Getting Acquainted

I woke up at 5 AM. It wasn't a rooster that woke me, it was the local mosque calling people to prayers. I prefer this over the rooster that did wake me up in Vietnam one morning at 3 AM. During breakfast, a christian church, which was just next door was filled with people singing. The typical Tanzanian seems to be very family-oriented, and very religious.

Today we went to a tourist trap. It was a well intentioned trap, but still... a trap. The Shanga River House is a private business whose purpose is to provide skills and work for handicapped people. In south-east Africa, the handicapped are tossed aside. No school, nothing. Most of the people we met were deaf mutes. We were given a crash course in sign language.

Shanga is a fully self-supporting manufacturer of jewelry from recycled materials. It is quite impressive that they can take discarded bottles, crush them, melt them down, and pull beads out of a furnace. We also saw a man building a mold that he was going to pour melted aluminum cans into to make picture frames. This project is a great example of recycling as an economic necessity.

Lunch was traditional African food. Banana stew, greens, chicken and cat. The cat was a play on words. The kiswahili word for painting also sounds like the word for cat. In reality, the chef was painting the chicken with spices. They tell the tourists it's cat to get a reaction. It really freaked out our group when they were told they would be eating cat. I spent the meal telling people it was the best cat I'd ever had.

After lunch we walked over to a field were coffee is grown. On the way, we found our first wildlife, a family of black-faced monkeys. Being our first wildlife, we whipped out our cameras and started shooting. The lecturer had a time trying to get us to leave the monkeys so he could tell us all about coffee.

By now, the 16 members of the group were well acquainted with each other. I was the youngest person in the group. Most were in their 60's and 70's, retired, well-educated, and conservation-minded. The group turned out to be very likable, I never saw anyone lose their temper with anyone else in the group. There was no whining. It's hard to put together 16 strangers who will get along as well as this group did. It was a significant reason this tour was so enjoyable.