasts in question are rather large and very belligerent.  [The happy and relieved elephant is just a scale perspective and was taken during one of our previous trips to Tanzania.] 

Having been established in our apartment for  a couple of weeks now, we felt that we had established ownership of the place.  Not so.  On the weekend, 3-inch long (not including any sorts of projections from the body), killer roaches descend upon the apartment; note the coincidence in timing, this is the same weekend that North Korea's attacked South Korea, hmmm.  All sorts of scientific hypothesis explaining the origins of these beasts began appearing in our conversations, but they did nothing to eliminate the problem!  And, I might add, by now Roberta and I had lulled ourselves into thinking that we had reached a fairly equitable agreement with the gecko/skink population in our apartment.  BTW, for the Americans reading this, I can assure you that when they scamper from behind a curtain at light speed, you ain't thinking about car insurance, although heart attack insurance might be useful.

Back to the roaches.  One of these beasties succeeded in staring down Roberta, who came to me for battle support.  I told her that I'm not that crazy.  To make myself calmer before the storm, I calculated its mass and mean atomic number, then Roberta insisted that I go in there and do something about it!  I isolated myself in the back two rooms, the bedroom and bathroom.  I did this in part to restrict the battlefield and also to not let Roberta see me if the battle of shock and awe, did not go as planned.  Yes indeed the sucker was there and he was ready to do battle.  Finally, he spun and turned.  The chase began.  Instinctively he knew to keep close to the floor to ceiling curtains, as they are the source of all mysterious crawly things which make the inhabitant jump amazing heights.  I was determined to win this battle and was undeterred by the unknown.  Ultimately I had him cornered and felt victory in hand.  But not quite.  The corner was his salvation.  He must have noted the geometry of my flip-flops and the corner and knew I would never get him this way.  With nothing else in hand literally, I was forced to put one bare foot on the ground (did this guy have reenforcements in the ready, I wondered) and the flip-flop in hand.  Pounding away at the corner still didn't do it  This was one heck of a clever bug.  Finally, either the the sounds were too much or it was laughing too hard to remain in the corner, I got my opportunity and won the battle.

I was however, then faced with the reluctant task of burying the dead at sea.  How was I to know that roaches float and are hard to flush down.  Let's just say, Roberta was not pleased to have to go to the bathroom with someone/thing watch, albeit from Davy Jones' locker.

TZ4

The UDSM campus always has beautiful sites.  Here is a sculpture on campus near the law school. 

It was the week of computer woes...

Mind you, the idle PC [remember, let sleeping dog lie…] that Roberta begun using did provided us with some more adventures.  Last Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) we had our appointment at the US Embassy (part of the drill for Fulbright fellows).  Given we were heading into Dar, we also took the opportunity to pick up a RAM upgrade for Roberta’s PC. [Amazing what 25 years of desktop evolution includes.]  Her 2002 Optiplex Dell had 128 Mbytes of RAM, enough to boot up her computer, but would hardly satisfy a Word/e-mail/internet warrior like Bert.  This is Africa and so we were in pursuit of big game, 1GB as they say around here.  A two hour orientation starting at 9:45 ended at ~2:15; even though it is the US Embassy, we concluded it’s Africa!  At least the embassy event included lunch and air conditioning and we got cool security id cards that will let us in without the long queue in the hot sun. 

