Twende! Kazi imemalisa. Sasa, tutacheza!

(lets go, work is finished, now we play)

Parker here in Kigoma

So today marks the end of the HELP portion of my travels in Tz. Lisa Adams and Ken Yalowitz (sp?) from the dickey center came out for two days to Kigoma, which was fun. Kigoma being the booming metropolis that is our link to the real world and where we catch the 3 hour lake taxi boat to get to Mwamgongo (the village we are working in). We ended up hiring a boat with them and then going to Mwamgongo for the last day of the project. Funny story. Ken and Lisa went on a little stroll in Gombe and Ken fell down the hillside and about 7 men who were bathing (aka stark naked) came to rescue him. Everyone was wicked excited to get out of there, we did a lot of work, like working all day and then getting buckets of sand from the beach and carrying them up to the latrine site until 11 at night. That night we finished up the work and had a presentation to the village and then peaced the fuck out. It was great.

Phew

Anyways yesterday Dermott, Louis, and I went to Sustainable Harvest to go hang out with our friend Stephen. Its a coffee exporter that deals in the villages that we are going to be working in next summer. We learned everything there is to know about coffee, which was awesome. Then we got to cup, which is the process in which the coffee is rated for quality. Essentially we just drank a lot of some of the best coffee that I have ever had directly from the source. Real cool.

We also have been staring at a gorgeous lake all summer long, that we haven't been able to swim in because the water is so dirty in Mwamgongo and we would get shisto, and probably run into a few turds, or the remains of a baby's diaper. Not to mention the spectacle that 7 partially clad Wazungu would cause. We would have probably attracted about 50 naked boys. So we went to this beach outside of kigoma and swam and free soloed/jumped off some pretty sweet rocks.

The group flies out in an hour and dermott and I are now on our own, for just under a month. Which is exciting, but also a little bit a long time. It would be so nice to be in a developed country again, water that works, electricity, you know the good stuff. Things will get exciting again once we get to see the natural beauty of Tz instead of just Hickville that is mwamgongo. Seriously everyone is actually related to everyone else.

Right now we are in Kigoma and want to go south to mpanda to get to Katavi national park. Its a pretty big park that no one really goes to because it is so hard to get to. We have to find a ride, the UNHCR (UN refugee people) hopefully will pull through for us, otherwise it will be hitching in the beds of big trucks. Hopefully we can find one of the mattress trucks to take us there, that would be luxury.

The plan:

To kitavi for a few days, then making our way across Tanzania hiking some really cool volcanoes, Most of which we have to hire armed guards to protect us from the wildlife that we will run into. Like elephants, cape buffalo, and maybe even leopards. So cool.

We are going to have to do a huge photo sesh after everyone's trip this summer.

if you want to send me a text message, the number is (255)755325957. or if you have skype, that is the number you can call me at. We get infinitely better service in most of tanzania then we do in Hanover (except mwamgongo)

-Parker