The trip didn’t start off the best…The school bus was broken and so we shoved all our stuff into one bus and then had to drive to a different area of town to switch to a bigger bus. We werealready running late so that set us back even further. Not to mention we had to stop by the bank and a shop so the kids could get some snacks for the ride. These snacks ended up being the bane of our existence because we had to stop for the kids to pee every five minutes.
The kids were surprisingly good on what turned out to be an 11 hour car ride. They slept a lot and amused each other (when they weren’t calling for a bathroom break.) I read on my kindle for a majority of the ride. Once it got dark we sang some songs and played a fun (read annoying) game that involved counting seconds. They did this for 10 minutes; I kid you not.
The highways in Tanzania are definitely not the American idea of highway. A highway here is just a paved road. It goes through a town literally every 10 minutes and the Tanzanian way of making you slow dowm for pedestrians is to have series of speed humps at intervals of about 20 feet. It is nice to have roads though; once we passed Tanga the paved roads disappear and its dirt for about three hours. As I said before it is the short rainy season so there was mud everywhere. Al some spots the mud was pretty rough and I was dreading the possibility of having to push the bus out (been there, done that). We also went through some massive puddles. At one point the peddle we drove through was so deep that the headlights were completelysubmerged.
We made it to the lodge finally and had our dinner at around midnight before falling into bed. Tinga Tinga Lodge (where we stayed) is made up of a bunch of small bungalows with a couple of beds in each one. The kids were split up by age and sex and usually were sleeping 4 to 5 a room. Myself, Kelly Pierce and Kelly Bee shared a room. And Lisa and her family shared a room.
In the morning, a few of the kids got up bright and early and escaped from their rooms and wandered on to the beach, which is right next to the lodge, unsupervised. They got a talking to at breakfast for that one.
That morning, Me, Kelli, Kelly and Mbaraka headed to Pangani ( a town on the coast next to the Pangani River) to take some kids snorkeling. We load up our six kids and bump down the road to climb onto one of the rickety-est wooden boats I have ever seen. Then we motor out of the river and into the Indian Ocean for about an hour before reaching Maziwe Island, a sandbar island.
It was utterly gorgeous. The water was an amazing blue and the sand a sparkling white. The kids were super excited; some of them had never been to a beach before. The boat guys unloaded the snorkel stuff and we went for a swim. There was coral all over and lots of fish and bright blue starfish. I really wished I had an underwater camera….. We swam around for a while. I was trying to stay near groups of people in case of a passing shark. (Although I don’t know what shark are indigenous to the area) No worries. Didn’t see any.
Then we went for a little wander across the sandbar. There were tidepools all over; we saw an eel, hundreds of spiny starfish, and some massive seashells.
During the hour trip back to Pangani every single one of the kids fell asleep in the boat. Even though there were waves crashing over the boat, salt spray everywhere and it was none too smooth.
We spent that afternoon at Tinga Tinga lodge, hanging out.
The next morning everybody headed down to the beach next to the lodge. We wandered about exploring a shallow cave, digging in the sand, splashing in tide pools, and playing with a few boogie boards. Kelly Pierce amused herself by persuading one of the boys to pretend to be a mud invader and then filming him chasing down, frightening to death and then “eating’ his victims. (I’ve seen the final cut; it’s going to be a blockbuster) One of everybody’s (me included) favorite activities was standing, back to the waves, and having them crash over us. It really reminded me of family vacations off the coast of Georgia…oh St. Simons Island…
Lisa and Mbaraka actually have a house near Pangani. Mbaraka comes from a town called Kigombe and he still has family there. For lunch we all went to his sister’s house. She lives in the typical Tanzania house; it has no power and no indoor plumbing and the kitchen consists of a hut with cook fires on the ground. She made us the most delicious lunch of octopus tentacles, fish, coconut rice and fruit. It was all really, really good, especially the octopus. The fish, while it looks a bit gruesome, was also pretty tasty.
That afternoon we were going on a historical tour of Pangani which used to be occupied by the Germans and was a center for the African slave trade. One of the things I fand sad here is that the kids have very little knowledge of the slave trade and what it did to their country. A few didn’t even know what a slave is. Kelly P. (as she is a history teacher) gave them a mini lesson on the slave trade directly after everyone ate.
The tour was led by one of the guys from the lodge and ended up being an absolute bust. He really had no clue what he was talking about…Case in point, he took up to the old German Slave Depo and was only able to tell us its name, no dates, no facts, no nothin’. He then took us to the Old Boma ( a building built by a wealthy Omani slave trader that purportedly had slaves buried alive under the foundations in order to make the building strong (I’m still confused about the reasoning behind that) and that was later changed into a German administration building) Once we got there the only thing he could tell us about the building was that it was old and that’s why it was important. I thought Kelly P was going to strange the man right there. Then we went to a graveyard full of German graves. (Why was it important, you ask? According to the guide: (Confused look) because they are old…and German) Ok then. At least I had fun trying to read all of the gravestones.
After this, we headed back to the lodge and relaxed before packing and getting ready to head back to St. Connie’s the next day. It decided to rain overnight, so we had to cross our fingers that we would be able to get the bus out of the lodge and back to Tanga and tarmac. We made it about an hour before hearing from people that all three of the roads to Tanga were closed because of mud. At one point a whole dala dala (cheap public transportation) were yelling at us to turn back. We decided to try our luck and reach this massive hill with a whole line of cars waiting to try to get up it. We waited for an hour and half before it was our turn because there was a massive bus completely stuck in the mud partway up the hill. All the passengers formt he bus got off and had to try and push. Thankfully we made it up successfully the first time.
The rest of the ride was long but fairly uneventful, though we didn’t get back to school until 11pm. Leaving me and the other teacher pretty unprepared for the next day…oh well, it was worth it.