Then the RAM upgrade hunt was on.  Our first try brought us past an intersection with a white uniformed policeman directing traffic with a functioning traffic light, which, by the way, the light and policeman were never in harmony.  [I really need to do something with my conventional expectations.]  The policeman was impressive in his traffic dance, given the mid-day heat.  While we were waiting at the intersection a series of motorbikes came up. Some paused, others didn’t, went through the intersection and seamlessly weaved through the cross traffic without raising an eyebrow on the policeman.  Roberta and I again were thankful that we would never drive in this city.  Well the first shop was a bust for the RAM, but they really tried hard to sell us a mouse.  Hmm…  Next on our shopping list was KVD in the heart of downtown.  The KVD shop was hard to find, but in the end it was the real deal.  You walk ten feet into the shop and are faced with floor to waist counters, a six-inch open space and then white painted steel bars to the ceiling.  Behind the counters were floor to ceiling boxes, storage bins and stacks of goods for sale and limited walking space.  The 1GB RAM request was met with the lady pulling open a draw full of printed circuit RAM boards, her sorting through a handful and presenting us with a 1GB board.  We brought the desktop processer with us and after slotting it into the motherboard we said that we wanted to test it.  It was off to the back of the shop, out the door and around the corner.  We were taken to a hot and sweaty room crammed with computer and audio-equipment and two young Africans guys working away on something.  They immediately plug in our computer, unplug their monitor and attempt, unsuccessfully a boot up.  Lots of discussion ensues, where we have no idea what was going on, but our hopes were feeling dashed.  An older fellow, in the alley and working on a partially assembled sound-mixing unit, was called in and he says to bring the processer into his shop.  I was told to follow him into the shop, but was reluctant given the floor was completely covered with various wires, clearly some of which were power supply lines.  After clearing away some space on his workbench, with an amazing degree of heavy handedness, he positions the processer vertically on the bench quickly plugs, pushes, turns and clicks and moments later we see the familiar hard disk on the monitor.  [I immediately deleted any images in my mind of me with an anti-shock wristband and clean hands on the circuit board!]

Hooray, we were back in business!  Now back to the office (after an hour+ on hot, dirty, sweaty roads).  Setting things back up in the office went smoothly and, given the heat and lateness, we decided that tomorrow would be the best time to check things out completely on the PC.  In the morning following the reboot, the computer automatically began requesting updates and this took a good hour or so (and pretty much sucked out all of the download time on Roberta’s modem).  Then the next phase of heartbreak hard disk began.  This PC has more viruses in it than your standard bush clinic.  Attempts to update the virus protection software (last updated Nov 2006) were fruitless.  Insights from Todd in MD and virus protection uploads from various websites were for naught, the software pirates off of the coast of East Africa had boarded our PC and had us hostage.  We wait now (after a 3^rd valiant attempt to repel viruses from Todd failed) for Monday and the crew at UDSM to come up with more help.  We’ll keep you posted, or perhaps look for us on CNN some night.

Now, I might as well tell you about the adventures in shipping. J  Before leaving Italy we packed up a box of books and summer clothes to be shipped to TZ.  [Of course we ran out of time (really we didn’t want to go) and the box left Italy two weeks later on the 9^th of Nov.]  Also, as when we were leaving UMD for TZ we asked Sandy to ship us some books from our offices.  The former was shipped via DHL and the latter via Fedex.  Well, this week brought the joy of the UMD package, which took only ~2 weeks, and provided us with a gift (TOG-Crust) for Shukrani (one of two professors here who we are working with).  The DHL package is a little bit like the computer saga.  Within 3 days it is in TZ at customs (Bologna-Leipzig-London-Nairobi-Dar, wow), where it begins its incarceration.  We could watch it on the web and kept asking DHL about why is being held at customs.  [Now mind you, our Italian hosts paid close to $650 US to ship this package – Roberta and I could readily lift the box, we don’t know why it ended up costing the same as a plane ticket to Dar from Italy!]  Magically, on 25 Nov it is released from Guantanamo-east and could be delivered to us – key word “could”.  Hopes are high on Friday AM, when we read that the box is with the courier.  By mid-afternoon, the DHL website lists the box as being denied by receiver – OMG.  No one here knows anything about the box and someone has been in the Geology office all day.  A call to DHL and the driver says that they tried to deliver it to the wrong address.  They will try again later and not to worry about what the web-tracking info states.  Fears return again when no sight of it on Friday is followed by a Saturday AM listing on the DHL website saying that they are trying to deliver it on the weekend when the campus is closed.  OMG^2!  It wouldn’t be such a problem except that it contains summer clothing that Bill, in particular, is very short on (how many days in a row can/should you wear the same pair of shorts?).  Monday, hopefully, will bring lots of good moments.

Well, enough of these sagas.  Our daily routine is well established, quite like the early evening visit to the back of Geology by the local troop of ververt monkeys and the small group of banded mongooses (or is that mongeese, or mongai?).  [Somebody will probably correct me and tell me that a group of mongooses are referred to as a gaggle or something like that.]  Also, our walks to Mlimani Center always have some interesting sights. Yesterday we saw a beautiful, 2-3 foot tall black-headed heron, who was just watching us until we got within about 25 feet of it; the bird simply flew off and landed another 25 feet or so further away to an area where we were not going to walk past and the bird simply went back to searching the grass.

Then there was Thanksgiving.  We celebrated this fine feasting holiday in grand fashion.  As the Thursday holiday, late afternoon was upon us, Shukrani knocked on our office door and asked if we wanted some tilapia, a new shipment has arrived and his friend is distributing them now.  It was a quick departure from the office.  We drove across campus on this dirt road, down to its southern gate, which somewhat permanently blocks this entrance.  The houses at this gate are homes for some of the staff employed in the University’s Estate department (we’d called it buildings and grounds).  These were some big fish, frozen, but just flew in from Lake Victoria.  A fair number of folks descended on the house just after our arrival.  We purchased one fish (weighing in at 2 kilos) and Shukrani bought two.  I just needed to proudly display the fish in our kitchen before the cooking began!

 Immediately we head home and began the impromptu preparation of our feast.  Scales went flying, as I did my best to imitate Julia Child and prepared the beast.  Two thirds was save as two separate packets for freezing and other meals.  In the end, our feast included Lake Victoria “turkey” (aka tilapia), green beans with carrots and onions, brown rice and baked wheat rolls accompanied by a South African Chenin Blanc.  We were very thankful.

Finally, this weekend we were guests of Makyena Maboko’s at the University’s graduation ceremony.  Makenya, who we did a PhD program together at ANU in the 80s, is the distinguished one in blue regalia below.  Once a year with the start of the new semester in November, the university has a campus-wide graduation ceremony and yesterday’s was for some 4300 students, including about 20 or so PhD students.  We got down to Mlimani Center at 8:25 AM rushing to get into the mall’s restroom in order to change from our sweat-dripping clothes into shirt and tie attire for the formal event.  We then walked over to Mlimani Convention Center, the largest in Dar, for the ceremony and were in our place by 8:35 AM only to read that the formal academic procession would not commence until about 10:00 AM.  The room was easily 98% full with about half of the graduating class (there was an afternoon session too) and about 95% of the family members were outside in the sun surrounding the center listening to event on loudspeaker.   

The start of the ceremony began with the entry of the marching band that played the “Battle hymn of the republic”, complete with a lead carrying 4 foot long golden colored mace (or some sort of academic wand) followed by the bandleader cheerfully waving his baton to the beat (video posted on Facebook).  Members of the band were in full uniform and following them were members of faculty, the common professors, followed by those who were readily recognizable by their feted regalia and later separation on to the front of the stage area, including our friend Makenya, who is a deputy Vice-Chancellor here.  It gave Roberta and I all sorts of ideas to bring back to UMD for our ceremony.  After ducking out of the ceremony following the completion of the conferred PhD degrees, we slipped over to Mlimani Center, bought the standard fare of weekend groceries and for the first time, took a taxi back to our flat, given our fancy dressed condition.

That evening we left our flat and hiked the 20 meters to our next door neighbors place, the Vice Chancellor’s residence, for an evening soiree (smiling with Makenya above) with the upper echelon of the University, as well as staff members and choir singers who all helped to make today’s graduation event a success, as well as a few government ministers.  A fun evening was had and we got to meet lots of folks and dance to African music.  At one time Roberta noted that she would never expect to see our UMD Provost (their Deputy VC for academic affairs – Makenya) or President (their VC) dancing away the evening.  We really enjoyed the night.  The above photo of Makenya and us was taken by the VC; the one below, taken by Roberta includes R. Mukandala, the VC on the left, a most colorful visiting US professor (Beverly Vaughn) from Atlantic City, Bill and Makenya.

I realize that this posting is too long, but there were good and bad highlights to be told.  BTW, we have been reading the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson; they are great books and we highly recommend them (think Christmas gift!).

                        Kwaheri and tutonano, Bill and Roberta

TZ3

Well I have fallen behind in my quest to document part of our Tanzanian stay, but that is consistent with life in Africa.  Don’t worry, it will all be fine (hankuna matata).

Our daily walk brings us by the wonderful tree each morning and evening.

After less than one week here, Bill left for a one-day meeting in Berkeley, CA, which was in his view successful, albeit 40 hours on the ground and 50+ hours in transit.  The real proof of success will be measured in his future funding potential from NNSA.  [If you don’t know, you don’t need to know.]  While Bill was gallivanting, Roberta was enjoying the pure and unadulterated pleasures of having a broken laptop in Africa.  It gets no worse than that, I tell you.  The e-mail pleas to Bill, and then to Todd and Phil (the go to dept-saviors who really know computers) came fast and furious.  Nothing was working and Roberta was getting desperate.

Friday night meant the arrival back in Dar for Bill, which included a pleasurably brief 17-minute ride from airport to residence (ah, what a contrast with the “to” journey) followed by a “hi, I love you.  Have I told you about my computer!!!!”  Yup, the kisses were short lived and the stories of woe were not.  This is the century of computer addiction and we are all victims.  Later, I’ll tell you about the Trojan-Windows PC in our office, which is more like a gift that the North Korean’s might give to their southern neighbors.  ;-)

The weekend had a mixture of the usual and different.  We enjoyed our walking to and shopping at Mlimani Center, about a 30-minute walk from our flats through the campus.  Mlimani Center reminds us a bit of Prince Georges Plaza, with 1/3 the number of shops.  Notably we always have to visit by the ATM, as most shops require cash (no credit card option). There’s nothing like the feeling of 200-400 thousand Tanzanian schillings in your pocket to make you feel like a big spender!

Sunday was our first venture into the heart of Dar.  We checked out the National Museum of History (pictured above), which is downtown and cleverly hidden behind corrugated metal walls with an obscure red, hand-painted sign identifying the Museum inside.  True to the guidebook it was worth the visit.  Lots of history including background on the 500+ years of trading in this part of the Indian Ocean between India, the Arab world and the eastern coast of Africa, with Zanzibar being the focal point for the African region.  Background on the 19^th century explorers, German rule, up to World War 1, and the British Colonial period, up to 1964 were on display, complete with tales of killings and enslavement of the people.  We were struck by the silly German and British leaders in various settings always wearing an abundance of formal clothes – how did they ever avoid heat stroke?  The story of the presidency of Julius Neyrere (the first head of state for some 20+ yrs) and the formation of the United Republic of Tanzania, which specifically includes Zanzibar and its government, was fascinating and, upon reflection, a success.  I conclude this, given all of the neighboring countries and the tumultuous internal struggles these other countries have had with respect to tribal rivalries.  The museum also had various cultural highlights, AIDS and prehistory displays, including Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli (the famous early man footprints in volcanic ash) and a relatively muted coverage of the country’s magnificent diversity of animals and landscapes.  One of the last things we saw at the museum was the memorial to the 11 victims of the 1998 bombing of the US Embassy in Tanzania (shown below).  It was a poignant and moving display destroyed bicycles, vehicle parts, a shattered embassy window and a sculpture of an armless person.

Seeking relief from the heat and needing lunch we left the museum and headed off on a hunting and gathering expedition.  A bit of aimless wondering brought us to one of the fancier Mzungu-hotels (white people hotels) where we enjoyed a rather pricy buffet that had plenty on offer.  After lunch we strolled around the waterfront and ended up in the botanic gardens, which had some beautiful specimens, but is overall a bit sad in terms of upkeep.  There we met Richard, who claimed to be interning at the gardens, a refugee from Burundi, had lost his parents to genocide, had malaria, had to sell the mobile phone given to him by a missionary to pay for medications, and please, could you help out (this request after we walked about the garden and he told us “interesting” stories, which turned out to be figments of his imagination -- at least, as far as we can tell).  Anyway, it was a good story, so Bill gave him 3000 TZS when we left.  

The week was full of ups and downs.  There was the computer saga…  Roberta’s MacBook Air is not dead, but is worse than limping.  After having problems in Italy and China, Roberta scheduled a complete disk reformatting and rebuild by Todd (at UMD, between China and TZ travels), with the Air coming back to its old self as we left for TZ.  However, a week into TZ it started slowing down to the point of being unusable.  Faced with the potential of lots of delays (by that time we still had not received any of our “express-sent” packages from Italy or the States) Roberta began using the Windows desktop that was lying idle in our office.  Now we know why it was lying around.  We won’t call it the PC from hell, but its application is pending. 

TZ2 update

    Monday, our first day of work in the Geology Department at the University of Dar es Salaam was wonderful.  A view of our walk to work is in the picture below. As the day finished we had a sense of accomplishment and a great feeling of having  started our days in Dar on the right foot.  One never knows where it will go, so our hopes are high and expectations are set for African-mode. 

    Saturday night was a tough one with no real air conditioning and high heat and humidity.  We woke on Sunday to a tropical thunderstorm with sheets of rain occasionally clearing the morning skies.  Later in morning hours the rain eased and was followed by a enjoyable sunny afternoon and a cool evening.  The rapidly changing weather conditions also set the mood and tempo of the day.  Some of our morning was spent watching frogs have a romp in the rain, and later, when it cleared, we gazed at the sub-infinite number of insects that came alive in the grass as the steamy air developed. 

    Later on Sunday afternoon we walk to our nearby shops, which are not even 10 minutes away. It was a welcome relief from being inside most of the day; we had been focusing too much on our normal day-to-day work stuff.  The expedition was our first to these shops, which are more typical of local East African shopping.  [Shukrani had taken us on Friday (day-one) to the more gentrified shopping area, perhaps as a way of easing us into Tanzania.] The shelves at our local store were simple and packed with usual daily necessities. (It was great fun seeing the Omo brand soap still doing well after >35 years!  Our local shop is 3 aisles wide, with the aisles set back to back with enough room for one person to walk through. The shelves were about 20 feet long and very tightly packed; I'm sure there was some logic in mind for the juxtaposition of items. The store had everything you needed and if it wasn't there, clearly, you didnn't need it. Our shopping goal was to get some more food for Sunday night's dinner.  We were successful with food gathering and were lucky to find a sponge for scrubbing dishes.

   Because Saturday night's sleep was so bad, Roberta was bound and determined to not have another night spent sweating and constantly brushing up against the mosquito netting.   By early Sunday evening Roberta declared victory and we finally got the the air conditioner to pump out cooled air, instead of just noisy air!  Happily, Sunday night was a truly a comfortable night's sleep and a great preparation for our first day of work.

    The thrill of a good night sleep and the anticipation of the first day of work must have driven our 7 AM wake up and preparation for going in.  We finished our breakfast by 8 and were ready to head off to the department after finishing some more e-mails in our flat.  We are definitely enjoying the two new modem sticks that we got on Friday for our laptops.  These modems make a world of difference for accessing the internet and working in our flat. 

    Sometime after lunch we met up with Makenya Maboko, an old friend from PhD days at ANU.  Makenya is now the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University.  Roberta and I are occupying his office in the Department while he runs the university; Makenya rarely uses the office anymore.  Our discussions with Makenya and Shukrani about the findings of Adam, Madalyn and Jeremy went well, but only scratched the surface.  We made plans for further discussions and talked about a field trip to look at eastern and western granulites.  We also talked about teaching classes this semester in the department.  The new semester also started today on campus.  Shukrani hoped we would take over both of his courses this semester (mineralogy and geochemistry).  However, we really didn't want to take away all the joys of his semester... ;-)

    The end of the first day came as sunset approached. [Shukrani is concerned that we walk home in the light of the day, albeit even a setting sun.]  The late afternoon was super with 80 degree temperatures and a constant 2-5 mph breeze. As we were getting ready to leave the office I noticed out our office window a troop of monkeys in tree abutting the building.  One monkey was 10 feet from our window and at least a dozen vervet monkeys enjoyed a good meal in our tree.  These guys were happily munching away some 20 to 30 feet up in the tree tops.  It seemed that the entire troop was comfortable with people and were not distributed by our watching them.  They all pretty much went about their business as Roberta took their picture, although this one remained curious for a few tens of seconds.

    Monday night also meant that I needed to leave for the airport and a flight to Berkeley, CA.  Shukrani's car arrived at our flat, with his wife and two boys, just as Roberta and I were coming down to meet the waiting taxi.  Although Shukrani suggested an 8 or 8:30 taxi pickup earlier in the day, Roberta and I concluded that 9PM pick up would be reasonable for an 00:45 AM departure, given the airport was only 20 minutes away by car.  Earlier in the day Shukrani related a story about just making it to the airport one day for a flight to Japan. We rationalized it as a one-off event. Clearly, we later learned that we threw care to the wind with our 9 PM departure time.

    Ah, living in Africa...  Fortunately I survived the not-to-be-fathomed traffic jam and caught my flight north in time.  Much of the traffic jam could be directly related to "dala-dala chaos".  [For those with a Kenyan experience, think matatu.]  Dala-dalas (spelling?) are people-closest-packed (pcp) taxis, most being a volkswagen mini-bus, however other variety include rough and ready buses with about 10 rows of dual bench-seats.

    My dala-dala chaos event was not to be desired. .... So the taxi leaves the research flats doing fine.  It travels 2 km down to the intersection with the main east-west going road and here begins the traffic jam and airport anxiety.  At this intersection we were looking at solid bumper to bumper traffic for a far as the eye could see.  Oh, did I mentioned that because of our approach to the intersection we had to cross the east going traffic; this traffic was relatively problem-free.  Key word is "relatively".  I was in one of those vehicles crossing and wanting to go west, the sum of which completely controlled the intersection.  My driver was by no means a wimp; he knew the car's dimension to within an inch or two.  We traversed the intersection in under 5 minutes crossing between at least 5 lanes of traffic to do so.  Pause.., note there is only 2 lanes in either direction, but the average Tanzanian driver has never really adopted a conventional response to first world's standard concepts of roads.  By the time we got to the area near the dala-dala bus terminal (the real source of traffic jam), some 3-4 km down the road, it was 9:50!  I'm in panic mode sending e-mails to Roberta from my laptop in the taxi (note the bragging about my new USB modem).  [BTW, regarding "the dala-dala bus terminal" - think, an open, dirt-covered area about the size of two football fields, and the field is completely filled with people and buses in a chaotic flux.]  Happily, I get to the airport by 10:45PM with plenty of time to spare. ;-)        okay, it was a fairly long 20 minutes to the airport.

    As my taxi driver explained to me at the first traffic choke point, the police go home at night and leave the roads to be self-sorted.  Presumably these traffic jams are nightly occurrences.  Ugh, hopefully not.  The scene along the east-west road was nothing shy of pure pandemonium with not a policeman in sight.  Shukrani had noted some level of road-chaos on the ride from our first-night's hotel to the university flats.  During that trip Roberta naively wondered about the rules that govern the direction of the third (middle) lane of traffic on a normally two lane road.  Shukrani smiled and said "oh, you just drive." It sounded pretty simple to me.

    We promise further installments of the continuing ventures of Bert and Bill...

TZ1 update

Greetings from Africa,
    Here is a random ramble....

    The second night in Tanzania allowed for many hours of good sleep.  We are now in our accommodations for our stay in Dar es Salaam, the Research Flats (@UDSM), pictured below.  Our beautiful warm Saturday morning starts off with lots of bird and insect sounds around us, accompanied by the lazy rotation of a ceiling fan, occasional voices from outside and distant street noises.  Yesterday will be remembered for its level of exhaustion, transition and random, rapid shopping for necessities.  Africa continues to offer a sense of exhilaration coupled to an understanding of - set expectations to minimum.  The pace will be slower and what is normal elsewhere, is not here. 


    We arrived in Dar es Salaam to find that our host Shakrani (Professor, Dept of Geology, U Dar es Salaam) was not at the airport.  The next morning we found out that he had not checked his e-mail for a few days and thought we arriving later.  [We of course sent him an e-mail about 2 days before.]  The disappointment was brief, because after about 30 minutes we took matters into our own hands.

    We found a hotel and stayed there for the night.  That in and of itself was a small story.  The first hotel wanted $180 US per night for the overnight (btw, plane landed at just before midnight and so all this was going on at ~1AM over the phone).  We called the next place, but no answer.  The people at the airport info booth said that they would have rooms and it would be okay.  We left for that hotel, because at least this got us going somewhere, but we knew the adventure had begun.  The taxi and the ride was 'different' but not unexpected.  Apologies in broken English and Kswahili told us that the taxi-man was sorry about the condition of the taxi - I'll leave that to you, but suffice to say, we could not sneak up on anything but a deaf mute and the desires to open the windows in the back were going nowhere.  We arrived at the hotel and it was completely in the dark, but so too were the other surrounding buildings.  Roberta went inside and got us a room, as there was no power in this area except for a few lights, which were powered by their in-house generator.  I waited outside and listened to what my imagination told me was sounds from the Cretaceous (big, unseen birds up in the trees) and upon looking up to see what's up there I starred at the half-dozen fruit bats doing acrobatics just above me.  The fruit bats around here are small compared to those in northeastern Australian; these African ones have wing spans of only about 10 inches across.  We were amazed and pleasantly surprised to find that our room had electricity, air conditioning and complementary wireless internet (now that was unbelievable!!).  After brief showers and setting up the netting around the bed we crashed to sleep.

    The next morning came too early, with a panicked phone call from Shukrani, asking forgiveness for not being at the airport.  That, plus all the workmen working outside the hotel room with rock hammers precluded more sleep.  Yup, Hotel Protea was undergoing renovations and 9 AM was late enough for beginning.  Everyone was polite and happy to greet you as you walked sleepily around the hotel.  We were sitting in the breakfast room when we received a phone call from Shakrani who arranged to pick us up.  Shakrani arrived at the hotel at about 10 AM and we went off immediately to find the on-campus housing for visiting scientists.  The ride from downtown Dar to the NW of Dar, where the University is sited, was pretty uneventful.  Shakrani owns a late model, perfectly clean, SUV type vehicle. That was a welcomed change in driving experience. Checking out our accommodations was brief, we immediately decided on the larger flat (for a bit more/day) and began checking out what we needed to pick up at the local store.  It was akin to a regular start day at college with purchases of all the usual things ranging from toilet paper to lamps and cooking items.  The flat is comparable to a college dorm for the house master, however without any of the usual charm (I'll leave the rest to your imagination).

    The shopping day went fast and started with getting more money from the ATM so to do shopping.  Between the airport $-extraction and this ATM moment, we had already removed $500,000 TZ schillings; yup, that is a half-million.  That's okay, I returned 2 more times later in the day to remove some more, to a day-time total of almost $900,000 schillings in one day; at 1500 schillings to $1US, I still plowed through a good amount of cash in one day of shopping.  [Oh yes, did I tell you that this is a cash society; credit card is rarely used in this country.]

    By the end of the day, yesterday, we bought 2 laptop modems (they look like a USB stick) for accessing the internet and a card for one of our mobile phones to make local calls.  The modems are from Vodafone.  The modem sticks seem to work reasonably well, but they constantly lose connectivity.  .....as we keep repeating, just set expectations to a new normal and be happy.
    We woke up today after perhaps 11 hours (or more) of sleep to a very bright African morning with lots of wonderful sounds and a cool, slow moving breeze.  [btw, the use of the word cool is already placed in an African context, as the temperature is about 90 degrees now and was only a few degrees cooler this AM.]  We had breakfast downstairs at this common area with three others (one Swede, an Indian and a woman from Asia (perhaps China)).  There were wonderful papayas, bananas, watermelons and lime accompanying hot dogs, boiled eggs and bread for making toast.  The toast was really good; I went back for two more pieces of toast but dropped my desire to just one slice.  I left the other to the 35 or so small ants checking out that piece.  The one I ended up taking had far fewer ants.  The cup of African tea was quite nice and a welcome finish to the fruit rich morning banquet.

    The morning task was now ready to be undertaken.  It was a hike back to the stores of yesterday, but this time on foot.  The route by car is a long one, so we were determined to shorten our trip with a couple of adventurous short cuts.  It wasn't that bad of a hike, given it only took ~35 minutes and we had only 1 short cut that turned out to be a bust.  After another successful hunting experience, which also included getting out another 300,000 schillings from the ATM, we headed back to our flats with a very heavy back pack and a couple of bags for us to tote.  Upon arriving back, I couldn't decide whether it was the six-pack of beers or the 2 kilograms of corn flour I objected to more during the 40++ minute return. 

    The mid-day sun is heating up even the shade now and so it is time for a nap to get me back into reasonable shape for the late afternoon.  I need to adapt to the pace of life and a nap seems perfect.

    Post nap: Well, we have finished dinner and dishes and it is time to end this letter.  We'll write more at a future date (about mongoose in our back yard, monkeys in the trees outside our kitchen, the Muslim call to prayer, etc.).